ABSTRACT
Locke himself sometimes characterises a volition as a ‘command’ of the mind (2.21.5)—that is, as a sort of self-directed imperative thought, of the form ‘Do this!’ But there are problems with this suggestion. For example, to obey a command one must do what is commanded, and do it voluntarily. Hence, by Locke’s account, one must will to do it. But if willing to do it is itself just a matter of issuing a self-directed command, it looks as though it must involve the agent in a further act of will, and so on ad infinitum. This is just one example of a style of objection to volitionism-the accusation that it generates one or other kind of infinite regress-which is very common, and we shall meet another shortly. In this particular case the objection is to be met, I believe, by rejecting the ‘inner command’ model of volition and focusing instead on the parallel (some would say identity) with trying. (To be fair to Locke, he too is wary at times about using words like ‘command’ or ‘order’ to characterise volition (2.21.15).)
How is a volition to perform an action related to that action? The correct answer-which I think was also Locke’s answer-is, I believe, that they are related causally. But we must be careful here not to say that the volition causes the action, because the volition is in fact part of the action, and no event can cause an event of which it is itself a
part, as this would involve it in causing itself. In a voluntary action, we have to distinguish between the action as a whole, the volition to perform that action, and what I shall call the result of the volition, which is another and quite distinct part of the action. For instance, when an agent performs the voluntary action of raising his arm, his volition to raise his arm is one part of his action and another part is the rising of his arm, which is the ‘result’ of that volition, and a direct causal consequence of it. So what one wills to do-raise one’s armis not the same as the result of one’s willing-the rising of one’s arm.
