ABSTRACT

"Intentional action" is an insufficient designation for Donald Davidson: it determines no class of events, because an action which is intentional under one description may not be intentional under another. The idea of the moral as an aspect that is to be seen in some human actions, or felt by the agent, and which may be lacking, perhaps is lacking if it is not felt by the agent—this idea is rejected by the equation "Human action = moral action." From considering good and bad, the extension of "human action" is wider than that of "intentional human action." That is to say: something may be a human action under a description under which it is not an intentional action. There can be borderline cases arising because murder is not committed where there was an intention to kill. The fact that there is murder where death foreseeably results from one's action, without the actual intention of killing, naturally leads to a problem.