ABSTRACT
A popular approach both to the nature of action and the explanation of actions", writes Alfred Mele, "emphasizes causation". Rather than simply being a popular alternative, however, the casual approach currently dominates the field. Even debates between those who appeal to "agents" and those who appeal to "beliefs, desires, and intentions" are usually mere family feuds. The closest parallel between the lives of mind and body, however, may be that between thinking and breathing. Both are changes that go on constantly but are also changes with which we intermittently interfere. To have a habit is to engage in the same activity time and again, to "repeat oneself", returning to the same "place". Though it involves change, a habit is a process in which there is ultimately nothing new. Our habits define us, being our characteristic responses to, or ways of engaging with, the situations in which people find ourselves.
