Explaining our Actions
A Critique of Common-Sense Theorizing

Shows how widely accepted accounts of the mental states and processes explaining action are in need of a complete make-over.

Peter Carruthers (Author)

9781009585767, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 8 May 2025

232 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2 cm, 0.511 kg

'Carruthers challenges readers to consider the nature of their own decisions and behaviors. His writing is difficult but manageable, making it suitable for advanced undergraduates and above. … Highly recommended.' G. Seror III, Choice

We often explain our actions and those of others using a commonsense framework of perceptions, beliefs, desires, emotions, decisions, and intentions. In his thoughtful new book, Peter Carruthers scrutinizes this everyday explanation for our actions, while also examining the explanatory framework through the lens of cutting-edge cognitive science. He shows that the 'standard model' of belief–desire psychology (developed, in fact, with scant regard for science) is only partly valid; that there are more types of action and action-explanation than the model allows; and that both ordinary folk and armchair philosophers are importantly mistaken about the types of mental state that the human mind contains. His book will be of great value to all those who rely in their work on assumptions drawn from commonsense psychology, whether in philosophy of mind, epistemology, moral psychology, ethics, or psychology itself. It will also be attractive to anyone with an interest in human motivation.

Preface
1. Introduction and background assumptions
2. Habits, skills, and know-how
3. Affect-caused action
4. Mental actions
5. Decision-making and goals
6. Pleasure and (affective forms of) desire
7. Belief, judgment, and knowledge
8. Do attitudes come in degrees?
9. Summary and conclusions
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Philosophy of mind [HPM]