The Identities of Action: How the Normative Valence of Consequences Matters for Act Evaluation

Individuating action depends upon how people comprehend value judgements about the consequences of an action to distinguish-or not to distinguish-between them. The question “what is action?” cannot be fully addressed until it is established whether two action descriptions-whether in law, business, insurance policies, or ordinary conversation-refer to the same or different actions.This book approaches the problem of action individuation by arguing for a variantist account, where the moral valence of the consequences of an action plays a foundational role in distinguishing between actions.Actions with bad consequences are associated with the originating act from which the action arises; actions with positive consequences are separate from their originating act.When we consider whether a bad or good consequence is identical to an originating action, the normative valence of the consequences of the action matter.Drawing from an empirical assessment that tests non-philosophers’ intuitions a