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20 J. Value Inquiry 3 (1986)

handle is hein.journals/jrnlvi20 and id is 1 raw text is: The Journal of Value Inquiry 20:3-1 7 (1986). ©1 986 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht. Printed in the Netherlands. Articles ETHICS AND ACTION THEORY ON REFRAINING: A FAMILIAR REFRAIN IN TWO PARTS * PATRICIA G. SMITH Philosophy Department, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506 The particular question with which I am concerned is what does it mean to say A refrained from doing s? What is it to refrain? This question is important be- cause an analysis of refraining is crucial to understanding omissions. The discussion of omission in general, and refraining in particular may be viewed as proceeding in two strains - what I like to call the ethics strain, and the action theory strain. These two strains are not strictly separate; people involved in one often consider the views of people involved in the other. What is not sufficiently attended to, I think, is the difference in the purpose or aim of each of these strains of analysis. A difference in purpose can justify a difference in approach and even a difference in the definition of terms. The failure to attend to this causes needless argument and inefficient misdirection. Since a brief survey of the literature on omissions shows that nearly every basic assumption on the subject has been denied, nearly every suggested implication disputed, it is time to consider a project aimed at coordination or harmony.' Accordingly, it is my general contention that the two strains of analysis should be viewed as complementary. Furthermore, with a few adjustments, they can pro- vide a composite view of refraining that is more complete than either has provided or can afford alone. To support this contention in the next two sections I will critique and amend what I consider to be the best representative view of each strain of analysis.2 Finally, I will make a few concluding remarks about the significance of the results for ethics or law, and why, although the resulting composite view is adequate to explain refraining, it is not (contrary to a broadly held view) capable of providing a foundation for an account of omissions in general. To do that at least a third strain of analysis must be included and harmonized (to extend the metaphor) with the two views discussed here. 1. Ethical theory on refraining The ethical concern is to determine the proper connection between an omission and its (supposed) result (e.g., is it a causal relation, a relation of agency, one that * Research for this paper was made possible by an NEH Summer Stipend. I would also like to acknowledge the great benefit I derived from discussion with my colleagues at the Universi- ty of Kentucky and participants in the Colloquium on Practical Reason at the University of Dayton, especially Myles Brand, Hugh McCann, and Thomas Olshewsky.