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 va...