Out of habit

Amaya, Santiago

doi:10.1007/s11229-020-02780-3

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…Indeed, that slips are cases of acting out of habit can be further supported by the fact that they occur in recognizable patterns rather than in a random fashion. As Reason (1984b; also Amaya, 2020, p. 4) stresses, “… perhaps the most important distinguishing feature of absent‐minded slips is that no matter how inappropriate or embarrassing they are, these errors are nearly always recognisable as belonging to our own personal repertoire of actions . […] Obviously they are not what we intended at that moment, but we can usually see in them a curious kind of logic…” (p. 181).…”

Section: The General Character Of Action Slipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…How should we understand what happens when such intentions for routine action are incorrectly implemented? Recently, Amaya (2020) has argued that in cases of slipping, one's acquired habit s mediate between intention and action, resulting in discordant behavior. In Amaya's view, habits are “dispositions to execute intentions in ways which have worked in the past and that have been internalized through a process of rehearsal” (pp.…”

Section: The General Character Of Action Slipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In particular, some have argued that they serve as important counterexamples to standard philosophical accounts of intentional action that, roughly, attempt to explain what it is for an action to be intentional in terms of causal guidance by an agent's beliefs, desires, and intentions (e.g., Davidson, 1980; Mele, 1992). Slips, the challenge goes, are intentional actions that are not so guided (Amaya, 2013, 2020; see also Peabody, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Oops! I Did it Again: The Psychology of Everyday Action Slips

Mylopoulos

2021

Topics in Cognitive Science

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We have all had the experience of everyday mistakes like distractedly pouring orange juice into our cereal bowl rather than the milk or inadvertently continuing on our regular route home rather than stopping at the store as we had planned. These so‐called "action slips" (Reason, 1984a) are characterized as failures to execute one's intention arising in habitual or highly learned action sequences. This paper argues that a proper understanding of slips, and thus action more generally, requires an understanding of the control structure that implements an agent's guiding intentions. Central to this structure are motor representations that are active downstream of intention and attentional processes that ensure that they reliably implement the intentions they serve.

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Section: The General Character Of Action Slipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The General Character Of Action Slipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Oops! I Did it Again: The Psychology of Everyday Action Slips

Mylopoulos

2021

Topics in Cognitive Science

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“…Whether these refinements are enough to undermine the points I develop in this paper will depend, it seems to me, on growth in our understanding of the role of these representational refinements, and of cognitive control, in skilled action. 9 After this paper was accepted, but before it went to press, I came into contact with an interesting proposal by Amaya (2020). He develops a notion of acting for a reason that appeals to dispositions, and in particular, to the notion of a reasonable disposition the propensity of which to track reasons is a part of the explanation for how it was acquired.…”

Section: The Reasons-sensitive Idealmentioning

confidence: 99%

Skill and Sensitivity to Reasons

Shepherd

2021

Rev.Phil.Psych.

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In this paper I explore the relationship between skill and sensitivity to reasons for action. I want to know to what degree we can explain the fact that the skilled agent is very good at performing a cluster of actions within some domain in terms of the fact that the skilled agent has a refined sensitivity to the reasons for action common to the cluster. The picture is a little bit complex. While skill can be partially explained by sensitivity to reasons – a sensitivity often produced by rational practice – the skilled human agent, because imperfect, must navigate a trade-off between full sensitivity and a capacity to succeed.

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“…In the latter case, my habit rationalizes my action by linking an intention and its default, well-practiced implementation. If the habit was developed via a history of successful reinforcement, this history can serve as inductive support for the habitual action's rationality (Amaya 2020).…”

Section: Replies To the Challengementioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction: Habitual Action, Automaticity, and Control

Bermúdez

Felletti

2021

Topoi

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William James once said that "ninety-nine hundredths or, possibly, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of our activity is purely automatic and habitual, from our rising in the morning to our lying down each night" (1899, pp. 65-66). Even if his estimation was wrong by half, habitual action would still be a tremendously pervasive feature of our agency. And yet, references to habitual action have been marginal at best in contemporary philosophy of action.This neglect is due, at least, to the combination of two ideas. The first is a widespread view of habit as entirely automatic, inflexible, and irresponsive to reasons. The second is philosophy of action's tendency (dominant at least since Anscombe and Davidson) to focus on explaining action by reference to reasons. Arguably, if habitual behavior is reasons-irresponsive, and if action is explained by reference to reasons, the study of habit would have very little to teach about action.Recently, however, there has been a surge in philosophical interest on habit and habitual action. Novel approaches are challenging the two ideas mentioned above, arguing that (1) habitual behavior is not entirely automatic or inflexible, but instead has a particular kind of flexibility and intentionality; and that (2) acting out of habit can count as a form of acting for reasons, even in the absence of the traditional rationalizing mental states: belief, desire, and intention.The essays contained in this issue move discussions forward in exciting new directions. In what follows we present each paper and situate it within its broader theoretical context, so that this introduction may serve also as an introduction to the topic of habitual action. A crucial lesson that emerges from these essays is a need to move past disputes between philosophical schools or traditions. Rather than combatting between different philosophical factions, an ecumenical approach capable of skillfully bringing together elements from different traditions seems better able to tackle problems that remain unsolved. These problems include (but are not limited to): developing an account of responsibility for habitual action; explaining our ability to perform joint habitual actions; and clarifying the link between habit and self-control.In what follows we discuss (Sect. 1) diverse approaches to the intentionality of habitual action; (Sect. 2) the relationship between habit and skill; (Sect. 3) the possibility that habits can rationalize action; and (Sect. 4) open questions and new directions.

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Out of habit

Cited by 5 publications

References 51 publications

Oops! I Did it Again: The Psychology of Everyday Action Slips

Oops! I Did it Again: The Psychology of Everyday Action Slips

Skill and Sensitivity to Reasons

Introduction: Habitual Action, Automaticity, and Control

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