ABSTRACT
So far, I have avoided the question how (sometimes at least) choosing to do something explains doing it, even though it is fundamental. It is easy for philosophers to find themselves at cross-purposes about it. If they disagree about the category to which doings (and other events) belong, some conceiving them as facts, or as like facts, and others as individual objects, then, when they utter the sentence, ‘What sort of doing is an action? ’ they will not ask the same question. And even when they stipulate that the doings and other happenings they speak of are individuals admitting of a variety of true definite descriptions, so that they are asking the same question, those that answer it by uttering the sentence, ‘The sort that is explained by its doer’s choosing to do it’, may not all be giving the same answer. Some may be answering, ‘The sort for which what the doer chose (namely, that he bring about the end E by doing A as self-referentially explained by his choosing) contains a good reason for his doing it (that it is of the kind A, and a doing of the kind A will bring about the end E’. Others may be answering, ‘The sort for which its doer’s choice is the self-referential cause.’
