It seems to me that Mises contradicts himself in the first chapter of Human Action, and I wonder if someone can explain the difference I’m failing to see. Essentially, here’s my issue - Mises insists that doing nothing is itself action. By not intervening, I demonstrate a preference for A over B, where A is the future state I anticipate if I do nothing, and B is the future state I anticipate if I do what I’m considering doing. Fair enough. But then we learn that the reason for action is dissatisfaction or unease. If I’m satisfied, Mises, says, I cannot act, because I have no desire to change things - no unease. But as I see it, if I’m satisfied, I do nothing - which is supposed to be an action. What am I missing?
The action is the choice to do, or not do something…
Understood. How can it be, then, that in a state of satisfaction, when I have no unease, I cannot act? When I’m in such a (hypothetical) state, I can choose to do something - which would lower my satisfaction - or to do nothing - which would not. So I’d choose to do nothing. Why isn’t this the same as any situation in which I choose not to do something?
You cannot act reasonably, it is not reasonable to accept dissatisfaction, or to act to cause your dissatisfaction…
Simple example…
You have a pencil, you can choose to stab yourself in the eye, or not, is it reasonable to do such?
No, but I wasn’t the one who said that refraining from doing something is itself an action. Mises was. Now it sounds like you’re denying that refraining from doing something is an action - fine, that just seems to be agreeing with my point that there’s a contradiction there.
Can you quote this direct from human action? I am sure you are misinterpreting the statement made by Mises…
I think Mises would respond that it depends on what the intention of the action is, in other words, what the actors subjective assessment of the situation is. I suppose one can imagine a situation in which an individual has no wants and therefore doesn’t act, on the other hand I’m also sure you can imagine a situation in which in individual “does not act” in an attempt to acheive some other goal (i.e. imagine they’re standing in the middle of the road, they don’t move to not get hit by a car).
action can be positive action, a chosen action, or a chosen refraining from action, which properly speaking is still action. (negative action, if you will)
if you are satisfied, you will neither choose to positively act, nor choose to refrain from any particular action. you will have no reason to do either. Mises, if he is highlighting any contradiction, is underlining that the concept of a totally satisfied humanbeing performing ‘an action’ is a contradictary idea. if some agent was totally satisfied, we certainly couldnt say it was ‘acting’ regardless of whether we observed it ‘doing’ things, or watched it sitting still ‘not doing’.
“We call contentment or satisfaction that state of a human being which does not and cannot result in any action.” - p.13 in the Fox and Wilkes/FEE edition, under heading 2 - The Prerequisites of Human Action.
Fine, but then why the insistence that failure to do anything is itself an action? As Mises says, “For to do nothing and to be idle are also action, they too determine the course of events. Wherever the conditions for human interference are present, man acts no matter whether he interferes or refrains from interferring. He who endures what he could change acts no less than he who interferes in order to attain another result. A man who abstains from influencing the operation of physiological and instinctive factors which he could influence also acts. Action is not only doing but no less omitting to do what possibly could be done.”
How does this description fail to apply to a person who, being content, does not undertake some sort of behavior which he could undertake, because he prefers to remain content?
Ok, I’m stumped. What does a person look like while neither doing a particular positive act, nor refraining from it?
When a human is satisfied he is not choosing, in a reasonable case, to change it…
That is what it says to me…
Ok, and that makes sense to me. But, Mises says “result in action” not “change it.” And he defines action to include not changing anything. That is my issue.
Mises defines action as choosing to or choosing not to do something, not, not choosing either…
You are satisfied, with your pencil on your desk…
Does the choice to thrust it into your eye ever come up? Do you have to make that choice?
I am satisfied with my pencil on my desk. I could also go sharpen it. But since I’m satisfied, I choose not to. This is action.
Regarding thrusting it into my eye, if the choice hadn’t come up before, it certainly came up when you mentioned it. True, I didn’t have to think very hard about it, but I don’t see why that makes a difference.
This is dissatisfaction…
You choose not to, and return to satisfaction, which requires no action to maintain…
Was it really a choice, did you consider thrusting the pencil eyeward, or did you dismiss the option, not giving any consideration to the choice of having a pencil sticking out of your head?
Well, I’ve got two guesses, the first is that Mises doesn’t believe human wants can ever be entirely satiated (or that the reader is already under the assumption that the actors wants are not fulfilled in this case), the second is that he’s merely exagerrating the point to deal the misconception that all action need involve “moving”.
I agree with giles, either mises doesn’t think that people cannot never act (lol) or he is using hyperbole, either way it doesn’t lessen his point.
On your first guess, this is true. Mises explicitly says that the state of satisfaction is a hypothetical concept, and cannot be reached. This doesn’t seem to explain why he gives it a contradictory description though. On your second, I tend to agree and am satisfied (in a different sense) with this.
I understand it as an issue of semantics, i.e. of the definition of what words mean in the context of praxeology.
Action has a regular everyday meaning, but a more specific/definite meaning is assigned to it by Mises. For Mises, (Human) Action is chosen, willfull, it is goal orientated and employs means, and the motive is the psychological egoism that drives one to act (pro-actively or passively) to improve ones expected future satisfaction. i.e. there is a constant perception of dissatisfaction, with some other state of affairs than that which is chosen.
people can indeed ‘not act’ as you say tacoface,… but either this observed passivity is an intended human action. and strictly speaking is an act (i.e. ‘not act’ was used in a common everyday sense to denote passivity), or indeed, a human body might be observed truly to be ‘not acting’ at some particular time, but in so far as the body expresses no action, it is not a human, moral agent, or willful being, that is being observed, but rather, some organic material, of no different kind than that of moss, seaweed, trees, pick-yer-own-vegetation, or some purely instinctual animal that one would never claim ‘acted’ .
In the strictest sense, due to the given Misesian definition of what Action is (shorthand for ‘human action’ which involves all sorts of implicits and qualifiers); human actors, qua their human actorfulness can indeed never not act. and as actions only motive is unsatisfaction, human agents qua their human agentfulness are never satisfied.
at least thats my laymans understanding.