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69-690: Abortion Rights is an advocacy organisation that promotes access to abortion in the United Kingdom . It was formed in 2003 by the merger of the Abortion Law Reform Association ( ALRA ) and the National Abortion Campaign ( NAC ). The ALRA campaigned effectively after World War II for the elimination of legal obstacles to abortion and the peak of its work was the Abortion Act 1967 . The "Abortion Law Reform Association"

138-459: A basic action it is not just important what the agent can do but what the agent actually does. So raising one's right hand may only count as a basic action if it is done directly through the right hand. If the agent uses her left hand to lift the right hand then the raising of the right hand is not a basic action anymore. A contrasting view identifies basic actions not with bodily movements but with mental volitions. One motivation for this position

207-410: A broken political system. For instance in 2008, U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama utilized such a meaning when he said, "this was the moment when we tore down barriers that have divided us for too long; when we rallied people of all parties and ages to a common cause." Change.org and Causes are two popular websites that allow people to organize around a common cause. Topics upon which there

276-432: A causal gap between intending to do something and actually doing it, which needs an act of the will to be overcome. Volitionalists aim to overcome these shortcomings of Davidson's account by including the notion of volition or trying in their theory of actions. Volitions and tryings are forms of affirming something, like intentions . They can be distinguished from intentions because they are directed at executing

345-503: A chain smoker may have a negative impact on the health of the people around him. This is a side-effect of his smoking that is not part of his intention. The smoker may still be responsible for this damage, either because he was aware of this side-effect and decided to ignore it or because he should have been aware of it, so-called negligence . In the theory of enactivism , perception is understood to be sensorimotor in nature. That is, we carry out actions as an essential part of perceiving

414-460: A content from consciousness. One reason for doubting the existence of mental actions is that mental events often appear to be involuntary responses to internal or external stimuli and therefore not under our control. Another objection to the existence of mental actions is that the standard account of actions in terms of intentions seems to fail for mental actions. The problem here is that the intention to think about something already needs to include

483-420: A course of action in the here and now, in contrast to intentions, which involve future-directed plans to do something later. Some authors also distinguish volitions , as acts of the will, from tryings , as the summoning of means within one's power. But it has been argued that they can be treated as a unified notion since there is no important difference between the two for the theory of action because they play

552-428: A different approach in a way to initiate changes in the society. One of the most popular forms is social justice advocacy. Cohen, de la Vega, and Watson (2001) state that this definition does not encompass the notions of power relations, people's participation, and a vision of a just society as promoted by social justice advocates. For them, advocacy represents the series of actions taken and issues highlighted to change

621-467: A new treatment, may test if the treatment was successful by trying to move her legs. But trying and failing to move the legs is different from intending to do it later or merely wishing to do it: only in the former case does the patient learn that the treatment was unsuccessful. There is a sense in which tryings either take place or not, but cannot fail, unlike actions, whose success is uncertain. This line of thought has led some philosophers to suggest that

690-463: A non-causal way. Some suggestions have been made on this issue but this is still an open problem since none of them have gathered significant support. The teleological approach, for example, holds that this relation is to be understood not in terms of efficient causation but in terms of final "causation" . One problem with this approach is that the two forms of causation do not have to be incompatible. Few theorists deny that actions are teleological in

759-420: A pedestrian witnessing a terrible car accident may be morally responsible for calling an ambulance and for providing help directly if possible. Additionally to what the agent did, it is also relevant what the agent could have done otherwise, i.e. what powers and capacities the agent had. The agent's intentions are also relevant for responsibility, but we can be responsible for things we did not intend. For example,

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828-521: A private members bill that was backed by the government and it resulted in the 1967 Abortion Act . In 1974 the ''Working Women's Charter" was launched at the Trades Union Congress headquarters in London. The charter was an attempt to bridge the gap between women's economic and social requirements. and included equal pay, an end to the glass ceiling, free contraception and access to abortion. In 1975,

897-413: A strict distinction between our agency and our body, which is not how things appear to us. One way to avoid this objection is to hold that volitions constitute bodily movements, i.e. are an aspect of them, instead of causing them. Another response able to soften this objection is to hold that volitions are not just the initial triggers of the bodily movements but that they are continuous activities guiding

966-446: A volition and the bodily movement corresponding to it. Volitions can also be used to explain how the agent knows about her own action. This knowledge about what one is doing or trying to do is available directly through introspection: the agent does not need to observe her behavior through sensory perception to arrive at this knowledge, unlike an external observer. The experience of agency involved in volitions can be distinguished from

1035-535: A wall, in which the jumping itself (corresponding to the triggering) is considered an action, but the falling (corresponding to the entertaining of a content) is not an action anymore since it is outside the agent's control. Candace L. Upton and Michael Brent object that this account of mental actions is not complete. Taking their lead from mental activities taking place during meditation , they argue that Strawson's account leaves out various forms of mental actions, like maintaining one's attention on an object or removing

1104-438: A wide range of categories and support several issues as listed on worldadvocacy.com. The Advocacy Institute, a US-based global organization, is dedicated to strengthening the capacity of political, social, and economic justice advocates to influence and change public policy. The phenomenon of globalization draws a special attention to advocacy beyond countries’ borders. The core existence of networks such as World Advocacy or

1173-461: Is a middle path possible between these two extreme positions that allows for the existence of both physical and mental actions. Various mental events have been suggested as candidates for non-physical actions, like imagining, judging or remembering. One influential account of mental action comes from Galen Strawson , who holds that mental actions consist in "triggering the delivery of content to one's field of consciousness". According to this view,

1242-426: Is between basic and non-basic actions . This distinction is closely related to the problem of individuation since it also depends on the notion of doing one thing by or in virtue of doing another thing, like turning on a light by flipping a switch. In this example, the flipping of the switch is more basic than the turning-on of the light. But the turning-on of the light can itself constitute another action, like

1311-505: Is closely related to the philosophy of actions since we usually hold people responsible for what they do. Conceptions of action try to determine what all actions have in common or what their essential features are. Causalist theories, like Donald Davidson 's account or standard forms of volitionalism, hold that causal relations between the agent's mental states and the resulting behavior are essential to actions. According to Davidson, actions are bodily movements that are caused by intentions in

1380-435: Is considered to be a Humean theory of action . According to Davidson, it is not just the bodily behavior that counts as the action but also the consequences that follow from it. So the movement of the finger flipping the switch is part of the action as well as the electrons moving through the wire and the light bulb turning on. Some consequences are included in the action even though the agent did not intend them to happen. It

1449-502: Is due to Gilbert Ryle , who argued that volitions are either active , in which case the aforementioned regress is inevitable, or they are not, in which case there would be no need to posit them as an explanatory inert " ghost in the machine ". But it has been suggested that this constitutes a false dilemma : that volitions can play an explanatory role without leading to a vicious regress . John Stuart Mill , for example, avoids this problem by holding that actions are composed of two parts:

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1518-462: Is due to Davidson, who holds that actions are bodily movements that are caused by intentions. Davidson explains the intentions themselves in terms of beliefs and desires . For example, the action of flipping a light switch rests, on the one hand, on the agent's belief that this bodily movement would turn on the light and, on the other hand, on the desire to have light. Because of its reliance on psychological states and causal relations, this position

1587-485: Is increasingly playing a role in advocacy for migrants rights , and migrant advocacy organizations have strategically called upon governments and international organizations for leverage. Transnational advocates spend time with local interest groups in order to better understand their views and wishes. Action (philosophy) An important distinction among actions is between non-basic actions, which are done by doing something else, and basic actions, for which this

1656-645: Is led by Anne Quesnay . In 2016, abortion law was devolved to the Scottish Parliament in the Scotland Act 2016 . The devolved organisation Abortion Rights Scotland is a campaigning and advocacy organisation, taking part in an annual prochoice demo in Edinburgh on the anniversary of the Abortion Act 1967 , giving evidence to the Scottish Parliament for the Safe Access Zones Bill , and taking part in

1725-657: Is likely to remain. In the United States , any issue of widespread debate and deeply divided opinion can be referred to as a social issue. The Library of Congress has assembled an extensive list of social issues in the United States, ranging from vast ones like abortion to same-sex marriage to smaller ones like hacking and academic cheating . Topics that appear to involve advancing a certain positive ideal are often known as causes. A particular cause may be very expansive in nature — for instance, increasing liberty or fixing

1794-463: Is not the case. Most philosophical discussions of actions focus on physical actions in the form of bodily movements. But many philosophers consider mental actions to be a distinct type of action that has characteristics quite different from physical actions. Deliberations and decisions are processes that often precede and lead to actions. Actions can be rational or irrational depending on the reason for which they are performed. The problem of responsibility

1863-530: Is sufficient that what the agent does "can be described under an aspect that makes it intentional". So, for example, if flipping the light switch alerts the burglar then alerting the burglar is part of the agent's actions. In an example from Anscombe 's manuscript Intention , pumping water can also be an instance of poisoning the inhabitants. One difficulty with theories of action that try to characterize actions in terms of causal relations between mental states and bodily movements, so-called causalist theories ,

1932-481: Is that he has prostate cancer, another is that they have his favorite newspaper in the waiting area. Abdul is aware of both of these reasons, but he performs this action only because of the former reason. Causalist theories can account for this fact through causal relation: the former but not the latter reason causes the action. The challenge to non-causalist theories is to provide a convincing non-causal explanation of this fact. The problem of individuation concerns

2001-517: Is that volitions are the most direct element in the chain of agency: they cannot fail, unlike bodily actions, whose success is initially uncertain. One argument against this position is that it may lead to a vicious regress if it is paired with the assumption that an earlier volition is needed in order for the first volition to constitute an action. This is why volitionists often hold that volitions cause actions or are parts of actions but are not full actions themselves. Philosophers have investigated

2070-482: Is that we often do one thing by doing another thing: we shoot the gun by pulling the trigger or we turn on the light by flipping the switch. One argument against this view is that the different events may happen at different times. For example, Lincoln died of his injuries the following day, so a significant time after the shooting. This raises the question of how to explain that two events happening at different times are identical. An important distinction among actions

2139-459: Is to hold that basic actions correspond to the most simple commands we can follow. This position excludes most forms of muscle contractions and chemical processes from the list of basic actions since we usually cannot follow the corresponding commands directly. What counts as a basic action, according to this view, depends on the agent's skills. So contracting a given muscle is a basic action for an agent who has learned to do so. For something to be

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2208-458: Is universal agreement that they need to be solved include, for example, human trafficking , poverty , water and sanitation as a human right . "Social issues" as referred to in the United States also include topics (also known as "causes") intended by their advocates to advance certain ideals (such as equality ) include: civil rights , LGBT rights , women's rights , environmentalism , and veganism . Advocates and advocacy groups represent

2277-416: Is what has been referred to as wayward causal chains. A causal chain is wayward if the intention caused its goal to realize but in a very unusual way that was not intended, e.g. because the skills of the agent are not exercised in the way planned. For example, a rock climber forms the intention to kill the climber below him by letting go of the rope. A wayward causal chain would be that, instead of opening

2346-536: The Advocacy Institute demonstrates the increasing importance of transnational advocacy and international advocacy. Transnational advocacy networks are more likely to emerge around issues where external influence is necessary to ease the communication between internal groups and their own government. Groups of advocates willing to further their mission also tend to promote networks and to meet with their internal counterparts to exchange ideas. Transnational advocacy

2415-529: The "what is" into a "what should be", considering that this "what should be" is a more decent and a more just society Those actions, which vary with the political, economic and social environment in which they are conducted, have several points in common. For instance, they: Other forms of advocacy include: Different contexts in which advocacy is used: Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink have observed four types of advocacy tactics: These tactics have been also observed within advocacy organizations outside

2484-601: The ALRA's Medico-Legal Committee received the case of a fourteen-year-old girl who had been raped, and she received a termination of this pregnancy from Dr. Joan Malleson , a progenitor of the ALRA. Alice Jenkins wrote an important book titled "Law For The Rich" which was published in 1960. Her book drew attention to the double standards that faced women with unwanted pregnancies. Abortion was nominally illegal so many women had to give birth to unplanned children, however rich women could persuade their private doctors that their mental health

2553-483: The Scottish politician James White introduced a bill in parliament to make abortion more difficult. A demonstration was arranged to protest at moves to restrict the then legal access to abortion. This demonstration led to the formation of National Abortion Campaign. ''Abortion Rights" was formed in 2003 by the merger of the "Abortion Law Reform Association (ALRA)" and the "National Abortion Campaign" (NAC). The organization

2622-555: The USA. Groups involved in advocacy work have been using the Internet to accomplish organizational goals. It has been argued that the Internet helps to increase the speed, reach and effectiveness of advocacy-related communication as well as mobilization efforts, suggesting that social media are beneficial to the advocacy community. Advocacy activities may include conducting an exit poll or

2691-414: The action of alerting the burglar. It is usually held that the chain or hierarchy of actions composed this way has a fundamental level at which it stops. The action at this fundamental level is called a basic action : it is not done by doing something else. For this reason, basic actions are simple while non-basic actions are complex. It is often assumed that bodily movements are basic actions , like

2760-402: The agent performed the action. The most straightforward answer to this question cites the agent's desire. For example, John went to the fridge because he had a desire for ice cream. The agent's beliefs are another relevant feature for action explanation. So the desire to have ice cream does not explain that John went to the fridge unless it is paired with John's belief that there is ice cream in

2829-399: The belief that mental properties are reducible to physical properties are known as token-identity reductionists. Some have disagreed with the conclusion that this reduction means the mental explanations are causally impotent while still maintaining that the reduction is possible. For example, Dretske has put forward the viewpoint of reasons as structuring causes. This viewpoint maintains that

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2898-417: The bodily movements while they are occurring. Non-causalist or anti-causalist theories deny that intentions or similar states cause actions. They thereby oppose causalist theories like Davidson's account or standard forms of volitionalism. They usually agree that intentions are essential to actions. This brings with it the difficulty of accounting for the relation between intentions and actions in

2967-436: The case of successful tryings, the trying is the cause of the bodily movement. The central idea of the notion of trying is found in the second thesis. It involves the claim that some of our tryings lead to successful actions while others arise without resulting in an action. But even in an unsuccessful case there is still something: it is different from not trying at all. For example, a paralyzed person, after having received

3036-435: The concept of actions mostly in regard to physical actions, which are usually understood in terms of bodily movements. It is not uncommon among philosophers to understand bodily movements as the only form of action. Some volitionists, on the other hand, claim that all actions are mental because they consist in volitions. But this position involves various problems, as explained in the corresponding section above. However, there

3105-406: The content of the thought. So the thought is no longer needed since the intention already "thinks" the content. This leads to a vicious regress since another intention would be necessary to characterize the first intention as an action. An objection not just to mental actions but to the distinction between physical and mental actions arises from the difficulty of finding strict criteria to distinguish

3174-463: The debate on decriminalization of abortion in Scotland. Advocacy Advocacy is an activity by an individual or group that aims to influence decisions within political, economic, and social institutions. Advocacy includes activities and publications to influence public policy, laws and budgets by using facts, their relationships, the media, and messaging to educate government officials and

3243-405: The events of imagining, judging or remembering are not mental actions strictly speaking but they can be the products of mental actions. Mental actions, in the strict sense, are prefatory or catalytic : they consist in preparing the mind for these contents to arise. They foster hospitable conditions but cannot ensure that the intended contents will appear. Strawson uses the analogy of jumping off

3312-407: The experience of freedom, which involves the additional aspect of having various alternative routes of action to choose from. But volition is possible even if there are no additional alternatives. Volitionalists usually hold that there is a causal relation between volitions and bodily movements. Critics have pointed out that this position threatens to alienate us from our bodies since it introduces

3381-412: The filing of an amicus brief . People advocate for a large number and variety of topics. Some of these are clear-cut social issues that are universally agreed to be problematic and worth solving, such as human trafficking . Others—such as abortion —are much more divisive and inspire strongly held opinions on both sides. There may never be a consensus on this latter type of issues, but intense advocacy

3450-500: The fridge would be considered irrational if his reason for this is bad, e.g. because his belief that there is ice cream in the fridge is merely based on wishful thinking . The problem of responsibility is closely related to the philosophy of actions since we usually hold people responsible for what they do. But in one sense the problem of responsibility is wider since we can be responsible not just for doing something but for failing to do something, so-called omissions . For example,

3519-466: The fridge. The desire together with the belief is often referred to as the reason for the action. Causalist theories of action usually hold that this reason explains the action because it causes the action. Behavior that does not have a reason is not an action since it is not intentional. Every action has a reason but not every action has a good reason. Only actions with good reasons are considered rational . For example, John's action of going to

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3588-404: The holding hand intentionally, the intention makes the first climber so nervous that the rope slips through his hand and thus leads to the other climber's death. Davidson addresses this issue by excluding cases of wayward causation from his account since they are not examples of intentional behavior in the strict sense. So bodily behavior only constitutes an action if it was caused by intentions in

3657-460: The mental states the agent invokes as justifying his action are physical states that cause the action. Problems have been raised for this view because the mental states seem to be reduced to mere physical causes. Their mental properties don't seem to be doing any work. If the reasons an agent cites as justifying his action, however, are not the cause of the action, they must explain the action in some other way or be causally impotent. Those who hold

3726-537: The organisation. The ALRA's turning point was to gain the support of the Liberal Party MP David Steel , who placed a private members bill through the House of Commons to reform the laws of abortion, choosing this issue over calls to instead amend the law on plumbers or the rights of homosexuals. He cites Alice Jenkin's argument in her book "Law For The Rich" as being pivotal in his decision. Steele put forward

3795-478: The pressing of one's finger against the trigger, while the consequences of these movements, like the firing of the gun, are non-basic actions . But it seems that bodily movements are themselves constituted by other events (muscle contractions) which are themselves constituted by other events (chemical processes). However, it appears that these more basic events are not actions since they are not under our direct volitional control. One way to solve these complications

3864-561: The public. Advocacy can include many activities that a person or organization undertakes, including media campaigns , public speaking , commissioning and publishing research. Lobbying (often by lobby groups ) is a form of advocacy where a direct approach is made to legislators on a specific issue or specific piece of legislation. Research has started to address how advocacy groups in the United States and Canada are using social media to facilitate civic engagement and collective action. There are several forms of advocacy, each representing

3933-592: The question of whether two actions are identical or of how actions should be counted. For example, on April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth both pulled the trigger of his gun, fired a shot and killed Abraham Lincoln . On a fine-grained theory of individuation , the pulling, the firing and the killing are three distinct actions. In its most extreme form, there is one distinct action for every action type. So, for example, since "singing" and "singing loudly" are two different action types, someone who sings loudly performs at least these two distinct actions. This kind of view has

4002-477: The right way . One important objection to Davidson's theory of actions is that it does not account for the agent's role in the production of action. This role could include reflecting on what to do, choosing an alternative and then carrying it out. Another objection is that mere intentions seem to be insufficient to cause actions, that other additional elements, namely volitions or tryings, are necessary. For example, as John Searle has pointed out, there seems to be

4071-422: The right way. Volitionalist theories include the notion of volitions in their account of actions. Volitions are understood as forms of summoning of means within one's power and are different from merely intending to do something later. Non-causalists, on the other hand, deny that intentions or similar states cause actions. The most well-known account of action, sometimes simply referred to as the standard account ,

4140-483: The same explanatory role. This role includes both the experiential level, involving the trying of something instead of merely intending to do so later, and the metaphysical level, in the form of mental causation bridging the gap between mental intention and bodily movement. Volitionalism as a theory is characterized by three core theses: (1) that every bodily action is accompanied by a trying, (2) that tryings can occur without producing bodily movements and (3) that in

4209-403: The sense of being goal-oriented. But the representation of a goal in the agent's mind may act as an efficient cause at the same time. Because of these problems, most of the arguments for non-causalism are negative: they constitute objections pointing out why causalist theories are unfeasible. Important among them are arguments from wayward causation: that behavior only constitutes an action if it

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4278-406: The trying itself is an action: a special type of action called basic action . But this claim is problematic since it threatens to lead to a vicious regress : if something is an action because it was caused by a volition then we would have to posit one more volition in virtue of which the first trying can be regarded as an action. An influential criticism of the volitional explanations of actions

4347-576: The two. Deliberations and decisions are relevant for actions since they frequently precede the action. It is often the case that several courses of action are open to the agent. In such cases, deliberation performs the function of evaluating the different options by weighing the reasons for and against them. Deciding then is the process of picking one of these alternatives and forming an intention to perform it, thereby leading toward an action. Explanations can be characterized as answers to why-questions. Explanations of actions are concerned with why

4416-515: The unintuitive consequence that even the most simple exercises of agency result in a vast number of actions. Theories of coarse-grained individuation of actions, on the other hand, hold that events that constitute each other or cause each other are to be counted as one action. On this view, the action of pulling the trigger is identical to the action of firing the gun and to the action of killing Lincoln. So in doing all of these things, Booth performed only one action. One intuition in favor of this view

4485-405: The working class using labour groups and women's branches of the co-operative movement. These women wanted the privileges that “moneyed classes had enjoyed for years.” The ALRA was very active between 1936 and 1939 sending speakers around the country to talk about Labour and Equal Citizenship and attempted to have letters and articles published in newspapers. They were in the frame when a member of

4554-410: The world. Alva Noë states: 'We move our eyes, head and body in taking in what is around us... [we]: crane our necks, peer, squint, reach for our glasses or draw near to get a better look...'...'Perception is a mode of activity on the part of the whole animal...It cannot be represented in terms of merely passive, and internal, processes...' Some philosophers (e.g. Donald Davidson ) have argued that

4623-510: Was at risk. The doctors were then able to carry out an abortion that was denied to most women in Britain. During the 1970s and 1980s there were several proposed amendment bills against the Abortion Act 1967, so in defense of  the Abortion Act 1967 The National Abortion Campaign (NAC) was formed in 1975. Vera Houghton became the chair of the ALRA in 1963 and over the next seven years she led

4692-502: Was caused by an intention in the right way, not in any way. This critique focuses on difficulties causalists have faced in explicitly formulating how to distinguish between proper and wayward causation. An important challenge to non-causalism is due to Davidson. As he points out, we usually have many different reasons for performing the same action. But when we perform it, we often perform it for one reason but not for another. For example, one reason for Abdul to go for cancer treatment

4761-547: Was founded in the United Kingdom in 1936 by Janet Chance , Alice Jenkins , Joan Malleson and Stella Browne . Its intention was to change attitudes and the law to allow access to abortion in the United Kingdom . Janet Chance created the funding and the marketing whilst Alice Brook Jenkins was the honorary secretary. Jenkins created a network of supporters. At the end of their first year they had 35 new members, and by 1939 they had almost 400. The membership were gathered from

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