Constantine Sandis: Action in Life and Art (Royal Institute of Philosophy)

Part of the Royal Institute of Philosophy's London Lecture series 2015: The Philosophy of Action. This talk is motivated by the thought that the things we say and do are to be distinguished from our acts of saying and doing them. I defend a particular way of conceiving this distinction before proceeding to argue for its importance to our everyday evaluative practices. In particular, I aim to demonstrate that the correct evaluation of what one does may part ways with that of one’s act of doing it. By extension, it would be a mistake to allow for the appraisal of artworks to be influenced by facts concerning the process of their creation. I conclude with the suggestion that the potential implications of this corrective for ethics and aesthetics are highly significant. If this is right, then the philosophy of action should be accorded a far more prominent place within value theory than previously supposed.