Grice on 'kill'

--- by J. L. Speranza
-------- for the Grice Club

I was reading Grice's "Actions and Events", seeing that B. Doyle has included an entry on Grice in his Informationphilosopher.com. And I come across things like Grice's idea to reduce 'do' to 'agendum', rather than 'actum'. If there is a will that something is to be done (agendum) that's Kantianly enough for the thing (good will/bad will) to 'shine like a gem', as in Abbott's translation that Grice quotes there.

Grice notes:

"We might also say"

-- and then we might not --

"that, in our preferred mode of conception,
actions (like giving [Smith] a job [Grice uses 'Jones'])"

---- as opposed to _killing_ Smith? --

"are non-factive, in that the performance
of this action does not guarantee that [Smith]
actually gets a job."

----- or gets killed?

---

But I should re-read that. It's not like he is progressing from actions which are fully 'factive', but perhaps he is.

There is a sense in which I understand what Grice is meaning.

"I give Smith a job"

---- For all practical purposes, it's the will that counts, and we know how the road to hell is paved with good intentions, as my aunt says.

So,"actions (liking giving Jones a job) are non-factive in that the performance of this action does not GUARANTEE that Jones actually gets a job."

-----

Perhaps Grice is thinking of Aristotle 'eph'hemin' (up to us), or 'par'hemas' (up to us, in Epicurus's rewrite).

SMITH says: "I give Jones a job".

Smith's action: giving Jones a job. Completed and performed without the guarantee that Jones "actually GETS a job" (emphasis in italics Grice's) (p. 32).

But here the action seems to be

"Jones's GETTING a job".

-----

Again, I propose to replace "Smith" with "Jones".



And since 'kill' is perhaps a bit strong, 'scare' should do.

"Jones scared Smith".

To use Grice's further paraphrase:

Shem kicked Shaun.

Shaun was kicked by Shem.

What about 'kick'. Does it behave like 'giving Jones a job':

"We might also want to say that,
in our preferred mode of conception,
actions (like [kicking Shaun] are
non-factive, in that the performance
of this action does not guarantee
that [Shaun actually GETS kicked]."

I don't think Chomskyian need be amused? It seems to replicate truth-conditions. It may have consequences for a satisfaction-conditional semantics for imperatives:

"Kick him!"

"I did".

"But he didn't GET kicked."

"Well, in our preferred mode of conceptions, actions like kicking people are non-facctive, and thus non-predictive in a Pears-type kind of way, in that the performance of an act of kicking does not guarantee that the kickee gets kicked."

Grice was well aware of the Davidsonian problems with this. Perhaps Grice was undergoing that Prichard-state of mind (or will) when what you will is what you _do_. Or something.