Philosophical Issues, 22, Action Theory, 2012

WHAT IS AN OMISSION?

Randolph ClarkeFlorida State University

When I raise my arm or go to the store and buy milk, my doing so is anaction or a sequence of actions that I perform. When I refrain from raisingmy arm or omit to go and get milk, what is my doing so? Is it (identicalwith) some ordinary action that I perform at the time in question? Is it anaction of a distinctly negative kind—a negative act? Is it an entity of someother sort? Or is it simply the absence of an action?

In this paper I’ll examine three proposals concerning what omissions,refrainings, or forbearances are. The first of these has it that at least someare actions of a distinctly negative kind, such as preventing oneself fromdoing something that one is tempted to do. The second view holds that eachomission, refraining, or forbearance is wholly or partly constituted by theway the agent actually moves her body at the relevant time. A third accountobserves that in some cases what is referred to as an omission, refraining,or forbearance is an ordinary or “positive” action, characterized in terms ofsomething that it isn’t.

I’ll argue that while the first and third views are right about a few cases,in many instances an omission, refraining, or forbearance isn’t an action oranything constituted by an actual movement. It’s just what it seems to be:an absence of action of a certain type by an agent at some time (or duringsome interval).

Plainly, however, not every absence of action counts as an instance ofomission, refraining, or forbearance, as we ordinarily use the terms. I’ll closethe paper with a discussion of which ones do count, and why.

1. Act-Assimilation

There are many respects in which omitting, refraining, or forbearingare like acting. Just as one can deliberate about whether to act in a certain

128 Randolph Clarke

way, one can deliberate about whether to refrain from acting in a certainway, for example, about whether to abstain or boycott. There are reasonsfor omitting or refraining as well as for acting, and they are reasons ofthe same general kind: practical reasons, considerations bearing on whatto do, on whether to act in one way or another. One can omit or refrainfor such reasons, just as one can act for them. Omitting or refraining can becommanded (“Don’t move!”) or otherwise required, and such a command orrequirement can be obeyed or fulfilled or, alternatively, disobeyed or flouted.Omitting or refraining can be something one chooses or intends, and onecan intentionally omit to do, or refrain from doing, a certain thing. One canbring things about by omitting or refraining, just as one can bring somethingabout by acting. One can try to refrain or forbear, or try to act, and eitherattempt might succeed, or it might fail. One might be unable to refrain fromor forbear doing a certain thing, just as one might be unable to perform acertain action. Finally, we can be responsible for omitting to act, or refrainingfrom or forbearing doing a certain thing.

Perhaps moved by such similarities, several writers take omitting, orrefraining, or forbearing to be an action of a distinctly negative kind, anexercise of a negative form of agency. I’ll call this approach act-assimilation.I’ll argue that in several of its versions it doesn’t correctly construe the caseson which it’s focused, and that there are many cases of omitting, refraining,and forbearing that it fails to cover.

This approach is sometimes taken with regard specifically to refrainingor forbearing. Myles Brand, for example, maintains that “refraining is itselfa kind of action,” in contrast, he says, to doing nothing at all, which is “justdoing nothing at all” (1971: 46). While in the former case one is active, inthe latter one is “inactive” with respect to the action that is not performed.(46). “The policeman who keeps his arm at his side and does not shootthe fleeing youth refrains from shooting him. The man asleep on the couchdoes nothing at all with respect to answering the telephone ringing in thebedroom” (45–46). Similarly, Arthur Danto distinguishes forbearing fromsimply not doing a certain thing and says that forbearances are “thingsmen do—that is, . . . actions in their own right” (1966: 52); and G. H. vonWright (1963: 45–48) calls forbearing, in contrast to “not-doing simpliciter,”a mode of action. Douglas Walton employs this approach across the board,maintaining that “omissions, refrainings, [and] forebearances” are kinds of“‘negative actions’” (1980: 325).

Von Wright (1963: 45) says that an agent forbears to do a certain thingwhenever she’s able to so act and doesn’t.1 But consider J. L. Austin’s exampleof an experienced golfer attempting an easy putt (1979: 218, n. 1). The golferis able to sink the putt. When he tries and fails, von Wright’s claim implies,infelicitously, that the golfer forbears making the putt.

Von Wright apparently introduces ‘forbear’ as a technical term; hedoesn’t seem particularly concerned to closely follow ordinary usage. It’s

What Is an Omission? 129

nevertheless worth noting that what he calls forbearance need not be anykind of action. In not doing something that one is able to do, one need notactively not do it. Most of the time it just doesn’t occur to me to crow likea rooster. My not doing such a thing is typically in no clear sense itself anaction of any kind, or even an event or process of a standard sort. And whileholding my breath would be an action, and it’s something I’m able to do, mynot doing it isn’t ordinarily an action of any kind.

Brand’s target is narrower. He holds that “a person refrains fromperforming an action when he does something else to prevent his performingit” (1971: 49) and the preventive effort succeeds (50). The “something else”that is done is said to be the performing of some action.

Brand’s policeman might have to actively hold his arm at his side. Perhapshe has to tense his muscles to keep his arm there, fighting temptation to raiseit and shoot. But there are cases of refraining in which one doesn’t performany action in order to prevent one’s doing what one refrains from doing.Suppose that while standing admiring a freshly painted object, I see a signsaying not to touch the thing until it’s dry. I comply with the instruction.There might be several things I do while refraining, but there need be noaction I perform in order to prevent myself from touching the object. Havingmy arms at my sides before I saw the sign need not have been an action Iwas performing then. Having them there once I’ve read the instruction neednot be, either.2

It might be suggested that a decision not to touch the object, made whenI read the instruction, is the action by performing which I prevent myselffrom touching the object.3 But I need not have made any such decision. Wecan come to have intentions by actively forming them in decision making.We can also come to have them nonactively, without actively forming themin making a decision. A decision resolves uncertainty about what to do; butsometimes there is no such uncertainty. When it’s obvious what to do, orwhen one acts on a whim or by habit, one might come to intend withoutmaking a decision. My intention not to touch the freshly painted objectmight have been so acquired when I read the instruction not to touch it.

I might in this case refrain from ruining the paint job by not touchingthe object. Walton (1980: 322) recognizes such instances but takes them tobe cases of “negative action” the expression of which has the form: “By notbringing it about that p, S does not bring it about that q” (320). However,since there’s no clear sense in which I’m active in not bringing it about thatI touch the object—I simply don’t touch it—there’s no clear sense in whichmy refraining from ruining the paint job is any kind of action.

In fact, Walton regards even something such as my not reaching outmy arm toward the object as a negative action, the expression of which hasthe form, “S does not bring it about that p” (1980: 324–25). However, onething’s not causing another isn’t a kind of negative causing; it isn’t a kind ofcausing at all. Why take an agent’s not bringing something about to be a kind

130 Randolph Clarke

of negative action, or, indeed, a kind of action at all? Though I might wellbe active during the time when I’m not reaching out my arm—I might bewhistling—there’s no clear sense in which I’m active with respect to movingmy arm.

Brand fails also to provide sufficient conditions for his analysandum.4

There are cases of performing one action to prevent oneself from performinganother, and of succeeding as planned in so preventing oneself, that never-theless aren’t cases of refraining. Ulysses commanded his crew to tie him tothe mast so that he wouldn’t jump into the sea when he heard the Sirens’song. Though he gave the command in order to prevent his jumping in, andhis plan succeeded, he didn’t refrain from jumping in, since at the relevanttime he was trying his best to jump in (Moore 1979: 408).

Sometimes in preventing oneself from performing some action, one treatsoneself in a manner similar to that in which one treats another when oneprevents that other agent from doing something. In preventing the actionone exercises control, but in the failure to perform it one is controlled. Incontrast, in refraining one manifests control oneself, even if not the samekind of control that one exercises when one performs an action.

In cases in which one does perform an action in order to prevent oneselffrom performing some other action, and in which one thereby refrains, if therefraining is an action, which action is it? Suppose that Brand’s policemenactively keeps his arm at his side, i.e., his keeping his arm there is an action.He performs an action by which he prevents himself from shooting. Wemight also count his bringing it about that he doesn’t shoot as an action.Which, if either, of these actions is the act of refraining? A course-grained orminimizing theory of act-individuation might count the keeping of the armat the side and the preventing of the shooting as one action, and that actionas the refraining.5

There is, in any event, an absence of an act of shooting by the policeman.Even if the agent brings about this absence by performing an action, andeven if his bringing it about is an action, this absence isn’t itself an action.

Finally, as is clear, the act-assimilation strategy fails to cover many casesof omission. For many of these (e.g., omitting to stop and buy milk on theway home because one forgets to do so) aren’t cases of refraining or (pacevon Wright) forbearing, nor actions of any kind. They are, I propose, justwhat they seem to be: absences of actions, albeit absences in certain contextsthat render them noteworthy. I’ll turn to an examination of such contexts inthe final section of this paper.

2. Constitution

A second approach to omissions is meant to be comprehensive. While itdoesn’t take omissions to be identical with actions, it takes them to be things

What Is an Omission? 131

constituted, in whole or in part, by actual movements of one’s body, whichare events of a familiar sort. I’ll call this the constitution view.

John Fischer and Mark Ravizza take this approach, distinguishingbetween simple or bodily omissions and complex omissions.6 Omitting toraise one’s arm is an example of the former. Such an omission, Fischerand Ravizza hold, is fully constituted by “the way one actually moves one’sbody” at the relevant time, “where this can include simply keeping the bodystill” (1998: 132). A complex omission, such as the policeman’s not shootingthe fleeing youth, is partly constituted by an actual bodily movement, andincludes as well a relationship between that movement and “a relativelynarrowly specified negative consequence-universal” (134), such as the youth’snot being shot by the policeman. We may fruitfully think of a complexomission, Fischer and Ravizza suggest, as a bringing about of such a result.

I’ll confine my remarks to the claim that a certain bodily movementpartly or wholly constitutes each omission.7 One thing we might wonder iswhether all or only some of how one actually moves one’s body at somepertinent time is supposed to be the constitutive movement. Suppose thatI omit to snap my fingers, and at the same time I omit to wiggle my toes.Presumably any actual movement of my toes at that time will be said to beat least part of what constitutes the latter omission; is the actual movementof my fingers also implicated?

Further, while Fischer and Ravizza allow that the way one moves one’sbody can include one’s keeping still, the conception of what constitutes anomission would have to be broadened more. On some occasion when oneomits to do a certain thing, one might neither move one’s body nor keep itstill. One’s body might be moved or kept still by someone or something else,and not either moved or kept still by oneself. Or it might remain still withoutanyone or anything’s keeping it still; one might be sleeping soundly at therelevant time.8 (I might omit to walk to your house late one evening becauseI’ve fallen asleep.)

Even so emended, the view faces several difficulties. One is to say justwhat relation of constitution is being invoked. Apparently, it’s meant to besomething other than identity. I might omit several things at one time, forexample, to scratch my head and to touch my nose. If these omissions arethings at all, they aren’t one thing—they aren’t identical. (If they have causes,they might have different causes.) The way my body actually moves at thetime evidently isn’t identical with either.

In fact, constitution of familiar sorts seems to be the wrong relation here.Anything wholly constituted by a material object is, it seems, an object, andanything fully constituted by a neural event is an event. But consider a casein which, when omitting to raise one’s arm, one is moving it in some otherway, for example, waving it about at one’s side. If the omission were whollyconstituted by this bodily movement, then, it seems, the omission woulditself be a movement. But that seems wrong; the omission is the failure to

132 Randolph Clarke

make a certain movement. Further, if the omission were fully constitutedby the actual movement of one’s arm, then, it seems, it would share certainproperties with that movement. Suppose that one starts moving one’s armabout rapidly, slows down, and then finishes with more rapid movements. Itwould be wrong to say that one’s omitting to raise one’s arm was first fast,then slowed, then became fast again.

Locations and some causal relations would also, it seems, be shared.Consider the first of these. The following principle seems to correctlycharacterize familiar forms of constitution:

If something x fully constitutes something y and x has a location, then y hasthat same location.

If this matter fully constitutes this table, and if the matter is here, then thetable, too, is here. Since the movements (or stillnesses) said to constitute omis-sions have locations, the constitution view would seem to locate omissions.But its assignments of location will in many cases be mistaken.

Suppose that you omit to go for a swim in the ocean at noon. (Perhapsyou’d promised to join me for a swim, but you forgot, or you decided thathiking would be more fun.) On the suggested view, it seems, this omissionwill count as a bodily omission; performing the omitted action would requireno more than that you complete certain movements of your body in acertain place at a certain time.9 That bodily omission will be said to befully constituted by the movement of your body at the relevant time. Butyou might be miles from the ocean at noon, hiking on a distant mountain.Your omitting to swim at noon is then, apparently, said to be located farfrom the ocean. If omissions are located, that seems the wrong location toassign this one.10 The omission might have immediate effects—such as mydisappointment—right there on the beach; in contrast, any impact that yourmovement on the mountain has on the beach will come a bit later.

If constituting entities are causes and effects, then it seems that theconstituted things are as well. The following principle seems plausible:

If something x fully constitutes something y, then any cause of x is a cause of y,and anything caused by y is caused by x.11

If my brain activity fully constitutes my thinking, then what causes my brainactivity causes my thinking, and what my thinking causes is caused by mybrain activity.

However, suppose that while hiking at noon you encounter a bear andturn around to run. The appearance of the bear causes your actual bodilymovement at noon, but it doesn’t cause your omission; the bear is irrelevantto your failure to go for a swim. And if your not swimming has effects, one of

What Is an Omission? 133

them might be my disappointment in having to swim alone. But your turningaround to run isn’t a cause of my disappointment.

With regard to the time at which the constituting movement takes place,we might think that this is easily enough identified with the time of theomission. But what is the latter? Sometimes there’s a lengthy period duringall of which one neglects or intentionally omits to do a certain thing. Onemight neglect to pull the weeds all summer, or refrain for years from runningbecause of one’s fragile knee. It doesn’t seem right to say that all of whatone’s body actually does during such periods constitutes such omissions; butthere seems no principled way of selecting only some that do.

Finally, a large class of omissions is apparently left out of Fischer andRavizza’s view. I might promise to think about what you’ve said but fail tokeep my promise; you might intend to make up your mind well before thedeadline whether to attend a conference but realize when the time comes thatyou haven’t decided the matter. Much of our intentional activity is mental,and many of our omissions are omissions of mental actions. These are surelynot what Fischer and Ravizza call complex omissions, but neither do they fitthe characterization of bodily omissions. While one’s body might well movewhen one omits some mental action, no overt bodily movement constitutessuch an omission. It might be proposed that certain internal changes withinone’s head constitute it; but I see no good way of saying which such changesconstitute one’s not thinking about a certain thing.

3. Act-Identification

The act-assimilation strategy seems motivated by the thought that someomissions, refrainings, or forbearances are in an important respect active, thatthey resemble positive actions in some relevant way (e.g., they are instances ofactively preventing something). There is a very different rationale for takingsome omissions, refrainings, or forbearances to be actions: in some cases, adescription of something as an omission, refraining, or forbearance seemsjust to pick out some perfectly ordinary action in terms of something it isn’t.

On this view, the “negativity” of negative acts lies entirely in linguisticexpressions used to designate them, not in the things designated.12 I’ll callthis approach act-identification.

Imagine a child crouching behind a chair and holding still for severalminutes while playing hide and seek.13 The child’s holding still is an action ofa familiar sort. It consists of her body’s maintaining a relatively unchangingposture and position, and it might be said to count as an action becauseof the way this (rather static) event is caused: by a pattern of motor signalssent to certain muscles, perhaps the inhibition of other motor signals, themaintenance of balance, with fine adjustments made in response to feedback,

134 Randolph Clarke

all resulting from the child’s intending, over the period in question, to remainstill.

What is the child’s not moving on this occasion? We might say that itis simply her act of holding still described differently, in terms of somethingit isn’t (an instance of moving). Actions of several familiar types, such asremaining standing (not sitting), speaking out (not keeping quiet), or leaving(not staying) lend themselves readily to this strategy.

We can describe and designate objects in terms of what they aren’t(e.g., the largest non-planet directly orbiting the sun). If actions, and eventsgenerally, are likewise concrete particulars, they would seem likewise to bethings we can describe and designate in this negative fashion (Varzi 2006:133).

Donald Davidson (1985), taking up a proposal by Bruce Vermazen(1985), embraces this approach. Vermazen himself restricts its applicabilityto certain cases of resistance or “displacement refraining”. An agent mightkeep his arm still when someone else is trying to move it, or twist thebuttons on his vest in order to prevent himself from eating hors d’oeuvres. Incontrast, Vermazen maintains, “omissions, failures, and neglectings that arenot intentional are not acts at all” (1985: 97). Further, he holds that in a caseof refraining in which one neither resists nor displaces, such as that of mynot touching the freshly painted object, the refraining, although a negativeact, is not a thing at all (104).14

Davidson extends the approach to cover some cases of mistake or failure.These, too, can invite redescription of an action of a familiar sort in negativeterms. “So if someone intends to climb the Matterhorn but climbs the Eigerby mistake, his climbing of the Eiger is his not climbing the Matterhorn”(1985: 219). Here, too, Davidson remarks, “intention plays an essential rolein our willingness to say that not doing something is something an agentdid” (219). (The role is, however, different; rather than intending not todo a certain thing, the agent intends to do one thing but mistakenly doesanother thing instead.) Achille Varzi (2006) also takes this approach, withoutexplicitly tying it to intention. Al’s walking with Sue, he suggests, can be Al’snot jogging with Tom, and someone’s rushing upstairs can be his not leavingthe house.

The following line of objection can be resisted. It might be pointed outthat the child could have refrained from moving even if she hadn’t crouchedbehind the chair; she could have lain there. It might then be said that thechild’s not moving has a modal property that her act of holding still lacks.Then, by Leibniz’s law, the not moving and the holding still must be distinct.However, ‘the child’s not moving’ might in fact designate her act of holdingstill in a crouched position, even if, had she instead lain still, that expressionwould have designated a different event.15

On some occasion when I walked slowly, it might well be that I couldhave walked without walking slowly. Nevertheless, we should not say that I

What Is an Omission? 135

performed two acts of walking when I walked slowly. There is a single actthat, as it happens, can be described as my walking and as my walking slowly,even though it could have happened that the former expression designated adifferent kind of act of walking.

On a course-grained or minimizing view of act individuation, when oneflips the switch, turns on the light, illuminates the room, and alerts theprowler, one might perform only one action, which might be intentionalunder some of these descriptions and unintentional under others (Davidson1980: 4–5; Anscombe 1963: 46). Having flipped the switch, it might be said,there’s nothing further that one must do to turn on the light, etc.

One competing view takes actions to be instantiations of act-propertiesand holds that actions are nonidentical if they’re instantiations of differentact-properties (Goldman 1970: 10). Such an account will take one’s turningon the light and one’s alerting the prowler to be different actions. But eventhis second view may count the walking and the walking slowly as oneaction, for an instantiation of a given act-property can be designated by eachof several different expressions (Bennett 1988: 93).

An extreme maximizing view combines the second account of whatan action is with the claim that we’ve designated the same act-propertyinstantiation only when we’ve used the same act-description. On such anextreme view, it will be the case that positive and negative act-descriptionsnever pick out the same thing. Setting aside such a view, we may allow thatin some cases they do.

In how many cases? In relatively few instances of omission, refraining,or forbearance, I think.

Often there are predicates that apply to an action that’s performedthat don’t apply to the omission, refraining, or forbearance in question.So long as the predicates don’t introduce intensional contexts (e.g., ‘was wellplanned’), the difference supports the view that the action has some propertythat isn’t possessed by the omission, refraining, or forbearance, or stands insome relation in which the latter doesn’t stand, and thus that the omission,refraining, or forbearance isn’t the action. For example, the child who holdsstill might, during that period, intentionally not leap up and shout at herplaymate. Her holding still might be quite difficult, while her not leapingand shouting isn’t at all so. Although she intentionally refrains from leapingand shouting, and she so refrains while she holds still, her so refrainingdoesn’t seem to be her holding still. Similarly, the climber’s failure to scalethe Matterhorn might be unavoidable by early morning, while he still hastime to turn back from his ascent of the Eiger.

Locations, causes or effects, or times of actions performed can be wrongfor certain omissions, refrainings, or forbearances. If Al’s walk with Sue tookplace in Central Park, whereas his jog with Tom would have occurred onthe High Line, or if the walk took place an hour before the jog would havebegun, Al’s walk apparently isn’t his not jogging. And if the invitation from

136 Randolph Clarke

Sue to walk came after Al had already decided not to join Tom for the jog,the walk has a cause that doesn’t cause Al’s not jogging.

Relatedly, in some cases the reasons for which one performs a certainaction are different and independent from the reasons for which one omits toperform (or refrains from or forbears performing) a different one. (Arguably,the relation between this point and the previous one is that when one actsfor a certain reason, that reason figures somehow in the causation of one’saction—e.g., one’s apprehension of that reason is a cause of the action.) Almight walk with Sue in order to enjoy her company. But since, as we’veimagined, he’d already decided not to go jogging, that goal isn’t a reason forwhich he doesn’t jog.16

Finally, there are in many cases no good candidates for an action thatmight be said to be identical with an agent’s intentionally not doing a certainthing. Although I intentionally stand whistling a tune while refraining fromtouching the freshly painted object, it doesn’t seem that my standing orwhistling is my not touching the thing. And, as we saw in the precedingsection, there will likely be no good candidate for an action that is an agent’srefraining from running for fifteen years.

About a few cases, however, act-identification seems correct. ‘The child’snot moving’ does seem to designate her act of holding still. The not movingis just as difficult as the holding still is. There is no implausibility in locatingthe omission where and when the action is. Her not moving seems to have thesame causes and effects, and to be done for the same reason—in order notto be seen. Some omissions, refrainings, and forbearances, then, are actionsof a familiar sort, albeit such actions described in terms of things theyaren’t. These omissions are things, but not negative entities; the negativitylies entirely in the expressions used to designate them. It’s a mistake, then,to say that “there are no acts of omission” (Thomson 1977: 212).17

Some cases of refraining from omitting fall into this group. Suppose thatout of anger I decide not to call my brother on his birthday. I subsequentlychange my mind and plan to call him. However, I realize that I have atendency to absent-mindedly revert to abandoned plans. So in addition todeciding to call my brother, I intend not to omit to call him. I accomplishboth aims.

My refraining from omitting seems just to be my action of callingmy brother. Even if commonly an omission, refraining, or forbearance isan absence of an action, and even if absences aren’t things, there shouldbe no controversy engendered by taking an absence of an absence to besomething.18 And my making the call is a perfectly good candidate for whatmy refraining from omitting is.

None of the strategies examined so far can cover all cases of omittingto act, refraining, or forbearing. In fact, very many cases are left uncovered.Omitting, refraining, or forbearing in these cases isn’t an action of a negativekind, it isn’t something constituted wholly or in part by the actual movement

What Is an Omission? 137

(or stillness) of the agent’s body, and it isn’t an action of a familiar sortdescribed negatively. I suggest that we take these omissions, refrainings, andforbearances to be just what they seem to be: absences of actions.

Of course, there are many occasions on which one doesn’t perform anaction of a given type; and on any given occasion, there are many typesof action one isn’t performing. Which absences of actions are omissions,refrainings, or forbearances?

4. Which Absences Are Omissions?

Some writers characterize omissions very broadly: “an omission consistsof the nonoccurrence of any event of a certain sort” (Lewis 1986: 189;Hall [2004: 248–49] and McGrath [2005: 126] use the term similarly). Othercharacterizations are slightly narrower: “whenever a person doesn’t do X ,then he fails (in the relevant sense) to do it, and he omits to do it” (Fischer1985–86: 264; Walton [1980: 325] offers a similar construal). Yet othersare a bit narrower still: one omits to do whatever one can do but doesn’tdo (Zimmerman 1981: 545; von Wright [1963: 45] says the same aboutforbearing).

None of these claims is false; they’re stipulative introductions of terms tobe employed for philosophical purposes, the purpose being different in eachcase. Even when we narrow the focus to instances of an agent’s not doingsomething, or not performing some action, there are purposes for which wemight want to consider all such cases, or all in which the agent was able todo what wasn’t done.

Nonphilosophical use of ‘omission’, ‘refraining’, and ‘forbearance’ issignificantly more restrictive. If we want to cleave fairly closely to ordinaryusage, relatively few absences of actions will count as omissions, refrainings,or forbearances.

I’ve already noted that, as we commonly use the terms, one doesn’t omit,refrain, or forbear doing something when one tries and fails to do it, even ifone is able to do it then. A lack of ability or opportunity, too, can precludesomeone’s failure to do a certain thing from counting as an omission.19

And—the point on which I’ll focus—excepting cases of intentionally notdoing a certain thing, we don’t ordinarily say that one has omitted to actunless, we believe, there was some norm or standard that called for one’s soacting.

In many cases, the relevant norm is a requirement of some sort. Itmight be a moral obligation: when you forget to do what you promised todo, you omit to do it. But the requirement need not be a moral one. Onemight omit to set out dessert spoons, and a failure to mark the positionof one’s golf ball before lifting it can be a costly omission. Leaving out astep in a recipe or procedure—failing to add baking soda to the batter, for

138 Randolph Clarke

example—commonly counts as an omission,20 as does failure to comply withprofessional standards.

Moral reasons can justify without requiring, and perhaps an action sojustified can be omitted without wrong or fault. It might not occur to meto demand reparation for a wrong done to me when I would be perfectlyjustified in doing so. I might then omit to do something that I wasn’t requiredto do.

Intentions bring with them a wide-scope normative requirement thatcan provide a norm with respect to which we count someone’s not doing acertain thing as an omission. Something like John Broome’s (2001) proposalseems correct: roughly, you ought to see to it that if you intend to A, thenyou A. (Broome qualifies the antecedent with ‘and you don’t repudiatethat intention’; I’d qualify the consequent with ‘or at least try to A’.)The requirement allows that in some cases you ought not do the thingyou intend, for you ought not intend it in the first place. And it permitschanging your mind. One way to see to it that the conditional is true is tomake the antecedent false. But to fail to (even try to) make the consequenttrue while keeping the antecedent true is to fail to meet a requirement ofrationality.

If I intend to buy milk on the way home but forget to do so, I’ve failedto comply with this norm. My not buying the milk is an omission.

The contents of intentions are plans or policies. To be committed to apolicy is to have a general intention, an intention to do a certain sort ofthing in situations of a certain kind. The normative requirement carried byone of my general intentions calls for my turning off the lights when I leavemy office. When I walk out without thinking to turn off the lights, I omit toturn them off.

We might also count as omissions failures to take necessary means todoing well what one does, even when the things not done weren’t intended,and even when no rule requires doing them. A chess player’s failure to castleat some point might be an omission, even though the rules of the game don’trequire it, and even if the player manages to win anyway.

Writers disagree about whether having an established habit of doing acertain thing can render one’s failure to do that thing an omission. Supposethat the first word out of the professor’s mouth at the start of each lecture is,“Right!”. He hasn’t adopted a policy of so behaving and would be surprisedto be told that he does this. One day he begins class without this standardsignal, unaware that he’s done anything unusual. The students notice. Havethey witnessed an omission?

Patricia Smith holds that “routine or habit may found reasonableexpectations” of behavior in the context of which a failure to act as is one’shabit counts as an omission (1990: 168), and she would count the professor’sfailure to start in his habitual way as an omission. Bernard Williams (1995:

What Is an Omission? 139

337) insists that where there is no normative expectation created by thehabitual behavior, the failure to act isn’t an omission.

Our concept of omission lacks sharp boundaries. I don’t find it clear,and I don’t see that it much matters, which (if either) of these positions iscorrect.

Sometimes what is said to be distinctive of those omissions that aren’tcases of refraining or forbearing is that it was reasonable to expect the agentto do what she didn’t in fact do, either because of some applicable norm orbecause of some habit of action (Feinberg 1984: 161; Smith 2005: 238–40).Bracketing the question concerning habit, the claim doesn’t seem false, but itgets at the key point only indirectly. What makes the failure to act an omissionis the applicable norm, which also serves as a ground for expectation.

We commonly use ‘refrain’ and ‘forbear’ for cases of someone’s inten-tionally not doing a certain thing. I’ve examined this topic elsewhere (Clarke2010), but a few words are in order here. Often an agent who refrains orforbears was tempted, or to some degree motivated, to do what she refrainedfrom or forbore doing; but it doesn’t seem that such motivation is necessary.The nonsmoker can comply with the instruction to refrain from smoking.

Of course, there needn’t be any sense in which one ought to have donewhat one refrains from doing. On the contrary, refraining might be just whatwas called for; it might be admirable or even obligatory.

If it is, can one’s not doing that thing still count as an omission? ConsiderStrunk and White’s famous dictum: “omit needless words” (1979: 23). Whenone complies, the needless words are omitted, because one omits to use them.

Might it be the case that although one omits to use the needless words,one’s leaving them out isn’t an omission?21 It can seem wrong to call this anomission, but the infelicity might be only a matter of false implicature.

Joel Feinberg says of someone who had no obligation to water flowersthat went unwatered, “though perhaps he did refrain from [watering them],having briefly considered the matter and then decided against it,” the agenthasn’t omitted to water them unless there was a special duty or moralobligation or requirement that he do it, or the agent or others in his positionordinarily do that kind of thing (1984: 161). I don’t myself see the necessityof any such condition; it seems to me that the agent intentionally omits towater the flowers, perhaps entirely blamelessly and unremarkably. However,the issue doesn’t seem to me an important or substantive one.

On the other hand, Feinberg’s view (1984: 257–58, n. 34; see also Brand1971: 52) that cases of omitting to act are a subset of cases of refrainingfrom acting is certainly in conflict with our ordinary use of these terms. Youdon’t refrain from doing what you promised but then forgot to do, but youdo omit to do it.

There are vastly many instances of our not doing things—even thingsthat we can do—that don’t count as omissions, as we ordinarily use the term.

140 Randolph Clarke

Setting aside cases of intentionally not doing a certain thing, the differencebetween the instances that count and those that don’t lies not in what kindof entity exists in the two cases but in whether an action of the sort that isabsent was called for by some norm or standard.

5. Conclusion

While in some cases of refraining or forbearing, an agent performs anaction of some negative kind, and while sometimes something describednegatively as an agent’s not doing a certain thing is an action of an ordinarysort, in very many cases an omission, refraining, or forbearance is simplyan absence of action. Nevertheless, relatively few cases in which one doesn’tperform a certain action are cases of omission. Omissions are generallyabsences of actions, but absences of actions are not generally omissions.22

Notes

1. Danto (1966: 62) holds that being able to do something that one does not in factdo is necessary for forbearing to do that thing. It isn’t clear from his discussionwhat further condition he takes to be required.

2. For similar examples, see Green (1980: 196), Vermazen (1985: 103), and Walton(1980: 322).

3. Smith (1986: 14) offers an analysis of refraining that resembles Brand’s butrequires that some mental action be performed in order to prevent oneself fromdoing the thing one refrains from doing. Moore (1979) rejects Brand’s view butmaintains that deciding not to A is a necessary condition for refraining fromA-ing, and Bach (2010: 52–54) likewise takes such a decision to be necessary.(Throughout this paper, I’ll use ‘to A’, ‘to B’, ‘A-ing’, ‘B-ing’, and so forth asstand-ins for verbs or verb phrases indicating actions, such as ‘to touch the object’or ‘touching the object’.)

4. Walton (1980: 322) makes this point with a case slightly different from the one Ipresent here.

5. I discuss in section 3 several different views of act-individuation.6. Fischer and Ravizza take all of the cases of not acting that they discuss to be

instances of omission. I’ll follow suit in this section, even if some of the caseswould be better said to be instances of refraining or forbearance.

7. Some of my comments here are drawn from Clarke (2011), where I also discusswhat Fischer and Ravizza take to be the consequences involved in complexomissions.

8. Mele (2000: 451–52) makes this point about Fischer and Ravizza’s view.

9. Fischer and Ravizza discuss a case in which an agent walking along a beach seesa child struggling in the water but refrains from jumping in to save the child. Theycount the agent’s “failure to jump into the water and head toward the strugglingchild” (1998: 136) as a simple, bodily omission. Your not swimming in the oceanis an equally good candidate.

What Is an Omission? 141

10. Dowe (2009: 33) reports that “The Australian Police Force records failures toattend [assigned court sessions] as occurring where the attending should haveoccurred.”

11. Why not: if x fully constitutes y, then x and y have the same causes and effects?Were such a principle plausible, nonreductive materialism about the mentalwould too easily escape the exclusion problem. (Thanks to Carolina Sartoriofor suggesting this rationale for the principle as formulated in the text.)

12. While Vermazen, who advances this approach, calls the omissions to which it isapplicable “negative acts,” Davidson and Varzi, who also endorse it, both insistthat the negativity is semantic and not ontological. In favor of the latter view, wemight observe that we don’t call a non-planet a negative object.

13. The example is from Mele (1997: 232), though he employs it for a differentpurpose.

14. If there is nothing at all that is one’s refraining in such a case, why say that thereis a negative act? Vermazen seems led to this claim because, he takes it, in thesecases the predicate ‘acted’ is true of the agent. But even this is doubtful.

15. Varzi (2006: 134) makes a similar point.16. Whether a given practical consideration favors performing a certain action,

and whether an action is performed for a certain reason, can apparentlydepend on how the action is described. The fact that walking at a nor-mal clip would tire me out might be a reason for walking slowly, and Imight walk slowly for this reason, while this consideration isn’t a reason towalk. We should nevertheless not say that I performed two acts of walking.Still, walking isn’t a way of not jogging, as walking slowly is a way of walking.And Al’s goal of spending time with Sue isn’t a reason for his omitting in somespecific way to jog. That goal is sufficiently independent, in this case, from anyreasons for which Al might have decided against jogging that we should resistidentifying the omission with the action.

17. Thomson’s argument for her claim is that we can’t find a place among eventsfor putative acts of omission; in particular, we can’t give a plausible account oftheir temporal and causal relations to other events, and of what events they haveas parts and are parts of. The account seems easy to supply in some cases. I’veindicated when and where the child’s not moving during a certain interval takesplace and what some of its causal relations are. It is part of the child’s playinghide and seek on this occasion, and it has her holding still for portions of thatinterval as parts.

18. “Absences are spooky things, and we’d do best not to take them seriously. Butabsences of absences are no problem” (Lewis 2004: 283).

19. There’s much more to say on this point, but I lack the space to say it here.20. Bach (2010: 54) mentions this last sort of case.21. Siegler (1968: 105) suggests this view.22. I’m very grateful to Pete Graham, Bennett Helm, Michael McKenna, Al Mele,

and Carolina Sartorio for thoughtful comments on earlier versions of this paper.I also want to thank students in my Spring 2010 seminar on omissions for helpfuldiscussion.

142 Randolph Clarke

References

Anscombe, G.E.M. 1963. Intention, 2nd edition. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Austin, J.L. 1979. “Ifs and Cans.” In Philosophical Papers, 3rd edition, ed. J.O. Urmson and

G.J. Warnock, 205–232. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Bach, Kent. 2010. “Refraining, Omitting, and Negative Acts.” In A Companion to the Philosophy

of Action, ed. Timothy O’Connor and Constantine Sandis, 50–57. Oxford: Blackwell.Bennett, Jonathan. 1988. Events and Their Names. Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett.Brand, Myles. 1971. “The Language of Not Doing.” American Philosophical Quarterly 8: 45–53.Broome, John. 2001. “Are Intentions Reasons? And How Should We Cope with Incommen-

surable Values?” In Practical Rationality and Preference, ed. Christopher Morris andArthur Ripstein, 98–120. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Clarke, Randolph. 2010. “Intentional Omissions.” Nous 44: 158–77.———. 2011. “Omissions, Responsibility, and Symmetry.” Philosophy and Phenomenological

Research 82: 594–624.Danto, Arthur. 1966. “Freedom and Forbearance.” In Freedom and Determinism, ed. Keith

Lehrer, 45–63. New York: Random House.Davidson, Donald. 1980. “Actions, Reasons, and Causes.” In Essays on Actions and Events,

3-19. Oxford: Clarendon Press.———. 1985. “Reply to Bruce Vermazen.” In Essays on Davidson: Actions and Events, ed. Bruce

Vermazen and Merrill B. Hintikka, 217–21. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Dowe, Phil. 2009. “Absences, Possible Causation, and the Problem of Non-Locality.” Monist

92: 23–40.Feinberg, Joel. 1984. The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law, Vol. 1: Harm to Others. New York:

Oxford University Press.Fischer, John Martin. 1985–86. “Responsibility and Failure.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian

Society 86: 251–70.Fischer, John Martin and Mark Ravizza. 1998. Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral

Responsibility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Goldman, Alvin I. 1970. A Theory of Human Action. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.Green, O.H. 1980. “Killing and Letting Die.” American Philosophical Quarterly 17: 195–204.Hall, Ned. 2004. “Two Concepts of Causation.” In Causation and Counterfactuals, ed. John

Collins, Ned Hall, and L.A. Paul, 225–76. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Lewis, David. 1986. “Causation by Omission,” Postscript D to “Causation”. In Philosophical

Papers, Vol. 2, 189–93. New York: Oxford University Press.———. 2004. “Void and Object.” In Causation and Counterfactuals, ed. John Collins, Ned Hall,

and L.A. Paul, 277–90. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.McGrath, Sarah. 2005. “Causation by Omission: A Dilemma.” Philosophical Studies 123:

125-48.Mele, Alfred R. 1997. “Agency and Mental Action.” Philosophical Perspectives 11: 231–49.———. 2000. “Reactive Attitudes, Reactivity, and Omissions.” Philosophy and Phenomenological

Research 61: 447–52.Moore, Robert E. 1979. “Refraining.” Philosophical Studies 36: 407–24.Siegler, Frederick Adrian. 1968. “Omissions.” Analysis 28: 98–106.Smith, Patricia G. 1986. “Ethics and Action Theory on Refraining: A Familiar Refrain in Two

Parts.” Journal of Value Inquiry 20: 3–17.———. 1990. “Contemplating Failure: The Importance of Unconscious Omission.” Philosoph-

ical Studies 59: 159–76.———. 2005. “Feinberg and the Failure to Act.” Legal Theory 11: 237–50.Strunk, William, Jr. and E.B. White. 1979. The Elements of Style, 3rd edition. New York:

Macmillan.Thomson, Judith Jarvis. 1977. Acts and Other Events. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.

What Is an Omission? 143

Varzi, Achille C. 2006. “The Talk I Was Supposed to Give . . . .” In Modes of Existence: Papersin Ontology and Philosophical Logic, ed. Andrea Bottani and Richard Davies, 131–51.Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag.

Vermazen, Bruce. 1985. “Negative Acts.” In Essays on Davidson: Actions and Events, ed. BruceVermazen and Merrill B. Hintikka, 93–104. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

von Wright, Georg Henrik. 1963. Norm and Action: A Logical Enquiry. New York: HumanitiesPress.

Walton, Douglas N. 1980. “Omitting, Refraining and Letting Happen.” American PhilosophicalQuarterly 17: 319–26.

Williams, Bernard. 1995. “Acts and Omissions, Doing and Not Doing.” In Virtues and Reasons:Philippa Foot and Moral Theory, ed. Rosalind Hursthouse, Gavin Lawrence, andWarren Quinn, 331–40. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Zimmerman, Michael J. 1981. “Taking Some of the Mystery Out of Omissions.” SouthernJournal of Philosophy 19: 541–54.