Abstract

The German philosopher Franz Brentano is usually portrayed not only as one of the founding fathers of the so-called phenomenological tradition but also as having played a significant role in the history of contemporary ethics, through his theory of value and will. In spite of this, Brentano offered no proper theory of action in the vein of later attempts by direct or indirect followers. His ethics is basically about feelings, and feelings can be ethically right or wrong even if they intrinsically involve no reference to action. This is so even in the case of desire: for example, you can desire that the weather gets warmer (Montague 2017: 113). However, Brentano’s account of volitions does make reference to action. ¹ Insofar as Brentano bequeathed us a fully developed theory of the will of his own, it can be said that he indirectly contributed to the theory of action. This is particularly true of his critique of free will, which this chapter aims to discuss and explore.