Patrick Fleming 
Forthcoming in Journal of the History of Philosophy
Penultimate version, to quote please see published version       
  
 Berkeley’s Immaterialist Account of Action

1.) Introduction
	A number of critics have argued that Berkeley’s metaphysics can offer no tenable account of human agency. Jonathan Dancy, in his recent introduction to the Principles, singles it out as one of the major problems for Berkeley’s metaphysics saying “Berkeley has the gravest difficulties in making room for physical actions in his system” and that he knows of no satisfactory answer to the problem. A number of other authors have made similar claims. The argument for the thesis runs as follows. Consider the movement of your arm. If it is to be an action and not a figment of your imagination it must occur in the sensible realm. However, the nature of the sensible world is not up to any individual human mind. Humans only passively receive ideas of the arm’s movement through space. As such, the cause of the sensation is God’s will. It is God who brings about the changing state of affairs in the real world. All that man can do is impotently will that his arm move.
	For philosophers sympathetic to Berkeley’s project this is an undesirable conclusion. The above argument seems to deprive Berkeley of any account of non-divine causation in the sensible world. Berkeley maintains that materialist accounts of causation are confused because matter is professed to be inactive. At least spirits are active substances, which we have some evidence of from our own experience. He takes this as one of the comparative advantages of his immaterialism over the materialism of Locke and others. If the above attack on human causation is sound, his metaphysics is equally confused about causation. Furthermore, Berkeley has concerns closer to his own heart to reject this conclusion. It undercuts Berkeley’s express intention to defend common sense and Christian religion. Berkeley wants to speak with the vulgar and the vulgar talk as if they act. As a Christian he must make sense of moral responsibility and the problem of evil. The skepticism and atheism he so despised are now threats in new forms. More straightforwardly, in many places in his writing he explicitly asserts that human beings do act. For these reasons, I take it as an issue of first importance to Berkeley scholarship to offer an answer to this problem.
	In this paper I will argue that Berkeley does have a coherent account of action. It is by no means sophisticated, but I believe he fares well against his philosophical contemporaries. Berkeley believes only spirits are active and that the sensible realm is entirely inactive. This eliminates the problem regarding how to cross the boundary between mind and body that plague Descartes, Locke, and others. On Berkeley’s account man exercises his will and, under proper conditions, God makes sure the object of the willing is noticed by other agents properly placed to be effected by it. However, we should not understand God as performing discrete acts of the will that accompany an agent’s willing. Rather, God is the sustainer of the world. God maintains causal laws that insure humans can act. God sets down these laws at the moment of creation, which is compatible with allowing humans the ability to act. 
It is compatible because some of the laws set down by God have roughly the following form: act of will with the right content plus causal laws and appropriate arrangement of sensible ideas, results in sensible ideas of the action being performed. Here, as elsewhere in Berkeley’s system, God plays a role analogous to that of matter and natural laws in the materialist system. Any account of agency must offer some mechanism to accompany the will to bring about the change in the world.  Berkeley asks us, ‘which is better: relying on a powerless substrate or the will and design of the Almighty’? Given that Berkeley believes he has shown matter to be a manifest repugnancy, he can reasonably think he has offered significant arguments to show why his option is superior.
	It must be admitted though that Berkeley does claim that God is the cause of all things. In the Dialogues Philonous argues that the Holy Scriptures support immaterialism because “In them God is represented as the sole and immediate Author of all those effects, which some heathens and philosophers are wont to ascribe to Nature” (Dia. 236). Berkeley also likes to quote Acts 17:28, which reads, “For in Him we live and move and have our being.” Superficially, these may seem to indicate that God is the only agent. However, in these remarks Berkeley is claiming that God is the creator and sustainer of the world. God underwrites all existence and all things only continue to exist because God allows it. This is compatible with human agency. A materialist who accepts determinism might say that matter and causal laws determine all things. Yet, this need not be a denial of the possibility of human action. Berkeley is in an analogous situation. 
	I proceed by first offering a brief, bare bones account of what is required of a theory of action and show how this might present a problem for Berkeley. Then I look at three interpretations of Berkeley and set out my own view in arguing against them. First, I discuss C.C. W. Taylor’s argument that Berkeley cannot allow for human action. I aim to show that Berkeley’s position does offer an acceptable immaterialist account of action. Following that I examine Robert Imlay’s claim that for Berkeley action involves no sensible dimension and is purely volitional. Imlay’s interpretation is interesting, but is not textually well motivated and introduces more problems than it solves. Next, I consider Jonathan Bennett’s claim that Berkeley is actually offering an occasionalist theory of action. I think there are clear interpretative reasons not to attribute that view to Berkeley. In closing I suggest that Berkeley may offer a more compelling account of human action than his materialist rivals do. In the end I hope to show that Berkeley can offer a theory of action, maintain many of our common intuitions about action, and provide a defensible solution to the problem of evil.
2.) Agency Theory and Berkeley’s Apparent Problem
	Specifying the exact conditions for an acceptable theory of action is beyond the scope of this paper. Instead, we want an account that is fairly uncontroversial. First, we do not want to beg any substantive questions. Second, I do not think we should expect philosophers in the modern period to have accounts as complex as present day theorists. The issue is whether Berkeley has a passable theory of action, not whether he has an insightful or true account of action. So, I will list some general features that might be refined in a number of different ways. 
One undeniable feature of action is that it is a special type of causation. As such, it is the bringing about of some event or state of affairs in the world. So, action is roughly one type of causal relationship between events. What makes action unique amongst kinds of causal relationships is that some aspect of the antecedent event must have the consequent event in view in some sense. This means that the mental states of the agent must be non-accidentally linked to the resulting change. A distinction along these lines is necessary to separate actions from mere happenings. We need to account for the difference between a man collapsing from exhaustion and a man intentionally lying down for a rest. Whether this means that the agent’s mental states must have the right sort of causal history or that they must somehow guide the production of the action we need not settle here. For convenience, I will say the agent must have an intention to produce the action. I will leave this notion of intention unanalyzed, but it is meant to indicate that any account of action must make mention of the agent’s mental states. 
Hardly anyone thinks that the mental states alone produce action. They must somehow be connected to bodily, or for Berkeley sensible, movements. The exact nature of this relationship is enormously complicated. In fact, there may be no causal relationship. Epiphenomenalism is a live option, but that is not the issue here. Rather, we need to see whether Berkeley can allow for any account at all of this relationship.
It should also be noted that actions, as types of events, could be described in a number of different ways. For instance, they might be distinguished in a coarse or fine-grained manner. The action of driving to the office consists of a number of other actions. To get to the office one has to get in the car, turn the key, pull into traffic, and so on. All these steps can legitimately be called actions. There might be some macro-event that many micro-events constitute. The individuation of actions need not concern us here, but it seems acceptable for a theorist to offer more than one way to classify actions. 
The great British Empiricists did not spend a great deal of time developing a positive account of human action. Locke is primarily concerned with how we develop the idea of power. He remarks that sensation gives us only a “very imperfect and obscure Idea of active Power” but the mind receives the idea “clearer from reflection on its own Operations”. Famously Hume denied we had any justified belief in causation, and by extension action, because we could not copy such an idea from any impression. In a similar vein, Berkeley says we can have no idea of spirit or active being, but we have some notion of it from our own case. Thomas Reid may not only be apologizing for his own indulgence, but for his predecessors’ work when he writes of active power, “That this term, so well understood by the vulgar, has been darkened by philosophers”. Berkeley darkens it by not spelling out his view explicitly. I aim to show that he understood it in a coherent way.
The problem of human agency arises for Berkeley because God is so intimately tied to all parts of his world. One worries that since God underlies everything, there is nothing left for human beings to do. This is illustrated by Berkeley’s argument for God’s existence. He maintains that all causation is mental, being produced by spirits, souls, or wills. He claims that all other kinds of causation are incomprehensible. For instance, the physical bumping-into-each-other model was deeply confused on at least two levels. Material causation is unintelligible in the first instance because matter itself is an evidentially unsupported and confused concept. Secondly, since material substances were purported to be inactive, they could not possibly produce change. Berkeley takes the inconceivability of other types of causation as an argument for his theistic idealism. He reasons that we are aware of changes in the sensible realm. Furthermore, we know that some of these changes do not depend on our will. Given that material causation is impossible, change must be the result of some other spirit, namely God. Berkeley’s immaterialism brings God into each and every interaction we have with the world. As he proudly claims, “Alas we need only open our eyes to see the sovereign Lord of all things with a more full and clear view, than we do any one of our fellow-creatures” (Prin. 148).
The problem becomes more pronounced when Berkeley tries to insure that there is one objective world by resting reality on God’s will. Berkeley informs us that “I find I can excite ideas in my mind at pleasure … But whatever power I may have over my own thoughts, I find the ideas actually perceived by sense have not a like dependence on my will” (Prin. 28-29). What exactly ‘a like dependence’ means will be a central issue of this paper, but it is clear that Berkeley is pointing to a distinction between human power in the imagination and the world. Berkeley needs to insure that there is one world, which will not allow individuals to walk through walls or float through space as they please. He responds that concerning the senses “the ideas imprinted on them are not creatures of my will”(Prin. 29). He needs to place constraints on human power that match the limitations we are all so familiar with from experience. This leads Berkeley to claim “the ideas imprinted on the senses by the Author of Nature are called real things” (Prin. 33). This seems to imply that God determines the course of all real things. At first blush, it seems to follow that humans do not have any power in the sensible realm. On this reading, unless God decides to bring it about, my will to move my arm is either impotent or results in a daydream.
However, it should be pointed out that Berkeley often confidently asserts that human beings do act. Berkeley says that in action man has “no other object, than barely the motion of the limbs of his body” (Prin. 147). So, we need to see if we can manage this apparent contradiction. Before we begin this process let me offer a tentative explanation of how this problem arose. Though wide-ranging in his other pursuits, Berkeley is rather single-minded in his philosophical writing. He often seems to be focused primarily on refuting materialism. It is plausible to think his immaterialism was developed to solve the problems he sees in materialism. In the Principles and the Dialogues materialism is the major competitor for immaterialism. This might result in Berkeley wearing philosophical blinders, which do not allow him to notice certain tensions in his system that need further detailed explanations. His critics claim these tensions are irresolvable, but I believe he has the tools to handle the problem.
3.) Taylor’s Argument
	In his essay “Action and Inaction in Berkeley” Taylor claims that Berkeley’s metaphysics “allows no role whatever for human agency” because humans “are absolute in the internal realm, impotent in the external realm”. Taylor makes his case by discussing many of the same passages I have alluded to in my presentation of the problem. Taylor contends that Berkeley can only be saved if one can show that the fact that ideas of sense are independent of our will does not prevent humans from changing the external world. Taylor then considers a possible response that I hinted at earlier. The reply points out that Berkeley only claims that ideas of sense do not have “a like dependence” on a finite will (Prin. 29). This phrase might contrast ‘totally dependent on one’s will’ with ‘partly dependent on one’s will’. On this reading, Berkeley does not say humans are impotent, but only constrained by God’s will, which is more commonly understood as natural laws. Taylor admits that some passages can be read in this fashion, but since they “also fit the anti-Berkelian interpretation, the question of which interpretation is correct cannot be settled by appeal to those passages alone, but must depend on wider considerations”. I certainly agree, but this must be guided by the principle of charity. However, Taylor twice points to passages from Berkeley’s notebooks where he says humans are not capable of action as evidence for his interpretation. Yet, as Taylor admits, the marginal sign + marks both passages, which usually indicates Berkeley gave up the position. If anything, this should count against Taylor’s argument because it is evidence that Berkeley rejected the position.
	At any rate, Taylor argues that this apparent solution only puts off the inevitable. The defense requires that Berkeley’s agent have some control over ideas of sense. The suggestion is that while I cannot will a white wall into a red wall, I can paint the wall red. All I need to do is move from one idea of sense to another in a way sanctioned by natural laws of God’s will. Taylor takes the central question to be whether an agent can initiate causal sequences. He thinks Berkeley cannot allow this because the agent can never have control of the first item in the sequence. He writes, 
<ext>
It is plainly absurd to suggest that I can cause myself to have an idea of sense, as opposed to an idea of imagination, by first causing myself to have another idea of sense which precedes the first in a causal sequence, for in that case the sequence can never start. But if the sequence begins with my causing myself to have an idea over which my control is not limited by the necessity for the prior occurrence of some other idea, then the sequence begins with an idea of imagination.
</ext>

Hence, the distinction between action and imagination collapses. Taylor argues that drawing a distinction between action and imagination based on the fact that bodily movements are publicly observable is of no help. He thinks this only adds to the trouble because it commits one to saying we can effect other’s sensory states by a mere act of the will. Taylor thinks one would have to be a god to have that kind of power.
	This outcome is unsurprising to Taylor because he thinks Berkeley is committed to claiming that God is the only agent. Humans cannot change ideas of sense, they can only will that they change. Sometimes they do change in accordance with a willing, but humans have no means to insure this. Willing is never sufficient, but that is all Berkeley allows human agents. Hence, Berkeley cannot offer an account of action, but only some unsatisfactory replacement.
	As a response to Taylor we might wonder in what sense action requires initiating causal sequences. I think on most readings of this claim it is simply false. Compatibilists, and likely some hard determinists, believe in actions, but do not allow humans the ability to start causal sequences. My reaching for a glass of water may well be the inevitable outcome of some causal sequence initiated long ago. However, under some conditions it might still be my action. All that follows from determinism is that my action is caused. As long as the event is something I do and not something that merely happens to me, it is an action. Strictly speaking, initiating causal chains is not necessary for action.
	However, Taylor might intend this requirement only to apply to our reconstruction of a Berkelian theory of action. The suggestion under consideration is that I can will to have some ideas of sense if I start with some other ideas of sense. I can will that I look out the window if I first start with willing that I turn from the wall to the window. Taylor contends that since I cannot will the first step in the chain I cannot bring the action about. But, what is the first step in the sequence? If it is a willing that results in ideas of sense regarding my turning body, then I can do it on the hypothesis being considered. If it is seeing the wall, I cannot do it and need not do it. Berkeley’s agent just sees the wall and then wills to see something else by turning. We certainly would not assert that a contemporary account of action is incoherent because it required that its agents be placed in a physical world. Similarly, Berkeley’s agent must be placed in an immaterial world in order to act. All that action requires is that the agent can act on some alternatives present to her, not that she creates the alternatives available to her. So in this sense I cannot cause the first step in the chain, but once it is given to me I can act on it. Once God gives me ideas of sense, I can act on these ideas of sense.
	On my interpretation of Berkeley ideas of sense are necessary for action. Ideas of sense are the passive material that undergoes the change brought about by the agent. For there to be action there must be something that absorbs the activity. However, these ideas of sense do not have to prompt the action. On some occasions they might, as when a friend calls your name and you turn your head to look. But, you might turn your head simply because you thought it would be nice to turn your head. Here it is imagination that prompts the action, but you still act on ideas of sense. Our ideas of sense should be understood to include not only our five sensory modalities, but also propioception. Our sense of our own body and spatial location is an idea of sense. So, even an agent placed in a sensory deprivation tank will have the necessary ideas of sense. A non-divine agent must be a sensible being in a sensible world to act in that world.
	The circumstances are not significantly different for any other theory of action. Agents must be in a world to act. This means that at some point a state of affairs or ideas of sense will confront them that they did not choose or create. Even if an agent has an amazing capacity for self-determination, still her initial perceptions will not be up to her. To deny this is to say action is only possible for beings that create the world they face. This is to limit action to action ex nihilo. However, on this account Berkeley is not the only metaphysician who would allocate this power only to God.
	In one sense, action does require initiating a causal sequence. An agent must be able to bring about some state of affairs. The agent’s mental states must appropriately govern his bodily movements. On our hypothesis this is just what God grants. Perhaps, this suggestion is impossible for Berkeley’s metaphysics. Berkeley believes only spirits are active, the sensible world is entirely passive. This seems troubling because if my action is real and not a figment of my imagination it must be possible for other attentive and properly located spirits to notice it. How can my will alone affect other minds? The answer is that it cannot, but Berkeley does not deny this.
	To examine this difficulty I think it will be helpful to consider how we think this process normally happens. Other things being equal, when I move my arm you will perceive the movement of my arm if you are looking at me. The change in the physical matter is objectively there and causal laws insure that properly placed spectators see it. Matter and the laws of vision fill the void between the two agents. This solution is not available to the immaterialist, but an exactly analogous one is. God closes the gap between the two agents by sustaining the world. God does not perform the action, but sustains the connection between my will and the world. On a materialist account matter and causal laws do the trick, for the immaterialist God’s mind does it. God does not move my arm for me, rather he allows for it by creating the means to that end. For the materialist it is I who move my arm, but I could not do so if my nervous system was not in working order. Clearly it is not the nervous system that is performing the action for the materialist. Neither is it God who performs it for the immaterialist.
	Taylor raises this objection by remarking that “the description of someone whose only way of acting is to desire, decide, or intend is totally mysterious”. I take it that he means that it cannot be just by willing that an agent acts. Obviously, wanting or intending do not bring about anything by themselves. So action must be something beyond willing because much of what we will does not produce action. However, Berkeley does not need to say that willing is all there is to action. It is necessary, but not sufficient to produce action. It is perfectly permissible for Berkeley to say that the content of the willing must be in accordance with the causal laws set down by God. I can move my arm by willing because God has set up the world to allow such things. I cannot fly by an effort of the will because God has made such actions impossible in this world. The content of the willing plays a major role in determining whether it gives rise to action or not.
	One might object that even if the willing has the right content what is willed does not come about simply by willing. The willing of my arm to move and a willing of the same content by a man paralyzed do not yield the same result. True, but that does not mean Berkeley has left anything out of his account. There is nothing more to moving your arm than willing it. It does not come off smoothly in all cases because one must be in the right conditions to perform the act. Willing itself is not sufficient, but there is nothing else that the agent does. Berkeley’s agent must hope that God continues to sustain the world, just as we have to hope our nervous systems are working properly. As I said at the outset regarding accounts of action, mental states must in some way be non-accidentally linked to changes in the world. A theory of action does not need to specify what that relation is, that is a project for psychology or philosophy of mind. A theory of action must allow for this relationship in one way or another. Berkeley’s immaterialism allows for it by replacing matter and causal laws with God. 
	God as the sustainer of the world solves two problems for Berkeley’s account of action. First, God’s will make our wills causally efficacious. His will accomplishes this not by performing our actions, but by granting us the capacity to control our bodies in the appropriate way. In this way we do act simply by willing and there is no extra component we add. Second, God’s will insures that appropriate spectators notice the objects of our willings. It should be noted that God solves both problems in exactly the same way. In creating and sustaining the world, God decrees a set of natural laws. A subset of these laws allows for human agency. Which entails, given the existence of other laws, that spectators can become aware of them. God does not assess my willing then make changes in the ideas of sense of all other agents that will be effected. Rather when God creates the world He creates all objects of existence and the powers that govern them. For religious reasons, perhaps the Bible passages discussed earlier, Berkeley takes it that the world depends upon God’s continuing support. Regardless, to spirits God grants some power to perform actions of their own. It is important to see that God’s intention does not change to match the human agent’s will. God’s intention in creation includes, at least, what we suppose a perfected physical theory would say about the world. His intention though need not mention making my arm move or giving others ideas of sense. Instead, God gives me the power to do those things myself. 
One might object that there is an important disanalogy between causally determined matter and God. God is an agent with intentions. Matter and natural laws do not have intentions and are not agents. It might be thought that this makes all the difference. A critic might point to the following example used by Harry Frankfurt to defend his account of action:
<ext>
A driver whose automobile is coasting downhill in virtue of gravitational forces alone may be entirely satisfied with its speed and direction, and so he may never intervene to adjust its movement in any way. This would not show that the movement of the automobile did not occur under his guidance. What counts is that he was prepared to intervene if necessary, and that he was in position to do so more or less effectively.
</ext>

 Our intuition here tells us that the driver is performing the action. Isn’t God in exactly the same position in Berkeley’s world? Not quite. Humans are not mindless hunks of matter. Replace the driver in a car with a father watching his child play. The father is free to effectively intervene whenever he sees fit. However, when he does not intervene, it is the child who acts, not he. The fact that God is conscious and could intervene definitely makes a difference for moral responsibility, but it does not make a difference for the metaphysics of agency. 
4.) Imlay’s Interpretation
	Robert Imlay offers a partial defense of Berkeley in his paper “Berkeley and Action”. Imlay develops an interpretation that has Berkeley rejecting many of our common intuitions about the concept of action. Imlay contends that Berkeley reduces action to the mental act of volition. Imlay thinks this maneuver is successful in resolving the original problem, but since mental content is not entirely determinate volition cannot replace action. I will ignore this worry and focus on whether Imlay’s overall interpretative strategy is successful. Imlay’s interpretation is thought provoking, but it has serious flaws.
	Imlay writes that Berkeley “sometimes rejects the view that bodily movements brought about by me constitute an essential element of most, if not all, of my actions”. Rather all I do is will and it is God who causes the action. I do not move my arm it is moved by God. Imlay differs from Taylor, in that Imlay takes Berkeley to be offering a revision of our ordinary concept of action. On this account, a man who looks at a woman with lust in his heart has actually committed the sin of adultery. Having the intention or volition is the action regardless of what happens in the sensible world. Imlay contends that Berkeley “rejects a large batch of our intuitions concerning what analytically entails what”. However, this, in itself, is not a definitive reason to reject the theory. Philosophical theories often have to give revised accounts of concepts. For instance, to combat skepticism a philosopher might reject the intuition that knowledge is closed under known entailment. For Imlay’s Berkeley, volition is not what we mean in speaking of action, but it is what we should mean. This is a cost for such theories, but they might have other virtues that overcome these difficulties. Such accounts are more plausible where we suspect that common sense itself is not entirely coherent.
	This is an interesting approach. Especially, given Berkeley’s rather strained relation with common sense. Berkeley claims that he wants to “think with the learned and speak with the vulgar” and that his immaterialism is more acceptable to the vulgar than materialism. (Prin. 51, italics in the original) Imlay addresses this point saying it does not rule out cases where both Berkeley and the materialists “reject a plausible view in the name of science or whatever”. That seems all right as far as it goes, but we ought to inquire a little further into what it means to speak with the vulgar. I believe that Berkeley wants to avoid an error theory for the discourse of the folk. He will not accept metaphysical claims that have the implication that most of what the vulgar say is false. He believes his immaterialism makes most common sense beliefs true. This is not the case for materialism. For instance, Locke’s treatment of secondary qualities makes ascription of colors to objects false. The sights, sounds, and smells that fill our world are not real in the fullest sense. Berkeley’s immaterialism brings secondary qualities back into reality. Of course, Berkeley’s theory makes them true in an unexpected way, but that is fine because the folk have no account of truth-makers. The vulgar have no metaphysical beliefs about what makes roses red and snow white, but they do believe these statements are true. Immaterialism grants this claim. One might think that Berkeley’s claim that only spirits and ideas exist would make most folk discourse false. Berkeley disagrees. It just makes them true in a different way. Berkeley takes it as a merit of immaterialism that most common sense beliefs remain true on its account. I think we should partially assess an interpretation of Berkeley along these lines. If the interpretation makes a large section of folk discourse on a subject false, that is evidence that Berkeley probably did not hold it.
	Imlay’s interpretation respects this standard in some ways, but not in others. The folk can still say ‘I went shopping’ or ‘We had a picnic’. If they take such claims to mean that they produced motion, then that belief is false. This is problematic, but Imlay is well aware of it. More troubling is that all sorts of disavowals of action will be false. Any time an agent has a volition they have performed the action, whether or not it takes place in the sensible world. This is brought out when Imlay writes that if Descartes lusted in his heart, he can be told “that he committed adultery with a servant –with whom he consequently has a daughter- whether or not she was penetrated by him”. This is not to speak with the vulgar. Furthermore, it also suggests that laws of nature can be violated. Apparently on Imlay’s account, agents in Berkeley’s world can procreate without sexual activity. Pious as he might be, not even Berkeley could accept that.
	Besides these worries, Imlay’s reading is not well supported by the text. His main textual support for this claim is Dialogues 217-220. In this passage motion is seen not to be action and Philonous challenges Hylas to conceive of any type of action besides volition. Hylas admits that he cannot. Imlay concludes that “I do not stir my finger, rather it is stirred … my finger is stirred by God”.  However, this reading is not supported by the text. Hylas explicitly says “when I stir my finger, it remains passive; but my will which produced the motion, is active” (Dia. 217). What is being denied is that the finger, or the collection of sensory ideas that constitute the finger, is active. Berkeley clearly intends my willing to produce the motion. It is just that the motion is not the action, rather it is a product of the action. Imlay is right when he says we must look to the will to find what is active, but that does not entail that my will does not produce the change. To deny this is simply not to take Berkeley at his word and we need much stronger interpretative or philosophical reasons to do so. 
5.) Bennett’s Occasionalism and the Problem of Evil
We now need to address the problem of evil. I will explicate Berkeley’s answer by disputing Jonathan Bennett’s recent interpretation of Berkeley as an occasionalist like Malebranche. This interpretation seems strange since Berkeley explicitly states “We move our Legs our selves, ‘tis we that will their movement. Herein I differ from Malbranch”. Bennett argues that since Berkeley understands sensation as totally passive humans cannot be the cause of movements. Despite Berkeley protests otherwise, Bennett claims that Berkeley was “deeply committed” to the view that “we do not move our legs; rather, we will that our legs should move, and then, usually, our legs move”. I have already attempted to undercut the philosophical reasons for thinking Berkeley is committed to this. Now I would like to consider the interpretative question more directly. I do not believe Bennett’s interpretation fits the text.
We have already discussed many of the relevant passages. I will focus on two more; most other commentators overlook the first of these. In the Dialogues when trying to explain why God does not use matter to act Philonous says, “I never use an instrument to move my finger, because it is done by volition”. To further explain this view he says
<ext>
The will of an omnipotent spirit is no sooner exerted than executed, without the application of means, which, if they are employed by inferior agents, it is not upon account of any real efficacy that is in them, or necessary aptitude to produce any effect, but merely in compliance with the laws of Nature, or those conditions prescribed to them by the first cause, who is himself above all limitation or prescription whatsoever. (Dia. 219)
</ext>

It is clear that inferior agents include human beings. They act by willing, but require instruments to bring about their willings. Instruments will include carts to tote wood and hammers to drill nails. However, we might also say they include the constitutive means of God sustaining the non-accidental connection between mental states and some ideas of sense. In this passage we have Berkeley fairly clearly stating that humans are agents and offering some account of how that comes about.
	Now let us turn to the key passage for this debate, which also illustrates how Berkeley thinks he can deal with the problem of evil. The problem of evil is a notoriously difficult problem for any theist. Berkeley, perhaps, feels it more keenly than others do because God is so intimately tied to all things in the immaterialist system. After arguing that materialist faces the same problem as the immaterialist Philonous adds
<ext>
I farther observe, that sin or moral turpitude doth not consist in the outward physical action or motion, but in the internal deviation of the will from the laws of reason and religion … Since therefore sin doth not consist in the physical action, the making God an immediate cause of all such actions, is not making him the author of sin. Lastly, I have no where said that God is the only agent who produces all motions in bodies. It is true, I have denied there are any other agents besides spirits: but this is very consistent with allowing to thinking rational beings, in production of motions, the use of limited powers, ultimately indeed derived from God, but immediately under the direction of their own wills, which is sufficient to entitle them all the guilt of their actions. (Dia. 237)
</ext>

It seems here that Berkeley is explicitly saying humans can act. Bennett disagrees. He claims that here Berkeley offers two replies; (1) God is the cause of all physical action, but sin does not consist in physical action. (2) Sin is produced by actions of rational beings distinct from God. Bennett argues that these two claims would be contradictory if Berkeley asserted them both. In (1) God is the cause, in (2) He is not. However, Bennett contends that Berkeley is not asserting (2), but only claiming it is consistent with his position to accept (2). He concludes the second reply “is a safety move, I suppose, a fall-back position to be occupied only if he has to give up his view that volitions are our only actions”. 
	This is not a plausible reading. How can (2) be consistent with the position if it can only be asserted once a view Berkeley is deeply committed to is given up? A better reading might be to treat something like (1) as a conditional. Berkeley might mean that even if God is the cause of all physical action that does not make him guilty because sin is a matter of intention or motive. However, even if we grant Bennett his reading of the first response it does not follow that there is a contradiction. Berkeley clearly states he has nowhere said God is the only agent in the sensible world. In fact, he says agents can have “limited power” for the “production of motions”. Of course, Berkeley only says this is “very consistent” with his position, which is not exactly an avowal of the claim. However, it would be a mistake to read too much into this. Berkeley’s piety keeps him from ever disparaging the power of God. Berkeley would not deny that God is the cause of all things. It is open to Berkeley to say that God is the cause of the world which is the macro-event consisting of all things that happen. God caused humanity to exist so, in some sense, He is the cause of all things they do. Human agency is derivative of God’s. Humans are agents only in so far as God is there to sustain the world. There is no contradiction when the claims are restricted to their proper domains. God is the only agent when the event considered is the world and the ultimate reason for everything. Man is an agent within that event due to God’s allowing him limited power.
	However, the ultimate moral responsibility still falls to God. One wonders how humans can be guilty of sin and deserving of punishment, while God is virtuous and deserving of praise. The answer on Berkeley’s account is that God has done nothing wrong, while mankind has. In the Principles Berkeley maintains there is no problem of evil. He claims humans feel pain because “the state we are in at present is indispensably necessary to our well-being”. (Prin. 153)  In short, discord is harmony poorly understood. Our current vision is too narrow to see the good that will come. One might object, but if there is no evil why are sinners condemned? Well, because they believe, or should believe given their evidence, that their actions are evil. Sin comes from wills not aiming to bring about the final end that God wills. Humans cannot see the grand scheme so some of our willings may not be in accordance with God’s. Given our limited knowledge, we can sin. The fact that unbeknownst to us it works out for the best does not excuse our failings. One might find it hard to accept that the amount of evil in this world is absolutely necessary. However, we should note that this line of argument is one J.L.  Mackie deems an ‘adequate solution’ to the problem of evil in his classic treatment of the subject. It is a bullet to bite, but it is one Berkeley can bite with perfect consistency.
6.) The Advantage of an Immaterialist Account of Action
 	I would like to close by briefly mentioning what seems to be a clear advantage of an immaterialist account of action. Dualists have to make sense of the causal relationship between two radically different kinds of substances. If mental states are non-corporeal, how could they interact with physical things? This is a question that modern philosophers did not make much progress on. Descartes’ infamous interaction at the pineal gland seems far from a satisfactory answer. The occasionalism of Malebranche only looks plausible when compared to the Cartesian difficulties surrounding the mind-body problem. Locke, while clearly unhappy with many elements of Cartesianism, does not offer any clear account of the relationship at all. And there is good reason for these difficulties. It seems that if the physical world is a closed system, such interaction is impossible.
	One might hope that any form of monism would cure the problem. However, present day materialists still are faced with the problem of mental causation. Many of us believe that our beliefs and desires actually play some causal role in the production of action. Given that it seems unlikely that our best scientific explanations will make use of such concepts, it is notoriously difficult to work out just how this can be possible. There are several interesting theories on offer, but none has definitively solved the problem.
	For the immaterialist, all these problems drop away. There is no mysterious interaction. Minds are the only substance. Nor are we faced with the problem of how to incorporate folk psychology into a much more powerful and complicated theoretical framework. Minds produce change through willing because God has granted them that power. One might doubt that this is an explanation at all because it does not give us a more comprehensible grip on our world. Yet, it does not suffer from the obvious problems of explaining the non-accidental relationship between intentions and action that plague many other theories. 
	In action theory, as elsewhere in Berkeley’s system, both the theoretical costs and benefits of accepting the position are quite high. The benefit is removing the endless mysteries regarding the interaction between mind and body. The costs are that it is simply too incredible to believe. However, if we reject Berkeley’s immaterialism it should not be on the grounds that he cannot make sense of action. His theory suffers from no implicit philosophical inconsistencies or confusions. Furthermore, his account is perfectly compatible with folk explanations of action. In fact, it might be the only philosophical theory that is.