Act / Omission

We can distinguish between a) what someone did and b) what they did not do, but on reflection we can also see that the distinction needs to be further refined. Beginning with a), the notion of doing something may itself be further divided into doing something intentionally and voluntarily, doing it intentionally but non-voluntarily, and doing it unintentionally. In the last case we might then say it was not really something I did, reserving the idea of doing for intentional agency, but more usefully we may say there is a difference between meaning to do something and doing it without meaning to, as for example when looking for one’s fallen glasses one steps on them inadvertently. Turning to b) now excluding from it things one did unintentionally, we have again a broad category that needs to be further divided. There are indefinitely (in fact infinitely) many things anyone did not do or is not doing, and this is so unrestricted that there is really no term for it. Among such things, however, are omissions, understood either as intentional withholdings (deciding not to send a message), or as things which one ought to have done but did not intentionally fail to do (forgetting to send a message). The distinctions between acts and omissions (and between wilful, and forgetful or neglectful omissions) is important in ethics and in law. There is a causal difference between 1) giving a drug so as to bring about someone’s death and 2) not giving a drug knowing that without it they will die, but are the act and the omission morally different? Some people think that in general actions are more morally significant than omissions but this may be due to equating it with the distinction intention and inadvertence.