Complexity of Action

In considering action and consequence, I have taken too narrow a consideration of actions - as if any single action is entirely an isolated phenomenon.

In some instances, I expect that there are unitary actions that can be considered in isolation, but in others, I expect that one action necessitates other actions. And just as ethics should consider all consequences of a given action, it should also include every action in a chain of events, or what may be considered to be a course of interconnected actions.

Most obviously, undertaking a given action may require other actions to be taken in advance of the action in question. The example of building a fire involves not only the act of igniting the fire, but also of gathering the material that is to be burned. IF these actions are not performed in advance, the action itself cannot be performed. And because they are performed for the sake of doing something else, the entire "bundle" of actions must be considered.

It also seems that there is a connection between an action and certain actions that follow it - but there is no strict causal connection. Given the same example (building a fire), it can be reasonably said that the actions of extinguishing the flame and disposing of the remains are actions that are related to the primary action, but there is no causal relationship between them (I cannot build a fire without gathering fuel, but I can certainly build a fire and not bother to dispose of the ashes afterward).

The sense that the following actions are necessary is a matter of ethics: that a person who starts a fire is to be held responsible for these other actions - specifically, that it is "right" of them to do so, and wrong of them to fail to do so. However, this is subject to argument: it is a matter of "should" rather than "must"

There may be instances in which a following action is strictly required, not merely a matter of expectation, though I cannot immediately think of an example that does not seem entirely ludicrous, and not entirely accurate (they are most often consequences than separate actions).

The concept of causation between an action and the action that follows it is quite often erroneous in this regard. It is (mis)used to justify undertaking an action because another action was taken. For example, the justification for retaliatory action (because they attacked us, we were compelled to attack them) suggests that the second party's attack on the first was inevitable, when in reality, it was a separate and independent decision (the retaliatory attack did not "have to" be made - the retaliator decided to undertake the return attach, and that decision is not bundled with the first, but merits a separate ethical deliberation).

And so, when considering an action, we must consider all other actions that are must be undertaken to perform that action as part of that action. Any action that should be undertaken, but is not strictly necessary, involves a separate decision, hence a separate evaluation, though it may have an impact on the evaluation of a primary action (if building a fire is deemed unethical because of the likelihood it will burn out of control, then accepting the separate action of tending the fire decreases this likelihood and diminishes the "wrongness" of the initial action).