Human Action

The distinctive and crucial feature in the study of man is the concept of action. Human action is defined as purposeful behaviour. The purpose of a man's act is his end; the desire to acheive this end is the man's motive for instituting the action.

It is this fundamental truth - the Axiom of Human Action - and the logical implications of it, that the entire realm of praxeology and its best developed subdivision, economics, are based on.

Consider the relationship between praxeology and other disciplines:

• Psychology - why men choose various ends.
  
• Philosophy of Ethics - what men's ends should be.
  
• Technology - how to use means to arrive at ends.
  
• History - what men's ends are and have been, and how men have used means to attain them.
  
• Praxeology - the formal implications of the fact that men act to attain various chosen ends.
  

Economics is the best developed subdivision of praxeology. Attempts have been made to formulate a logical theory of war and violent action, a theory of games has been elaborated, and we have the beginnings of a theory of voting.

Clear implications of the Axiom of Human Action:

• Human action can only be undertaken by individual "actors". Only individuals have ends and can act to attain them. There are no such things as ends of or actions by "groups", "collectives" or "States" which do not take place as actions by various specific individuals.
  
• Human action is the transforming of elements of an environment into a new arrangement in order to acheive ends. With reference to any given act, the environment may be divided into two parts - the means: elements of the environment which men can alter, or think they can alter - and the general conditions: elements which cannot be altered. Human action therefore requires the employment of means to acheive ends.
  
• Human action requires that actors have ideas about how to use means to achieve ends.
  
• Human action requires time - the time before, during and after the action - and time is a means.
  
• All means are scarce: limited to the ends that they could possibly serve.
  
• Human action requires choosing between ends, since time is scarce.
  
• Each actor assigns a rank to desired ends. The most desired ends are given the highest rank; that is, the most desired ends are the ones with the highest value. All actors have a scale of values or scale of preferences.
  
• The future is uncertain, since if it was not, no action would be necessary.
  
• Action involves the expectation of a less imperfectly satisfied state as a result of the action.