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there's a sub-discipline in philosophy called action theory that addresses questions of agency and where it stops and starts.
i expect that folk in law would have some exposure to it (though maybe indirectly) in that it addresses a central problem in arguments about responsibility and/or intention. so some of it is linked to ethics, while other aspects address cognitive questions--and most of it is rooted in a very old-school (and outmoded) notion of the philosophical subject (the "i")--but no matter in this context.
the idea in general is trying to work out the distinction between an act and a reflex--both of which are actions--so which are distinguished by notions of intent. the usual question is something like whether blinking is or is not an act. the usual conclusion is that it isn't because it is a reflex. it can be in certain situations, but for the most part, you are not acting when you blink. it is an action, not an act.
in the story abaya outlines, everything is a problem---the blackout itself and (especially) the functionality that she apparently maintained across the blackout create all kinds of havoc around questions of consent.
this in turn creates real problems for establishing anything about the guy--whose side of the narrative not here, whose state of mind is not known--and what is more (as if this were not enough), what information abaya might have provided him in the course of the blackout is not known.
the rather curious result of all this, from within action theory, would be to conclude that there were actions but no acts (based on the information abaya provides).
this lay behind what i posted earlier about the story arising out of ambiguity and remaining locked within it.
it allows for no clear conclusions about anyone or anything.
except for the obvious fact that somewhere within this tangle of problems, she lost her virginity.
and that what happened is obviously problematic for abaya ex post facto.
that we (all of us) CAN know.
everything else is a tangle.
within this, smooth's points should make more sense (if they haven't to anyone)---and while i may agree with many of the judgments folk have arrived at about the guy, the fact is that there is no way--at all--to shift away from the fact that these judgments are motored primarily by sympathy with abaya and her story.
i have been sitting here thinking about this for a few minutes, after i typed the post you have just read. it sits strangely with me to conclude that there were actions but no acts in a situation that has resulted in pain for someone who is part of this community. but there seems no way around it.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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