In this chapter, I introduce the topic of negative action. I provide a rough account of the distinction between positive and negative actions, of the distinction between two commonly-discussed kinds of negative behaviour (omitting and refraining), and of what distinguishes negative actions from mere failures to do something. Then, drawing on this discussion and the discussion of Chapter 1, I articulate the problem of negative action: negative actions seem to be genuine actions; actions seem to be events; but (at least some) negative actions seem to be, not events, but absences thereof. I trace the widespread acceptance of the latter claim to Deflationism, the view – often held only implicitly – that negative action sentences express negative existentials.

In this chapter, I provide two positive arguments in favour of my sophisticated Neo-Davidsonian treatment of negative action sentences and against the Deflationist alternative. I argue that my view can accommodate a range of data about the behaviour of adverbs in negative action sentences and their interaction with perceptual locutions, which Deflationism can’t. Thus, we can solve the problem of negative action by rejecting Deflationism, and with it the thought that (at least some) negative actions aren’t events. Instead, we should claim that negative actions are simply events which play the ensuring role. I close by comparing my view to two recent alternatives.

In this chapter I introduce Neo-Davidsonian semantics as a general approach to the semantics of action sentences, and compare a simple Neo-Davidsonian treatment of negative action sentences to the Deflationist alternative sketched in Chapter 2. I then use this discussion to build a case on behalf of Deflationism, by showing that the simple Neo-Davidsonian treatment makes very bad predictions about the behaviour of adverbs, predictions which Deflationism avoids.

In this chapter, I develop a sophisticated Neo-Davidsonian approach to negative action sentences that can accommodate and explain the behaviour of adverbs discussed in Chapter 4, while still treating those sentences as quantifying over negative actions qua events. On this approach, negative action sentences quantify over events that play a certain role, which I call the ‘ensuring’ role: to say that x omits to φ, or refrains from φ-ing, is to say that some behaviour of hers ensures that she doesn’t φ (at the relevant time). I provide a detailed account of what this ensuring role is, and argue that it can be played by ordinary events. If this approach is correct, then we have the means to reject Deflationism, and with it the thought that (at least some) negative actions aren’t events.