The limits of economic philosophy may be classified as external and internal. In this chapter I shall discuss the nature of the external limits facing the individual agent as he attempts to live up to his beliefs and opinions in ordinary life. The basic proposition is that only a limited segment of our economic actions is in effect open to the influence of our goals and values. The argument here, as I will try to show, springs from the distinction between voluntary and involuntary actions. Only voluntary actions are in principle amenable to conscious control and, for this reason, susceptible of being altered by the agent's beliefs and deliberations. Involuntary actions lie outside the range of willful and purposeful interference by those who perform them.

The best illustrations of involuntary actions are the myriad of automatic adjustments and organic processes taking place in the human body which are entirely closed to conscious volition. The wide range of bodily occurrences of this kind – from blushing, ageing and heart–beating to the restoration of the oxygen level in the blood to normal (through an increase in the rate of breathing) when the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air is raised – have been the source of wonder to biologists and disquiet to some philosophers.