[[Lacan]] draws a distinction between mere "[[behavior]]" -- which all animals engage in -- and an "[[acts]]" -- which are [[symbolic]] and can only be ascribed to [[human]] [[subjects]].<ref>{{S11}} p.50</ref>
==Responsibility==
A fundamental quality of an [[act]] is that the actor can be held [[responsible]] for it; the concept of the [[act]] is thus an [[ethical]] [[concept]].
The [[psychoanalytic]] concept of [[responsibility]] is complicated in [[psychoanalysis]] by the discovery that, in addition to his [[conscious]] plans, the [[subject]] also has [[unconscious]] [[intention]]s.
==Parapraxes==
Hence someone may well commit an [[act]] which he claims was un[[intention]]al, but which [[analysis]] reveals to be the expression of an [[unconscious]] [[desire]].
[[Freud]] called these [[act]]s "[[parapraxes]]," or "[[bungled actions]]."
They are "[[bungled]]" only from the point of view of the [[conscious]] [[intention]], since they are successful in expressing an [[unconscious]] [[desire]].<ref>[[Freud|Freud, Sigmund]]. ''The Psychopathology of Everyday Life''. SE VI. 1901.</ref>
In [[law]], a [[subject]] cannot be found [[guilty]] of murder (for example) unless it can be proved that the [[act]] was [[intention]]al.
