The Reference to Desire in Reasons for Action

2019 ◽  
pp. 42-75
Author(s):  
Ingmar Persson
Keyword(s):  
Internal State ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Intentional Actions

It is here argued that when we act for a reason, the consequent of this reason(-conditional) must specify something that we desire. Intelligent desires, which are involved in intentional action, are distinguished from non-intelligent desires. It is intelligent desires which are ‘decisive’ that determine our intentional actions. Such desires can be said to be formed by decisions, but not necessarily decisions preceded by deliberation. You have an occurrent decisive desire to cause p now just in case you are in an internal state which, along with its underlying thought that you can now cause p (and thereby cause consequences specified by reasons that you may have for causing p), causes something to become a fact because you think that it is that p (and thereby will have the specified consequences).

scholarly journals The Double Intentionality of Moral Intentional Actions: Scotus and Ockham on Interior and Exterior Acts

Topoi ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonja Schierbaum
Keyword(s):  
Intentional Action ◽  
Faculty Psychology ◽  
Intentional Actions ◽  
The Mind

AbstractAny account of intentional action has to deal with the problem of how such actions are individuated. Medieval accounts, however, crucially differ from contemporary ones in at least three respects: (i) for medieval authors, individuation is not a matter of description, as it is according to contemporary, ‘Anscombian’ views; rather, it is a metaphysical matter. (ii) Medieval authors discuss intentional action on the basis of faculty psychology, whereas contemporary accounts are not committed to this kind of psychology. Connected to the use of faculty psychology is (iii) the distinction between interior and exterior acts. Roughly, interior acts are mental as opposed to physical acts, whereas exterior acts are acts of physical powers, such as of moving one’s body. Of course, contemporary accounts are not committed to this distinction between two ontologically different kinds of acts. Rather, they might be committed to views consistent with physicalist approaches to the mind. The main interpretative task in this paper is to clarify how Scotus and Ockham explain moral intentional action in terms of the role and involvement of these kinds of acts respectively. I argue that Scotus’s account is close to contemporary, ‘Anscombian’ accounts, whereas Ockham’s account is incompatible with them.

Understanding the Past, Predicting the Future

2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (12) ◽  
pp. 1490-1497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc J. Buehner
Keyword(s):  
Causal Relation ◽  
Action Planning ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Motor Command ◽  
Temporal Binding ◽  
Binding Effect ◽  
The Past ◽  
Intentional Actions ◽  
Ambiguity Reduction ◽  
Special Case

Temporal binding refers to a subjective shortening of elapsed time between actions and their resultant consequences. Originally, it was thought that temporal binding is specific to motor learning and arises as a consequence of either sensory adaptation or the associative principles of the forward model of motor command. Both of these interpretations assume that the binding effect is rooted in the motor system and, critically, that it is driven by intentional action planning. The research reported here demonstrates that both intentional actions and mechanical causes result in temporal binding, which suggests that intentional action is not necessary for temporal binding and that binding results from the causal relation linking actions with their consequences. Intentional binding is thus a special case of more general causal binding, which can be explained by a theory of Bayesian ambiguity reduction.

scholarly journals Folk Psychology and Proximal Intentions

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfred Mele ◽  
Thomas Nadelhoffer ◽  
Maria Khoudary
Keyword(s):  
Folk Psychology ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Garden Variety ◽  
Intentional Actions ◽  
The Relationship

There is a longstanding debate in philosophy concerning the relationship between intention and intentional action. According to the Single Phenomenon View, while one need not intend to A in order to A intentionally, one nevertheless needs to have an A-relevant intention. This view has recently come under criticism by those who think that one can A intentionally without any relevant intention at all. On this view, neither distal nor proximal intentions are necessary for intentional action. In this paper we present the results of two studies that explore folk ascriptions of proximal intentions and intentional actions in garden-variety, non-moral cases. Our findings suggest a very tight relationship between the two. We argue that the results from these two studies cohere with the Single Phenomenon View and give theorists who reject this view on conceptual grounds reason to worry.

scholarly journals Knowledge as Action

Epistemology ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 71-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernest Sosa
Keyword(s):  
Intentional Action ◽  
Normative Structure ◽  
Intentional Actions ◽  
Special Case

This chapter argues that judgment and knowledge itself are forms of intentional action. Such action falls under a certain normative structure of success, competence, and aptness, or success that manifests competence. Judgment is a special case falling under that structure. The chapter explains that intentional actions come in two sorts. An attempt is an intentional action, an endeavor to attain a certain objective. An attempt can fail and remain a mere attempt, whereas an achievement is a certain sort of successful attempt. Intentional actions are one sort of performance. Some performances are also aimings, however, without being intentional. These, too, can fail and remain mere aimings, to be distinguished from those that are successful.

Reasons for action

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Wiland
Keyword(s):  
Intentional Action ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Abstract Thought ◽  
Internal Reasons ◽  
Epistemic Relation ◽  
Contemporary Work ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Moral Philosophers

There are many reasons for wanting to understand what reasons for action are. Moral philosophers, for instance, consider the question of whether everyone has a reason to comply with morality. This debate produces further questions, such as: are evildoers by their actions shown to be unreasonable? Understanding what reasons for action are should shed light on how to resolve this. Other moral philosophers inquire not only whether moral values are objective, but also whether the normativity of reasons is likewise objective. Many philosophers specialize in the theory of action. Some argue that there is an internal connection between reasons for action and the nature of action itself, namely that intentional action can seem to be simply action performed for a reason. More generally, it is commonly held that we are rational animals, and so self-understanding requires us to grasp what it is to act for a reason. Contemporary work on practical reasons tends to explore various ways in which reasons for action are connected to the first person. Many philosophers think that there is some sort of important and nonaccidental connection between a reason for action and the person whose reason it is. That is, your reasons for action have something special to do with you. But different philosophers specify this abstract thought in very different ways, ways that need to be carefully distinguished. Some argue that agential elements constrain the content of the practical reason. For example, egoists think that you have reason to do only what is good for you. Subjectivists instead think that you have reason to do only what you want. Internal reasons theorists think that you have reason to do only those acts the thought of which can motivate you. Although these views seem to resemble each other, there are important differences between an agent’s wellbeing, desires and motives. Other philosophers are impressed by the distinctive epistemic relation that one bears to one’s own practical reasons. When you act for a reason, you typically know that reason in a distinctively first-personal way. And some philosophers think that reasons for action are themselves psychological parts of the agents whose reasons they are. If they are correct, there is an internal metaphysical relation between agents and their practical reasons.

scholarly journals Dogs distinguish human intentional and unintentional action

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Britta Schünemann ◽  
Judith Keller ◽  
Hannes Rakoczy ◽  
Tanya Behne ◽  
Juliane Bräuer
Keyword(s):  
Intentional Action ◽  
Human Behaviour ◽  
Human Actions ◽  
Intentional Actions ◽  
Unintentional Action

AbstractWhen dogs interact with humans, they often show appropriate reactions to human intentional action. But it is unclear from these everyday observations whether the dogs simply respond to the action outcomes or whether they are able to discriminate between different categories of actions. Are dogs able to distinguish intentional human actions from unintentional ones, even when the action outcomes are the same? We tested dogs’ ability to discriminate these action categories by adapting the so-called “Unwilling vs. Unable” paradigm. This paradigm compares subjects’ reactions to intentional and unintentional human behaviour. All dogs received three conditions: In the unwilling-condition, an experimenter intentionally withheld a reward from them. In the two unable-conditions, she unintentionally withheld the reward, either because she was clumsy or because she was physically prevented from giving the reward to the dog. Dogs clearly distinguished in their spontaneous behaviour between unwilling- and unable-conditions. This indicates that dogs indeed distinguish intentional actions from unintentional behaviour. We critically discuss our findings with regard to dogs’ understanding of human intentional action.

Children’s Judgments of Epistemic and Moral Agents: From Situations to Intentions

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 344-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa A. Koenig ◽  
Valerie Tiberius ◽  
J. Kiley Hamlin
Keyword(s):  
Intentional Action ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Epistemic Agency ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Intentional Actions ◽  
Situational Constraints

Children’s evaluations of moral and epistemic agents crucially depend on their discerning that an agent’s actions were performed intentionally. Here we argue that children’s epistemic and moral judgments reveal practices of forgiveness and blame, trust and mistrust, and objection or disapproval and that such practices are supported by children’s monitoring of the situational constraints on agents. Inherent in such practices is the understanding that agents are responsible for actions performed under certain conditions but not others. We discuss a range of situational constraints on children’s early epistemic and moral evaluations and clarify how these situational constraints serve to support children’s identification of intentional actions. By monitoring the situation, children distinguish intentional from less intentional action and selectively hold epistemic and moral agents accountable. We argue that these findings inform psychological and philosophical theorizing about attributions of moral and epistemic agency and responsibility.

scholarly journals Anti-intellectualism, instructive representations, and the intentional action argument

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Ann Springle ◽  
Justin Humphreys
Keyword(s):  
Propositional Attitudes ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Propositional Knowledge ◽  
Theory Of Action ◽  
Alternative Theory ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Causal Theory Of Action ◽  
Theoretical Support ◽  
The Right

AbstractIntellectualists hold that knowledge-how is a species of knowledge-that, and consequently that the knowledge involved in skill is propositional. In support of this view, the intentional action argument holds that since skills manifest in intentional action and since intentional action necessarily depends on propositional knowledge, skills necessarily depend on propositional knowledge. We challenge this argument, and suggest that instructive representations, as opposed to propositional attitudes, can better account for an agent’s reasons for action. While a propositional-causal theory of action, according to which intentional action must be causally produced “in the right way” by an agent’s proposition-involving reasons, has long held sway, we draw on Elizabeth Anscombe’s insights offer a path toward an alternative theory of action. In so doing, we reject the implicitly Cartesian conception of knowledge at the core of the intentional action argument, while hanging on to the idea that mental states are representations of a certain kind. Our argument provides theoretical support for anti-intellectualism by equipping philosophers with an account of non-propositional, practical content.

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