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The Role of Intention in Intentional Action

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Frederick Adams  and
Alfred Mele
Frederick Adams
Affiliation:
Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, MI48859, U.S.A.
Alfred Mele
Affiliation:
Davidson College, Davidson,NC28036, U.S.A.
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Extract

A great deal of attention has been paid in recent years to the functional roles of intentions in intentional action. In this paper we sketch and defend a position on this issue while attacking a provocative alternative. Our position has its roots in a cybernetic theory of purposive behavior and is only part of the larger task of understanding all goal-directed behavior. Indeed, a unified model of goal-directed behavior, with appropriate modifications for different types of systems, is a long-range ambition.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , December 1989 , pp. 511 - 531
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1987

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Footnotes

*

We wish to thank Myles Brand, Berent Enc, John Heil, Hugh McCann, an anonymous referee of this journal and two anonymous editors for helpful criticism and advice. Section II was derived in part from Mele’s ‘Proximal Intentions Versus Intentions in Action’ (presented at the Pacific Division Meetings of the American Philosophical Association, March, 1988; Myles Brand provided commentary). A shortened version of our paper was presented at the Illinois Philosophical Association, October, 1988; Wright Neely provided commentary.

References

1 Skirmishes over this point caused premature abandonment of cybernetic models in the early days. For the historical difficulties over the problem of intentionality, see Woodfield, Andrew Teleology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1976)Google Scholar. For solutions to the difficulties, see Fred Adams, ‘Goal-Directed Systems’ (PhD Dissertation, University of Wisconsin 1982).

2 This model is briefly introduced in Adams, ‘A Goal-State Theory of Function Attribution,’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy 9 (1979) 493-518. It is defended in Adams, ‘Goal-Directed Systems,’ applied to intentional action in Adams, ‘Intention and Intentional Action: The Simple View,’ Mind and Language 1 (1986) 281-301, and applied against standard criticisms of cybernetic models in Adams, ‘Feedback About Feedback: Reply to Ehring,’ Southern Journal of Philosophy 24 (1986) 123-31.

3 For the view that all intentional A-ings require an intention to A, see Adams, ‘Intention and Intentional Action’ and McCann, Hugh ‘Rationality and the Range of Intention,’ Midwest Studies 10 (1986) 191-211CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There is some sympathy for the view in Brand, Myles Intending and Acting (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1984)Google Scholar.

The view is rejected in Harman, Gilbert ‘Practical Reasoning,’ Review of Metaphysics 29 (1976), 434Google Scholar; Harman, Change in View (Cambridge: MIT Press 1986), 89Google Scholar; Bratman, Michael ‘Two Faces of Intention,’ Philosophical Review 90 (1984) 252-65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bratman, Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1987)Google Scholar, ch. 8; Audi, Robert ‘Intending, Intentional Action, and Desire,’ in Marks, Joel ed., The Ways of Desire (Chicago: Precedent 1986)Google Scholar; Audi, Intending,’ Journal of Philosophy 70 (1973) 387-403.

4 Of course, what is guided and sustained are the bodily movements involved in S’s A-ing. See Adams, ‘Intention and Intentional Action.’

5 See Adams, ‘Feedback about Feedback,’ for further discussion of these different forms of feedback and their implications for cybernetic models, generally. Failure to consider the different forms can lead to unfortunate misunderstanding about what feedback models can explain.

6 We favor the view of the acquisition of content found in Dretske, Fred Knowledge and the Flow of Information (Cambridge: Bradford Books/MIT Press 1981)Google Scholar and in Dretske, Explaining Behavior: Reasons and Causes (Cambridge: Bradford Books/MIT Press 1988)Google Scholar. See also Adams, ‘Comparison Shopping In The Philosophy of Mind,’ Critica 17 (1985) 45-70Google Scholar.

7 On the motivational aspect of intentions see, Brand, and Mele, Alfred ‘Intentions, Belief, and Intentional Action,’ American Philosophical Quarterly 26 (1989)Google Scholar.

8 Excellent discussions are in Toates, Frederick Control Theory in Biology and Experimental Psychology (London: Hutchinson 1975)Google Scholar and in Powers, William Behavior: The Control of Perception (London: Wildwood House 1974)Google Scholar, and ‘Quantitative Analysis of Purposive Systems: Some Spadework at the Foundations of Scientific Psychology,’ Psychological Review 85 (1978) 417-35.

9 See Adams, ‘Intention de re’ (in preparation).

10 Here we are following Hare’s original divisions and the tradition that followed at the hands of Grice et al. Statements in the optative mood can also be used to express the content of a goal or intention (or at least a desire).

11 See Adams, ‘Goal-Directed Systems’ and ‘Intention de re.’

12 For the accomplishments of control models, see Adams, ‘Feedback about Feedback,’ ‘Comparison Shopping,’ and ‘Tertiary Waywardness Tamed,’ Critica 61 (1989). Also see Brand, and Goldman, Alvin ‘The Volition Theory Revisited,’ in Brand, M. & Walton, D. eds., Action Theory (Dordrecht: Reidel 1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 See Adams, ‘Intention and Intentional Action.’

14 See Alfred Mele, ‘Intention, Belief, and Intentional Action.’ Cf. Mele, ‘She Intends to Try,’ Philosophical Studies 54 (1988).

15 Notice that this is compatible with there being intentional actions that are non-intended consequences of intentional actions. Gilbert Harman claims (see note 3) that a sniper who fires at the enemy with the knowledge that by doing so he will alert them to his presence intentionally alerts them to his presence even if he did not intend to do so. But even if this is right, his intentionally alerting the enemy to his presence is a (partial) product of a pertinent prior intention of his. Presumably, he intends to fire at the enemy, or to shoot the enemy, or some such thing.

16 Searle, John Intentionality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 85; cf. his ‘The Intentionality of Intention and Action,’ Inquiry 22 (1979) 253-80.

17 Cf. Norman Malcolm, ‘The Conceivability of Mechanism,’ Philosophical Review 77 (1968), 61f. In this section, we follow Searle in focusing on behavior that involves bodily movement. Searle defends a parallel account of other sorts of action on pp. 102f. of Intentionality. Though he often contrasts presentations with representations, Searle conceives of the former as a species of the latter (46).

18 Note the difference between this expression of content and the following one: ’My arm goes up as a result of this intention in action’ (93). The latter identifies a movement, arm rising, while the former identifies an action, arm raising. This tension is nowhere explicitly resolved.

19 This is an approximation. It must be qualified to circumvent problems posed by causal waywardness. We return to these problems in Sections III and IV.

20 Brand, 18

21 Cf. Brand’s contention that ‘immediate intention,’ which he identifies as the proximate cause of action, ‘continues as long as the guidance and monitoring continues’ (175). This is a straightforward feature of our control model as well. Ultimately, Searle’s failure to incorporate something like a feedback condition proves fatal for his own account.

22 Brand, 37-9; 15-31

23 Actually, Searle’s position is more complicated. He maintains that the content of every intention refers to the intention whose content it is (Intentionality, 85-7; 92-5). For criticism of this thesis see Mele, ‘Are Intentions Self-Referential?’ Philosophical Studies 52 (1987) 309-29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 We are using the term ‘information’ in the technical sense such that a signal or event cannot falsely carry the information that something is the case. Compare Dretske, Knowledge and the Flow of Information.

25 This is discussed in detail by ‘Brand and Goldman, and references to the relevant psychological literature are included. ‘Both ‘Brand and Goldman defend a modified version of parts of this theory.

26 Powers gives a particularly lucid account of purposive behavior being designed to produce in us particular types of perceptual experiences associated with desired ends.

27 Searle often writes as though ‘experience of acting’ and ‘intention in action’ have the same extension. For example, he uses these expressions interchangeably in identifying the components of actions (Intentionality, 91; 94; 101; 106f.). The two items are explicitly identified with one another in one of Searle’s charts (97). But he does say that they can come apart (92).

28 See Searle’s graphic depiction of the structure of action (Intentionality, 94). Compare the problems of the ‘time-gap’ argument against direct realism and the replies in, say, Dretske, Seeing and Knowing (Chicago: Chicago University Press 1969)Google Scholar.

29 Recall that the kind of feedback generating the copy image is positive (open loop) feedback not negative (closed loop) feedback as can occur in afferent monitoring. See Toates or Powers for more on this difference with respect to control of movement.

30 Searle’s view faces the classic objections to purely ballistic bodily movements being beyond one’s control. See Adams ‘Feedback About Feedback’ and Toates. Indeed, Searle says nothing at all about the technical notion of feedback, positive or negative. When we claim that intentions in action do not include afferent information about bodily movement, it is not because we think intentions do have that role. On the control model, that role is filled by perceptual mechanisms, not by intentions. But Searle has nothing in his theory to take the place of negative feedback or afferent monitoring of bodily movement. That is a serious shortcoming.

31 See Mete, Alfred ‘Intentional Actions and Wayward Causal Chains: The Problem of Tertiary Waywardness,’ Philosophical Studies 51 (1987) 55-60Google Scholar.

32 The control model’s solution to tertiary waywardness is discussed in more detail in Adams, ‘Tertiary Waywardness Tamed.’

33 Searle, in the end, notes this (Intentionality, 133), but only perfunctorily.