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Paper #006350 :: The Simple View and Grudging Actions
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A defense of the "Simple View" of the relationship between intentions and intentional actions.

Written in 2002; 2,645 words; 3 sources; APA; $ 79.95

Paper Summary:

This paper serves as a defense for the "Simple View" of the relationship between intentions and intentional action. In this view, an agent does action X intentionally only if she intended to do X. This view is subject to criticism through examples of actions that were completed intentionally but were not intended by the agent. Such examples are forwarded by Gilbert Harman and Michael Bratman and are used to refute the Simple View. The goal of this paper is to defend the Simple View against the examples presented by Harman and Bratman by showing how Bratman's own definition of "intention" allows for the actions in his examples to be qualified as both intentional and intended. This paper serves as a follow-up to Hugh McCann's ""Settled Objectives and Rational Constraints," which serves to counter some of Bratman and Harman's examples. It continues McCann's effort to defend the Simple View on a wider range of examples.

From the Paper:

"There are two types of examples that seem to cause all kinds of problems for what Michael Bratman terms the "Simple View" of the relationship between intentional actions and intentions. The Simple View maintains that if an agent does an action A intentionally, then she intended to do A. The two groups of examples of intentional actions that seem to present challenges to the Simple View can be categorized by the nature of the beliefs and desires surrounding them. In the first group are intentional actions that the agent desires to achieve but is fairly or completely certain that she will not be able to do. This includes examples like Alfred Mele's golfer Lydia who is trying to hit a hole in one to win a million dollars. In the second group of examples are intentional actions that the agent believes she will carry out - either as a direct action or as a side effect of some other action - but that she really does not want to do. Let us call this group of actions grudging actions . This group includes examples like Gilbert Harman's sniper who knows he is going to alert the enemy to his presence by trying to shoot his target. In "Settled Objectives and Rational Constraints," Hugh McCann offers a defense for the Simple View against examples from the first group, but he conspicuously does not address examples from the second set, leaving the Simple View vulnerable on this important front. In this paper I will attempt to follow up McCann by offering a reasonable defense for the Simple View for examples of grudging actions under Bratman's definition of intention. First, I will draw a distinction between two types of intentional actions that can fall into this group: direct actions and what I will call side-effect actions. This distinction will allow us to focus on the side-effect examples - which are really the only problematic ones for the Simple View - but it will also reveal an important point about how intentions to do something can hold up in the face of strong or even prevailing negative desires (i.e., desires not to do something). Building from there, I will then attempt to reconcile the Simple View with the side-effect examples and in doing so will consider a strong objection of Bratman's to the labeling of agents in these types of actions as intending these actions. "

Tags: action bratman effects example harman intentional intentions mccann mele side simple sniper view

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