Facilitator: David French
Minutes: Jodie Baird & Joanna Bulkley
Prelude to today's discussion
Before we got started on today's topic, Dare presented a flow chart to help clarify some intentionally-relevant terms and their interrelationships. Some questions that arose from this chart included:
Introduction to today's issues: Dave's report
Dave started us out with an overarching question to consider: Is the belief/desire model a good one for describing intentions? He then proceeded to walk us through this week's readings:
Bratman: identifies three important features of intentions: 1) they are conduct-controlling pro-attitudes, 2) they exhibit inertia -- they are resistant to reconsideration, 3) they play a role in determining future intentions. These three aspects of intentions distinguish them from desires. One point to make here is that Bratman focuses on prior intentions as opposed to intentions-in-action. How do we extend these ideas to include intentions-in-action? Are the same features relevant?
Malle & Knobe: have identified empirically five components to our adult folk conception of intentionality: 1) a desire for an outcome, 2) beliefs about the actions leading to that outcome, 3) an intention to perform that act, 4) skill to perform the action, and 5) awareness of performing that act. Desire and belief are necessary conditions for an intention. Given an intention to act, skill and awareness are necessary conditions for acting intentionally. Questions: Is the adult's model of intentionality the same as the child's model? When observing a child's action, do we as adults use the same criteria to determine whether that action is intentional?
Moses: to have a good grasp of what it means to have an intention, you must have some understanding of belief. Children seem to have a better understanding of the motivational basis of intentions (desires) than of the epistemic basis (beliefs), however they do understand more about beliefs than previously recognized through the false-belief task.
Schult: bottom-line, 3-year-olds had an especially difficult time understanding cases where the intention was unfulfilled but the desire was fulfilled.
Group Discussion: Questions and (possible) Answers
Q1 How do we determine the intentionality of spontaneous actions?
A1 One suggestion is that these actions become intentional as you become aware of what you are doing (e.g., you start an action automatically, next you realize you are doing that action, and then your action becomes intentional as you determine whether and how to continue that action).
Q2 If so, how do we map out the temporal aspect of intentional action?
A2 (not directly addressed...)
Q3 Also, if intentions are needed to initiate action, how does the suggested model of spontaneous actions account for their genesis?
A3a One idea is that for "deliberated" action, the intention causes the action to begin, whereas for spontaneous action, action initiates without a prior intention, but as the action enters awareness, intentions then function to control subsequent action.
A3b Perhaps all intentions don't have to be initiating, they can also be consenting or controlling.
Q4 Is awareness essential for an intentional action? Can you have "implicit" intentionality?
A4 Maybe it depends on the kind of action you are describing. Highly practiced, pre-programmed behaviors may be intentional even if there is no awareness (e.g., gymnastics routine, stepping up to bat), whereas other actions may require awareness to be considered intentional (e.g., killing a big ugly bug).
Q5 Are intentions even necessary?
A5a Maybe a desire (the one that rises to the top) contains an action program -- then once that action program is initiated, belief constraints enter in.
A5a rebuttle1 Because there are no belief constraints on desires, if desires alone led to action, people would be starting a lot of impossible actions. Belief constraints must enter in earlier.
A5a rebuttle2 Action can't just be the result of desires rising to the top. We must make decisions about which desires will be fulfilled.
A5b Maybe we still can do without intentions, and just describe action as the weighted sum of beliefs and desires.
A5c For the purposes of communicating in this seminar, let's use the term "intentions" to refer to belief-constrained pro-attitudes as opposed to simple desires.
To sum up today's ideas, some characteristics of intentions were written on the board:
Intentions
... [and related to] ... intentions are "reasoned" (formed in light of considering beliefs + desires)