This week we move from the analysis of intentionality proper to the murky world of "applied" folk psychology, considering in particular the relation between intention and morality. The topic is a central one in a number of fields (moral philosophy, social and developmental psychology, jurisprudence, theology) and, as will be clear from the readings, it has been approached via a number of different routes (philosophical analysis, experimentation, literary analysis, and so on). While it is clear enough that intentional concepts play an important role in assigning moral status to actions in our culture, the precise nature of that role is not so easily determined. The readings attempt to clarify the relation between intentionality and morality and we will try to do the same. Among the questions we might consider are the following.

1. What exactly do we mean by responsibility?

Responsibility can take on a number of different meanings, as is made clear in several of the readings (especially in Hamilton & Sanders). Intentionality will be relevant to only a subset of these meanings. An obvious distinction is that between causal responsibility and moral responsibility (or, if you like, between cause and responsibility). Causal responsibility does not necessarily lead to moral responsibility (e.g., in Weiner's example, the driver who has a heart attack and crashes into your rear-end bears causal but not moral responsibility for the accident). But what about the reverse? Does moral responsibility presuppose causal responsibility? Hamilton & Sanders draw on a classic analysis by Hart in discussing other meanings of responsibility (capacity, role responsibility, etc.). What role does intentionality play in these other meanings?

2. Is intention necessary for the attribution of moral responsibility?

Some say no (Hamilton & Sanders, Weiner, Mele & Sverdlik), citing cases of recklessness or negligence in which the person doesn't intend harmful consequences but is nevertheless held morally accountable for them. In contrast, Kaplan appears in places to state that intention is in fact necessary for moral responsibility under our legal and ethical system and Weiner refers to legal scholars who believe that without intention there should be no punishment (Weiner doesn't say whether these scholars believe there should also be no moral responsibility). If intention isn't necessary, how then do we characterize its relation to morality?

3. Do moral judgments constrain the way we should think about intention and intentionality?

Most of the readings are, in one way or another, concerned with the implications of intentionality for morality, but Mele & Sverdlik consider the opposite issue of whether morality might have implications for what we judge to be intended or intentional. The issue is best illustrated with respect to so-called doctrine of double effect cases in which an intended act (e.g., bombing the chemical weapons plant) is accompanied by other foreseen consequences (e.g., the deaths of innocent civilians). On most analyses, bombing the plant is intended but killing the civilians (the "collateral" damage, as they euphemistically say) is a foreseen but unintended side effect. In cases like these, many people would want to hold the bomber (and/or the commanding officer) morally accountable for the deaths of the civilians. To accommodate these moral intuitions, some have wanted to argue that it must therefore be the case that the bomber intended to kill the civilians (or at least killed them intentionally). Mele & Sverdlik argue against this (convincingly, I think), drawing in part on a negative answer to Question 2. But the issues are complex.

4. How is the relation between intentionality and morality affected by historical and cultural factors?

Kaplan argues that the relation between intention and morality has shifted across time. In particular, if I have understood him, Kaplan believes that the role of intention in the assignment of moral fault in our post holocaust, poststructuralist, postmodernist, deeply dyspepsic time is now less important, less central than it was in earlier times but that our system of criminal jurisprudence does not yet (but should) reflect this change. The evidence for his argument comes in part from the analysis of three "texts". Do we buy his analysis (to me it seemed that, at least with respect to the comparison of Melville and Durrenmatt, the role of intention might actually be greater in the latter)? Are the texts a reasonable reflection of ethical thinking at these various time points? If they are, how dyspepsic should we feel about that? The issue of historical changes in our moral concepts naturally raises the broader question of possible cultural differences in these concepts. The question is taken up tantalizingly by Hamilton & Sanders but discussed only briefly.

5. What role do intentional concepts play in children's developing moral notions?

The traditional view -- held by Piaget, Kohlberg, and others -- was that an appreciation of intentionality and its role in moral judgment was a rather late developmental arrival. In Piaget's classic studies on this topic, children were presented with a contrast between an actor who had accidentally caused a large amount of damage and one who had intentionally caused a small amount of damage. Children tended to say that the actor who had accidentally created the larger amount of damage was more morally culpable. The conclusion drawn was that children understood little about either morality or intentionality. As with everything else, however, more recent work has shown that when the amount of damage is controlled, children's moral judgments are sensitive to intentionality. In addition, and unsurprisingly, children generally reveal better understanding of intentionality when that understanding is assessed directly rather than indirectly via moral judgments. The Nelson-Le Gall piece represents an example of this more recent tradition. Although the procedures and results are not presented as thoroughly as one would wish, it appears that children's intentionality judgments and their morality judgments were both sensitive to whether the outcomes were foreseeable or not, and that there was some (weak) relation between intentionality attributions and moral judgments.