Abstract: In this paper, I will be making reference to a discussion in the philosophy of action regarding the role played by intention as it relates to the attitudes of belief and credence. Building on work by Carlos Nunez, Facundo Alonso, and Donald Davidson, I will be making the argument that one can intend to X even when one believes that one’s intention to X will not succeed. In this argument, I will be relying on the premise that belief and uncertainty are not the same thing, and that indeed belief can exist where certainty is not present. Furthermore, I will argue that intentions can only be planned upon (used as the premise of another intention) if the intending agent is either agnostic about the outcome of the intention, or believes that the intention will succeed. When this is not the case, though, I propose that intentions can still play certain roles, the role which I will discuss most prominently being serving as a kind of ‘organizing principle’ for an agent’s means-end plans. I will make use of an example by Carlos Nunez in which an fisherman forms an intention to survive a storm despite his belief that his intention will fail to explain how it is that means can be relied upon as part of an intention to carry out an end even when – given that the agent believes the end will not occur – the agent in a certain sense does not believe the means will help carry out the end, a proposition which will involve a distinction between means that in themselves cannot produce an end and means which – due to the end’s uncertainty – cannot perform this function.
Author: Henry Roach
Faculty Advisor: Facundo Alonso, Philosophy
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