Do We Need Partial Intentions?

Philosophia 45 (3):995-1005 (2017)
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Abstract

Richard Holton has argued that the traditional account of intentions—which only posits the existence of all-out intentions—is inadequate because it fails to accommodate dual-plan cases; ones in which it is rationally permissible for an agent to adopt two competing plans to bring about the same end. Since the consistency norms governing all-out intentions prohibit the adoption of competing intentions, we can only preserve the idea that the agent in a dual-plan case is not being irrational if we attribute to them a pair of partial intentions. I argue that, contrary to initial appearances, (i) Holton has yet to offer us an actual account of partial intentions, and (ii) that the traditional account of intentions already has the resources necessary to accommodate dual-plan cases.

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Avery Archer
George Washington University

Citations of this work

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References found in this work

Two faces of intention.Michael Bratman - 1984 - Philosophical Review 93 (3):375-405.
Trying to Act.Jennifer Hornsby - 2010 - In Timothy O'Connor & Constantine Sandis, A Companion to the Philosophy of Action. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 18–25.

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