The Normative Function of Intentional Action
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This essay identifies a normative function of the concept of intentional action. Specifically, I argue that the concept of intentional action functions to focus our evaluative concern on some doings rather than others. It acts as a proxy for evaluative priority. Two arguments are offered for this thesis. First, we need a concept that functions to focus evaluative concern, and the concept of intentional action exhibits features we'd expect from a concept with this prioritizing function. Second, the thesis is explanatorily powerful: it explains in a unified manner a number of puzzling features of intentional action, including the Knobe effect, the threshold of sufficient control governing intentional action, disagreement over whether knowledge is required for intentional action, cultural variation in ascription of intentionality, and the radical pluralism of ways that intentional action manifests. This second argument also shows what can be gained by attending to the functions of our concepts of agency.
Source: Philosophers Imprint
DOI: 10.3998/phimp.7981
Author: Mikayla Kelley
Institution: University of Chicago
Language: English
Topic: Free Will and Agency
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7083197336