Acting Intentionally and Acting for a Reason

Alvarez, Maria

doi:10.1080/00201740902917168

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…78-80), in his discussion of the infamous climber case, notes that reasons must cause actions in the "right kind of way" in order to count as cases of intentional actions. One might suppose that he had in mind something like the condition that one takes one's reasons as one's own.21 We set aside the claim, as defended byAlvarez (2009a), that actions can be intentional and yet not done for reasons.…”

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confidence: 99%

Chimps as secret agents

Arruda

Povinelli

2015

Synthese

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We provide an account of chimpanzee-specific agency within the context of philosophy of action. We do so by showing that chimpanzees are capable of what we call reason-directed action, even though they may be incapable of more fullblown action, which we call reason-considered action. Although chimpanzee agency does not possess all the features of typical adult human agency, chimpanzee agency is evolutionarily responsive to their environment and overlaps considerably with our own. As such, it is an evolved set of capacities for goal-directed behavior, which solves problems that chimpanzees (and humans) naturally encounter. Thus, it ought not be understood as a deficient instance of human agency.

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confidence: 99%

Chimps as secret agents

Arruda

Povinelli

2015

Synthese

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“…Davidson 1963;Smith 1994, ch. 4;Alvarez 2016aAlvarez , 2016b, section 3.2), it makes more sense to suppose that we perform actions in light of what these psychological states represent or are directed at, rather than the psychological states themselves. Someone runs away in light of the import of her action (or what she takes to be this import) vis à vis her aim to escape the situation, not in light of her belief that it has that import and/or her desire to escape it.…”

Section: B) Reasons and Rationalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Which Emotional Behaviors Are Actions?

Müller,

Wong

2024

Emotion Theory: The Routledge Comprehensive Guide

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“…14 As we will see below, this may be true even if reasons are identical to mental states in us. 15 Alvarez (2009), for example, argues against this popular claim.…”

Section: The Role Of Mental States In the Ctamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…15 Alvarez (2009), for example, argues against this popular claim. 16 Though, it may be that part of what conceptually defines these mental states is that they play this role in the etiology of our actions.…”

Section: Cta*: Any Behavioral Event a Of An Entity 18 S Is An Action ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Group Action Without Group Minds

Silver

2021

Philos Phenomenol Research

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Groups behave in a variety of ways. To show that this behavior amounts to action, it would be best to fit it into a general account of action. However, nearly every account from the philosophy of action requires the agent to have mental states such as beliefs, desires, and intentions. Unfortunately, theorists are divided over whether groups can instantiate these states-typically depending on whether or not they are willing to accept functionalism about the mind. But we can avoid this debate. I show how a more general view of action captures what is central to action without mentioning mental states, and I argue that a group's members can fulfill the role in group action that mental states play in our actions. Group behavior is explicable in terms of reasons, regardless of whether the group itself cognizes those reasons. After discussing the kind of reasons at issue and arguing that groups can act in light of them without minds, I assess how this account bears on the question of group responsibility.We frequently speak as if there are groups and as if those groups can do things. A basketball team can win the championship; the Supreme Court can strike down the decision of a lower court; Amazon can acquire Whole Foods. One set of questions concerns whether there really are such groups and how best to understand their existence (as well as the differences between groups, collectives, corporations, etc.). Another kind of question, however, concerns whether the behavior of groups can appropriately be construed as actions. Here, I focus on the latter question.Let's take it for granted that groups exist. 1 Given this, there is a strong intuition that certain groups act. The acquisition of Whole Foods by Amazon is something done by Amazon that seems intelligible. It may follow from an overall market strategy, and management will point to this as the reason for the acquisition in answer to shareholder scrutiny. Even in cases of small groups, we readily ascribe actions. We would say, for example, that the tenure committee recommended tenure and had reasons for doing so.To make good on this intuition, we need to see how the behavior of groups can be captured by a theory of action. There are many views of action that have been developed, so we would ideally need only to pick a good one and show how groups can satisfy its conditions. 2 When trying to do this, though, what becomes apparent is that most of the prominent views of action in the literature involve 1 We need only accept that some groups exist. This is not uncontroversial, but I take it for granted here and focus instead on whether what groups do can be construed as actions. See Ritchie (2013) for a discussion of a number of proposals of how groups exist, including her own. I remain agnostic here as to the nature of group existence. Though I am partial to an account on which groups are sui generis entities constituted by members in virtue of the group structure and certain social facts (bearing the most similarities to Uzquiano [2004]), the account of group action g...

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Acting Intentionally and Acting for a Reason

Cited by 11 publications

References 7 publications

Chimps as secret agents

Chimps as secret agents

Which Emotional Behaviors Are Actions?

Group Action Without Group Minds

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