## 1. Intending as Doing



In 'Actions, Reasons and Causes,' Donald Davidson gave a
reductive theory of 'intention with which' as
'syncategorematic': the phrase does not refer to an event
or state of the agent, but is a way of redescribing what she is doing
in terms of a 'primary reason,' where this is understood
as a pro-attitude towards actions having some feature, *F*,
along with the belief that the original action has that feature
(Davidson 1963, pp. 5-8). It is in virtue of its relation to a
primary reason that the action counts as intentional, and this reason
gives the intention with which the action is done. Davidson thereby
unified, or took himself to have unified, intentional action and
intention-with-which.



As he came to see, however, this story neglects and cannot easily
incorporate prospective intention or intention for the future
(Davidson 1978). There are apparent cases of 'pure
intending' in which no steps of any kind are taken. Suppose that
I intend to write a book review but have yet to open the book. On the
face of it, such pure intending cannot be reduced to intentional
action. What is more, once we recognize the existence of pure
intending, 'there is no reason not to allow that intention of
exactly the same kind is also present when the intended action
eventuates' (Davidson 1978, p. 89). If what I am doing
intentionally takes time, as almost everything does, there will be
early phases in which I stand to the completion of the deed as I stand
to future actions I intend to perform but have yet to begin.



The majority of work since Davidson's conversion has followed
him in acknowledging the state of prospective intention as irreducible
to action, and has been led to seek unity in the forms of intention by
explaining the others--intentional action and
intention-with-which--in terms of intending as a mental state.
Recently, however, philosophers inspired by Anscombe's
*Intention* have offered resistance to this move. Anscombe
denies that there is a sharp distinction between 'I am doing
*A*' and 'I am going to do *A*'
offered as answers to the question 'Why are you doing
*B*?' (Anscombe 1963, pp. 39-40). Nor does she
regard intention for the future as needing further explanation once
intentional action and intention-with-which have been understood
(Anscombe 1963, pp. 90-4). Thus, Anscombe appears to solve the
problem of unity without acknowledging intention as a mental
state.



The simplest version of this approach would emphasize the
'openness' of the progressive, that 'He is doing
*A*' does not imply that he will succeed in doing
*A*, or that he has or will get very far with it. (That I am
crossing the road is consistent with being hit by a car the moment I
step off the curb.) It then identifies the fact that *S*
intends to do *A* with the fact that *S* is doing
*A* intentionally, though perhaps he has barely begun. If I
intend to visit the zoo next Thursday, I am already on the way to
doing so. Here it is striking that we sometimes employ the present
progressive in anticipation: 'Kieran is visiting the zoo next
Thursday' sounds perfectly fine when said today, before I have
taken any overt steps (see Falvey 2000 pp. 25-6; Thompson 2008,
pp. 140-1; Moran and Stone 2009, pp. 145-6).



A more subtle line would concede that we do not always use the
progressive quite so liberally, but insist that doing so carves nature
at its joints. According to Michael Thompson (2008, pp. 91-2,
133-46), intending to do *A* is not a mental state
because it is not static; instead it is a form of imperfectivity or
being in progress towards the intentional completion of an act, where
the progress may be so vestigial or ineffectual or interrupted that it
would be odd to remark, 'He is doing *A*.' (See
Thompson 2008, pp. 91-2, 133-45; Moran and Stone 2009, pp.
146-8; Ferrero 2017; Russell 2018.) The unity of prospective
intention and 'doing *A* intentionally' is that the
latter, too, consists of being in progress, though perhaps with the
implication of some success.



Along with this unity, and the hint supplied by the use of the
progressive in anticipation, there are two main arguments for the
theory of intending as being embarked on intentional action. First, it
readily explains why intending is always intending to *do*
something. (For this argument, see Thompson 2008, pp. 120-3,
127-8, 130-1, drawing on Baier 1970; Moran and Stone 2009,
pp. 143, 147.) Although we sometimes report intention as a
propositional attitude--'I intend that
*p*'--such reports can be recast as 'intending
to...' as when I intend to bring about that *p*. By
contrast, it is difficult to rephrase such mundane expressions as
'I intend to go home' in propositional terms. 'I
intend that I am (will be) going home' suggests indifference to
getting there. 'I intend that I (will) have got home'
suggests indifference to my own agency. 'I intend that I go
home' can only be read as an intention with a habitual object,
describing a general practice of going home; it is not directed at a
particular action. If intending is being on the way to intentional
action, it is no surprise that its proper object--what one is on
the way to doing--is not a proposition or state of affairs, but
something one might do.



Second, the theory of intending as being embarked on intentional
action explains the unity of what Thompson calls
'naive' and 'sophisticated'
rationalization. (For this argument, see Thompson 2008, pp.
97-9, 118-9, 132-4.) As well as explaining action by
intention--'He is doing *A* because he intends to do
*B*'--we explain action by action--'He is
doing *A* because he is doing *B*'--intention
by intention--'He intends to do *A* because he
intends to do *B*'--and intention by
action--'He intends to do *A* because he is doing
*B*.' On the face of it, moreover,
'naive' explanations in terms of what someone is
doing entail 'sophisticated' explanations that appeal to
intention. At least when we are using the 'because' of
rationalization, 'He is doing *A* because he is doing
*B*' arguably entails 'He is doing *A*
because he intends to do *B*.' The same point holds for
what is explained: 'He is doing *A*
because...' entails 'He intends to do *A*
because...' If intending is being on the way to intentional
action, these are all forms of explanation by, and of, such progress.
So, again, it is no surprise that they are bound together in just the
way that they appear to be.



If we help ourselves to the 'because' of rationalization,
we can further exploit the unity of its 'naive' and
'sophisticated' forms to give a simple theory of
intention-with-which. An intention with which one is doing *A*
is an intentional-action-in-progress that explains one's doing
it. We thus complete the task of unification that was set by the
threefold division of intention for the future, intention-with-which,
and intentional action, all of which are modes of, or modes of
explanation by, being embarked on intentional action.



A final virtue of this account is that it captures the element of
commitment in intention, emphasized by Michael Bratman, among others
(Bratman 1987, pp. 18-20). Intention is not merely predominant
desire. When I decide to do something, and so intend to do it, I am
embarked upon doing it. This vindicates the Aristotelian view that
action itself is the conclusion of practical thought.



Because of its relatively recent recovery, and the prevalent
acceptance of intention as a mental state, there has been little
examination of the present alternative. But some observations can be
made. First, it is in fact controversial that intending to do
*A* is necessary for doing *A* intentionally, as the
present theory predicts. This raises complications best considered
later on, in sections 2 and 4. (They are briefly discussed at Thompson
2008, pp. 102-3.)



Second, and more obviously, there is room to doubt whether intending
to do *A* is sufficient for me to count as doing it
intentionally, even when we admit that I can be doing what I will
never successfully do. Isn't there a distinction between taking
preparatory steps towards doing *A* and beginning to do it, as
in the contrast between buying flour and eggs with the intention of
baking, and turning on the oven the following week? This distinction
may be significant in ethics and the criminal law (Paul 2014a). There
is also the prospect of plans that require no preparatory steps, as
for instance, to blink tomorrow at 3:00pm. Isn't some intending
utterly pure, as Davidson thought? Once we move away from the simple
theory of intending as doing, however, and introduce the abstract
notion of imperfectivity or being in progress, it is more difficult to
say what such examples show. That the theory is false? Or just how
liminal being in progress can be?



More telling, perhaps, is the possibility of making a mistake, as when
I intend to walk home by the shortest possible route, but have taken a
wrong turn. Do I count as being embarked on walking home by the
shortest route? If not, the theory stands refuted. If so, I can be on
the way not only to doing something I will never do because I will be
interrupted, but something it is now impossible for me to do. Can we
explain how my doings are directed at that impossible outcome except
by appeal to the intention with which they are performed?



The arguments that motivate the theory of intending as being embarked
on intentional action are in any case inconclusive. As to the second,
while it is a constraint on any theory of intention to show the unity
of 'naive' and 'sophisticated'
rationalization, insofar as they are really unified, it would take
much further argument to show that this cannot be done while thinking
of intention as a mental state (cf. Setiya 2007a, pp. 51-2).
Further demands for unity push towards that view. So, for instance, if
we hope to bring out what is common to the explanations 'He is
doing *A* because he is doing *B*' and 'He
is doing *A* because *p*' where these entail,
respectively, 'He is doing *A* because he intends to do
*B*' and 'He is doing *A* because he
believes that *p*,' we will have to relate intention to
the mental state of belief. If intention is not itself a mental state,
but a way of being in progress, such relations are more puzzling. They
are taken up again in section 5.



As to the first, those who think of intention as a mental state could
explain why its objects are restricted to actions by saying more about
the kind of state it is. For instance, if intention is a
representation that is such as to guide and control what it
represents, its object must be as such as to be guided: it must be the
sort of thing that can be in progress and move towards completion,
something that can be done, not a mere proposition or state of
affairs. Alternatively, the restriction could be denied (as it is by
Davis 1984, pp. 131-2; Ferrero 2013). Intending that *p*
is fundamental, and intending to go home can be explained in terms of
it: I intend that I will get home by going home.



Finally, whatever view we take about the basic objects of
intention--actions or propositions--it is a problem for the
theory of intending as being embarked on intentional action that these
objects can be logically complex. I intend not to be hit by a car as I
walk home. I intend to drink with dinner or have dessert, but not
both. I intend to read a book tonight if there's nothing on the
radio. In none of these cases can we say, without contrivance, what
action I am now on the way to performing. Until it is supplied with an
account of these cases, and of the relation between intention and the
mental states with which it interacts, the theory of intending as
being embarked on intentional action remains incomplete.


## 2. Intention in Action



If prospective intention cannot be explained in terms of intentional
action, or both in terms of being in progress, how can we preserve the
unity of our three divisions? In particular, how does intentional
action relate to prospective intention and intention-with-which? There
are two obvious thoughts. The first is that doing *A*
intentionally is doing it with some further intention, or doing
something with the intention of thereby doing *A*. The second
is that both phenomena are to be explained in terms of intention as a
mental state. Let us take these possibilities in turn.



The idea of explaining intentional action through intention-with-which
is associated with resistance to causal accounts of acting for a
reason. It begins instead with intentional teleology--doing
*A* in order to do *B*, or with the intention of doing
*B*--treating this as primitive and not involving
intention as efficient cause. If we assume that every intentional
action is done for a reason, and that this reason can be cast in
teleological form, we can identify doing *A* intentionally with
doing *A* in order to do something else. We thereby unify two
guises of intention.



Difficulties arise, however, from the case of idle behaviour, in which
I am doing *A* intentionally for no particular reason (Anscombe
1963, p. 25), and from the possibility--or necessity--that
teleological series come to an end. I am doing *A* in order to
do *B* in order to do *C* ... in order to do
*Z*, which I am doing for its own sake. Not all intentional
actions are performed with a further end. The purported unity fades.
In order to solve this problem while leaving room for basic
intentional actions, not performed by intentionally taking further
means, George Wilson (1989) and Carl Ginet (1990, Ch. 6) appeal to
intention *de re*. One need not intend one's doing
*A* to promote some further end in order to count as doing
*A* intentionally. It is sufficient to intend, of something one
is doing, that it promote or constitute one's doing
*A*.



This way of putting things prompts the objection that merely having
that intention is not enough. If the intention is idle or ineffective,
one will not, despite one's wishes, count as doing *A*
intentionally, or as acting in order to do *A* (Mele 1992, pp.
248-55). We need to add a causal relation, after all. But this
objection misconstrues the teleological view. It is not that the mere
presence of a mental state--intending of ... that it
...--constitutes acting with an intention, or acting
intentionally, but that intention-with-which is a basic form of
teleology, distinct from causation by a mental state, out of which we
can construct the unity of intention.



A deeper problem for the teleological approach is how to complete this
construction with an account of prospective intention in terms of
intention-with-which. In cases of pure intending, there is no
intention with which I am doing anything yet. It is thus no accident
that Wilson (1989, pp. 222-30) is led to deny the possibility of
pure intention. When I intend to do *A* in the future, I am
doing something now with the intention of doing *A*, in that I
intend, of what I am doing, that it promote or constitute my doing
*A*. The action in question may be as minimal as keeping track
of opportunities for doing *A*, or biding my time.



Finally, the teleological theorist must account for the connection
between intentions with which one acts and psychological states of
belief and desire. Why does it follow from the fact that one intends,
of what one is doing, that it promote or constitute one's doing
*A* that one wants to do *A* and that one believes, of
what one is doing, that it is a means to that end? These implications
make sense if intention is a species of desire that interacts with
means-end belief when one does *A* with the intention of doing
*B*. They are more difficult to explain if intention-with-which
is the basic material from which intention and intentional action are
built. (This argument is developed at greater length in Setiya 2011,
pp. 146-9.)



Pressures of this kind push us towards the second approach, now
orthodox in action theory, which aims to explain both intentional
action and intention-with-which in terms of intention as a mental
state. According to the simplest possible view, an intentional action
of doing *A* is the execution of a prior intention to do
*A*, and doing *A* with the intention of doing
*B* is intending, of one's doing *A*, that it
promote or constitute one's doing *B*.



A note of caution is essential here: it is important to distinguish
the more modest project of explaining what it is to act intentionally
in terms of intending and doing from the more ambitious project of
explaining what it is for *S* to act intentionally in terms of
goings-on of which S is not the agent. The latter project is implied
by Wittgenstein's notorious arithmetic: "What is left over
when I subtract the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that I
raise my arm?" (Wittgenstein 1953, SS621). Some philosophers
attempt to answer this question, explaining what it is to do
*A* intentionally without appeal to doing *A*. But one
need not share that aim in giving an account of intentional action in
terms of intention as a mental state: one can take for granted that I
am raising my arm, for instance, and ask what more is involved in
raising my arm intentionally (Setiya 2011, SS2; Setiya 2016b, pp.
3-9).



Even the more modest project runs into difficulties. First, although
we sometimes form an intention prior to acting, this is not essential.
I can wave my arm intentionally without planning in advance. This fact
elicits a refinement often credited to Searle (1983, pp. 84-5):
the distinction between prospective intention and intention in action.
In the former case, one intends to do *A*, perhaps at some
point in the future. In the latter, one intends to be doing it now.
When *S* is doing *A* intentionally, she is doing it in
execution of an intention in action, though except in very unusual
cases she also intends to do *A*: to complete the action she is
in the midst of performing.



This refinement preserves the idea that doing *A* intentionally
requires an intention whose object is doing *A*. This is what
Bratman (1987, p. 112) has dubbed 'the Simple View.' It is
open to serious objections, the more subtle of which will be examined
in section 4. For now, it is sufficient to note that I sometimes count
as doing *A* intentionally when it is a merely foreseen and
unintended consequence of what I intend to do. (See Harman 1976, pp.
151-2; Bratman 1987, pp. 123-5.) Thus if I am paid to pump
water into the cistern of a house, and I continue to do so even when I
realize that the water is poisoned, I poison the inhabitants of the
house intentionally, despite the fact that I did not intend or desire
such harm (cf. Anscombe 1963, pp. 41-2). Even here, however, an
intention is executed: I intend to pump water into the house. In
general, when it is not the execution of a directly corresponding
intention, doing *A* intentionally is a foreseen or desired
consequence of an action that is. Admittedly, this condition is
necessary, not sufficient, for intentional action, a concept whose
vagaries are hard to map. But the execution of intention remains the
core phenomenon from which all instances of intentional action are
derived.



Along with such matters of detail, two problems of principle can be
raised against the present approach. The first contends that it is
tacitly circular, because the content of intention always includes the
concept of intentionality (Wilson 1989, pp. 274-5; Ginet 1990,
pp. 34-5). In prospective intention, I intend not only to do
*A*, but to do *A* *intentionally*, and the same
point holds for the object of intention in action. This prevents us
from explaining what it is to act intentionally in terms of intention
as a mental state. Alternatively, one might hold, as Anscombe (1963,
SS47) apparently does, that for some values of
'*A*'--as perhaps, paying, hiring, or
marrying--it is essential to doing *A* that one do it
intentionally (see Ford 2015; Setiya 2016a).



The force of this objection is unclear. While there is something wrong
with an account of what it is to ph that appeals to being or doing
ph, it is not so obviously problematic to appeal to mental states
that *represent* something as being or doing ph. Our task is
not to introduce the concept of intentional action to someone who
lacks that concept, but to spell out the metaphysics of doing
*A* intentionally. It is an open question whether
'metaphysical definition'--saying what it is to
ph--can be permissibly circular, so long as the circularity is
contained in the scope of an attitude. Such circularity is
characteristic of 'response-dependent' accounts of
evaluative and other properties. (This response may fail if the
attitude in question is knowledge; see Ford 2011, SS4.)



A more direct response to the challenge would deny its premise. While
it is true that the execution of intention is intentional action, it
does not follow that the *object* of intention is doing
*A* intentionally (cf. Searle 1983, pp. 85-6). If I
intend to be smiling and am doing so involuntarily, I am doing what I
intend, though not intentionally. Likewise, if I intend to skip
breakfast and do so because I forget about it, my intention was
fulfilled, though not by intentional action. Even paying, hiring, and
marrying are things one can do unintentionally; intentionality is not
built into the object of intention in a way that makes for circularity
(see Beddor and Pavese forthcoming, SS6, responding to
Pineros Glasscock 2020). This point is consistent with the view
that, when I act for reasons, those reasons figure in my intention as
a Kantian 'maxim'. In that case, my intention is
fulfilled, in its entirety, only if I act on them and thereby act
intentionally. (See Wallace 1999, pp. 60-2; Setiya 2007a, pp.
39-49; Korsgaard 2008; Schapiro 2011; and, for resistance,
Sinhababu 2013, SS3. On the content of intention, more generally,
see Harman 1976, pp. 156-8; Velleman 1989, pp. 94-7; Mele
1992, Ch. 11; and Ross, pp. 255-7, Appendix B.)



The second problem is more a question: whether 'the relation of
*being done in execution of a certain intention*, or *being
done intentionally*, is a causal relation between act and
intention.' (Anscombe 1983, p. 95) Anscombe denies that it is.
When she writes of 'practical knowledge' as 'the
cause of what it understands' she means formal not efficient
cause: practical knowledge is essential to the action it represents,
at least when 'the description of the action is of a type to be
formally the description of an executed intention.' (See
Anscombe 1963, pp. 87-8, and for conflicting interpretations:
Hursthouse 2000; Vogler 2002; Moran 2004; Newstead 2006; Velleman
2007; Paul 2011; Ford 2015; Schwenkler 2015; Lavin 2016; Setiya 2016a;
Campbell 2018a; Campbell 2018b.)



One source of concern about intention as efficient cause is that
intention need not precede intentional action, while causes must
precede their effects. But causal theorists may deny that claim about
the temporality of causes, conceiving intention as the simultaneous,
sustaining cause of what one is doing (Thalberg 1984, pp. 257-8;
Setiya 2007a, pp 56-9).



A more common anxiety turns on 'causal deviance' (Davidson
1973, p. 79). If we are trying to say what it is to act intentionally,
the condition of doing *A* because one so intends looks
insufficient. For it says nothing about the causal path from intention
to action. If I intend to be shaking in order to signal my
confederate, and this intention makes me nervous, so that I shake, I
am shaking because I so intend--though not intentionally. My
intention did not cause me to shake 'in the right way.'
Nor is the 'right way' obviously a matter of
'proximate' causation or the absence of causal
intermediaries, since a causal theorist may well allow for neural
intermediaries, and further intentions, in the causal path from
intention to action. There is a failure of intentional action only
when the intermediaries are of the wrong kind.



Reactions to causal deviance vary widely. Some are convinced that the
problem is hopeless (Anscombe 1989, pp. 110-1; Wilson 1989, Ch.
9; O'Brien 2007, Ch. 8). Others aim to solve it by
distinguishing deviance in the causation of non-basic actions,
performed by intentional means, from deviance in basic intentional
action. The former happens when things do not happen as we planned;
the latter can be solved by appeal to forms of causal direction or
guidance found outside the province of intentional action (Thalberg
1984; Mele 1992, Ch. 11; Setiya 2007a, pp. 31-2, Hyman 2014).
But the existence of basic intentional actions is disputed (Lavin
2013), as is their internal structure or teleology (Valaris 2015;
Small 2019).



It is in any case unclear how the dispute about causal deviance bears
on the project of explaining intentional action through intention as a
mental state. Would that project survive if the relation of execution
and the corresponding 'because' were taken as primitive?
Or in a 'disjunctive' theory according to which intention
in action has two distinct forms: doing *A* intentionally and
'mere' intending, frustrated by the world? Like the theory
of intending as being embarked upon intentional action, the
disjunctive conception agrees with Aristotle that action is, or can
be, the conclusion of practical thought.



Corresponding issues have been pursued in the philosophy of
perception, where causal and disjunctive theories are often opposed
(as by Snowdon 1980-1), and in epistemology more broadly.
Instead of explaining knowledge as belief that meets further
conditions, some epistemologists treat knowledge as basic, explaining
mere belief as its defective form (McDowell 1995; Williamson 2000).
The parallel view of intentional action treats mere intending as a
defective form of intentional action (O'Brien 2007; Rodl
2007, Ch. 2; McDowell 2010, SS7; Marcus 2012, Ch. 2; Levy 2021). A
question for this view is how the state of intending can be a form of
something dynamic: the event or process of acting. To answer this
question, we need to say more about the kind of state intention
is.


## 3. Intention and the Good



If intention is a mental state in relation to which doing *A*
amounts to doing *A* intentionally, or with the further
intention of doing *B*, that fact would unify the modes of
intention with which we began. It would, however, tell us little about
intending itself. Does this state involve desire? Belief about what
one is doing or what one is going to do? Evaluative judgement? Similar
questions arise for those who deny that intention is a mental state
and explain it as being on the way to intentional action. Must I want
to perform an action I am thus embarked upon? Believe that I am
engaged in it? Hold it to be in some way good?



It is a matter of consensus in the philosophy of intention that
intending to do *A* entails wanting to do *A*, in the
motivational sense for which the 'primitive sign of wanting is
*trying to get*' (Anscombe 1963, p. 68). Doubts about
this entailment are attributed to ambiguities in 'desire.'
When I intend to do *A* reluctantly, from the motive of duty, I
may deny that I want to do it, but what I lack is
'appetite' not 'volition' (Davis 1984, pp.
135-40; Thompson 2008, pp. 103-5).



Intending is thus a 'pro-attitude' of some
kind--assuming, for simplicity, that intention is a mental state.
In his later work, Davidson specified this pro-attitude as 'an
all-out, unconditional judgement that the action is desirable'
(Davidson 1978, p. 99). He made two further refinements. First, when
one is doing *A* intentionally, 'at least when the action
is of brief duration, nothing seems to stand in the way of an
Aristotelian identification of the action with [all-out evaluative
judgement]' (Davidson 1978, p. 99). Second, one counts as
intending an action only if one's beliefs are consistent with
one's performing it; one cannot intend to do what one believes
to be impossible (Davidson 1978, pp. 100-1).



In an influential critique, Bratman objects that choice is possible
even when one knows that neither option is best (Bratman 1985,
SS(Bratman 1985, SSV). One can decide between options that are
equivalent (like the identical bales of hay that stumped Buridan's
ass) or that are 'on a par', in that neither is better or
worse than the other, though they are too different to count as
equally good. (On parity, see Chang 2002). If unconditional judgement
presents its object as more desirable than any alternative,
Davidson's theory wrongly prohibits such decisions. Eugene
Chislenko defends that implication, arguing that the practical problem
is solved by allowing oneself to drift non-intentionally until one
option stands out (Chislenko 2016). But while this might work for
Buridan's ass, who finds himself slightly closer to one bale of hay
than the other, and so decides to eat it, it won't work for
decision-making under parity, where small improvements fail to break
the tie.



An alternative view identifies intention with the unconditional
judgement that a given action is no less desirable than others. It
thus permits me to intend either of two equivalent options. The
problem is that it permits me to intend *both* options, even if
I know that they are incompatible. Against this, Bratman claims that
it is irrational to intend *A* and intend *B* if one
cannot rationally intend *A*-and-*B*, as when doing both
is inconsistent with one's beliefs (Bratman 1985, SS(Bratman
1985, SSV).



A related objection is that we can fail to act, or intend, in
accordance with our evaluations. In a typical case of
*akrasia*, I conclude that I ought to quit, but decide to
continue smoking instead. Davidson (1970) replied to this by
distinguishing 'all things considered' from
'unconditional' evaluative judgement. In
'conditional' or 'prima facie' judgements one
takes some body of considerations, *r*, to support *A*
over *B*. All things considered judgement is the special case
of this in which *r* includes all the considerations one holds
relevant. There is no inconsistency in judging that the sum of these
particular considerations favours *A* over *B* while
judging that *B* is better than *A*, perhaps in light of
other facts one has not explicitly considered. Since it is the latter
judgement that constitutes intention, one can act intentionally
against the former. This is how Davidson makes sense of my continuing
to smoke.



Few have been convinced by Davidson's account. Can't we
act--intentionally and without self-contradiction--against
an unconditional evaluative judgement? Or fail to intend in accordance
with one? (McDowell 2010 is a recent critic of Davidson on this score;
Chislenko 2020 argues that *akrasia* involves contradictory
beliefs.) Davidson himself concedes that '*A* is better
than *B*, all things considered' entails
'*A* is better than *B*' if 'all
things considered' means 'all truths, moral and
otherwise' (Davidson 1970, p. 40). He may intend this to be
trivial, counting that fact that *A* is better than *B*
among the relevant truths. But it is both plausible and non-trivial to
claim that *A* is better than *B*, in the relevant
sense, if and only if the balance of reasons favours *A* over
*B*, where the reasons are distinct from that evaluative fact.
If it is possible to grasp this connection, to hold that the balance
of reasons favours quitting, and still not intend to quit,
Davidson's theory must be false. (A consequence of this fact is
the need to distinguish weakness as *akrasia*, or acting
against one's better judgement, from weakness as a failure of will;
see Holton 2009, Ch. 4.)



If we hope to defend an evaluative theory of intention, despite this
possibility, we will have to equate intending with judgement of some
other evaluative proposition, not entailed by claims about the balance
of reasons (as in Rodl 2007, Ch. 2), distinguish kinds of
judgement or ways of representing an action as to be done, one of
which constitutes intending, the other of which we act against in
*akrasia* (as in Tenenbaum 2007, Ch. 7), or otherwise weaken
the relationship between intention and the good (as in Shah 2008).
Whichever way we go, we will need to motivate the evaluative theory.
What is it about the role of intention in intentional action, or in
practical reasoning, that requires it to take an evaluative shape?
What is missing from theories of intention on which it does not?


## 4. Intentions as Plans



Having criticized Davidson's theory, Bratman offers a diagnosis
of his mistake that appeals to the functional role of intention as a
mental state. According to Bratman (1985, SSVI), Davidson neglects
the place of prospective intentions in cross-temporal and
inter-personal coordination, and as inputs to further practical
thought. There is room for doubt about this verdict, since all-out
evaluative judgement may well appear as a premise of practical
syllogism ('I ought to do *A*; doing *B* is a
means to that; so I ought to do *B*') and since it may
sustain 'diachronic autonomy,' at least to some extent,
just through the working of memory (a point emphasized by Ferrero
2006). But Bratman is right to indicate a gap in Davidson's
story, which he has done more than anyone to fill.



For Bratman (1987), intention is a distinctive practical attitude
marked by its pivotal role in planning for the future. Intention
involves desire, but even predominant desire is insufficient for
intention, since it need not involve a commitment to act: intentions
are 'conduct-controlling pro-attitudes, ones which we are
disposed to retain without reconsideration, and which play a
significant role as inputs to [means-end] reasoning' (Bratman
1987, p. 20). The plans for action contained in our intentions are
typically partial and must be filled out in accordance with changing
circumstances as the future comes.



Among the advantages of being able to commit ourselves to action in
advance, albeit defeasibly, are: (i) the capacity to make rational
decisions for circumstances in which we cannot deliberate, or that
lend themselves to deliberative distortion; (ii) the capacity to
engage in complex, temporally extended projects that require
coordination with our future selves; and (iii) the capacity for
similar coordination with others.



Bratman (1987) argues that these advantages are best secured if our
intentions are consistent with one another and with our beliefs, if
they conform to principles of means-end coherence--for instance,
that when we intend *E* and believe that intending *M*
is necessary to achieve *E*, we also intend *M*, and if
they are resistant to reconsideration. There is, he claims, a
'pragmatic rationale' for such requirements, 'one
grounded in [their] long-run contribution to getting what we
(rationally) want' (Bratman 1987, p. 35).



Responses to Bratman's theory have focused largely on the nature
of these alleged requirements. Bratman (1987, SS2.5) argues that
intentions do not provide inputs to practical reasoning by providing
additional reasons. This conception is, on the one hand, too weak,
since it treats the fact that I have settled on doing *A* as
just one consideration among many in favour of doing it, whereas
means-end coherence is a strict or peremptory demand. And it is, on
the other hand, too strong, since it permits a form of illicit
bootstrapping in which an irrational decision can generate a reason
that tips the balance in favour of acting on it. (Do intentions ever
provide reasons? Many deny this; see, for instance, Broome 2001;
Brunero 2007; Cullity 2008; Kolodny 2011. But Bratman's argument
leaves room for such reasons, so long as the actions they support
would be rational without them. For versions of this point, see Chang
2009; Ferrero 2010; Smith 2016.)



Bratman's pragmatic theory gives intentions a substantive role
in practical thought without treating them as reasons. But it faces
problems of its own. In structure, Bratman's theory is akin to
the variety of rule-utilitarianism on which we have utilitarian
grounds for adopting a practice of punishment or promising that
sometimes goes against considerations of utility. This structure
prompts a serious dilemma. If reasons for adopting a practice or
pattern of reasoning transmit to the actions or inferences that fall
under it, as Rawls (1955) once argued, the problems of bootstrapping
and peremptoriness return. All we have is a theory of *why*
intentions provide reasons. But if reasons do not transmit in this
way, the picture appears to be one of 'rational
irrationality': having reason to adopt or sustain an irrational
pattern of reasoning, on the ground that the results of doing so are
mostly for the best. Neither option is appealing.



In his 1987 book, Bratman in effect pursued the second path, hoping to
soften its peculiarity by distinguishing 'internal' and
'external' perspectives on rationality and deliberation
(Bratman 1987, SS3.5). More recently, he has argued that the
benefits of consistency and coherence are more than pragmatic, since
they allow for a form of self-governance that is of non-instrumental
value (Bratman 2009b), and that they are closely tied to the
functional role of intentions as plans (Bratman 2009c,
SSSSVIII-IX). He also adopts John Broome's (2004)
idea that the relevant norms take 'wide scope.' For
instance, it is irrational to [intend *E*, believe that
intending *M* is necessary to achieve *E*, and not
intend *M*]. It does not follow from this that, if one intends
*E*, one is under rational pressure to intend the necessary
means, since one can just as well avoid the forbidden combination of
attitudes by giving up one's intention for the end. By the same
token, there is no need to admit that intentions provide reasons for
acting. We thus avoid both horns of the dilemma sketched above. How
far this strategy succeeds is a matter of ongoing dispute (Setiya
2007b; Bratman 2009b; Brunero 2010; Way 2010). There is also a
question how far Bratman's functional explanation of means-end
rationality commits him to a wider form of rationalism or
'constitutivism' about practical reason (Setiya 2014;
Bratman 2018).



A further objection to the demands for consistency and coherence in
intention turns on an implication that Bratman (1987, Ch. 8) himself
draws out. According to the Simple View, doing *A*
intentionally involves an intention whose object is *A*. As
Bratman argues, however, it is sometimes rational to attempt both
*A* and *B*, hoping to achieve one or the other, when I
know that I cannot do both. If I succeed in doing *A*, I will
have done so intentionally, and thus, on the Simple View, I must have
intended to do *A*. Considerations of symmetry imply that I
also intended to do *B*. But then my intentions are not jointly
consistent with my beliefs. Bratman concludes that the Simple View is
false, since it would be irrational to have such intentions. Instead,
I intend to try doing *A* and to try doing *B*, knowing
that I can make both attempts, though both cannot succeed. Bratman
admits that, when I try to do *A*, I take the relevant means
'with the intention' of doing it. But he finds this phrase
ambiguous. On one reading, it ascribes the intention to do *A*,
but in the present case it does not. Instead, I merely
'endeavour' to do *A*, where this is a matter of
'guiding desire' (Bratman 1987, Ch. 9).



The main objection to this view, pressed forcefully by Hugh McCann
(1991), is that it generates an unhappy proliferation of
intention-like states, and that, by finding ambiguity in
'intention with which,' it fails to unify the guises of
intention. What is more, there are natural alternatives. One equates
intention with guiding desire, defends the Simple View, and finds the
requirement of consistency defeasible. There is rational pressure to
conform to it, in general, but this pressure can be outweighed, as
when it makes sense to intend both *A* and *B*, despite
their manifest inconsistency, hoping to achieve just one. Another
alternative appeals to partial intention, by analogy with partial
belief (see Holton 2009; Goldstein 2016; Shpall 2016; Archer 2017;
Munoz 2018). There is also room for a more radical view, on
which the reasons for being consistent in one's intentions, or
conforming to means-end coherence, reduce to the reasons for acting in
one way or another: Bratman's alleged requirements are a
'myth' (Raz 2005; Kolodny 2008; Tenenbaum 2014).



Other puzzles concern the formulation and defense of diachronic
requirements of rationality for intention: the idea that intentions
should persist over time, resisting reconsideration, especially in
light of temptations they were designed to forestall. (On the nature
of such requirements, see Holton 2009; Broome 2013: Ch. 10; Paul
2014b; Bratman 2018; Tenenbaum 2020; Brunero forthcoming.) The idea
that intentions resist reconsideration creates potential moral risks:
what if they make us insensitive or indifferent to changing moral
reasons? (See Bok 1996; Paul 2017.) What do ethical concerns of this
kind mean for the role of intention in diachronic autonomy or
self-governance?



A final objection to Bratman's theory is more general, and would
apply as well to the theory of intention as guiding desire. The
question is whether such accounts reveal the unity of intentional
action, intention for the future, and intention-with-which.
McCann's objection concerned the latter. The more basic
objection is about the role of intention in intentional action.
Bratman (1987, Ch. 8) does not ignore this connection: he proposes
necessary and sufficient conditions for doing *A* intentionally
that rely on the state of intending, though not always the intention
of doing *A* itself. But it is open to question how deep the
envisaged unity goes. Why must there be intention in intentional
action, if intentions are plans? (See Velleman 2007, SS3.)



A partial answer cites the need for direction and guidance in doing
anything that takes time or requires the selection of means. But it is
not clear that such guidance requires intention (see Bratman 1987, pp.
126-7 on spontaneous action). Nor would this forge a general
connection between the state of intending and the phenomenon of acting
for reasons or the application of Anscombe's (1963, p. 9)
question 'Why?' If *S* is doing *A* on the
ground that *p*, she is doing it intentionally. Bratman's
conditions do not explain why intention must be involved in the
antecedent of this conditional. Why must reasons attach to what I am
doing by way of plans or guiding desires? One response is to admit
that they may not: there can be intentional action without intention
(see Bratman 2000, pp. 51-2). But if we hope to unify intention
with intentional action, we cannot accept this. Intention must figure
in the correct account of acting for a reason, and thus intentionally.
In order to avoid disunity, the theory of intentions as plans (or as
guiding desires) needs such an account.


## 5. Intention and Belief



Acknowledging these problems, some philosophers turn back to Davidson
and the project of reducing intention to desire and means-end belief
(see, especially, Ridge 1998; Sinhababu 2013; and, for discussion,
Mulder 2018). But others see a promise of unity in the
idea--influentially proposed by Elizabeth Anscombe (1963, pp.
11-15) and Stuart Hampshire (1959, pp. 95, 102)--that when
*S* is doing *A* intentionally, *S* knows that
she is doing *A*. What is more, acting for a reason, in a sense
that contrasts with mere purposive behavior (of the sort
characteristic of other animals), essentially involves such knowledge:
in acting for a reason, I know an explanation of what I am doing that
cites that reason, and therefore know that I am doing it. That is why,
for Anscombe, the question 'Why?' is 'given
application' by the agent. Intentional action turns on knowing
the answer to that question.



This picture raises many difficulties, and needs considerable
refinement and defence. (For variations, see Velleman 1989; Velleman
2000; Setiya 2007a, Part One; Rodl 2007, Ch. 2; Setiya 2016b.)
Some will resist the claim that acting for a reason is acting with
self-knowledge--though it is important to stress that the
knowledge attributed here need not involve conscious belief. There is
also disagreement about the kind of explanation involved in giving the
reasons for which one acts (Wilson 1989, Ch. 7; Ginet 1990, Ch. 6;
Dancy 2000; Davis 2005; Alvarez 2010; Setiya 2011). But if the picture
is basically right, it suggests that the unity of intention can be
found in knowledge or belief about action. Assuming that knowledge
entails belief, the basic thought is that intention in action involves
the belief that one is doing *A*. Doing something for a reason
involves a belief about one's reason for doing it that
constitutes intention in action. And prospective intention, or
intention for the future, involves a belief about what one is going to
do and why. The idea that intention involves belief is what unifies
intentional action, prospective intention, and intention-with-which.
(On an alternative view, which may be Anscombe's, intention
contrasts with belief: they correspond to radically different kinds of
knowledge. See the treatment of mistakes below.)



The claim that intention entails belief--most commonly, that if
one intends to do *A*, one believes that one is going to do
it--is widespread among those who draw no particular inspiration
from Anscombe. (See Audi 1973; Harman 1976; Davis 1984; Ross 2009.) As
Grice (1971, pp. 264-6) observed, there is peculiarity of some
sort in asserting 'I intend to do *A*, but I might not do
it,' a peculiarity readily explained if intention is a species
of belief. It is equally striking that the ordinary expression of
intention for the future is 'I am going to do A' (Anscombe
1963, p. 1), which looks like the assertoric expression of belief. The
same point holds for intention in action: 'What are you up
to?'; 'I am doing *A*.' Although such
evidence is suggestive, however, it might be explained in other ways.
(See Davidson 1978, pp. 91, 100; for criticism, Pears 1985; and for
more recent discussion, Marusic and Schwenkler 2018,
SS2.2; Levy 2018; Asarnow forthcoming.)



So far, we have only the fragment of a theory, an alleged condition of
intending, not an adequate account of what intention is. Here there
are several possibilities. It is sometimes said that intention
*is* belief (Velleman 1989; Marusic and Schwenkler
2018). But this creates a risk of confusion. It is not clear that
anyone believes there is a value of *p* such that intending to
do *A* is no more than believing *p*. Instead they hold
that part of what it is to intend to do *A* is to believe
*p*; other conditions must be met. The confusion stems from
talk of particular 'tokens' of intending which may be
identified with tokens of belief. But the idea of a token state may
not be coherent (Steward 1997) and the would-be cognitivist need think
otherwise.



If intention involves belief, what more does it require? On the
simplest proposal, to intend an action is to believe that one will
perform it and to have an appropriate guiding desire (Audi 1973, p.
395). But a mere conjunction seems insufficient: the desire and belief
could be utterly unrelated (Davis 1984, pp. 141-2). This prompts
the suggestion that, when *S* intends to do *A*, his
belief rests on his desire: to intend an action is to believe that one
will perform it on the ground that one wants to do so (Davis 1984, p.
147; see also Grice 1971, pp. 278-9). The principal defect of
this account is that it makes the belief component of intention
epiphenomenal. This belief merely registers one's activity: the
motivational work is done by a prior desire. (Something similar is
true on more subtle theories that divorce the motivational role of
intention from belief; as, for instance, Ross 2009, pp. 250-1.)
If the claim that intention involves belief is to capture the essence
of the will, not a superficial fact about the word
'intend,' the belief must be implicated in the functions
of intending and the explanation of action. (For objections of this
kind, see Bratman 1987, pp. 19-20 and Mele 1992, Ch. 8 on
'intention\*'; on the role of beliefs in planning for the
future, see Velleman 1989, Ch. 8; Velleman 2007; Marusic
and Schwenkler 2018, SS2.3; Alonso 2020; Alonso 2021.)



There is variation even among those accounts that give a motivational
role to belief. On Velleman's early view, intentions are
'self-fulfilling expectations that are motivated by a desire for
their fulfillment and that represent themselves as such'
(Velleman 1989, p. 109). Such expectations interact with a general
desire for self-knowledge to motivate action by which they are
confirmed. More recently, Velleman has replaced the desire for
self-knowledge with a sub-personal aim or disposition (Velleman 2000:
19-21). Either way, his view threatens to generate what Bratman
(1991, pp. 261-2) calls 'the problem of
promiscuity': in attributing a general tendency that motivates
us to conform to our own expectations, it predicts that we will be
just as strongly motivated by beliefs that do not constitute
intentions, like the belief that I am going to trip over the step, or
mispronounce a word.



A different proposal, due to Harman (1976, p. 168) is that intentions
are 'conclusion[s] of practical reasoning' (see also Ross
2009, pp. 270-2; Marusic and Schwenkler 2018). But
it seems possible to intend an action spontaneously, for no particular
reason. In later work, Harman looks downstream of intention, rather
than upstream: an intention is a belief about what one is doing or
what one is going to do that has the power to guide and motivate
action through practical thought (Harman 1986, pp. 375-6; Setiya
2007a, pp. 48-53). This claim interacts with the question about
'disjunctive' theories left unanswered at the end of
section 2. If intention involves belief, those who treat knowledge as
basic, with mere belief its defective form, will take a similar view
of 'knowledge in intention' (Rodl 2007; Ch. 2;
McDowell 2010, SS7; Marcus 2012, Ch. 2). In the good case,
one's intention in action involves knowledge of what one is
doing: it entails, so cannot cause or motivate, one's action. In
the bad case, one merely intends to act. If not its causal role,
however, what distinguishes knowledge in intention from knowledge of
other kinds?



Finally, there is Anscombe's own view, on which there is a
normative contrast between intention and ordinary belief. If one fails
to act as one intends, and not through a mistaken belief about the
means or possibilities for action, 'the mistake is not one of
judgment but of performance' (Anscombe 1963, pp. 56-7).
Intention sets a standard of success for what does. (For discussions
of this point, see Frost 2014; Setiya 2016a; Campbell 2018a; Campbell
2018b.) What is more, there is 'a difference of form between
reasoning leading to action and reasoning for the truth of a
conclusion' (Anscombe 1963, p. 60). Intention is justified by
the former, not the latter: by practical not theoretical reasoning
(Anscombe 1963, pp. 57-62).



In this respect, Anscombe's doctrine differs most sharply from
Velleman's. As well as thinking of intention as a kind of
belief, Velleman holds that 'practical reasoning is a kind of
theoretical reasoning' (Velleman 1989, p. 15; see also Ross
2009). In a review of Velleman's book, Bratman (1991, pp.
250-1) dubbed the conjunction of these claims 'cognitivism
about practical reason.' It prompts what Davidson (1978, p. 95)
called 'the strongest argument against identifying [intention]
with [belief],' that 'reasons for intending to do
something are in general quite different from reasons for believing
one will do it.' Though Velleman (1989, pp. 122-5) defends
that identification, one need not do so in order to accept the theory
of intention as a form of belief or the idea of 'knowledge in
intention.'



A more modest 'cognitivism' would hold that intention
involves belief, that practical reasoning does not reduce to
theoretical, but that some requirements that govern intention are best
understood as requirements of theoretical reason. It is often regarded
as a virtue of such cognitivism that it explains why there should be
an indefeasible requirement of consistency among intentions and
beliefs (Ross 2009, pp. 244-7). It has also been argued that the
requirement of means-end coherence follows from requirements of
theoretical reason on the beliefs that figure in our intentions
(Harman 1976, p. 153; Wallace 2001; Setiya 2007b; Ross 2009, pp.
261-5). If I intend to do *E* and thus believe that I
will do it, and I believe that doing *M* is a necessary means
to doing *E*, but do not intend or believe that I am going to
do *M*, I fail to believe a practically salient logical
consequence of what I believe. The principal challenge for a
cognitivist account of means-end coherence is to explain why one must
avoid such theoretical failures by forming the relevant intention, not
just the corresponding belief (Bratman 2009a). But once again, one
need not defend cognitivism, even in its less ambitious form, in
conceiving intention as a kind of belief.



There are two main arguments against this conception. The first turns
on apparent cases of intention without belief. According to Davidson,
'[a] man may be making ten carbon copies as he writes, and this
may be intentional; yet he may not know that he is; all he knows is
that he is trying' (Davidson 1971, p. 50; see also Davidson
1978, pp. 91-4). Or imagine I am recovering from paralysis, and
movement slowly returns to my hand. At a certain point, I am not sure
that I can clench my fist. As it happens, I can. But if I try to do so
behind my back, under anesthesia, I may not believe that I am
clenching my fist, even though--on the face of it--I am
doing so intentionally, and that is just what I intend (Setiya 2008,
pp. 390-1). Something similar crops up in planning for the
future. I intend to mail the bills on the way to work, but I know that
I am forgetful, and don't believe that I will do it (see Bratman
1987, pp. 37-8).



Such examples can be dealt with in various ways. One strategy insists
that, when I do not believe that I am clenching my fist, or that I
will mail the bills, I do not intend the corresponding actions, I
merely intend to *try* (Harman 1986, pp. 364-5; Velleman
1989, pp. 115-6). But do I really act as I intended if I try and
fail? (See Pears 1985, p. 86; McCann 1991, p. 212.) And when I know
that I am forgetful, do I even believe that I will try to mail the
bills? A more radical theory points to the simplifying assumption,
often made in epistemology, that belief is binary and does not come by
degree. On that assumption, it may be harmless to claim that intention
involves belief. But the truth is bound to be more complex: that in
forming an intention one becomes more confident than one would
otherwise be (Setiya 2008, pp. 391-2); or that the will is a
capacity to know what one is doing, or what one is going to do, whose
exercise may be impeded, yielding mere belief or partial belief
instead of knowledge (Pears 1985, pp. 78-81; Setiya 2009, pp.
129-31; Setiya 2012, pp. 300-303; Marusic and
Schwenkler 2018, SS3.1).



A final response casts doubt on the examples. When we recall the
'openness' of the progressive, we can insist that
Davidson's carbon-copier knows that he is making ten copies,
even if he is not sure the copies are going through first time (see
Thompson 2011; Wolfson 2012). It is not a condition of being embarked
on intentional action that one will in fact succeed. The same might be
said when I am clenching my first, if what I know is merely that I am
in progress towards doing so, in some liminal way. (This points back
to the theory of intending as doing, discussed in section 1.) This
strategy struggles with prospective intention and the belief that I am
going to act. But its advocates may insist that the content of
prospective intention is also imperfective (Thompson 2008, pp.
142-5). We have practical knowledge only of what is in progress,
not what has happened, or what will.



The second objection is epistemic. If forming an intention is, among
other things, coming to believe that one is doing *A*, or that
one is going to do *A*, what entitles us to form such beliefs?
Not, or not ordinarily, that we have sufficient evidence of their
truth. Forming an intention is not predicting the future on the basis
of what one takes to be, or what ought to be, adequate grounds. That
is why Anscombe calls practical knowledge 'knowledge without
observation,' meaning to exclude not only observation in the
narrow sense but knowledge by inference (Anscombe 1963, p. 50). And it
is why Velleman (1989) writes about 'spontaneous'
knowledge of action. Even though he hopes to reduce practical to
theoretical reasoning, and holds that intention involves belief, he
denies that intentions are formed on the basis of sufficient prior
evidence. Anscombe and Velleman concede that knowledge in intention
often rests in part on observation; the claim is that it goes beyond
what observation, or inference from prior evidence, can support. (For
differing views of the role of perception in practical knowledge, see
Pickard 2004; Gibbons 2010; Schwenkler 2011; Ford 2016.)



The postulation of beliefs formed without sufficient prior evidence is
sometimes taken as a fatal flaw. In a memorable formulation, Grice
(1971, p. 268) wrote that it makes decision 'a case of licensed
wishful thinking.' According to Grice, we are not epistemically
permitted to form beliefs about what we are doing, or what we are
going to do, without sufficient prior evidence. Instead, we know what
we are doing, or what we are going to do, by inference from the
condition of our will, along with premises about our own abilities
(Grice 1971, pp. 275-9; Paul 2009). The condition of the will
cannot itself involve belief.



Reactions to this problem vary widely. Those who restrict the content
of intention to what is in progress and emphasize how little is
involved in being embarked on intentional action may suggest that the
beliefs in question verify themselves. It is sufficient for doing
*A* intentionally, in the relevant sense, that one intends to
do it. As we saw in section 1, however, there are reasons to doubt
this sufficiency. And the view seems to deflate the interest of
practical knowledge. Anscombe warns against the 'false avenue of
escape' on which 'I really "do" in the
intentional sense whatever I think I am doing' (Anscombe 1963,
p. 52), and seems to allow for practical knowledge of what I will
actually do or what I have done (Moran 2004: 146; Setiya 2016a; Haase
2018).



Other views account for knowledge in intention in reliabilist terms:
where one's intention to do *A* reliably issues in doing
*A*, it may amount to knowledge of what one is doing, or what
one is going to do (Newstead 2006, SS2; Velleman 2007, SS5).
Non-reliabilists may dismiss the need for *prior* evidence,
holding that we are entitled to form a belief if we know that it will
be true, and that we will have sufficient evidence for its truth, once
formed; this condition can be met when we form an intention to act
(Harman 1976, p. 164, n. 8; Velleman 1989, pp. 56-64). So long
as I know what I intend, and that my intention will be effective, I
have sufficient evidence for what I am doing, or what am I going to
do, even though this evidence did not precede the forming of my
intention.



Critics may object to the necessity of these conditions. According to
Berislav Marusic (2015), I can form the 'practical
belief' that I will do *A* without knowing that my
intention will be effective, so long as I know that its execution is
up to me. A more common objection is that the conditions are not
sufficient. They assimilate intention to faith, as when I form the
belief that I can leap a great chasm even though I have no evidence of
my ability to do so, knowing that the belief itself will ensure
success. It is not clear that such acts of faith are possible, that
they are epistemically rational, or that they provide a plausible
model for intention (Langton 2004; Setiya 2008, SSIII). On an
alternative view, there is a general demand for prior evidence in
forming beliefs, but our intentions are sometimes exempt from it, as
perhaps when we know how to perform the relevant acts (Setiya 2008;
Setiya 2009; Setiya 2012). It is know-how that explains why the
execution of our intentions, and thus the truth of the beliefs that
they involve, can be credited to us.



Anscombe's position on the matter is elusive, and may have to do
with her normative claims about intention and belief. Is practical
knowledge exempt from ordinary requirements of evidence because there
is a mistake of performance, not of judgement, when its object is
false? (See Anscombe 1963, pp. 4-5, 56-7; Campbell 2018a.)
Would it then amount to knowledge of what is not the case? Anscombe
may seem to suggest as much (Anscombe 1963, p. 82), but it is unclear
whether she accepts or merely entertains this prospect.



Implicit these debates is a question about the scope of groundless
(non-perceptual, non-inferential) self-knowledge. A blanket objection
to beliefs formed without sufficient prior evidence cannot be
sustained: I often know what I believe without having come to know on
the basis of perception or inference. Is groundless knowledge of this
kind restricted to our mental states? Or can it extend to what we are
doing and what we are going to do? Compare externalism about content:
at least typically, believing *p* has implications for the
constitution of the world outside one's skin; but it remains
accessible to self-knowledge (Burge 1988). Why should that not be true
of intentional action? On any reading, part of the aim of
Anscombe's *Intention* was to break the Cartesian
prejudice against self-knowledge of what is happening in the world. If
she failed in that endeavour, she at least prescribed a task for
future work: to say whether it is indeed a prejudice or a decisive
obstacle to the possibility of practical knowledge and the theory that
intention involves belief.