Not Intentional, Not Unintentional
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Not Intentional, Not Unintentional Brandon Johns 1 Received: 26 August 2019 / Accepted: 11 March 2020\/ # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract In contemporary philosophy of action, the existence of intentional and unintentional action is relatively uncontroversial. What is controversial is whether there exists a third kind of action—action that is neither intentional nor unintentional. This third kind of action is known in the literature as non-intentional action. In this paper, I develop a pair of arguments in favor of non-intentional action. More specifically, I argue that nonintentional action exists in the form of lucky and side-effect acts. Keywords Action theory . Philosophy of action . Intentional action . Unintentional action . Non-intentional action . Lucky acts . Side-effect acts
We do lots of things. Some of the things we do are intentional. For instance, my turning on the computer and typing these words, and your reading them and questioning their truth. Broadly speaking, intentional action is action that we aim at performing, either as an end or a means to an end. Of course, not everything we do is aimed at. Many things we do unintentionally: stepping on someone’s foot or misspelling a word. Unintentional action can be characterized as action that is accidentally or inadvertently performed. That we do things intentionally and unintentionally is relatively uncontroversial. But a question arises: do these two categories—the intentional and unintentional—exhaust our ways of doing things? Some philosophers have affirmed the existence of a third category of action—the so-called non-intentional. In this paper, I will present a pair of arguments for the existence of non-intentional action. The first part of the paper is negative in nature. In sections 1–4, I will consider four earlier arguments for the existence of non-intentional action. I’ll argue that none of
* Brandon Johns [email protected]
1
Department of Philosophy, California State University, San Bernardino, San Bernardino, CA, USA
Philosophia
the four respective arguments succeed. The first four sections will clear the way for the development of new arguments. In the second part of the paper (sections 5 and 6), then, I will develop two arguments for the existence of non-intentional action that I believe are more promising. My first argument alters an argument initially developed by Alfred Mele and Steven Sverdlik, who argue that side-effect acts are non-intentional.1 My second argument arises from my novel account of unintentional action I develop in the first argument; the conclusion is that lucky acts are also non-intentional.
1 Gorr and Horgan’s Argument The most common argumentative strategy deployed by proponents of non-intentional action involves two steps: first, provide conditions for intentional and unintentional action; then identify a particular action (or action type) that violates both sets of conditions. When such an action is located, it’s classified as non-intentional. This is precisely how Michael Gorr and Terence Horgan attem
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