Intentional Action
The Concept of Intentional Action
Abstract
The concept of intentional action, which is the notion of how people assign blame/praise unto actions and how they consider them to be intentional or unintentional has been a subject of discussion within the area of philosophical theories of the mind and folk psychology. To investigate whether people assign moral considerations with regard to actions and how they consider them intentional/unintentional, 6 people were given a 5 question questionnaire to gauge the extent to which they agreed/ disagreed or assigned blame/praise upon certain instances of moral decisions. As hypothesised, moral considerations do play a role in how people consider acts to be intentional/ unintentional. These findings …show more content…
Going by these results – it is indicative that moral considerations play a role in determining whether or not behaviour is intentional or …show more content…
Because the actions that are blameworthy differ from the actions that are praiseworthy, the properties that matter for classifying blameworthy actions as intentional differ from the properties that matter for classifying praiseworthy actions as intentional” (Knobe 2006)
These findings however are inconsistent with the idea of overall efficacy of actions despite its morally “good” outcomes based on utilitarian need (Machery 2008) – in the case of the lottery, and the killing of soldiers, it is indicated that one would place more blame on the intentional act of winning an entire war and killing numerous soldiers than the other case.
This theory may be informative and provide insight into the folk psychology of intentional action and further the discussion of morality with regard to the philosophical debate.
There were several limitations that challenge this study. First, the lack of participants would have produced a lacklustre depiction of actual perception on intentional action if not for a bigger sample size. Lastly, the questions in this research could have been more direct in resolving the notion of “Sacrifice of the many – for the greater good” – as such it might be indicative of not supporting a
Abstract
The concept of intentional action, which is the notion of how people assign blame/praise unto actions and how they consider them to be intentional or unintentional has been a subject of discussion within the area of philosophical theories of the mind and folk psychology. To investigate whether people assign moral considerations with regard to actions and how they consider them intentional/unintentional, 6 people were given a 5 question questionnaire to gauge the extent to which they agreed/ disagreed or assigned blame/praise upon certain instances of moral decisions. As hypothesised, moral considerations do play a role in how people consider acts to be intentional/ unintentional. These findings …show more content…
Going by these results – it is indicative that moral considerations play a role in determining whether or not behaviour is intentional or …show more content…
Because the actions that are blameworthy differ from the actions that are praiseworthy, the properties that matter for classifying blameworthy actions as intentional differ from the properties that matter for classifying praiseworthy actions as intentional” (Knobe 2006)
These findings however are inconsistent with the idea of overall efficacy of actions despite its morally “good” outcomes based on utilitarian need (Machery 2008) – in the case of the lottery, and the killing of soldiers, it is indicated that one would place more blame on the intentional act of winning an entire war and killing numerous soldiers than the other case.
This theory may be informative and provide insight into the folk psychology of intentional action and further the discussion of morality with regard to the philosophical debate.
There were several limitations that challenge this study. First, the lack of participants would have produced a lacklustre depiction of actual perception on intentional action if not for a bigger sample size. Lastly, the questions in this research could have been more direct in resolving the notion of “Sacrifice of the many – for the greater good” – as such it might be indicative of not supporting a