Philosophical perplexity about intention begins with its appearance inthree guises: intention for the future, as I intend to complete thisentry by the end of the month; the intention with which someone acts,as I am typing with the further intention of writing an introductorysentence; and intentional action, as in the fact that I am typingthese words intentionally. As Elizabeth Anscombe wrote in a similarcontext, ‘it is implausible to say that the word is equivocal asit occurs in these different cases’ and from the fact that‘we are tempted to speak of “different senses” of aword which is clearly not equivocal, we may infer that we are prettymuch in the dark about the character of the concept which itrepresents’ (Anscombe 1963, p. 1).

The principal task of the philosophy of intention is to uncover anddescribe the unity of these three forms. This project matters forquestions in the philosophy of mind, but also for ethics, where it isinvolved in the doctrine of double effect, for epistemology, and mostobviously, for the nature of practical reason.

We can classify theories of intention roughly but usefully on twoaxes. First, how do they find unity in the guises of intention? Dothey explain one in terms of another? Which, if any, do they treat asprimary? There is a deep opposition here between accounts that takeintention to be a mental state in terms of which we can explainintentional action, and those that do not. Second, how do theyunderstand the relation between intention and evaluative thought,which bears on the possibility ofakrasia, and the relationbetween intention and belief, which bears on the nature and scope ofself-knowledge? These questions arise whatever the relation betweenintending and doing. Sections 1 and 2 address the first axis ofdisagreement, while sections 3 to 5 primarily address the second.

• 1. Intending as Doing
• 2. Intention in Action
• 3. Intention and the Good
• 4. Intentions as Plans
• 5. Intention and Belief
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Intending as Doing

In ‘Actions, Reasons and Causes,’ Donald Davidson gave areductive theory of ‘intention with which’ as‘syncategorematic’: the phrase does not refer to an eventor state of the agent, but is a way of redescribing what she is doingin terms of a ‘primary reason,’ where this is understoodas 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 aprimary reason that the action counts as intentional, and this reasongives the intention with which the action is done. Davidson therebyunified, or took himself to have unified, intentional action andintention-with-which.

As he came to see, however, this story neglects and cannot easilyincorporate prospective intention or intention for the future(Davidson 1978). There are apparent cases of ‘pureintending’ in which no steps of any kind are taken. Suppose thatI intend to write a book review but have yet to open the book. On theface of it, such pure intending cannot be reduced to intentionalaction. What is more, once we recognize the existence of pureintending, ‘there is no reason not to allow that intention ofexactly the same kind is also present when the intended actioneventuates’ (Davidson 1978, p. 89). If what I am doingintentionally takes time, as almost everything does, there will beearly phases in which I stand to the completion of the deed as I standto future actions I intend to perform but have yet to begin.

The majority of work since Davidson’s conversion has followedhim in acknowledging the state of prospective intention as irreducibleto action, and has been led to seek unity in the forms of intention byexplaining the others—intentional action andintention-with-which—in terms of intending as a mental state.Recently, however, philosophers inspired by Anscombe’sIntention have offered resistance to this move. Anscombedenies that there is a sharp distinction between ‘I am doingA’ and ‘I am going to doA’offered as answers to the question ‘Why are you doingB?’ (Anscombe 1963, pp. 39–40). Nor does sheregard intention for the future as needing further explanation onceintentional action and intention-with-which have been understood(Anscombe 1963, pp. 90–4). Thus, Anscombe appears to solve theproblem of unity without acknowledging intention as a mentalstate.

The simplest version of this approach would emphasize the‘openness’ of the progressive, that ‘He is doingA’ does not imply that he will succeed in doingA, or that he has or will get very far with it. (That I amcrossing the road is consistent with being hit by a car the moment Istep off the curb.) It then identifies the fact thatSintends to doA with the fact thatS is doingA intentionally, though perhaps he has barely begun. If Iintend to visit the zoo next Thursday, I am already on the way todoing so. Here it is striking that we sometimes employ the presentprogressive in anticipation: ‘Kieran is visiting the zoo nextThursday’ sounds perfectly fine when said today, before I havetaken 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 theprogressive quite so liberally, but insist that doing so carves natureat its joints. According to Michael Thompson (2008, pp. 91–2,133–46), intending to doA is not a mental statebecause it is not static; instead it is a form of imperfectivity orbeing in progress towards the intentional completion of an act, wherethe progress may be so vestigial or ineffectual or interrupted that itwould be odd to remark, ‘He is doingA.’ (SeeThompson 2008, pp. 91–2, 133–45; Moran and Stone 2009, pp.146–8; Ferrero 2017; Russell 2018.) The unity of prospectiveintention and ‘doingA intentionally’ is that thelatter, too, consists of being in progress, though perhaps with theimplication of some success.

Along with this unity, and the hint supplied by the use of theprogressive in anticipation, there are two main arguments for thetheory of intending as being embarked on intentional action. First, itreadily explains why intending is always intending todosomething. (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 apropositional attitude—‘I intend thatp’—such reports can be recast as ‘intendingto…’ as when I intend to bring about thatp. Bycontrast, it is difficult to rephrase such mundane expressions as‘I intend to go home’ in propositional terms. ‘Iintend that I am (will be) going home’ suggests indifference togetting there. ‘I intend that I (will) have got home’suggests indifference to my own agency. ‘I intend that I gohome’ can only be read as an intention with a habitual object,describing a general practice of going home; it is not directed at aparticular action. If intending is being on the way to intentionalaction, it is no surprise that its proper object—what one is onthe way to doing—is not a proposition or state of affairs, butsomething one might do.

Second, the theory of intending as being embarked on intentionalaction explains the unity of what Thompson calls‘naïve’ and ‘sophisticated’rationalization. (For this argument, see Thompson 2008, pp.97–9, 118–9, 132–4.) As well as explaining action byintention—‘He is doingA because he intends to doB’—we explain action by action—‘He isdoingA because he is doingB’—intentionby intention—‘He intends to doA because heintends to doB’—and intention byaction—‘He intends to doA because he is doingB.’ On the face of it, moreover,‘naïve’ explanations in terms of what someone isdoing entail ‘sophisticated’ explanations that appeal tointention. At least when we are using the ‘because’ ofrationalization, ‘He is doingA because he is doingB’ arguably entails ‘He is doingAbecause he intends to doB.’ The same point holds forwhat is explained: ‘He is doingAbecause…’ entails ‘He intends to doAbecause…’ If intending is being on the way to intentionalaction, these are all forms of explanation by, and of, such progress.So, again, it is no surprise that they are bound together in just theway that they appear to be.

If we help ourselves to the ‘because’ of rationalization,we can further exploit the unity of its ‘naïve’ and‘sophisticated’ forms to give a simple theory ofintention-with-which. An intention with which one is doingAis an intentional-action-in-progress that explains one’s doingit. We thus complete the task of unification that was set by thethreefold division of intention for the future, intention-with-which,and intentional action, all of which are modes of, or modes ofexplanation by, being embarked on intentional action.

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

Because of its relatively recent recovery, and the prevalentacceptance of intention as a mental state, there has been littleexamination of the present alternative. But some observations can bemade. First, it is in fact controversial that intending to doA is necessary for doingA intentionally, as thepresent theory predicts. This raises complications best consideredlater on, in sections 2 and 4. (They are briefly discussed at Thompson2008, pp. 102–3.)

Second, and more obviously, there is room to doubt whether intendingto doA is sufficient for me to count as doing itintentionally, even when we admit that I can be doing what I willnever successfully do. Isn’t there a distinction between takingpreparatory steps towards doingA and beginning to do it, asin the contrast between buying flour and eggs with the intention ofbaking, and turning on the oven the following week? This distinctionmay be significant in ethics and the criminal law (Paul 2014a). Thereis also the prospect of plans that require no preparatory steps, asfor instance, to blink tomorrow at 3:00pm. Isn’t some intendingutterly pure, as Davidson thought? Once we move away from the simpletheory of intending as doing, however, and introduce the abstractnotion of imperfectivity or being in progress, it is more difficult tosay what such examples show. That the theory is false? Or just howliminal being in progress can be?

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

The arguments that motivate the theory of intending as being embarkedon intentional action are in any case inconclusive. As to the second,while it is a constraint on any theory of intention to show the unityof ‘naïve’ and ‘sophisticated’rationalization, insofar as they are really unified, it would takemuch further argument to show that this cannot be done while thinkingof intention as a mental state (cf. Setiya 2007a, pp. 51–2).Further demands for unity push towards that view. So, for instance, ifwe hope to bring out what is common to the explanations ‘He isdoingA because he is doingB’ and ‘Heis doingA becausep’ where these entail,respectively, ‘He is doingA because he intends to doB’ and ‘He is doingA because hebelieves thatp,’ we will have to relate intention tothe mental state of belief. If intention is not itself a mental state,but a way of being in progress, such relations are more puzzling. Theyare taken up again in section 5.

As to the first, those who think of intention as a mental state couldexplain why its objects are restricted to actions by saying more aboutthe kind of state it is. For instance, if intention is arepresentation that is such as to guide and control what itrepresents, its object must be as such as to be guided: it must be thesort of thing that can be in progress and move towards completion,something that can be done, not a mere proposition or state ofaffairs. Alternatively, the restriction could be denied (as it is byDavis 1984, pp. 131–2; Ferrero 2013). Intending thatpis fundamental, and intending to go home can be explained in terms ofit: I intend that I will get home by going home.

Finally, whatever view we take about the basic objects ofintention—actions or propositions—it is a problem for thetheory of intending as being embarked on intentional action that theseobjects can be logically complex. I intend not to be hit by a car as Iwalk home. I intend to drink with dinner or have dessert, but notboth. I intend to read a book tonight if there’s nothing on theradio. In none of these cases can we say, without contrivance, whataction I am now on the way to performing. Until it is supplied with anaccount of these cases, and of the relation between intention and themental states with which it interacts, the theory of intending asbeing embarked on intentional action remains incomplete.

2. Intention in Action

If prospective intention cannot be explained in terms of intentionalaction, or both in terms of being in progress, how can we preserve theunity of our three divisions? In particular, how does intentionalaction relate to prospective intention and intention-with-which? Thereare two obvious thoughts. The first is that doingAintentionally is doing it with some further intention, or doingsomething with the intention of thereby doingA. The secondis that both phenomena are to be explained in terms of intention as amental state. Let us take these possibilities in turn.

The idea of explaining intentional action through intention-with-whichis associated with resistance to causal accounts of acting for areason. It begins instead with intentional teleology—doingA in order to doB, or with the intention of doingB—treating this as primitive and not involvingintention as efficient cause. If we assume that every intentionalaction is done for a reason, and that this reason can be cast inteleological form, we can identify doingA intentionally withdoingA in order to do something else. We thereby unify twoguises of intention.

Difficulties arise, however, from the case of idle behaviour, in whichI am doingA intentionally for no particular reason (Anscombe1963, p. 25), and from the possibility—or necessity—thatteleological series come to an end. I am doingA in order todoB in order to doC … in order to doZ, which I am doing for its own sake. Not all intentionalactions are performed with a further end. The purported unity fades.In order to solve this problem while leaving room for basicintentional actions, not performed by intentionally taking furthermeans, George Wilson (1989) and Carl Ginet (1990, Ch. 6) appeal tointentionde re. One need not intend one’s doingA to promote some further end in order to count as doingA intentionally. It is sufficient to intend, of something oneis doing, that it promote or constitute one’s doingA.

This way of putting things prompts the objection that merely havingthat intention is not enough. If the intention is idle or ineffective,one will not, despite one’s wishes, count as doingAintentionally, or as acting in order to doA (Mele 1992, pp.248–55). We need to add a causal relation, after all. But thisobjection misconstrues the teleological view. It is not that the merepresence of a mental state—intending of … that it…—constitutes acting with an intention, or actingintentionally, but that intention-with-which is a basic form ofteleology, distinct from causation by a mental state, out of which wecan construct the unity of intention.

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

Finally, the teleological theorist must account for the connectionbetween intentions with which one acts and psychological states ofbelief and desire. Why does it follow from the fact that one intends,of what one is doing, that it promote or constitute one’s doingA that one wants to doA and that one believes, ofwhat one is doing, that it is a means to that end? These implicationsmake sense if intention is a species of desire that interacts withmeans-end belief when one doesA with the intention of doingB. They are more difficult to explain if intention-with-whichis the basic material from which intention and intentional action arebuilt. (This argument is developed at greater length in Setiya 2011,pp. 146–9.)

Pressures of this kind push us towards the second approach, noworthodox in action theory, which aims to explain both intentionalaction and intention-with-which in terms of intention as a mentalstate. According to the simplest possible view, an intentional actionof doingA is the execution of a prior intention to doA, and doingA with the intention of doingB is intending, of one’s doingA, that itpromote or constitute one’s doingB.

A note of caution is essential here: it is important to distinguishthe more modest project of explaining what it is to act intentionallyin terms of intending and doing from the more ambitious project ofexplaining what it is forS to act intentionally in terms ofgoings-on of which S is not the agent. The latter project is impliedby Wittgenstein’s notorious arithmetic: “What is left overwhen I subtract the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that Iraise my arm?” (Wittgenstein 1953, §621). Some philosophersattempt to answer this question, explaining what it is to doA intentionally without appeal to doingA. But oneneed not share that aim in giving an account of intentional action interms of intention as a mental state: one can take for granted that Iam raising my arm, for instance, and ask what more is involved inraising my arm intentionally (Setiya 2011, §2; Setiya 2016b, pp.3–9).

Even the more modest project runs into difficulties. First, althoughwe sometimes form an intention prior to acting, this is not essential.I can wave my arm intentionally without planning in advance. This factelicits 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 doA, perhaps at somepoint in the future. In the latter, one intends to be doing it now.WhenS is doingA intentionally, she is doing it inexecution of an intention in action, though except in very unusualcases she also intends to doA: to complete the action she isin the midst of performing.

This refinement preserves the idea that doingA intentionallyrequires an intention whose object is doingA. This is whatBratman (1987, p. 112) has dubbed ‘the Simple View.’ It isopen to serious objections, the more subtle of which will be examinedin section 4. For now, it is sufficient to note that I sometimes countas doingA intentionally when it is a merely foreseen andunintended consequence of what I intend to do. (See Harman 1976, pp.151–2; Bratman 1987, pp. 123–5.) Thus if I am paid to pumpwater into the cistern of a house, and I continue to do so even when Irealize that the water is poisoned, I poison the inhabitants of thehouse intentionally, despite the fact that I did not intend or desiresuch harm (cf. Anscombe 1963, pp. 41–2). Even here, however, anintention is executed: I intend to pump water into the house. Ingeneral, when it is not the execution of a directly correspondingintention, doingA intentionally is a foreseen or desiredconsequence of an action that is. Admittedly, this condition isnecessary, not sufficient, for intentional action, a concept whosevagaries are hard to map. But the execution of intention remains thecore phenomenon from which all instances of intentional action arederived.

Along with such matters of detail, two problems of principle can beraised against the present approach. The first contends that it istacitly circular, because the content of intention always includes theconcept of intentionality (Wilson 1989, pp. 274–5; Ginet 1990,pp. 34–5). In prospective intention, I intend not only to doA, but to doAintentionally, and the samepoint holds for the object of intention in action. This prevents usfrom explaining what it is to act intentionally in terms of intentionas a mental state. Alternatively, one might hold, as Anscombe (1963,§47) apparently does, that for some values of‘A’—as perhaps, paying, hiring, ormarrying—it is essential to doingA that one do itintentionally (see Ford 2015; Setiya 2016a).

The force of this objection is unclear. While there is something wrongwith an account of what it is to φ that appeals to being or doingφ, it is not so obviously problematic to appeal to mental statesthatrepresent something as being or doing φ. Our task isnot to introduce the concept of intentional action to someone wholacks that concept, but to spell out the metaphysics of doingA intentionally. It is an open question whether‘metaphysical definition’—saying what it is toφ—can be permissibly circular, so long as the circularity iscontained in the scope of an attitude. Such circularity ischaracteristic of ‘response-dependent’ accounts ofevaluative and other properties. (This response may fail if theattitude in question is knowledge; see Ford 2011, §4.)

A more direct response to the challenge would deny its premise. Whileit is true that the execution of intention is intentional action, itdoes not follow that theobject of intention is doingA intentionally (cf. Searle 1983, pp. 85–6). If Iintend to be smiling and am doing so involuntarily, I am doing what Iintend, though not intentionally. Likewise, if I intend to skipbreakfast and do so because I forget about it, my intention wasfulfilled, though not by intentional action. Even paying, hiring, andmarrying are things one can do unintentionally; intentionality is notbuilt into the object of intention in a way that makes for circularity(see Beddor and Pavese forthcoming, §6, responding toPiñeros Glasscock 2020). This point is consistent with the viewthat, when I act for reasons, those reasons figure in my intention asa Kantian ‘maxim’. In that case, my intention isfulfilled, in its entirety, only if I act on them and thereby actintentionally. (See Wallace 1999, pp. 60–2; Setiya 2007a, pp.39–49; Korsgaard 2008; Schapiro 2011; and, for resistance,Sinhababu 2013, §3. On the content of intention, more generally,see Harman 1976, pp. 156–8; Velleman 1989, pp. 94–7; Mele1992, Ch. 11; and Ross, pp. 255–7, Appendix B.)

The second problem is more a question: whether ‘the relation ofbeing done in execution of a certain intention, orbeingdone intentionally, is a causal relation between act andintention.’ (Anscombe 1983, p. 95) Anscombe denies that it is.When she writes of ‘practical knowledge’ as ‘thecause of what it understands’ she means formal not efficientcause: practical knowledge is essential to the action it represents,at least when ‘the description of the action is of a type to beformally the description of an executed intention.’ (SeeAnscombe 1963, pp. 87–8, and for conflicting interpretations:Hursthouse 2000; Vogler 2002; Moran 2004; Newstead 2006; Velleman2007; Paul 2011; Ford 2015; Schwenkler 2015; Lavin 2016; Setiya 2016a;Campbell 2018a; Campbell 2018b.)

One source of concern about intention as efficient cause is thatintention need not precede intentional action, while causes mustprecede their effects. But causal theorists may deny that claim aboutthe 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’ (Davidson1973, p. 79). If we are trying to say what it is to act intentionally,the condition of doingA because one so intends looksinsufficient. For it says nothing about the causal path from intentionto action. If I intend to be shaking in order to signal myconfederate, and this intention makes me nervous, so that I shake, Iam shaking because I so intend—though not intentionally. Myintention 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 causalintermediaries, since a causal theorist may well allow for neuralintermediaries, and further intentions, in the causal path fromintention to action. There is a failure of intentional action onlywhen the intermediaries are of the wrong kind.

Reactions to causal deviance vary widely. Some are convinced that theproblem is hopeless (Anscombe 1989, pp. 110–1; Wilson 1989, Ch.9; O’Brien 2007, Ch. 8). Others aim to solve it bydistinguishing deviance in the causation of non-basic actions,performed by intentional means, from deviance in basic intentionalaction. The former happens when things do not happen as we planned;the latter can be solved by appeal to forms of causal direction orguidance found outside the province of intentional action (Thalberg1984; Mele 1992, Ch. 11; Setiya 2007a, pp. 31–2, Hyman 2014).But the existence of basic intentional actions is disputed (Lavin2013), as is their internal structure or teleology (Valaris 2015;Small 2019).

It is in any case unclear how the dispute about causal deviance bearson the project of explaining intentional action through intention as amental state. Would that project survive if the relation of executionand the corresponding ‘because’ were taken as primitive?Or in a ‘disjunctive’ theory according to which intentionin action has two distinct forms: doingA intentionally and‘mere’ intending, frustrated by the world? Like the theoryof intending as being embarked upon intentional action, thedisjunctive conception agrees with Aristotle that action is, or canbe, the conclusion of practical thought.

Corresponding issues have been pursued in the philosophy ofperception, 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 furtherconditions, some epistemologists treat knowledge as basic, explainingmere belief as its defective form (McDowell 1995; Williamson 2000).The parallel view of intentional action treats mere intending as adefective form of intentional action (O’Brien 2007; Rödl2007, Ch. 2; McDowell 2010, §7; Marcus 2012, Ch. 2; Levy 2021). Aquestion for this view is how the state of intending can be a form ofsomething dynamic: the event or process of acting. To answer thisquestion, we need to say more about the kind of state intentionis.

3. Intention and the Good

If intention is a mental state in relation to which doingAamounts to doingA intentionally, or with the furtherintention of doingB, that fact would unify the modes ofintention with which we began. It would, however, tell us little aboutintending itself. Does this state involve desire? Belief about whatone is doing or what one is going to do? Evaluative judgement? Similarquestions arise for those who deny that intention is a mental stateand explain it as being on the way to intentional action. Must I wantto perform an action I am thus embarked upon? Believe that I amengaged in it? Hold it to be in some way good?

It is a matter of consensus in the philosophy of intention thatintending to doA entails wanting to doA, in themotivational sense for which the ‘primitive sign of wanting istrying to get’ (Anscombe 1963, p. 68). Doubts aboutthis entailment are attributed to ambiguities in ‘desire.’When I intend to doA reluctantly, from the motive of duty, Imay 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 somekind—assuming, for simplicity, that intention is a mental state.In his later work, Davidson specified this pro-attitude as ‘anall-out, unconditional judgement that the action is desirable’(Davidson 1978, p. 99). He made two further refinements. First, whenone is doingA intentionally, ‘at least when the actionis of brief duration, nothing seems to stand in the way of anAristotelian identification of the action with [all-out evaluativejudgement]’ (Davidson 1978, p. 99). Second, one counts asintending an action only if one’s beliefs are consistent withone’s performing it; one cannot intend to do what one believesto be impossible (Davidson 1978, pp. 100–1).

In an influential critique, Bratman objects that choice is possibleeven when one knows that neither option is best (Bratman 1985,§(Bratman 1985, §V). One can decide between options that areequivalent (like the identical bales of hay that stumped Buridan’sass) or that are ‘on a par’, in that neither is better orworse than the other, though they are too different to count asequally good. (On parity, see Chang 2002). If unconditional judgementpresents its object as more desirable than any alternative,Davidson’s theory wrongly prohibits such decisions. EugeneChislenko defends that implication, arguing that the practical problemis solved by allowing oneself to drift non-intentionally until oneoption stands out (Chislenko 2016). But while this might work forBuridan’s ass, who finds himself slightly closer to one bale of haythan the other, and so decides to eat it, it won’t work fordecision-making under parity, where small improvements fail to breakthe tie.

An alternative view identifies intention with the unconditionaljudgement that a given action is no less desirable than others. Itthus permits me to intend either of two equivalent options. Theproblem is that it permits me to intendboth options, even ifI know that they are incompatible. Against this, Bratman claims thatit is irrational to intendA and intendB if onecannot rationally intendA-and-B, as when doing bothis inconsistent with one’s beliefs (Bratman 1985, §(Bratman1985, §V).

A related objection is that we can fail to act, or intend, inaccordance with our evaluations. In a typical case ofakrasia, I conclude that I ought to quit, but decide tocontinue smoking instead. Davidson (1970) replied to this bydistinguishing ‘all things considered’ from‘unconditional’ evaluative judgement. In‘conditional’ or ‘prima facie’ judgements onetakes some body of considerations,r, to supportAoverB. All things considered judgement is the special caseof this in whichr includes all the considerations one holdsrelevant. There is no inconsistency in judging that the sum of theseparticular considerations favoursA overB whilejudging thatB is better thanA, perhaps in light ofother facts one has not explicitly considered. Since it is the latterjudgement that constitutes intention, one can act intentionallyagainst the former. This is how Davidson makes sense of my continuingto smoke.

Few have been convinced by Davidson’s account. Can’t weact—intentionally and without self-contradiction—againstan unconditional evaluative judgement? Or fail to intend in accordancewith one? (McDowell 2010 is a recent critic of Davidson on this score;Chislenko 2020 argues thatakrasia involves contradictorybeliefs.) Davidson himself concedes that ‘A is betterthanB, all things considered’ entails‘A is better thanB’ if ‘allthings considered’ means ‘all truths, moral andotherwise’ (Davidson 1970, p. 40). He may intend this to betrivial, counting that fact thatA is better thanBamong the relevant truths. But it is both plausible and non-trivial toclaim thatA is better thanB, in the relevantsense, if and only if the balance of reasons favoursA overB, where the reasons are distinct from that evaluative fact.If it is possible to grasp this connection, to hold that the balanceof reasons favours quitting, and still not intend to quit,Davidson’s theory must be false. (A consequence of this fact isthe need to distinguish weakness asakrasia, or actingagainst 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 thispossibility, we will have to equate intending with judgement of someother evaluative proposition, not entailed by claims about the balanceof reasons (as in Rödl 2007, Ch. 2), distinguish kinds ofjudgement or ways of representing an action as to be done, one ofwhich constitutes intending, the other of which we act against inakrasia (as in Tenenbaum 2007, Ch. 7), or otherwise weakenthe 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 inpractical 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 diagnosisof his mistake that appeals to the functional role of intention as amental state. According to Bratman (1985, §VI), Davidson neglectsthe place of prospective intentions in cross-temporal andinter-personal coordination, and as inputs to further practicalthought. There is room for doubt about this verdict, since all-outevaluative judgement may well appear as a premise of practicalsyllogism (‘I ought to doA; doingB is ameans to that; so I ought to doB’) and since it maysustain ‘diachronic autonomy,’ at least to some extent,just through the working of memory (a point emphasized by Ferrero2006). But Bratman is right to indicate a gap in Davidson’sstory, which he has done more than anyone to fill.

For Bratman (1987), intention is a distinctive practical attitudemarked by its pivotal role in planning for the future. Intentioninvolves desire, but even predominant desire is insufficient forintention, since it need not involve a commitment to act: intentionsare ‘conduct-controlling pro-attitudes, ones which we aredisposed to retain without reconsideration, and which play asignificant role as inputs to [means-end] reasoning’ (Bratman1987, p. 20). The plans for action contained in our intentions aretypically partial and must be filled out in accordance with changingcircumstances as the future comes.

Among the advantages of being able to commit ourselves to action inadvance, albeit defeasibly, are: (i) the capacity to make rationaldecisions for circumstances in which we cannot deliberate, or thatlend themselves to deliberative distortion; (ii) the capacity toengage in complex, temporally extended projects that requirecoordination with our future selves; and (iii) the capacity forsimilar coordination with others.

Bratman (1987) argues that these advantages are best secured if ourintentions are consistent with one another and with our beliefs, ifthey conform to principles of means-end coherence—for instance,that when we intendE and believe that intendingMis necessary to achieveE, we also intendM, and ifthey are resistant to reconsideration. There is, he claims, a‘pragmatic rationale’ for such requirements, ‘onegrounded 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 natureof these alleged requirements. Bratman (1987, §2.5) argues thatintentions do not provide inputs to practical reasoning by providingadditional reasons. This conception is, on the one hand, too weak,since it treats the fact that I have settled on doingA asjust one consideration among many in favour of doing it, whereasmeans-end coherence is a strict or peremptory demand. And it is, onthe other hand, too strong, since it permits a form of illicitbootstrapping in which an irrational decision can generate a reasonthat tips the balance in favour of acting on it. (Do intentions everprovide reasons? Many deny this; see, for instance, Broome 2001;Brunero 2007; Cullity 2008; Kolodny 2011. But Bratman’s argumentleaves room for such reasons, so long as the actions they supportwould be rational without them. For versions of this point, see Chang2009; Ferrero 2010; Smith 2016.)

Bratman’s pragmatic theory gives intentions a substantive rolein practical thought without treating them as reasons. But it facesproblems of its own. In structure, Bratman’s theory is akin tothe variety of rule-utilitarianism on which we have utilitariangrounds for adopting a practice of punishment or promising thatsometimes goes against considerations of utility. This structureprompts a serious dilemma. If reasons for adopting a practice orpattern of reasoning transmit to the actions or inferences that fallunder it, as Rawls (1955) once argued, the problems of bootstrappingand peremptoriness return. All we have is a theory ofwhyintentions provide reasons. But if reasons do not transmit in thisway, the picture appears to be one of ‘rationalirrationality’: having reason to adopt or sustain an irrationalpattern of reasoning, on the ground that the results of doing so aremostly for the best. Neither option is appealing.

In his 1987 book, Bratman in effect pursued the second path, hoping tosoften its peculiarity by distinguishing ‘internal’ and‘external’ perspectives on rationality and deliberation(Bratman 1987, §3.5). More recently, he has argued that thebenefits of consistency and coherence are more than pragmatic, sincethey allow for a form of self-governance that is of non-instrumentalvalue (Bratman 2009b), and that they are closely tied to thefunctional role of intentions as plans (Bratman 2009c,§§VIII–IX). He also adopts John Broome’s (2004)idea that the relevant norms take ‘wide scope.’ Forinstance, it is irrational to [intendE, believe thatintendingM is necessary to achieveE, and notintendM]. It does not follow from this that, if one intendsE, one is under rational pressure to intend the necessarymeans, since one can just as well avoid the forbidden combination ofattitudes by giving up one’s intention for the end. By the sametoken, there is no need to admit that intentions provide reasons foracting. We thus avoid both horns of the dilemma sketched above. Howfar this strategy succeeds is a matter of ongoing dispute (Setiya2007b; Bratman 2009b; Brunero 2010; Way 2010). There is also aquestion how far Bratman’s functional explanation of means-endrationality 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 inintention turns on an implication that Bratman (1987, Ch. 8) himselfdraws out. According to the Simple View, doingAintentionally involves an intention whose object isA. AsBratman argues, however, it is sometimes rational to attempt bothA andB, hoping to achieve one or the other, when Iknow that I cannot do both. If I succeed in doingA, I willhave done so intentionally, and thus, on the Simple View, I must haveintended to doA. Considerations of symmetry imply that Ialso intended to doB. But then my intentions are not jointlyconsistent with my beliefs. Bratman concludes that the Simple View isfalse, since it would be irrational to have such intentions. Instead,I intend to try doingA and to try doingB, knowingthat I can make both attempts, though both cannot succeed. Bratmanadmits that, when I try to doA, I take the relevant means‘with the intention’ of doing it. But he finds this phraseambiguous. On one reading, it ascribes the intention to doA,but in the present case it does not. Instead, I merely‘endeavour’ to doA, 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 ofintention-like states, and that, by finding ambiguity in‘intention with which,’ it fails to unify the guises ofintention. What is more, there are natural alternatives. One equatesintention with guiding desire, defends the Simple View, and finds therequirement of consistency defeasible. There is rational pressure toconform to it, in general, but this pressure can be outweighed, aswhen it makes sense to intend bothA andB, despitetheir manifest inconsistency, hoping to achieve just one. Anotheralternative appeals to partial intention, by analogy with partialbelief (see Holton 2009; Goldstein 2016; Shpall 2016; Archer 2017;Muñoz 2018). There is also room for a more radical view, onwhich the reasons for being consistent in one’s intentions, orconforming to means-end coherence, reduce to the reasons for acting inone way or another: Bratman’s alleged requirements are a‘myth’ (Raz 2005; Kolodny 2008; Tenenbaum 2014).

Other puzzles concern the formulation and defense of diachronicrequirements of rationality for intention: the idea that intentionsshould persist over time, resisting reconsideration, especially inlight of temptations they were designed to forestall. (On the natureof such requirements, see Holton 2009; Broome 2013: Ch. 10; Paul2014b; Bratman 2018; Tenenbaum 2020; Brunero forthcoming.) The ideathat intentions resist reconsideration creates potential moral risks:what if they make us insensitive or indifferent to changing moralreasons? (See Bok 1996; Paul 2017.) What do ethical concerns of thiskind mean for the role of intention in diachronic autonomy orself-governance?

A final objection to Bratman’s theory is more general, and wouldapply as well to the theory of intention as guiding desire. Thequestion is whether such accounts reveal the unity of intentionalaction, intention for the future, and intention-with-which.McCann’s objection concerned the latter. The more basicobjection is about the role of intention in intentional action.Bratman (1987, Ch. 8) does not ignore this connection: he proposesnecessary and sufficient conditions for doingA intentionallythat rely on the state of intending, though not always the intentionof doingA itself. But it is open to question how deep theenvisaged unity goes. Why must there be intention in intentionalaction, if intentions are plans? (See Velleman 2007, §3.)

A partial answer cites the need for direction and guidance in doinganything that takes time or requires the selection of means. But it isnot clear that such guidance requires intention (see Bratman 1987, pp.126–7 on spontaneous action). Nor would this forge a generalconnection between the state of intending and the phenomenon of actingfor reasons or the application of Anscombe’s (1963, p. 9)question ‘Why?’ IfS is doingA on theground thatp, she is doing it intentionally. Bratman’sconditions do not explain why intention must be involved in theantecedent of this conditional. Why must reasons attach to what I amdoing by way of plans or guiding desires? One response is to admitthat they may not: there can be intentional action without intention(see Bratman 2000, pp. 51–2). But if we hope to unify intentionwith intentional action, we cannot accept this. Intention must figurein the correct account of acting for a reason, and thus intentionally.In order to avoid disunity, the theory of intentions as plans (or asguiding desires) needs such an account.

5. Intention and Belief

Acknowledging these problems, some philosophers turn back to Davidsonand 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 theidea—influentially proposed by Elizabeth Anscombe (1963, pp.11–15) and Stuart Hampshire (1959, pp. 95, 102)—that whenS is doingA intentionally,S knows thatshe is doingA. What is more, acting for a reason, in a sensethat contrasts with mere purposive behavior (of the sortcharacteristic of other animals), essentially involves such knowledge:in acting for a reason, I know an explanation of what I am doing thatcites that reason, and therefore know that I am doing it. That is why,for Anscombe, the question ‘Why?’ is ‘givenapplication’ by the agent. Intentional action turns on knowingthe answer to that question.

This picture raises many difficulties, and needs considerablerefinement and defence. (For variations, see Velleman 1989; Velleman2000; Setiya 2007a, Part One; Rödl 2007, Ch. 2; Setiya 2016b.)Some will resist the claim that acting for a reason is acting withself-knowledge—though it is important to stress that theknowledge attributed here need not involve conscious belief. There isalso disagreement about the kind of explanation involved in giving thereasons for which one acts (Wilson 1989, Ch. 7; Ginet 1990, Ch. 6;Dancy 2000; Davis 2005; Alvarez 2010; Setiya 2011). But if the pictureis basically right, it suggests that the unity of intention can befound in knowledge or belief about action. Assuming that knowledgeentails belief, the basic thought is that intention in action involvesthe belief that one is doingA. Doing something for a reasoninvolves a belief about one’s reason for doing it thatconstitutes intention in action. And prospective intention, orintention for the future, involves a belief about what one is going todo and why. The idea that intention involves belief is what unifiesintentional action, prospective intention, and intention-with-which.(On an alternative view, which may be Anscombe’s, intentioncontrasts with belief: they correspond to radically different kinds ofknowledge. See the treatment of mistakes below.)

The claim that intention entails belief—most commonly, that ifone intends to doA, one believes that one is going to doit—is widespread among those who draw no particular inspirationfrom Anscombe. (See Audi 1973; Harman 1976; Davis 1984; Ross 2009.) AsGrice (1971, pp. 264–6) observed, there is peculiarity of somesort in asserting ‘I intend to doA, but I might not doit,’ a peculiarity readily explained if intention is a speciesof belief. It is equally striking that the ordinary expression ofintention for the future is ‘I am going to do A’ (Anscombe1963, p. 1), which looks like the assertoric expression of belief. Thesame point holds for intention in action: ‘What are you upto?’; ‘I am doingA.’ Although suchevidence is suggestive, however, it might be explained in other ways.(See Davidson 1978, pp. 91, 100; for criticism, Pears 1985; and formore recent discussion, Marušić and Schwenkler 2018,§2.2; Levy 2018; Asarnow forthcoming.)

So far, we have only the fragment of a theory, an alleged condition ofintending, not an adequate account of what intention is. Here thereare several possibilities. It is sometimes said that intentionis belief (Velleman 1989; Marušić and Schwenkler2018). But this creates a risk of confusion. It is not clear thatanyone believes there is a value ofp such that intending todoA is no more than believingp. Instead they holdthat part of what it is to intend to doA is to believep; other conditions must be met. The confusion stems fromtalk of particular ‘tokens’ of intending which may beidentified with tokens of belief. But the idea of a token state maynot be coherent (Steward 1997) and the would-be cognitivist need thinkotherwise.

If intention involves belief, what more does it require? On thesimplest proposal, to intend an action is to believe that one willperform it and to have an appropriate guiding desire (Audi 1973, p.395). But a mere conjunction seems insufficient: the desire and beliefcould be utterly unrelated (Davis 1984, pp. 141–2). This promptsthe suggestion that, whenS intends to doA, hisbelief rests on his desire: to intend an action is to believe that onewill 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 ofthis account is that it makes the belief component of intentionepiphenomenal. This belief merely registers one’s activity: themotivational work is done by a prior desire. (Something similar istrue on more subtle theories that divorce the motivational role ofintention from belief; as, for instance, Ross 2009, pp. 250–1.)If the claim that intention involves belief is to capture the essenceof the will, not a superficial fact about the word‘intend,’ the belief must be implicated in the functionsof intending and the explanation of action. (For objections of thiskind, see Bratman 1987, pp. 19–20 and Mele 1992, Ch. 8 on‘intention*’; on the role of beliefs in planning for thefuture, see Velleman 1989, Ch. 8; Velleman 2007; Marušićand Schwenkler 2018, §2.3; Alonso 2020; Alonso 2021.)

There is variation even among those accounts that give a motivationalrole to belief. On Velleman’s early view, intentions are‘self-fulfilling expectations that are motivated by a desire fortheir fulfillment and that represent themselves as such’(Velleman 1989, p. 109). Such expectations interact with a generaldesire for self-knowledge to motivate action by which they areconfirmed. More recently, Velleman has replaced the desire forself-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 ofpromiscuity’: in attributing a general tendency that motivatesus to conform to our own expectations, it predicts that we will bejust as strongly motivated by beliefs that do not constituteintentions, like the belief that I am going to trip over the step, ormispronounce a word.

A different proposal, due to Harman (1976, p. 168) is that intentionsare ‘conclusion[s] of practical reasoning’ (see also Ross2009, pp. 270–2; Marušić and Schwenkler 2018). Butit seems possible to intend an action spontaneously, for no particularreason. In later work, Harman looks downstream of intention, ratherthan upstream: an intention is a belief about what one is doing orwhat one is going to do that has the power to guide and motivateaction through practical thought (Harman 1986, pp. 375–6; Setiya2007a, pp. 48–53). This claim interacts with the question about‘disjunctive’ theories left unanswered at the end ofsection 2. If intention involves belief, those who treat knowledge asbasic, with mere belief its defective form, will take a similar viewof ‘knowledge in intention’ (Rödl 2007; Ch. 2;McDowell 2010, §7; Marcus 2012, Ch. 2). In the good case,one’s intention in action involves knowledge of what one isdoing: it entails, so cannot cause or motivate, one’s action. Inthe bad case, one merely intends to act. If not its causal role,however, what distinguishes knowledge in intention from knowledge ofother kinds?

Finally, there is Anscombe’s own view, on which there is anormative contrast between intention and ordinary belief. If one failsto act as one intends, and not through a mistaken belief about themeans or possibilities for action, ‘the mistake is not one ofjudgment but of performance’ (Anscombe 1963, pp. 56–7).Intention sets a standard of success for what does. (For discussionsof this point, see Frost 2014; Setiya 2016a; Campbell 2018a; Campbell2018b.) What is more, there is ‘a difference of form betweenreasoning leading to action and reasoning for the truth of aconclusion’ (Anscombe 1963, p. 60). Intention is justified bythe former, not the latter: by practical not theoretical reasoning(Anscombe 1963, pp. 57–62).

In this respect, Anscombe’s doctrine differs most sharply fromVelleman’s. As well as thinking of intention as a kind ofbelief, Velleman holds that ‘practical reasoning is a kind oftheoretical reasoning’ (Velleman 1989, p. 15; see also Ross2009). In a review of Velleman’s book, Bratman (1991, pp.250–1) dubbed the conjunction of these claims ‘cognitivismabout practical reason.’ It prompts what Davidson (1978, p. 95)called ‘the strongest argument against identifying [intention]with [belief],’ that ‘reasons for intending to dosomething are in general quite different from reasons for believingone will do it.’ Though Velleman (1989, pp. 122–5) defendsthat identification, one need not do so in order to accept the theoryof intention as a form of belief or the idea of ‘knowledge inintention.’

A more modest ‘cognitivism’ would hold that intentioninvolves belief, that practical reasoning does not reduce totheoretical, but that some requirements that govern intention are bestunderstood as requirements of theoretical reason. It is often regardedas a virtue of such cognitivism that it explains why there should bean indefeasible requirement of consistency among intentions andbeliefs (Ross 2009, pp. 244–7). It has also been argued that therequirement of means-end coherence follows from requirements oftheoretical 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 doE and thus believe that Iwill do it, and I believe that doingM is a necessary meansto doingE, but do not intend or believe that I am going todoM, I fail to believe a practically salient logicalconsequence of what I believe. The principal challenge for acognitivist account of means-end coherence is to explain why one mustavoid such theoretical failures by forming the relevant intention, notjust the corresponding belief (Bratman 2009a). But once again, oneneed not defend cognitivism, even in its less ambitious form, inconceiving intention as a kind of belief.

There are two main arguments against this conception. The first turnson apparent cases of intention without belief. According to Davidson,‘[a] man may be making ten carbon copies as he writes, and thismay be intentional; yet he may not know that he is; all he knows isthat he is trying’ (Davidson 1971, p. 50; see also Davidson1978, pp. 91–4). Or imagine I am recovering from paralysis, andmovement slowly returns to my hand. At a certain point, I am not surethat I can clench my fist. As it happens, I can. But if I try to do sobehind my back, under anesthesia, I may not believe that I amclenching my fist, even though—on the face of it—I amdoing so intentionally, and that is just what I intend (Setiya 2008,pp. 390–1). Something similar crops up in planning for thefuture. I intend to mail the bills on the way to work, but I know thatI am forgetful, and don’t believe that I will do it (see Bratman1987, pp. 37–8).

Such examples can be dealt with in various ways. One strategy insiststhat, when I do not believe that I am clenching my fist, or that Iwill mail the bills, I do not intend the corresponding actions, Imerely intend totry (Harman 1986, pp. 364–5; Velleman1989, pp. 115–6). But do I really act as I intended if I try andfail? (See Pears 1985, p. 86; McCann 1991, p. 212.) And when I knowthat I am forgetful, do I even believe that I will try to mail thebills? A more radical theory points to the simplifying assumption,often made in epistemology, that belief is binary and does not come bydegree. On that assumption, it may be harmless to claim that intentioninvolves belief. But the truth is bound to be more complex: that informing an intention one becomes more confident than one wouldotherwise be (Setiya 2008, pp. 391–2); or that the will is acapacity to know what one is doing, or what one is going to do, whoseexercise may be impeded, yielding mere belief or partial beliefinstead of knowledge (Pears 1985, pp. 78–81; Setiya 2009, pp.129–31; Setiya 2012, pp. 300–303; Marušić andSchwenkler 2018, §3.1).

A final response casts doubt on the examples. When we recall the‘openness’ of the progressive, we can insist thatDavidson’s carbon-copier knows that he is making ten copies,even if he is not sure the copies are going through first time (seeThompson 2011; Wolfson 2012). It is not a condition of being embarkedon intentional action that one will in fact succeed. The same might besaid when I am clenching my first, if what I know is merely that I amin progress towards doing so, in some liminal way. (This points backto the theory of intending as doing, discussed in section 1.) Thisstrategy struggles with prospective intention and the belief that I amgoing to act. But its advocates may insist that the content ofprospective 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, amongother things, coming to believe that one is doingA, or thatone is going to doA, what entitles us to form such beliefs?Not, or not ordinarily, that we have sufficient evidence of theirtruth. Forming an intention is not predicting the future on the basisof what one takes to be, or what ought to be, adequate grounds. Thatis why Anscombe calls practical knowledge ‘knowledge withoutobservation,’ meaning to exclude not only observation in thenarrow sense but knowledge by inference (Anscombe 1963, p. 50). And itis why Velleman (1989) writes about ‘spontaneous’knowledge of action. Even though he hopes to reduce practical totheoretical reasoning, and holds that intention involves belief, hedenies that intentions are formed on the basis of sufficient priorevidence. Anscombe and Velleman concede that knowledge in intentionoften rests in part on observation; the claim is that it goes beyondwhat observation, or inference from prior evidence, can support. (Fordiffering views of the role of perception in practical knowledge, seePickard 2004; Gibbons 2010; Schwenkler 2011; Ford 2016.)

The postulation of beliefs formed without sufficient prior evidence issometimes taken as a fatal flaw. In a memorable formulation, Grice(1971, p. 268) wrote that it makes decision ‘a case of licensedwishful thinking.’ According to Grice, we are not epistemicallypermitted to form beliefs about what we are doing, or what we aregoing to do, without sufficient prior evidence. Instead, we know whatwe are doing, or what we are going to do, by inference from thecondition of our will, along with premises about our own abilities(Grice 1971, pp. 275–9; Paul 2009). The condition of the willcannot itself involve belief.

Reactions to this problem vary widely. Those who restrict the contentof intention to what is in progress and emphasize how little isinvolved in being embarked on intentional action may suggest that thebeliefs in question verify themselves. It is sufficient for doingA intentionally, in the relevant sense, that one intends todo it. As we saw in section 1, however, there are reasons to doubtthis sufficiency. And the view seems to deflate the interest ofpractical knowledge. Anscombe warns against the ‘false avenue ofescape’ on which ‘I really “do” in theintentional sense whatever I think I am doing’ (Anscombe 1963,p. 52), and seems to allow for practical knowledge of what I willactually do or what I have done (Moran 2004: 146; Setiya 2016a; Haase2018).

Other views account for knowledge in intention in reliabilist terms:where one’s intention to doA reliably issues in doingA, it may amount to knowledge of what one is doing, or whatone is going to do (Newstead 2006, §2; Velleman 2007, §5).Non-reliabilists may dismiss the need forprior evidence,holding that we are entitled to form a belief if we know that it willbe true, and that we will have sufficient evidence for its truth, onceformed; this condition can be met when we form an intention to act(Harman 1976, p. 164, n. 8; Velleman 1989, pp. 56–64). So longas I know what I intend, and that my intention will be effective, Ihave sufficient evidence for what I am doing, or what am I going todo, even though this evidence did not precede the forming of myintention.

Critics may object to the necessity of these conditions. According toBerislav Marušić (2015), I can form the ‘practicalbelief’ that I will doA without knowing that myintention will be effective, so long as I know that its execution isup to me. A more common objection is that the conditions are notsufficient. They assimilate intention to faith, as when I form thebelief that I can leap a great chasm even though I have no evidence ofmy ability to do so, knowing that the belief itself will ensuresuccess. It is not clear that such acts of faith are possible, thatthey are epistemically rational, or that they provide a plausiblemodel for intention (Langton 2004; Setiya 2008, §III). On analternative view, there is a general demand for prior evidence informing beliefs, but our intentions are sometimes exempt from it, asperhaps when we know how to perform the relevant acts (Setiya 2008;Setiya 2009; Setiya 2012). It is know-how that explains why theexecution of our intentions, and thus the truth of the beliefs thatthey involve, can be credited to us.

Anscombe’s position on the matter is elusive, and may have to dowith her normative claims about intention and belief. Is practicalknowledge exempt from ordinary requirements of evidence because thereis a mistake of performance, not of judgement, when its object isfalse? (See Anscombe 1963, pp. 4–5, 56–7; Campbell 2018a.)Would it then amount to knowledge of what is not the case? Anscombemay seem to suggest as much (Anscombe 1963, p. 82), but it is unclearwhether 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 objectionto beliefs formed without sufficient prior evidence cannot besustained: I often know what I believe without having come to know onthe basis of perception or inference. Is groundless knowledge of thiskind restricted to our mental states? Or can it extend to what we aredoing and what we are going to do? Compare externalism about content:at least typically, believingp has implications for theconstitution of the world outside one’s skin; but it remainsaccessible to self-knowledge (Burge 1988). Why should that not be trueof intentional action? On any reading, part of the aim ofAnscombe’sIntention was to break the Cartesianprejudice against self-knowledge of what is happening in the world. Ifshe failed in that endeavour, she at least prescribed a task forfuture work: to say whether it is indeed a prejudice or a decisiveobstacle to the possibility of practical knowledge and the theory thatintention involves belief.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to Michael Bratman, Luca Ferrero, and Niko Kolodny for valuablecomments on an earlier draft.