• DOI:10.1080/13869795.2016.1234638
• Corpus ID: 151858895

Intentional action and the frame-of-mind argument: new experimental challenges to Hindriks

@article{Cova2017IntentionalAA,
  title={Intentional action and the frame-of-mind argument: new experimental challenges to Hindriks},
  author={Florian Cova},
  journal={Philosophical Explorations},
  year={2017},
  volume={20},
  pages={35 - 53},
  url={https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:151858895}
}

• Florian Cova
• Published 2 January 2017
• Philosophy
• Philosophical Explorations

Based on a puzzling pattern in our judgements about intentional action, Knobe [(2003). “Intentional Action and Side-Effects in Ordinary Language.” Analysis 63: 190–194] has claimed that these judgements are shaped by our moral judgements and evaluations. However, this claim goes directly against a key conceptual intuition about intentional action – the “frame-of-mind condition”, according to which judgements about intentional action are about the agent’s frame-of-mind and not about the moral… 

Based on a puzzling pattern in our judgements about intentional action, Knobe [(2003). “Intentional Action and Side-Effects in Ordinary Language.” Analysis 63: 190–194] has claimed that these judgements are shaped by our moral judgements and evaluations. However, this claim goes directly against a key conceptual intuition about intentional action – the “frame-of-mind condition”, according to which judgements about intentional action are about the agent’s frame-of-mind and not about the moral value of his action. To preserve this intuition Hindriks [(2008). “Intentional Action and the Praise-Blame Asymmetry.” The Philosophical Quarterly 58: 630–641; (2014). “Normativity in Action: How to Explain the Knobe Effect and its Relatives.” Mind & Language 29: 51–72] has proposed an alternate account of the Knobe Effect. According to his “Normative Reason account of Intentional Action”, a side-effect counts as intentional only when the agent thought it constituted a normative reason not to act but did not care. In this paper, I put Hindriks’ account to test through two new studies, the results of which suggest that Hindriks’ account should be rejected. However, I argue that the key conceptual insight behind Hindriks’ account can still be saved and integrated in future accounts of Knobe’s results.