Random quote
A moment’s reflection reveals the deep counterintuitiveness of lines: That in a culture with an increasing sense of impatient demand for material goods and a decreasing sense of community, the overwhelming majority of people wait politely in queues, respecting the priority of complete strangers who they are unlikely to ever see again.

David Fagundes (Emory University School of Law, Atlanta (GA), USA)

Intention and luck

Photo taken in Amersfoort, NL, on the Boogschutterplein

At the end of my last blog I raised the problem that often it is not easy to say whether a person performed an action or just did something. Of course, a part of the solution will depend on how you define “intention”, although it doesn’t guarantee a solution. In my PhD thesis I defined “intention” this way: The intention of an action is the answer to the question to what purpose or why the actor performed this action. Let me apply it to the case of Carl in my last blog:
Carl wants to kill his rich uncle because he wants to inherit his fortune. He believes that his uncle is home and drives towards his house. His desire to kill his uncle agitates him and he drives recklessly. On the way he hits and kills a pedestrian, who happens to be his uncle.
Carl killed his uncle because he drove recklessly and Carl had the intention to kill his uncle and if he could have done it this way, probably he would have done it. Moreover, that Carl drove recklessly was because he had the intention to kill his uncle. Nevertheless he did not kill his uncle then and there intentionally. Is the best answer to the problem then that what Carl did (in my sense) was killing his uncle and that this killing was not an action? Maybe, and probably a judge would judge that way, but nevertheless, in view of my definition of “intention”, a possible objection is that Carl’s intention of driving then and there was that he wanted to kill his uncle and, indeed, he did so by driving then and there, and so his intention or at least the purpose of his intention was achieved as a result of his intention. He could have chosen to stop because he was driving recklessly, but he chose not to do so. Therefore, Carl intended to kill his uncle, and he killed his uncle because of his intention. So, he executed his intention, albeit in a deviant way. Isn’t there a lot we achieve by luck and we say then that it is my achievement that I succeeded? Maybe there is no luck without an intention.
I leave it to you to analyse the other cases in my last blog (and to criticize my solution of Carl’s case), but can intentional action be a matter of degree, or a mixture of luck and intention? This is what I wondered when I read about Connie’s case: (Source; adapted)
Connie, who has never shot a bow and arrow, is offered a large cash prize for hitting the bull's-eye on a distant target that even experts normally miss. She carefully aims and shoots, hitting the target dead centre in just the (direct) way she hoped she would. Was Connie's hitting the target an intentional action? Note that Connie has no natural talent for shooting a bow and arrow: she tries equally hard to win even larger prizes for duplicating the feat, tries it many, many times again, but does not even come close. (Mele)
So, can I say to have an intention just because I try, though knowing that actually I have no chance to succeed? And if I succeed, was it intentional? Maybe, you say “yes” but what then is the difference between Connie’s case and a lottery? Okay, in case of a lottery, you don’t have any influence on the result, while when trying to hit the bull’s eye, at least you can aim in the right direction. Nevertheless, you don’t know how to handle a bow and how to hit the bull’s eye. Your intention was hitting the bull’s eye in order to win the prize, but technically you didn’t know how to hit. Your hitting the bull was not deliberative and therefore not intentional. Connie cannot say why she shot this way. Her shooting was like buying a lot in a lottery. She just did what she did.
But suppose now that Connie has become a member of an archery club. She is yet a beginner, but in the club she hits the bull's-eye 25% of the time (a). Then she has become more advanced and she hits the bull's-eye 50% of the time (b). Some time later she even hits the bull's-eye 80% of the time (c). And after some years she got the title of markswoman in her club, because she hits the bull's-eye at least 99% of the time. She knows – maybe intuitively – how to hit the mark (d). Before she gives it a try, she can say “I’ll win the prize” for in fact it is sure she will. For her it is no longer a lottery but it is like driving her car. You have to learn it, but once you know it, you simply do it. But how about case (a), the 25% case (or even less than 25%, if you like). Can we say then already that Connie hits the bull’s eye intentionally? Or in case (b), the 50% case? Etc. When can I say it was my intention to do so; I did it intentionally; I did it deliberatively? When don’t I need to say anymore that something happened to me but that I made it happen? Maybe we cannot achieve an intention without any luck.

Random quote
Whichever side a crime comes from, whether it is in the name of the throne or the state, it is equally appalling, godless and monstrous. History can never acquit the perpetrators; whatever lofty euphemisms a crime is given, whether it is called “the king’s will” or “the sovereignty of the people”, a crime remains a crime. A people has no greater right to revenge than an individual, and a crime committed by the many is no less awful than a crime committed by one person.

Michel Masson (French author and journalist; 1800-1883)

Actions and doings

AI photo by https://perchance.org/ai-text-to-image-generator and edited by me.

In my blog last week, I stated that I don’t perform an action when I kick the ball and break the window unintentionally. Of course, it is something I did and I am responsible for breaking the window, because I should have been more careful when kicking the ball; and maybe it was not the right place to play football there, because there was too great a risk that I would break the window. This example illustrates that it makes sense to make a distinction between doing (something) and performing an action. I want to speak of doing in case of an unintentional activity or if it is open whether the activity was intentional. An action is then an intentional activity. In this blog, I want to restrict the meaning of doings to unintentional activities (so leaving out the possibility that doing is a general term for every human activity). I’ll also ignore Von Wright’s distinction between “with an intention” and “intentional”: Here, an intentional activity is an activity with an intention.

I want to restrict the meaning of doing also in another way: A doing is not a mere physical movement of my body like a knee reflex. A knee reflex is not something I did, although it was my knee that moved and although it was a consequence of my physical setup. It was not someone else who lifted my knee (although someone may have touched it with a hammer). The reflex happened to me; it was a piece of behaviour.
So, a doing is an activity unintentionally performed by me but that didn’t just happen to me. How is this possible? To make this clear, I want to use Anscombe’s idea of “under a description”. (see her Intention) Take this example (which is from Davidson, 1980, pp. 4-5, though): I come home and there is a thief in my house, which I don’t know. I enter my house and turn on the light. The thief sees the light and so he knows that I have come home and flees. Afterwards, I can describe what I did in different ways. I can say that I turned on the light, but also that I alerted the thief. These are two activities I did at the same time. What I did depends on the way I describe my activity. However, there is a significant difference between these descriptions: I did one, turning on the light, with an intention, while I alerted the thief unintentionally. Or take again the kicking the ball case. Here, too, my activity can be described in two ways: “Kicking the ball” and “Breaking the window”. Also in this case, one activity was intentional and one wasn’t.
What does this mean for my distinction between doing and performing an action? Both turning on the light and kicking the ball were my actions. Breaking the window and alerting the thief were doings. However, the latter activities can only be performed if they can be described as actions as well. Say, I trip over a stone, I fall and I break a window. Can we say that I did it (in the sense of doing used in this blog)? No, for tripping over the stone happened to me. It was a piece of behaviour at most and not a doing. There is an alternative description as an action in the case that I broke the window while I was playing football, namely that I kicked the ball intentionally. However, there is no alternative description as an action in the case that I broke the window when I tripped over a stone and fell. Note that in the first case I must pay the window, while in the second case maybe the person responsible for the bad condition of the road must pay. We can analyse Davidson’s case in the same manner, for example if I alerted the thief because I tripped over the threshold and alerted him by the noise.
What this analysis has taught us is this: A doing is an unintentional activity that can be described as an action in an alternative way. An action is an activity under an intentional description. (And a body movement is a mere piece of behaviour, if it is neither an action nor a doing and if the body is not moved by someone else).
Nevertheless, matters are not that simple. I am playing football and I kick the ball many times. I know that in this way I damage the grass. However, I had no intention to do so (it would be better if it wouldn’t happen). Moreover, I was allowed to play football there. Must we say then that damaging the grass was something I did (in the sense used in this blog)? This raises the question: Was it relevant that I damaged the grass by kicking the ball? Any action has unintended consequences, but not all consequences can be ascribed to me as my doings in a sensible way. Doings cannot be seen as unintended activities without regard to their relevance.
Or take these cases, described in my blogs On philosophical puzzles and Philosophical puzzles:
- A man tries to kill someone by shooting at him. He misses his victim by a mile, but the shot stampedes a herd of wild pigs that trampled the intended victim to death. (Daniel Bennett)
- Carl wants to kill his rich uncle because he wants to inherit his fortune. He believes that his uncle is home and drives towards his house. His desire to kill his uncle agitates him and he drives recklessly. On the way he hits and kills a pedestrian, who happens to be his uncle. (Roderick Chisholm)
- A climber wants to rid himself of the weight and danger of holding another man on a rope. He knows that by loosening his hold on the rope he can rid himself of the weight and danger. This idea makes him so nervous that it causes him to loosen his hold, and the other man falls into the depths. (Davidson)
The question is then: Were these killings doings or actions? Were the victims killed intentionally by the actions performed? Can you do something intentionally? Or, can you perform an action unintentionally even if you act with an intention? Maybe killings can be doings and not actions, even when you tried and so intended to kill the victim by what you did. 

Random quote
Science is a form of arrogance control.

Carol Travis (1944-) and Elliot Aronson (1932-)

Positive and negative actions

In my blog two weeks ago, I argued that waiting – if it is not a waiting that happens to you, because, for instance, you are in a lift that suddenly stops and you need help – is an action, albeit one of a special kind. A reader of my blogs commented that we can call this waiting a negative action (or act). Actions like walking, riding, or driving away can be called then positive actions. It’s a good point. However, I prefer to speak of active and passive actions, since actions like waiting give you the feeling that you are doing nothing and so that you are passive, while “real” actions like walking etc. suggest that you are actively involved.
Negative or passive actions are certainly not exceptional. Known passive actions in philosophy are omitting and allowing. Let’s take allowing. Most philosophers see it as an action, and if it is (and I think it is), this has deep consequences for our moral responsibility. Why? The difference between doing and allowing is sometimes described by saying that doing is making things happen and allowing is letting things happen. I think that the difference is more general than only between doing and allowing and that it applies also to the distinction between active and passive actions. Generally speaking, an active action can be described as making things happen, and a passive action as letting things happen. Then, allowing is a passive action, as said. However, the distinction just defined implies that both active and passive actions are actions. When I kick the ball and break the window, I caused the window to break. It is something I did, but was it an action by me? For it is not what I wanted to do. It was an accident. And much is happening in the world around me and we often don’t know what is happening. Can we say then that we allow these things to happen? No, of course. We can only say that we allow something to happen if we know (or could know) about it and are able to intervene (see my last blog). Therefore, I want to describe an active action as intentionally making things happen, and a passive action as intentionally letting things happen. This definition makes clear why we are responsible for what we allow. It’s not because we let things happen as such but because we let them happen intentionally, which implies that we had the explicit possibility to intervene. In a way, this is also so when we are waiting, but in this case the question of responsibility seldom matters.
I want to mention yet another difference between active and passive actions. An action can succeed or fail. I think that it is clear when it succeeds: The intended result is achieved by one’s doings, no matter whether the action was active or passive: Both the action and the result are there. However, things are more complicated in case an action fails. Basically, an action fails if it is not there, or if the result is not achieved, although the action has been performed. Again, this is clear for active actions. (In fact, it’s more complicated for “practical actions” in the sense of Aristotle, but I’ll ignore this here) But how about passive actions? If we haven’t waited, or haven’t allowed, can we say then that these actions failed? Usually, we see it as a success if we didn’t need to wait, as much as when what we were waiting for happened. Also, in case we do not allow something to happen, it’s not simply that our consent is absent (in the sense that an active action failed, for example like not being able to buy a book because it was out of stock), but we have taken another decision (note that the question is discussed here from the perspective of the person who does or doesn’t give the consent; not from the perspective of the person who needs the consent). And in case what we were waiting for didn’t happen, we waited in vain, and so our waiting was without a result, indeed. Nevertheless, we waited (although the active action “buying a book” didn’t take place, in case the book was not in stock). Similarly, if we allowed something to happen, but in the end what we allowed didn’t take place, then nevertheless we did allow it.
I leave it at these sketchy remarks but much more can be said about it.