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Single Idea 20071

[filed under theme 20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / d. Group intentions ]

Full Idea

An individual intention is a goal to which an individual's behaviour adapts. A shared intention is a goal to which a group of people's behaviour collectively adapts.

Gist of Idea

An intention is a goal to which behaviour is adapted, for an individual or for a group

Source

Rowland Stout (Action [2005], 7 'Shared')

Book Ref

Stout,Rowland: 'Action' [Acumen 2005], p.116

A Reaction

This is part of Stout's externalist approach to actions. One would have thought that an intention was a state of mind, not a goal in the world. The individual's goal can be psychological, but a group's goal has to be an abstraction.

The 34 ideas from Rowland Stout

20035 Philosophy of action studies the nature of agency, and of deliberate actions [Stout,R]
20036 Intentional agency is seen in internal precursors of action, and in external reasons for the act [Stout,R]
20039 The causal theory says that actions are intentional when intention (or belief-desire) causes the act [Stout,R]
20038 If the action of walking is just an act of will, then movement of the legs seems irrelevant [Stout,R]
20044 The rationalistic approach says actions are intentional when subject to justification [Stout,R]
20043 Evolutionary explanations look to the past or the group, not to the individual [Stout,R]
20049 Maybe your emotions arise from you motivations, rather than being their cause [Stout,R]
20046 For an ascetic a powerful desire for something is a reason not to implement it [Stout,R]
20047 Deciding what to do usually involves consulting the world, not our own minds [Stout,R]
20048 There may be a justification relative to a person's view, and yet no absolute justification [Stout,R]
20053 An action is only yours if you produce it, rather than some state or event within you [Stout,R]
20052 If you don't mention an agent, you aren't talking about action [Stout,R]
20050 Most philosophers see causation as by an event or state in the agent, rather than the whole agent [Stout,R]
20059 I do actions, but not events, so actions are not events [Stout,R]
20058 Not all explanation is causal. We don't explain a painting's beauty, or the irrationality of root-2, that way [Stout,R]
20061 Mental states and actions need to be separate, if one is to cause the other [Stout,R]
20060 Beliefs, desires and intentions are not events, so can't figure in causal relations [Stout,R]
20055 A standard view says that the explanation of an action is showing its rational justification [Stout,R]
20056 In order to be causal, an agent's reasons must be internalised as psychological states [Stout,R]
20065 Should we study intentions in their own right, or only as part of intentional action? [Stout,R]
20073 Bratman has to treat shared intentions as interrelated individual intentions [Stout,R]
20068 Describing a death as a side-effect rather than a goal may just be good public relations [Stout,R]
20067 You can have incompatible desires, but your intentions really ought to be consistent [Stout,R]
20066 Speech needs sustained intentions, but not prior intentions [Stout,R]
20069 A request to pass the salt shares an intention that the request be passed on [Stout,R]
20070 An individual cannot express the intention that a group do something like moving a piano [Stout,R]
20071 An intention is a goal to which behaviour is adapted, for an individual or for a group [Stout,R]
20078 The normativity of intentions would be obvious if they were internal promises [Stout,R]
20077 If you can judge one act as best, then do another, this supports an inward-looking view of agency [Stout,R]
20081 Bicycle riding is not just bodily movement - you also have to be on the bicycle [Stout,R]
20083 Aristotelian causation involves potentiality inputs into processes (rather than a pair of events) [Stout,R]
20079 Are actions bodily movements, or a sequence of intention-movement-result? [Stout,R]
20080 If one action leads to another, does it cause it, or is it part of it? [Stout,R]
20084 Agency is causal processes that are sensitive to justification [Stout,R]