Abstract
What is it to be able to intend to do something? At the end of her ground-breaking book, Agents’ Abilities, Romy Jaster identifies this question as a topic for future research. This article tackles the question from within the framework Jaster assembled for understanding abilities. The discussion takes place in two different spheres: intentions formed in acts of deciding, and intentions not so formed. The gradability of abilities has an important place in Jaster’s framework, and it is explained how abilities to acquire intentions of these two kinds -- including both general and specific abilities—can come in degrees, as she conceives of degrees of ability. Although Jaster “sympathize[s] with the idea that having an ability to intend to [A] is a matter of intending to [A] in a sufficient proportion of the relevant possible situations in which there is an overriding reason to intend to [A],” an alternative to this idea is developed.
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Notes
. For discussion, see Mele 2020, pp. 87–90.
. To simplify formatting in this pair, I replaced Greek characters with letters easily found on my keyboard and replaced subscripted letters with lower case letters. This is also my practice in some subsequent quotations.
3. Jaster acknowledges that “because many sets of situations will have infinite cardinality,” making sense of “the notion of proportions of situations, as it figures in” her view is problematic (p. 173). But she makes the point that lots of views are in the same boat (p. 174), and she holds out hope that the notion “can in fact be made sense of” (p. 175).
. A premise of the argument is that we often acquire intentions to A without having to decide to A. Given that premise, it would generally be pointless to acquire an intention to decide to A and then proceed to decide to A in response to that intention. It would be more economical simply to nonactionally acquire an intention to A.
. Regarding her notion of intention, Jaster writes: “The agent does not have to be aware of the intention, and the intention does not have to be a conscious state” (p. 118, n. 10). I agree with these claims about intentions (Mele, 2009, pp. 28–40, 101-9). On intentions to decide what to do in particular in this connection, see Mele 2021, p. 366.
. Jaster writes: “In the most paradigmatic instances of agentive abilities, A-ing is an action, and the crucial S-trigger situations are situations in which the agent intends to A” (p. 160).
. In some very strange cases, there might be exceptions (see Mele 2017, pp. 15–16).
. Ullmann-Margalit and Morgenbesser report that the example of the ass does not appear in Buridan’s known writings (1977, p. 759).
. This claim is disputable. Steph Curry, in a professional career in which he has attempted more than 3500 free-throws so far, has succeeded in sinking almost 91% of them. Wilt Chamberlain, who made nearly 12,000 free-throw attempts in his professional career, sank just 51.1% percent. In light of these facts, Curry is undoubtedly a more reliable free-throw shooter than Chamberlain. We make this judgment without pausing to think about variations in circumstances.
. Notice that I am being careful not to attribute this assumption to Jaster herself.
. I am assuming that from “S is able to X” we are entitled to infer “S has an ability to X.”
. The expression “an intention to (try to) decide what to do” is shorthand for “an intention to decide what to do or an intention to try to decide what to do.” For some motivation for including the second disjunct, see Mele 2021, pp. 365 − 66.
. On the “in view of clause” and contextualism, see Jaster, pp. 65–80.
. For comments on a draft of this paper, I am grateful to Randy Clarke, Romy Jaster, Stephen Kearns, David Storrs-Fox, and a pair of anonymous referees.
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Mele, A.R. On being able to intend. Philos Stud 180, 51–71 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-022-01873-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-022-01873-8