Instrumental Action

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Instrumental Action

What is the relation between an instrumental action and the outcome (or outcomes) to which it is directed?

An instrumental action is an action that happens in order to bring about an outcome.

example: you press a lever in order to obtain a tasty snack.

example: then you catch a bus in order to get home.

Here’s another example. Ayesha is holding Zac’s glass ...

You tilt the bottle thereby pouring prosecco all over Zac's trousers. You might say, the goal of my actions was not to soak Zac's trousers but to fill his glass.

What is the relation between an instrumental action and the outcome (or outcomes) to which it is directed?

As this illustrates, some actions involving are instrumental in the sense that

among all their actual and possible consequences,

there are outcomes to which they are directed

In such cases we can say that the actions are clearly instrumental.

Concerning any such actions, we can ask What is the relation between an instrumental action and the outcome or outcomes to which it is directed?

The standard answer to this question involves intention.

An intention (1) specifies an outcome,

(2) coordinates the one or several activities which comprise the action;

and (3) coordinate these activities in a way that would normally facilitate the outcome’s occurrence.

What binds particular component actions together into larger instrumental actions? It is the fact that these actions are all parts of plans involving a single intention.

What singles out an actual or possible outcome as one to which the component actions are collectively directed? It is the fact that this outcome is represented by the intention.

So the intention is what binds component actions together into instrumental actions and links the action taken as a whole to the outcomes to which they are directed.

goal != intention

Intentions specify goals.

So they can’t fucking *be* goals, can they?

Question 1

What is the relation between an instrumental action and an outcome to which it is directed?

Question 2

What distinguishes your actions from things that merely happen to you?

Standard Solution

Your actions are those events which stand in an appropriate causal relation to an intention of yours.

Need to take a step back

But what are intentions?

What are intentions?

Is postulating intention redundant?

dilemma

- need to avoid taking a side in philosophical debate about intention (Setiya, 2014)

- cannot say nothing about what intention is (because want to use the notion)

INTENTION	yes	no
Is it a mental state?	Davidson (1978)	Thompson (2008)
Is it a belief?	Velleman (1989)	Bratman (1987)
Entails belief?	Harman (1976)	Levy (2018)
Linked to planning?	(Bratman, 1985)
Incompatible with habitual?		Kalis & Ometto (2021)
Entails non-observational knowledge	Anscombe (1957)
Comes in two kinds?	Searle (1983)	Brozzo (2021)

Conjecture: there is a consistent theory for any of the 128 patterns of answers to these seven questions.

This is not the kind of problem that philosophers can help with. In fact philosophers are partly responsible for the problem.

But what are intentions?

What are intentions?

dilemma

- need to avoid taking a side in philosophical debate about intention (Setiya, 2014)

- cannot say nothing about what intention is (because want to use the notion)

Why postulate intentions at all?

~Hunnius ?

you supermarket

Steve prefers chocolate to bananas.

Steve intends to buy both items.

Steve wants to leave the supermarket as quickly as possible.

desire bananas

(stronger) desire chocolate

In this situation, people will sometimes get the bananas and then the chocolate.

This is actually surprisingly difficult to do (Marshmallow task &c)

So my idea is that we need to posulate intentions to explain the behaviour of the shopper when she successfully goes to the bananas first and then to the chocolate despite having a stronger desire for chocolate than bananas.

Because this shopper acts against her stronger desire, it seems we cannot explain by appeal to desire alone.

Intention is that extra element we postulate to explain her behvaiour.

In a more elaborate case, you might use a shopping list. The shopping list is a physical counterpart of your intention.

More generally, humans and perhaps other animals have abilities to plan. They are not always pushed around by their strongest desires from moment to moment. Intentions are the elements of their plans.

What are intentions?

dilemma

- need to avoid taking a side in philosophical debate about intention (Setiya, 2014)

- cannot say nothing about what intention is (because want to use the notion)

Why postulate intentions at all? ✔

Intention : minimal assumptions

1. Intentions are caused by beliefs and desires.

2. Intentions specify outcomes and coordinate actions around those outcomes, thereby binding together components of the action.

So we solved the dilemma. Yay!

Was taking a step back: done that now

What is the relation between an instrumental action and the outcome (or outcomes) to which it is directed?

Let’s explore how this relates to the Simple Picture I started with. The challenge was to discover why people act.

desire	I fill Zak’s glass.
belief	If I pour, I will fill Zak’s glass.
intention	I pour to fill Zak’s glass.

How, if at all, does this vindicate and extend the Simple Picture?

Simple Picture (again)

When you act,

there are reasons why you act;

you know the reasons;

you act because you know the reasons; and

the reasons justify your action.

Intentions are linked to, or beliefs and desires.

they are linked to beliefs and desires so if you have a look at some philosophical article on intention for example in the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy you're going to see that philosophers say all kinds of different things about intention and they disagree and there really doesn't seem to be any end to that but for our purposes we only need something which is a point that is agreed on very broadly and this is that intentions characteristically are associated with or perhaps even identical with (we don't care) beliefs and desires

so in this case we might suppose i had a desire to fill zach's glass and a belief that by pouring from the bottle i would fill zack's glass and those two things are what led to or if you like constituted (who knows) the intention that i pour in order to fill zach's glass

sometimes we think we know the reason but it is not a reason (because not a fact) -> belief

Justify in an instrumental sense.

(To return to the earlier illustration, We may not think Jason’s betrayal justified Medea’s desire to murder her children, but we recognise that she did select actions that were appropriate for achieving what she desired.)

What is the relation between an instrumental action and the outcome (or outcomes) to which it is directed?

Intention!

The outcome (or outcomes) to which an instrumental action is directed is that outcome (or outcomes) specified by the intention (or intentions) which caused it.

Is that all?

Does the Standard Answer involving intention provide a full answer to that question? Or are there things other than intentions which might link an instrumental action to an outcome? The next section provides a reason for thinking that there are.

What is the relation between an instrumental action and the outcome (or outcomes) to which it is directed?

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Instrumental Action

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