ABSTRACT

Say that a ‘practical decision’ is a momentary intentional mental action of intention formation. According to what I’ll call the ‘Decisional Prior Intention Thesis’ (‘DPIT’), each practical decision is intentional at least partly in virtue of the representational content of some previously acquired intention. DPIT is entailed by the following widely endorsed thesis that I’ll call the ‘General Prior Intention Thesis’ (‘GPIT’): each intentional action is intentional at least partly in virtue of the representational content of some previously acquired intention. Alfred Mele argues that a certain kind of case impugns DPIT. I defend DPIT from Mele’s argument by showing that his focal case is impossible. I then develop a new argument for an important portion of DPIT – viz., the thesis that, necessarily, if at t you decide to A, then just before t you have an intention whose representational content enables it to play an intentionality-grounding role relative to an act of deciding to A. The defense of DPIT and argument for the indicated portion of it jointly foreground and shed new light on the phenomenon of practical unsettledness – i.e. the felt unsettledness about what to do that precedes a practical decision.

摘要

假设“实际决定”是意图形成的瞬间有意识的心理行为。根据我称之为“决策先验意图论文”（“DPIT”）的观点，每个实际决策至少部分是由于某些先前获得的意图的表征内容而具有意图的。DPIT 由以下广受认可的论点所包含，我将其称为“一般先验意图论点”（“GPIT”）：每个有意行为至少部分是由于某些先前获得的意图的表征内容而具有意图的。Alfred Mele 认为某种案件对 DPIT 提出了质疑。我通过证明他的焦点案例是不可能的来为 DPIT 辩护，不受梅勒的论点的影响。然后，我为 DPIT 的一个重要部分提出了一个新的论点——即，如果你决定 A，必然地，这个论点