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Knowing the Good and Knowing What One Is Doing1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Sergio Tenenbaum
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Extract

Most contemporary action theorists accept – or at least find plausible – a belief condition on intention (especially on intention in action) and a knowledge condition on intentional action. The belief condition says that I can only intend to ɸ if I believe that I will ɸ or am ɸ-ing, and the knowledge condition says that I am only intentionally ɸ-ing if I know that I am ɸ-ing. The belief condition in intention and the knowledge condition in action go hand in hand. After all, if intending implies belief, and if ɸ-ing intentionally implies intending to ɸ, then in ɸ-ing, I intend to be ɸ-ing, and, by the belief condition, I believe that I am ɸ-ing, and if this belief is justified, and we are not in a Gettier situation, etc., then, I will also satisfy the knowledge condition. Moreover, the claim that when intentions properly result in action, the corresponding belief constitutes knowledge is a relatively safe assumption, at least as an assumption about what it is generally the case.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume , Volume 35: Belief and Agency , 2009 , pp. 91 - 117
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2009

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Footnotes

1

Thanks to Rachel Barney, David Hunter, Jennifer Nagel, David Velleman, and the participants of the Guise of the Good workshop at Colgate University and of the Belief and Agency workshop for very helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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