Intentional Actions and Final Causes

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

What distinguishes agents' intentional actions from those episodes in their life that merely happen to them? This paper argues that the intentionality of agents' actions is an irreducibly teleological phenomenon. An intentional action is a process that.occurs for the sake of an end that we ascribe to the agent who performs it. This intrinsic teleological structure is a precondition, rather than a causal consequence, of human agents' capacity to mentally represent and consciously initiate their actions. Hence teleology is an intrinsic, and not a derivative, feature of the process in which agents who act participate. More specifically, the paper argues for two major claims. First, whenever agents' actions are intentional there must be a sense in which what they do is not a mere accident. The paper shows that the sense in which intentional actions are not accidents can only be explained with reference to the actions' final, rather than their efficient, causes. Second, it argues that it is the intrinsic teleological structure of actions that best explains the sense in which agents always try to do what they do intentionally.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)152-178 and 214
JournalMagyar Filozófiai Szemle
Volume67
Issue number2
StatePublished - Jun 2023

Keywords

  • action theory
  • efficient causes
  • final causes
  • intentions
  • teleology

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