II

In discussing the first kind of cases pertaining to the concept of intention - expression of intention for the future, Anscombe identifies that intention is a content which may or may not be expressed. She distinguishes expression of intention for the future from prediction. Both are about the future, but prediction justifies the future through evidence while expression of intention for the future justifies the future either through the agent’s purposeful action or through reasons provided by the agent. For example, one may say: “it is going to take me two hours to get to work.” This is a prediction under which the future can be justified through that fact that it does take the person two hours to get to work. On the other hand, one may say: “I am going to eat this apple.” Such a statement, an expression of intention for the future, is justified by the agent purposefully eating the apple. Or, one may say: “I am calling a taxi to go to my grandmother’s house.” The action of calling a taxi is justified by the reason provided by the agent - going to the grandmother’s house. Here, the statement “I am going to eat this apple” expresses an intention to perform a certain action, with no implication about further purposes, while the statement “I am calling a taxi go to my grandmother’s house” not only expresses an intention for an action, it expresses an intended result of the action. For Anscombe, intended results are reasons for action.

Questions can arise as to what intention for an action is when there is a chain of intended results or multiple intended results. Such a statement “I am calling a taxi to go to my grandmother’s house to eat some delicious apple pie to bring back the wonderful memories of my childhood to try to get out of my depression” has a chain of multiple intended results. Any of the intended results “to go to my grandmother’s house”, “to eat some delicious apple pie”, “to bring back the wonderful memories of my childhood” and “to try to get out of my depression” can be described as an intention for the action of calling a taxi. In fact, the action of calling a taxi can be described multiple ways and continue to be intelligible: “I am going to my grandmother’s house.” Or “I am going to eat some delicious apple pie.” Or “I am going to bring back the wonderful memories of my childhood.” Or “I am going to try to get out of my depression.” If one has to pick out a pair of intention and action, there is no requirement that the intention and the action follow a one-to-one order as along as the intention is future in time relevant to the action. For example, statements such as “I am going to my grandmother’s house to try to get out of my depression;”, “I am calling a taxi to eat some delicious apple pie;”, “I am eating some delicious apple pie to bring back the wonderful memories of my childhood;” are all perfectly intelligible. The multiple descriptions for intentions and actions are like musical scales that allow one to move the intentions and the actions up and down the scale. Looking at it another way, multiple descriptions of intentions and actions put intentions and actions on a web, where one can pick out intentions and actions on a one-to-one, multiple-to-one, or one-to-multiple relationship. On this web, the intentions that are one step further away from the action become intended results. For example, “calling a taxi” is the intention and “going to my grandmother’s house” is the intended result. The intentions that are further away from the action are motives. Here, “to try to get out of my depression” can become a motive. Both intended results and motives are reasons to act.

Unlike prediction where the future is justified through evidence (such evidence having no input from the agent), justification of intention takes input from the agent through the efforts or doing of the agent. The nature of the intention is that it is internal, it needs not be symbolized. Unlike a command, which requires a sign (or symbol), i.e., words, sounds, writing or gesture, an intention, unless expressed, is private to the holder of the intention. Intention does not seem to require a sense of rational morality in that one seems to be able to have unjustified intentions, e.g., “I am going to steal the last bread from the hungry man and spoil it.” In that sense, Anscombe suggests that intention is not limited to moral agents capable of rationality. An infant can express an intention to be with the mother by holding on tight to the mother. A cat can express an intention to catch a bird by stalking the bird. Where do we draw the line then - can a plant express an intention to have more sunlight by leaning toward the sun?

Anscombe does not discuss but I wonder, what is the difference between an intention and a mere disposition of the mind? They both reside in the interior of a being. If, for example, even though one does not intend to be melancholy, he is nevertheless gloomy and depressed. During the darkness of his depression, he has no intention do anything other than being overwhelmed by the ocean of thoughts violently taking place internally in his mind. It would seem that his state of depression is not an intention, but a disposition of his mind. From that, if we stipulate that a disposition of the mind is any state of the mind, we can see that disposition of the mind is a broader concept than intention. Only certain dispositions of the mind are intentions. In other words, only a sub-class of all dispositions of the mind are intentions. Although our natural tendency is to deem intention inevitably bound up with action, as Anscombe does in her book, i.e., discussing intention as intentional action and intention with which an action is done, we could perhaps understand that intention is not limited to being related to action. Someone can intend to be happy, not by forcing a smile on her face, but by holding on to a thought ‘I am happy’. A yogi practicing meditation abandons all thoughts except for the thought of his breath – with the intention of finding focus. These are intentions for a certain mental state but not intentions for action. In short, intention is a disposition of mind that calls to the future where the future can be affected through the agent’s physical/mental efforts or doing.

Can one have an intention without wanting to make any efforts toward the realization of the intention? I think not. Such is a wish or a desire. A wish or a desire is sharply distinguishable from an intention. Can one have an intention for something she does not have any control over? Since intention requires an agent’s putting forth, or planning to put forth physical/mental efforts or doing, such intention may appear impossible. For example, can someone intend to help her son score a goal at a soccer game by doing movements while watching the game. When her son has possession of the ball, the mother leans left, moves her legs in the air, leans right, and then kicks her leg aiming at the goal. The mother’s actions bear no objective logical relationship to the intention she means to achieve. Subjectively, however, to the mother, her intention of helping her son score a goal is a valid one as she puts forth mental/physical efforts to achieve such intention, even though, objectively, the mother’s intention bears no logical relationship to the intended result she hopes to achieve. We can now amend the earlier statement on intention as: intention is a disposition of mind that calls to the future where the future can be affected, at least in the agent’s mind, through the agent’s physical/mental efforts or doing.

How do we distinguish an intention from wishful thinking? Anscombe’s intention seems to be intentions that are possible, at least in the mind of the agent. They are achievable intentions that are within the bounds of reality. They are intentions an agent has control over. Are intentions relative – certain intentions available to some but not others because different people have different beliefs about their different abilities and different capacities to fulfill intentions? If someone has acrophobia in addition to having no skills at mountain climbing, how can his intention to climb to the top of Mount Everest be a valid intention? But impossible dreams are being achieved every day all over the world. A completely paralyzed man without the ability to speak got married twice, raised three children and became one of the most eminent scientists of our time. That is Stephen Hawking. He must have intended these seemingly impossible things for these things to happen. Perhaps seemingly impossible intentions are not impossible intentions as soon as they are intended. As long as a remote, even the slightest possibility of the intention being achievable, as long as the agent sincerely believes it, it has to be a valid intention. Human potential is vast and boundless. If, even with acrophobia and no mountain climbing skills, if one sincerely intends to climb Mount Everest, it become an intention achievable and it is a valid intention. Sincerity in intention is demonstrated when an agent starts to put forth efforts, whether physical or mental, toward the intended action or intended result. On the other hand, if one wants something in the future, but has no plan to put forth any efforts, the mental state is at a pre-intention stage, it is a desire, a fancy, a kind of wishful thinking, but not an intention.

We now further examine whether a physically impossible intention so objectively obvious to an agent can be a valid intention. For example, one intends to make the earth flat by stomping on the ground. Intuitively, if this is a true intention, it is crazy and irrational. We have earlier discussed that an intention does not require rationality. Crazy and irrational it may be, if the person starts to put forth efforts, it should be recognized as an intention. Thus, a madman’s desire to make the earth flat through stomping the ground with efforts putting forth to fulfill such desire is an intention. Perhaps we want to conclude that the sunflowers leaning towards the sun to get the maximum sun light would not be a valid intention because the sunflowers are not putting forth efforts - the sunflower simply is driven by what has been encoded in its DNA for doing what it does. As we observe so far, putting forth effort, whether mentally or physically, is a necessary condition for an intention. But how do we know? Imagine that the sunflowers are saying ‘now I am turning toward the sun … now I am turning some more toward the sun.” Similarly, Anscombe gave an example about Wittgenstein imagining some leaves blown about by the wind and saying “now I will go this way … now I will go that way” as the wind blew them. ² Would it make a difference of the leaves’ movement if the leaves are without the accompanying thoughts? What if the leaves sincerely believe that their intentions are making a difference in their movements? Objectively, we know that the intentions of the leaves would not matter for their movement. How does one know that? Objective science. One may suggest that the leaves have free will because they have a will to go left and then go right. However, regardless of what the leaves believe about their intentions, their intentions still would not make a difference in their movement. Therefore, while intentions are subjective, based only one the agent’s belief and her mental/physical efforts or doing, free will relies on an objective standard on whether an agent can give effect to an intention. Because agents seem free to have intentions but not free to have actions, the term “free will” now seems strange to me. We even can assume free will on the part of the leaves and sunflowers. The will is always free, but actions are not. In other words, one is free to have intentions but is not free to have actions to render the intentions. Why isn’t the “free will and determinism” issue the “free action and determinism” issue? This seems to be what the character Tom insists in the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. In a powerful scene when Tom, a slave, is being beaten by this master, Tom insists that while he is not free (to have actions), he is free in mind and in his intentions.

Anscombe also discusses how one detects another’s intentions. It seems that in general the agent has the ultimate authority on what her intention is. ³ What is in the agent’s mind cannot be seen. However, are intentions a sub-class of self-knowledge? Intentional states such as belief and desire are self-knowledge. But intentions are not like intentional states such as belief and desire which purely occur in the interior. Intentions requires the agent to put forth mental or physical efforts to affect the future. Yet, because intentions themselves and the potential mental efforts put forth remain hidden from the outside world, even though intentions often have ulterior demonstrations, part of intentions remain in the interior, with the agent having the ultimate authority of its content.