Theism and Explanation - Appeared-to-Blogly

150 Appendix
it reasonable—but in a way that is causally “deviant.” 11 Davidson himself
offers an example of this causal deviance.
A climber might want to rid himself of the weight and danger of holding
another man on a rope, and he might know that by loosening his
hold on the rope he could rid himself of the weight and danger. This
belief and want might so unnerve him as to cause him to loosen his
hold, and yet it might be the case that he never chose to loosen his hold,
nor did he do it intentionally. 12
It follows, the objection runs, that we cannot analyse an intentional action
simply in terms of the agent’s beliefs and desires.
Richard Swinburne considers this objection to be fatal to Davidson’s
belief-desire thesis. He argues that on Davidson’s view what causes an intentional
action is some “passive state” of the agent or “some event involving
him.” 13 But, he continues, “if an intention (or wish or desire) of P to bring
about E is some passive event or state, it could bring about E without P’s
having intentionally brought about E. Causation by an intention (so understood)
does not guarantee intentional action.” 14 Swinburne illustrates his
objection with another example of causal deviance, this time from the work
of Richard Taylor.
Suppose . . . that a member of an audience keenly desires to attract a
speaker’s attention, but, being shy, only fi dgets uncomfortably in his seat
and blushes. We may suppose, further, that he does attract the speaker’s
attention by his very fi dgeting; but he did not fi dget in order to attract
the speaker’s attention, even though he desired that result and may well
have realised that such behaviour was going to produce it. 15
Swinburne’s objection seems correct. Surely, we might argue, it is the agent
who brings about the action, not some mental state which the agent might
happen to have. As Swinburne writes, “having an intention is not something
that happens to an agent, but something she does.” 16 There is an
insight here that should be preserved. But does it rule out Davidson’s analysis?
Can these two perspectives be reconciled?
I believe they can. They can be reconciled by recognising the existence
of a distinct kind of mental state, which I shall describe as an “intention,” 17
and a distinct kind of mental event, which I shall describe as the “formation
of an intention.” 18 An intention is a kind of pro attitude, 19 but it differs
from the pro attitudes that may contribute to its formation. It is not merely
a judgement that something is desirable, all things being equal; it is the
judgement that something is to be done. 20 As I argued earlier (3.2 and 5.2),
an intentional explanation operates by positing an intention, understood
in this sense, and by showing that the action to be explained is a rational
one, given that intention. It follows (as Davidson argues) that an intentional