Unmotivated Intentional Action

Danny Frederick http://independent.academia.edu/DannyFrederick Philosophical Frontiers 5 (1): 21-30 (2010) Abstract In opposition to the tenet of contemporary action theory that an intentional action must be done for a reason, I argue that some intentional actions are unmotivated. I provide examples of arbitrary and habitual actions that are done for no reason at all. I consider and rebut an objection to the examples of unmotivated habitual action. I explain how my contention differs from recent challenges to the tenet by Hursthouse, Stocker and Pollard. Keywords arbitrary action, desire, habitual action, intentional action, reason, value.

1. Introduction
It is a tenet of contemporary action theory, endorsed by innumerable philosophers, that, necessarily, an intentional action is one that is done for a reason. For example, Davidson avers: it is (logically) impossible to perform an intentional action without some appropriate reason.1 Goldman says: An action is an intentional action if and only if it is done for a reason.2 Bhaskar expresses the point, as Davidson also does,3 in terms of causality: intentional human behaviouris always caused by reasons, andit is only because it is caused by reasons that it is properly characterized as intentional.4 Korsgaard expresses the point in a Kantian way: since the will is practical reason, it cannot be conceived as acting and choosing for no reason.5 Dancy affirms: Intentional, deliberate, purposeful action is always done for a reason.6 OBriens acceptance appears to be tentative: Many have argued that we need to distinguish non-intentional actions actions done for no reason from intentional actions.7 In section 2, I offer brief explanations of the notions of an intentional action and of a reason. In section 3, I present examples of arbitrary and habitual intentional actions that are entirely unmotivated. In section 4, I consider and rebut an objection to the examples of habitual action. In section 5, I contrast my challenge to the tenet with other recent challenges. In section 6, I conclude the discussion.

2. Intentional Actions and Reasons

An action is intentional insofar as what the agent does and whether he does it is under his control. Thus an intentional action is one that the agent aims to do, since controlling what is done implies shaping it to ones end. If I flip the switch and thereby illuminate the room I might also alert a prowler to the fact that I am home.8
1 2

Davidson (1982c), 264. Goldman (1970), 76. 3 For example, Davidson (1982a). 4 Bhaskar (1989), 80. 5 Korsgaard (1996), 97-98. 6 Dancy (2000), 1. 7 OBrien (2003), 365. 8 Davidson (1982a), 4.

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But while I flipped the switch and illuminated the room intentionally (I was aiming to do those things), I alerted the prowler unintentionally because that was not something that I was aiming to do (I did not even know he was there). An agent can try to perform an intentional action but fail. For, he may fail to realise his aim: even a basic action that I can normally do just like that, such as moving my finger, can be one that I aim to perform but fail due, for example, to temporary paralysis or other physical malfunction. But an agent can fail to perform an intentional action even if his aim is achieved, if he succeeds in a deviant way.9 For example, I may aim to kill a man by shooting at him, miss him by a mile, and yet succeed in killing him because the noise of my shot stampedes a herd of wild pigs that trample him to death. Even though I aimed to kill him and succeeded, I did not kill him intentionally, because the causal chain was deviant.10 Thus, if an action is intentional, it is one the agent could have failed to carry off. Further, the possibility of failure means that, if an intentional action takes some time to perform, the agent may need to monitor and guide his execution of it. For example, if I am reaching for the light switch in the dark and I feel the right-hand-side of the door frame, I will move my hand to the right, since I know the switch is to the right of there. When an agent acts intentionally he is sometimes self-consciously aware of his action as something he is doing, as I am sometimes conscious that I am drinking my morning glass of orange juice while I am doing so. But intentional actions are often done on automatic pilot: I may be aware that I have drunk the orange juice only because I see the recently used glass, having performed the action without being self-consciously aware that I was doing it (perhaps my mind was on some tasks to be performed later that day). A different example would be someone who is driving a car while talking to his passenger. The actions he performs in driving the car are done below the level of his self-conscious awareness, which is occupied with the conversation; yet each action he does is intended to get him and his passenger to their destination safely while showing due courtesy to pedestrians and other drivers; and he is even sub-consciously monitoring his progress, so that if the car starts to veer off course, he will bring it back, though this corrective action may also be done without him being self-consciously aware of it. A motivated intentional action is one that the agent does for a reason. There are disagreements between philosophers about what constitutes a reason. For some,11 a reason is a conjunction of a belief and a pro-attitude, where pro-attitudes may be divided into two broad classes, namely, desires (in the ordinary sense in which we feel desires) and values (or judgements that a thing is desirable). Some philosophers,12 allow that a pro-attitude by itself may be a sufficient reason for action. I will accept reasons of either type as reasons. Some philosophers,13 distinguish motivating reasons, which are the ones for which the agent performed the action, from justifying reasons, which would rationally justify the action. My concern in this paper is with motivating reasons. Thus, if an action was done for a reason, it was done because there was a consideration that the agent saw as favouring the action. I will argue that many intentional actions are done for no reason
9

Davidson (1982b) 78-79. Davidson (1982b), 78. 11 For example, Davidson (1982a), 3-4, 12 For example, Davidson (1982a,), 6. 13 For example, Smith (1998), 37-39, and Dancy (2000), 1-5.
10

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at all, are not attractive to the agent in any way, and are thus entirely unmotivated. I think this is important in itself and also because it undermines the project, popular amongst philosophers, of providing a causal model of human intentional action in terms of the agents reasons for acting.

3. Unmotivated Intentional Actions

Unmotivated intentional actions appear to be either arbitrary or habitual, although most habitual actions and most arbitrary actions are motivated. What arbitrary and habitual actions have in common is that, even when they are done for a reason, they are done without considering reasons for and against options; indeed, they are often done without even noticing alternative options. But they differ in that habitual actions are regular: when one acts habitually, one acts in a usual way in a usual situation. This is not to say that one always acts in that way in that situation, for we sometimes act against our habits; but a habitual action will be probable in its usual situation. For example, I might pick up a particular pen from a bundle of pens without considering which pen in the set I should use. My choice of that particular pen (as opposed to some other one) was arbitrary: any of the other pens would have done as well; and it was not probable that I would pick that pen as opposed to one of the others. Alternatively, I may be in the habit of using a particular pen to write with when I am sitting at my desk at home, in which case that will usually be the pen I use in that situation, without considering, or perhaps even being aware of, the other pens that are available to me. I select that particular pen (rather than another one) out of habit: it is probable that I will pick that pen in that situation. In each of these examples, the action was done as a means: in each case the agent picked up the pen in order to write. We could even spell out the agents reason for action as a conjunction: he wanted to write and he believed that picking up the pen would enable him to do so. But there are instances of arbitrary and habitual actions which are done as ends-in-themselves. For example, if I hear some rock n roll playing, I might get up and dance; or, if I see an attractive woman, I might go over to speak to her. In each of these arbitrary actions, I had no ulterior motive: the action was not performed in order to do something else; it was not a means to an end. I performed each action simply for the reason that I wanted to do it, because it was attractive to me, because I expected to enjoy doing it: each was done as an end-in-itself. Somewhat similarly, if I am in the habit of spending my Sunday afternoons reading a novel for enjoyment, then my reading a novel on a Sunday afternoon is habitual and not done as a means; but being done as an end-in-itself, it is done for the reason that I want to do it. However, there are some intentional actions which are done neither as means nor as ends-in-themselves. Such actions the agent performs without a reason of any kind. Some of these actions are arbitrary, but many are habitual. An example of an arbitrary intentional action done neither as a means nor as an end-in-itself could be an instance of my whistling a tune. I just start whistling. I might not want to whistle, I might not even enjoy doing it (though, presumably, I do not dislike doing it); so I am not doing it as an end-in-itself. I just do it. I whistle for no reason. Yet I whistle intentionally: I am in control of what I am doing and of whether I am doing it (I could stop if I wanted); whistling is something I aim to do and which I

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might fail to pull off; and if, as I am about to whistle, I am asked what I am going to do, I could say truly that I intend to whistle. An example of a habitual intentional action done neither as a means nor as an end-in-itself would be my drinking a glass of orange juice every morning. On most mornings when I do this I have no reason for drinking the juice, I just do it out of habit. And it seems wrong to insist that I drink the juice because I want to drink it. I might neither want to drink it, nor want not to drink it. If asked why I drank the juice, I might say that I did it out of habit; but, while that might be an explanation, it would not refer to any reason I had. Yet my drinking the juice is intentional: I am in control of what I am doing and of whether I am doing it (I could stop if I wanted); it is something that I aim to do and that I might fail to pull off, for example, by missing my mouth and spilling the juice all over my shirt; and if, as I am about to do it, I am asked what I am going to do, I could say truly that I intend to drink the juice. It might be objected that the absence of a desire does not entail the absence of a value and that I might be performing these actions because I value them in some way, and thus that I want to do them in that sense. It should be clear, however, that this need not be so, for my description of the examples did not depend upon construing wanting to do as having a desire to do. An action of arbitrary whistling, or an action of drinking orange juice out of habit, need not be things I value doing, any more than I must have a desire to do them. In each case, I might set no value on the action, it being something that I just do, either arbitrarily or habitually. I might not have thought about whether either act has any value and, if asked about it, I might deny that it had. In that case, for the habitual action, I might, but need not, decide to break the habit. It may be protested that there is a sense of want in which it simply follows from the fact that an agent acts intentionally that he wants to perform the action. If we see someone opening a door, we may say that he wants to open the door; or if we see someone moving her hand to her head in a familiar way, we may say that she wants to touch her hair; or a person who knows me and who sees me go to the fridge in the morning may say that I want to drink some orange juice. But all of these are just ways of saying what the agent aims to do. None of them by itself implies that the agent has a desire to perform the action in question or that he or she values the action in any way. And thus a want in this purported sense of want cannot be a reason. For example, the fact that the person aims to open the door cannot be his reason for opening the door. That I perform an action intentionally entails that I aim to do it; but that I aim to do it is not my reason for doing it. Thus, any intentional action is done as an end in the sense that the agent is aiming to do it. But this is purely teleological, not motivational. One can have an end for ones action, something one aims to do, without having a desire for it, and without valuing it, and thus without it being either a means or an end-in-itself. (I referred to a purported sense of want because I suspect that it is rather a mistaken use of the word, just as people who call iron pyrites gold are making a mistake, rather than using gold in a different sense. But I do not need to take a position on this question.) I think we are all familiar with arbitrary actions done for no reason. As well as some incidents of whistling there will be some of singing, pacing up and down, fidgeting, doodling, finger-tapping and so on. Some cases of infectious behaviour may also qualify. For example, a man starts running, or clapping, because the people around him start running, or clapping. His action is prompted by the similar

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actions of his neighbours. However, even if he is not intentionally imitating them, his running, or clapping, is intentional: he is in control of what he is doing and of whether he is doing it (he could stop if he wanted); it is something he aims to do and might mess up; and, if he were asked just as he was about to run or clap what he is doing, he could truly report that he intended to run or clap. And this is so even though he has no reason to run or clap. Indeed, he may stop as soon as he realises what he is doing, because he has no desire to do it and does not value doing it. There will, I think, be more habitual than arbitrary actions that are performed neither as means nor as ends-in-themselves, including many instances of the following types: the mouthing of redundant clichs (such as, in some uses, at the end of the day, when alls said and done, if you know what I mean, do you hear what Im saying? and so on); some cases of saying Damn! when annoyed or Ouch! when hurt; habitual doodling while talking on the telephone; having a radio playing while you work (even if you do not listen to it or are oblivious to it); throwing salt and pepper over every meal; the multifarious pointless quirks that people notice in their friends and lovers; and many habits that people try to eschew. In the last category could be someone who cracks the bones of his fingers, having first got the idea from someone he saw doing it. The habit need not be done as a means: he may do it in private when there is no one around to be impressed or repelled by it. And, although it may have started as an end-in-itself, something that he had a desire to do, or valued in some other way, it may now be something that he wants not to do and that he disvalues (perhaps he has come to believe that it will increase his susceptibility to arthritis). Yet he still finds himself doing it out of habit, before he has a chance to stop himself. If, as he is about to do it, someone asks him what he is going to do, he may reply that he intended to crack his bones but, now that his attention has been drawn to it, he no longer has that intention. Thus, when he does it, his action seems to be intentional even though unthinking, in a way similar to my often unthinking consumption of orange juice in the morning. In contrast, an unwanted habit of smoking (or of obsessive-compulsive hand-washing, for example) seems not to fall into the same category. In this case, it seems, although the smoker desires to stop, he also desires to smoke, and he acts to satisfy the latter desire even though it goes against his better judgement. Many of our habits are ones that we do not want to eschew or break indeed, we want to retain them but we sometimes plan to act against them. For example, I have a day off work and I intend to get up at my usual time and go the beach; but when the alarm goes off, I get up, shower and start dressing for work. As I am knotting my tie I curse and exclaim Why am I doing this? When knotting my tie, I was acting intentionally: I was in control of what I was doing and of whether I was doing it (I could stop at any time); I was aiming to produce a decent-looking tie-knot; and if the knot was too large or too small or too high-up or low-down the tie, I would have undone some steps and tried again; and if anyone had asked me what I was trying to do, I could have said truly that I intended to knot my tie. But I did not want to put on my tie today: I did not desire to do it and I did not value doing it. Putting on my tie was not attractive to me in any way; I just did it. Although intentional, it was unmotivated; and it happened because I had a habit of doing it. A large class of unmotivated habitual intentional actions are ones done on automatic pilot that contradict a previously formed intention: the habits create a conflict of intentions, between an unmotivated intention and a motivated one.

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The existence of arbitrary and habitual actions done neither as means nor as ends-in-themselves refutes the tenet of contemporary action theory that every intentional action is done for a reason. Many intentional actions are entirely unmotivated: they are done for no reason at all; they are done although the agent has no desire to do them and does not value them; they are performed even though the agent does not find them attractive in any way.

4. An Objection Rebutted
It might be objected that the discussion of the habitual examples overlooked an important point. For, it may be said, we act according to habits because it economises on our reasoning resources, saving us from having to reason afresh about each action we perform; and we have a reason for each habit we adopt. For example, I have a habitual route to work; so on workdays, when I leave home, I follow this route without thinking about reasons pro and con. But I adopted the habit for a reason. For, when I first started the job, I worked out which way of getting to work would be likely to be quickest, I tried it out successfully, and I then made it my habitual route. Whenever someone complies with habit, he does so for a reason if the habit was adopted for a reason, even though, through poor memory, the agent might not be able to offer any reasons on a specific occasion of an action performed in compliance with habit. It should be noticed that, even if this objection were correct, it would concern only habitual behaviour; so it would still leave us with arbitrary actions done for no reason as counterexamples to the tenet. However, the objection also seems to be mistaken about habitual actions, in at least four ways. First, a habit that was adopted for a reason by some person or group may be complied with by others without reason. For example, suppose that, shortly after my birth, my parents introduced the practice of drinking a glass of orange juice in the morning as part of a strategy for maintaining a healthy diet. As a child, then, I was given a glass of orange juice every morning, or on most mornings, so that drinking orange juice in the morning became a habit which I continued after leaving home, without ever having intentionally adopted it and without ever having considered whether to adopt it. I did not adopt the habit for a reason. In fact, I did not adopt it at all. I acquired it. Second, a habit may be acquired even though none of the people who have the habit adopted it for a reason. For example, it may be that my parents threw a party shortly after my birth, and afterwards had several cartons of orange juice left over. Feeling a little hungover the first morning after the party, they decide to try a glass of orange juice each, which they enjoy. The next morning, recalling the previous morning, they start the day with a glass of orange juice again. So things continue. A couple of weeks later, they are in the habit of drinking orange juice in the morning. When they make a list for the weekly shop, they check the fridge and add to the list everything that is running low, which happens to include orange juice, thus ensuring the habit continues, but without considering whether to continue it. They had no reason for adopting the habit and they never intended to adopt it; they merely acquired it by making other decisions. Third, some habits are not even acquired, but are instinctual; for example, the habit of eating to assuage hunger or drinking to assuage thirst, or that of scratching an itch, or a mans habit of buying gifts for a woman he is courting. We may be able

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to explain the existence of such instinctual habits in evolutionary terms; but an evolutionary reason for a persons habit does not amount to a reason for which the person adopted the habit. Fourth, even if a habit has been adopted by a person for a reason it does not follow that every instance of that persons acting from that habit is done for that reason. For example, I might have decided to take a brisk walk every morning in order to lose a few pounds. But after a few weeks I find I have to eat more because I am losing so much weight; yet I continue the habit because I have come to enjoy the walks. Some time later I might wonder why I continue walking, given that I no longer enjoy it and cannot think of any other reason for doing it. The objection therefore fails to undermine either the arbitrary or the habitual examples of intentional actions done for no reason. Hursthouse14 offers examples of what she terms arational actions. These are intentional actions which are not done as a means to an end but are done simply in the grip of, or as an expression of, an emotion. She describes these as not being done for a reason because she denies that they are explained by a conjunction of belief and pro-attitude, which some philosophers take to be the minimal requirement for an agents reason for action. She says that these actions are explained solely by reference to desire.15 Her examples include kissing or touching someone out of love; destroying someones photograph, or kicking a door, out of hatred or anger; rolling in a deceased persons clothes out of grief; or looking at oneself in the mirror out of pride. Smith16 objects to Hursthouse that, when an agent performs an arational action, his reason for action still consists of a belief and a desire, for he has not only a desire to perform a particular type of action but also a belief that he is doing an action of that type. Thus the grief-stricken man has not only a desire to roll around in his dead wifes clothes but also a belief that what he is doing is rolling around in his dead wifes clothes. Smith adds that, although this explanation is unsatisfying, it is not completely trivial, for it rules out the possibility that the man wants to roll around in his sisters clothing and mistakenly believes that the clothes belong to her. However, Smith here seems to have lost sight of his purpose, which is to explain intentional actions in terms of the reasons for which they are performed. The mans belief that he is rolling in his dead wifes clothes does not give a reason, or any part of a reason, for his rolling in his dead wifes clothes. His belief that he is doing that is no part of why he favours doing it: it tells us nothing about what he finds attractive in the action. So Smith has not answered Hursthouses objection. In addition, the fact to be explained, that the man is intentionally rolling in his dead wifes clothes, already excludes the possibility that he is mistakenly rolling in his wifes clothes because he believes the clothes to be his sisters (for that would make his rolling in his wifes clothes unintentional). So the fact that the proposed explanation of the action rules out this possibility would not save it from triviality. On the other hand, if my contention in this paper is correct, the fact that Smiths
14 15

5. Other Challenges

Hursthouse (1991). Hursthouse (1991), 59. 16 Smith (1998), 21-23.

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explanation refers to desire does save it from triviality, since the action might have been unmotivated. However, although Hursthouse provides examples of actions which are not done for a reason which is a conjunction of belief and pro-attitude, she describes her examples as actions done out of a desire. But actions which are done out of a desire are cases of motivated action: the agents reason for performing the action is a desire to do it; the action is done as an end-in-itself. Similarly, Stocker17 insists that an action done out of friendship, rather than for the sake of friendship, is not done for a reason which is a conjunction of belief and pro-attitude; but he says that the agent does regard the action as good. The agent thus either desires or values the action. So the agent still acts for a reason: there is something about the action he finds attractive. Neither Hursthouse nor Stocker is challenging the tenet that every intentional action is done for a reason; they are rather rejecting a too-restrictive account of reasons for action. Yet some of Hursthouses examples do seem to be cases of unmotivated intentional action. These may include some instances of covering ones face in the dark out of shame; covering ones eyes, when they are already shut, out of horror; and hiding ones face, or burrowing under the bedclothes, out of fear. For these actions seem to be natural or automatic reactions, manifestations of instinctual habits, which one may do without having a desire to do them and without valuing them, and thus without doing them for a reason. Yet they are intentional because the agent is in control of what he is doing and of whether he is doing it (he could stop if he wanted); they are things the agent aims to do and could fail to accomplish; and, if asked what he was going to do just as he was about to do them, he could truly say that he intended to perform the action in question. Perhaps jumping for joy and jumping up and down out of excitement also fall into this class, at least in some cases. Thus, although Hursthouse did not intend to advance the contention of this paper, I think that some of her examples may do so. Pollard points out that most of our actions are habitual and that some of our habitual actions are not attractive to us in any way, so they are not done for reasons.18 He also19 contends that these actions are intentional in that the agent aims to do them. He gives the examples of fiddling with ones glasses in seminars or biting ones nails. But he does not offer anything like the range of habitual cases that were outlined above and he does not refer at all to arbitrary intentional actions done for no reason. Also, in place of the theoretical framework I provided above he offers one which I think is seriously mistaken. Thus, it appears to me that he is in error in the way in which he distinguishes habits from addictions, compulsions and phobias,20 and in his suggestions21 that non-habitual actions require thought and concentration, that habits are constitutive of the agent, that prior performance of some actions of a type is a necessary condition for having a habit to perform actions of that type (this is not so for instinctual habits), and that habits are constituted by their exercises; but these are issues for a separate paper.

17 18

Stocker (1981). Pollard (2005). 19 Pollard (2006), section 3. 20 Pollard (2006), section 1. 21 Pollard (2006), sections 2, 4 and 5.

Unmotivated Intentional Action 6. Conclusion

Many philosophers subscribe to the tenet that the human agent is one whose intentional actions are done for reasons. However, some arbitrary and habitual actions are done intentionally but neither as means nor as ends-in-themselves, so they are not done for reasons at all. But even these intentional actions are done as an end, in the sense that they are actions that the agent aims to do. Further, many of an agents habits of action will not have been adopted by him for a reason, so it cannot even be claimed that, in performing habitual actions which are neither means nor ends-in-themselves, the agent is acting for reasons derivatively. And this may be so even if the habit was acquired through interaction with other people who did adopt the habit for a reason. Indeed, even where a habit was adopted by an agent for a reason, his later performances in accordance with the habit need not be done for that reason or for any reason at all. The falsity of the tenet of contemporary action theory derails the project of explaining all human intentional action in terms of reasons as well as that of providing a causal model of human action in terms of reasons. The mistaken tenet appeals to some theorists because it appears to facilitate a mechanical or deterministic account of human action. But perhaps its more general appeal derives from the all-too-human tendency to justify ourselves.22 When challenged or even just asked why we did something, our inherent tendency is to attempt to justify ourselves by invoking a reason. A person who has performed an arbitrary or habitual action for no reason, and who is asked why he did it, will usually find himself, before he realises what he is doing, inventing or seeking some rational explanation. The tendency to over-rationalise is a natural but self-deceptive outgrowth of our felt need to justify ourselves to others and to ourselves. References Bhaskar, R. (1989). The Possibility of Naturalism, second edition. Brighton, Harvester. Dancy, J. (2000). Practical Reality. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Davidson, D. (1982a). Actions, Reasons, and Causes. In his (1982d), 3-19. _____(1982b). Freedom to Act. In his (1982d), 63-81. _____(1982c). Hempel on Explaining Action. In his (1982d), 261-275. _____(1982d). Essays on Actions and Events, reprinted with corrections. Oxford, Clarendon Press. Goldman, A. (1970). A Theory of Human Action. Upper Saddle River, NJ, Prentice Hall. Hursthouse, R. (1991). Arational Actions. Journal of Philosophy, 88/2, 57-68. Korsgaard, C. (1996). The Sources of Normativity. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. OBrien, L. (2003). On Knowing Ones Own Actions. In Roessler J. and Eilan N. (eds.) Agency and Self-Awareness. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 358-82. Pollard, B. (2005). The Rationality of Habitual Actions. Proceedings of the DurhamBergen Postgraduate Philosophy Seminar, 1, 39-50.

22

Tavris and Aronson (2007).

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_____(2006). Explaining Actions With Habits. American Philosophical Quarterly, 43/1: 57-68. Smith, M. (1998). The Possibility of Philosophy of Action. In Bransen J. and Cuypers S. E. (eds.) Human Action, Deliberation and Causation. Dordrecht, Kluwer, 17-41. Stocker, M. (1981). Values and Purposes: The Limits of Teleology and the Ends of Friendship. Journal of Philosophy, 78/12, 747-765. Tavris, C. and Aronson, E. (2007). Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me). New York, Harcourt.