creators_name: Knobe, Joshua editors_name: Bechtel, William type: journale datestamp: 2003-05-06 lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:55:16 metadata_visibility: show title: Intentional Action in Folk Psychology: An Experimental Investigation ispublished: inpress subjects: phil-mind subjects: phil-ethics subjects: soc-psy full_text_status: public keywords: Intentional Action, Action Theory, Folk Morality, Folk Psychology, Intention abstract: Four experiments examined people’s folk-psychological concept of intentional action. The chief question was whether or not evaluative considerations — considerations of good and bad, right and wrong, praise and blame — played any role in that concept. The results indicated that the moral qualities of a behavior strongly influence people’s judgements as to whether or not that behavior should be considered ‘intentional.’ After eliminating a number of alternative explanations, the author concludes that this effect is best explained by the hypothesis that evaluative considerations do play some role in people’s concept of intentional action. date: 2003 date_type: published publication: Philosophical Psychology refereed: TRUE referencetext: ASTINGTON, J. W. (1999). The language of intention: Three ways of doing it. In P. D. ZELAZO, J. W. ASTINGTON, AND D. R. OLSON (Eds), Developing theories of intention. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. ASTINGTON, J. W. (2001). The paradox of intention: Assessing children’s metarepresentational understanding. In B. F., MALLE, L. J. MOSES, & D. BALDWIN (Eds), Intentions and intentionality: Foundations of social cognition. Cambridge, MA: M. I. T. Press. BRATMAN, M. E. (1987). Intention, plans, and practical reason. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. CHURCHLAND, P. M. (1981). Eliminative materialism and the propositional attitudes. Journal of Philosophy, 78, 67-90. CHURCHLAND, P. M. (1991). Folk psychology and the explanation of human behavior. In J. GREENWOOD (Ed.), The future of folk psychology: Intentionality and cognitive science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. GOPNIK, A., & WELLMAN, H. M. (1992). Why the child’s theory of mind really is a theory. Mind and Language, 7, 145-171. GOPNIK, A., & MELTZOFF, A. (1997). Words, Thoughts and Theories. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. HARMAN, G. (1976). Practical reasoning. Review of Metaphysics, 29, 431-463. LOWE, E. J. (1978). Neither intentional nor unintentional. Analysis, 38, 117-118. MALLE, B. F. & KNOBE, J. (1997a). The folk concept of intentionality. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 33: 101-121. MALLE, B. F. & KNOBE, J. (1997b). Which behaviors do people explain? A basic actor-observer asymmetry. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 288-304. MALLE, B. F., KNOBE, J, O’LAUGHLIN, M. J., PEARCE, G. E., & NELSON, S. E. (2000). Conceptual structure and social functions of behavior explanations: Beyond person-situation attributions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 309-326. MELE, A. (2001). Acting Intentionally: Probing Folk Notions. In B. F., MALLE, L. J. MOSES, & D. BALDWIN (Eds), Intentions and intentionality: Foundations of social cognition. Cambridge, MA: M. I. T. Press. MELE, A. R. & MOSER, P. K. (1994). Intentional action. Nous, 28, 39-68. MELE, A. R. & SVERDLIK, S. (1996). Intention, intentional action, and moral responsibility. Philosophical Studies, 82, 265-287. PITCHER, G. (1970). ‘In intending’ and side effects. Journal of Philosophy, 67, 659-668. SHAVER, K. (1985). The attribution of blame: Causality, responsibility and blameworthiness. New York: Springer. WILKES, K. (1981). Functionalism, psychology, and the philosophy of mind. Philosophical Topics, 12, 1. YOUNG, M. (2001). ‘It’s the thought that counts’: The role of perceived intention in making event explanations. MS. Stanford University. citation: Knobe, Joshua (2003) Intentional Action in Folk Psychology: An Experimental Investigation. [Journal (On-line/Unpaginated)] (In Press) document_url: http://cogprints.org/2922/1/IntentionSkill.pdf