On Doubting One's Intentions

Abstract

Mr. C. H. Whiteley's recent note (Mind, January I971) in which he objects to a view I defended in 'Momentary Intentions' (Mind, January I968) is the occasion for me to clarify the position I had in mind. Part of the problem arises from my failure to make clear the scope of the claim: 'An expression of uncertainty whether one had an intention is senseless. ... Whether I did for a moment intend to deceive him is, for me, not open or closed to doubt' (p. io). I thought the context made it clear that the scope of this claim included only momentary intentions which were also what I called 'interpretative' intentions. Whiteley's argument against excluding doubt from all past momentary intentions does not contain a case of an interpretative intention for which doubt (or resolution of doubt) is possible. Whiteley cites three cases of doubting one's own intentions. The case of the absent-minded coffee pot fetcher is clear and unobjectionable. For a moment he may not remember and thus doubt what he meant to fetch. The case of the forgetful interviewer, who cannot remember whether he intended to reject both or only one of a pair of candidates for admission, is equally clearly a case of doubt about one's past intention. And the case of an interviewer who today cannot remember whether or not yesterday he intended to admit a certain candidate is unobjectionable. This seems to be because these are all cases of dated, past intentions, or else dated, past events in which one could well have formed an intention of the relevant sort. None of these cases is a case of a past, unheeded, momentary interpretative intention. That is, none is a case in which it did not then occur to one that he momentarily meant to do such-and-such in any of the relevant senses of 'occur to'; it did not occupy his thinking; he did not say to himself, and so on. Nonetheless, there seem to be cases of interpretative intentions in which a person later truthfully avows a previous, momentary intention. Here the intention has a special, interpretative role in making clear to others (and perhaps to the agent also) what he was doing in acting as he did or what was happening in the past situation he is now explaining. These avowals put the past in the right light, though they do not avow past 'mental occurrences'. But they are not fictions, since the whole past situation makes it possible for the agent to truthfully avow a past momentary, interpretative intention. Now, what would it mean to doubt momentary, interpretative intentions such as this? 'I think that for a moment I meant to deceive him' may even be an expression of such an intention. The argument that this is not an expression of doubt is that the thought-qualifier here expresses an unclear interpretative intention rather than a doubt about an intention. Similarly, 'For a moment I did mean to deceive him' expresses a clear or firm