Intention

Intention is a mental state that represents a commitment to carrying out an action or actions in the future. Intention involves mental activities such as planning and forethought.

Definition

Folk psychology explains human behavior on the basis of mental states, including beliefs, desires, and intentions. Mental mechanisms, including intention, explain behavior in that individuals are seen as actors who have desires and who attempt to achieve goals that are directed by beliefs. Thus, an intentional action is a function to accomplish a desired goal and is based on the belief that the course of action will satisfy a desire.

There is also a theoretical distinction between intentionality (intentional actions), and a mental state of intention for the future. Searle (1983) labeled these as intention-in-action and prior intention respectively. Prior intentions reflect forethought about intentions-in-action; prior intentions do not need to be carried out to be considered intentions. An unfulfilled intention is a prior intention that has no action associated with it.

Intention (criminal law)

In criminal law, intent is one of three general classes of mens rea necessary to constitute a conventional as opposed to strict liability crime. A more formal, generally-synonymous legal term is scienter: intent or knowledge of wrongdoing.

Definitions

Intent is defined in R v Mohan as "the decision to bring about a prohibited consequence."

A range of words represents shades of intent in criminal laws around the world. The mental element, or mens rea, of murder, for example, is traditionally expressed as malice aforethought, and the interpretations of malice, "maliciously" and "wilfully" vary between pure intent and recklessness depending on the jurisdiction in which the crime was committed and the seriousness of the offence.

A person intends a consequence they foresee that it will happen if the given series of acts or omissions continue, and desires it to happen. The most serious level of culpability, justifying the most serious levels of punishment, is achieved when both these components are actually present in the accused's mind (a "subjective" test). A person who plans and executes a crime is considered, rightly or wrongly, a more serious danger to the public than one who acts spontaneously (perhaps because they are less likely to get caught), whether out of the sudden opportunity to steal, or out of anger to injure another. But intent can also come from the common law viewpoint as well.

Intention (book)

Intention is a 1957 book by the philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe.

Summary

Anscombe argues that the concept of intention is central to our understanding of ourselves as rational agents. The intentions with which we act are identified by the reasons we give in answer to questions concerning why we perform actions. Such reasons usually form a hierarchy that constitutes a practical syllogism of which action itself is the conclusion. Hence our actions are a form of active practical knowledge that normally leads to action. Anscombe compares the direction of fit of such knowledge to a shopping list's relation to one's purchases, and contrasts it with the direction of fit characteristic of a list of those purchases made by someone observing one shopping. She contends that the mistake of post-medieval philosophy is to think that all knowledge is of the latter kind.

Scholarly reception

Intention initiated extensive discussion of intentional action and its explanation.

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