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.

References

Notes

Bibliography

Loyalty

Loyalty is faithfulness and a devotion to a person, country, group, or cause. Philosophers disagree on what can be an object of loyalty as some argue that loyalty is strictly interpersonal and only other human being can be the object of loyalty.

John Kleinig, professor of Philosophy at City University of New York, observes that over the years the idea has been treated by writers from Aeschylus through John Galsworthy to Joseph Conrad, by psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists, scholars of religion, political economists, scholars of business and marketing, and—most particularly—by political theorists, who deal with it in terms of loyalty oaths and patriotism. As a philosophical concept, loyalty was largely untreated by philosophers until the work of Josiah Royce, the "grand exception" in Kleinig's words. John Ladd, professor of Philosophy at Brown University, writing in the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy in 1967, observes that by that time the subject had received "scant attention in philosophical literature". This he attributed to "odious" associations that the subject had with nationalism, including Nazism, and with the metaphysics of idealism, which he characterized as "obsolete". He argued that such associations were, however, faulty, and that the notion of loyalty is "an essential ingredient in any civilized and humane system of morals". Kleinig observes that from the 1980s onwards, the subject gained attention, with philosophers variously relating it to professional ethics, whistleblowing, friendship, and virtue theory.

Loyalty (film)

Loyalty is the seventh film of the British TV film series Hornblower, based on the books by C.S. Forester, particularly Hornblower and the Hotspur. It was released on January 5, 2003, nearly four years after the first four films and 9 months after the next two films.

Cast

Plot

The film starts out in 1803 in Cape Clear, Ireland, where the HMS Retribution, commanded by Commander Hornblower, has retaken the HMS Hotspur from the French. Amongst the French is a rebellious Irishman, who served on board the HMS Victory. Near the end of the fighting, Matthews and Styles spot a cutter sailing towards the HMS Hotspur, with news that the war with France is over. The peace lasts a year and the sailors and officers of the Royal Navy languish on half pay, unaware the French leader Napoleon is making plans across the channel.

Loyalty (Law & Order: Criminal Intent)

"Loyalty" (alternate titles: "Puntland" and "Artifice") is the two-part season premiere episode and is the first and second episodes of the ninth season (as well as the 172nd and 173rd episodes) of Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

Plot

Part 1

On the ocean near the coast of Somalia, arms dealer Taras Broidy (Ramsey Faragallah) leads a heavily armed boat full of wealthy tourists on a "safari" to target African pirate vessels. He points out an approaching vessel and allows his passengers to blow it apart, claiming to have information that it is crewed by pirates; in reality, it is manned by a tribal sheikh and his new bride. News of the sheikh's death soon reaches two of his children, Hassan (Ato Essandoh) and his sister Kadra (Condola Rashad), in Manhattan as Broidy, Roy Loftin (David Pittu), and Jan Van Dekker (John Sharian) celebrate the completion of a carefully laid plan. With the sheikh gone, they are free to proceed with an arms deal and establish a private police force under their control in the Horn of Africa. Loftin has recruited Danny Ross for the scheme. After a night of celebration, Broidy and his mistress Marya (Ewa Da Cruz) both wash up, shot through the head, under the Brooklyn Bridge.