Alerting the burglar and buying the bond of a soon-to-be-bankrupt company are things genuinely done, even though they were not intentional under those descriptions. For they were intentional under other descriptions of the same event: turning on the light and buying an XYZ bond. The performance is an action under all its descriptions and specifications, including all the distant, unforeseeable, consequential ones that come in under the accordion principle (an extensional matter). But what makes it an action is that it was intentional under some such specifications (an intensional, that is, specification-relative, matter). What distinguishes some descriptions as ones which a performance was intentional is their role as conclusions in processes of practical reasoning. Turning on the light and buying an XYZ bond were things I had reasons to do, provided by ends, purposes, or goals I endorse, commitments I acknowledge, or values I embrace. Those reasons in the form of ends, purposes, goals, commitments, or values provide premises for potential pieces of practical reasoning justifying the practical conclusion that I ought to bring about an event satisfying a description such as being a turning on of a light or a buying of an XYZ bond—but not being an alerting of a burglar or a buying of a bond of an incipiently bankrupt company. That securing the applicability of those descriptions is in this way practically justifiable is what makes them the ones under which what I go on to do is intentional, and hence something that counts as an action. The structure of such an account is quite different from one that identifies three distinct kinds of events standing in sequential causal relations: prior internal intentions or states of intending, actions, and consequences of those actions. The place of distinct events or occurrences of intendings and consequences has been taken by different descriptions of the one thing done: intentional and consequential ways of picking out the same doing. That is why it makes no sense to talk about an intention apart from what was done intentionally. What qualifies an occurrence as an
The “distinction that action implies” is “that between what is purposed and what is accomplished in the realm of existence.” More specifically, when we look at the internal articulation of the process that in its unity we identify as an action: The simple original nature now splits up into the distinction which action implies. Action is present at first...as End, and hence opposed to a reality already given. The second moment is the movement of the End...hence the idea of the transition itself, or means. The third moment is...the object, which is no longer in the form of an End directly known by the agent to be his own, but as brought out into the light of day and having for him the form of an 'other'. The broadly Davidsonian understanding of this “splitting up” of the action can be exploited so as to explain how the deed, unfolding consequentially beyond the ken or compass of the purpose of the agent, can nevertheless be acknowledged by the agent as the agent’s doing—so that the agent does not in its practical activity “become a riddle to itself." 5. How does Hegel understand the difference between the different kinds of what I have been calling ‘descriptions’ or ‘specifications’ of the deed? The short version of the answer I will offer here is, first, that it is a distinction of social perspective, between the agent, who acknowledges a specifically contentful responsibility, and an audience, who attributes and assesses it. Second, that difference of social perspective is a normative one in a dual sense. What they are perspective on is a normative status: a question of the imputation of a specific responsibility. And the perspectives are defined by distinct seats of authority concerning the characterization of what the agent is responsible for. Third, the ultimate determinate identity (unity) of the content of the action—what we should understand as common to its inner (in the Hegelian sense of implicit, rather than the
Regarded prospectively, from the point of view of the initially endorsed purpose, the move from implicit to explicit is one of change. The content of the intention evolves and develops, becoming more definite and determinate under the influence of the actual circumstances in which the intention is realized, as plans are formulated, implemented, amended, or replaced. Regarded retrospectively, from the point of view of the finally achieved result, the move from implicit to explicit is one of revelation of the content of an intention that was all along present, albeit in some sense (visible only retrospectively) implicitly. Finally, this account enables us to understand the intimate connection asserts between intentional agency and the constitution of individual selves. The development of an intention by the alteration of a plan involves sacrificing some commitments—to the rejected plan, perhaps to some of the sub-goals it endorsed—and thereby identifying with others. The process by which self-conscious individual selves constitute themselves (in a recognitive community) is a process of relinquishing or altering, in general sacrificing some commitments in favor of other, incompatible ones, which one thereby counts as identifying with. We are now in a position to see that intentional action is a process that has just this self-constituting structure. The process of carrying through an intention is a process of self determination or making oneself into a (more) determinately contentful self by identifying with some commitments and rejecting others. That is why “what the subject is, is the series of its actions,” “individuality is the cycle of its action,” and “an individual cannot know what he is until he has made himself a reality through action.” The very same process that is the exercise of intentional agency is at the same time the expression of self-conscious individuality. “[T]he essential nature of the work... is to be a self-expression of... individuality.” The unity of the action is, in the end,