Mutually Exclusive Planning and the Simple View

Lilian O’BrienDepartment of Philosophy, University College Cork

l.obrien@ucc.ie

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Abstract: There have been a number of challenges to the Simple View- the view that an intention to A is necessary if an agent is to A intentionally. Michael Bratman’s celebratedvideo game case has convinced many that the view is false. This article presents a novel objection to Bratman’s case. It is argued, first, that the Simple Viewis not undermined by the case, and second, that the real import of the case is that it raises the question of how we can rationally intend mutually exclusive ends. I offera solution to this puzzle that draws on what I call the Self-Evaluation aspect of intention.

Keywords: intention, simple view, planning theory of intention

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Michael Bratman’s work has convinced many of the falsity

of the so-called Simple View, the view that an intention

to A is necessary if an agent is to A intentionally. In

his celebrated Video Game thought experiment an agent has

mutually exclusive ends – ends that he knows cannot be

jointly realized. Bratman argues that given a rational

constraint on intentions, Strong Consistency, which

requires that the agent’s intentions are jointly

realizable, it is irrational for the agent to intend both

ends. Nevertheless, the agent seems to perform an

intentional action when he intentionally brings about one

of his ends and is not irrational in doing so. Hence, it

seems that an intention is not necessary for intentional

action, and the Simple View is false. (Bratman 1999: 113-

116)

Objections to the Video Game thought experiment have been

raised and answered, most recently in a discussion

between Ezio DiNucci and Hugh McCann (Di Nucci 2009,

2010; McCann 2010, 2011). This paper presents an

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objection that goes beyond this debate. Close examination

of the case shows that the game-player is, after all,

best understood as having mutually exclusive intentions.

So, the example doesn’t seem to be a clear case of

intentional action, A, without the intention to A. I

believe that Video Game does not so much force us to

abandon the Simple View as bring into sharp relief the

puzzle of how we can rationally have and act on mutually

exclusive intentions. Such mutually exclusive planning is not

uncommon and a response to this puzzle is offered.

Although I am more sympathetic to the Simple View than

many, my aim here is not to defend it. My twin aims are

to object to Bratman’s putative counter-example (Section

2) and to suggest a solution to the puzzle of how an

agent can rationally engage in mutually exclusive

planning (Section 3). Briefly, the suggested solution

turns on a claim about the nature of the subjective

authority of intention. I argue that intention rationally

requires of the agent that she engage in a reflexive

attitude of evaluation. She can, however, impose

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rationally justified limitations on the self-evaluative

attitudes that the intention requires of her. If, for

example, she knows that her control over the fulfillment

of an intention is limited in certain conditions, she is

not required to evaluate herself negatively for failing

to fulfill the intention in those conditions. It is

plausible to suppose that it is irrational to have

mutually exclusive intentions when having them guarantees

that you are a failure by your own lights. However, in

cases like Video Game the agent is exempt from the

requirement to evaluate himself negatively when one of

the intentions fails because the other is fulfilled.

Hence, he is not guaranteed to fail by his own lights and

isn’t obviously irrational. Ultimately, this calls

Bratman’s Strong Consistency into question.

Section 1: The Video Game Thought Experiment

Bratman invites us to consider the following thought

experiment, which I have been calling Video Game. Imagine

that I am ambidextrous and playing two video games

simultaneously. The aim of each game is to

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… guide a “missile” to a certain target ..Let us now suppose that the two games are known to me to be so linked that it is impossible to hit both targets. If I hit one of the targets, both games are over. If both targets are about to be hit simultaneously, the machines just shut down and I hit neither target. … I know that although I can hit each target, I cannot hit both targets … I decide to play both games simultaneously; I proceed to try to hit target 1 and also to try to hit target 2. I give each game a try. (Bratman 1999: 114)

The example is a little involved, so let’s consider it in

a little more detail. Suppose that you are playing two

video games in which the aim is to hit a target. The

games are connected so that you cannot hit both targets

simultaneously, and if you hit one, the games shut down,

preventing you from hitting the other. You are

ambidextrous and adopt the strategy of trying to hit

both. You are also skilled. Suppose that you hit one of

the targets, T1. It seems that you hit it intentionally.

If the Simple View is true, then you intended to hit T1.

But if you intended to hit T1, you intended to hit T2 –

after all, you decided to try for both. According to

Bratman, if you are rational, and you seem to be, you

cannot have both intentions: you believe that you cannot

hit both and “It should be possible (other things equal)

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for me to successfully execute all my intentions in a

world in which my beliefs are true.” (Bratman, 1999, 113)

This is what Bratman calls the requirement of Strong

Consistency on intentions. It is motivated by the role of

intentions in co-ordination. According to the planning

theory of intention that Bratman develops, an essential

function of intentions is to allow agents to co-ordinate

the fulfillment of competing desires. But if an agent

believes that she has intentions that are inconsistent

with one another – that cannot be fulfilled together –

then these intentions do not play this co-ordinating

role. They are in unreconciled competition, after all.

Bratman maintains both that the game-player is rational,

and that when he hits a target, he does so intentionally.

Consequently, he cannot have an intention to hit T1 and

an intention to hit T2, and we must have a case of

intentionally hitting a target, e.g. T1, without the

intention to hit T1. The Simple View is false.

Two of Bratman’s assumptions seem correct: the agent is

rational in trying to simultaneously hit both targets,

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and if he intends to hit T1, he intends to hit T2. The

following assumptions don’t seem to be consistent and

generate the pressure to drop the Simple View:

(1) Intentional Action: When the game-player hits a

target, he hits it intentionally.

(2) Simple View: Doing something intentionally

involves intending to do that thing.

(3) Strong Consistency: An agent should be able to

successfully execute all of her intentions (in a

world where her beliefs are true).

For defenders of the Simple View, 1 and 2 stand or fall

together. But Bratman aims to show that we can prise

these apart. He accepts Intentional Action and then

focuses on the tension between Simple View and Strong

Consistency. Given the assumption that the agent is

rational, Video Game does not give us grounds for

abandoning Strong Consistency. It is the Simple View that

must be abandoned – 1 and 3 are true, and 2 is false.

In this paper I grant that Intentional Action and

Bratman’s other assumptions about the game-player are

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true, I leave open whether Simple View is true or false,

and I will challenge Strong Consistency. The reason for

the latter two stances is as follows. I argue that Video

Game does not give us grounds for denying the Simple View

(Section 2). In fact, as I mentioned, I think that Video

Game presents, in a very nice way, the puzzle of how

mutually exclusive planning is rationally possible. A

proposal for solving this puzzle is suggested in Section

3. The positive proposal (Section 3) aims to show that

the competition between the intentions to hit T1 and to

hit T2 can be eased and that they can be rationally

pursued in tandem with one another. Whether or not the

Simple View is false, Video Game does not force us to

give it up, and a careful look at the example gives us a

reason to doubt Strong Consistency.

Section 2: Video Game Does Not Give Us a Reason to Reject

the Simple View

The argument that Bratman’s case does not give us grounds

for rejecting the Simple View rests on exploring the

question of what makes Intentional Action true if the

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agent does not have an intention. It cannot be that the

agent foresees hitting the target or that he hopes or desires

to hit it. Desiring and hoping for outcomes is

insufficient for intentional action, and foresight is not

promising. One may foresee that air molecules will be

moved whenever one moves one’s body in the course of

intentional action, but it doesn’t follow that one does

this intentionally. Briefly, hoping, desiring, and

foreseeing are contingently connected to agential

control, the exercise of which is essential to

intentional action. Intention, by its nature, involves

the agent in exercising executive control over her

conduct and her deliberation, so it is intimately

connected to intentional action. In general, then, it is

not as easy to discard intention in the psychological

characterization of intentional action as one might

think. But this will not be the claim here. The main

claim is the more modest one that in the particular case

of the game-player, we cannot make sense of his

psychology without appeal to intention.

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Given how influential the case has been, the argument

here may seem naïve. If it were sound, surely Bratman and

others would have realized that this putative counter-

example to the Simple View must involve intention. There

has not, however, been sufficiently close attention paid

to the details of the case in the debate. Added to that,

the steady stream of skepticism about the Simple View

from work by philosophers, such as Gilbert Harman, Al

Mele, and Michael Bratman, to the more recent barrage of

studies in experimental philosophy has arguably and

understandably dampened enthusiasm for exploring the

appeal of the Simple View.

Three suggestions that attempt to make sense of the game-

player’s psychology without attributing intentions to him

will now be considered. Each is rejected as inadequate.

Then I argue that we have excellent reason to believe

that no such attempt could be successful.

1. Disjunctive Intention

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Di Nucci offers an interesting way to understand the

game-player’s mental states:

An alternative … would be to redescribe the agent’s intentions as an exclusive disjunction: the player intends to ‘hit t1 or t2’ but not ‘t1 and t2’: [(A v B)& not (A&B)]. It is not irrational for the player to intend to hit either of the targets but not both; in fact, that is just what the player is attempting to do.But the disjunctive intention … cannot be reduced to the only intention that can save SV, t1, because the disjunctive intention is true even when t1 is false (DiNucci 2009, 75).1

Intentions involve the agent prescribing a course of

action to herself. The content of the intention is as

follows: hit t1 or t2, but don’t hit t1 and t2! If this

is right, the game-player prescribes a course of action

for himself in which he is not to hit both of them. But

it is unclear why the agent would, rationally speaking,

prescribe such a course of action for himself. The game-

player knows that not hitting both targets is inevitable

and beyond his control, because the game shuts down as

soon as one target is hit, so prescribing such a course

of action for himself is fruitless. Consequently, any

1 I understand Di Nucci’s point here to be that if the Simple View isto be saved, the agent must intend to hit t1 when he hits t1 intentionally. However, the exclusive disjunction is not the same thing as an intention to hit t1, and it can be held even when an intention to hit t1 is not held, so the exclusive disjunction is no help to defenders of the Simple View.

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account of the agent’s mental states that does not

involve this prescription is to be preferred. Second,

this intention leaves open such questions as which target

to attempt to hit at any given time or whether to attempt

to hit both simultaneously. Of course, sub-plans can be

developed to settle such issues. If the sub-plans are to

capture the scenario as Bratman depicts it, then the

agent should try simultaneously to hit both targets.

However, if we characterize the game-player’s intention

as Di Nucci suggests, then it is not clear that it can

consistently generate a sub-plan in which the agent is to

try simultaneously to hit both targets. The problem again

seems to result from the second part of the exclusive

disjunction: the prescription that the agent not hit both

targets. For if this prescription is to be taken

seriously, how can the agent square it with the

prescription to try simultaneously to hit both targets?

Although it is appealing to think of the game-player as

intending to hit either T1 or T2, it remains unclear how

this proposal is to be worked out in a way that preserves

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the rationality of the game-player and captures the

scenario as Bratman presents it. How is it, for example,

that the game-player does not to intend to hit both T1

and T2 if we don’t specify that he satisfies the second

part of the exclusive disjunction? Even if there is some

way to spell this proposal out, I believe that my

positive proposal in Section 2 is at least as plausible a

construal of the game-player’s psychology. The proposal

is, moreover, grounded in a view of intentions that has

independent plausibility.

2. Trying

Bratman says that the game-player may be trying to hit the

targets rather than intending to hit them. (Bratman,

1999, 117).

The trying at stake might involve effortful activity

towards an end where the agent knowingly suffers from

incompetence. For example, a novice at tennis who

attempts to get the ball over the net may, taking her

lack of skill into account, focus on the easier goal of

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swinging in order to hit the ball rather than the goal of

getting the ball over the net. Let’s suppose that the

content of her intention is something like: swing the

racket when the ball comes near! Strictly speaking, she

does not intend to get the ball over the net. Perhaps,

she is, nevertheless, trying to get the ball over the

net. This raises the question of what makes it true that

she is trying to get the ball over the net. A plausible

assumption is that this is because she represents this as

her ultimate goal. But, it matters what kind of mental

state is involved in this representation. If it is a

planning state, then there is trouble for Bratman’s

challenge to the Simple View. However, let us set this

question aside and grant that she is trying to get the

ball over the net even without intending to do so.

Where it may be rational for the tennis-player to set

aside the explicit goal of getting the ball over the net

because of her lack of skill, it is not similarly

rational for the game-player to set aside the goal of

hitting the targets. Indeed, given his skill, it seems

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rational for him to intend to hit both targets. So, it

seems that the scenario is not best understood in terms

of this kind of case.

Although the game-player is confident about his skill,

the difficulty of the task may make it rational for him not to

intend to hit the targets. For example, Bratman maintains

that in trying to hit the targets the game-player may

merely intend to shoot at them (Bratman 1999, 117). Let us

again set aside the worry about the nature of the mental

state that represents the game-player’s ultimate goal and

simply grant that in such a case he is trying to hit the

targets without explicitly intending to because of the

difficulty of the task.

The guiding role of intention keeps behaviour on course,

so that, for example, the agent will make compensatory

adjustments to his behaviour whenever they are needed.

But if the intention is not to hit the targets, but to

shoot at them, then hitting the target as a result of

movements guided by the intention is accidental, and

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hitting is lucky. This calls into question whether we can

say that he hits the target intentionally.

Bratman stipulates that the game-player plays with skill,

so it may seem mistaken to say that hitting the target

would be a matter of luck. But if his intention is

merely to shoot at the target, his skill is being

employed for that end and not for the end of hitting the

target, and hitting would still be lucky. This

alternative way of making sense of the game-player’s

psychology does not preserve the power of the challenge

to the Simple View.

A different kind of case involves the agent simply

acknowledging that he is likely to fail because the task

is very difficult. However, if this applies to the game-

player, it does not follow that he does not intend to hit

the targets, for this seems to involve simply having a

belief that one may fail or adding to the content of

one’s intention the acknowledgment that one may fail.

This kind of case does not show how intentions to hit the

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targets are absent. Again, the scenario is not best

understood in terms of this kind of trying.2

3. Motivational Potential

Bratman maintains that an intention may have

“motivational potential” that licenses the intentional

tokening of an act-type that is not intended, but is, for

example, merely desired. This depends on certain

relationships – as yet unspecified - holding between

intention and other psychological states. It may be

thought that this will provide us with an “intention-

free” way to understand the psychology of the game-

player’s hitting. But, first, “motivational potential”

remains a theoretical placeholder and this approach a

promissory note, so it is unclear how much scrutiny this

claim will bear. Second, the case of the game-player is

2 For a discussion of Bratman’s notion of endeavouring and its relationship to intention, see Kolodny (2008). Kolodny’s paper is ofgreat interest to the debate here because he develops suggestions in McCann (1991) that offer an alternative account to Bratman’s of some features of intention, such as its imposition of constraints on further deliberation and its exertion of rational pressure to engage in means-end deliberation. Assessment of Kolodny’s view goes well beyond my scope here, however. In this paper, I simply assume that Bratman’s account of intention is correct and that intentions are governed by something like what John Broome calls normative requirements (Broome 1999).

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meant to motivate the promissory note, it is not meant to

presuppose its appeal. So, this is, dialectically

speaking, a problematic move. Finally, whatever the fate

of the promissory note for other cases of intentional

action, it is not clear that it provides an account of

the game-player. Let’s suppose that the game-player

desires to hit the targets while intending only to shoot

at them, that his desire causes his intention, and that

his intention causes him to hit the target. Let’s also

suppose that there is, in addition, some sort of relation

between desire and intention that licenses the

intentional hitting of the target. This relation between

desire and intention must do justice to the psychological

profile of the game-player. But as discussed earlier, if

the game-player only intended to shoot at the targets, it

seems to be a bit of luck if he hits one of them. At

least, as long as the desire is not directly conduct-

controlling, then hitting is lucky. However, if the

desire is directly conduct-controlling, and moreover,

controlling of the prolonged skillful activity of the

game-player, then it no longer seems lucky. But the

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desire now also seems to play the role of an intention –

it plays an executive role and is conduct-controlling. If

the promissory note is developed in a way that allows us

to make sense of the psychology and actions of the game-

player, it is not clear that a meaningful challenge to

the Simple View is preserved, because we must rely on

intentions or intention-like states to make sense of him.

This is a point to which I will return below. For now, I

think that there is a good reason to be sceptical of this

avenue of defense.

The foregoing attempts to explain how we can deny the

Simple View and still make sense of the game-player’s

psychology are unsuccessful. I will now argue that we

have every reason to doubt that any attempt to

characterize the game-player’s psychology without appeal

to intention could ever be successful.

The game-player tries for both T1 and T2 as a strategy to

maximize his chances of hitting one of the targets. To

act on this strategy, he must, at a minimum, represent in

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his mind the goal of hitting T1 and the goal of hitting

T2. In addition, these goal-representing states must

control his conduct. After all, his conduct must be

guided by the strategy if he is to act on it. We can also

suppose that his decision to try for both targets

forecloses further means-end deliberation – he settles on

this approach. In fact, this supposition is required if

we are to view him as having adopted a strategy. In

short, the agent’s mental states play the role in

planning agency that intentions do: they are goal-

representing states that control conduct and

deliberation. Given all of this, how could we coherently

deny the Simple View for this case?

It is worth bearing in mind that most philosophers

characterize intentions in functional terms, in terms,

for example, of settling on a course of action,

rationally requiring deliberation about means, rationally

constraining practical deliberation about other ends, and

so forth. There is no attempt to characterize intention

in terms of a distinctive phenomenology or in other

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intrinsic features of the mental state. Given that any

mental state that plays the distinctive functional role

will count as an intention, and given that the goal-

representing states that the strategic and skillful game-

player must rely on to guide his conduct will play the

functional role of intention, we do not have good grounds

for denying that the game-player intends to hit T1 and to

hit T2.

It is noteworthy that although there are a host of

examples in the literature that putatively challenge the

Simple View, Bratman’s game-player appears to be in a

different league to others. It is a very clear case of

intentional action and intention is not just absent, but

apparently, rationally impossible. The problem that I see

is that the game-player appears to be too strategic, too

focused, and his skill is too obviously harnessed for the

goals of hitting T1 and T2 to allow us to deny that he

has intentions to hit T1 and T2. In an attempt to avoid

the problem one might change the example so that the

game-player is less strategic, focused, etc. The

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challenge is to make these changes while preserving the

special status of the example. One worry is that the

clear intuitions that everyone has that the case is one

of intentional action may also evaporate if such changes

are made. It is not implausible to suppose that it is

these aspects of the game-player’s demeanour that point,

not only towards the presence of intention, but also to

the presence of intentional action. This is not to say

that it is impossible to develop the example differently,

but it is difficult to see how this could be done.

Bratman’s case seems to force a choice between Strong

Consistency and the Simple View. But Strong Consistency

only wins out if we ignore the issue of how to make sense

of the game-player’s psychology in the absence of

intention. There are excellent reasons to think that we

cannot make sense of the psychology of the strategic and

skillful game-player in the absence of intention, so this

example is not the decisive counter-example to the Simple

View that it is often taken to be.

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Section 3: The Rationality of Mutually Exclusive

Planning

Whatever the fate of the Simple View, the case of the

game-player poses a challenge. Assuming that he is

rational, and that if he has an intention to hit one

target he has an intention to hit the other, we must

somehow resolve the tension in the following three

claims:

(1) When the game-player hits a target, he hits it

intentionally.

(2) The game-player’s intentionally hitting the

target involved his intending to hit the target.

(3) Strong Consistency: An agent should be able to

successfully execute all of her intentions (in a

world where her beliefs are true).

I take it that the arguments of Section 2 make it

implausible to suppose that (2) can be given up for Video

Game. I will argue that Strong Consistency should be re-

evaluated.3

3 Dialectically, McCann’s proposed solution has the advantage that hecan affirm all of (1), (2), and (3) and avoid the problems that Bratman faces. On his view the game-player forms the intentions to

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The question that we face is whether the game-player can

rationally intend to hit T1 and intend to hit T2 when he

knows that he cannot hit both. More generally, is

mutually exclusive planning - intending mutually

exclusive ends - necessarily irrational? Suppose that in

a very entrepreneurial spirit, I start two new businesses

at the same time. At the outset, each business takes up

about twenty hours of my time per week. But my intention

is to expand each business to a certain point. At that

point, each business would take about forty hours of my

time per week. I know that I will only be able to give

forty hours of my time in total to my work in any given

week. Given this and other circumstances, I know that if

my intentions come to fruition, one of the businesses

will have to be sold or discontinued. But as I work on

developing each business, I intend to bring it to a point

at which I know it will demand forty hours of my time.

Are my intentions for each business irrational as they

hit the targets and ignores his belief that he cannot hit both. My view has the advantage that the agent does not engage in any such subterfuge. McCann (2010, 2011).

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cannot be satisfied together? It is not obvious that

they are. It is worth noting that we frequently and

fruitfully engage in mutually exclusive planning. We

apply to mutually exclusive college programmes, we pursue

mutually exclusive careers or romantic relationships, at

least for a time. Such planning is not obviously

irrational. And if the arguments of Section 1 are on

track, it is not as easy to deny that the agents have

intentions than it may, at first, seem. More often than

not, such mutually exclusive planning is strategic. We

may, like the game-player, have excellent reason to

pursue two projects quite wholeheartedly even when we

know that one must ultimately eclipse the other. A common

feature of such cases is epistemic limitation: I don’t

know if one or both or none of my businesses or

applications or relationships will be successful, and

this plays a role in my mutually exclusive planning.

I will confine myself to a discussion of the game-player

in what follows. As it is a clear case of the general

phenomenon, establishing that the game-player can

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rationally intend exclusive ends is an important step in

coming to a better understanding of the general

phenomenon. As it stands, there is considerable

scepticism about whether such planning is rationally

possible, but if I am right, this broad skepticism is, at

least sometimes, misplaced.

(1) The Subjective Authority of Intention

I have assumed throughout that the planning theory of

intention, as that is developed by Michael Bratman, is

fundamentally correct. Some of the features of intending

that make them planning states are being settled on the

intended course of action, the intention’s exerting

rational pressure to engage in appropriate means-end

reasoning, and the intention’s constraining one’s

deliberation about further ends.

How do intentions play this controlling role? Intentions

don’t operate by brute force, they are bound up with what

the agent thinks is rationally required of her. Given

this, it must be that when an agent forms an intention,

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the intention has a kind of authority over the agent. If

it did not have such authority, it wouldn’t play the kind

of controlling role that it plays in planning agency.

There are two things that we should note about the

authority of intention. First,

a given intention may or may not have objective rational

authority over an agent. That is, it may or may not be

based on reasons and it may or may not be a rationally

justified requirement on the agent who has it. However,

if it is to play its role in planning – controlling the

agent’s deliberation and action in the relevant ways - it

must have subjective authority. That is, the agent must take

it that she should comply with the intention. In fact, if

the agent genuinely intends to A, but fails to act on her

intention without, in her own eyes, having any grounds

for this, then she is normatively required to regard

herself as a failure for not complying with the

intention.4 It is plausible to suppose that this reflexive

evaluative dimension of intention is constitutive of the

4 I borrow the expression “normative requirement” from John Broome (1999).

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subjective authority of intention – what is it for

something to have authority over one if not that one

regards oneself as evaluable depending on whether or not

one complies with it? To put the same points in a

different way that relies on treating intentions as

commitments, the authority of intention involves the

subjective authority of a commitment over the one who has

committed. Qua commitments, intentions rationally ground

self-evaluations by agents. For ease, I will call this the

Self-Evaluation aspect of intention.

Second, it is widely accepted that intentions for the

future contain prescriptions about how or when or in what

circumstances the agent must act and intentions in action

guide the agent in keeping her action on track as she

performs it. Given the Self-Evaluation aspect of

intention, it is plausible to suppose that intentions may

play their guiding role by guiding the agent. Specifically,

the content of an intention allows the agent to initiate

or guide the action appropriately because it contains

information about when the agent is criticizable and when

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she is not. To take a simple case of intention in action,

let’s suppose that John’s intention in action is to wave

his hand back and forth to attract the attention of Jane.

In intending to wave he regards himself as criticizable,

not just if he does not manage to produce a wave, but if

the waving does not attract Jane’s attention. Because of

this, he keeps waving until that happens, and indeed, if

Jane seems not to notice, he may exaggerate the wave to

ensure that she does etc.

It is tempting to say that the content guides the

movement, not by informing the agent of when she is

criticizable, but directly. This is more parsimonious,

certainly, and there will be phases of action and whole

intentional actions where the agent is not consciously

consulting her intentions. In driving, I perform

automatic actions that don’t involve this – I don’t

consciously attend to what I am doing, let alone

consciously think about the circumstances in which I am

criticizable. But it doesn’t seem plausible to sideline

the agent for all of her intentional actions. In a case

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like John’s it is not implausible to suppose that, and

this is done with lightning speed, John is first guided

by a prior intention to catch Jane’s attention, and then,

having noticed Jane’s failure to see his waving, he is

again guided by the intention in deciding to wave more

vigorously. If the contents of intentions never guided

the action by guiding the agent, it would be harder to

explain how agents do register a sense of achievement

when they have attained an end, or a sense of

disappointment when they have failed, and it would be

harder to explain how agents can recount in quite fine-

grained detailed what precisely they are doing and under

what conditions they will continue to pursue or abandon

their ends. It would also not be easy to explain how

failure to attain some intended end prompts explicit

deliberation about whether to keep trying, whether to

adopt an alternative means, or whether to modify the end

etc.

Planning agency can be an intellectually demanding

expression of agency and involves explicit deliberation

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and explicit consultation with what the agent has

prescribed for herself in adopting her intentions. The

game-player is a case in point – faced with the

challenges of the video game and his own limitations, he

strategizes about how to approach the difficulties,

settles on a plan of action, and puts it into effect.

Such exercises of agency seem to require that the agent

knows when to stop trying and when to keep trying, and it

seems that information in his intentions about when he is

criticizable and when he is not allows him to do this.

(2) Limitations on the Subjective Authority of Intention

So far, I have emphasized some features of the subjective

authority of intention – intention involves self-

evaluation, or more accurately, normatively requires self-

evaluation. But none of this should lead us to lose sight

of the fact that intentions are tacitly or explicitly

conditioned in ways that delimit the scope of their

authority. One kind of limiting condition derives from

the agent’s background beliefs, principles, policies,

values etc. The subjective authority of John’s intention

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to catch Jane’s attention is limited by his belief that

one should not wave too vigorously in public and the

worry that Jane is avoiding him since their difficult

interaction when last they met.

The authority of an intention also depends on the agent’s

continuing ability to execute the intention. The

authority of my intention to run a marathon is tacitly

conditional upon my not becoming paralyzed in the

meantime. Although I do not consider this remote

possibility when forming the intention to run, if I did

become paralyzed and didn’t run, I would not be

criticizable. The circumstance is one in which my

intention has no authority, because, rationally speaking,

I cannot be required to do what I am unable to do.

Limitations on the authority of intention pertain not

just to the conditions in which it is rationally required

of the agent that she act in accordance with it, but also

to whether failure to complete the relevant task implies

that she is criticizable. For example, before I go to

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bed, I may form the intention to lock the front door. I

realize that my partner may have already locked it, but I

don’t want to wake them to ask. However, if I act on my

intention but fail to lock the door because my partner

has already done so, I am not criticizable. My intention

is best understood as being to lock the door in the event

that my partner has not locked it. In this case, unlike

the case of the marathon runner, the agent doesn’t know

whether she is able to successfully execute her

intention, but given her lack of knowledge and her desire

to have the door locked, it is rationally required that

she try to lock it.

If the examples are a guide, the scope of the authority

of an intention can be rationally limited in at least two

different ways:

(a) Action Limitation: A rational limitation on the range of conditions in which an intention requiresaction from an agent.

(b) Evaluation Limitation: A rational limitation on the range of conditions in which the intention normatively requires a negative self-evaluation from the agent for not fulfilling an intention.

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(3) Limitations on the Authority of The Game-Player’s

Intentions

We can use the distinction between Action Limitation and

Evaluation Limitation to understand how the game-player

can rationally intend to hit T1 and intend to hit T2.

Specifically, we can understand the game-player as

limiting the authority of each intention along the lines

of Evaluation Limitation. For example, his intention to

hit T1 involves the following thought:

I will hit T1, but I am not necessarily criticizable ifI don’t hit T1 - in circumstances in which I hit T2, I wouldn’t be able to hit T1, so I am not criticizable insuch circumstances.

The same thought is involved, mutatis mutandis, in his

intention to hit T2. Like the agent who intends to lock

the door in the event that their partner has not locked

it, the game-player intends to hit T1 in the event that

he doesn’t hit T2 (and to hit T2 in the event that he

doesn’t hit T1). Let’s suppose that the game-player hits

T1 and doesn’t hit T2: the intention to hit T2 does not

ground a negative self-evaluation even though the agent

acts wholeheartedly on the intention and fails to fulfill

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it. The authority of the intention to hit T2 is

rationally limited as follows: if the agent doesn’t hit

T2 because he has hit T1, he is not criticizable.

Construed in this way, we can also see how the intention

plays an effective role in guiding the agent’s action.

Intentions guide the agent by indicating when she is

criticizable and when she is not, when she should stop

trying and when she should not. Because T2 cannot be hit

in circumstances where T1 is hit and because the agent

has achieved his overall goal – hitting one of the

targets - the game-player is not rationally criticizable

for not hitting T2 and can stop trying to do so.

It is worth stressing that the game-player does not form

conditional intentions. That is, my proposal is not that

the intention to hit T1 only becomes operative when the

game-player doesn’t hit T2 and vice versa. This would be

rational, but does not reflect how Bratman describes the

case: the game-player acts on both intentions

simultaneously. Interpreting my proposal as involving the

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claim that the intention to hit T1 and hit T2 are

conditional intentions would involve mistaking Evaluation

Limitations for Action Limitations. On my view, the

intention to hit T1 and the intention to hit T2 require

action in the same range of circumstances – if, for

example, there are Action Limitations on the intention to

hit T1, the same limitation will apply to the intention

to hit T2 etc. It is not that action on T2 is required

only when action on T1 fails and vice versa, as

conditionality in intentions implies. However, the

conditions in which the intentions normatively require

certain self-evaluations do differ. The intention to hit

T1 normatively requires negative self-evaluation when T1

is not hit AND T2 is not hit and no negative self-

evaluation if T1 is not hit BUT T2 is hit. The intention

to hit T2 normatively requires negative self-evaluation

when T2 is not hit AND T1 is not hit and no negative

self-evaluation when T2 is not hit BUT T1 is hit. The

intentions are subject to different Evaluation

Limitations but the same Action Limitations, whereas

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conditional intentions are subject to different Action

Limitations.

Although it is not my aim to closely examine Strong

Consistency here, given the way that Bratman and others

have set up the argument against the Simple View, it is

important to at least briefly consider whether it has

been violated. My tentative conclusion is that it has

indeed been violated and that what I have said about the

Self-Evaluation aspect of intention gives us good reason

to re-evaluate it. My proposal aims to show that two

intentions that cannot be fulfilled together do not have

to be in the kind of irreconcilable competition that

precludes their role in rational co-ordination of the

agent’s action and deliberation.

We can think of the puzzle of the game-player as being

the puzzle of how he can both sincerely intend to bring

about an end, such as hitting T1, but also take a course

of action that will thwart the achievement of that end

(in acting on the intention to hit T2). How can such an

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agent not be criticizably irrational when they themselves

put the achievement of an intended end out of reach, or,

put another way, how can they sincerely intend an end

that they simultaneously work against?

The answer to the puzzle is, first, that the agent

acknowledges limits on his ability to successfully

execute both of his intentions at the outset, and

absolves himself of criticizability when the limits of

his control have been reached - specifically, when

success in one intention precludes success in the other.

Second, the limitation on criticizability is rationally

justified by the fact that thwarting the achievement of

one of his ends is the rational price to pay for the only

success he is able to achieve in the context: hitting one

target is the best outcome and hitting both is

impossible.

Given the Self-Evaluation aspect of intention, the

irrationality of holding and acting on competing

intentions derives from the fact that a rational agent

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should not make demands on herself that she knows that

she cannot meet as this would involve the agent regarding

herself as criticizable for not doing what she knows she

couldn’t have done. But if I am right, the game-player is

not guilty of any such irrationality – he places rational

limitations on his negative self-evaluation.

In addition, intentions that are impossible to fulfill

together give no clear guidance about the circumstances

under which the agent is rationally relieved of the

burden of trying to fulfill the intention. For,

intentions that impose impossible requirements have no

rational authority on when they require action from the

agent and when they do not. And, of course, such

intentions do not allow for effective planning, because

although, qua intentions, they should constrain further

plans, it is not clear what rational authority they could

have to impose such constraints if the agent knows that

she cannot fulfill them.

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The Self-Evaluation Aspect of intention allows us to

spell out how the game-player’s intentions allow him to

co-ordinate his actions. As mentioned, sacrificing the

success of one intention is the rational price to pay in

the circumstances for the chance to hit one of the

targets. Not hitting T1, for example, is not criticizable

as long as T2 is hit, and because of this the game-player

is relieved of the burden of trying to hit T1 in such

circumstances in spite of his failure to fulfill his

intention. Having incorporated Evaluation Limitations

into his intentions, he has clear guidance about when to

abandon attempts to fulfill an unfulfilled intention. The

intentions to hit T1 and T2, although they cannot be

fulfilled together, can nevertheless be rationally held

and acted on simultaneously. The upshot is that Strong

Consistency appears to be too strong.

Having said that, it is not my primary aim to argue

against Strong Consistency. It may be, for example, that

the way I have described the cross-linkage between the

intentions to hit T1 and to hit T2 means that they are

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not two distinct and competing intentions, but one

intention. There may be, in this, a way to defend Strong

Consistency. And indeed its deeper motivations and

implications deserve more space than I give them here.

Given my twin aims in this paper – a challenge to Video

Game and addressing the puzzle of mutually exclusive

planning – fully assessing Strong Consistency is work for

another paper.

Concluding Remarks

My aims in this paper are twofold. The first is to argue

against the view that Video Game seals the fate of the

Simple View. Put simply, the case is hard to make sense

of unless we attribute an intention to hit T1 and an

intention to hit T2 to the game-player. If the task is to

force a choice between the Simple View and Strong

Consistency, this case is not up to that task. The second

aim is to use the case as a window into the rationality

of mutually exclusive planning. Given this phenomenon’s

prevalence, its seeming reasonableness, and its apparent

incorporation of intentions, it behooves a robust

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philosophical psychology of action to more fully explore

its rational viability. The Self-Evaluation aspect of

intention is, I believe, a good place to start. Exploring

the nature and limitations of the subjective authority of

intention promises to shed light on the ways in which

agents may render competing intentions rationally

compatible. The relatively neglected topic of the

subjective authority of intention promises to shed some

light, not only on mutually exclusive planning, but on

rational planning agency more generally.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the participants at the first Topoi

conference on “Intentions: Philosophical and Empirical

Issues” for helpful feedback on an earlier draft of this

paper. Special thanks to two anonymous referees for Topoi

whose excellent comments resulted in substantial

improvements to the paper. Thanks to Markus Schlosser for

reading and making helpful suggestions on an earlier

draft and thanks to Antti Kauppinen for conversation

about the issues and insightful comments on earlier

drafts.

References

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