One set of putative
counterexamples to the Strong Belief
Thesis (SBT)—the claim that intending to X entails the belief that one will
X—involve cases in which an agent allegedly intends something difficult and is
therefore unsure they will succeed. In
such cases, it is claimed, an agent intends to X but does not believe that they
will X. Brunero describes one such case
as follows:
“[L]et’s
consider the case of someone who intends to lift a heavy log that has fallen
onto his front porch. Plausibly, he
intends to lift the log but doesn’t believe that he will. It’s not that he believes he won’t; he’s
simply agnostic about whether he will”(p. 22).
Defenders
of SBT often respond to such putative counterexamples by saying that, in such
cases, the agent in question intends to try to X, rather than intends to
X. However, Brunero claims that even if
this strategy preserves SBT, it does so at the expense of the intuition that
the log-lifter is rationally criticisable for failing to bend his knees. This
is because the log-lifter may believe that bending his knees is necessary for
lifting the log without believing that it is necessary for trying to lift the log.
Brunero writes:
“Intuitively, if this man were to believe that he’ll
lift the log only if he bends his knees when he lifts, and were to fail to
intend to bend his knees when he lifts, he would be criticizable as means-ends
incoherent. But he might think that bending one’s knees, while necessary for
lifting the log, isn’t necessary for trying to lift the log. After all, we
could suppose that the last time he didn’t bend his knees, he tried and failed
to lift the log, but didn’t fail to try to lift the log. So, if his intention
is merely to try to lift the log, he is no longer criticizable as means-ends
incoherent in failing to intend to bend his knees”(p. 23).
The
efficacy of preceding line of argument will largely depend on our conception of
“trying”. Consider the account of trying defended by Jennifer Hornsby, who defines
trying to do something as roughly “doing what one can to do the thing”(Hornsby,
p. 19). On one natural reading of
Hornsby, trying to X involves doing all in your power to X. (I will call this
the Hornsby account of trying, though
it is likely to be a gross oversimplification of the picture that Hornsby
herself endorses.) Given the Hornsby
account, intending to try to X entails intending to do all in your power to
X. Since bending at the knees is assumed
to be something in the log-lifter’s power, and since the log-lifter does not
intend to bend his knees, it follows that the log-lifter is being irrational
when he fails to intend to bend his knees.
He is failing to intend something (i.e., bending at the knees) that is
necessary for achieving his end (i.e., doing all in his power to lift the log).
While the
Hornsby account preserves the intuition that the log-lifter is irrational for
failing to bend his knees, insofar as he genuinely intends to try to lift the
log it also seems much too demanding to constitute a plausible account of
trying. One does not need to do all in
one’s power to X in order to try to X.
One may, for example, decide in advance that one is only willing to put
so much effort and no more into accomplishing some task. In such a case, one still plausibly counts as
trying to accomplish that task. For
example, suppose I am at an auction, and I am trying to purchase a vase. I have $500 on me. However, I have determined that I am not
willing to pay more than $350 for the vase.
Suppose that I bid on the vase up until the $350 mark, but stopping
bidding when the price of the vase climbs above $350. Since I still have $150 in my pocket, I haven’t
yet done all that I can to purchase the vase.
However, it seems implausible to say that I did not try to purchase the
vase.
In light of
the preceding problem, I think the cognitivist should reject the Hornsby
account. However, there are two features
of Hornsby’s account of trying that the cognitivist may wish to take on board. First, trying requires a good faith
effort. One does not count as trying if
there is something one believes to be necessary for X-ing, but which one
deliberately fails to do. Second, trying
only requires doing those things that are in one’s power or under one’s
control. This is an important feature of
trying since it is meant to capture the idea that trying is something we often resort
to when we are in doubt about our successfully completing some task. Even if successfully X-ing is not up to us,
there may be things along the path to X-ing that are up to us, and trying involves
doing those things.
The
challenge that faces the cognitivist is to provide an account of trying that includes
the above features and that also allows us to make sense of examples like that
of the vase-bidder and log-lifter. My
next comment will offer such an account.
If successful, my account of trying will allow the cognitivist to maintain
that the log-lifter is rationally criticisable for failing to bend his knees
even though he only intends to try to lift the log.
Consider
the following suped up version of the Hornsby account:
Trying
S is trying
at some time T1 to X only if for any Y, if S believes at T1
that doing Y at T2 is necessary for achieving X and S truly believes
that doing Y at T2 is under S’s control, then S does Y at T2.
One
distinctive feature of the immediately preceding account of trying is that it
includes two temporal markers, T1 and T2
respectively. The point of the T1 temporal
marker will soon become clear. However,
a brief statement about the motivation for the T2 temporal marker is
also in order. The T2
temporal marker is meant to address a worry highlighted by Kieran Setiya,
albeit in a different context. (See his
“Cognitivism about Instrumental Rationality”.) Setiya observes that an agent may believe that
intending some means, M, may be necessary for achieving some end E, and yet an
agent may fail to intend M because she trusts that she will do so at a later
time. Setiya observes that such an agent
need not be guilty of irrationality. Let
us call such cases self-trust cases. One way to handle self-trust cases is to
insert a temporal marker into the Means-End Coherence principle:
Means-End Coherence*
Rationality
requires that [if one intends to X, and believes that one will X only if one
intends to Y at some time T1, then one intend to Y at T1].
Means-End
Coherence* allows us to accommodate self-trust cases because it permits an
agent to rationally refrain from intending a means believed to be necessary for
some end until that time at which intending the means is actually necessary for
achieving that end. A similar issue arises in cases of trying
that involve multiple steps towards achieving some end. If purchasing a plane ticket requires that I
book my flight by 6pm and pay for my ticket by 8pm, the T2 temporal
marker ensures that I may qualify as trying to purchase my plane ticket at 7pm,
even though all I have done is booked my flight. No doubt, other kinds of
considerations may be invoked in order to further refine Trying, so as to make it more
precise. But the present (rough) formulation
should be good enough to illustrate the possibility of offering an account of
trying that meets the specifications that the cognitivist needs.
Subtleties
aside, what makes Trying of
interest (in the present context) is that it allows us to preserve the
intuition that the vase-bidder tried to purchase the vase. Let us assume, for
the sake of simplicity, that whether or not the vase-bidder bids is completely
up to her. We can therefore assume that
the “doing Y at T2 is under S’s control” condition has been
satisfied. As the auctioneer announces a
new price for the vase—$150…$250….$350…and so on—what the vase-bidder believes
is necessary for purchasing the vase is being constantly updated. When the starting price of $150 is announced,
the vase-bidder comes to believe that she must bid $150 to purchase the
vase. If she refrains from bidding $150
(i.e., doing what she believes to be necessary to purchasing the vase), then she
does not count as trying to purchase the vase.
However, if she bids $150 and refrains from bidding $250 at this stage,
she still counts as trying to purchase the vase. Bidding $250 becomes a
requirement for purchasing the vase only after she forms the belief that is
necessary for doing so. However, this
belief is not retroactive. It remains
true that the vase-bidder tried to purchase the vase when she bid $150 since
bidding $150 is what she believed was necessary for purchasing the vase at the
time.
Let us
assume that the vase-bidder continues to bid up to the $350 mark. When the announced price of the vase climbs
above $350, the vase-bidder stops bidding. At this point, it seems natural to say that the
vase-bidder has stopped trying to purchase the vase. Moreover, a natural description of the entire
scenario seems to be that the vase-bidder tried to purchase the vase, but that
(at a certain point) she stopped trying.
At which point did she stop trying? She stopped trying at the point at which she
stopped bidding—i.e., the point at which she stopped doing what she believed to
be necessary for purchasing the vase.
Trying also allows us to make sense of why the log-lifter is
irrational for failing to intend what he believes to be necessary for lifting
the log even though he only intends to try to lift the log. To briefly recap, Brunero observes that the
log-lifter may have tried to lift the log in the past without bending his
knees. This, by Brunero’s lights,
suggests that trying to lift the log does not require bending at the knees. If it did, then it would not have been
possible for the log-lifter to try to lift the log in the past without bending his
knees. But now we can see where
Brunero’s argument seems to go wrong. It
assumes that because bending at the knees was not necessary for the
log-lifter’s previously trying to lift the log, it is not necessary for the
log-lifter’s presently trying to lift the log.
But there has been a crucial change in the log-lifter’s doxastic makeup
between his past and present attempts to lift the log. During previous attempts, the log-lifter did
not believe that bending at the knees was necessary for lifting the log. Of course, he was open to the possibility
that it was necessary. But being open to
the possibility that P is not to
believe P. So, during his previous attempts to lift the
log, he did not believe that bending at the knees was necessary for lifting the
log. This explains how it was previously
possible for the log-lifter to try to lift the log without bending at his
knees. However, it does not follow that
it is now possible for the log-lifter to try to lift the log without bending at
the knees since the log-lifter now believes that bending at the knees is
necessary for lifting the log. Like the
vase-bidder, what is necessary for the log-lifter to count as trying to X
changes as his beliefs about what is necessary for X-ing gets updated. Hence, even if the log-lifter’s trying to
lift the log in the past did not require bending his knees, it does not follow
that the log-lifter’s presently trying to lift the log does not require bending
his knees.
What does
this mean for the log-lifter’s intention to try? On the present conception of trying,
intending to try to X involves intending to do whatever you believe at the time
to be necessary for X-ing. Of course, as one’s beliefs about what is necessary
for X-ing are updated, one may change one’s mind about doing what one believes
is necessary for X-ing. For example, one
may think that some action Y (while under one’s control) is simply not
something one is willing to do. At the
point at which one both believes that Y is necessary for X-ing and at which one
refuses to do Y, one stops trying to X.
At this point, you should also stop intending to try. Indeed, if you did not stop intending to try,
you would be violating Means-End Coherence*. You would be intending to do something (i.e.,
trying to lift the log) without forming an intention you believed to be
necessary for achieving that thing (i.e., an intention to bend his knees).
I will
conclude by considering a possible objection to the preceding account. There may be a worry that the present account
of trying is too strong because it entails that the log-lifter cannot intend to
try, insofar as he believes that bending his knees is necessary for lifting the
log and he does not intend to bend his knees.
If this were right, it would indeed be a problem for the cognitivist since
instead of explaining why the log lifter is irrational, the cognitivist would
be explaining away the very possibility of the log-lifter being irrational. However, this worry rests on a mistake. Intending to try is an instance of intending,
not an instance of trying. And like all
other intentions one does not actually have to do what one intends in order to
count as having the intention to do it. In
other words, intending to try no more entails actually trying than intending to
kick a ball requires actually kicking the ball.
Moreover, while trying to X requires actually doing everything you
believe at the time to be necessary for X-ing, intending to try to X does not. Hence, the present objection errs by
conflating what is necessary for intending to try to X and actually trying to
X. While the latter requires that the
log-lifter bend at knees, insofar as he believes this to be necessary for
lifting the log, the former does not. The
upshot is that the log-lifter may intend to try to lift the log without
actually bending at the knees or intending to do so.
