Deciding Without Intending

Abstract

According to a consensus view in philosophy, “deciding” and “intending” are synonymous expressions. Researchers have recently challenged this view with the discovery of a counterexample in which ordinary speakers attribute deciding without intending. The aim of this paper is to investigate the strengths and limits of this discovery. The result of this investigation revealed that the evidence challenging the consensus view is strong. We replicate the initial finding against consensus and extend it by utilizing several new measures, materials, and procedures. Together this evidence strongly suggests that “deciding” is not synonymous with “intending” in ordinary language and that the consensus view should be rejected.

Keywords

• decision
• intention
• judgment
• meaning
• semantics
• ordinary language