Intentions, akrasia, and mere permissibility

Abstract

Something is wrong with akrasia, means-end incoherence, and intention inconsistency. This observation has lead many philosophers to postulate 'wide-scope' requirements against these combinations of attitudes. But some philosophers have argued that this is unwarranted. They claim that we can explain what is wrong with these combinations of attitudes by appealing only to plausible independent claims about reasons for particular beliefs and intentions. In this paper, I argue that these philosophers may well be right about akrasia but that they are wrong about means-end incoherence and intention inconsistency. While it is plausibly impossible to be akratic while having no specific attitude (or lack of an attitude) that you should not have, it is possible to be means-end incoherent or to have inconsistent intentions while having no specific attitude you should not have. There is thus a strong motivation for accepting wide-scope requirements against means-end incoherence and intention inconsistency which does not apply to akrasia. This result give some support to the view of means-end coherence developed in 'Explaining the Instrumental Principle' and 'Defending the Wide-Scope Approach to Instrumental Reason'

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