What Have I Done?

• Authors: Timothy Chappell
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

An externalist view of intention is developed on broadly Wittgensteinian grounds, and applied to show that the classic Thomist doctrine of double effect, though it has good uses in casuistry, has also been overused because of the internalism about intention that has generally been presupposed by its users. We need a good criterion of what counts as the content of our intentional actions; I argue, again on Wittgensteinian grounds, that the best criterion comes not from foresight, nor from foresight plus some degree of probability, nor from any metaphysics of “closeness”, but simply from our ordinary shared understanding of what counts as doing a given action, and what does not.

Keywords

EN

intention; externalism; Wittgenstein; double effect; Thomas Aquinas

• Publisher: Instytut Filozofii - Uniwersytet Jagielloński
• Journal: Diametros
• Year: 2013
• Issue: 38
• Pages: 86-112

Contributors

author

Timothy Chappell

• The Open University Walton Hall

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Identifiers

DOI

10.13153/diam.38.2013.539