Stalking a spitting spider, [...] Portia executes a planned detour’ (Jackson & Cross, 2011).

Reading (optional):

• Jackson, Robert R., and Fiona R. Cross. ‘Spider Cognition’. In Advances in Insect Physiology, edited by Jérôme Casas, 41:115–74. Spider Physiology and Behaviour. Academic Press, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-415919-8.00003-3.
• Buehler, D. (2019). Flexible occurrent control. Philosophical Studies, 176(8):2119–2137.

1. Ducking under a flying object is an action. 2. When you duck under a flying object, there is no intention you are acting on. Therefore: 3. Intention is not the mark that distinguishes actions.

Reading (optional):

• Bach, Kent. ‘A Representational Theory of Action’. Philosophical Studies 34, no. 4 (1978): 361–79. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00364703.
• Bratman, M. E. (1984). Two faces of intention. The Philosophical Review, 93(3):375–405.

What is the mark that distinguishes your actions from events which merely happen to you? According to the Standard View, it is intention: those events which are appropriately guided by your intentions are actions; the other events are things that merely happen to you. We have considered two objections to the Standard View, one due to Frankfurt and the other to Bach. Because both objections depend on premises which we could not establish as truths, we should not accept either objection--at least not yet. The Standard View is therefore the best answer we have found so far.

Explanatory reasons are considerations which explain why something happened. Justificatory reasons are considerations in the light of which an action appeared reasonable or desirable from the agent’s point of view.

Reading (optional):

• Dretske, F. (2006). Perception without awareness. In Gendler, T. S. and Hawthorne, J. O., editors, Perceptual Experience, pages 147–180. OUP, Oxford.
• Alvarez, Maria. ‘Reasons for Action: Justification, Motivation, Explanation’. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, Winter 2017. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2017. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/reasons-just-vs-expl/.

Consider two answers to our question, What is the mark that distinguishes actions? [A1] It is intention. [A2] Actions are events for which there are justifying reasons. Are these incompatible answers, or are they two ways of saying the same thing?

What is the mark that distinguishes your actions from events which merely happen to you? According to the Standard View, it is intention: those events which are appropriately guided by your intentions are actions; the other events are things that merely happen to you. We have considered two objections to the Standard View, one due to Frankfurt and the other to Bach. Because both objections depend on premises which we could not establish as truths, we should not accept either objection--at least not yet. We therefore returned to the Standard View. As we saw, there is a way to elaborate the Standard View by invoking justifying reasons. This may strengthen our confidence in the Standard View’s correctness.

Thanks to Kelly Lacy (makebeautiful.co) for the waves.