After Anscombe

abstract

In this paper, I trace the concept of intention in theories of action after the publication of Anscombe’s monograph Intention. Bratman has the most viable account of intention that successfully refutes intention skeptics, but it cannot do the work in ethics that some moral philosophers use it for. This is shown by the problems in using intention to make moral distinctions in double effect cases. I argue that Anscombe’s concept of intention is broader than Bratman’s and I suggest that the aspects of intention that make her concept suited for ethics should be attributed to a concept distinct from intention, namely, an intrinsic desire for the end, corresponding with Aquinas’s account of intentio. A role for desire in ethics dovetails perfectly with the Aristotelian virtue ethics that Anscombe has been credited with reviving in her writings.