Everyday Ethics

In a prior article, we defended the position that when it comes to describing the phenomenology of human intentional actions, folk psychology offers a more accurate account than reductive neuroscience.  This is not to say that we ought to abandon biological accounts of mind, only that the limitations of these accounts suggest that we ought to give the explanatory fecundity of folk psychological explanations a second look.

Despite the cogency of this position, many cognitive scientists reject folk psychology as exceedingly primitive and ultimately an inhibitor to the kinds of explanations of mind that cognitive science is really after.  It is therefore beneficial to consider a couple of relevant objections to the inclusion of folk psychology in the science of mind, and to offer a reply to these criticisms.

There are two important criticisms of the folk psychological explanation of intentional actions that we will consider here.  First, one might argue that the folk psychological explanation of intentionality is akin to the intentional stance advocated by Daniel Dennett, and that the intentional stance is itself problematic because it grants license to attribute intentionality to objects that obviously do not have it.

Dennett’s view states that we can settle the question of whether a being has something like a conscious mind that includes intentionality by examining that being’s behavior.  If inferring intentionality leads to accurate explanations of a being’s behavior, we can reasonably infer that this being has intentional states.  For example, we can settle the problem of other minds by simply looking at the behavior of other people.  If the action of other humans makes sense as an instance of intentional action, we can infer the presence of intentional states.

The criticism of this view is that many “behaviors” can be explained by positing intentionality in beings that clearly do not have it.  For example, I can explain what my toaster is doing when it heats my bread by inferring that the toaster wanted to toast my bread, that it’s toasting actions are driven by the goal of turning bread into toast.

But this is ridiculous.  Toasters are artifacts, and their structure is such that we have no reason to infer consciousness or intentionality.  Dennett’s intentional stance doesn’t allow for this distinction to be drawn, indicating a problem in inferring intentionality simply on the basis of behavior that is explained in terms of intentionality.

A reasonable reply to the critic of Dennett is that we can limit Dennett’s intentional stance to biological entities.  The problem this strategy creates with regard to intentionality and artificial intelligence will have to be set aside for now, since it is an open question whether artificial intelligence qualifies as a kind of consciousness.  For our purposes, it is sufficient to point out that the intentional stance, when limited to biological instances of intentionality, is actually a very good way of figuring out whether a being has anything like a conscious mind.

Consider the following.  Humans seem like a clear example of organisms that possess intentionality, and the intentional stance does give us an avenue for resolving the question of other minds.  Further, evaluating behavior in terms of intentionality gives us a good reason for thinking that most non-human animals also have conscious experiences that include intentionality.

Bears tear up logs because they are pursuing the goal of eating the ants that live inside.  Female lions move their cubs away from danger in order to achieve the goal of keeping them alive.  Inferring intentionality from actions that appear intentional gives us a coherent and simple explanation of animal behavior, and limiting this to biological entities prevents concerns with inferring consciousness to entitites that clearly do not possess it.

The second criticism of folk psychology, which flows from this reply, is that inferring intentionality from organism behavior that makes sense as intentional is a clear case of anthropomorphism.  Even if my own human intentional behavior is an indicator of intentionality, it is an inferential leap to think that this applies to all human behavior, never mind the leap required to claim that animals like bears and lions also have intentional states.

Further, limiting this type of explanation to biological entities requires the specious assumption that mind is a uniquely biological phenomenon.  Folk psychological explanations of intentionality beg the question; they explain intentional behavior by inferring the existence of intentional states, rather than arguing for them.  The concern with regard to both artifacts and non-human animals is that we have the appearance of intentionality, but no argument for thinking that this behavior corresponds to intentional states in a conscious mind.

The response to this criticism is remarkably simple.  Each of us can be relatively certain that our intentional behavior can be adequately explained by reference to our intentional states, and it’s reasonable to assume that this is true of other humans, because testimony is generally a valid form of epistemic justification.  Phylogenetic continuity supports the inference to intentional states in non-human organisms, while also supporting the exclusion of artifacts as having intentional states.

Stated more simply, it would be biologically surprising if intentionality suddenly emerged with homo sapiens.  Most phenotypic expressions of mental characteristics exist on a continuum, and we need some reason to think intentionality is an exception to this rule.  Because artifacts are not a part of any biological continuum, we need a reason to include them in the class of beings capable of intentional states, rather than a reason to exclude them as Dennett’s critics claim.

This is by no means a vindication of folk psychological explanations of intentional actions.  It remains possible that over time, neuroscience will be able to give an entirely biological account of intentional action that has no need for discussion of beliefs and desires in order to account for the phenomenology of human intentional actions.  In some sense, the question of whether folk psychology ought to be a part of this explanation depends first upon what it is we are trying to explain.

Our point is that if cognitive science is truly the science of the human mind, this must include an account of the phenomenology of conscious experience, including the phenomenon of intentional actions that result from the desires we have and our beliefs about how to satisfy them.

More importantly, the biological sciences, from which a good deal of neuroscience draws, tends to support the notion that phenomenal consciousness includes things like beliefs and desires to do explain the behavior of both humans and non-human animals.  Folk psychology is simply another way of explaining what many biologists already know to be the case, and many cognitive scientists would be wise to recognize this.

About the Author

Elijah Weber is a graduate student at Bowling Green State University. He holds a Master's degree in philosophy from Colorado State University, and Bachelor’s degrees in sociology and philosophy from Chapman Univerity. He currently lives in Bowling Green, Ohio with his wife Laura, his newborn son Brandon, and his feline life-partner Monte.