Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis has two aims. The first is to assess the cogency of the three most influential theories of intention – namely those of Elizabeth Anscombe, Donald Davidson and Michael Bratman. I identify five requirements that a convincing account of intention must fulfil, and then assess each of these theories in light of these five requirements. In the course of this analysis, I demonstrate that, while each of these theories contributes to our understanding of intention, none of them meet all the specified requirements. This leads to the second aim of this thesis, which is to develop an account of intention capable of overcoming the problems inherent in the foregoing theories of intention and hence fulfilling the specified requirements. This account is built around the definition of intention as a complex mental entity, consisting of two components: a revisable pro-attitude and a belief that the agent will try to fulfil this pro-attitude. It must further be possible for the agent to reflexively reconstruct the belief component without external information. I begin by setting out the five requirements for a convincing account of intention. In each case, I explain why it is necessary for a theory of intention to meet the relevant requirement, and elaborate on what is needed for an account of intention to fulfil this requirement. The five requirements for a convincing account of intention are: 1) It must explain the unity of the three seemingly irreconcilable uses of intention; 2) it must explain the epistemic requirements for intention; 3) it must clarify the relationship between intention and motivation, intention and causes, and intention and reasons; 4) it must explain the relationship between intention and practical reasoning, and 5) it must clarify the relationship between intention and moral responsibility. Together, these five requirements form the yardstick against which I evaluate the different theories of intention. With this yardstick in mind, I am then able to assess each of the influential theories of intention developed by Anscombe, Davidson, and Bratman. In each case, I examine how the relevant theory of intention fares in meeting each of the five requirements. This analysis shows that, while each theory provides a number of important insights, none of them succeeds in meeting all five requirements. Such analysis further enables me to identify the specific difficulties that have stymied the attempts of all three thinkers to develop a convincing account of intention. Having identified the strengths and weaknesses of the three preceding accounts of intention, I then try to work out an alternative account of intention that would not fall prey to the same complications. Following the same modus operandi as before, I evaluate my proposed account against the five requirements for a convincing theory of intention. In each case, I show that my account not only succeeds in meeting the specified criterion, but also, crucially, that it is able to overcome the difficulties that have plagued previous attempts to fulfil this criterion. I conclude that, while this account is not necessarily conclusive, it does meet the conditions for a convincing account of intention and thereby casts some light into the conceptual darkness surrounding intention that Anscombe identified more than half a century ago. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis het twee oogmerke. Die eerste is om die oortuigingskrag van die drie mees invloedryke teorieë van intensie te beoordeel – naamlik die van Elizabeth Anscombe, Donald Davidson en Michael Bratman. Ek identifiseer vyf vereistes waaraan ‘n oortuigende verklaring van intensie moet voldoen en beoordeel dan elk van hierdie teorieë aan die hand van hierdie vyf vereistes. In die loop van hierdie analise wys ek dat, alhoewel elkeen van hierdie teorieë tot ons verstaan van intensie bydra, geeneen aan al die gespesifiseerde vereistes voldoen nie. Dit lei tot die tweede oogmerk van die tesis, wat die ontwikkeling van ‘n teorie van intensie behels wat daartoe in staat is om die probleme wat inherent aan die voorgenoemde teorieë is, te oorkom en wat dus aan die gespesifiseerde vereistes voldoen. Hierdie teorie berus op die definisie van intensie as ‘n komplekse mentale entiteit wat uit twee komponente bestaan: ‘n wysigbare pro-houding en ‘n oortuiging dat die agent hierdie pro-houding sal probeer vervul. Dit moet verder ook vir die agent moontlik wees om die oortuigingskomponent refleksief te rekonstrueer sonder eksterne inligting. Ek begin deur die vyf vereistes vir ‘n oortuigende verklaring van intensie uiteen te sit. In elke geval verduidelik ek hoekom dit nodig is vir ‘n teorie van intensie om aan die relevante vereiste te voldoen en werk ek uit wat nodig is vir ‘n verklaring van intensie om aan hierdie vereiste te voldoen. Die vyf vereistes vir ‘n oortuigende verklaring van intensie is: 1) Dit moet die ooreenstemming tussen die drie skynbaar onversoenbare gebruike van intensie verduidelik; 2) dit moet die epistemiese vereistes vir intensie verduidelik; 3) dit moet die verhouding tussen intensie en motivering, intensie en oorsake, en intensie en redes verhelder; 4) dit moet die verhouding tussen intensie en praktiese redenering verhelder; en 5) dit moet die verhouding tussen intensie en morele verantwoordelikheid verhelder. Gesamentlik vorm hierdie vyf vereistes die maatstaf waarvolgens ek die verskillende teorieë van intensie evalueer. Met hierdie maatstaf in gedagte is ek dan in staat daartoe om elkeen van die invloedryke teorieë van intensie, wat ontwikkel is deur Anscombe, Davidson en Bratman, te beoordeel. In elke geval ondersoek ek hoe die relevante teorie van intensie vaar in die voldoening aan elkeen van hierdie vyf vereistes. Hierdie analise wys dat, alhoewel elke teorie ‘n aantal belangrike insigte bied, geen van hul daarin slaag om aan al vyf vereistes te voldoen nie. So ‘n analise stel my verder in staat om die spesifieke probleme te identifiseer waardeur die pogings van al drie denkers om ‘n oortuigende verklaring van intensie te ontwikkel, gestuit is. Nadat ek die sterk en swakpunte van die drie voorafgaande verklarings van intensie geïdentifiseer het, probeer ek dan om ‘n alternatiewe teorie van intensie uit te werk wat nie aan hierdie selfde komplikasies onderhewig is nie. Deur dieselfde modus operandi as voorheen te volg, evalueer ek my voorgestelde verklaring aan die hand van die vyf vereistes vir ‘n oortuigende teorie van intensie. In elke geval wys ek dat my verklaring nie bloot daaraan slaag om aan die gespesifiseerde kriterium te voldoen nie, maar ook, van deurslaggewende belang, dat dit in staat daartoe is om die probleme te oorkom waardeur vorige pogings om die kriterium te vervul, geteister is. Ek kom tot die gevolgtrekking dat, alhoewel hierdie teorie nie noodwendig afdoende is nie, dit wel die voorwaardes vir ‘n oortuigende verklaring van intensie vervul en hierdeur lig werp op die konseptuele duisternis waarin intensie gehul is en wat meer as ‘n halfeeu gelede deur Anscombe geïdentifiseer is.

This diploma thesis deals with the Aristotelian virtue ethics and its renaissance in the twentieth century. Ethics is first defined generally as a separate science which belongs to the practical sciences. Subsequently, the emphasis on virtue ethics as one of the directions of normative ethics. A key part of the thesis deals with the ethics of virtue in Aristotle and interpretation corresponding more or less to the interpretation of the work of Nicomachean Ethics. The emphasis is on concepts of virtue, bliss and goodness. The development of u virtue ethics from the time of Aristotle until the twentieth century is also mentioned. The last part deals with the form of virtue ethics in the twentieth century, including the process how the ethics of virtue acquired its present form. It is also compared to the interpretation of virtue ethics in Aristotle and in the works of modern moral philosophers, particularly the work of Alasdair MacIntyre After Virtue is emphasized.

Questa tesi si occupa di analizzare il lavoro di Stanley Hauerwas, uno studioso di grande fama nel mondo accademico americano i cui testi sono molto letti in tutto il mondo. Tramite la lettura critica dell’intero corpus degli scritti di Hauerwas la tesi intende riflettere sul rapporto problematico tra Cristianesimo e liberalismo. A questo scopo, la tesi si concentra inizialmente sui presupposti filosofici che sono alla base delle argomentazioni di Hauerwas. In secondo luogo, riflette sulle idee ed istituzioni tipiche del liberalismo e sul loro rapporto con il Cristianesimo. Infine, descrive la proposta etica di Hauerwas e il modo con cui questa determina il tipo di politica che la chiesa e i cristiani dovrebbero avere. Seguendo l’ampiezza del lavoro di Hauerwas, la tesi si interessa di un gran numero di filosofi, teorici della politica e teologi, spaziando dagli scritti di Aristotele e Tommaso d’Aquino, alla filosofia del linguaggio di McCabe, Murdoch, e Wittgenstein, dalle riflessioni etiche di Kovesi, Anscombe, e MacIntyre, alle teorie politiche di Rawls, Stout e Coles. Grazie alla sottolineatura del ruolo delle virtù e della formazione morale, insieme all’enfasi posta sull’importanza che la tradizione della chiesa, le sue pratiche e il suo linguaggio hanno nel dare forma all’immaginazione e alle vite dei cristiani, Hauerwas descrive in maniera costruttiva e feconda una proposta politica genuinamente cristiana e ci aiuta a navigare le complessità del mondo contemporaneo. / The dissertation provides an in-depth analysis of the scholarship of Stanley Hauerwas, a very prominent figure in the American academy whose body of work is widely read in many countries. By providing a close reading of Hauerwas’ entire corpus, the dissertation aims at discussing the contested relationship between Christianity and liberalism. It does so first, by focusing on the philosophical presuppositions that shape Hauerwas’ overall argument. Second, it reflects on the main liberal commitments and institutions and their relationship with Christianity. Third, it describes Hauerwas’ ethical proposal and its bearings on the political commitments that the church and Christians ought to have. Following the breadth of Hauerwas’ work, the dissertation deals with a great number of philosophers, political theorists, and theologians, spanning from the writings of Aristotle and Aquinas, to the philosophy of language of McCabe, Murdoch, and Wittgenstein, to the ethical reflections of Kovesi, Anscombe and MacIntyre, and to the political theory of Rawls, Stout, and Coles. Through his stress on the role of virtues and moral formation, and by emphasizing the importance that the church’s tradition, language, and practices have in shaping the imagination and lives of Christians, Hauerwas gives a constructive and fruitful description of what a genuine Christian politics looks like and helps us navigate the complex world of today.

There is a conceptual knot at the intersection of moral responsibility and action theory. This knot can be expressed as the following question: What is the relationship between an agent's openness to moral responsibility and the intentional status of her behaviour? My answer to this question is developed in three steps. I first develop a control-backed account of intentional agency, one that borrows vital insights from the cognitive sciences – in the form of Dual Process Theory – in understanding the control condition central to the account, and demonstrate that this account fares at least as well as its rivals in the field. Secondly, I investigate the dominant positions in the discussion surrounding the role of control in moral responsibility. After consideration of some shortcomings of these positions – especially the inability to properly account for so-called ambivalence cases – I defend an alternative pluralist account of moral responsibility, in which there are two co-extant variants of such responsibility: attributability and accountability. The latter of these will be shown to have a necessary control condition, also best understood in terms of a requirement for oversight (rather than conscious or online control), and in terms of the workings of the dual system mechanism. I then demonstrate how these two accounts are necessarily related through the shared role of this kind of control, leading to my answer to the original question: if an agent is open to moral accountability based on some activity or outcome, this activity or outcome must necessarily have positive intentional status. I then apply this answer in a consideration of certain cases of the use of the Doctrine of Double Effect.

The guiding question for this essay is: who is the learner? The aim is to examine and criticize one answer to this question, sometimes referred to as the theory of the learning brain, which suggests that the explanation of human learning can be reduced to the transmitting and storing of information in the brain’s formal and representational architecture, i.e., that the brain is the learner. This essay will argue that this answer is misleading, because it cannot account for the way people strive to learn in an attempt to lead a good life as it misrepresents the intentional life of the mind, which results in its counting ourselves out of the picture when it attempts to provide a scientific theory of the learning process. To criticize the theory of the learning brain, this essay will investigate its philosophical foundation, a theory of mind called cognitivism, which is the basis for the cognitive sciences. Cognitivism is itself built on three main tenets: mentalism, the mind-brain identity theory and the computer analogy. Each of these tenets will be criticized in turn, before the essay turns to criticize the theory of the learning brain itself. The focus of this essay is, in other words, mainly negative. The hope is that this criticism will lay the groundwork for an alternative view of mind, one that is better equipped to give meaningful answers to the important questions we have about what it means to learn, i.e., what we learn, how we do it and why. This alternative will emphasize the holistic and intentional character of the human mind, and consider the learning process as an intentional activity performed, not by isolated brains, but by people with minds that are extended, embodied, enacted and embedded in a sociocultural and physical context.

Η “καθιερωμένη θεώρηση για την πράξη”, όντας δεσμευμένη σε ένα ευρύτερο νατουραλιστικό μοντέλο, κατανοεί την πράξη ως “επιμέρους συμβάν”, το οποίο προκαλείται αιτιακά από συγκεκριμένες νοητικές καταστάσεις. Σ’ αυτό το πλαίσιο, η αιτιακή επίδραση της πρόθεσης υπάγεται στο σύνηθες χιουμιανό μοντέλο της αιτιότητας μεταξύ συμβάντων. Ωστόσο, η εν λόγω θεώρηση αποτυγχάνει ουσιωδώς να ερμηνεύσει τις πράξεις στην εξέλιξή τους, πριν δηλαδή να διαμορφωθεί το απαιτούμενο (από το χιουμιανό μοντέλο) εξατομικευμένο συμβάν. Το γεγονός αυτό έχει ευρύτερες επιπτώσεις για τον τρόπο με τον οποίο αντιλαμβάνεται η εν λόγω προσέγγιση τόσο την έννοια της πρόθεσης, όσο και κατ’ επέκταση το ρόλο του δρώντος. Στην παρούσα εργασία και με αφορμή κυρίως πρόσφατες εργασίες από τους Hornsby και Crowther, επιχειρηματολογώ σχετικά με το ότι μπορούμε να υιοθετήσουμε μια εναλλακτική προσέγγιση, τόσο για την οντολογία της πράξης, όσο και για την πρόθεση, η οποία δίνει ικανοποιητικότερες απαντήσεις στις ανωτέρω προκλήσεις. Κεντρική θέση στα πλαίσια αυτής της προσέγγισης είναι η αναγνώριση της “δραστηριότητας” ως συγκροτησιακού στοιχείου της πράξης, κατά τη διάρκεια της οποίας η αιτιακή συμβολή του δρώντος παραμένει συνεχής, σε συμφωνία με μια αριστοτελικού τύπου προσέγγιση της αιτιότητας. Όι παραδοχές αυτές οδηγούν σε μια θεώρηση της πρόθεσης ως καθοδηγητικής της πράξης καθόλη τη διάρκεια εξέλιξής της. / The “standard story of action” being committed to a broader naturalistic model, understands action as a “particular event”, which is caused by certain mental states. In this context, the causal efficacy of intention is covered by the standard humean model of causality between events. Nevertheless, the story in question substantially fails to give an account for actions as they develop, that is, before the required (by the humean model) individuated event has been formed. That fact has broader effects on the way that the approach in question understands the concept of intention, and ultimately the role of the agent. In this thesis, following mainly on recent papers by Hornsby and Crowther, I argue that we can endorse an alternate approach regarding the ontology of action, as well as intention, that gives more adequate answers to the challenges mentioned above. The main thesis in this context is to recognize “activity” as a constitutional element of action, during which the causal efficacy of the agent remains ongoing, in accordance with an aristotelian type of approach to causality. These commitments result in recognizing intention as guiding action throughout the whole of its development.