ENFOQUES ACTUALES

A somewhat different tack is to appeal to norms of instrumental rationality to explain the connection between intending and knowing-how. One way to motivate this line is to observe cases in which a failure to have knowledge-how is accompanied by a failure of instrumental rationality. If Skipper forms an intention to make Coq au Vin without knowing how to make it, he will not be in a position to form any further intentions concerning the means of making Coq au Vin. One thing that is bad about his position is that he has an intention to do something, without having a corresponding intention about a means to reach that end, meaning that he breaks some norm of instrumental rationality. The suggestion would be that there is a requirement that intentions be accompanied by knowledge-how, only because not having knowledge-how entails having a belief which is in violation of some version or other of the principle of instrumental rationality.

The core idea behind the principle of Instrumental Rationality is that there is some kind of rational failure associated with having the following combination of attitudes: intending to E, believing that E requires intending to M, and not intending to M. There is a good deal of controversy about how to formulate this principle, and why the principle holds, which I will simply put to one side.191 _{We’ll use Broome’s version of this norm as a}

stalking horse (Broome, 1999, 2005) but the considerations which pull apart Broome’s principle apart from the knowledge-how norm of intention generalise.

Broome argues that the principle of Instrumental Rationality takes the form of a wide-scope rational requirement connecting intention with believed means:

Instrumental Rationality: Rationality requires that: if one intends to E, and believes that one will E only if one intends to M, then one intend to M.

A couple of clarifications about this principle. First, the sense of ‘means’ at issue in this norm is intended means, rather than the conditions and tools which are required for achieving E (Setiya, 2007, pp. 668–9). In the relevant sense, merely having knowledge how to E is not an required means for intending to E. Secondly, this norm is best thought of as applying to the special case in which there is one means to achieve E (or at least, that the agent thinks that there is). This means that this principle does not say anything about cases in which there are various possible means available. In order to explain why

knowledge-how is a requirement in other cases in which there is no necessary means, we will need some generalisation of this principle (such as Bratman’s means-ends coherence principle, considered below).192

The question to consider is whether failing to have knowledge-how entails violating

Instrumental Rationality. I think that it does not. Not knowing how to E will in some cases go along with having no beliefs about the required means for achieving that end. But, someone who has no beliefs about the necessary means for achieving E has a set of attitudes that are consistent with Instrumental Rationality. If one does not fulfil the antecedent of the conditional given in this norm — either by not intending E, or by not having a belief about its required means — then it is not possible to violate the principle. There will also be cases in which an agent does not know how to E, has a false belief about the necessary means for achieving E, and has intentions which are consonant with those beliefs. For example, I might intend to make the perfect cup of tea, mistakenly believe that the perfect cup requires soya milk and intend to use soya milk. This combination of

attitudes also does not violate Instrumental Rationality, because the intention is constituent with the (false) belief. However, it does violate KNI, because anyone that believes that the way to make a perfect tea is to use soya milk does not know how to make a perfect cup of tea. Although the relation between knowledge-how and false belief is somewhat fraught, it is not at all controversial that there are some cases in which agents fail to know how to do something, and also have false beliefs about how to do that activity. These cases

demonstrate that it is possible to violate the knowledge-how norm without violating

Instrumental Rationality. Although I won’t push this point, it seems reasonable to think that the majority of cases in which an agent lacks knowledge-how, they will either have no

192 _{A further complication is that Instrumental Rationality requires time-indexing to allow an agent to}

form an intention to perform the means at some time after forming the intention to E, but before the time at which they would need to M (Setiya, 2007, p. 668). Implementing this change entails a

belief, or a false belief about how to perform the relevant activity. This suggests that in the majority of cases, lacking knowledge how does not involve violating Instrumental Rationality.

One move a supporter of the reduction of the know-how norm might want to pursue is to say that fulfilling Instrumental Rationality requires true beliefs about necessary means, or perhaps just forming a means-intention which is in line with the facts about how to achieve the relevant end. However, these tweaked versions of the principle of Instrumental Rationality would not entail the knowledge norm of intention either. There are cases in which an agent lacks knowledge-how to E, takes a lucky guess about how to E, forming the true belief that M as a means to achieve E, and thereby intends to M. For example, Skipper might in a panic write down a random series of cooking tasks, which by sheer fluke happen to constitute a fairly reliable way to make Coq au Vin. With no other option, he forms the belief that this recipe constitutes a way to make Coq au Vin, forms the

appropriate intentions and follows the recipe successfully. In this kind of case Skipper lacks knowledge how to make a Coq au Vin, but fulfils Instrumental Rationality in the best way possible: by having true beliefs about the means to his ends, and intending those means. These cases of lucky true belief are important, because the combination of intention to E, true belief that intending to M is necessary to achieve E, and intention to M is the central case in which an agent fulfils the norm of Instrumental Rationality. Because one can fulfil instrumental rationality via a lucky guess whilst lacking knowledge-how, failing to have knowledge-how does not entail violating the norms of instrumental rationality. Instrumental Rationality makes no requirement about the epistemic provenance of the belief about the means, whereas knowledge how to V does, meaning that the knowledge- how norm will systematically divergence from the requirements of practical rationality.

To see how these considerations against Broome’s version of the principle of

Instrumental Rationality generalise, consider Bratman’s more general requirement, which he calls the Means-Ends Coherence Principle (Bratman, 1987, pp. 31–5). This principle is formulated within the framework of partial plans, and says that our partial plans must at the appropriate time be filled in with sub-plans that specify means to achieving our goals.

Means-Ends Coherence is more general than Instrumental Rationality, in that it applies to ends with multiple possible means, and does not require that we form subplans ahead of time. It is easy to come up with cases in which agents fulfil Means-Ends Coherence without knowing how to V. Although it is not possible to form a subplan while lacking a belief, it is clearly

possible to fill in a plan based on a false belief about possible means, meaning that it is possible to fill in a plan to E, without knowing how to E. Even focusing on cases in which the subplan is a possibly successful one, there will be cases in which the agent lacks knowledge how to E, takes a guess about how to E which luckily comes out true, and fills out their plan based on that lucky guess. This means that lacking knowledge-how does not entail violating the Means-Ends coherence principle, even focusing on forming potentially successful subplans.

It appears that the prospects for getting the knowledge-how norm out of some version of the principle of Instrumental Rationality are not good. This does not undermine the important connections between knowledge-how and instrumental rationality. As I noted in §2.2., it is extremely plausible that exercising our knowledge-how is one of the primary ways in which we form beliefs about the required means to our ends, and more generally fill out our plans. The point to take away from this section is that it is also

possible to fill out our plans in other ways that have less good epistemic credentials but are impeccable from the point of view of achieving our ends.