Thanksgiving meal may think about what would constitute serving such a meal, judge that serving pumpkin pie would be part of so doing, and desire accordingly to serve pumpkin pie. In each case, one can say, the belief component represents A-ing as conducive to E, conduciveness being understood to include each of the three relations just mentioned.
In a wide range of cases, when an agent A-s for a reason R, what ra- tionalizes his A-ing presumably also rationalizes his desiring to A, and his
intending to A, if he so intends. If Don’s flipping the switch is rationalized by
his wanting to illuminate the room together with his believing that the best way to do so is to flip the switch, then, presumably, Don wants to flip the switch, and his so wanting is rationalized by the reason that rationalizes the flipping. If it is plausible that the Davidsonian reason identified is a cause of Don’s flipping the switch that explains the action (partly) by revealing something “in light of which the action is reasonable” or “agreeable,” to some extent, from Don’s point of view, then it is plausible, as well, that this reason is a cause of Don’s desire or intention to flip the switch that helps to explain the emergence of that desire or intention (partly) by revealing some- thing in light of which what it is a desire or intention to do is, to some extent, reasonable or agreeable from Don’s point of view. In many cases, an agent may do A in order to B, do B in order to C, do C in order to D, and so forth. For instance, Don might flip the switch in order to illuminate the room, in order to make it easier to find his car keys, in order to improve his chances of getting to work on time. In these cases, the reasons for which an agent wants to do things that are relatively remote from his A-ing in the in-order-to chain may help to rationalize both his A-ing and his want- ing to A. For example, Don’s desire to get to work on time and his belief that he needs to find his keys if he is to do that may figure in a detailed rationalization both of his flipping the switch and of his desire to do so.
The rationalizing of an agent’s wanting or intending to A by a Davidsonian reason that he has for A-ing may be counted as instrumen-
tal rationalizing. The subjective reasonability or agreeability of his A-ing
lies in its believed conduciveness to something the agent wants, something identified in a reason for which he A-s. And the subjective reasonability of one’s wanting or intending to A often derives from that of A-ing. Even if the agent does not represent his desiring or intending to A as a means to an end, the desire and intention have as their object something – the agent’s
A-ing – that is represented in the reasons that rationalize these attitudes as
conducive to the achievement of the object of a desire that is a constituent of those reasons, and this helps to explain why those desires or intentions emerge.5
Philosophy ofAction 73
Wholly intrinsically motivated actions – actions performed only for their own sakes, or as ends – are problematic when we combine Davidson’s account of reasons for action with his thesis that all intentional actions are done for reasons. Consider such actions as displaying one’s gratitude to a friend – when this is done only for its own sake, from no ulterior motive – or whistling a tune just because one feels like it. If one’s displaying one’s gratitude to a friend is motivated by a wholly intrinsic desire to do this, a desire for this solely as an end, there seems to be no room for a belief of the sort that Davidson’s account of reasons requires in the reason for which the agent so acts. One might suggest that the reason for which the intrinsically motivated action is performed – the action of displaying one’s gratitude to one’s friend, Bob, or, in Davidsonian terms, the action under the description “displaying one’s gratitude to Bob” – is constituted by a wholly intrinsic desire to perform an action with the property of being a display of gratitude to Bob and a belief that displaying one’s gratitude to Bob would have that property.6But that belief seems otiose; it lacks an evident explanatory function and smacks of being a device whose only function is to save a theory (see Mele 1988). (It might be suggested that the relevant belief is, for example, the belief that buying Bob a bottle of Glenlivet would display one’s gratitude. But although that belief may be part of a reason for buying Bob a bottle of Glenlivet, it is not part of a reason for displaying one’s gratitude.)
The problem admits of a simple solution. It has been claimed – plausibly, I have argued elsewhere – that although actions of the kind at issue are done for no further reason, they are done for a reason.7 Insofar as it is plausible that (except perhaps in very special cases; see note 5) intentional actions are done for reasons constituted by psychological states of agents, showing one’s gratitude to a friend, when one does this from a wholly intrinsic desire so to act, is plausibly regarded as something done for a reason constituted by an intrinsic desire to display one’s gratitude to the friend, a desire for this as an end. The reason needs no belief component. Similarly, for the purposes of action explanation, feeling like whistling a tune – or, more precisely, an intrinsic desire to do so – may itself plausibly be understood as a reason for whistling a tune. The general worry about intrinsically motivated actions can be laid to rest: one can modify Davidson’s account of reasons for action by allowing that intrinsic desires to A are themselves reasons for A-ing (cf. Davidson 1980 [1963], p. 6). However, problems allegedly posed by a certain species of intrinsically motivated action merit attention.
Rosalind Hursthouse appeals to a species of intrinsically motivated action – what she terms “arational action” – in an attempt to show that