An Anomaly in Intentional Action Ascription: More Evidence of Folk Diversity

A side effect is a foreseen but not intended consequence of some intended action. Joshua Knobe has discovered that most people judge that a good side effect is not brought about intentionally, but a bad side effect is brought about intentionally. These responses are meant to indicate something about the folk concept of intentional action— namely, that goodness and badness play a role in people's ordinary ascriptions of intentional actions. Because moral goodness or badness plays a role in the ascriptions of intentional action, the argument is made that philosophical theories about intentional action need to take account of or explain away differences in intuitions about cases with morally good or bad side effects. In a previous experiment (Feltz and Cokely, forthcoming) we discovered that the presentation of good and bad side effect cases creates an order effect. Those who received a bad side effect case first said that the person performed the bad side effect intentionally. However, when a good side effect is followed by a bad side effect, most subjects said that the person did not perform the bad side effect intentionally.