Socially Constructed Intentionality

13.  Consider this:  intentionality not as a physiological, but a socially constructed state-of-affairs -- an intentionality game proper, chess.  In the case of chess, it begins within one-state-of-affairs -- a strictly given state-of-affairs in the starting arrangement of the chess pieces on the board -- and ends in checkmate  -- a state-of-affairs defined within certain conditions or criteria.   The desired state-of-affairs governs the utility of the instrumental acts, the moves one makes.  Moreover, the moves are bound, piece by piece, insofar as diagonal moves are permissible for the bishop, lateral moves for the rook.  Additional considerations:  it is possible, for example, to imagine two people at what appears to be chess.  Psychologically, one is making moves aimed at achieving checkmate, while the other is making random moves, going through the motions.  The other might be doing something, but it is something other than chess -- that is to say, the intentionality governing chess is given, and must be accepted as a given, if one is going to engage in chess.  Moreover, if the random moves are in fact random (or impermissible) for the various pieces, the one might stop play and ask the other, "are you cheating?"  Or more generally, "what are you doing?" The differentiation between the questions resides in the assumptions of the one.  The first, "are you cheating?" assumes the other is motivated by the desired state-of-affairs checkmate and is moving the piece to achieve a utility, but an impermissible utility under the definitional constraints on the pieces and ethical constraints of fair play.  The second, "what are you doing?" assumes the other is no longer engaged in the intentionality game of chess, that the moves are perhaps motivated, but motivated by something other than the desired state-of-affairs checkmate.  The moves, that is, no longer signify the governing intentionality and lapse into incomprehensibility.  I am suggesting, of course, that the intentionality game of "hunger" and the intentionality game of "chess" might be different in origin, but not in kind.  The socially constructed constraints on the pieces (rules proper) are directly analogous to the physiologically and ethically constructed constraints on ingestion, and are perhaps different in origin, but not in kind.  (Imagine watching someone swallowing nuts, not of the tree borne variety, but of the metallic variety, the sort one might find in a workshop.  Their behavior might look like "eating," we might even describe it as "eating," even "eating nuts," but we would assume that the behavior points to either ineffectual "eating," an instrumental act of highly questionable instrumentality, or an incomprehensible "eating," an act perhaps instrumental to an intentionality, but an act that fails to signify its intentionality, an act aimed at something other than the desired state-of-affairs of a satiated hunger.  Language helps to blur the picture here.)

Categorical Imperative

12.  Intentionality is categorical, and a categorical imperative, but in a limited sense.  Intentionality need not necessarily predicate some universal end, some once and for all state of being on the order of "happiness" or "pleasure," though intentionality, as such, precludes neither.  One might imagine easily enough that the satisfaction of intentionality as pleasant and in that pleasure a source of happiness, but we know such pleasure and the happiness it brings is contingent upon the satisfaction of a given desire, the fulfillment of a given end, and we know that to be transient -- an end to this intentionality, but an end that always seems to beg the question, "ok, but now what?" -- the fulfillment of this intentionality, but a fulfillment that leaves one empty of motive, in a null state, awaiting an intentionality that will brings me into being once again.   Moreover, we know that this intentionality, with the prototypical exemplar of being hungry, does not preclude another intentionality.  To say, "I am hungry," does not preclude the fact that I may well also be in the throes of sexual desire, each competing for my attention, each providing an imperative to act, each immediate, and compelling, and perhaps even competing.  To satisfy one desire is not to satisfy the other desire, and each is irreducible to the other.  My happiness in one is not my happiness in another, and the difference between the intentionality game brought into being by one is irreducible to the intentionality game bought into being by another.  Copulating is not eating, and eating is not copulating.

Subjectivity

11.  A common intentionality makes us comprehensible one to the other, but what does it mean to say "a common intentionality?"  Here one wants to argue for the primacy, and the inscrutability, of the individual being.  To say that "I feel hunger" need not necessarily mean that you feel hunger in exactly the same way or even approximately the same way.   The "feeling," as such, may manifest itself differently for me and for you.  There is no way to wholly resolve this inscrutability because I do not feel your hunger, and you do not feel my hunger, and we are each subject to our own intentionality, subject to the subjectivity that it brings into being, even though, objectively, we each might produce a common description of "hunger," one that could compared for similarity -- even though, objectively, a scientist might map our brain activity and determine that my brain lights up in ways deeply similar to the way your brain lights up under her device.  (At this juncture, one can imagine branching off into a discussion of self-interest and its pursuit -- you acting to free yourself from your subjectivity brought into being by your intentionality, while I likewise act to free myself from my subjectivity brought into being by my intentionality, each inscrutable to the other, each without regard for the other, each in a Hobbesian or Darwinian competition with the other, and all that it implies.)  I would continue to argue for the primacy of the individual, but we are not wholly inscrutable each to the other.  Insofar as our instrumental acts are differentiated between those that do (and all those that do not) work to satisfy a given intentionality, they also serve as signifier to that intentionality.  I do not know what an ameoba or a bat or another like me feels when hungry, but I do recognize each in the act of eating.  I do recognize the signifier to a signified intentionality.   Such, I would argue, is not contingent upon language -- e.g. having a word for "hungry" so that we might say "the bat is hungry."  Conversely, I would argue that language is contingent upon the instrumental differentiations brought into being by intentionality.  My dog recognizes me in the act of eating.  Whether he has sufficient cognitive power to think, "Look! He is hungry!  He is eating!" in whatever inscrutable ways dogs might think, I do not know, but he clearly has sufficient cognitive power to think "Look! He is eating!" and respond by begging, an act instrumental to his own intentionality, his own perpetual hunger.  I do not share his subjectivity, but I fully comprehend his desire to eat.  (At this juncture, one can imagine branching off into a discussion of self-interest and our recognition, our comprehension of a corresponding self-interest in others -- the beggars hand to mouth, a gesture recognizable across the widest cultural divide -- and the degree to which comprehension implies a corresponding apprehension or compassion.)  

Form of Life

10.  Here I want to adapt a term from Wittgenstein, intentionality game, and say something like, "intentionality brings into being a form of life," not only as a "me" uniquely constituted and situated, but insofar as we share a common intentionality, a "me" comprehensible to others.  We are, of course, more complex than ameoba, and that complexity has consequence.  Our acts as agents are governed by multiple intentionalities, and we need never necessarily assume that our intentionalities or our acts are in concert (justified to one another).  Nevertheless, analytically, the governing principles are the same -- that is to say, "form of life," for the moment, is used in this limited sense of acts governed by a single intentionality, an intentionality game, of which it makes some sense to ask, "how is it played?"  Given an intentionality, hunger, I am free to do anything, but not everything will satisfy my hunger.  There are certain things I must do, and those things are physiologically determined -- e.g. I must ingest food.  What does (and what does not) count as "food" is determined, mechanistically, before any choice I might make as an agent, and that brings into being a semantic, a world differentiated between food (and all that is not-food).   Likewise, given an intentionality, hunger, you are free to do anything, but not everything will satisfy your hunger.  There are certain things you must do, and those things are likewise physiologically determined -- you too must ingest food.  What does (and what does not) count as "food" is determined, mechanistically, before any choice you might make as an agent, and insofar as our physiology is "common," we share likewise a "common" semantic, a world mutually differentiated between food (and all that is not food).  As I observe you, as you observe me, the instrumentality of our instrumental acts, our ingesting food, signifies a common intentionality, renders each comprehensible to the other.    

Being

9.  Intentionality brings me into being.  On the one hand, I have to assume that there is being, and being is, such as it is.  I find myself in a world antecedent to me, and as such, transcendent of me.  I am a part of this world, insofar as I am a being within being.   On the other hand, I am apart from this world, a me within the not-me.  Intentionality, or so I want to say, at once, situates me within a world, here and now, and differentiates me from that very world as one who must act on the world, as a consciousness of the world distinct from the world.  A thought experiment: imagine a creature, alpha.  It is tiny, a single cell, living in a drop of pond water on a laboratory slide.  It has one driving imperative, one intentionality -- hunger.  Alpha, as a being within being, swims about its water drop world searching out other, even tinier creatures that it might absorb and thereby satisfy its hunger.  Some even tinier creatures can, others cannot, be effectively absorbed.  At some fundamental level, alpha has a consciousness of the world -- that is to say, alpha has a semantic, in that it differentiates food from all that is not-food.              

Why is this Important?

6.   Consider, if I say, "I am hungry," I am in a state-of-being that I want to free myself  from.  The hunger itself is neither rational or irrational (perhaps ur-rational) but my hunger is not only an imperative to act, but my hunger in effect makes possible the rational question, "how best do I free myself from this state of being?"  Note that my hunger need not necessarily pose the rational question.  Given the imperative to act, I could act from mere instinct or habit, but therein too lies a distinction.  The more instinctual my response, the more mechanistic my response, the more physiologically or psychologically determined my response, the less it is open for ethical or moral consideration, a consideration which necessarily implies a freedom to act in ways that are praise or blameworthy, which in turn implies, if not the exercise of rationality, at least the possibility of rational deliberation.

7.  Consider again, if I say, "I am hungry," I am in a state-of-being that I want to free myself from.  The hunger is here now, present to me, but the shift from "I am" to "I want," a desire that is present to me, but it is also a temporal dislocation, the desire for a future state-of-being that is not yet.  Here, I want to ask a more fundamental question regarding the "I," the so-called "self."  To say that "I am in a state-of-being" is not to wholly identify with that state-of-being.  Though it arises from the depths of my physiological being, though it presents itself as a psychological imperative, I am in a state of hunger, but the hunger is not me.  The temporal dislocation implies a "me," a self that is not the given intentionality, but rather a self free to act, which in turn implies a self praise or blameworthy for those acts.

8.  Intentionality implies a psychological determinism of motive and measure -- that state-of-being from which I must free myself is given.  To the extent that I am sentient, I am sentient not only of "being hungry," but of being hungry as an imperative, being in a state-of-being that could be otherwise, a state-of-being I must act upon to make it otherwise, but the question follows "just how am I to do so?"  To the extent that I am sentient, I am sentient of my freedom to act instrumentally in a myriad of ways, some of which will be more efficacious than others, some of which will not be efficacious at all, some of which will have ancillary consequences wholly unrelated to the pure efficacy or utility, the pure instrumentality of the instrumental act, but which have consequences must nevertheless be considered in any form of rational deliberation.  I am free to act instrumentally in a myriad of ways, but ultimately, as the imperative bears down on me (subjects me to its subjectivity) I must decide, I must act, and I do this (and not all that) and doing this (and not all that) makes all the difference.

The efficacy or the utility of an instrumental act

5.  The efficacy or the utility of an instrumental act, and its morality are distinct considerations.  The platitude, "ends do not justify the means," in effect, recognizes the distinction.  Whether the ends do (or do not) justify the means -- or more narrowly, whether a given intentionality does (or does not) justify any given instrumental act -- is a moot dispute.  So long as the justification of any particular act is a moral or ethical concern, the set of 'just acts' will always be a subset of those acts efficacious to the satisfaction of an intentionality.  The justification of any particular act will always be an analytic applied ex post facto, if not to the actual performance of the instrumental act, then to the formed intention to perform the act.  I am hungry.  I have been snowed in for two days with no relief in sight.  I see the neighbor's dog crossing the yard, and I think, "easy shot!" Later, in court, when I defend myself saying, "I was very hungry!"  I have provided, not a justification of the act, as such, but only an intentionality motivating the act, and insofar as one might concede that eating the neighbor's dog might serve to satisfy my hunger, the efficacy of the act.  The judge might point out, however, that the dog was not my property, or that I did not take my neighbor's feelings into account, or that the discharge of firearms within city limits is prohibited, or any number of reasons for considering the act immoral or unethical or illegal, none of which bear on the instrumentality of the instrumental act. 

Object of Desire & Morality

3.  A word or two on desire.  Intentionality, in and of itself, as a state of being, is not an 'object of desire.'  Hunger, as our prototype, is not an 'object of desire,' except to say that hunger, as such, implies a contra-factual or desired state of being, to not-be-hungry.  Food, of course, is instrumental to the satisfaction of hunger, the desire not-to-be-hungry, and may well be an 'object of desire,' but it is a desire brought into being by hunger, a desire motivated by and made comprehensible by an a priori intentionality.  Food, however, is not the only conceivable 'object of desire.'   A pill, for example, could be instrumental to the satisfaction of hunger, the desire to not-be-hungry, and may well be an 'object of desire,' particularly for one desperate to lose weight.  Either one, conceivably, is sufficient to satisfy the desire to not-be-hungry.   The instrumentality of either instrumental act -- its efficacy or utility -- will always be motivated and measured by the satisfaction of a 'given' intentionality, but neither is both necessary and sufficient, and it is here, in the interstice between the necessary and the sufficient, that we find human freedom.  Hunger, and the emergent desire not to-be-hungry, is before choice, and brings choice into being.  The act instrumental to its satisfaction is open to choice, and bears the consequence of choice.  Some acts are efficacious, and others are less so, or not at all efficacious. 

4.   Implicit in this interstice between the necessary and sufficient is a moral distinction (ala Kant).   Intentionality, as a given, is blameless.  Moral deliberations can only be applied to the instrumental act.  You cannot blame a person for being hungry -- it is, such as it is -- but one can blame him for shooting and eating the neighbor's dog as an act instrumental to the satisfaction of his hunger.  Implicit too is the distinction between the efficacy or the utility of an act in some absolute sense ("dog is delicious, altogether quite satisfying") and its efficacy or utility, its permissibility within a particular socio-cultural setting ("how can you eat someone's pet?" or "how can you take something that doesn't belong to you?" as a measure of moral outrage and the sanctions that follow).  The soci-cultural circumstance enters into the rational calculation of the efficacy of any particular instrumental act, in forming the intention to do this (instead of that).  As an aside, I am giving rational calculation a wide-spread here.  We do not shoot and eat the neighbor's dog because we are not in the habit of engaging in such acts, and there are other, more expedient ways to satisfy one's hunger, and shooting the neighbor's dog simply does not occur to us in quite the way that stopping by Burger Barn might.
       

Intentionality

1.  Let me begin with a distinction between intentionality and instrumentality.   I could have used the more familiar ends and means, except those terms are fraught and broader than what I intend for intentionality and instrumentality.  To use a common and prototypical example, hunger I would consider an intentionality, a state-of-being implicit to our physiological make-up.  Hunger is both a motive for and a measure of instrumental action -- that is to say, it motivates us to act and, in its gratification, a measure of efficacy for our actions, some being more, others being less effective toward moving one, so to speak, from a state-of-hunger to a state-of-satisfaction.

2.  Another subtle set of distinctions -- the distinction between intention and intentionality.  When we say, "I intend to do X," we have certain background assumptions, not least that we are conscious of our intent to to do X and that it is subject, in one way or another, to the question, "why?" and there is some answer to the question, some reason for doing X.  We say, "I am doing X because Y," and Y stands outside and before X.  To use our prototypical example, "I intend to eat," is subject to the question, "why?" and though the answer is generally predictable, "I intend to eat because I am hungry," it nevertheless makes sense.  In other words, it makes sense to speak of the intentionality (Y) motivating and measuring an instrumental act (X).  It does not make sense, at least not in the same way, to speak of the intention of an intentionality.  "Why are you hungry?" yields the response -- "because I am" -- or a description of the circumstance or physiology giving rise to the intentionality -- "because I haven't eaten in two days!"   In yet other words, the intentionality is given, a priori, and intention arises instrumentally in response to a given intentionality.   There is an implication here that intention, the instrumental act, unlike the intentionality governing that instrumental act, is 'free.'  As Rawls says in summary of Butler, "agents can select between various alternative actions, depending on their circumstances and the various constraints to which they are subject.  The class of alternatives is within their powers; they are able to do and not to do any of these actions.  Which available action an agent will do depends upon the agent's beliefs, desires, and assessment of the consequences of the possible action, as understood by the agent."