Abstract

In garden-variety instances of intentional action, according to a popular account, agents intend to perform actions of particular kinds, their intentions are based on reasons so to act, and the intentions issue in appropriate behaviour. On this account, the reasons that give rise to our intentions are reasons for action. Interesting questions for this view are raised by cases in which an agent seemingly has a reason to intend to do something while having no reason to do it. Can such reasons to intend issue in appropriate intentions? If so, can these intentions issue in corresponding intentional actions -- even though the agent has no reason to perform those actions? If these questions are properly given an affirmative answer, at least one popular thesis in the philosophy of action is false. One could not properly "define an intentional act as one which the agent does for a reason." A popular thesis about the explanation of intentional actions would be false as well -- namely, that explaining an intentional action (qua intentional) requires reference to reasons for action. My point of departure in this paper is a puzzle—Gregory Kavka's toxin puzzle(1983) -- in which agents seem to have an excellent reason to intend to A while having no reason at all to A. Generally, commentators on the puzzle have set their sights on questions about rational intentions. However, the puzzle raises difficult questions about intending itself and about the nature of intentional action. Showing that this is so is easy. Answering the question is more challenging.