Subjectivism and Economic Analysis: Essays in memory of Ludwig ...

MISES AND LACHMANN ON HUMAN ACTIONconsiderations to be weighed in deliberating between relevant andadmissible options.If future intentions are necessary and sufficient conditions ofintentional action, yet such intentions are only intelligible within thecontext of plans, then there would appear to be good reasons as towhy Lachmann’s account of human action appears preferable tothat offered by Mises. In defence of this, it seems quite plausible toargue that correctly following a future intention is a sufficientcondition of intentional action, in the sense that if someone has afuture intention and correctly follows it in behaving, then thisbehaviour is an intentional action of theirs (Moya 1990). However,establishing future intentions as a necessary condition of fullyintentional action is more difficult. The problem here concernswhether there are intentional actions which are not intended. Ifthere are such actions, then future intentions are not necessaryconditions of intentional action.The following example, again drawn from Bratman, reveals theproblem. Suppose during a war a commander encounters a villagethat is full of both enemy soldiers and civilians. The commanderweighs his options, and considers that bombing the village in orderto kill the enemy soldiers is a viable option, even though it willinvolve the killing of innocent civilians, which the commander verymuch regrets. If the bombing takes place, it is intentional underthree descriptions—(i) bombing the village; (ii) killing enemysoldiers; (iii) killing many innocent civilians. However, although theaction is intentional under these three descriptions, it is onlyintended under the first two. It is necessary to make this distinctionto differentiate this act from one where the commander may want tokill the civilians, and thus, in bombing the village, intends to do justthat. However, if the action of killing civilians is intentional,although not intended, then a future intention is not a necessarycondition of fully intentional action.However, two points are relevant. First, it has been argued thatthis problem is not as intractable as it may initially appear (see Moya1990). Second, it would also appear to raise problems for Mises’saccount of human action. This is because, to adopt Mises s preferredterminology, the action detailed above is describable as purposiveunder three descriptions, yet only as aim-directed under the first two.However, it would seem that Mises regards all purposive behaviouras aim-directed, or as orientated towards ends. Therefore, if thereare intentional actions that are not intended, or purposive actionsthat are not orientated towards ends, these raise at least as many47