which admits of a rationalising (that is, content-involving) explanation.
For how can an action which is not done for a reason (not caused by a
thought) really be intentional? Yet, in the case in question, it surely is. My
lashing out with my foot was certainly not a mere reXex, like a knee-jerk,
but anattempt to achieve something. Now, the response usually made by
Russellians is that there are plenty ofother(non-singular) thoughts still
available to me, grounded in my hallucination, which can still serve to
rationalise my action. Thus, I will still have such general beliefs as, ‘I am
confronted by a dangerous cat’, ‘There is a cat overthere’, and so on. And I
can then be said to act because of these beliefs, in order to deXect a believed
threat.
There are two problems with this response. TheWrst is that it rides
rough-shod over the (putative) distinction betweenactual(orcore) and
merely dispositionalbeliefs. This distinction may be needed to explain how
we can have inWnitely many beliefs, consistent with ourWnite cognitive
space. (I say something true of you when I say that you believe that 1 is less
than 2, that 1 is less than 3, that 1 is less than 4, and so on indeWnitely.)
What may really be the case is that we have aWnite number of actually
existing beliefs, represented and stored in some fashion in the brain; and
from these beliefs we are immediately disposed to deduce any number of
further beliefs, as the situation demands. Now, in a case where I see a cat
and think, ‘Thatcat is dangerous’, it seems perfectly possible that beliefs
such as, ‘I am confronted by a dangerous cat’ are merely dispositional.
That is, I would immediately assent to them if asked, but have not actually
computed and stored them. The Russellian, however, must deny this. For a
belief which remains merely dispositional cannot be a cause. If the general
(non-singular) belief, ‘I am confronted by a dangerous cat’ is to explain my
behaviour, then it mustWrst have become actual. So the Russellian must
maintain that we routinely actualise a great many more beliefs than we
appear to – which, although possible, is otherwise unmotivated.
The second – and stronger – objection to the Russellian response is this.
Even if the belief, ‘I am confronted by a dangerous cat’ was in some way
activated, it certainly did notWgure as a conscious judgement. The only
(putative) thought which Iconsciouslyentertained was the singular one,
‘Thatcat is dangerous’. So, if the Russellian is right, my act of kicking was
caused by non-conscious thoughts only. And now (quite apart from the
intuitive implausibility of this suggestion) the Russellian has a real prob-
lem. For it must then be said that in the veridical case too, where there
really is a cat present, my action is caused by non-conscious thoughts only.
(Either that, or it is causally overdetermined.) And then it is hard to see
how we can avoid the consequence that my actions arenevercaused by
conscious singular judgements, butonly everby non-conscious general
ones. And that, surely, would be absurd.
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