Abstract

In this dissertation, I endeavor to shed light upon the relationship between mental states and the judgments of blame we pass upon agents for evil outcomes that they bring about. Concretely, I show that the severity of these blame judgments is dependent upon whether the action which brings about evil outcomes is intentional or unintentional. The intentionality of human actions, in turn, is dependent upon whether or not the agent intended to act in the way he did. Thus, of all mental states which affect the amount of blame we attach to actions, intentions are the most important. ;The supremacy of the role of intentions in determining the blameworthiness of human actions is frequently neglected, particularly in the Anglo-American legal tradition. My strategy in the dissertation is twofold. First, I present a comprehensive historical analysis which reveals that the distinction between intentional and unintentional action has played a crucial role in the apportioning of blame. Even the biblical Lex Talionis was conditioned by the distinction between intentional and unintentional action. This historical analysis emphasizes the contributions of continental legal theory, in which the distinction between intentional and unintentional action occupies the center-stage. ;Second, I present a conceptual analysis which reveals important ways of distinguishing intentions from other mental states. Above all, it reveals that intentions are linked to actions in ways no other mental states are linked. In spite of the intimate relation between intentions and actions, however, having an intention to 'X' is not a necessary condition of 'X' being an action, and not either of 'X' being an intentional action. I arrived at these two claims after analyzing the shortcomings of traditional volitional theories of action, and of what Michael Bratman has dubbed the 'simple view' . ;My historical/analytical investigation helps us to be better equipped to understand contemporary theories of culpability, and also to understand how do these differ from theories of responsibility and other theories with which they are typically confused.