• University of Helsinki
    Department of Philosophy (Theoretical Philosophy, Practical Philosophy, Philosophy in Swedish)
    University Researcher
Brown University
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 2006
Helsinki, Southern Finland, Finland
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Action
Philosophy of Mind
  •  487
    The Subjective Authority of Intention
    Philosophical Quarterly 69 (275): 354-373. 2019.
    While much has been written about the functional profile of intentions, and about their normative or rational status, comparatively little has been said about the subjective authority of intention. What is it about intending that explains the ‘hold’ that an intention has on an agent—a hold that is palpable from her first-person perspective? I argue that several prima facie appealing explanations are not promising. Instead, I maintain that the subjective authority of intention can be explained in…Read more
  •  465
    Action explanation and its presuppositions
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 49 (1): 123-146. 2019.
    In debates about rationalizing action explanation causalists assume that the psychological states that explain an intentional action have both causal and rational features. I scrutinize the presuppositions of those who seek and offer rationalizing action explanations. This scrutiny shows, I argue, that where rational features play an explanatory role in these contexts, causal features play only a presuppositional role. But causal features would have to play an explanatory role if rationalizing a…Read more
  •  147
    Practical understanding
    Philosophical Issues 33 (1): 183-197. 2023.
    Well‐functioning agents ordinarily have an excellent epistemic relationship to their intentional actions. This phenomenon is often characterized as knowledge of what one is doing and labeled “practical knowledge”. But when we examine it carefully, it seems to require a particular kind of understanding ‐ understanding of the normative structure of one's action. Three lines of argument are offered to support this Necessity of Understanding thesis. The first appeals to the nature of intentional act…Read more
  •  120
    Actions and questions
    Analysis. 2023.
    It has been widely accepted that intentional actions are “the actions to which “a certain sense of the question ‘why?’ is given application” (Anscombe 1957/2000: 9). But there are robust reasons for thinking that this claim is false. First, there are intentional actions for which such questions are unsound. We have good reasons for thinking that the questions are not “given application” in these cases. Second, when these questions are “given application” this is best explained, it is argued, no…Read more
  •  80
    Deviance and causalism
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 93 (2): 175-196. 2012.
    Drawing on the problem of deviance, I present a novel line of argumentation against causal theories of action. The causalist faces a dilemma: either she adopts a simple account of the causal route between intention and outcome, at the cost of failing to rule out deviance cases, or she adopts a more sophisticated account, at the cost of ruling out cases of intentional action in which the causal route is merely unusual. Underlying this dilemma, I argue, is that the agent's perspective plays an ine…Read more
  •  70
    Mutually Exclusive Planning and the Simple View
    Topoi 33 (1): 47-55. 2014.
    There have been a number of challenges to the Simple View—the view that an intention to A is necessary if an agent is to A intentionally. Michael Bratman’s celebrated video game case has convinced many that the view is false. This article presents a novel objection to Bratman’s case. It is argued, first, that the Simple View is not undermined by the case, and second, that the real import of the case is that it raises the question of how we can rationally intend mutually exclusive ends. I offer a…Read more
  •  67
    Side effects and asymmetry in act-type attribution
    Philosophical Psychology 28 (7): 1012-1025. 2015.
    Joshua Knobe's work has marshaled considerable support for the hypothesis that everyday judgments of whether an action is intentional are systematically influenced by evaluations of the action or agent. The main source of evidence for this hypothesis is a series of surveys that involve an agent either helping or harming something as a side effect. Respondents are much more likely to judge the side effect intentional if harm is involved. It is a remarkable feature of the discussion so far that it…Read more
  •  65
    Beyond Psychologism and Anti-Psychologism
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 18 (2): 281-295. 2015.
    What is special about successful action explanation is that it reveals what the agent saw in her action. Most contemporary philosophers assume that this amounts to explanation in terms of the reason for which the agent acted. They also assume that such explanations conform to a realist picture of explanation. What is disputed is whether the reason is a psychological state or a normative state of affairs . I argue that neither psychological states nor their contents suffice to make actions intell…Read more
  •  45
    Review of Personal Agency: The Metaphysics of Mind and Action (review)
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 89 (1): 172-174. 2011.
    This Article does not have an abstract
  •  28
    Philosophy of Action
    Palgrave MacMillan. 2014.
    I am working on a substantially revised second edition of this. It is due to be published by Palgrave in 2022.
  •  25
    The mental in intentional action
    Philosophical Explorations 24 (3): 337-339. 2021.
    This special section originates from a workshop `New Horizons in Action and Agency’ that we organized in August 2019 at the University of Helsinki, Finland. The aim of the workshop was to provide a...
  •  1
    Answerability without reasons
    In David Shoemaker (ed.), Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility, . pp. 32-53. 2021.
    It is widely accepted that we are answerable in a special way for our intentional actions. And it is also widely accepted that we are thus answerable because we perform intentional actions for reasons. The aim of this chapter is to argue against this ‘reasons’ view of such answerability. First, reasons are distinguished from practical standards. Then, it is argued that the best interpretation of the practices in which we treat agents as answerable is that they fundamentally concern practical sta…Read more
  • Self-control, co-operation, and intention's authority
    In Alfred Mele (ed.), Surrounding Self-Control, Oxford University Press, Usa. 2020.
    In this chapter I defend a novel view of the relationships among intention for the future, self-control, and co-operation. I argue that when an agent forms an intention for the future she comes to regard herself as criticizable if she does not act in accordance with her intention and as praiseworthy if she does. In forming intentions, then, agents acquire dispositions to have reflexive evaluative attitudes. In contexts where the agent has inclinations that run contrary to her unrescinded intenti…Read more
  • Davidson on justification and rationalization
    Daimon: Revista Internacional de Filosofía 37 171-178. 2006.