This chapter begins by sketching the standard belief-desire model of action and action-explanation employed by most philosophers, while also noting some variations. Of necessity, given the immense literature on the topic, this is presented at a high level of generality, abstracting over many local disagreements. The model and its variations provide the main set of foils for the scientifically grounded accounts to be discussed in later chapters, which are then briefly previewed. The remaining sections of the chapter go on to explain and quickly motivate three major assumptions that are taken for granted throughout the remainder of the book (and also by many philosophers and almost all cognitive scientists, it should be said): realism, physicalism, and representationalism.

Previous chapters have examined forms of action that the standard belief-desire model ignores. This chapter starts to dig deeper into the standard model itself. It is about how decisions get made (especially decisions that are commonly described as conscious ones), and about how those decisions subsequently give rise to actions. It draws on the scientific literature on prospection and on what is often called “neuroeconomics” to argue that valence (pleasure and displeasure) is the common currency of all decision-making. It also argues that the goals and intentions that result from decision-making are real, and distinct from beliefs and affective forms of desire. The chapter begins by showing that the ordinary notion of desire conflates two very different kinds of mental state, however, and it concludes by discussing how intentions and affective desires interact when they conflict.

This concluding chapter briefly summarizes the main findings from previous ones, noting what is right and what is wrong about the standard model of action and action-explanation. The belief-desire model excludes important classes of human action (habits, speeded actions, skills). And philosophers are mistaken in many of the claims they make about beliefs and desires (e.g. that they are all propositional attitudes), as well as in many of their widely endorsed claims (that credences are real, that desires come in degrees, that knowledge is a primitive intrinsically factive state). The chapter then draws out some methodological morals for the way in which the philosophy of mind should properly be conducted.

The main focus of this chapter is on another class of actions (in addition to the habits discussed in Chapter 2) that don’t result from decision-making processes. So in that sense they aren’t intentional and don’t fit the standard belief-desire model. These are actions that are directly caused by affective states (emotions, desires, and so on). Some of these actions are merely expressive, whereas others give the appearance of being instrumental, and are generally (but mistakenly) interpreted as goal-directed. But the chapter begins with a review of some basic findings from affective science and neuroscience. This is to set up the discussion in this and later chapters.

The standard philosophical model of intentional action-explanation appeals to states of belief and desire to do the explaining. This chapter evaluates what philosophers have had to say about the nature of desire. Chapter 5 showed that the ordinary notion of desire encompasses two very different kinds of mental state: goals and intentions, on the one hand, and affective or emotion-like forms of desire, on the other. The focus here is on the latter. The chapter shows that desires of this sort always incorporate anticipatory pleasure, and that pleasure itself is an analog-magnitude representation of value. The chapter begins with what the science can tell us about the respective natures of pleasure and desire, before comparing the results with claims made by armchair-philosophers. Many of the latter are false, albeit sometimes containing partial insights.

This chapter takes up an idea that is arguably a central component of common-sense thinking, as well as one that is widely accepted among philosophers. This is that all kinds of attitude–desires, beliefs, and goals and intentions–come in degrees. They can admit of differing strengths or causal efficacy. Although rarely fully articulated, some versions of the view go along with a distinctive picture of the nature of decision-making (called here “the push-push theory”). The chapter argues that neither beliefs nor desires admit of degrees, while also critiquing the philosophical theory of credences. Instead, beliefs embed analog-magnitude representations of likelihood and desires embed analog-magnitude representations of value. There is, however, an element of truth in the idea that intentions can differ in strength, at least as a trait-like property of individuals.

This chapter argues that beliefs are causally effective representational states. They admit of two main kinds: episodic and semantic forms of memory. These are argued to be distinct, although they have overlapping origins. The chapter also discusses the states often described as beliefs that result from one making up one’s mind (forming a judgment), but many of which are really commitments (a type of intention). The relations between episodic memory and imagination are also discussed. The chapter then examines the idea that moral judgments can be directly motivating, showing that it contains an element of truth. Finally, the chapter critiques a claim that has become popular among armchair-philosophers, that knowledge is a basic kind of intrinsically factive mental state.

This chapter considers what mental actions are, and how they are best explained. Mental actions are shown to include mental rehearsal of actions, prospective imagining, inner speech, attention, memory search, and (perhaps surprisingly) the spontaneous thoughts that occur while mind-wandering, as well as creative ideas that seemingly occur to one “out of the blue.” The chapter also discusses how controlled sequences of mental action can be explained, and discusses events like judgments and decisions that armchair-philosophers have been apt to claim are mental actions, but really are not.

This chapter is partly about how actions are executed and how the details of people’s behavioral performance should be explained. But it also introduces some classes of action that find no place within the standard belief-desire model. These include habitual actions as well as speeded skilled actions, including many speech actions. To the extent that philosophers have addressed these kinds of action at all, their theories have run the gamut from complete mindlessness to full-blown intellectualism. The chapter critiques some influential accounts of the latter sort, after emphasizing that skilled actions are as distinctively human as are our rational capacities.