An intention to do something
A has a motivational dimension, as does a desire to
A. Having an intention also is widely regarded as requiring the satisfaction of a belief condition of some sort. Few philosophers of action would maintain that people who believe that their chance of winning today's lottery is about one in a million intend to win the lottery, no matter how strongly they desire to win. A relatively popular claim is that having an intention to
A requires believing that one (probably) will
A. The proposal is designed to capture, among other things, the confidence in one's success that intending allegedly involves. A less demanding claim is that having an intention to
A requires that one lack the belief that one (probably) will not
A. (The agent may have no belief on the matter.) Other alternatives include the requirement that the agent believe to some nonzero degree (even a degree associated with a subjective probability well below 0.5) that he or she will
A and the requirement that the agent believe that there is a chance that he or she can
A.
Philosophers are divided on how tight the connection is between intentions, on the one hand, and desires and beliefs, on the other.
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