Intentional action in folk psychology: An experimental investigation

Four experiments examined people's folk-psychological concept of intentional action. The chief question was whether or not evaluative considerations--considerations of good and bad, right and wrong, praise and blame--played any role in that concept. The results indicated that the moral qualities of a behavior strongly influence people's judgments as to whether or not that behavior should be considered "intentional." After eliminating a number of alternative explanations, the author concludes that this effect is best explained by the hypothesis that evaluative considerations do play some role in people's concept of intentional action.