Vigilance

Abstract

Although intentions guide actions over time, they also create coordination problems. In this paper, we explain the source of these problems, and we describe how human agents go about solving them. In short, intentions raise coordination problems because our agency is typically scattered in time. These problems are solved because we can exercise vigilance, a capacity to keep track of our plans and manage attention and memory accordingly. In discussing these claims, we criticize a standard model of intention implementation and provide a sketch of a more suitable way for thinking about intending in the context of simultaneous goal‐pursuit. In the end, we also draw some some practical consequences for the rationality of intending and planning.