Abstract
In this paper, I argue in favour of a model of intention as diachronically directed to an end. Thus, intention is conceived as an activity, process or bringing about of an object or state of affairs. This model explains how we effectively produce artefacts and specific kinds of artefacts which are institutional facts, including law. Furthermore, I reject the model of intention as a mental state since it cannot explain how mental states are effectively connected to its intended effects. The alternative solution advanced by the classical tradition and some contemporary authors, such as Anscombe, provides the idea of intention as a process of bringing about something. Intentions run parallel to our capacities for reasoning and this process creates an order to reasons that makes intelligible the product of the process. This sheds a new light on the idea that law is an artefact and therefore something that we bring about in the world.