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* This article has benefited from the input of Michael Bratman, Luca Ferrero, David Owens, and Gideon Yaffe as well as anonymous referees from Legal Theory. My thanks to all, and to Addison Draper and Gregory Zlotnick for their research assistance and Ian Ayres for our earlier collaboration.
There seems an obvious difference between conditional and unconditional intentions. Consider the two reports "I intend to go to the faculty meeting" and "I intend to go to the faculty meeting if I finish preparing my class." The first says that I simply mean to be there; the second that I mean be there in some possible futures and not in others. But perhaps the difference is only apparent. While my report that I intend simpliciter to go to the meeting does not describe my intention as conditional, it would be silly to understand me as saying that I mean to go no matter what. I do not intend to go if the meeting is cancelled. Nor do I expect to go if something more important comes up. I intend to go to the meeting ceteris paribus: unless something occurs to prevent me or to cause me to reconsider. A bit of reflection suggests that one never intends to do something come what may--that all intentions are subject to innumerable implicit ceteris paribus conditions. And now it looks as though the difference between the two cases lies not in the intention itself but in the way I describe it. While a report "I intend x if C" provides more information about when the speaker is likely to x, the attitude it reports is not different in kind from a nominally unconditional intention.
The slipperiness in the distinction between conditional and unconditional intentions creates a puzzle in a corner of contract theory. According to the doctrine of promissory fraud, a contractual promise implicitly represents a present intent to perform. To make a promise one intends to breach is to tell a lie. A plaintiff who can prove promissory fraud can recover not only compensatory damages for the breach but also punitive damages; in some cases an insincere promisor can even face criminal penalties. The puzzle is whether an undisclosed condition...