Unconscious goals: specific or unspecific? The potential harm of the goal/gene analogy.
Huang & Bargh's (H&B's) definition of goals is ambiguous between "specific goals" - the end-state of a token action I am about to perform - and "unspecific goals" - the end-state of an action-type (without specifying how this would be achieved). The analogy with selfish genes pushes the authors towards the former interpretation, but the latter would provide a more robust theoretical framework.
Centre for Philosophical Psychology, University of Antwerp, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium. bn206@cam.ac.uk or bence.nanay@ua.ac.be http://webh01.ua.ac.be/bence.nanay.
Bence
B
Nanay
D001519:Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D009042:Motivation / Q000502:physiology*