Intentional Underdetermination From Shared Traces: Why the Same Record Can Fit Design and Mistake

This conceptual paper introduces Intentional Underdetermination From Shared Traces, a structural constraint on inferring intention from an available record. When the same sequence of acts is compatible with deliberate exploitation and innocent misunderstanding, identifying that sequence does not uniquely establish which intention was present. The paper separates claims about conduct, consequences, and intent, asking what evidence supports each. Compatibility does not make competing histories equally probable. Differences in expected evidence and relevant background information can favor one account, and further evidence may distinguish them. Uncertainty about intent does not diminish established harm or require withholding every practical judgment. The discussion connects the constraint to Jones and Davis’s work on attribution and examines Morissette v. United States (1952). The case concerns a trial court’s treatment of taking property as sufficient to settle intent. The Supreme Court held that intent required the jury’s assessment of conduct and surrounding circumstances; it did not decide what Morissette believed. Part of the Definitions and Evidence series within On Human Modeling, the paper offers questions for separating descriptions of conduct from justified attributions of intention. Its framework can inform human–AI research on how systems infer human intentions, distinguish probabilistic support from unique identification, and communicate uncertainty when different explanations fit the same behavior.