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The Nature of Desire
The Nature of Desire
Federico Lauria
Edited by
and Julien A. Deonna
1
1
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the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
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9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
CONTENTS
Acknowledgmentsâ•… vii
Contributorsâ•… ix
Index 337
vi | Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
viii | Acknowledgments
CONTRIBUTORS
x | Contributors
Timothy Schroeder grew up on the Canadian prairies, an environment
that afforded him plenty of time for philosophical speculation. He received
his BA from the University of Lethbridge and his PhD from Stanford
University and is now a professor of philosophy at Rice University. He is
the author of Three Faces of Desire (Oxford University Press, 2004) and,
with Nomy Arpaly, of In Praise of Desire (Oxford University Press, 2014).
G. F. Schueler is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of
Delaware. He is the author of Desire (MIT Press, 1995) and Reasons and
Purposes (Oxford University Press, 2003) as well as articles on ethics, phi-
losophy of action, and philosophy of mind in various philosophy journals.
David Wall was most recently a lecturer in philosophy at the University
of Northampton. His research interests lie in philosophy of mind, episte-
mology, philosophy of action, and moral psychology. In particular he is
interested in theories of desire, introspection and self-deception, Moore’s
Paradox, akrasia, and animal ethics, and has published articles on some of
these subjects.
Contributors | xi
The Nature of Desire
Introduction
Reconsidering Some Dogmas about Desires
Federico Lauria and Julien A. Deonna
Our life is imbued with desire. While some people desire to see the ocean,
others want to live in New York. While some people want to understand
the laws of the universe, Juliet simply aspires to kiss Romeo. Some desires
are stronger than others. Some last longer than others. Sometimes we are
happy because one of our desires is gratified; on another occasion, we may
cry due to the frustration of a desire. These are among the many platitudes
of the life of desire. One may wonder: What is this thing called ‘desire’?
What is the essence of desire? This is the main question addressed in this
volume.
Desires play an important role in our lives. Yet contemporary philos-
ophy has neglected the issue of the nature of desire as compared with
investigations of perception, belief, emotion, intention, and other types
of mental states. Although there are some notable exceptions to this
neglect (Marks 1986; Stampe 1986, 1987; Schroeder 2004; Oddie 2005;
Tenenbaum 2007; Friedrich 2012; Arpaly and Schroeder 2013), it is fair
to say that no live debate on the nature of desire is presently taking place
(see Schroeder 2015 for a similar diagnosis). The aim of this volume is to
redress this imbalance by bringing together scholars who adopt different
perspectives on the subject. The volume aspires to draw a taxonomy of the
main conceptions of desire and to create a fruitful debate about this under-
explored topic. But why is it important to understand desire, and what
does the philosophy of desire consist of? In what follows, this question is
answered from three distinct angles.
Beyond the Dogma of the Motivational Conception
of Desire
The lack of a real debate about desire is perplexing. The central explana-
tion for this fact is, we believe, that one intuitive view of desire is often
taken for granted in the philosophical literature. It is, we conjecture, the
main dogma of desire. Since Hume, most philosophers have assumed that
desire is essentially a motivational state (Armstrong 1968; Stampe 1986;
Stalnaker 1984 Smith 1994; Dretske 1988; Dancy 2000; Millikan 2005).
In this “hydraulic” view of desire (McDowell’s 1998 expression), desire
is the spring of action par excellence. To desire, for example to listen to
a symphony, is nothing but being inclined to do so—end of story. The
motivational conception of desire is rarely defended in detail, but it is pre-
supposed in numerous debates. Most interpretations of the notion of direc-
tion of fit rely on it; functionalist accounts of desire often mention it in
passing; standard views of action and decision making in philosophy and
economics build on it; and disagreements about whether desires can be
reasons for acting often revolve around it. From this perspective, action
and motivation are key to understanding desire. But is motivation all there
is to desiring?
There are reasons to doubt it. To start with, our folk concept of desire
appears much richer. When we acknowledge our desires, are we merely
talking about our motivations to act? Intuitively, professing my desire to
see Juliet seems to go beyond conveying the motivation to act so as to
see her; it seems to express something deeper. Furthermore, looking at
the history of philosophy or the contemporary literature, there is another
approach to desire that deserves special attention. On this conception, to
desire something is to evaluate it in a positive light. Desiring to swim in
the river is to represent this state as good in some way or other. According
to this evaluative conception, which can be traced back to Aristotle at least
and which has found new advocates recently, goodness is the crux around
which desire revolves.1 Given their historical pedigree, we shall call the
motivational and evaluative conceptions the “classical views of desire.” On
the face of it, they seem very different. The evaluative view is centered on
goodness, while the motivational view concentrates on motivation. Now,
goodness and motivation seem to be distinct concepts despite the intimate
relations that exist between them. As the debate on moral motivation has
taught us, it might be that one could positively evaluate a state of affairs
without being motivated to realize it. It is thus fair to ask which one of the
two conceptions captures desire best. Is desire essentially a motivational
Introductionâ•… |â•…3
“guise of the good” thesis has an important historical pedigree: it can be
traced back to at least Plato, was at the heart of the scholastic conception
of desire in the Middle Ages, and is often referred to in the contemporary
literature.3 Although friends of the evaluative conception of desire natu-
rally embrace this thesis, other views are compatible with it: that desiring
involves a positive evaluation does not imply that it is a positive evalua-
tion. Can we not desire something without seeing any good in it? If so,
what does this teach us about desire (see Oddie, Massin this volume; for
detractors of this thesis, see Stocker 1979; Velleman 1992; Döring and
Eker this volume)?
Another dogma that is less often examined concerns a form of impos-
sibility in desire. Since Plato, it is common to think that one cannot desire
what one already has. Consider that I want to climb Mount Etna. The intu-
ition is that as long as I have a desire to climb Mount Etna, I have not
climbed it. As soon as I have, my desire extinguishes itself. Desires are
for absences, or, less metaphorically, they are about what is not actual.4
Although some scholars disagree about the formulation of the principle
(see Boghossian 2003; Oddie 2005; Lauria this volume), some version of
the principle is often taken for granted. What does this reveal about desire
(see Oddie, Lauria, Massin this volume)? And is it true (for detractors, see
Heathwood 2007; Oddie this volume)?
Finally, leaving armchair philosophy, it is uncontroversial in the neu-
rosciences that desires are strongly implicated in the reward system and
are closely connected to the neurotransmitter dopamine (Schultz 1997;
Schultz, Tremblay and Hollerman 1998; Schroeder 2004). According to
the standard neuroscientific picture, desire involves the anticipation of
reward and the encoding of prediction errors: in desiring something, one
anticipates some reward (say, a banana) and then compares the expected
reward with the actual obtaining of the reward. In this way, desires are cru-
cial for learning in the sense of adapting one’s behavior to one’s environ-
ment. How can this help us understand the nature of desire (see Schroeder,
Railton, Lauria this volume)? Examining these four dogmas is another
way of questioning the received wisdom about desire and has the potential
to shed new light on its essence.
The issue of the nature of desire is important per se, but it can also illu-
minate other philosophical puzzles—╉controversies in which desires are
Introduction | 5
A more detailed examination of what desires are can thus lead to a bet-
ter understanding of important and various philosophical concerns. We
have focused here on established controversies where desires surface, but
it goes without saying that more neglected issues will also benefit from
this inquiry (see the second part of this volume).
With these clarifications in mind, the aim of this volume can be further
specified as follows. In addition to examining the classical views of desire,
this collection of essays purports to explore the dogmas about desire one
finds in the literature. And it does so with an eye to the implications the
nature of desire has with regard to wider controversies.
The book is divided into two parts. The first tackles directly the ques-
tion of the essence of desire; the second addresses unexplored issues
in the philosophical literature that bear on conceptions of desire. In the
remainder of this introduction, we summarize each contribution and raise
questions that connect each with other essays in the volume. This should
convince the reader that a fruitful and rich debate about the nature of desire
has begun.
I.╇Conceptions of Desire
Are desires positive evaluations? Are they motivations? Are there alter-
native conceptions? What does the empirical evidence suggest about the
nature of desire?
This section is divided into four subsections corresponding to each
question raised.
Introduction | 7
experience’—╉consisting of the feeling of felt need. When desiring a cup
of coffee, one represents having coffee as good, in that one feels the need
for coffee and that one must have it. This captures the phenomenal tone of
desire and can in turn explain desire’s special motivational power.
The intuition that desires are evaluative representations is compelling.
The authors do a great job of exploring it and rebutting several objections
to the evaluative conception. Still, some questions remain and other con-
tributions in the volume help to frame them.
Is it enough to represent a state of affairs in a positive way to desire that
state of affairs? There are reasons to doubt it. For instance, one might posi-
tively evaluate that Mozart lived a longer life yet not desire this: one would
rather wish that he lived longer (Döring and Eker this volume). Similarly,
one can evaluate positively the fact that Obama was elected without desir-
ing so, as one is aware that this state of affairs has obtained (Döring and
Eker this volume). And, having lost hope, Pollyanna could believe that
being in jail is after all a good thing without desiring to be there (Döring
and Eker this volume). Or consider that Othello is clinically depressed: he
represents Desdemona’s well-╉being as a good thing but, because of his
depression, fails to desire that she fare well (Lauria this volume). Aren’t
these possible scenarios? Strictly speaking, the evaluative conception does
not entail that all positive evaluations are desires; some might be other
phenomena such as emotions or long-╉standing affective states that involve
desires only indirectly (see Oddie this volume). But isn’t, then, the evalua-
tive conception too modest as an account of desire? The appeal to the feel-
ing of felt need might be helpful, since it seems to go beyond mere positive
evaluation. But does this not amount to giving up on an evaluative account
of desire and switching to a deontic approach like the one explored by
Lauria and Massin in this volume?
The second question that we can raise about the evaluative conception
of desire is more dramatic: Do all desires involve a positive evaluation?
Do we desire everything under the “guise of the good”? This question is
answered negatively by Döring and Eker, who open the exploration of the
motivational conceptions of desire.
Introduction | 9
Radiowoman’s behavior less puzzling? This touches on the vexed question
of whether desires justify actions and how they could do so.
In her contribution, “Desires, Dispositions and the Explanation of
Action,” Alvarez tackles this issue from an unexplored angle. She agrees
that desires figure into action explanation in virtue of being dispositions.
She thus proposes to explore the role of desire in action explanation by
investigating the dispositional nature of desire. Dispositions can exist at
some point in time without being manifested at that time: a sugar cube can
be soluble even if it does not dissolve now. Similarly, I can desire some-
thing, at some point in time, even if I do not manifest my desire at this
time. Desires are thus dispositions. But to what are they dispositions? In
other words, how are we to characterize their manifestation? The traditional
answer to this question is that desires are dispositions to act. By contrast,
Alvarez argues that the manifestations of desire constitute a much richer
set: it encompasses behaviors (e.g. actions), expressions (e.g. linguistic
acts), and inner mental states (e.g. anticipated pleasure). By exploring the
variety of desire’s manifestations, Alvarez proposes an integrative approach
to desire that reconciles rival accounts of desire (e.g. the hedonic and the
motivational conceptions of desire). In addition, investigating further the
relation between desires and their manifestations sheds new light on how
desires explain action. Desires differ from physical dispositions such as fra-
gility and solubility. A glass is still fragile even if it never breaks or mani-
fests its fragility in some way; what is needed is that it would do so in some
circumstances. Desires are not like this: one cannot desire something with-
out manifesting the disposition in some way or other, i.e. being disposed
to act or expect some pleasure, etc., as is attested by the fact that we do not
attribute a desire for holidays to a person who never thinks about holidays,
never expects pleasure from a holiday, or never considers taking one. It
appears that desires are dispositions that cannot exist without at least one
of their manifestations taking place. This invites us to think about the way
desire explains action in a more holistic fashion than is usually the case.
At this junction we may wonder how the dispositional profile of desire
relates to the classical views of desire. For instance, does the fact that
desires are dispositions admitting of various manifestations go against the
thought that they are essentially evaluations? Is the evaluative nature of
desire not one way of unifying their manifold manifestations? We begin
to appreciate how complex the relations between the different conceptions
of desires and the various perspectives we may have on them can become.
Another question concerns the intuitive distinction between disposi-
tional or standing desires, on the one hand, and occurrent or episodic ones,
Introduction | 11
mental counterpart of the meta-ethical explanatory relations already men-
tioned. The deontic view can thus accommodate the intuitions that drive
classical views of desire. Yet as far as desire is concerned, these concep-
tions slightly miss their target.
Lauria’s contribution brings a new perspective to the classical views. One
line of criticism raised by other contributors to this volume concerns the
“death of desire” principle—one of the dogmas of desire. Lauria assumes
that a desire ceases to exist when one represents that its content obtains.
And he argues that this is satisfactorily explained by the deontic view,
because norms cease to exist when they are satisfied: a state of affairs, say,
that it rains, cannot be such that it ought to obtain and is obtaining at the
same time. Yet both the explanandum and the explanans are questionable.
Consider that Hillary wants to be the first female president of the United
States and that at some point she becomes president (Oddie’s example in
this volume). Can she not still desire to be the first female president of the
United States despite knowing that she has won the election? Moreover,
can she not believe that things are exactly how they should be and rightly
so (Massin this volume)?
Another question concerns the degree of sophistication that desires end
up having in the deontic view. It seems that babies and non-human animals
have desires. Do they really represent things as what ought to be? Prima
facie, this seems a quite complex representation compared to evaluations
or motivations. This worry is reminiscent of the objection often raised
against doxastic views of desire (see Friedrich, Döring and Eker this vol-
ume) and examined by some contributor (see Gregory’s reply).
Adopting a similar approach in his “Desire, Values and Norms,” Massin
argues that the formal object of desire is better construed as being deontic
than evaluative. In other words, desiring something implies representing it
under the guise of the ought-to-be or of the ought-to-do (the “guise of the
ought” thesis). Unlike Lauria, Massin appeals to norms in general, not only
norms of the ought-to-be type. Moreover, he considers that the “guise of
the ought” thesis is necessary but not sufficient to desire. The argument he
proposes focuses on the polarity of desire. Aversion is the polar opposite
of desire, as hate is the polar opposite of love. Still, the two pairs of oppo-
sites differ. The opposition between desire and aversion, argues Massin, is
best understood in deontic rather than evaluative terms, and this contrasts
with love and hate. A detour in deontic logic reveals why. Logic teaches us
that obligation and interdiction are interdefinable: they define each other
with the help of negation. Something is forbidden (say, stealing) if, and
only if, it is obligatory that this thing does not happen (it is obligatory not
Introduction | 13
this volume). As mentioned earlier, there are some difficulties in account-
ing for desire in terms of beliefs. Gregory’s contribution goes a long way
toward rebutting a number of objections. He considers worries concerning
desires’ direction of fit, appetites, and objections about the sufficiency and
necessity of the view. Let us mention two examples that tightly connect
with other key issues in the volume. We already mentioned that desires
differ from beliefs in terms of direction of fit. How, then, could a desire
be a belief? Gregory argues that desires have both directions of fit and
that the same is true of beliefs about practical reasons. More importantly,
it is common to think that desires cannot be assimilated to beliefs on the
grounds that non-human animals have desires but lack beliefs (Friedrich,
Döring and Eker this volume). Against this objection, Gregory considers
the possibility that non-human animals have a minimal grasp of reasons to
act and thus, in a sense, have normative beliefs. Alternatively, it might be
that non-human animals have drives rather than desires. Finally, Gregory
argues that his account is superior to the appearance view, i.e. the idea
that desires are appearances of the good (Oddie this volume) or of reasons
(Scanlon 2000). Appearances, he argues, are unlike desires in that they fall
outside our rational control.
Gregory does a great job at undermining the main difficulties associ-
ated with the desire-as-belief account. The objections examined are remi-
niscent of the ones that have been raised against the view that desires are
evaluative beliefs and that have often been used to dismiss it without being
carefully examined. This similitude raises the following question: Should
desires be understood in terms of beliefs about reasons rather than in terms
of beliefs about values or other normative entities such as norms? Are we
to identify values with reasons, in which case the two proposals would
boil down to the same thing? This is where the philosophy of desire meets
vexed meta-ethical issues.
From another perspective, one might wonder whether identifying desire
with belief is supported by empirical evidence. Lewis famously argued
that reducing desire to belief cannot accommodate the regulation of desire
and belief predicted by Bayesian models of decision making, which is the
main empirical model in economics (Lewis 1988). It is also an open ques-
tion whether reducing desire to belief is compatible with neuroscientific
studies in this area. The next section touches on these questions.
Illinois, 158
Indiana, 158
Indians, 144, 149, 163, 164;
in New York, 14, 17, 18, 33;
at Watauga, 138;
at Point Pleasant, 155
Indies, hope of reaching, 15
Iron works, 121, 129, 170, 180
Iroquois Indians, 18