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What desires are, and are not

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Abstract

This paper criticizes the account of desire defended by Nomy Arpaly and Timothy Schroeder in their recent book, In Praise of Desire. It contrasts their account with one that I favor, a cluster analysis listing various criteria that are together sufficient for having paradigm desires, but none of which is necessary or sufficient for desiring. I argue that their account fails to state necessary or sufficient conditions, that it is explanatorily weaker than the cluster account, that it fails to provide a neat reduction of desires to neurophysical terms, and that in any case such a reduction is not required for the preservation of the concept of desire in mature psychology. Implications are drawn for the broader debate between reductionists, eliminativists, and defenders of folk psychological concepts.

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Notes

  1. Wittgenstein (1958).

  2. Gaut (2000).

  3. Arpaly and Schroeder (2014). Page references in the text are to this book. Schroeder (2004).

  4. I will not question the neurophysiology here. It has been questioned by Leonard Katz in his review of Three Faces of Desire in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, Sep. 9, 2005.

  5. See note 4.

  6. See, for example, Cohen (2005).

  7. Three Faces of Desire, p. 138.

  8. Thus Raz (1999), and Scanlon (1998), emphasize the cognitive aspect. Chang (2004), and Schueler (1995), focus on the affective aspect. Mele (2003), and Millgram (1997), pick out the dispositional or behavioral aspect.

  9. A summary of their positions can be found in Baier (1986).

  10. See (xxxx)

  11. Stich (1983).

  12. In Three Faces, Schroeder indicates the additional structures involved in generating instrumental desires, p. 154.

  13. Early proponents of this sort of analysis were Fehr and Russell (1984). Even Arpaly and Schroeder appear to endorse this sort of analysis for emotions, p. 216.

  14. Griffiths (1997).

  15. But compare Bennett (1991) and Blackburn (1991).

  16. For expansion and defense of this description, see Goldman (2009), Ch. 3, sec. II.

References

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Acknowledgments

This paper benefited from comments from Michael Veber, Josh Gert, Chris Tucker, Chad Vance, Tucker McKinney, Chris Freiman, and Jonah Goldwater, and from discussions following colloquium presentations at the University of Miami and East Carolina University. It was improved more in reaction to comments from an anonymous referee for this journal.

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  1. Williamsburg, VA, USA

    Alan H. Goldman

  2. Long Island, NY, USA

    Alan H. Goldman

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Goldman, A.H. What desires are, and are not. Philos Stud 174, 333–352 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-016-0684-5

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