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Abstract
A central aspect of desire is the alluringness with which the desired object appears to the desirer. But what explains the alluringness of desire? According to the standard view, desire presents its objects with a certain allure because desire involves believing that the desired object is good. However, this cannot explain how those who lack the cognitive sophistication required for evaluative concepts can nonetheless have desires, how nihilists can continue to have desires, nor how we can desire things we believe to be evaluatively neutral or even evaluatively bad. A variation on the standard view – that desire presents its objects with a certain allure because desire involves being in a belief-like state that represents the desired object to be good – avoids these problems, but still falsely entails that desire is subject to the norm of truth. Indeed, I argue that ultimately such cognitive accounts of the alluringness of desire have seemed compelling only because of the difficulty of providing an intelligible non-cognitive alternative and I proceed to make such an alternative account of the alluringness of desire explicit in broad outline, arguing that it promises a more faithful understanding of the phenomena.
Notes
Some who run with this idea identify desire with such a cognitive evaluation. Others think that desire is, at least in part, constituted by a cognitive evaluation, whereas yet others merely think that desire entails a cognitive evaluation. While these involve quite different ideas about the nature of desire (some even consistent with the idea that desire is a non-cognitive state), I will group all of them under the label ‘cognitivism about’.
I should add a qualification. Plausibly, the English term ‘desire’ refers to a mixed bag of phenomena. Perhaps a cognitive account is indeed plausible for some instances that can properly be called desire. My claim is, however, that a non-cognitivist account offers the best theory for a substantial class of cases that are properly referred to as desire and that have an important theoretic role to play in the rationalization of action.
Put another way, we must keep the distinction between evaluative properties and evaluative concepts in mind and there are good reasons to think that evaluative concepts are irreducible to non-evaluative (and non-normative) concepts (Ewing Citation1944; Hare Citation1952; Moore Citation1988).
Can the cognitivist not reject this challenge and instead say that it suffices for her to show that desiring p entails the (non-evaluative) belief that the desired end is pleasurable? I do not think so. First, such a proposal could not do justice to the alluringness of desire since we often know that some action will be pleasurable but still do not see it as attractive or alluring at all. Second, such a proposal could not explain the rational significance of desire. Suppose I in fact have strong normative reasons to lower my blood pressure. Even so, merely believing that I can lower my blood pressure by taking some drugs will not make taking the drug intelligible from my own perspective. If beliefs can do this at all, then it must be evaluative or normative beliefs. The same goes for the belief that something is pleasurable. Unless this belief already involves an evaluative or normative component, it cannot make action intelligible from the agent's own perspective. Third, desiring p does not always involve the belief that p will be pleasurable. I may desire to run a marathon even if I believe that it will be absolutely gruesome rather than pleasurable. I may desire my team to win even if I believe that I will not live long enough to see my desire realized.
Those critical of minimal cognitivism tend to overlook this point. After arguing with much sensitivity and insight that desiring does not entail evaluative belief, Michael Stocker, for example, wonders why we should need or want to ascribe evaluative beliefs to all desirers. The answer, he says, cannot be that we need to do this in order to see their acts and reasons as intelligible. As argued, we can do that in light of their non-evaluative concerns, in terms of what they find attractive and compelling, in terms of their character and desires (Stocker Citation2004, 328).
In this way, cases of recalcitrant desires seem similar to phobias. I am incapable of standing on the glass platform of the CN tower even though I know fully well that no danger is present.
Or at least, it does not seem to be a matter of belief in the class of cases I am interested in – see also endnote 2.
Perhaps my having children would be good, but it cannot be good. Might it be said that the content of the perception is that the desired end would be good? No, because perception does not have counterfactual objects.
On one natural understanding, a mental state counts as a cognitive state just in case it represents something as a fact. On this understanding, beliefs and belief-like states make up the class of cognitive states. Hence, the label cognitivism about the alluringness of desire.
That a state is subject to the norm of truth must be distinguished from its having semantic truth conditions. Any state with content determines semantic truth conditions but not every content-bearing state is subject to the norm of truth. To imagine that p, for example, is to be in a state that has p as its semantic truth conditions, but being in that state does not make one subject to the norm of truth. There is no standard one falls short of by being in that state if p is not in fact the case. To mark this distinction, we might say states like imagining that p are states with content but not states with cognitive content. See also Martin Citation2002 and Schwitzgebel Citation1999.
Note, too, that there does not seem to be anything flawed about desires one knows can only be satisfied after one's death and the satisfaction of which will thus not be pleasurable.
What I refer to as mental ‘force' is what Brentano calls 'Intentionalitätsrelationen' (Brentano Citation1911; Brentano and Hague Citation1902; see also Searle Citation1983). However, might it be said that a belief that p is simply a thought that p is true? No, for this proposal makes it mysterious that we should have voluntary control over our thoughts but not over our beliefs (Hume Citation2003, Appendix). Moreover, any content can appear in ‘unasserted contexts’, such as the antecedent of a conditional or as part of a disjunction. Entertaining a content in such a context does not imply believing it to be true (Dummett Citation1993). Alternatively, might it be said that entertaining p in thought is (occurently) believing that it is conceivable that p? No, for once again this proposal makes it mysterious that we should have voluntary control over our thoughts but not over our beliefs (Hume Citation2003, Appendix). Moreover, intuitively the belief that it is conceivable that p is often formed as a result of successfully trying to conceive of p. That is, merely entertaining p in thought at least sometimes seems to be the ground for believing that it is conceivable that p and hence cannot be analyzed as this belief.
Another important question is how mental forces relate to propositional attitudes. My sense is that propositional attitudes are more fine-grained, that is, that we want to draw distinctions at the level of propositional attitudes that cannot be drawn at the level of mental force. For example, perceiving that p and believing that p involve distinct propositional attitudes, but apparently involve the same kind of mental force – in both cases, a content is given in thought as a purported fact. However, there is room for developing a theory of mental force in different directions here. Note, too, that, given my suggestion above, there is another reason for not collapsing the concept of mental force into the concept of a propositional attitude. Suppose that evaluative mental force was tied to phenomenal character. It would seem to follow that we have a propositional attitude without being in a state with evaluative force – e.g. we can continue having a desire while being asleep. We should be careful not to conclude that mental forces are irrelevant to propositional attitudes (e.g. having a propositional attitude may still entail a disposition to be in a state with the relevant mental force), but this does also suggest that the concept of a propositional attitude plays a slightly different role in our understanding of the mind.