The Nature of Desire and the Debate over Internal and External Reasons: A New Way Forward

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The Nature of Desire and the Debate over Internal
and External Reasons A New Way Forward?

• Peter Railton
• University of Oslo
• May 2009

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• Napoleon
• Imagination rules the world.

• Wittgenstein
• Dont make it a matter of course, but as a
  remarkable fact, that pictures and fictions give
  us pleasure, occupy our minds.

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A critical diagnosis

• At the middle of the 20th century, two
  philosophers, W.K. Frankena and W.D. Falk
  independently offered a diagnosis of the most
  basic dispute underlying contemporary
  meta-ethics the connection between normative
  judgments and motivation.
• They pointed out that this underlies the split
  between cognitivists (Moore, Ross, Prichard) and
  non-cognitivists (Ayer, Stevenson, Hare).

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What is this connection?

• According to the non-cognitivists, there is a
  necessary, semantic connection between making a
  moral judgment and having some degree of
  motivation to act in accordance with this
  judgment.
• Thus, necessarily, anyone making a sincere moral
  judgment of the form
• A ought to F
• is expressing a state of mind that has positive
  motivational force for A toward doing F,
  encouraging others to do F, etc. A pro-attitude
  toward F-ing.

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Why this connection?

• This connection offers a seemingly
  straightforward explanation of a number of facts
  about moral discourse and practice
• Why it is seen as a matter of insincerity to make
  a moral judgment but not show any tendency to act
  in accord with it.
• Why it would seem to be a failure to grasp moral
  concepts to fail to see this.
• How moral thought and language could be, by their
  nature, practical, i.e., could influence the
  will.
• Why moral conflicts seemed to be conflicts in
  attitude, not resolvable by a simple appeal to
  the facts.

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Every benefit has its costs

• If the state of mind expressed by sincere moral
  judgment is, necessarily, motivating for the
  speaker, then we cannot treat this state of mind
  as a belief.
• Why not?
• Beliefs have representational content, and are
  true just in case their propositional objects are
  true.
• But no proposition semantically entails
  motivation otherwise, it could not have
  orthodox truth conditions.
• As a result, moral judgments could not be
  assigned orthodox truth conditions.
• But we ordinarily do speak of moral judgments as
  true or false, use them in logical inference, etc.

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Frankena and Falk were right

• The next half-century in meta-ethics were taken
  up trying to sort this out.
• Could a non-propositional account of the content
  of moral judgments capture the logical behavior
  of moral judgments? Or explain how they come to
  be seen as true or false?
• Could a propositional account of the content of
  moral judgments capture the connection between
  moral judgment and motivation? Or explain why
  morality has the dynamical personal and social
  functions it does in shaping conduct?

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The current terrain, deadlocked

• Several dominant and seemingly stable, but
  conflicting, views have emerged, among them
• Motivational judgment internalism the original,
  conceptual connection between moral judgment and
  motivation
• Moral-reasons internalism the idea that the
  relation between moral judgments and motivation
  is normative not semantic, i.e., if one makes a
  moral judgment and is rational, one will be
  motivated
• Motivational judgment externalism the
  connection between moral judgment and motivation
  is essentially contingent, though perhaps highly
  regular and typical of almost all agents in
  virtue of highly general facts about human
  psychology.

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Some favorite examples

• The sensible knave and inverted commas usages
• a normative kind theorist should not be a
  hard-line, metaethical "externalist", who thinks
  that a "sensible knave" or "irrationalist" might
  fully share our normative concepts but not at all
  be guided in terms of them.   Anyone who
  "doesn't give a damn", for whom no question of
  action, actual or hypothetical, hinges on the
  classification, can't join into the conversation
  as full-fledged participant.  His use of this
  kind of language can only be parasitic on the
  usage of those who care.  Would a serenade be
  harassing as well as quaint?  The sensible cad
  might predict how people will classify serenades,
  or role-play at entering the discussion.  But it
  is puzzling what he is doing if he earnestly
  tries to take sides.  There is no such
  intelligible thing as pure theoretical curiosity
  in these matters. Gibbard 2003

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Some favorite examples

• The depressive
• The amoralist

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Which kind of internalism?

• At the same time, however, a quite different
  debate over internalism and externalism has
  arisen, starting with a classic essay by Bernard
  Williams, Internal and External Reasons
• Williams was concerned with so-called external
  reason attributions attribution to someone of a
  reason to act that had no resonance in that
  individuals subjective motivational set.
• It struck him that such attributions were mere
  bluff, they could not identify a reason for
  him, since they could not make this action, goal,
  etc. intelligible to him as an extension of what
  he cares about, values, or could come to care
  about or value through a sound deliberative
  route.

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This is a fundamentally different kind of
internalism

• This sort of internalism about reasons makes
  the following sort of claim as a matter of
  metaphysical necessity
• Necessarily, if B has a reason to F, then it is
  in principle possible for B to be led by a sound
  deliberative route to be motivated favorably
  toward F-ing
• Therefore, necessarily, if A judges that B has a
  reason to F, and no such connection to Bs
  motivations can be made, As claim is false.
• Note that this is a third-personal requirement,
  not a first-personal requirement on the sincerity
  of the speakers claim that A has a reason to F.
• It is a matter of Bs subjective motivational
  set, not the speakers
• And it is entirely consistent with reasons
  judgments possessing orthodox truth conditions of
  a perspective-independent kind.

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Existence internalism Some motivations

• Since it is a position on the existence
  conditions for reasons to act, this view is
  called motivational existence internalism.
• It can be defended on at least three grounds
• Reasons attributions have an explanatory role
• Reasons attributions ought to be justifiable to
  the agent
• Ought implies can

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A conflict?

• But existence internalism pulls us in quite a
  different direction from the original judgment
  internalism.
• Consider the supposed truism
• Necessarily, if A morally ought to F, then F has
  a reason to F
• The reason must at least be important, perhaps
  overriding. It certainly must be As reason so
  that A would be acting contrary to reason if A
  failed to F.
• On some views, this is the core of morality it
  is a form of pure practical rationality.
• But this constrains moral judgment by a
  3rd-personal motivational condition, not
  guaranteed by the 1st-personal.

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Methodological consideration

• We should be doubtful about philosophical claims
  with very sweeping implications when we cannot
  identify a stable conception of what the claim
  is.
• This seems to be the case with the connection
  between morality and motivation.
• So how to go forward?
• Today I will be focusing on the question, how to
  go forward in the debate on internal vs. external
  reasons.
• There might be time for a hint at the end about
  the debate over judgment vs. existence
  internalims.

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Look under the hood

• I will be claiming that forward movement is
  obstructed by a failure to go deeply enough into
  the nature of the supposed mental states involved
  e.g., belief and desire.
• This has unnecessarily restricted our options.
• Some presuppositions of the debate
• Beliefs are inert representations
• Desires lack representational content
• Desires cannot be more or less rational
• I believe all of these claims are false.

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Where we are

• On Wednesday, I introduced a model of belief as
  affect-involving in a way that showed why beliefs
  are not inert representations.
• In this I rejected the neo-Humean theory of
  motivation and returned to Humes original view
• in philosophy we can go no farther, than
  assert, that belief is something felt by the
  mind, which distinguishes the ideas of the
  judgment from the fictions of the imagination. It
  gives them more force and influence makes them
  appear of greater importance infixes them in the
  mind and renders them the governing principles
  of all our actions. Treatise of Human Nature

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Belief

• be lief
• be- leafa
• about trust, faith, love

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Credence

• cre dence
• kerd-
• heart

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Confidence

• con fidence
• kom- bheidh-
• with trust, faith

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True, Trust

• dreu-
• firm, steady

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Belief

• Belief that R
• A degree of confidence (trust) in a
  representation R functions to regulate a degree
  of expectation that things are or will be as R
  portrays them and this degree of confidence in
  turn is modulated by whether in subsequent
  experience this expectation is met or violated.

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New school Dual Process psychology affect
upstream from perceptual belief, directly
productive of behavior
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What of Desire?Return to the functionalist
starting point

• Belief and desire are correlative dispositional
  states of a potentially rational agent. To
  desire that P is to be disposed to act in ways
  that would tend to bring it about that P in a
  world in which ones beliefs, whatever they are,
  were true. To believe that P is to be disposed
  to act in ways that would tend to satisfy ones
  desires, whatever they are, in a world in which P
  (together with ones other beliefs) were true.
  Stalnaker, 1984

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de sire

• de- sider-
• apart, away star

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Kant on the good will

• Even if it should happen that, owing to special
  disfavour of fortune, or the niggardly provision
  of a step-motherly nature, this will should
  wholly lack power to accomplish its purpose, if
  with its greatest efforts it should yet achieve
  nothing, and there should remain only the good
  will (not, to be sure, a mere wish, but the
  summoning of all means in our power), then, like
  a jewel, it would still shine by its own light,
  as a thing which has its whole value in itself.
  Groundwork, 394

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Incentive

• in ? centive
• in- canere
• into song

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Kant on desire, life, and will

• Desire and life
• The faculty of desire is the faculty to be, by
  means of ones representations, the cause of the
  objects of those representations. The faculty of
  being able to act in accordance with its
  representations is called life.
• Metaphysics of Morals 6211

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Marx on humanity

• The operations carried out by a spider resemble
  those of a weaver, and many a human architect is
  put to shame by the bee in the construction of
  its wax cells. However, the poorest architect is
  categorically distinguished from the best of bees
  by the fact that before he builds a cell in wax,
  he has built it in his head. (Marx, Capital)

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Desire

• Desire that R
• A degree of positive affect toward a
  representation R functions to regulate a degree
  of positive motivation toward bringing about the
  state of affairs that R portrays and this degree
  of affect is subsequently modulated by whether
  actual experience of moving toward or realizing R
  is better, worse, or in conformity with
  expectations arising from the affective
  representation.

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Some of desires features

• Desire, when conscious, typically involves a
  desirability feature
• Desire comes in degrees of strength, and has two
  senses two naïve notions of wanting, which
  can come apart, which are normally coupled in a
  regulative way. Two psychologically more
  primitive states physiological evidence.
• Deire has a positive front end compare the
  itch theory
• Like belief, desire shapes the allocation of
  attention, thought, and forward-going action
• Like belief, desire creates expectation and leads
  to learning through feedback
• Like belief, desires structure quips it for
  attunement.

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Some of desires dysfunctions

• A number of phenomena we think of as
  irrationality in desire can be understood as
  dysregulation or dysfunction of this
  representation-centered, affect-based
  feedforward-feedback system
• Opaque desires and compulsions Quinns radio
  man
• Addiction the reluctant addict
• Change without learning when affect is
  systematically altered (depression and mania)
• Suggestibility and advertising spurious
  desires and miswanting
• Weakness of will - Wishing and wanting,
  salience and preference reversals

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Conditioned response, affective forecasting,
and error learning to like and unlearning
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Value-coded cognitive mapping foraging for
value
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Desire and acting for reasons

• The authority of desire Like belief, desire
  is a default, defeasible attitude that orients
  action without this, action would seem not to
  be possible (problems of regress).
• This does not threaten rationality, or acting for
  a reason. Rather, it permits practical
  attunement to reasons without leading to regress.
• Why informed desires have more authority, why
  they can contribute to the rationality of action
• Desire also is part of affective primacy it
  contributes to evaluative perception or
  affordances.
• It also enables us to see reasons and act
  accordingly, without needing to add any further
  desire.

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Emotional intelligence and cognitive tuning

• Belief, desire, and emotion all orient and help
  regulate subsequent thought and action, in part
  thanks to affective mechanisms
• This orientation and regulation reflects the
  strength of affect strength of confidence,
  liking, or feeling
• This orientation involves guidance via
  feedforward and feedback, creating
  expectation and comparing expectation with
  experienced outcome
• They also yield motivated cognition as well as
  action tendencies
• They all permit attunement to situations,
  possibilities, needs, and values, i.e., to
  reasons to think, feel, and do.

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Kant on choice and liking

• Every determination of choice proceeds from the
  representation of a possible action to the deed
  through the feeling of pleasure or displeasure,
  taking an interest in the action or its effect.
  MM, 6399

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An example Kant on the good, the will, and
liking

• despite all difference between the agreeable
  and the good, they do agree in this they are
  always connected with an interest in their
  object. This holds not only for the agreeable
  but also for what is good absolutely and in every
  respect, i.e., the moral good . For the good
  is the object of the will (a power of desire)
  determined by reason. But to will something and
  to have a liking for its existence, i.e., to take
  an interest in it, are identical. CJ 209

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This is how Kant explained the possibility of
action from duty

• Any consciousness of obligation depends upon
  moral feeling to make us aware of the constraint
  present in the thought of duty, there can be no
  duty to have the moral feeling or to acquire it
  . MM, 6399-400
• Respect (reverentia) is, again, something
  subjective, a feeling of a special kind, not a
  judgment about an object that it would be a duty
  to bring about or promote. For, such a duty,
  regarded as a duty, could be represented to us
  only through the respect we have for it. A duty
  to have respect would thus amount to being put
  under obligations to duties. MM, 6402-403

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Aristotle on acting for reasons

• Now the origin of action (the efficient, not the
  final cause) is choice, and the origin of choice
  is appetition and purposive reasoning. An
  action is an end in itself and the object of
  appetition. Hence choice is either appetitive
  intellect or intellectual appetition and man is
  a principle of this kind. NE 1139a32-b5

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Aristotle on action as practical attunement

• Brutes have sensation, but no share in action.
  Pursuit and avoidance in the sphere of
  appetition correspond exactly to affirmation and
  negation in the sphere of intellect .
• Since choice is deliberative appetition, it
  follows that if the choice is a good one, both
  the reasoning must be true and the desire right
  and the desire must pursue the same things that
  the reasoning asserts.
• We are here speaking of intellect and truth in a
  practical sense the function of practical
  intellect is to arrive at the truth that
  corresponds to right appetition. NE
  1113a20-28

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Rethinking the debate over internal and external
reasons?

• We should reject the neo-Humean account of belief
  and desire
• Attributing moral action the belief-desire
  model does not destroy the notion of acting for
  the right reason, with the right feeling, in the
  right way, at the right time
• At the same time, attributing moral action to
  desire does not require any additional
  motivational state over respect for the moral
  law. It does not require external reasons.
• Restricting reasons to what is derivable from
  someones existing subjective motivational set
  ignores the possibility that she might acquire
  new desires rationally, including respect for
  others, or for fairness, or for the moral law.

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• To Plotinus what we seek is VISION, what
• wakes when we wake to desire
• as the eye to the sun
• It is just as if you should fall in love with one
  of the sparrows which fly by
• when we wake to desire
• - Frank Bidart, Desire