Desire and Motivation
Edited by Joshua May (University of Alabama, Birmingham)
About this topic
Summary | Often the term "desire" in philosophy has a fairly technical use to simply mean motivational mental state. After all, desires are often defined as mental states with a "world-to-mind" direction of fit: states that function to be efficacious (for the world to fit the mind). Beliefs, in contrast, are states whose function is "mind-to-world"---functioning to accurately represent how things are in the world outside the mind. This naturally leads to what some call "the Humean theory of motivation," which states roughly that motivation always requires desire. One incarnation of this states: whenever one intentionally performs some action, A, one must have a preceding desire to A. Two main camps have disputed such claims. First, besire theorists maintain that sometimes beliefs or other characteristically cognitive states (especially moral beliefs) can themselves be motivational states; they can have both directions of fit. Second, anti-reductionists hold that some characteristically conative or motivational states, like intentions, are not reducible to desires (or combinations of beliefs and desires). Accepting the above brand of "Humeanism" does not commit one to other versions as well. For example, various rationalists maintain that beliefs can directly produce motivation while admitting that one must always have a desire to perform the action prior to executing it intentionally. On such a view, certain beliefs (e.g. the belief that donating $200 to Oxfam is a moral obligation) can directly produce a desire to act in accordance with them (i.e. a desire to donate $200 to Oxfam) without this serving or furthering some antecedent desire (e.g. a desire to do whatever is morally required of me). In this way, we may not be "slaves of our passions" even though desires are required somewhere in the motivational chain. |
Key works | The seeds of the idea of two key directions of fit are in Hume & Macnabb 1738 (2.3.3), but it is more explicitly drawn out in Anscombe 1957 (with her shopping list example, section 32) and is more recently developed in detail by Davidson 1963 and Smith 1987. For defenses of the besire theory, see Platts 1980. Some also interpret Nagel 1970 and McDowell & McFetridge 1978 as besire theorists. Bratman 1987 and Mele 1987 (see also Mele 1992) defend the idea that intentions are motivational states distinct from desires. Smith 1994 and Wallace 2006 explicitly defend versions of the rationalist position described above. |
Introductions | The entry by Schroeder 2009 provides an excellent overview of desire; Pettit 1998 is more brief but also useful. See Schueler 2013 for an introduction to direction of fit. Mele 1995 argues that desires play a key role in motivation, but it also serves as an overview of many relevant issues; see also Mele 2003 (esp. ch. 1). Wallace 1990 provides a fairly lengthy but excellent introduction to key arguments for the role of desire in moral motivation. |
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Related categories
Siblings:
- Desire and Reason (303)
- Desire as Belief (43)
- Pleasure and Desire (108)
- Higher-Order Desire (7)
- Theories of Desire, Misc (81)
- Desire Satisfaction Accounts of Well-Being (195)
- Desire, Misc (59)
- Reasons and Causes (687)
- Desire Ascriptions (40)
- Motivation and Will (2,026 | 861)
- Desire and Reason (303)
- Desire as Belief (43)
- Intentions (1,839 | 370)
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David Bourget (Western Ontario) David Chalmers (ANU, NYU) Area Editors: David Bourget Gwen Bradford Berit Brogaard Margaret Cameron David Chalmers James Chase Rafael De Clercq Ezio Di Nucci Esa Diaz-Leon Barry Hallen Hans Halvorson Jonathan Ichikawa Michelle Kosch Øystein Linnebo JeeLoo Liu Paul Livingston Brandon Look Manolo Martínez Matthew McGrath Michiru Nagatsu Susana Nuccetelli Giuseppe Primiero Jack Alan Reynolds Darrell P. Rowbottom Aleksandra Samonek Constantine Sandis Howard Sankey Jonathan Schaffer Thomas Senor Robin Smith Daniel Star Jussi Suikkanen Aness Kim Webster Other editors Contact us Learn more about PhilPapers |