How Verbal Reports of Desire May Mislead

Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 6 (4):241-249 (2017)
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Abstract

In this paper I highlight two noteworthy features of assertions about our desires, and then highlight two ways in which they can mislead us into drawing unwarranted conclusions about desire. Some of our assertions may indicate that we are sometimes motivated independently of desire, and other assertions may suggest that there are vast divergences between our normative judgements and our desires. But I suggest that some such assertions are, in this respect, potentially misleading, and have in fact misled authors such as Russ Shafer-Landau, Jack Woods, and Tim Scanlon.

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Alex Gregory
University of Southampton

Citations of this work

Lacking, needing, and wanting.David Hunter - 2023 - Analytic Philosophy 64 (2):143-160.
Akratic Action under the Guise of the Good.Eugene Chislenko - 2020 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 50 (5):606-621.
Lacking, needing, and wanting.David Hunter - 2023 - Analytic Philosophy 64 (2):143-160.
A Disjunctive Account of Desire.Kael McCormack - 2022 - Dissertation, University of New South Wales

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References found in this work

What we owe to each other.Thomas Scanlon - 1998 - Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
What We Owe to Each Other.Thomas Scanlon - 2002 - Mind 111 (442):323-354.
Studies in the Way of Words.Paul Grice - 1989 - Philosophy 65 (251):111-113.

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