Desire as Belief: A Study of Desire, Motivation, and Rationality

A prominent model of human action assumes that our desires explain our actions. This book argues that desires are a specific type of normative belief and that we can use orthodox models of motivation and rationality while still allowing our normative beliefs to play a role. It also rejects the idea that desires themselves can never be right or wrong, instead suggesting that we can assess their accuracy and determine whether they misrepresent normative features of the world.

\n Format: Hardback
\n Length: 240 pages
\n Publication date: 30 June 2021
\n Publisher: Oxford University Press
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A widely accepted model of human behavior posits that our desires can be universally explained, serving as a fundamental driving force behind our actions. A related perspective assesses the rationality or otherwise of our actions by referencing our desires. However, these dominant viewpoints clash with two commonly held notions. Firstly, our normative beliefs, encompassing our ideas of what we ought to do, occasionally influence our actions. Secondly, these beliefs hold significant importance in determining the rationality of our actions. In an attempt to reconcile these tensions, this book advocates for desire-as-belief, the perspective that desires constitute a distinct subset of our normative beliefs. This view grants us the ability to embrace orthodox models of human motivation and rationality, which explain these aspects in terms of desires, while also accommodating the role of our normative beliefs in these domains. Furthermore, desire-as-belief suggests that we should deviate from the conventional view that desires themselves can never be deemed right or wrong. Instead, according to this perspective, our desires can be evaluated for their accuracy, and they are deemed incorrect when they fail to accurately represent the normative features of the world.

Hume asserts that it is not inherently unreasonable to prefer the destruction of the entire world over the mere scratching of your finger. However, he is mistaken in this assertion: it is foolish to hold such a preference, as it misrepresents the relative value of these entities. This book presents an engaging and comprehensive defense of these ideas.

\n Weight: 498g\n
Dimension: 160 x 241 x 23 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9780198848172\n \n