## 1. Theories of Desire




There is a simple, conservative theory of desire according to which
having a desire is a matter of having dispositions to act. According to
this theory, dispositions to act are the only essential feature of
desires; the tendencies a person has to feel certain ways or think in
certain ways when she has a desire are interesting but inessential
tendencies. If Nora desires tea, this is because she is disposed to get
herself some tea, and her dispositions to feel good about tea, think
positively about getting tea, or to keep having her thoughts turn
toward getting tea are merely associated effects of her desire. The
simple, conservative theory has a number of competitors, each
emphasizing something different from, or in addition to, dispositions
to action.




In spite of the variety of theoretical options, the simple,
conservative theory of desire--the action-based theory--is
the most widely-held theory, making it the appropriate place to begin
any discussion.


### 1.1 Action-Based Theories of Desire




Consider a desire for a yellow mango. "The primitive sign of
wanting," Anscombe writes, "is trying to get"
(Anscombe 2000). Taking this thought to heart, one might hold that if
Janet tries to get a yellow mango, then a yellow mango is what Janet
desires. But Janet can desire a yellow mango even when she is not
trying to get one (she might be struck by a craving while all out of
mangoes, and not be willing to go shopping at that moment). So there is
reason to want something more elaborate as a theory of desire. To deal
with Janet, it might seem simplest to hold that desires
*dispose* us to action, without always bringing it about that we
act. Although Janet is not trying to get a mango, she is disposed to
get one--and would, were it only more convenient to do so. This
leads to a simple, action-based theory of desire.



> 
>  For an organism to desire *p* is for the organism to be
>  disposed to act so as to bring about *p*.
> 
>  




This sort of theory has been criticized for being insufficiently
restrictive, because it appears to attribute desires to organisms on
the basis of mere behavioral tics. For instance, if a woman has a
tendency to stutter, then it follows from the theory above that she has
a desire to stutter--simply because she is disposed to act so as
to stutter. For such reasons, it is common to prefer a more
sophisticated version of an action-based theory of desire.



> 
>  For an organism to desire *p* is for the organism to be
>  disposed to take whatever actions it believes are likely to bring about
>  *p*.
> 
>  




According to this theory, for Janet to desire to have a yellow mango
is just for her to be disposed to go to the fridge, or the store, or to
ask her friend, or to do whatever else she believes likely to get her a
yellow mango. She need not actually do any of these things, for she
might desire to do something else even more, or might be asleep, or
drugged, or otherwise prevented from doing the things she is disposed
to do, but she must be (at least to some extent) disposed to do them
all else being equal. Likewise, for John to desire that Janet love him
is for John to be disposed to take whatever actions he believes are
likely to make it the case that Janet loves him. And so on, for the
various desires that people and other organisms are capable of having.
Michael Smith has very clearly articulated this sort of theory of
desire in a number of works (Smith 1987; 1994).




Like their less sophisticated counterparts, more sophisticated
action-based theories of desire have been criticized for being
insufficiently restrictive. Dennis Stampe points out that a person who
believes that serving just so will cause him to double fault in tennis
might thereby become disposed to serve just so and double fault (being
nervous seems to have this effect quite often), but this would not show
that such a person desires to double fault (Stampe 1986). And a number
of philosophers have suggested that desires are only one psychological
state able to initiate action, so that it is a mistake to identify
desires with psychological states disposing us to actions. Some of
these philosophers have focused on the negative point, that what might
be called 'true desires' do not exhaust the possible
motivational states (Davis 1986; Marks 1986). Others have focused on a
positive alternative to desire as a motivating state, and these latter
have tended to focus on the idea that a judgment of what is good (or
obligatory) is at least one further psychological state that can lead
to action, independently of antecedent desire. In both the case of
desire and of belief in the good, being in such a state is being
disposed to take whatever actions are believed likely to bring about
what is desired or what is judged good. But according to these
philosophers, desires and judgments of goodness are very different
things. Hence action-based theories of desire fail to make an important
distinction (e.g., McDowell 1978; Scanlon 1998).




An important variant of action-based theories of desire holds that
desires are mental states that have the function of producing actions,
rather than mental states that merely dispose agents to act. On these
theories, a desire might or might not dispose an actor to satisfy the
desire, but causing that result is the job or purpose of the desire
(the biological function of the desire), or bringing about the
satisfaction of the desire is how the action-production systems do
their jobs or fulfill their purposes (Millikan 1984; Papineau 1987).
While these variations do well with Stampe-type objections (because it
is not the purpose of a belief that one is going to double fault to
cause a double fault), they nonetheless would seem to be subject to
objections by those who think that beliefs in the good can also perform
their functions by moving one to act.




To overcome these latter objections, the action-based theorist may
follow any of a number of lines of argument. The action-based theorist
may argue that mere beliefs in goodness cannot move agents to act,
given an independently motivated theory of belief in general (a
position open to many philosophers of mind with complementary theories
of belief and desire). Or he may argue that there is an incoherence in
the principles by which one should revise a belief in goodness and by
which one should revise one's dispositions to act (see the
discussion of Lewis below in section 1.3), so that there is something
incoherent in the idea of a belief in goodness that also moves one to
act. Or, in a more concessive spirit, he may allow that the
action-based theory of desire should be supplemented with other
elements (dispositions to pleasure, for instance) not characteristic of
beliefs in goodness.




One further difficulty for action-based theories of desire comes from
apparent desires for things that action is ill-suited to bring about
(evidence, that is, that the action-based theory of desire is
excessively restrictive). For example, suppose it is possible for me
to desire that pi be a rational number, or to desire that I had never
been born, or to desire that a committee decide in my favor regardless
of what I do (Schroeder 2004). These are desires that do not seem to
exist in virtue of facts about dispositions to action, even facts
about what actions I would perform if I were so foolish as to believe
that I could fulfill my desires by actions. In response, the
action-based theorist may hold that these attitudes are not true
desires at all but only related conative attitudes: wishes, perhaps. A
different line of response might be to hold that, even for such
desires, dispositions to act still exist, even if they are unlikely to
be acted upon in moderately reasonable people (Wall 2009).


### 1.2 Pleasure-Based Theories of Desire




As just suggested, philosophers who complain that an action-based
theory of desire fails to distinguish judgments of goodness from desire
sometimes suggest that pleasure is the key to this distinction.
According to these philosophers, a person moved by a desire always
enjoys what is desired, or eagerly anticipates the desire's
satisfaction, whereas a person moved only by a judgment of goodness
does not share these feelings (Schueler 1995; Vadas 1984; see also
Davis 1986). Insofar as this seems right, there is reason to try out a
theory of desire according to which dispositions to pleasure (and
displeasure) are all there is to desire. Perhaps desires only
contingently move us to action, but necessarily give rise to certain
feelings. A simple version of this theory holds:



> 
>  For an organism to desire *p* is for the organism to be
>  disposed to take pleasure in it seeming that *p* and displeasure
>  in it seeming that not-*p*.
> 
>  




In addition to considerations in moral psychology, there are also
reasons to prefer a pleasure-based theory of desire that stem from the
philosophy of mind. Galen Strawson defends a pleasure-based theory on
two grounds: first, Strawson holds that being a desire *for*
anything (or being a belief *about* anything or otherwise
exhibiting intentionality) requires consciousness, and pleasure and
displeasure are the states of consciousness most closely linked to
desire. And second, Strawson holds that it is conceivable that there be
creatures who would lack dispositions to act but who would have
dispositions to feelings of pleasure and displeasure, and that these
creatures would seem to have desires for the things that would please
them. These creatures might include actual human beings suffering from
neurological injuries removing their dispositions to act, and they
might include purely imaginary beings never born with capacities to
act, just capacities to feel (Strawson 1994).




Carolyn Morillo has also defended a pleasure-based theory of desire,
though on quite different grounds. Beginning on conceptual grounds,
Morillo argues that desires are ontologically independent of action,
because they are non-trivial explainers of action. And then on
empirical (specifically, neuroscientific) grounds, Morillo argues that
episodes of pleasure are identical to certain neural events (the
release of dopamine by what is known as the 'reward
system'), and these same neural events are the causal origin (in
conjunction with belief) of action. Thus, episodes of pleasure play the
role of desires, and so desires are episodes of pleasure (Morillo
1990).




A difficulty for pleasure-based theories of desire is that pleasure
has seemed to some to have a causal or representational relationship to
desire. According to these philosophers, net satisfaction of desire, or
net increase in satisfaction of desire, is the standard cause of
pleasure, and the pleasure caused perhaps represents this change in
desire satisfaction. If such views are correct, then it seems desires
must be ontologically distinct from pleasure in the way that causes are
distinct from their effects, or objects of representation from their
representations (Davis 1982; Schroeder 2004).


### 1.3 Good-Based Theories of Desire




While some philosophers hold that desires need to be strongly
separated from judgments of goodness, other philosophers think that
they need to be more closely linked. It was perhaps the view of
Socrates that to want something is simply to think it good, and it is
simple enough to formulate a theory of desire on this basis.



> 
>  For an organism to desire *p* is for it to believe *p*
>  is good.
> 
>  




Recommending such a theory is the intuition, shared by many, that we
are motivated to do what we judge good just because we judge it good
(and the intuition that, if I am motivated to do something, I desire to
do it). If I judge it good to go to a meeting of the PTA, then that
suffices to motivate me to go to the meeting, it would seem, and thus
(perhaps) to desire it.




David Lewis has mounted a challenge to such theories of desire on
the basis of results from decision theory (Lewis 1988; 1996). Lewis
considers the thesis, Desire As Belief, that a rational individual is
motivated to make true a proposition *p* to the extent that she
believes *p* to be good, and shows that within a familiar
decision-theoretic framework inconsistencies result. In Lewis's
argument, the result follows because of the differences between
rational belief revision and rational desire (or motivation) revision
within the decision-theoretic framework. In response to Lewis, a number
of philosophers have sought to defend the general idea that desires are
beliefs in goodness (or are entailed by such beliefs in rational
individuals) by defending different specific formulations of the thesis
within decision theory (e.g., Price 1989; Byrne and Hajek 1997).
There have also been efforts to show that formal decision theory might
not be formalizing the right things to draw conclusions about desire
and goodness (e.g., Broome 1991).




In a less formal mode, Dennis Stampe and Graham Oddie have
independently advanced very similar good-based theories of desire
according to which desires are a kind of high-level perceptual state: a
perception of goodness.



> 
>  For an organism to desire *p* is for *p* to
>  appear good to the organism.
> 
>  




According to these theorists, perceptions of goodness are not like
perceptions of cold or white light, but more like perceptions of
something as looking like Mikhail Gorbachev--i.e., complex,
high-level perceptual states that are nonetheless distinct from belief
states. Stampe and Oddie are both careful to hold that the appearance
of goodness is something quite distinct from the judgment or belief
that something is good (and thus, though this is not their main
concern, they evade Lewis's formal arguments). On Stampe's
view, this distinctness is best demonstrated by the fact that it is
consistent to claim to believe that something is good while it does not
seem good (i.e., is not wanted), but it is not consistent to claim to
desire something while it does not seem good (i.e., is not wanted). In
a related vein, Oddie argues that, while it is not incoherent to
believe that one course of action is the best while not desiring to
take it, there is a tension in such a state of affairs, and this
tension is best explained as resulting from the fact that desires
represent their contents as good (Stampe 1987; Oddie 2005).




One other interesting variant of the position is defended by
T.M. Scanlon (1998). According to Scanlon, motivating desires are
judgments of, not what is good, but what we have reason to
do. (Scanlon also holds that there are non-motivating desires
that direct attention; these sorts of desires are discussed in the
next section.)




Good-based theories of desire are motivated by considerations so
different from action-based theories of desire (or pleasure-based
theories) that it is very rare to see advocates of the one attack the
other, with the exception of Lewis's very technical work and the
literature following from it. As a result, difficulties for good-based
theories of desire have not been richly explored in the philosophical
literature. One puzzle for such theories might be to explain the
relationship of desires to non-human animals. On the one hand, it would
seem that rats desire to get away from cats, desire to be around other
rats, and the like. On the other hand, it would seem that rats do not
represent anything as good (they would both seem to lack the concept of
goodness and to lack a perceptual-style representation of goodness that
would be well poised to generate such a concept). But if rats can
desire without representing the good, then why would people be
different? The options available for solving such puzzles have not yet
been fully explored.


### 1.4 Attention-Based Theories of Desire




Another evaluatively loaded theory of desire has been proposed by
T.M. Scanlon. Dubbed a theory of desire in the
'directed-attention' sense, this theory links desires to
reasons, rather than goodness. But the theory does so through its
characterization of how desire plays its most important role, which is
its role in directing the attention of the subject who desires.



> 
>  For an organism to desire *p* is for the thought of
>  *p* to keep occurring to the organism in a favorable light, so
>  that its attention is directed insistently toward considerations that
>  present themselves as counting in favor of *p*.
> 
>  




Since, on Scanlon's view, reasons are considerations that
count in favor of propositions, it follows from this theory that a
desire *p* exists if one's attention is directed
insistently toward apparent reasons to have it be the case that
*p*. This is where the evaluative element enters the theory
(Scanlon 1998).




Technically, Scanlon does not present a complete attention-based
theory of desire, but only an attention-based sufficient condition for
the existence of a desire. Perhaps this is because Scanlon sees his
theory as best suited to characterizing desires that are playing an
active role at the moment--occurrent desires--but not as
giving a good characterization of desires not having that
role--standing desires (see below). A theory of standing desires
that follows Scanlon's lead might look something like the
following.



> 
>  For an organism to desire *p* is for it to be disposed to
>  keep having its attention drawn to reasons to have *p*, or to
>  reasons to avoid not-*p*.
> 
>  




Like good-based theories of desire, Scanlon's
attention-based theory of desire has not yet been engaged at length by
proponents of more conservative theories of desire, and it remains to
be seen what objections more conservative theorists might raise. One
puzzle for the theory might come from its focus on one limited form of
attention. According to the theory, desire's characteristic
effect is to direct attention toward reasons to fulfill the desire. But
desire has notable effects on other forms of attention, too: if Katie
desires that Ohio State win a football game, then her desire will
direct her attention to information about the game, will direct her
attention to opportunities to gain information about the game, will
direct her attention to people discussing the game, and so on. These
ways in which attention can be directed seem, pre-theoretically, just
as important to the nature of desire as the ways that are of interest
to the attention-based theory of desire.


### 1.5 Learning-Based Theories of Desire




All of the theories considered so far have treated desire as a
suitable topic for *a priori* investigation, with one
exception. Morillo's methodology treats desires as a natural kind:
the natural kind that is responsible for a familiar
effect--action--one associates with desire. This general
methodology is shared by another philosopher, Timothy Schroeder. But
Schroeder sees the neuroscientific evidence as supporting a different
conclusion from Morillo's. Schroeder agrees with Morillo that there is
a single neurological structure that is the unique common cause of the
various phenomena associated with desire (at least, with action,
pleasure, and some aspects of thought and attention), and agrees that
this structure is the dopamine-releasing reward system. However, he
argues that the activity of this neurological structure does not
realize pleasure. (Pleasure is said to be one of its effects.)
Rather, the output of this neurological structure realizes a form of
unconscious learning known as contingency-based learning or
reward-based learning. Schroeder thus concludes that desires are this
natural kind: reward-based learning mechanisms. Desires have all of
their familiar effects on action, feelings, and thought only
contingently (compare Morillo 1990 to Schroeder 2004; compare both to
the related view in Butler 1992).



> 
> For an organism to desire *p* is for it to use
> representations of *p* to drive reward-based learning.
> 




Schroeder's version of a reward-based theory of desire is a
development of a theory advanced by Fred Dretske (Dretske 1988, chapter
5). Dretske advances the view that desires in fact determine what
states of affairs will drive reward-based learning, but does not go so
far as to offer a complete theory of desire on this basis.




The dispute between Schroeder and Morillo over how to interpret the
neural structure that is the unique common cause of phenomena such as
action and pleasure highlights one way in which scientific research can
become important to philosophical theories of desire. The
dopamine-releasing reward system is said by Schroeder to be a cause of
pleasure, but by Morillo to be the neural realization of pleasure (when
active). Evidence that the reward system realizes pleasure comes
principally from the fact that its activity coincides with pleasure
(reviewed in Berridge 2003), and from the fact that stimulating the
reward system (via drugs or electrodes) is known to cause pleasure
(classics of this literature are reviewed in Stellar and Stellar 1985).
But this evidence is also compatible with the theory that the reward
system is one normal cause of pleasure. Evidence for this latter view
has come in the form of evidence that some pleasure-causing drugs work
independently of the reward system (reviewed in Berridge 2003), in the
form of evidence that rats deprived of their reward systems can still
experience gustatory pleasure (Berridge and Robinson 1998), and in the
form of reasonable candidates for neural realizers of pleasure that are
located causally "downstream" from the reward system
(reviewed in Berridge 2003 in support of one candidate structure; a
different candidate is defended in Schroeder 2004).




Of all the theories of desire considered here, learning-based
theories of desire have the least *a priori* credibility: no one
comes to grasp the idea of a desire through being taught about
reward-based learning. A learning-based theory of desire is committed
to holding that a desire can exist in a creature that cannot, by its
nature, move or feel; so long as it can represent and learn in a
certain way (and so long as these capacities are appropriately
related), that suffices for a creature to have a desire. *A
priori*, this is likely to seem outlandish. Our ideas about desire
tell us that desires are all about actions and feelings, after all. The
fact that the learning-based theory of desire holds that an organism
could desire sunny days without feeling good about sunny days, without
feeling bad about cloudy days, without being motivated to do whatever
might help bring about a sunny day or even being moved to jump for joy
when it turns sunny--this can be hard to swallow. The
plausibility of learning-based theories thus requires either a
rejection of *a priori* constraints on theories of desire, or
acceptance of the idea that it is *a priori* that desires are
best theorized as a natural kind that might, in principle, lack the
features we most commonly associate with it (for versions of these
criticisms, see, e.g., Bratman 1990; Brook 2006; Latham 2006).


### 1.6. Holistic (Functionalist and Interpretationist) Theories of Desire




So far, only single-feature theories of desire have been considered.
But there are also a number of theories of desire that refuse to
privilege any one feature. Instead, these theories make central
theoretical appeal to the total package of features associated with
desire. To have a desire, according to such holistic theories, is a
matter of having enough (often a somewhat vague constraint) of some set
of desire-like features.




A list of desire-like features for a holistic theory is rarely
provided in full, but certain desire-like features are commonly
mentioned and can be expected to play a role in most holistic theories.
These are the features just considered as candidates for the essential
feature of desires.


1. A creature typically desires *p* if and only if it is
disposed to take whatever actions it believes are likely to bring about
*p*.
2. A creature typically desires *p* if and only if it is
disposed to take pleasure in it seeming that *p*, and to take
displeasure in it seeming that not-*p*.
3. A creature typically desires *p* if and only if it is
disposed to believe that *p* is good.
4. A creature typically desires *p* if and only if it is
disposed to attend to reasons to have *p*.




Additional features that might well play a role in a holistic theory
include any platitudinous observation about desires. A few follow,
though platitudes about desire are so numerous that the list could be
quite a bit longer than it is.


5. Creatures tend to desire what is good.
6. Creatures tend to desire what they need to survive and
reproduce.
7. Creatures normally desire pleasure and do not desire (better: are
averse to) pain.
8. Creatures that desire *p* tend to have their attention
captured by information that bears on whether or not *p*.




Holistic theories of desire come in two main forms: functionalist
and interpretationist. In the functionalist form, a desire is an
internal state-type that plays enough of the causal roles suggested by
(1)-(8) etc. (e.g., Lewis 1972). In the interpretationist form, desires
are not treated as internal state-types found in a causal network.
Rather, desires are treated as states of the whole organism, states
that exist in virtue of the organism's displaying enough of
the sorts of behaviors suggested by (1)-(8) etc. to be legitimately
interpreted (in accordance with general principles of interpretation,
such as a requirement to interpret creatures as means-end consistent)
as having desires (e.g., Davidson 1980).




Also worth noting here is work on caring by Agnieszka Jaworska.
Jaworska does not take herself to be developing a theory of desire, and
indeed appears to hold something like an action-based theory of desire.
Rather, she takes herself to be developing a theory of what it is to
care about someone or something. However, the theory which she develops
looks much the way a holistic theory of desire would look. To care
about someone, on Jaworska's view, is to be motivated to act for
that person's welfare (for its own sake), be disposed to feel
good at the prospect of the person doing well and bad at the prospect
of the person doing poorly, to tend to attend to features of the
person's welfare, to have emotions in keeping with this general
package--fear when the person's welfare is in peril,
relief when all works out for the best, and so on. Thus, while this is
not Jaworska's intention, one can read her as offering a holistic
theory of desire focused on a subclass of desires: those that can be
said to constitute caring about something or someone (Jaworska 2007a;
2007b; 1999).


## 2. Varieties of Desires




With a theory of desire in hand one can go on to consider a number
of varieties of desire. Even if desires form a large unified group of
mental states, there is certainly room for there to be sub-types of
desire, and a number have been discussed.


### 2.1 Desires for Objects and Desires for States of Affairs




According to most theories, desires are always desires for
conceivable states of affairs. A desire for tea is a desire for a
certain state of affairs one has in mind: that one drink some tea. A
desire for a new pair of skates is likewise a desire for another state
of affairs: that one own a new pair of skates. And so on. This idea is
also expressed with phrases such as 'desires are attitudes toward
propositions' or 'desires have propositional
content'. Treating desires in this way makes it easy to see how
there could be logical relations between the contents of beliefs,
desires, and intentions.




A competing way of thinking about desires holds that some or all
desires are desires for objects, not states of affairs. A desire for
tea is simply for tea, not for any state of affairs involving the tea.
This competing way of thinking has the advantage that it takes
seriously the way we ordinarily talk about desires and think about
them. It is far more natural to say that I desire tea than to say that
I desire that I have some tea, and perhaps this naturalness is
indicative of something deep about the nature of desire. Furthermore,
it might well seem that non-human animals have desires without being
able to grasp the propositions a grip on which we so readily attribute
to human beings (Thagard 2006).




A response, though, is that the natural phrasing conceals some of
the complexity inherent in desire, and that the non-human animals who
have desires have structure to their cognitive capacities that is
expressed by talking about propositional content. If Nora desires tea,
there is a fact of the matter about which of the following four states
of affairs is one in which her desire is satisfied:


1. Nora possesses but does not drink a cup of tea in the near
future.
2. Nora possesses but does not drink a cup of tea someday.
3. Nora drinks a cup of tea in the near future.
4. Nora drinks a cup of tea someday.




If it is (3) that would satisfy Nora's desire, then there
seems much gained and little lost in saying that Nora's desire is
for a state of affairs: that she drink a cup of tea in the near future.
And likewise, if an owl desires a vole it seems that there is a fact of
the matter about which of the counterpart states of affairs it is that
would satisfy the owl's desire (and the counterpart to (3) seems
most likely).




Even if it is accepted that desires are for conceivable states of
affairs, there are other complications remaining. Some have pointed to
the difficulties of specifying exactly what is desired: even if Nora
wants to now drink a cup of tea, she might protest that she hasn't
received what she wants if it turns out that the tea is very stale, or
laced with arsenic, or brought by a robber, or ... (e.g., Lycan
2012). Others have pointed to the difficulties generated by
conditional desires, such as the desire to have beer later if one is
not too tired (e.g., McDaniel and Bradley 2008).


### 2.2 Intrinsic, Instrumental, and Realizer Desires




Some desires are for states of affairs that are wanted for
themselves: these are intrinsic desires. It is generally agreed that
pleasure is desired for its own sake, and it is plausible that many
people also desire the welfare of their children, the success of their
favorite sports teams, and the end of injustice, and desire them all
intrinsically. To desire something intrinsically is not to desire it
exclusively for its own sake, but to desire it at least partially for
its own sake: my father desires my welfare in part for my own sake, but
no doubt he also desires it in part because he would have trouble
sleeping were I doing poorly, and he does not want to lose sleep.




That is to say, my father desires my welfare both intrinsically and
instrumentally: as a means to an end. Normally, however, one calls a
desire 'instrumental' when one means it is merely
instrumental: when one means that the end is desired merely as a means
to some other end, and not at all for its own sake (instrumental
desires are also sometimes called 'extrinsic').




An interesting case of instrumental desires might be many of the
so-called 'second-order desires' that have been discussed
in the wake of Harry Frankfurt's work. According to Frankfurt, it
is the power to form desires about their own desires, i.e.,
second-order desires, that makes us persons, makes us beings capable of
having cares, loves, and free will (e.g., Frankfurt 1971; 1999).
Second-order desires are desires regarding one's first-order
desires, and first-order desires are desires for ordinary
(non-conative) things such as snacks or the trouncing of the New York
Yankees. Thus, a desire to yell at a drunken reveler who disturbs my
sleep is a first-order desire, while a desire that I not act on my
desire to yell at the drunken reveler is a second-order desire. If one
considers whether such a second-order desire is intrinsic or
instrumental, the most reasonable conclusion is typically that the
desire is instrumental: I desire not to act on my desire to yell
because I desire to not have rocks thrown at my window, and I see not
acting on my desire to yell as a means to not having rocks thrown at my
window. (Note that David Lewis' discussion of the role of
second-order desires in valuing requires that they be intrinsic
desires. This raises an interesting question: how often would a
second-order desire be truly intrinsic? See Lewis 1989.)




In the above scenario, I might also intrinsically desire to be civil
and tolerant, and see not acting on my desire to yell as a way to be
civil and tolerant. But in this case, the relation between my
intrinsic desire and my desire not to act on my desire to yell is not
quite an instrumental relation. Refraining from acting on my desire to
yell is not a means for achieving the end of civil and tolerant
behavior. Rather, it is an instance of civil and tolerant
behavior. In such situations, it is said that my desire not to act on
my desire to yell is a realizer desire: a desire for an end that would
count as one possible realization of an intrinsic desire. This sort of
desire gets some discussion in, e.g., Arpaly and Schroeder (2014) and
Schmidtz (1994).


### 2.3 Stronger and Weaker Desires




It is generally held that desires come on a continuum of
*strength*: desires can be stronger or weaker. The strength of a
desire is typically said to be constituted by the desire's causal
power regarding the control of action: for one desire to be stronger
than another is for the agent to be disposed to act upon it, rather than
the second desire, in a situation in which (a) all else is equal, and
(b) the agent believes that each desire is satisfiable by a distinct
action, and (c) the agent believes that the desires are not jointly
satisfiable. This way of characterizing desire strength is obviously
most suited to an action-based theory of desire. But for each theory of
desire there is a corresponding theory of desire strength available.
Desire strength could be determined by the amount of pleasure or
displeasure apparent satisfaction of the desire would bring, or by the
degree to which a state of affairs seems good, or by the degree to
which one's attention is drawn to the reasons to bring some state
of affairs about, or by the amount of reward-based learning apparent
satisfaction of the desire would cause, or by some average of all of
these.




Most theorists have little more to say about desire strength than
what appears above. An exception is found in the work of decision
theorists: within decision theory, preference is given a formal
characterization, and through this formal characterization, various
results can be proven. A foundational result about desire strength is
that, if a minimally rational person has set of pairwise preferences
(for A over B, for C over D, and so on), these pairwise preferences can
be used to determine the strengths of preferences. That is, from a
large set of basic facts about what is preferred to what, facts about
how much each thing must be preferred to the other can be derived
(e.g., von Neumann and Morgenstern 1944).




One puzzle for most theories of desire strength is that desires seem
to vary in their power to manifest the typical signs of strength even
when it would seem that there is no variation in how much their ends
are wanted. Think of a standard intrinsic desire: a desire for the
welfare of a child. My disposition to act so as to benefit Cecilia
might well be stronger when I am in a good mood than when I am feeling
low, it might well be stronger when I am wide awake than when I am very
sleepy, might well be stronger when the change in welfare will happen
right now rather than in a month, and so on. These changes in
disposition seem unlikely to mark changes in how much I desire
Cecelia's welfare, however. Rather, they would seem to mark
changes in how effectively my desire is poised to influence my actions.
Similarly, the idea of certain harms to Cecelia's welfare will
make me feel terrible (the idea of her being bitten by a dog, say)
while others will make me feel less terrible (the idea of her getting
chicken pox, say), even while my estimation of the harm to her welfare
might make the two scenarios quite similar. Again, this would seem to
indicate some idiosyncrasy in how effectively my desire is poised to
influence my feelings, rather than indicating a difference in strength
of desire (in this case, getting chicken pox seems like an expected
ordeal of childhood, and that seems to blunt my felt response). And
likewise for appearances of goodness and dispositions to pay
attention.




An advantage shared by learning-based theories and holistic theories
of desire is that they are, in a natural way, able to hold that the
strength of a desire can be a constant even while the effect of the
desire on action, feelings, or thoughts seems disproportionate to the
desire's strength. In the case of learning-based theories of
desire, so long as there is a merely causal relation between the
learning signal and the ordinary signs of desire strength, there is no
contradiction in holding that a strong desire has effects like those of
a weak desire, or vice versa. In the case of holistic theories, so long
as desire strength is not reduced to strength of a single phenomenon,
there is no contradiction in holding that a strong desire has one or a
few effects like those of a weak desire, or vice versa. It is when
theories reduce desires to a single observable core phenomenon that
apparently meaningless fluctuations in that phenomenon pose a
problem.


### 2.4 Occurrent and Standing Desires




If Nora desires tea, then her desire is likely to be manifest: Nora
is likely to be aware of her desire, and her desire is likely to
generate its characteristic effects so long as Nora continues to desire
tea. On the other hand, if Ben desires a new pair of skates, then his
desire is not likely to be manifest all the time. A new pair of skates
is something Ben might well desire for two or three months before
getting a new pair, and it is unlikely that his desire will be
manifesting itself for that entire time. More likely, Ben's
desire will lie quietly "in the back of his mind" most of
the time, and occasionally generate thoughts, feelings, and actions of
the familiar sorts.




Standing desires are desires one has that are not playing any role
in one's psyche at the moment. Occurrent desires, on the other
hand, are desires that *are* playing some role in one's
psyche at the moment. Notice here that occurrent desires need not be in
control of one's actions: my desire to laze in bed is occurrent
even while I am getting up and making breakfast, for my desire is
leading me to think longingly of bed, and is perhaps acting upon my
mechanisms of action production in a way that would lead me back to bed
if only I did not also desire to get some things done. Desires of which
one is not aware, but which are current causes of one's behavior,
are also occurrent on this way of thinking about things: a desire for a
new inkstand might cause one to move clumsily so as to destroy
one's current inkstand without affecting one's thoughts or
feelings, and if so it would be occurrent at the moment of
clumsiness.




Some philosophers hold that only occurrent desires are real desires.
So-called standing desires are really just dispositions to generate
desires, on this way of thinking. One difficulty for this position is
that standing desires seem to be good components of causal explanations
of various mental processes. For instance: why does the new tin of tea
on the counter of her boyfriend's kitchen catch Nora's
attention? It might be that it caught her attention because she has a
standing desire to know about the tea that is available to her, and the
tin in her boyfriend's kitchen is relevant to this desire. Why is
Nora delighted to see the tin? Because she has a standing desire to try
new kinds of tea, and she has just seen that the tin contains a new
kind of tea. And so on. The ground of the disposition to generate
occurrent desires can do for these sorts of explanations, but it is
truer to ordinary thinking about the mind to say that this ground just
is a desire--a standing desire--than to say that it is
anything else.




Some philosophers hold that all occurrent desires are elements of
one's conscious life. Just as I have a capacity to see red that
is not exercised until seeing red is an element of my consciousness, so
too I have a capacity to desire that my French be fluent, and this
capacity is not exercised until desiring that my French be fluent is an
element of my consciousness. Notice that the thesis is not just that
desires are only sometimes objects of one's conscious life. That
is, the thesis is not merely that I am only sometimes conscious of my
desires in the same way that I am only sometimes conscious of my toes.
Rather, the thesis in question is that there is a qualitative character
to desire, a qualitative character that can be an element, feature, or
aspect of one's consciousness. Any philosopher holding that
desires are constituted by pleasures or seemings might well take this
position (e.g., Oddie 2005; Stampe 1987; Strawson 1994). Against it the
argument has been made that the direction of fit of desire is
incompatible with the direction of fit of elements of consciousness, on
the grounds that desires (roughly) say how things should be while
consciousness (roughly) says how things are (Hulse, Read, and Schroeder
2004).


## 3. Controversies Surrounding Desire




Because desires feature prominently in theories of mind, action,
free will, and morality (and more!), desires are enmeshed in far too
many controversies to enumerate them all here. Nonetheless, some
controversies surrounding desires are worthy of special attention,
either because they are controversies surrounding key features of
desire (the first three that follow) or because they are controversies
that illustrate the larger role of desires in philosophical theorizing,
especially ethical theorizing (the second three).


### 3.1 The Direction of Fit of Desires




Since Anscombe, desires are said to have a "direction of
fit," and one that is the opposite to the "direction of
fit" of beliefs. One modest way of putting the point is this:
beliefs are like declarative sentences, which are satisfied (made true)
by whether the world as it is conforms to them, but desires are like
imperative sentences, which are satisfied (fulfilled) by changes in the
world bringing the world into conformity with them. What exactly
this analogy amounts to, literally, is controversial. Is it perhaps
that one's beliefs ought to conform to the world, whereas the
world ought to conform to one's desires (Gregory 2012)? Is it perhaps that the
world tends to cause satisfied beliefs (true beliefs), while desires
tend to cause there to be a desire-satisfying (desire-fulfilling)
world? This is still an area in which it is difficult to know just how
to evaluate the proposals on offer, and there is little sign of a
consensus emerging in the foreseeable future (see, e.g., Anscombe 2000;
Schueler 1991; Smith 1994; Zangwill 1998).




Another and related puzzle is over whether there might be states of
mind with both desire-like and belief-like directions of fit. These
states of mind, sometimes called 'besires', are said to be
of particular interest to ethicists interested in the possibility of
belief-like attitudes motivating action all on their own (see, e.g.,
Smith 1994 chapter 4; Zangwill 2008).


### 3.2 The Origins of Desires




There is relatively little mystery about the generation of
instrumental and realizer desires. These desires are generated by
(conscious or unconscious) reasoning processes, in which one reasons
one's way to the conclusion that if only it were the case that
*p* that would make it more likely that *q* or would be a
realization of *q*. If it so happens that one already
intrinsically desires that *q*, then this reasoning process will
automatically and unconsciously generate an instrumental or realizer
desire that *p*, at least in rational beings. (The strength of
the new desire, in a rational individual, and all else being equal,
increases with the strength of the intrinsic desire that *q* and
the apparent usefulness of bringing it about that *p* toward
bringing it about that *q*.) Or at least, this picture is a
relatively uncontroversial one among philosophers who treat
instrumental and realizer desires as components in a causal network
that might be investigated by science. Philosophers who approach the
mind as a field for interpretation are more likely to hold a
non-mechanistic version of this story according to which a person
should be interpreted as instrumentally or realizationally desiring
*p* when we already interpret her as intrinsically desiring
*q* and we already interpret her as believing that *p*
would make *q* more likely.




The generation of intrinsic desires is a matter of much more
controversy and interest. The psychological hedonist holds that there
is only one intrinsic desire--for pleasure--and this
desire is innate (e.g., Pollock 2006). Philosophers who believe that we
have a rich collection of intrinsic desires, including desires for the
welfare of those we love and the success of those sports teams we
support, are left with more difficult questions, however. Perhaps some
of our desires are innate (for pleasure, for gentle touches and hugs,
for adequate nutrition and hydration...) but many of our intrinsic
desires clearly are not. If Ben intrinsically desires success for the
Columbus Blue Jackets, this is certainly not a result of the innate
structure of his mind.




Some have proposed that it is possible to acquire new intrinsic
desires by reasoning. According to Michael Smith, if one believes that,
were one rational, one would desire that *p*, then this will
tend to generate an intrinsic desire that *p*. Thus, if I
believe that, were I rational, I would want to give money to the Third
World, then this will tend to generate an intrinsic desire in me to
give money to the Third World (Smith 1994). There is a difficulty here
in evaluating Smith's idea. It certainly seems as though thinking
about what I would--were I only perfectly rational--want
to do is the sort of thing that can generate a new desire in me. But it
is less clear that the desire generated is intrinsic as opposed to a
realizer desire (a realizer for the desire to do what is rational, or
perhaps moral). Phenomenologically, it seems difficult to distinguish
the two, and so it is not easy to evaluate Smith's theory. These
difficulties have not prevented philosophers from trying, however
(e.g., Dreier 2000).




An interesting consequence of Smith's proposal is that it
makes it rational to have certain intrinsic desires, and irrational to
lack other intrinsic desires, depending on what one believes to be
true. This is a departure from a view of desires stemming at least from
David Hume, according to which beliefs have no business dictating what
we should desire intrinsically. (At most, beliefs can dictate what we
should desire as a means or realizer to what we desire intrinsically,
according to this line of thought.) But it aligns Smith with those who
take it to be part of the business of reasoning to set "final
ends" (e.g., Richardson 1997).




Another proposal regarding the generation of intrinsic desires
leaves rationality out of the picture entirely. According to this
proposal, new intrinsic desires are acquired by associating new states
of affairs with ones that already satisfy existing intrinsic desires,
according to the principles of reward-based learning. So, if a young
child intrinsically desires a dry bottom and a full stomach, and is
aware that its mother's presence tends to help with these things,
then the young child will naturally desire its mother's presence
instrumentally. But whether the child is aware of the instrumental
relationship or not, if the mother's presence often presages the
satisfaction of the child's intrinsic desires for a dry bottom
and full stomach, then the learning processes generated by desire
satisfaction will also tend to cause the young child to acquire an
intrinsic desire for the presence of its mother (Schroeder 2004).


### 3.3 Preferences and Desires




Talk of preference, rather than desire, tends to dominate the
literature of decision theory. The decision theorist sees human beings
as making choices between options, and these choices express
preferences among the options. If the human being is rational, her
preferences are consistent and allow one to determine the expected
utility of any given choice for her. The expected utility of an action,
in turn, is the pleasure (or relief from suffering) it can be expected
to bring, according to one (mostly older) approach, or is the degree to
which the agent would (ideally) be inclined to choose it, according to
the other (more modern) approach to utility (see, e.g., Skyrms 1990 for
a discussion).




If utility is treated as pleasure, then decision theory is
compatible with any theory of desire that holds pleasure to be the only
thing desired. If utility is treated as choice-worthiness, then
decision theory is compatible with any theory of desire at all (except
perhaps for theories that hold desires are beliefs in goodness, as
discussed in section 1.3). So the focus on preferences does not, on its
own, generate conflict between decision theory and theories of
desire.




Conflict can arise, however, when one asks whether desires or
preferences are more fundamental; John Pollock has recently brought
attention to this dispute (Pollock 2006). Decision theorists have
tended to treat pairwise preferences as basic: the basic attitude is
that of preferring A to B (e.g., von Neumann and Morgenstern 1944).
Most other theorists of desire have treated desires as basic: the basic
attitude is that of desiring A. If desires are basic, and desires have
strengths, then it is easy enough to determine preferences from them:
if I desire that my father be healthy to a high degree, and I desire
that I do my laundry to a low degree, then it follows that I prefer my
father's health to doing the laundry, all else being equal. But
if preferences are basic, then deriving something like desires from
them becomes an interesting task (discussed briefly above, in Section
2.3).




The simplest reason to suppose that preferences are basic is that they
are readily introspected and acted upon, whereas desires with specific
strengths are not. I can tell that I prefer securing my father's
health to doing the laundry, and I know which I would choose if it
came to a choice. But can I introspect the degree to which I prefer my
father's health over clean laundry? Perhaps not. And if I cannot,
perhaps this is because I have introspective access to the most basic
psychological facts only, and these are facts about simple pairwise
preferences. As von Neumann and Morgenstern write, "every
measurement--or rather every claim of measurability--must
ultimately be based on some immediate sensation, which possibly cannot
and certainly need not be analyzed any further. In the case of utility
the immediate sensation of preference--of one object or aggregate
of objects as against another--provides this basis" (1944,
16).




One reason to suppose that preferences are not basic is that it
appears, within standard decision theory, that a very large number of
basic pairwise preferences are required in order to settle facts about
how much one prefers A to B for arbitrary objects A and B. That is, the
facts about degrees of desire can only be generated from more basic
facts about pairwise preferences given a truly enormous number of basic
facts about pairwise preferences. Pollock (2006) argues that the number
of such facts is on the order of a billion billions at the very least,
just to encode the same facts about desire and preference that could
readily be generated from just three hundred basic facts about desires.
From the assumption that the basic psychological facts must be
physically realized in the brain, Pollock concludes that it is
psychologically realistic to believe in basic desires, not basic
pairwise preferences.




Complicating matters is empirical research suggesting that our
preferences are subject to such powerful contextual influences that it
is better to talk about the construction of coherent preferences than
about their derivation from underlying desires (see, e.g., the papers
in Lichtenstein and Slovic 2006). For example, in a classic study, it
was found that offering subjects a free choice between one of two bets
(of almost identical expected value--around $4--but with
different maximum payoffs and different maximum penalties) led to
subjects revealing a preference for one of the two bets. Offering the
same subjects a chance to bid on each bet revealed that subjects were
often willing to pay more to play the other of the two bets, apparently
showing that subjects preferred the other of the two bets when bidding
but not when choosing freely (Lichtenstein and Slovic 1971). Thus,
something as minimal as the difference between choosing and bidding can
shift preferences between two near-equivalent bets, or so it would
seem, calling into question the very existence of a stable fact about
preference independent of the way a choice is framed. If this is the
best way to look at things, then perhaps it will turn out that a small
number of preferences are basic, and that there just are no facts about
the degree to which something is desired overall by a person.


### 3.4 Reasons and Desires




Turning to meta-ethics, a vibrant debate exists over the relation of
desires to reasons to act. According to one tradition, typically called
'Humean' or 'Neo-Humean', the existence of
reasons to act depends on the existence of desires possessed by the
agent who would act. Thus, my reason to drink hot chocolate depends on
my desires, and likewise my reason to help a stranger depends on my
desires, according to the Humean.




Some have taken Humeanism to claim that reasons are identical to the
having of desires (so that my reason to drink hot chocolate is the fact
that I desire to drink hot chocolate) while others have taken Humeanism
to claim that reasons are (typically) non-desire states of affairs that
are reasons in virtue of their relations to desires (so that my reason
to drink hot chocolate is that it tastes a certain way, but that it
tastes a certain way is only a reason to drink hot chocolate because I
desire to experience such tastes). Though related, these two positions
have substantially different implications, as Mark Schroeder has argued
(Schroeder 2007).




Humeans have defended their position in several ways, but
contemporary debate has focused in large part on an argument developed
by Bernard Williams. Williams argues that only Humeanism can explain
the relation between reasons and motivation: if one has a reason to
act, then one can act for that reason, Williams holds. But this is only
guaranteed if having a reason to act involves having a desire. Hence
reasons to act depend on the existence of desires (Williams 1981).
Taking a somewhat different approach, Mark Schroeder argues that, when
properly formulated, Humeanism simply fits best with our range of
intuitions about what reasons there are to act and the ways in which
these reasons are or are not contingent on facts about our psychologies
(Schroeder 2007).




Attacks on the Humean position have often been motivated by moral
considerations: one does not need to have any desires whatsoever (not
desires properly so-called, at any rate) in order to have a reason to
do what is moral, according to some anti-Humeans, and so this
particular reason to act, at least, is not in any way dependent upon
desires (e.g., Schueler 1995). A more fundamental attack has been
launched by Christine Korsgaard, who argues that, if it is true that
there is a reason to act on one's desires, then this is a
fundamental evaluative fact--and so there is no reason to be
skeptical about parallel fundamental evaluative facts that entail there
are reasons independent of one's desires (Korsgaard 1997).


### 3.5 Well-being and Desires




Within normative ethics there is some interest in the notion of a
person's happiness, welfare, or well-being, especially within
consequentialist approaches to morality holding that a moral action is
one that maximizes well-being. One approach to well-being holds that a
person's well-being stems from the satisfaction of her
desires.




A central feature of desire-based theories of well-being is that
they take actual states of affairs to be what is important to a
person's well-being, rather than the person's perceptions
of actuality. Thus, if I desire that I win an Olympic gold medal, then
I am only well off in this respect if I win the medal: if I get tricked
into believing that I have won the medal when I have not, then my
well-being has not been increased in the relevant respect. This might
be an advantage for desire-based theories of well-being (mere trickery
seems unlikely to increase my actual well-being) or it might be a
disadvantage (what I do not know cannot hurt me, can it?). Discussion
of this point is ongoing (e.g., Sumner 1996).




A challenge for desire-based theories of well-being is that we would
seem to have some desires the satisfaction of which would not,
ultimately, contribute to our well-being in any obvious sense. Desires
stemming from ignorance, from neurosis, or the like might be of this
sort. Brandt (1979) develops a well known response to these sorts of
concerns, arguing that the desires the satisfaction of which would
contribute to one's well-being are those that would survive a
process of "cognitive psychotherapy."




Desire-based theories of well-being have been challenged both by
those who find them insufficiently attentive to the individual's
state of mind, especially to the pleasure enjoyed by the individual
(e.g., Feldman 2004), and by those who find them excessively attentive
to the individual's state of mind, to the exclusion of what is
essential to human flourishing (e.g., Nussbaum 2000, chapter 1).


### 3.6 Praiseworthiness and Desires




Within moral psychology, desire features prominently in a debate
over the conditions for moral praiseworthiness and blameworthiness.




According to a familiar Kantian doctrine, a person is only
praiseworthy for doing the right thing if the person acts only from the
motive of duty, and not from an "inclination" (a desire) to
do the right thing (Kant 1964). Thus, if the right thing to do is to
support microlending in Africa, and I do so, then I am praiseworthy
only if I have acted out of my intellectual grasp of the fact that
supporting microlending is my duty. If have acted out of a desire to
feel good about myself, or even a desire to be kind or to work for
justice, then I am not praiseworthy for doing the right thing. The
thesis has also been defended by contemporary Kantians (e.g., Herman
1993, chapter 1).




Opposing the familiar Kantian doctrine is work by Nomy Arpaly, who
argues that praiseworthiness in fact requires acting on certain
desires--namely, desires for what is in fact good (Arpaly 2002;
see also Arpaly and Schroeder 2014). In Arpaly's view, acting rightly
from a sense of duty is compatible with acting rightly in a way that
is not praiseworthy at all, if one's view of duty is sufficiently
mistaken that one ends up doing the right thing only by
accident. Thus, if the right thing to do is to support microlending in
Africa, and I do so, then I am praiseworthy according to Arpaly only
if I have acted out of a desire to be kind (if that is the content of
morality) or a desire to do what is just (if that is the content of
morality).




Between the contrasting views of Kant and Arpaly are the views of a
number of virtue ethicists, Aristotle (perhaps) among them, who hold
that a desire to do what is right and knowledge of the right are both
required for an otherwise appropriate act to be praiseworthy (e.g.,
Aristotle 1999, Hursthouse 1999).