Introduction
It’s a sunny Wednesday morning, and I want to get lots of work done today—I want this book finished before Christmas. On the other hand, I also want to find time for a proper lunch break so I can do some exercise: I’m putting on weight and I’d prefer to reverse that trend sooner rather than later. Sadly, I put these thoughts to the back of mind as I notice that my youngest son has just been sick on the bed, and I want to get that cleaned up right away.
I could easily continue this picture of my mental life by describing other things I want. We could construct a similar list for you, I’m sure. Such wants (desires, preferences) are an absolutely central part of our lives, in at least two ways.
First, they are crucial for explaining our actions. For example, if we are trying to understand why you bought a sledgehammer, we will appeal (in part) to what you want. Since people’s actions are explained with reference to what they want, we can understand and predict their choices—what to buy, how to vote, how to parent, what career to pursue, and so on—only if we understand what they want.
Second, our wants are central in our lives because they are crucial for determining what it’s rational for us to do. If we are trying to ascertain whether it’s rational for you to buy a sledgehammer, the answer will depend in part on what you want. We evaluate people’s choices with reference to what they want, and so we can critically engage with others only if we understand what they want. For example, your decision to refuse a promotion might strike me as foolish until I learn that you don’t want any more money, and desperately want to avoid further stress. In cases like this, we need to understand what people want if we are to critically evaluate their choices.
The idea that we explain and evaluate actions with essential reference to what people want is compelling, and the popularity of decision theory is a testament to that: the field of decision theory aims to explain and evaluate actions with central reference to our wants. We might quibble about the details of decision theory, but the broad project is surely attractive, and is attractive precisely because it aims to systematize the common-sense ideas that our wants lie at the heart of actual decision-making and at the heart of good decision-making.
Desire as Belief: A Study of Desire, Motivation, and Rationality. Alex Gregory, Oxford University Press. © Alex Gregory 2021. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198848172.003.0001
In short, our wants are important. But all that said, when it comes to explaining and evaluating actions, our wants seem to have a competitor: our beliefs about what we ought to do, and other such normative beliefs. If we hope to understand why Peter gives money to charity, a good explanation will presumably appeal to such beliefs. And if we are trying to decide whether this action is rational, one important issue depends on Peter’s normative beliefs. For example, this act might be irrational if Peter himself believes he ought not do it. In short, it might seem possible to explain and rationally evaluate Peter’s actions without mentioning his wants after all.
In short, it is tempting to assign a necessary role to our wants in explaining and evaluating everything we do. But it is also tempting to say that our normative beliefs sometimes suffice to explain or evaluate what we do. How can we resolve this tension? We might distinguish three broad possibilities:
First, we might maintain that only our wants play these important roles, and try to explain away the attraction of saying that our normative beliefs can do so (e.g. Arpaly and Schroeder 2014; Haidt 2001; Sinhababu 2017). For example, we might insist that Peter’s philanthropy is really best explained and evaluated by his wants, perhaps including his desire to be moral.
Second, we might maintain that our normative beliefs can play these roles, and try to explain away the attraction of saying that only our wants do so (e.g. Nagel 1970; Dancy 2002). For example, we might say that our wants are themselves always determined by our normative beliefs: you might buy a sledgehammer because you want to, but perhaps you want to do so only because you believe you ought to demolish the shed.
Third, there is the conciliatory option, on which we explain away any appearance of conflict between our wants and our normative beliefs in explaining and evaluating actions. In this book, I pursue one such conciliatory strategy. I simply identify our wants with our normative beliefs: on my view, these are two different labels for a single thing.1 In my preferred terminology, I defend desire-as-belief, according to which our desires just are normative beliefs. According to this view, our actions are always explained by our wants, but this is consistent with our actions being explained by our normative beliefs, because our wants are our normative beliefs. And according to this view, a rational action is one that appropriately reflects what you want, but this is consistent with the rational importance of our normative beliefs,
1 In this respect my view is somewhat similar to non-cognitivism (e.g. Blackburn 1998; Gibbard 1990, 2003). But the two views are very different in numerous other ways, as will be obvious in what follows. I more directly contrast the two views in §3.3.
because our wants are our normative beliefs. Desire-as-belief allows us to accept common sense about desires, and accept common sense about our normative beliefs. Why choose sides when everyone can win?
Above I presented desire-as-belief as a conciliatory theory. But in a different respect, it is highly partisan. One long-standing dispute in ethics is that between subjectivists and objectivists.2 Subjectivists believe that subjects project value onto the world, through their desires. On this view, our desires are the source of all value just as the sun is the source of all light. In contrast, objectivists believe that value is an objective part of the world, different in kind from other features of the world, but nonetheless equally real and mindindependent. Desire-as-belief finds a place for desire in an objectivist framework: objectivists say that value is out there already, and desire-as-belief adds that our desires aim to reflect those pre-existing values. That is, on this view, desires are akin not to the sun, but instead to the moon, since they merely reflect pre-existing light. Desire-as-belief fits into the objectivist tradition, because it treats desires as beliefs about an objective normative landscape.
Hume memorably writes, ‘’Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger’ (T2.3.3.6). Many endorse similar claims, according to which in some fundamental sense our desires cannot be incorrect: they are just impulses you have, which might be outweighed by other desires, but can never be discounted as mistaken. But desire-as-belief takes the opposing line. If desires are beliefs, then desires can be incorrect just as beliefs can: they can fail to represent the normative landscape correctly. This, it seems to me, fits with common sense, according to which it is foolish to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of your finger, and it is foolish because it misrepresents the relative worth of these things.
In short, this book shows how our wants and normative beliefs explain our actions, and how they can rationally justify our actions. I claim that all human actions can be explained by appeal to our wants, which is to say our normative beliefs. I also show how the rationality of our actions is explained by our wants, which is to say our normative beliefs. I explore these issues because
2 Subjectivism, or a nearby view, is endorsed by Hobbes (L I.VI.7); Goldman (2009); Schroeder (2007a); Sobel (2016). Objectivism, or a nearby view, is endorsed by Parfit (2011a); Raz (2000); Scanlon (1998, 2014); Shafer-Landau (2003), and plausibly Plato (Euthyphro 9e–11b) and Aristotle (Metaphysics 1072a29). There is also the error theory, according to which values are supposed to be objective but in fact don’t exist at all (Olson 2014; Streumer 2017). Such a view is consistent with desire-as-belief—in combination they tell us that all our desires are in error. But I set this radical view aside.
they are important for making decisions, for understanding the actions of those around us, and for criticizing or excusing others for what they do. But I also explore these issues in service of a broader objectivist view about ethics. *
Here is an overview of the book.
The first chapter serves to put desire-as-belief on the table so we have the theory clearly in view for the remainder of the book. Along the way I say a little about the direction of fit of belief and desire, and about the distinction between reason and passion.
The next chunk of the book appears across Chapters 2 to 4, where I present two arguments for desire-as-belief. Chapters 2 and 3 combine to produce the first argument: Chapter 2 defends the view that all motivation is explained by desire. Chapter 3 defends the view that some normative beliefs can motivate, and then combines these two claims to argue for desire-as-belief. Chapter 4 presents the second main argument for desire-as-belief: desire-as-belief is best placed to explain why desires make a difference to what it’s rational to do. Many object to desire-as-belief by claiming that it has dubious implications for various topics. So Chapters 5 to 9 of the book aim to show how desire-asbelief can escape those objections. But these chapters also have more positive elements, since I often say that desire-as-belief is not only defensible but also positively attractive for the light it casts on the relevant topics. For this reason, these chapters are structured by theme rather than by (say) a count of different objections.
Chapter 5 discusses irrationality, especially akrasia, and shows how desireas-belief is not only consistent with such irrationality but also positively predicts it. One key claim is recycled from earlier chapters: not all desires succeed in motivating us. Chapter 6 discusses the general idea that our desires are constrained by our normative beliefs, and shows how desire-as-belief, as I formulate it, can permit that our desires can float free of our value beliefs. Chapter 7 turns to the relationship between desires and various feelings, and I show how desire-as-belief illuminates such connections. Chapter 8 discusses two further topics: degrees of desire, and reasoning with desire. I show how desire-as-belief makes sense of these things. Chapter 9 considers the mental lives of animals and whether they cast doubt on desire-as-belief. But to get there, the majority of the chapter sketches a theory of what it takes to have the concept of a reason: I hope that discussion is illuminating independently of the primary use it serves.
Finally, with everything else settled, Chapter 10 returns to the broader choice between objectivism and subjectivism, above. I rehearse some classic arguments against subjectivism, and also present some debunking explanations of its appeal—I point to some ways in which desires are normatively relevant even on an objectivist view. Chapter 11 briefly concludes. There is also an appendix on David Lewis’ famous objection to desire-asbelief (1988, 1996). For some readers this appendix might seem crucial, since Lewis’ objection is well known and somewhat influential in some circles. But I have nonetheless placed it in an appendix, since the relevant issues are somewhat technical, and I don’t think there are any interesting wider lessons to be learnt from my discussion: Lewis is wrong for reasons that add little to the rest of the book. So I present it as optional reading. If you do read it, do read §8.1 first, which the appendix draws upon.
On a similar note, §2.3.1, §5.7, and §8.2.3—all titled ‘An Aside’—can be skipped if you prefer.
What is Desire-as-Belief?
1.1 Desire and Belief
Let’s start by contrasting our wants with our preferences. When you have a preference, you prefer one thing over another. But often we talk more simply about what people want, without comparing that thing with some alternative. I will almost always do the same. Many of my claims are much simpler to state when expressed in terms of what people want, and how strongly, rather than in terms of people’s preferences between alternatives. By stating my claims more simply, I hope to make them easier to evaluate. What I say could later be extended, in a natural manner, to make sense of preference.
In fact, this emphasis might reflect the underlying reality. Preferences seem to be more complex attitudes than wants, because they involve comparing two things, rather than assessing only one alone. As a result, it is tempting to think of preferences as complex states, composed of wants: your preference for one thing over another is explained by your wanting the former more than you want the latter (for an argument, see Pollock 2006, 22–7). If our wants are more basic than our preferences in this way, it makes good sense to investigate wanting first, and then later use that theory to develop a corresponding theory of preference. This might provide a further reason for focusing on wants, since preferences are plausibly composed of such wants.
Talk of what we ‘want’ is somewhat ambiguous: sometimes we mean to refer to what someone wants most, and sometimes we mean to refer to what they want to some extent. The former is implicitly comparative, like preferences are. Unless I say otherwise, I will always have the latter sense in mind, the sense in which it is clearly true that all of us have many conflicting wants. If I mean to talk about what someone most wants, I will explicitly say so.
I will sometimes refer to our wants using the word ‘desire’. The word ‘desire’ in English is often associated with particularly strong desires, and sometimes associated more narrowly still with sexual desires. But the notion I have in mind need not have these associations: in my sense, it is true that I desire to get a good night’s sleep tonight. To this extent, the word ‘want’ is probably a better fit than ‘desire’ as a label for the state of mind I focus on. But the word
‘desire’ is useful since it can more naturally be used as a noun, and so I will make use of both ‘want’ and ‘desire’, meaning the same by each.
Another important mental state is belief. To believe p is to represent p as true. Again, in ordinary English the word ‘belief’ has distracting associations: it is often used to refer solely to our religious commitments. But as is now standard in philosophy, I will use the word more broadly: we have beliefs about the population of China, about the best theory of gravity, about whether it will rain later today, and so on. In everyday English we use phrases like ‘he thinks’ and ‘in her opinion’ to talk about beliefs, but the word ‘belief’ is less ambiguous than words like ‘think’ and ‘opinion’, and is anyway firmly entrenched in the philosophical literature.
States of mind like beliefs and desires are attitudes, and those attitudes have contents. The content of a belief is the thing you believe (e.g. that the population of China is large), and the content of a desire is the thing you desire (e.g. that you buy a sledgehammer). For clarity, I will often place the contents of our attitudes in square brackets, so that you might believe [that the population of China is large] and desire [that you buy a sledgehammer]. I normally treat the contents of beliefs and desires as propositions: things that are expressed in English by ‘that’ clauses, and which can be grammatically preceded by ‘it is true’ or ‘it is false’. But I don’t think very much hangs on this assumption, other than ease of presentation.1 (A little more on this shortly.)
Our beliefs can have many different contents, about just any subject matter. But an especially important subset of our beliefs is the set of beliefs with normative contents, such as beliefs about what we ought to do, or about what is good. I’ll refer to beliefs with normative contents as ‘normative beliefs’. You have very many normative beliefs. Perhaps some of those are moral beliefs, as when you believe you ought to keep your promise to Ahmed, believe that noone should be cruel, believe that it’s good to be a vegetarian, or believe that it’s bad to be at war. But you also have large numbers of nonmoral normative beliefs, as when you believe that you ought to keep doing exercise, that noone should wear a bowtie, that pie for dinner would be good, or that it’s bad to have no pension. Understood in this extramoral way, we have very many normative beliefs indeed.
1 For example, I rely on no assumptions about the metaphysical nature of propositions. A distinct worry is that we have some desires for objects, not propositions, such as when you desire chocolate. I agree with those who think that there are no such desires, and that sentences that appear to ascribe such desires are really elliptical claims about propositional desires (Sinhababu 2015; for opposition, see Brewer 2006; Thagard 2006). But note that this is consistent with thinking that many other attitudes are not propositional, including attitudes such as likings (Grzankowski 2015; Montague 2007). For the contrast between desiring and liking, see §7.3.
1.2 Reasons and Reasons Beliefs
Our normative beliefs fall into various subcategories. For example, there are beliefs about what you ought to do, beliefs about what you have reason to do, beliefs about things being good overall, and beliefs about things being good in certain respects. See Figure 1.1 for a simple taxonomy.
Most of my discussion will focus on beliefs about just one of the nodes in Figure 1.1: beliefs about reasons. For example, if you are debating whether to opt for surgery, you might well form beliefs about the reasons for, or against, surgery. Or you might believe you have reason to do more exercise, to help your sister, or to drink some tea. I will very often refer to such beliefs, and I will refer to them as ‘reasons beliefs’.
In fact, by ‘reasons beliefs’, I have something relatively narrow in mind. You might believe [that Sarah has a reason to help you], believe [that you don’t have reason to jump through the window], or believe [that if dragon fruit is tasty then you have reason to eat it]. Though these are beliefs about reasons, I won’t include them as ‘reasons beliefs’, in my sense. In my sense, ‘reasons beliefs’ are atomic beliefs about single reasons you yourself have: beliefs with the content [I have reason to v].2 This shouldn’t be too confusing: such reasons beliefs are the canonical kind. And don’t worry: I’ll remind you of this restriction at the most crucial points.
What, exactly, are reasons? Two clarificatory remarks are crucial.
First, by ‘reason’, I mean normative reason. Normative reasons are facts that count in favour of actions, or (equivalently) that contribute towards justifying actions. I will never use the word ‘reason’ to refer to motivating reasons (or any other purely explanatory reasons). Motivating reasons are the reasons
1.1
2 To be clear, ‘v’ here might be logically complex, as when you believe [that you have a reason to (either A or B)]. But any kind of wider logical complexity ensures that the belief in question is not a ‘reasons belief’, in my sense.
Figure
Taxonomy of normative beliefs.
why people act, and merely explain, rather than contribute to justifying, their actions. For example, we might describe Hitler’s reasons for invading Poland: such motivating reasons explain what he did rather than justify it. In contrast, normative reasons justify actions, or show that they are appropriate. We will talk a lot about motivation, but since other phrases are available to refer to motivating reasons, I’ll keep things clearer by reserving the word ‘reason’ for normative reasons only. Similarly, by ‘reasons belief’, I mean beliefs about normative reasons, so that your beliefs above amount to beliefs that there is something to be said for doing exercise, helping your sister, or drinking tea.
Second, if I leave it unqualified, by ‘reason’ I will always mean ‘reason to act’, where an act (action) is something you intentionally do, such as cutting your own hair, or buying a toupee. Really, normative reasons can favour attitudes as well as actions—you might have some reason to believe that the butler did it, or to feel sad. But since I focus on reasons for action, and say little about reasons for attitudes, I will just use ‘reason’ to mean ‘reason to act’. Similarly, by ‘reasons belief’, I mean only beliefs about normative reasons for actions, never beliefs about reasons for attitudes.
In short, by ‘reason’ I mean the things that count in favour of certain actions—things that go in the ‘pros’ column for an act. And when I talk about ‘reasons beliefs’, I mean our beliefs about such things.
Can we say anything more about such normative reasons for action? Two broad points are worth mentioning.
First, as I said in the Introduction, desire-as-belief fits most neatly into the objectivist tradition according to which normative reasons are relatively independent of your own state of mind.3 On this view, you might have various reasons to have surgery, donate money to charity, or keep your promises, and those reasons are independent of what you think or feel on these issues. Since I assume this kind of objectivist view, I assume that there are real facts of the matter about whether you have certain reasons or not, and your reasons beliefs aim to track objective facts about those reasons, just as your beliefs about planets aim to track certain objective facts about those planets.
But though I assume some kind of objectivist view, I will stay silent on exactly which kind of objectivist view we should endorse.4 There are many
3 I say ‘relatively’ independent because of course some reasons can depend on your own state of mind: if you are in pain, that might be a reason to take a painkiller. But objectivists think that these are special cases and certainly that not all reasons are like this.
4 In my (2016), I defended some claims about reasons that are in some ways awkward partners for my claims about desire in this book. I think the two views could be reconciled, but I won’t undertake that task here, and I shall proceed to ignore my claims from that paper.
kinds of objectivism, and desire-as-belief should be compatible with the vast majority of those. For example, it is compatible with pluralist views like Ross’, as well as more monistic views like utilitarianism. It is also consistent with metaethically naturalist views as well as metaethically non-naturalist views. Desire-as-belief tells us that desires are beliefs about reasons, and these different objectivist theories will disagree about which such beliefs are true, and what makes them true. These seem like relatively independent issues. Just about any view that makes the truth of these beliefs independent of our desires is likely to fit perfectly well with desire-as-belief. For that reason, I won’t express my own views about the respective merits of different objectivist theories, since almost all are compatible with desire-as-belief. Whatever your preferred objectivist theory, you can combine it with desire-as-belief. (One notable exception are objectivist theories that incorporate desire-based theories of wellbeing—I discuss those in §10.3.)
But second, I will make one small assumption: I shall assume that reasons connect in a systematic way with what you ought to do. More specifically, I assume that you ought to do something just when you have most reason to do it. The idea is that our reasons weigh against one another, and the balance of reasons determines what you ought to do overall. As a result, at some points I shall make claims about what you ought to do, trusting you to understand that these relate in an obvious and systematic way to what you have reason to do. I hope this assumption seems as natural to you as it does to me.
To summarize: I will use the label ‘reason’ to refer to normative reasons for action. In turn, I will use the label ‘reasons beliefs’ to refer to our beliefs about such normative reasons for action—beliefs about justifications for various acts. Most crucially, you should never get misled by the alternative use of ‘reason’ where it means a motivating reason: a mere explanation of what moved someone to act. I will talk about such things, but never using the word ‘reason’.
1.3 Desire-as-Belief
In this book, I will argue for Desire-As-Belief.5 This view identifies our desires with some of our normative beliefs, and more specifically with our reasons beliefs:
5 Similar views can be found in Campbell (2018), McNaughton (1988), and Little (1997).
Desire-As-Belief: To desire [to v] just is to believe [that you have reason to v].
Desire-as-belief says ‘desire’ is really just a label that refers to a certain subset of our beliefs. It says that when a person desires to do something, that is just the very same thing as their believing that they have reason to do it. For example, desire-as-belief says that to desire to start work early is to believe that you have reason to do so (perhaps you work best then). Vice versa, desire-as-belief says that every reasons belief qualifies as a desire, so that if you believe you have reason to buy some wellies, you thereby desire to buy some.
As stated above, desire-as-belief made a claim only about desires [to __]. But it seems that some of our desires are desires [that __], rather than desires [to __], as when I desire [that Spurs win]. What should defenders of desireas-belief say about such propositional desires? One option here is to insist that desire-as-belief is a theory only about desires [to __], and to treat propositional ‘desires’ as distinct states—perhaps as hopes, or wishes, rather than desires (cf. §6.5).
But a second more ecumenical option is to instead extend desire-as-belief and make a further related claim about desires [that __]:
Desire-As-Belief: To desire [that p] just is to believe [that you have reason to bring about p].
We could separately accept both this analysis of desiring [that __] and the above analysis of desiring [to __]. Or, more neatly, we could simply treat the original view as a mere consequence of this second one.6 We could treat the desire [to v] as the desire [that you v], and could treat the belief [that you have reason to v] as the belief [that you have reason to bring it about that you v]. If that were right, the initial analysis of desiring [to __] is really just a special case of the above analysis of desiring [that __].
In what follows, I proceed on those assumptions. That is, I treat desire-asbelief as a claim about desiring [that __], and assume that claims about desiring [to __] are just shorthand for related claims about desiring [that __]. This way of proceeding is certainly cleanest, since it allows me to largely stay with the orthodoxy and treat desires as propositional attitudes, and because it allows me to deploy examples without much care as to whether they involve desires [to __] or instead desires [that __]: again, I assume that desire-as-belief
6 For potentially relevant discussion, see Schroeder (2011).
covers both and in fact that the former are just a special case of the latter. But I don’t believe I rely on this assumption at any point, and it really serves only to keep my presentation of the issues nice and clean.
A related thing I should emphasize is that we might distinguish a more general formulation of desire-as-belief which merely identifies desires with normative beliefs of some kind, and my more specific version of desire-asbelief which identifies desires with reasons beliefs in particular.7 The choices here are interesting—I discuss related matters in Chapters 3 and 6, where I argue for my more specific formulation of desire-as-belief. Much of what I say would remain relevant if we instead pursued some other nearby view. Still, for ease, by ‘desire-as-belief’ I will always mean my specific version of that view.
To help us understand desire-as-belief, let’s turn our attention to another state of mind: disbelief (cf. Price 1989, 120–1). As I said above, we believe many things. Some of these things involve negation (¬). For example, you might believe [that it is not Christmas today]. Indeed, it seems that we have many beliefs in negations: you presumably believe [that it’s not the case that grass is tasty], [that it’s not the case that sheep wear top hats], [that it’s not the case that 2 is larger than 10], and so on. Given how common beliefs with negated contents are, it might in some contexts be useful to use the word ‘disbelief’ to refer to such states of mind. Disbelief is not some new state of mind over and above belief: it is just a belief with a negated content. With this word in place, we can talk about the things you disbelieve: [that grass is tasty], [that sheep wear top hats], [that 2 is larger than 10], and so on. When we talk about these disbeliefs of yours, that is just another way of talking about the above beliefs of yours. In this way, we might put the word ‘disbelieve’ to good use, where ‘disbelieving [that p]’ is just shorthand for ‘believing [that ¬p]’. The introduction of the word ‘disbelief’ allows us to describe beliefs with negated contents in a more concise manner, where we move the negation out of the content of a belief and into our description of the attitude itself. Of course, we are not actually moving anything around: this is just a convenient way of talking. When you use the label ‘disbelief’, you aren’t committing yourself to the existence of a new state of mind beyond belief. Rather, you are just using a convenient label that lets you talk about some of our beliefs slightly more concisely.
We can now get a better understanding of desire-as-belief. Remember, it says:
7 A slightly different option is to identify desires not with beliefs, but with perceptual states, or similar. I discuss and reject such views in §4.4.
Desire-As-Belief: To desire [that p] just is to believe [that you have reason to bring about p].
Desire-as-belief says that ‘desire’ functions exactly like ‘disbelief’. Desireas-belief says that to ‘desire [that p]’ is just to believe [that you have reason to bring about p]. Just as the word ‘disbelief’ allows us to move negation out of the content of a belief and into our description of the attitude, the word ‘desire’ allows us to move reason-to-bring-about out of the content of a belief and into our description of the attitude. And just as the word ‘disbelief’ might allow us to talk more concisely about beliefs with negated contents, by using this label ‘desire’, we might talk more concisely about our reasons beliefs. Desire-as-belief literally identifies desires and beliefs with a particular normative content, in just the same way that we identified disbeliefs and beliefs with a particular negated content. It says that when we talk about desires, this is just a particular way of talking about a particular subset of our beliefs. That is the view I will defend.8 For a simple illustration, see Figure 1.2.
Belief
It’s not the case that
Belief I have re ason to bring about ... is the same as ... ... is the same as ...
Disbelief
Figure 1.2 Desire-as-belief illustrated by analogy with disbelief.
8 Are there other words like ‘disbelief’ and ‘desire’? If so, they are probably words for attitudes with contents governed by monadic propositional operators, where attitudes with such contents are sufficiently common that greater parsimony of expression is helpful. There are some candidates: perhaps someone doubts [p] just when they believe [probably not p], or someone expects [p] just when they believe [p will happen in the future] (Searle 1983, 31). Another possibility is that someone suspends judgement whether p when they believe [I have insufficient reason to believe p or its negation] (Raleigh Forthcoming; see also Friedman 2013). On this broad topic, see also Campbell (2018).
1.4 Direction of Fit
With desire-as-belief clarified in this way, this is a good place to address the direction-of-fit metaphor (Humberstone 1992; Gregory 2012; Smith 1994, 111–16; Platts 1997, 256–7). The idea is that desires and beliefs have different ‘directions of fit’. Whilst in each case something goes right if the content of the attitude matches up to the world, the thought is that the direction of this fit travels in opposing directions: whereas beliefs aim to fit the world, desires aim to have the world fit them. That is, we try to revise our beliefs to bring them into line with the way the world is, whereas we try to bring the world into line with how we want it to be. (If you like, think of beliefs as soft wax that press against the world and have the world imprint the truth upon them, and desires as stamps that press against the world and imprint their contents upon it.) This metaphor seems to suggest that when we think about beliefs and desires, we are thinking about states of mind that are in some fundamental sense the opposite of one another. That might seem to count against desireas-belief, which identifies desires with a particular subset of our beliefs (Smith 1994, 116–25).9
But with desire-as-belief clarified via the comparison with disbelief, we can see why this line of thought is mistaken. According to desire-as-belief, we can describe desires in two different ways, and depending on how we describe them, we describe their content in a different way.10 In turn, when we talk about the direction of fit of a mental state like desire that can be described in more than one way, we need to be careful about which content the relevant direction of fit is being ascribed to. Desire-as-belief says that to desire [that p] is to believe [that you have reason to bring about p]. The former content— [that p]—is plausibly one that you are supposed to impose on the world. The latter content—[that you have reason to bring about p]—is plausibly one that
9 Smith presents the problem as a problem for the ‘besire’ theory, rather than desire-as-belief, though he surely thinks it would undermine both. I discuss the besire theory in §6.1 and reject it for reasons that are independent of the present issue.
10 This claim also has some bearing on views according to which desires are not states with normative contents, but instead have non-normative contents that they represent with normative force (Schafer 2013; Tenenbaum 2008). These views are sometimes pitched as alternatives to a view like desire-as-belief. But I agree with these views insofar as reasons rarely feature in the contents of our desires: I rarely desire [that I have reason to v]. This fact is consistent with desire-as-belief: according to desire-as-belief, that desire would be an unusual belief—one about a higher-order reason: a reason to bring it about that I have reason to v. Those defending these views also tend to say that desires relate to the good in the same way that beliefs relate to the true. Let’s set aside the fact that I identify desires with beliefs about reasons rather than beliefs about goodness. Even so, this clam isn’t right. Since claims about goodness are themselves truth-apt, it would be more accurate to say that desires relate to the truly good as beliefs relate to the true. But so understood, this claim fits perfectly well with the claim that desires are a subset of our beliefs. In these ways, I think these views are either consistent with desire-as-belief or else implausible.
Belief ‘Desire’
1.3 The two directions of fit of desire.
you are supposed to make fit the world as it already is. This state of mind has two directions of fit, each with respect to a different content: it is both supposed to bring about p, and also supposed to be responsive to whether it’s true that you have reason to bring about p (Little 1997, 63–4; Price 1989, 120–1).11 See Figure 1.3.
Understanding this may be easier if we step away from the metaphor. Really, the idea behind the direction-of-fit metaphor is that whereas beliefs are, or should be, responsive to evidence, desires do, or should, influence us to act in ways that are productive of their content. Desire-as-belief says that both of these things are true of desires, which is to say, both of these things are true of reasons beliefs. Clearly, your beliefs about what you have reason to do should be sensitive to evidence about whether you really have reason to do those things. But such beliefs should also rationally influence your actions in appropriate ways. And—I here repeat the previous claims in different words— your desires should be sensitive to what you have reason to do, and ought to rationally influence your actions in appropriate ways. Desire-as-belief is perfectly consistent with the distinction between directions of fit: it merely says that this state of mind has both directions of fit at once, each with respect to a different content.
It might also help if we return briefly to our comparison with disbelief. Imagine someone reasoning as follows:
‘Disbelief cannot be a belief of any kind, because those states of mind have opposing directions of commitment. Whereas the belief [that p] commits
11 Some might deny that that one state of mind could have two contents. Perhaps it would be better to say that this state of mind has just one content—that [I have reason to bring about p]—but also has [p] as a part of its content, and the desire-like direction of fit applies to a content-part rather than a content. I am not so clear about this—too much hinges on how we think of mental contents—and at any rate the analogy with disbelief ensures that there must be some appropriate way to understand states of mind which can be described in different ways and which seem to get ascribed different contents depending on how they are described.
Figure
one to [p], the disbelief [that p] commits one to [¬p]. Beliefs commit one in favour of their contents, whereas disbeliefs commit one against their contents. So disbelieving cannot be a kind of believing’.
This is bad reasoning. The very idea is that disbelieving [p] just is believing [¬p], and as such disbelieving [p] both commits you in favour of [¬p] and commits you against [p]. Similarly, according to desire-as-belief, desiring [that p] just is believing [that you have reason to bring about p], and as such the desire [that p] both aims to fit whether [you have reason to bring about p] and aims to have the world fit [p].
A final point: desire-as-belief is consistent with the idea that describing a state of mind as a belief, or as a desire, makes one of its directions of fit more salient. For example, when we describe a state of mind as a belief [that you have reason to bring about p], by referring to it as a ‘belief’ we might thereby emphasize the way in which this state should be responsive to the truth about whether you in fact have reason to bring about p. Vice versa, when we describe this very same state of mind as a desire [that p], by referring to it as a ‘desire’ we might thereby emphasize the motivational role it plays in affecting your actions. So it is possible that by describing states of mind as ‘beliefs’ or as ‘desires’, we thereby emphasize different features they have, and in turn we might emphasize one direction of fit by describing the state in a certain way. To this extent, one direction of fit is more closely associated with beliefs, and another is more closely associated with desires. But this is all consistent with desire-as-belief, which says that ultimately, there is just one state of mind here with both directions of fit. Our ability to draw attention to one direction of fit at the expense of the other is consistent with this state of mind ultimately always having both.
I conclude that the direction-of-fit metaphor is perfectly fine, but does absolutely nothing to undermine desire-as-belief.
Before we move on, I can briefly respond to another simple objection to desire-as-belief. Whereas we refer to beliefs as ‘true’ or ‘false’, we never attach these labels to desires. Isn’t that a simple but effective argument against desireas-belief? It’s again helpful to start by thinking about disbelief. To the extent that we might successfully make use of the word ‘disbelief’, we would be unlikely to describe disbeliefs as ‘true’ or ‘false’. Why? Because it would be confusing: if someone described the disbelief [that pigs fly] as ‘true’, it would be unclear whether they meant that the content of the disbelief was true or that the content of the belief was true: whether they meant that pigs do fly or that they don’t. To this extent, it would be far clearer to communicate
the relevant facts by describing the state of disbelief as ‘appropriate’ or ‘inappropriate’, or else by describing the relevant belief as ‘true’, ‘false’, ‘appropriate’, or ‘inappropriate’. Given that we have these helpful ways of communicating the relevant facts, it would be bizarre to try to communicate those facts with the highly unclear assertion that the relevant disbelief is ‘true’.12
Similar reasoning applies to desires, given desire-as-belief. You could accurately describe desires as ‘true’ or ‘false’. But it would be extremely confusing. If someone called the desire [that pigs fly] ‘true’, it would be unclear whether they meant that the content of the desire was true, or that the content of the belief was true: whether they meant that pigs do fly, or instead that there is a reason to make them fly (i.e. whether they meant that the desire is satisfied, or that it is appropriate). As a result, it’s clearest to make the intended claim by saying that the relevant desire is ‘appropriate’ or ‘inappropriate’, or else by saying that the relevant belief is ‘true’, ‘false’, ‘appropriate’, or ‘inappropriate’. To this extent, desire-as-belief positively predicts that we don’t refer to desires as ‘true’ or ‘false’. Doing so would be unnecessarily confusing, and that is a good explanation of why we do not talk in that way.
1.5 Some Broad Attractions of Desire-as-Belief
In the chapters ahead I’ll present some detailed arguments for desire-asbelief. But before we get to those details, we can here note two more simple attractions of the view.
The simplest attraction of desire-as-belief is that the view is highly parsimonious, reducing desires to beliefs. According to other views, we have two distinct and important states of mind: beliefs and desires. But according to desire-as-belief, we have just one important state of mind: belief. On this view, talk of ‘desire’ is just another way to talk about some of these beliefs. I take it that theories are more plausible if they can explain the data while positing the existence of fewer kinds of entity. So if desire-as-belief can explain the data, it is a more plausible theory than many rivals. This is clearly an attraction of the view. True, a lot hinges on whether desire-as-belief can explain the data, but as we might put it, desire-as-belief is a good starting hypothesis that we should abandon only if it can’t explain the data; other more positive arguments for the view might be superfluous.
12 Similar reasoning applies to ‘deny’ and ‘reject’: denials and rejections are truth-apt, and yet we don’t call them ‘true’ or ‘false’. This is surely just because it would be deeply confusing to talk that way.
A second simple attraction of desire-as-belief comes from noting how much there is in common between desiring something and believing there’s a reason to bring it about (we will investigate many of these in greater depth in the following chapters). Plausibly, reasons beliefs and desires are both capable of motivating you to do things. Reasons beliefs and desires both play important roles in practical deliberation. Reasons beliefs and desires both seem capable of rendering your actions (ir)rational. Reasons beliefs and desires both come in degrees: you can think you have a weak reason, or a strong reason, and you can want things a little or a lot. You can believe that you have conflicting reasons, and so too you can have conflicting desires. Reasons can be believed to be instrumental, when they favour a means to an end, or ultimate, when they favour an end for its own sake, and this same distinction holds for our desires. Ultimate reasons beliefs and ultimate desires seem relatively stable over time, whereas instrumental reasons beliefs and instrumental desires do not. Reasons beliefs and desires come in both noncomparative and comparative forms: just as you can believe [that you have reason to bring about p] and desire [that p], you can believe [that you have more reason to bring about p than q], and you can prefer [p to q]. Reasons beliefs and desires can both have their demands met: you can comply with the reason you believe you have, or satisfy the desire. Reasons beliefs and desires are both evaluated in a manner that is agent-relative: some reasons beliefs and desires might be more appropriate for me than you, or vice versa.
This list could go on, but the basic and simple point should be clear: it looks as though desires and reasons beliefs are made for each other, in that they have many properties in common. This isomorphism needs explaining, and one obvious explanation of it is that the two are in fact one and the same. To this extent, desire-as-belief seems in a good position to explain some obvious facts about reasons beliefs and desires.
1.6 Some Broad Defences of Desire-as-Belief
Some might think that desire-as-belief is sufficiently implausible that we should just reject it out of hand. Again, in the following chapters, I defend desire-as-belief in detail. But again, before we get to those details, we can note some general reasons for optimism about desire-as-belief. David Lewis claimed that incredulous stares can’t be answered (1986a, 133), but I hope they might nonetheless be prevented by casting a view in a different light. We can then move onto more articulate arguments.
