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Foregrounding Desire: A Defense of Kant’s Incorporation Thesis

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Abstract

In this paper I defend Kant’s Incorporation Thesis, which holds that we must “incorporate” our incentives into our maxims if we are to act on them. I see this as a thesis about what is necessary for a human being to make the transition from ‘having a desire’ to ‘acting on it’. As such, I consider the widely held view that ‘having a desire’ involves being focused on the world, and not on ourselves or on the desire. I try to show how this view is connected with a denial of any deep distinction between reason and inclination. I then argue for an alternative view of what ‘having a desire’ involves, one according to which it involves being focused both on the world and on ourselves. I show how this view fits naturally with the Kantian distinction between reason and inclination, accounts for independent intuitions about ‘having a desire’, and supports the Incorporation Thesis. I then make some further suggestions about how we might conceive of the object of incorporation.

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Notes

  1. I am deliberately formulating the basic idea in very general way that does not rely on contentious interpretations of some of Kant’s moral psychological terms. Kant does say that the object of incorporation is an “incentive” (Treibfeder), and one might well ask whether an “incentive” is the same as a “desire” (Begierde) or “inclination” (Neigung). My strategy is to take a fairly clear stand on how I am using the term “inclination,” and to work out an answer to the question, “given that we are subject to inclinations, why is incorporation something we need to do?” As such, I do not rely in advance on any settled interpretation of “incentive.” However, in Sect. 4 I do try to outline my view of what it is that gets incorporated. If my overall view is plausible, it may give us guidance in interpreting “incentive”.

  2. Here I set aside the question of how the Incorporation Thesis applies to rational incentives. I think the notion of a rational incentive is in fundamental ways different from that of an incentive stemming from feeling. First, there is essentially one rational incentive—the moral law. Second, when the moral law operates as an incentive, it does so in a unique way that is not directly analogous to the way other incentives function. The moral law only functions as an incentive insofar as it shows itself to be superior to all other incentives, striking down the pretentions of self-conceit. In this sense it is a second-order incentive. Moreover, its functioning as an incentive does not depend on its presentation to us of an object as to-be-pursued. Rather, in striking down the pretentions of self-conceit, it simply removes a hindrance to our recognition of its authority, and that recognition itself is supposed to be sufficient to motivate us (Kant 1788/1996, 5:75–76).

  3. Andrews Reath helpfully explores questions similar to mine in Reath 1989. In discussing the Incorporation Thesis, he acknowledges that on Kant’s view, the motivational role of inclination must be limited: “Kant can allow an incentive to have an affective force of some sort, but the role assigned to such force in motivation and the explanation of action must be limited so as to leave room for the notion of choice.”(p. 290) Reath’s claim is that inclinations influence the will by providing “a certain kind of reason for choice.”(p. 290) While I do not exactly disagree with this, I hope to provide a fuller account of the nature of inclination than Reath offers, one that in the end makes it clearer why the motivational force of inclination is limited, and how it can make something like a “claim” on the will even as it exerts psychological force.

  4. Contemporary moral psychology and action theory tends not to distinguish these senses. An exception is Schueler 1995, though he does not appeal to the idea of faculties or distinct motivational capacities to explain the narrower sense of “desire” (pp. 29–38).

  5. I also assume that inclinations are forms of motivation, not just pro-attitudes towards certain states of affairs. They are essentially inclinations to act in certain ways, not inclinations that such-and-such obtain. For a fuller account of my use of “inclination,” see Schapiro 2009, pp. 230–232.

  6. This way of framing the problem might seem misguided. Why not acknowledge the limited validity of both the Blackburn/Scanlon picture and the Kantian picture by simply arguing that there are two types of action, thin and thick, and that only thick action (understood as intentional action, or action for a reason, or action that carries the agent’s authority) requires incorporation? To be convincing, such a view would have to be backed up by a developed picture of human motivational capacities that explains why both types of action are possible for us, and why incorporation is necessary in some cases and not in others. It would have to make clear what the relation is between thin and thick senses of action. At the end of Sect. 2, I make some remarks about impulsive action that may help to clarify my (admittedly still undeveloped) view about this. I am grateful to Kieran Setiya for pressing me on this point.

  7. Schapiro 2009. Obviously this view is just one variation on a theme that can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle. For helpful interpretation, see Cooper 1984 and 1988.

  8. Kant’s contrast between the arbitrium brutum of nonhuman animals and the arbitrium sensitivum liberum of human beings is suggestive here. He holds that whereas the arbitrium brutum is practically necessitated by sensuous impulses, the arbtirium sensitivum liberum is only affected by them (Kant 1781/1999, A534/B562; 1797/1996, 6:213–214). But Kant does not provide enough detail to explain how nonhuman animals can count as acting, even if they do not count as having distinctively human freedom. Presumably a nonhuman animal who is determined by instinct counts as acting, whereas a nonhuman animal who is moved by an outside force does not. Korsgaard has tried to develop Kantian theory on this point, and in some respects I have been informed by her view (Korsgaard 2005 and 2009, pp. 93–104).

  9. I am gesturing here at an interpretation of Kant’s implicit distinction between acting “from inclination” and acting “in accordance with” inclination. I believe this distinction has been underexplored in the Kant literature. While it is generally accepted that action “from inclination” is action on the basis of a principle of self-love rather than the Categorical Imperative, it is not exactly clear why the principle of self-love should be so closely associated with inclination. It is worth noting, too, that contemporary philosophy of action, which relies heavily on Hobbesian/Humean belief/desire psychology, does not in any obvious way make room for this distinction.

  10. Dennis Stampe describes Aristotle as holding that “practical thought originates in the appetite,” citing Nicomachean Ethics 1139b. In response, Stampe asks: “how is it possible for practical reasoning to begin in desire?” (Stampe 1987, p. 335) My question is the same, but I interpret it differently. Stampe believes that the truth in Aristotle’s remark lies in the intuition that the fact that I want to A gives me (at least some) reason to A. I do not think that intuition is a fixed point, much less the relevant fixed point, at least not as stated. The intuition I start with is that having a desire provides the occasion for deliberation. I want to leave it open whether this is what Aristotle had in mind.

  11. There are, of course, many senses to the notion of “internalism” as applied in practical philosophy. The notion of internality I am invoking here is, I think, implicit in some of the literature on internalism, but not necessarily all of it. See, for example, Williams 1981, Korsgaard 1986, and Darwall 1992.

  12. The alternative is to see desires simply as features of our circumstances to be taken into account in the same way that we might take into account other features, like the fact that it is raining outside or the fact that I am having a certain sensation (regarded simply as a sensation, and not as an inclination to do something, e.g. to scratch my nose). If desires are thought of third-personally as dispositions of a certain kind, then practical reflection on our desires ends up being reflection on features of our circumstances. I think this alternative is more radically counterintuitive than most people recognize. It makes it hard to know what desire is, such that it has the role of making proposals about what to do. See Schapiro 2009, pp. 238–239.

  13. Stephen Darwall explicitly endorses the view that desires are backgrounded in practical reasoning. I think he too does not fully recognize that there is a tension between this claim and his otherwise Kantian conception of agency. See Darwall 2006 and Schapiro 2010.

  14. I make the same point in Schapiro 2009, p. 243.

  15. I admit this requires further argument, but see again the last paragraph of Sect. 2 of this paper.

  16. Darwall, The Second Person Standpoint.

  17. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer of The Journal of Ethics for helping me to see this.

  18. This is so even if, in acting on my inclination, I act heteronomously. Heteronomous action is still my own, and this is why I am accountable for it. Here I will not address the question of the relation between this thin sense of self-movement, necessary for mere accountability, and autonomy in the full sense.

  19. Cf. Korsgaard 2005.

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Acknowledgments

I have presented versions of this paper at UCLA, the University of Pittsburgh, and Kansas State University, Lancaster University (UK Kant Society meeting) and Claremont-McKenna College (North American Kant Society meeting). I am grateful to all who offered comments and suggestions at those sessions. I owe particular thanks to Andrews Reath, Julie Tannenbaum, Tom Dougherty, Arthur Ripstein, Rae Langton, Kieran Setiya, Stephen Engstrom, Michael Thompson, Karl Schafer, David Kaplan, Pamela Hieronymi, Barbara Herman, and Seana Shiffrin.

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Schapiro, T. Foregrounding Desire: A Defense of Kant’s Incorporation Thesis. J Ethics 15, 147–167 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-011-9110-6

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