Abstract
According to the cognitivist strategy, the desire to bring about P provides reasons for intending to bring about P in a way analogous to how perceiving that P provides reasons for believing that P. However, while perceiving P provides reasons for believing P by representing P as true, desiring to bring about P provides reasons for intending to bring about P by representing P as good. This paper offers an argument against this view. My argument proceeds via an appeal to what I call the non-substitutability of perception, the thesis that, given that there is no independent evidence for P, one cannot substitute something that fails to provide reasons with respect to P for the perceptual experience that P, without altering the rational permissibility of believing that P. By contrast, I argue that it is always possible to substitute something that fails to provide reasons for a desire without altering the rational permissibility of an intention based on said desire. I take this to show that a desire does not provide reasons in a way analogous to perceptual experience.
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Notes
Henceforth, whenever I talk of reasons I should be understood to mean justificatory reasons.
Cognitivism, with respect to desires, is typically defined as the thesis that a desire represents its object as good. This need not entail the claim that desires provide reasons. For example, one may hold that a desire represents its object as good as a pretext for claiming that the good is the formal end of practical reasoning, without also being committed to the claim that desires provide reasons. [For an in-depth discussion and defence of a position along these lines, see Tenenbaum 2007).] In fact, the main arguments of this paper, though aimed at impugning the claim that desires provide reasons, are consistent with both the claim that desires represent their objects as good and the claim that the good is the formal end of practical reasoning. Nevertheless, cognitivism is commonly discussed in the context of the claim that desires provide reasons [see, for example, Velleman (1992)].
For a recent discussion of “guise of the good” approaches, see Tenenbaum (2010).
Velleman (1992: 6–7).
John McDowell (1998a) was an early defender of the notion of evaluative perceptions (of a specifically moral character). However, there has been a resurgence of interest in the possibility of evaluative perceptions in aesthetics, ethics, and normativity theory. Examples of theorists who discuss evaluative perceptions in the context of aesthetics include: Lopes (1996, 2005), Hopkins (1998), and Pettersson (2011). Examples of theorists who discuss evaluative perceptions in moral contexts include: Blum (1991), Fortenbaugh (1964), Harman (1977), Holland (1998), Jacobson (2006), McDowell (1998a, b), Nussbaum (2001), and Starkey (2006). This renewed interest in evaluative perception is in large part due to the emergence of the high-level view of the content of perception (e.g., Siegel (2006)) which has given credence to the idea that sophisticated forms of perception may be possible.
While I do not wish to take a stand on whether it is possible to have such evaluative perceptions, it seems to me that the analogy from evaluative perception just adumbrated is the most plausible way of understanding the cognitivist strategy. To be clear, the present suggestion is not that desires are themselves perceptual experiences. Rather, the suggestion is that desires and perceptual experiences share something important, which they do not share with beliefs: namely, both desire and perception do not involve the kind of commitment that entails irrationality in cases of logically inconsistent contents.
Hawkins (2008: 247).
Velleman (1992: 7).
Velleman (1992: 22, note 12).
See, for example: Davidson (1980: 102).
The suggestion that the desires of an agent equipped with the relevant concepts may play a justificatory role that the desires of an infant cannot is not as strange or novel as it may initially seem. It is widely held that the perceptual appearances of an agent equipped with the appropriate concepts may provide her with justification that could not be had by someone who lacked the concepts in question. For example, an agent who is equipped with the appropriate concepts may come to justifiably believe that there is a fire truck nearby after hearing a blaring siren even though an infant or animal (that lacked the appropriate concepts) could not come to have the same justified belief under similar circumstances. If there were a theory of perception that aimed to explain how the perceptual experiences of an agent equipped with the appropriate concepts could provide her with justification for adopting certain beliefs, it would be no objection to such an account to argue that it failed to apply to agents who lacked the ability to conceive of reasons as such. A similar argument may be advanced on behalf of the cognitivist strategy.
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Acknowledgments
I will like to thank audiences at the Eight European Congress of Analytic Philosophy, held at the University of Bucharest, Romania, and the 50th Annual Meeting of the Western Canadian Philosophical Association, held in Winnipeg, Canada, for their valuable feedback on earlier versions of this paper.
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Archer, A. Do desires provide reasons? An argument against the cognitivist strategy. Philos Stud 173, 2011–2027 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-015-0594-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-015-0594-y