Re: Desires of One's Own

Nick, just from I guess an introspective point of view, I've never been hugely impressed by the idea of desires that we have no real control over. I suppose it is a (logical) possibility, but I'm just not so sure that it happens to us with that much of a frequency. Take the drug addict. Now, I've never been in his position, but I have desired to do things where the urge is so strong that you almost feel that you can't help but do it. Still, though, I think you can help it. The druggie's desire for drugs might be really really strong, but I'm not sure that this shows that he is actually compelled to do it so that it is not in fact possible for him not to take the drugs.

I guess, however, that were someone to experience a desire that they could not control, (perhaps some neuroscientist is fiddling with his brain) then I suppose that that person is not responsible for 'obeying' that desire and attempting to satisfy it. I am tempted to try to separate this example into two things however. There is a purely physical ( i.e. non-mental) thing going on when certain neurones are made to fire causing certain bodily motions that result in e.g. a rape. I think we'd all agree that the rapist isn't really guilty (since he hasn't really committed the rape, so much as the neuroscientist). The mental desire is a different thing (I think) and something that I am tempted to suggest we can always control (even if in practice the desire is so strong that we probably don't). (I guess some people would say that you cannot be in a brain state disposed to cause the body to rape someone and also not feel a mental desire to rape someone. I don't believe that's true, and wouldn't know what to say were it true). If the rape is caused by the non-mental fiddling with the neurones then the rapist is not morally blameworthy, whereas if he 'gives in' to his desires to rape someone, then he is. I don't know why but I am really keen to avoid the conclusion that there are ever desires that we are absolutely compelled to try to satisfy, and that there is nothing that we can do to avoid this.

On 06/03/06, N Tasker <pia03nt@sheffield.ac.uk> wrote:

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Unlike some mental states, desires have the peculiar property that an agent can
'own' some of his desires and not others. For instance, the kleptomaniac or
unwilling drug addict undergoes desires which they disown. They feel that their
desires to steal or take heroin originate from something which is external to
the self. In the vocabulary employed in an interesting body of literature, of
which Harry Frankfurt, Michael Bratman, David Velleman, and Gary Watson are
among the key authors, the drug addict "identifies" with his desire not to take
drugs, but does not "identify" with the desire to to take the drugs. This
debate can be seen as a contemporary strand to the free will debate.

Frankfurt accounts for identification in the following way. In addition to first
order desires, such as the desire to drink a cup of coffee, or to be successful
in life, we can also form second (and third, and fourth and fifth…) order
desires. The object of an n-order desire is a desire of the order n-1 (except
in the case of first order desires). So, for example, a second order desire
might be the desire not to desire a second piece of chocolate cake. One is
identified with a particular desire to x when (a) one has a higher order desire
that your desire to x be effective, (b) one is satisfied with one's higher
order desire, and (c) one's state of satisfaction is reflectively arrived at.
(To be satisfied with a desire means that the question whether or not you wish
to have the desire simply does not arrive.)

Is this a satisfactory account of what it is to identify with one's desires?

I would say not. Imagine that a man is walking home late one night, and when he
spots a lone woman in a secluded place, he is seized by the urge to rape her.
He also has the desire to leave her alone, however, and this latter desire is
endorsed by a higher order desire with which he is reflectively satisfied.
Nevertheless, despite his reflective endorsements of his desire to leave the
woman alone, the man's sexual desires get the better of him, and he molests the
woman. Is this unwilling rapist identified? According to Frankfurt's account he
is not, but consider the following argument.

(1) If an agent acts to satisfy some desire, then the agent is only blameworthy
for the act if he is identified with the desire in question.

(2) The rapist acts to satisfy a desire.

(3) The rapist is blameworthy for his act.

(C) Therefore the rapist is identified with the desire to rape the woman.

Do you agree that this example poses a problem for Frankfurt's theory? If so,
how should it be amended?

Nick

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