In Praise of Desire
Nomy Arpaly and Timothy Schroeder
Abstract
In Praise of Desire aims to show that ordinary desires belong at the heart of moral psychology. It has three core theses, adding up to a doctrine it calls Spare Conativism. These are (1) that intrinsic desires for the right or good (correctly conceived) are what makes it possible to act for the right reasons; (2) that doing what is right or good out of an intrinsic desires for the right or good (correctly conceived) is acting in a praiseworthy manner; and (3) that to be virtuous is to greatly intrinsically desire the right or good (correctly conceived). In addition, intrinsic desi ... More
In Praise of Desire aims to show that ordinary desires belong at the heart of moral psychology. It has three core theses, adding up to a doctrine it calls Spare Conativism. These are (1) that intrinsic desires for the right or good (correctly conceived) are what makes it possible to act for the right reasons; (2) that doing what is right or good out of an intrinsic desires for the right or good (correctly conceived) is acting in a praiseworthy manner; and (3) that to be virtuous is to greatly intrinsically desire the right or good (correctly conceived). In addition, intrinsic desires are central to understanding such diverse topics as love, care, pleasure, acting on side constraints, open-mindedness, the virtue of modesty, the moral status of dreams, the possibility of inner struggle, and the diminished blameworthiness addicts have for bad acts they perform out of addiction. Even deliberation can only be understood through intrinsic desires, since deliberation is itself a kind of mental action performed out of an intrinsic desire to determine what to think or what to do. While other moral-psychological theories put Reason ahead of desires or give desires roles only when managed and contained, In Praise of Desire gives a full defence of the central role intrinsic desires have in our moral lives.
Keywords:
Moral psychology,
Desire,
Reasons,
Acting for reasons,
Praise,
Blame,
Virtue,
Deliberation,
Addiction
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2013 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199348169 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199348169.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Nomy Arpaly, author
Brown University
Timothy Schroeder, author
The Ohio State University
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