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Can Desires Be Causes of Actions?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
Extract
In this paper I shall put forward a version of the so-called logical connection argument to try to show that desires cannot be causes of actions. Now for anyone who wishes to use that kind of argument to show this, the ideal way of proceeding would be to first set out a complete analysis of the causal relation, and then to go on to argue that the relation between desires, certain other conditions, and actions fails to match some essential feature revealed by that analysis. But I cannot proceed in this way; for I do not possess any full-blooded analysis of the causal relation. Nonetheless, I do not think that this places me in a position of real weakness. For the argument I shall present requires the truth of only one claim with respect to the nature of the causal relation. This is the claim that the causal relation is a contingent relation. I think that this claim is a relatively uncontroversial one; I am going to assume that it is true; and the argument which follows will exploit that claim.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume , Volume 1 , Issue 2: New Essays in the Philosophy of Mind , 1975 , pp. 145 - 158
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Authors 1975
References
1 On what I have to say in this regard, I owe a heavy debt to two of David Pears's essays: “Are Reasons for Actions Causes?” in Epistemology, ed. Stroll, A. (New York, 1967). pp. 204-228Google Scholar, and “Desires as Causes of Actions,” in The Human Agent: Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures, Vol. I: 1966-1967 (Glasgow, 1968), pp. 83-97.
2 See, for example, Taylor, R., Action and Purpose (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1966), pp. 254–255,Google Scholar and Melden, A. I., Free Action (London, 1961)Google Scholar, Chapter X, esp. pp. 109-114.
3 I use the terms ‘want’ and ‘desire’ interchangeably throughout.
4 It is perhaps worth pointing out that to speak of one description entailing another description is to use the notion of entailment in an extended way: for entailment is a relation that is normally considered to hold between statements. And as I shall frequently speak of one description entailing another in what follows, a word about what is meant by saying this would be in order. We may say that one description, D1, entails another description, D2, if and only if D1 can be predicated of a subject x to form a statement S1 and D 2 can be predicated of the same subject x to form a statement S2 such that, of the two statements so formed out of this subject and these descriptions, S1 entails S2. Now to say that S1 entails S2 is to say that it is inconsistent to assert S1 and yet to deny S2. Thus to say that D1 entails D2 is to say that it is inconsistent to predicate D1 of a subject and yet to refuse to predicate D 2 of that subject. Let me illustrate this. The descriptions ‘six feet tall’ and ‘less than ten feet tall’ can be predicated of a common subject, e.g., John, to yield the following two statements: ‘John is six feet tall’ and ‘John is less than ten feet tall.' And since the former statement entails the latter one, we may say that the description ‘six feet tall’ entails the description ‘less than ten feet tall’; that it is inconsistent to predicate ‘six feet tall’ of a subject and yet refuse to predicate ‘less than ten feet tall’ of that subject. With these explanations, I hope that the extended use of the notion of entailment, as indicating a relation holding between descriptions, will create no problems.
5 “Are Reasons for Actions Causes?” p. 212.
6 Fodor, Jerry, Psychological Explanation (New York, 1968), p. 35Google Scholar.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 ‘Specific’ here has the force of limiting the desires in question to those we can identify. Without this, or some equivalent, qualification, it would be false to claim that desires do not conceal their objects; for we can want something and yet not know what it is that we want.
10 The argument that follows is adapted from one used in a different context by Malcolm, N., “The Conceivability of Mechanism,” Philosophical Review, LXXVII (1968), 45–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See esp. sections 1-7.
11 It will be noticed that I have chosen simplified cases of explanations, viz., explanations just in terms of some desire of the agent's, to illustrate the two competing forms of explanations. More frequently, reason-explanations are not just in terms of some desire the agent has, but in terms of his desires and information (i.e., knowledge or beliefs). However, the point I shall now make concerning these two forms of explanations also applies to explanations in terms of the agent's desires and information.
12 It would perhaps be in order here to state a limitation of the argument just produced. If sound, it will only show that volitional concepts such as wanting and intending cannot be identified with, by way of being reduced to, certain neural states. It will not show that other mental concepts such as consciousness, experience, sensation, and mental imagery are irreducible to, and unidentifiable with, neural states; for there are no a priori laws pertaining to these sorts of phenomena. So for all that has been shown, one could be a Reductive Identity Theorist about some mental concepts, viz., the last sort mentioned above. And some philosophers, e.g., Place, U. T. (“Is Consciousness a Brain Process?” British Journal of Psychology, XLVII [1956], 44–50)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Smart, J. J. C. (“Sensations and Brain Processes,” Philosophical Review, LXVIII [1959], 141·156)Google Scholar have held the theory in just this way.
13 I am indebted to D. G. Brown, Warren Mullins, S.C. Coval, Howard Jackson, Richard Sikora, and Brian Davies for helpful criticisms of earlier drafts of this paper.