On Desire 2018. Part 36: The Negation of a Desire

After confessing to an error in my last posting, I want to get clear on what I now hold to be the case regarding desires.

First, it is true that a person cannot assign a positive value to a proposition being true and a zero or a negative value to that same proposition being true. The value assigned to a proposition being true is either positive, negative, or zero.

Second, it is true that a person can assign a positive value to a state of affairs S in virtue of having a desire that P and P being true in S. And, at the same time, that person can assign a negative value to a state of affairs S in virtue of having an aversion to Q and Q being true in S, so long as P and Q are not the same proposition. In this case, the agent would have mixed feelings about S. But P and Q each still only have one value.

Third, the fact that an agent assigns a value V to P being true tells us nothing about the value assigned to P being false. This value could be positive, negative, or zero. It is NOT the case that an aversion to P implies a desire that not-P or a desire that P implies an aversion to not-P.

To see this, simply recall the example of pain. A person assigns a value of -8 to severe pain, -2 to a mild headache, -0.2 to a barely noticeable poke, and 0 (neither desire nor aversion) to no pain. Assigning a value of -8 to pain does not imply assigning a positive value to no pain. The agent prefers no pain because 0 is greater than -8.

Or, think of something that you would like to have but you have learned to live without, such as immorality, or fame, or good looks. Some of us have had more practice than others. Anyway, the desire for these things does not imply an aversion to not having them. The desire is perfectly compatible with a "well, life goes on" indifference to their absence.

Let us look at some of the examples that Olivier Massin brought up in defense of his thesis: (Massin, Olivier, (2017), “Desires, Values, and Norms” In Deonna J. & Lauria F. (eds). The Nature of Desire. Oxford University Press.)

Paul is conatively indifferent to walking if and only if he neither desire to walk nor desires not to walk.

On the account given above, it is true that if Paul assigns a 0 value to the proposition "I am not walking" being true, he cannot, at the same time, attach a positive or a negative value to the proposition "I am not walking" being true. However, assigning a 0 value to "I am not walking" is compatible with assigning a positive value to "I am walking" in the same way that assigning a 0 value to "I am not in pain" is compatible with assigning a negative value to "I am in pain".

Speaking of pain, Massin has a pain example.

Nor can we be adverse to something and be indifferent to its negation: if Julie is averse to being in pain she cannot be indifferent to not being in pain.

Sure she can. This is the very case that I have been discussing. Assigning a value of -8 to extreme pain is quite compatible with assigning a -0.0002 value to an extremely (perhaps not consciously noticeable) pain and a 0 value to no pain.

There is a question that arises here that will require more thought. It may be the case that assigning a negative value to P being true might require assigning a 0 value to P being false. The way that I have written this so far, I have assumed that the value of P being false is independent of the value of P being true. However, I have not found it easy to come up with a case in which this is true.

It may well be that the value assigned to P being true is the preference value of P being true vs. P being false. In this case, one of the two options (P is true/P is false) must have a 0 value, and the preference/aversion value assigned to the other represents the deviation from this. So, an aversion to P of value V means: give "P is false" a value of 0, and V is the deviation in importance from "P is false" to "P is true".

This would imply that we are always indifferent to the negation of our desires and aversions.

I am, I think, beginning to lean in the direction of this option.

Though, remember the second truth above as you try to come up with counter-examples. Are you actually assigning one non-zero value to P being true and another non-zero value to P being false? Or are you assigning a non-zero value to S in virtue of a desire that P where P is true in S, and a different non-zero value to S in virtue of a desire that Q and Q is true in S?

So, is it, or is it not the case, that the negation of a desire or aversion is always indifference?