On Desire 2018. Part 43: Dual Direction of Fit

For the next few posts, I would like to address what Alex Gregory took to be the main objections to his thesis:

To desire to φ is to believe that you have normative reason to φ.

(Gregory, Alex, (2017), “Might Desires Be Beliefs about Normative Reasons for Action?” In Deonna J. & Lauria F. (eds). The Nature of Desire. Oxford University Press.)

It will be instructive to see if those objections are also objections to the assignment thesis that I am defending:

To desire that P is to assign a value V to the importance of ‘P’ being made or kept true.

The first objection Gregory confronts is that of belief theories generally - that they have the wrong “direction of fit”. Recall that the standard distinction drawn between beliefs and desires is that, “If you believe that P and ‘P’ is false, change your belief. But if you desire that P and ‘P’ is false, change the world.” Beliefs have the wrong direction of fit for desires.

Gregory’s response to is to say that desires have both directions of fit at once. It is a belief that one has a normative reason to change the world - that the world ought to be changed. This has both a mind-to-world direction of fit (if one believes that one has a normative reason to change the world, and one does not, then change the belief), and a world-to-mind direction of fit (if one believes that one has a reason to change the world, and it is true, then one should change the world).

As I have been arguing, this works well for means, but means are mixtures of ends and beliefs. A belief about means is a belief that an action would serve an end. If one believes that an action will serve an end, and it is false, one should change one’s belief. If one believes that an action will serve an end, and it is true, then one should perform the action.

However, the desire that picks out the end cannot be understood in this way, and this is the type of desire that provides the foundation for all reasons for action. What is it to believe that the end is something one has reason to bring about? What is it to believe that spending time with one’s children is something one has reason to do? What does it take for the belief that one has this type of reason to be true?

I want to stress how important this is. All means-statements are statements are “ends plus beliefs” statements. In the distinction between desires and beliefs, all desires are ends. All value, all reasons for acting, all motivational force comes from these ends. If one does not have a theory of ends - if all one has is a theory of means - then one has an account of only the belief side of the equation, and is saying nothing about the desire side. An actual theory of desires must be a theory of ends - that which gives value, reasons for acting, and motivational force to means.

Assignment theory of desire is a theory of ends. Evolution, environment, and experience combine to assign values (importance) to certain propositions being made or kept true. These assignments are basic biological facts. Once an assignment is given to an end, the agent has a motivating reason to realize that end. Beliefs combine with ends to determine means - the route to take, the action to take, to realize the ends to which evolution, environment, and experience has assigned a value.

When it comes to ends, there is no mind-to-world direction of fit. There is nothing in the world that an end needs to match to be correct or incorrect. Desires can be good or bad - just as anything can be good or bad - according to whether it tends to fulfill or thwart (other) desires. But desires cannot be correct or incorrect like a belief can, because there is nothing in the world for them to match.

The fact that means have a mind-to-world element (in virtue of the mind-to-world element of the beliefs that make up means), does not imply that ends have such an element.