I can imagine how boring this may be for folks. There are likely to be only 3.6 people on the planet with an interest in theories of desire.
But, you really can’t have a moral theory that says that desires are the primary object of moral evaluation without a theory of desires.
As I start Chapter 5 of The Nature of Desire, a 2017 book of articles of those devoted to the field, I am thinking that I am getting a pretty good theory. But, of course I would think that. Who is going to proclaim, “I have a horrible theory of desires here. Do you want to see it?”
The question is, does it have merit?
Well, we can only determine that by looking at the arguments. That’s what these postings are for, to present the case for the idea that a desire is an assignment of importance to a proposition being true.
It is interesting to think that, if I should be hit by a bus at the end of the summer, that the definitive theory of desire would be sitting here, on this obscure blog, unknown, sinking slowly in the quicksand of the Internet, until it disappears from sight.
There is a reason why famous philosophers came from the aristocratic class. It is not grounded on the intellectual superiority of that class. It is because people listen to them. Somewhere, on a cotton field in Georgia, a slave probably worked out a theory of morality superior to that presented by John Stuart Mill . . . or in 1750 a dock worker had a theory concerning the wealth of nations more advanced than those of Adam Smith . . . and we credit members of the aristocratic class with these discoveries because they are the ones who other aristocrats would listen to.
Oh well, such is life. Obscure corner of the Internet or not, let’s see what else we can say about the nature of desire - come what may.
Next, we will look at Chapter 5 of The Nature of Desire
Lauria, Frederico, (2017), “Guise of the Ought-to-Be” In Deonna J. & Lauria F. (eds). The Nature of Desire. Oxford University Press.
"There are likely to be only 3.6 people on the planet with an interest in theories of desire."
ReplyDeleteI am 1.3 of them.
"or in 1750 a dock worker had a theory concerning the wealth of nations more advanced than those of Adam Smith"
ReplyDeleteI can appreciate the sentiment from where this statement must be coming, but all I can say is you must have never been a dock worker, or worked in any other menial but laborious job. I can assure you that moral and economic theories are the last things on their minds.
That is not to say, had their lives worked out differently, that they would not be capable of these kinds of thoughts... it's just the background leading one to those sorts of jobs is not conducive to their emergence.