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Naturalizing the content of desire

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Abstract

Desires, or directive representations, are central components of human and animal minds. Nevertheless, desires are largely neglected in current debates about the naturalization of representational content. Most naturalists seem to assume that some version of the standard teleological approach, which identifies the content of a desire with a specific kind of effect that the desire has the function of producing, will turn out to be correct. In this paper I argue, first, that this common assumption is unjustified, since the standard approach is in fact deeply problematic. Secondly, I propose an alternative account of the content of (basic) desires which, while generating plausible and determinate content ascriptions, avoids the main problem that plagues the standard approach, and is also preferable on other grounds.

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Notes

  1. Cf. also Timothy Schroeder (2004: 18), who characterizes this approach as the “teleofunctional version of the standard theory”.

  2. For the sake of simplicity, I am assuming that the contents of desires can always be expressed by that-clauses. Hence, Jane’s desire to eat a cookie is construed as a desire with the content that Jane eats a cookie. There are several problems with this assumption, but in the present context, we can afford to ignore them. One thing that should be noted, though, is that Jane can have the desire that Jane eats a cookie without having a self-notion, i.e. without being able to form ‘I’-representations. Adopting John Perry’s (1998: 83) terminology, we can say that desires are often “agent-relative” without being “self-attached”.

  3. Cf. Fodor (1990: 51) and Loewer (1997: 108). Of course, if we are trying to provide a general account of desire content, it should also be the case that the specified conditions are satisfied by all actual desires (and thus ‘materially necessary’, as we might say). But the conditions do not have to be metaphysically necessary, i.e. it need not be the case that they are satisfied by all possible desires. (Analogously, if we are trying to provide an account of the content of T-desires, for some type T, then it should be the case that the specified conditions are satisfied by all actual T-desires, but it need not be the case that they are satisfied by all possible T-desires.).

  4. Thus the naturalistic theory of desire content that I will develop later in this paper qualifies as a “modest theory” in the sense of Godfrey-Smith (1996: 175–177).

  5. The idea that conceptual representations require a non-conceptual representational basis is defended by many authors, including Bermúdez (2003), Burge (2010), Gauker (2011), Neander (2017) and Nanay (2013a).

  6. It is important to note that the etiological conception can be extended in order to accommodate functions of traits acquired through learning or other non-evolutionary processes (e.g. imprinting), cf. Millikan (1984: 39–70), Neander (2017: 21–22) and Papineau (1993: 59).

  7. Cf. also Martínez (2011: 81–82), who presupposes the standard approach to desire content (or “imperative content”, as he puts it) in his representationalist theory of pain.

  8. The definitive statements of Papineau’s view are Papineau (1998: 11–13) and Papineau (2016: 99–101, 104–108). An earlier version can be found in Papineau (1984: 562–565).

  9. At this point, Papineau draws on Neander’s (1995: 114–120) discussion of functional hierarchies.

  10. The role of motivational states is often ignored in descriptions of the ‘frog case’, a close relative of the case discussed here. But in frogs as well as in toads, motivational states do contribute to the production of prey-catching behavior (cf. Ewert 1980: 89–90). It is true that Papineau (2016: 106) has recently argued that there are “no good grounds for attributing motivational states to frogs” (or toads, presumably), but his argument is based on the premise that motivational states are only present in integrated, multi-purpose decision-making systems, and I see no reason to accept that premise. It is perfectly coherent to hold that (i) the perceptual states that produce prey-catching behavior do so by interacting with basic motivational states, and to accept (ii) that these perceptual states, as well as the motivational states they interact with, are not involved in the production of other types of behavior (cf. Milner and Goodale 1995: 6–11), and therefore not part of a multi-purpose decision-making system.

  11. Remember that basic desires are, by definition, motivational states that do not presuppose the possession of concepts. Since it is plausible to suppose that toads do not have concepts, we may assume that their motivational states qualify as basic desires.

  12. Papineau (2016: 107) describes the frog’s prey-catching system as having “the peculiar function of catching flying insects”, and the representational states of that system as “indicating the presence of a flying insect in such-and-such a direction”. As we have seen above, Papineau denies (wrongly, in my view) that the system’s activity is regulated by motivational states, but if he would acknowledge their existence, he would presumably ascribe to them (something like) the content that the frog catches a flying insect—or more appropriately, considering the varied diet of frogs, the content that the frog catches a small animal. (It should be noted that Papineau’s characterization of the frog case has evolved over time: in Papineau (2003: 119), he argues that we can ascribe determinate contents to the frog’s states, but only in a system-relative way, and in Papineau (1998: 5–6), he maintains that we cannot ascribe determinate contents to those states at all).

  13. It is doubtful whether Papineau would accept this line of argument. But if he does not, then it is unclear how he can avoid content indeterminacy.

  14. For example, Papineau readily ascribes beliefs to monkeys (Papineau 2016: 102), and at one point even goes so far as to treat the activation of the “frog’s detector” (in the standard frog case) as an example of a belief (Papineau 1993: 59, fn 3).

  15. This interpretation is also supported by Papineau’s (1993: 63, fn 5) remark that “we can expect desires and beliefs […] to be psychodevelopmentally interdependent, each category becoming differentiated as a distinct psychological state only when the other is”.

  16. Of course, this location will be different for different perceptual states. For further discussion of the “localization content” of the toad’s perceptual states, cf. Neander (2006: 180–183).

  17. Cf. Loewer (1997: 116–117), Neander (2012). How Papineau would respond to some of these examples can be gleaned from the discussion in Papineau (1993: 72–77).

  18. Note that the point of the more detailed characterization is not to describe the explanatorily relevant factors at a lower level (e.g. on the level of chemistry or particle physics), but merely to specify in a more precise way which factors were really causally relevant for the state’s evolutionary success. Hence, this problem does not rely on an unjustified prejudice against higher-level explanations.

  19. This problem was first formulated by Neander (1995: 126–127).

  20. Millikan (2004: 85–86, 2009: 404) has addressed this problem, but in my view, her attempt at solving it does not succeed. Note, moreover, that even if Millikan’s proposed solution were successful, it could not be adapted to solve the analogous problem for (DCP), since her proposal involves an appeal to facts about sensory mechanisms and the “recurrent natural signs” that are available to them, and such facts are clearly irrelevant in the case of desires.

  21. For this distinction, cf. Neander (1995: 126–130).

  22. Cf. Neander (2013: 30–33) and Neander (2017: 149–174) for details.

  23. Arguably, some other indeterminacy problems still remain, but I think it can be shown that the framework of Informational Teleosemantics has ample resources to deal with them, cf. Neander (2017: 175–243) and Schulte (2017).

  24. For a different way of weakening the connection thesis, cf. Nanay (2013b: 159–161).

  25. More precisely, normal conditions (for T’s φ-ing) are “preponderant explanatory conditions” (Millikan 1984: 34) which must be mentioned when we explain how earlier tokens of T managed to φ. For further details, cf. Millikan (1984: 33–34).

  26. This point is repeatedly emphasized by Millikan, cf. Millikan (1984: 34, 1989: 285).

  27. In other words, I assume that all basic desires are “action-desires” in Mele’s (2003) sense.

  28. At this point, it is important to distinguish between desires and needs. An organism’s desires are genuine representational states that are involved in the production of the organism’s behavior. The needs of an organism, on the other hand, are not necessarily represented by it. Bacteria, for example, need nutrients, a surrounding temperature in the right range, the right concentrations of O2, CO2 and other chemicals in their environment, and many other things, but it is highly implausible to suppose that they have representational states that ‘encode’ these needs. Hence, even organisms which possess only basic—and thus behavior-oriented—desires can have needs that do not involve any form of behavior (e.g. the need for warmth, food, or oxygen).

  29. Here and in the following, I am restricting my attention to perceptual representations—first in order to make things more vivid, and secondly because Informational Teleosemantics (in the version presented here) also focuses on perceptual states only. However, my account applies to all desires that interact with non-conceptual descriptive representations to produce behavior, whether these representations are perceptual or non-perceptual, so my talk of perceptual states should be understood as shorthand for non-conceptual descriptive representations in general.

  30. Other theorist might prefer to say that the organism performs one behavior that falls under many different descriptions, but I do not think that the switch to a meta-linguistic description is necessary.

  31. Remember that by biologically normal conditions, I mean the normal conditions for the performance of the functions of DT and CT, i.e. the conditions that must obtain for DT and CT to perform their functions. Since one of DT’s functions is to bring it about that the toad catches a nutritious object, the condition that any SDM object that is present is also nutritious clearly belongs to the relevant set of biologically normal conditions.

  32. Again, strictly speaking, we should say: ‘for all non-conceptual descriptive representations’.

  33. Note that φ will always stand for some form of successful behavior, like catching an F, avoiding a G, escaping from an H, or mating with a J, since it is those behaviors that are explained by the correctness of the perceptual state (and not by its mere occurrence).

  34. Of course, there is an intentional term that figures in the analysans of (DCN), namely the term ‘correctness’, but this is not a problem, since we are assuming that Informational Teleosemantics can provide a successful naturalistic account of C’s correctness.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Fabian Hundertmark, Steven Kindley, Nikola Kompa, Charles Lowe, Jan Michel, Christian Nimtz, Martin Pleitz, Sebastian Schmoranzer, Niko Strobach, other participants of the MüBiOs group, and an anonymous referee for this journal for many helpful comments and suggestions. I would also like to thank the Centre of Philosophical Psychology at the University of Antwerp for naming me the joint winner of the Fifth Annual Essay Prize for a previous (unpublished) version of this paper. This research was supported by the project ‘Advancing Teleosemantics’ (SCHU 2860/2-1, NI 1320/2-1), funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

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    Peter Schulte

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Schulte, P. Naturalizing the content of desire. Philos Stud 176, 161–174 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-017-1010-6

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