The openness of attitudes and action in ambivalence

Abstract

Ambivalence of desire and action in light of it are ordinary human engagements and yet received conceptions of desire and action deny that such action is possible. This paper contains an analysis of the possibility of fertile ambivalent compromises conjointly with a reconstruction of (Davidsonian) basic rationality and of actiondesire relations. It is argued that the Aristotelian practical syllogism ought not to be conceived as paralysing the ambivalent agent. The practical syllogism makes compromise behaviour possible, including compromise action in the strong sense of acting to satisfy both of one's contrary desires at once. One's action can to a certain extent fulfil both desires by not exactly satisfying either. In showing this, attitudes including desires are analysed in terms of a soft identity, according to which they are both defined by and transcend concrete interlinkages with other attitudes and actual and possible behaviour, and transcend any such connections. In particular, not only do desires have a range, but rather the relation of desire and fulfilment is such that to want something allows a wider range as to what counts as fulfilment. IntroductionOrpheus: He loves Eurydice, this is well known, yet he might also be tired of her. Her death breaks his heart, his life becomes empty; he seeks adventure, he seeks death; he wishes to bring Eurydice back, he wishes to see her again, he wishes to make sure she is gone for good. Orpheus descends into the underworld, confronting terrible dangers. Now, at last, Eurydice is apparently following him back to life, on the condition that he does not look back. Almost out, Orpheus is turning his head.Eurydice: She is no less ambivalent, being invited to leave the underworld. She still remembers life enough to desire it, and yet she is already too dead to desire life. What is she to do? Postpone the decision, transfer it to someone else, let life decide, let life wait for her? She may do all of the above at once. Indeed, if she becomes sufficiently alive to take the route to the upper world, yet remains dead enough to blindly follow Orpheus, she, in a sense, realises both desires. Why not guess then that it was not a rule of the underworld that prohibited Orpheus from gazing upon Eurydice, but rather a feeble request on Eurydice's part to impose this requirement upon him?The above versions of the myth of Orpheus provide a depiction of ambivalent and yet active subjects. Human life with language allows for such mental ascriptions. The aim in this paper is to extricate, from the way we live, some features of subjectivity, action, and ambivalence which underlie ascriptions of an active and fruitful ambivalence. We will focus in particular on compromise action in ambivalence of desire.Ambivalence consists in a mode of existence wherein the person has two opposed attitudes towards the same object, such that to hold one of these attitudes is to hold it as opposed to the other. 2 Mental attitudes are understood in this paper as dispositions of the person (to behaviour, con...