Two Ways to Want?

Jerzak, Ethan

doi:10.5840/jphil201911624

Cited by 17 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Several theorists have noted that 'want' and 'ought' pattern similarly (Crnič, 2011;Lassiter, 2011;Jerzak, 2019). We add that analogues of our puzzles arise with this modal.…”

Section: Wants and Oughtsmentioning

confidence: 51%

Desire

Blumberg

Hawthorne²

2022

Philosophers' Imprint

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In this paper, we present two puzzles involving desire reports concerning series of events. What does a person want to happen in the first event – is it the event with the highest expected return, or the event that is the initial part of the best series? We show that existing approaches fail to resolve the puzzles around this question and develop a novel account of our own. Our semantics is built around three ideas. First, we propose that desire ascriptions are evaluated relative to a contextually supplied set of propositions, or alternatives. The semantic value of an ascription ‘S wants p’ is determined by S's preference ordering over these alternatives. Second, we propose that desire reports carry a requirement to the effect that the prejacent of the ascription must be suitably related to the background set of alternatives. Finally, we suggest that desire reports carry a dominance condition concerning the subject's ranking of the alternatives. Overall, we argue that our theory provides us with an elegant resolution of our puzzles, and yields a promising approach to desire.

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“…Several theorists have noted that 'want' and 'ought' pattern similarly (Crnič, 2011;Lassiter, 2011;Jerzak, 2019). We add that analogues of our puzzles arise with this modal.…”

Section: Wants and Oughtsmentioning

confidence: 51%

Desire

Blumberg

Hawthorne²

2022

Philosophers' Imprint

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“…On these accounts, when A wants P, it implies that A prioritizes those possible worlds in which P holds as more desirable to those in which P does not. Another approach uses a decisiontheoretic semantics that bases the meaning of desire on both the desirability and probability of the considered alternatives: hence, A wants P means that A's desire for P exceeds some threshold (e.g., Jerzak, 2019;Lassiter, 2011Lassiter, , 2011aLevinson, 2003;Phillips-Brown, 2021;van Rooij, 1999;Wrenn, 2010; we address these approaches in the General discussion). Both accounts, however, treat desires as fundamentally belief-oriented (see the Introduction).…”

Section: Linguistic Treatments Of Wantmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reasoning AboutWant

Harner

Khemlani

2022

Cognitive Science

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No present theory explains the inferences people draw about the real world when reasoning about “bouletic” relations, that is, predicates that express desires, such as want in “Lee wants to be in love”. Linguistic accounts of want define it in terms of a relation to a desirer's beliefs, and how its complement is deemed desirable. In contrast, we describe a new model‐based theory that posits that by default, desire predicates such as want contrast desires against facts. In particular, A wants P implies by default that P is not the case, because you cannot want what is already true. On further deliberation, reasoners may infer that A believes, but does not know for certain, that P is not the case. The theory makes several empirical predictions about how people interpret, assess the consistency of, and draw conclusions from desire predicates like want. Seven experiments tested and validated the theory's central predictions. We assess the theory in light of recent proposals of desire predicates.

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“…An agent might be just as uncertain about their own desires as they are about the features of an outcome itself. Similarly, Jerzak [2019] has suggested that agents might be uncertain or mistaken about their own desires. Surely it is this uncertainty about our own desires that, for non-cognitivists, should stand in for moral doubt.…”

Section: Uncertainty About Desiresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attitudinal Ambivalence: Moral Uncertainty for Non-Cognitivists

Makins

2021

Australasian Journal of Philosophy

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In many situations, people are unsure in their moral judgments. In much recent philosophical literature, this kind of moral doubt has been analysed in terms of uncertainty in one's moral beliefs. Non-cognitivists, however, argue that moral judgments express a kind of conative attitude, more akin to a desire than a belief. This paper presents a scientifically informed reconciliation of non-cognitivism and moral doubt. The central claim is that attitudinal ambivalence-the degree to which one holds conflicting attitudes towards the same object-can play the role of moral doubt for non-cognitivists. I will demonstrate that ambivalence has all of the features that we would expect it to have in order to play the role of moral doubt. It is gradable, can vary through time, covaries with strength of motivation, and is suitably distinct from the other features of our moral judgments. As well as providing a defence of non-cognitivism, this insight poses a new challenge for the view-deciding how to act under moral ambivalence.

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Two Ways to Want?

Cited by 17 publications

References 5 publications

Desire

Desire

Reasoning AboutWant

Attitudinal Ambivalence: Moral Uncertainty for Non-Cognitivists

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