• Believing Without Desiring, Desiring Without Believing: Against the Motivation Argument for Desire As Belief.

Alex Gregory (2021) champions the position known as ‘desire as belief’ (DAB): that to desire [that-p] just is to believe [that you have normative reason to bring about that-p].  Gregory’s primary positive argument for DAB is The Motivation Argument: certain beliefs can motivate, but only desires can motivate, therefore certain beliefs are desires. This paper examines the limited functionality that this argument can actually play in supporting DAB.

This paper’s argument proceeds in two stages. First, I demonstrate the formal limits of The Motivation Argument: it is neither a valid syllogism, nor is it formally valid at all. Charitably considered as abductive—in tension with its proclaimed unique force—The Motivation Argument can show, at best, that DAB is one possible explanation of its premises, rather than the only proper conclusion, as Gregory suggests.

Second, I argue that DAB is very unlikely to be the best possible abductive explanation of the relevant premises. Specifically, I deploy two thought experiments: Archer’s (2019) case, ‘Psychopathic Sam’—a counter-case of normative belief without desire—and a novel case, ‘Cult Collin’—a counter-case of archetypal desire (sexual desire) arising in the complete absence of relevant normative beliefs. Together, these generate trilemmas for DAB’s proponents that are both apparently problematic, and are not applicable to other prominent alternative accounts of desire.

I conclude that The Motivation Argument does not demonstrate DAB’s truth, nor does it show that DAB is the best explanation of its premises; further, there are substantial reasons to suppose that DAB is not the best explanation of these premises after all.