Animal motives: constituted of intrinsic desires and their objects

There is no clear answer to these questions. All animal motives require at least, and necessarily, some conception. Brute animals are allmoved by instinctive kind of animal motives, according to Reid, and these do not require judgments. And the animal motives that influence the will of human beings sometimes require only conception. The desire for knowledge, for example, which is found in brutes in the form of curiosity, does not require forming any judgment at all (EAP 100), and yet it requires aiming at some object that one conceives. Butmany animalmotives atwork in the life of adult human beings might involve judgment, and sometimes could not exist without a judgment, even a judgment about worth, as I have pointed out above. Classifying animal motives in terms of conceptions and judgments is therefore not the best way to do so. A better way to understand them is to consider themental state that is an ingredient of all animalmotives, and to consider their objects. I will show in thenext section that all of themimply a desire in the agent and anobject of that desire.

3. Animal motives: constituted of intrinsic desires and their objects Animal motives are different from (but might include) general ideas, beliefs, or thoughts in that they are about something in virtue of being directed toward something. One must be careful not to call them feelings because Reid holds that feelings (or sensations) are not about anything at all (EAP349); further, someanimal motives, such as our permanent desires for superiority and for knowledge, have no feelings attached to them (EAP III.II.2). Contrarily to feelings, one element we find in Reid’s description of every animal motive is desire. The first kind of animal motives are appetites (hunger, thirst, lust), and in these we find two ingredients, ‘an uneasy sensation and a desire’ (EAP 92). The second kind of animal motives are standing desires, like the desires of power, of esteem and of knowledge. These have no uneasy sensation proper to each, but seem to be constituted only of desires (EAP 99). Finally, benevolent and malevolent affections include a desire for the good or for the ill of the object of the desire, as well as associated feelings (and the object of affections, Reid holds, is always a person). Desires, therefore, are elements that appear in Reid’s description of each animal motive.