ABSTRACT

There appears to be a reflexive circle of justification: Having a particular desire provides one with a justification for having just such a desire. For, given a desire for a state of affairs s, one would seem to have a pragmatic reason to have a desire for s: namely, that having such a desire increases the likelihood that one will do something that brings s about, which in turn increases the likelihood of s. Some desires (among them, the “appetites”) fail to close the circle, for they presuppose their own existence and fail to cover times and possible worlds at which they do not exist. To close the circle a desire must move one as follows: to do x, without regard to whether one happens to be moved to do x. But if there are desires that have this feature of preaching independence from all desire, then perhaps we lose some of the theoretical motivation for postulating practical reason as separate from one's desires.