ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter I discussed the pervasiveness of the view that it is what we want that makes us who we are, to the extent that even many trenchant critiques of the liberal conception of the individual and of morality are undermined by sharing this view. I need now to ask two questions. First: just what is it to want something? And second: can wants do the work that the tradition demands of them? My answers will be, at least negatively, that wants are not the pure undefeasible data that the tradition proposes; and that its fundamental reason for placing wants at the root of the individual and morality is misconceived anyway. Even if wants were what empirico-liberalism takes them to be, it would nevertheless be unnecessary to attemptmistakenly-to cast them in the role of moral justifier-a role which wants, however conceived, cannot play; and one which can in fact be filled by reasons.
