Premium
Do affective desires provide reasons for action?
Author(s) -
Shaw Ashley
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
ratio
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.475
H-Index - 29
eISSN - 1467-9329
pISSN - 0034-0006
DOI - 10.1111/rati.12294
Subject(s) - feeling , normative , phenomenology (philosophy) , action (physics) , virtue , psychology , epistemology , social psychology , sensibility , philosophy , art , physics , literature , quantum mechanics
This paper evaluates the claim that some desires provide reasons in virtue of their connection with conscious affective experiences like feelings of attraction or aversion. I clarify the nature of affective desires and several distinct ways in which affective desires might provide reasons. Against accounts proposed by Ruth Chang, Declan Smithies and Jeremy Weiss, I motivate doubts that it is the phenomenology of affective experiences that explains their normative or rational significance. I outline an alternative approach that centralises the function of such experiences.