A Practical Philosophical Approach to the Meaning of Life

Abstract:

In this paper I suggest a practical Philosophical approach to dealing with the question of the meaning of life. I advocate a subjective notion of the meaning of life based on a third person disinterested moral sentiment towards projects and goals that is redirected towards our own selves as a result of our capacity for self-consciousness. This account allows for a coherent distinction between ‘a life worth living’ and ‘a life not worth living’, and I suggest that the experience of loss of meaning could be usefully thought about and dealt with using these terms. I differentiate between pathological and philosophical aspects of the problems, and discuss the relation between loss of meaning and unhappiness.

Desire, Pleasure, Happiness, Prudence and Benevolence

Abstract:

The paper inquires into the conceptual relations between desire, pleasure and happiness, and how the concept of happiness relates to prudence and benevolence. Among the questions it discusses are whether all desires aim ultimately at some kind of pleasure, whether all pleasures are intrinsically desired, whether happiness is a kind of pleasure, and what is the nature of the desire for happiness. A fundamental distinction is made between primary and secondary pleasure. The latter is the more particular pleasure that is gained as a result of the fact that a desire of ours is believed by us to be satisfied at some point in time, and it logically presupposes a prior desire for some other object. Happiness is interpreted as secondary pleasure and the role and significance of happiness in our mental economy is explored. This concept of happiness is then utilized to gain a better understanding of prudential and benevolent motivation. In particular it helps in solving some of the difficulties which arose in discussion within the utilitarian tradition concerning maximization of pleasure as against maximization of desire satisfaction.

Deliberation and Value

Abstract:

I distinguish between two fundamental processes of practical reasoning. Derived motivation is the motivational process by which derived desires are formed in the service of end desires. A desire is derived from an end desire when the agent believes its object to be a necessary condition for the object of that end desire. The second fundamental process of practical reasoning is deliberation, which I understand to be a motivational process designed to overcome some of the disadvantages associated with dynamic motivational instability - the fact that our desires and their relative strengths often depend on momentary fluctuating psychological and external circumstances. Acting on our strongest desire at any given moment without deliberation may often result in an overall dynamically inconsistent pattern of behavior which may be sub-optimal from the point of view of each of our momentary motivational states. Deliberation is understood as a psychological process which begins by withholding action until it ends with a formation of a practical decision which I understand to be the will. Deliberation is a process which inherently stretches over a time period in order to allow sufficient time for the appropriate causal reasoning to take place, but even more importantly, to allow the agent to experience a greater variety of momentary motivational states before coming to a practical decision, thus enabling that decision to represent a self which is temporally more extended and more stable. It ends with the formation of an additional and more stable desire to our initial desires configuration, which constitutes our will concerning the deliberated object. The particular logical relation between the will and the process of deliberation differentiates it from other desires and is responsible for the relative stability of the will in comparison to them. The structure of the will involves what I refer to as procedural motivation which are desires whose objects concern some aspect of the process of deliberation itself. I proceed to interpret values as involving a particular form of procedural motivation.

Practical Reasoning and the Intentionality of Desires

Abstract:

I distinguish between two conceptions of desires. On the intentional conception of desire, which seems to be the one we use in daily discourse, a desire is identified by its object, understood as that towards which the desire motivates, and the relation between the desire and its object is conceptual. On the somatic conception of desire, which seems to be dominant in psychological research, a desire is identified by the somatic tension which underlies it, and the relation between a desire and its object is fundamentally empirical. I argue that the intentionality of desires is conceptually tied to the notion of practical reasoning, for the phenomena of practical reasoning is inherently involved in the criteria for attributing intentional desires to agents. Although we use varied and overlapping criteria for such attributions, behavior seems to be the most fundamental and to have precedence over all others. The logical relation between behavioral criteria and the attributed desire is, however, complex. Roughly, it involves understanding a piece of behavior as belonging to an overall pattern of behavior which is best interpreted as goal-oriented. Understanding a piece of behavior as being guided by a desire-belief reason, rather than as merely conforming to it, similarly involves interpreting it as belonging to such a wider pattern, rather than as referring to a causal relation. The ‘normativity’ of practical reasoning and the intentionality of actions are therefore but aspects of the way we understand and attribute intentional desires.

The Circumstances of Desire

Abstract:

In this paper I argue that only one basic sense of wanting is needed in order to give an account of three philosophical cases which have seemed to some philosophers to involve two distinct senses of wanting. These cases are the distinction between acting from inclination and acting out of obligation, the question of the voluntariness of action under duress, and the question as to what extent we could be said to have intended or desired some unwanted but foreseen side effects of our actions. For that purpose I discuss the concepts of desire, motivational strength, and derived motivation, and I use a semi-technical symbolism to represent desires and their objects in a more accurate way.

Freud's Concept of Consciousness

An examination of Feud's concept of consciousness within his broader metapsychological framework.