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Show Chapter II. The Belief-Desire Model of Motivation 56 beliefs and desires and meanings are normally related to one another, to behavioral input, and to sensory input"(111). The problem of radical interpretation, on this account, is the problem of how to read another persons' physical states, events, and behavior, all of which are guided and governed by her understanding of the world, in the terms that define our understanding of the world, without subjective bias or distortion. Do we, and can we, ever really understand what anyone else says or does on her terms? Or must we invariably appropriate her behavior to our own agendas and preconceptions? That Lewis is to be identified as a revisionist desire theorist (albeit a somewhat tentative one) can be inferred from his stated intention to limit discussion of Karl's propositional attitudes to his system of beliefs and desires "in the hope that all others will prove to be analyzable as patterns of belief and desire, actual or potential; but if not, whatever attitudes resist such analysis also should be included in Ao and Ak"(109). But Lewis' revisionism becomes much more militant later on, when he asserts that [w]e are within our rights to construe 'desire' inclusively, to cover the entire range of states that move us .... Humeanism understood in this inclusive way is surely true - maybe a trivial truth, but a trivial truth is still a truth.11 (We are, of course, within our rights to construe words in any way we like, as Humpty Dumpty observed.) In this more recent discussion, Lewis goes on to ascribe to a hypothetical Anti-Humean opponent a very odd view: that some desires are beliefs, namely those which are necessarily conjoined with beliefs. More specifically, beliefs about what would be good are claimed to necessarily entail desires for that good. Since Lewis does not cite any philosopher who holds this view or defends it at any length, it is difficult to evaluate its plausibility or its merits.12 On the face of it, it would seem to have very few. Lewis claims, on behalf of his hypothetical Anti-Humean, that "[i]t is just impossible to have a belief about what would be good and lack the corresponding desire" (324). But surely one may both sincerely believe that, for example, a fair redistribution of resources to the disadvantaged would be good, and also desire not to redistribute one's own unfair accumulation of resources to the disadvantaged; or believe that a trade-in on a new car would be good, yet desire to retain one's 1956 VW Sunroof Sedan forever; or believe that a life of sloth and self-indulgence would be bad, yet desire to live such a David Lewis, "Desire as Belief," Mind 97, 387 (July 1988), 323-332. Lewis' Footnote 1 cites only criticism - not "criticism and defense of several AntiHumean views." A subtle treatment of it is to be found in Mark Platts, "Moral Reality and the End of Desire," in Reference, Truth and Reality, Ed. Mark Platts (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980), 69-82. A very plausible, genuinely anti-Humean version of this argument also not cited by Lewis is offered by S. I. Benn and G. F. Gauss, "Practical Rationality and Commitment," American Philosophical Quarterly 23, 3 (July 1986), 255-266. 11 12 © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
