| OCR Text |
Show Chapter V. A Refutation of Anscombe's Thesis 228 An intention- or will-based model of motivation does not satisfy this requirement. But a desire-based model does, because it observes in all cases the distinction between intended effects and actual effects, and utilizes this distinction in a metaethical criterion for ascribing value to action that is independent of the agent's intention. This criterion begins with desire. I can desire the effects of an action without intending them, and I can intend the effects of an action without desiring them. An example of desiring the effects of an action without intending them would be desiring so desperately to stop smoking that I would welcome a neurological implant or stroke that might effect this; but lack the resolve to do anything that might have this effect myself. Here I desire certain actual immediate and more remote effects of an action or action-plan, but because I have no intention of carrying it out, I intend no effects of either kind. An example of intending the effects of an action without desiring them would be deliberately greeting my enemies in the halls every day, even though it makes me physically nauseous to do so and I know it will have no beneficial consequences (they will hate me more, not less, for my apparent equanimity, and I will have to contend with chronic gastric disturbance). In this case I intend some of the immediate effects of the action but desire none of its actual effects, whether immediate or remote. The former case is one in which I do desire certain actual immediate or remote effects of action, whereas the latter case is one in which I do not desire them. By contrast, in the former case I do not intend the effects I desire, whereas in the latter case I do intend effects I do not desire. So in both cases, the intensional objects of my desire are conceptually independent of the intensional objects - or effects - I intend by acting. Indeed in these particular cases, the objects of desire and the objects of intention are at odds. But in all cases, desire provides the first half of a conceptually contingent criterion for assigning value to the actual immediate and remote effects of an action that is independent of the agent's intention in performing it. The remaining half of that criterion of value is the notion of satisfaction. The criterion of desire-satisfaction - actual desire-satisfaction, regardless of intention or resolve - furnishes the standard against which the actual consequences of action are evaluated by the "consequentialist." Of course the kind and content of desire will vary with the "consequentialist" theory in question: The Classical Utilitarian evaluates uncorrected desire, whereas the Millian Utilitarian evaluates educated desire, the Brandtian Utilitarian therapeutically informed desire, and the Marxist ideologically enlightened desire. The Act-Utilitarian desires individual happiness- or pleasure-events, whereas the Rule-Utilitarian desires happiness- or pleasure-producing social rules, the Marxist the classless society, and the Perfectionist the full flowering of human capacities. It is because actual desire-satisfaction can be distinguished and detached from the agent's intention in acting - regardless of her motives - that it can © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
