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Show Chapter VI. The Problem of Moral Motivation 248 does not imply personal gain. Therefore, Humeans may argue, there are no grounds for grouping other-directed desire-satisfaction under the rubric of self-interest. But first, it is not obvious that this much weaker interpretation of desiresatisfaction conclusively rules out the implication of personal gain, because there are cases in which one may gain personally from the satisfaction of a criterion. For example, a job applicant may gain - or lose - from satisfaction of the unstated criterion governing a job search that the successful applicant look and behave just like everyone else in the organization. In such cases, desiresatisfaction (here, satisfaction of one's desire to be hired) is a special case of criterion-satisfaction more generally (here, satisfaction of the criteria a successful job applicant must meet). A fortiori, just because the satisfaction of my self-directed desire for a rich and anonymous benefactor contains no phenomenal component (let us suppose I believe, rather, that I am simply receiving a surprisingly high rate of return on my investments), this does not entail that I receive no personal gain. My anonymous benefactor's charitable contributions to my money market account are my personal gain, regardless of what I believe about where they come from. Nor does the absence of a phenomenal component in the satisfaction of my other-directed desire for a rich and anonymous benefactor for my best friend (here I assume rather that she is merely doing unusually well with her investments) entail that I receive no personal gain. My personal gain here is her increased income, even if I am mistaken about its origins and ignorant that this other-directed desire of mine is, in fact, being satisfied. I can receive personal gain without being phenomenally aware of it, as when I inherit a rental property without knowing it. Whether I am aware of it or not, if I get what I want - literally, what I conceive myself to lack - then I gain what I have gotten, even if it is the thing gotten rather than the fact of my getting it that holds my attention. Therefore even other-directed desiresatisfaction is a species of self-interested motivation. But in any case, thirdly, it won't do simply to deny that desire-satisfaction is phenomenal and replace it with an imaginative conceptual analogy, as this argument tries to do. This begs the question. If the satisfaction of a compulsion, appetite, or craving for a good meal include a phenomenal component, it is difficult to understand why a desire for one would not. And if the satisfaction of a desire for a good meal includes a phenomenal component, it is even harder to see why the satisfaction of desires for many other things should not. Finally, the imaginative conceptual analogy itself as stated fails to distinguish among different psychological "criteria" which the supplied object is supposed to "satisfy". The object or state of affairs that satisfies the desire for x may, but need not be, identical with that which satisfies the resolve to do y, the will to z, the intention to do w, or the craving for r. On this weaker © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
