The dispute between Humeans and Non-Humeans concerns whether moral beliefs motivate alone or only by the intermediation of a desire. Prima facie, the Humean account seems more plausible to me so I assert myself as a Humean. The theory holds that at any time someone is motivated to act in any way, they are motivated by a combination of at least one belief and at least one related desire. The account is plausible because it appeals to typical human intuitions as instinctually we tend to think we need a belief and desire for motivation. I consider the main objection to the Humean account to be the promise thought experiment. Non-Humeans use this to suggest that the account fails to explain how agents are motivated when they act out of feelings of obligation. However, I argue that the Humean account responds to this by showing that these agents communicate unreliable self-reports and merely do not realize the presence of their own desire. In doing so, I demonstrate that the Humean account provides a simplistic and straightforward reasoning of the phenomenology of deliberation.
2. The Humean theory of motivation
Smith contends that ‘motivation has its source in the presence of a relevant desire and means-end belief’. The presence of a desire and an appropriately related belief are jointly sufficient and necessary conditions for the existence of motivating reason. Reason produces beliefs that are inert descriptions and representations of the world. Humeans suggest that in order for an individual to move from an inert state to being primed to act they must desire something. Suppose an individual discovers that one of their earphones is not working. There is nothing in having this belief on its own that encourages them to change the world in any way so that they try to have both earphones working.
Humeans believe that desire is what introduces a sense of activeness into a belief. The individual will have reason to purchase new earphones if they have desire to perform that action or to achieve some end that requires doing that action. If they want to listen to music satisfactorily then they will be motivated to purchase new earphones. They then attempt to change the world so that it harmonizes with their desires. This demonstrates the plausibility of the Humean principle that signifies that reason on its own does not motivate at all.
By Smith’s account, desires are distinguished from beliefs by their psychological role. They have different directions of fit as beliefs cause humans to change their mind to fit the world. An agent is only motivated if and only if their belief and their disposition is in concurrence. Smith considers that when an individual has a motivating reason they are aiming to achieve a goal. They are in a state with which the world must fit to attain this goal and being in this state is desiring. However, beliefs and desires are distinct mental states as beliefs never entail desires. There is no necessary connection between any belief and any desire so they can be separated. It is possible that an individual who is motivated might have not been motivated if they lacked the relevant belief or desire. I think that Smith’s argument is more persuasive and appealing than his opponents. It is able to captures features of common sense that ordinarily tell us that desire accompanies and prompts most human actions.
3. A challenge to the Humean theory
However, opponents of the Humean account find it problematic as they question whether its principles can be universalized. Non-Humeans puts pressure on either of the Humean claims. They could argue that perhaps people can be motivated purely by a belief, or purely by a desire. They consider that if either motivates on its own, then Humeansim is wrong. Alternatively, a single mental state might be a function of both a belief and a desire so they would have a necessary link and not be distinct existences. They try to portray the account as being mistaken by offering counterexamples that challenge its explanatory potential. Schurman suggests that the Humean account is unable to sufficiently explain how individuals feel when they are motivated by feelings of obligation in the promise thought experiment. Suppose an individual promises to attend an important work meeting but then they are invited to go to the cinema by their friends. They would prefer to go to the cinema as it is more exciting than the meeting. The individual does not have any relevant desire to attend the meeting because they think it will be boring.
Despite this, Shafer-Landau predicts that agents fulfilled their promises in these cases because they ‘knew what had to be done, and did it, desires be damned’. Agents believe it is the right thing to fulfill the promise they initially made so they feel obligated to attend the meeting. Searle insists that Humeans do not highlight the difference between an individual doing something because they desire to do it and doing something because they judge it to be ‘obligatory’ or ‘dutiful’. The agent’s ultimate action of attending the meeting generates counterintuitive conclusions because they feel they have to attend it and not because they want to.
Non-Humeans hold that it is not enough for Humeans to just posit desires to fulfill obligations as this fails to explain the phenomenological difference between feelings of obligation and feelings of desire. They maintain that feelings of obligations are phenomenologically not the same as typical feelings of desire. Therefore, it is not possible to reduce motivation under feelings of obligations to motivation by desire. They declare that the motivational force that spurs an individual into action when they experience feelings of obligation does not arise from desire.
4. The Humean response to this objection
I will illustrate the Humeans unified response to this objection in two parts.
Firstly, I will explore the unreliability of the claims made by agents in cases where they are motivated but seem to lack desire. There is a worry that these agents might lie and not disclose their actual desires in order to preserve their self-image. This results in their self-reports becoming suspicious and unconvincing. They often cite a belief instead of a desire when explaining their motivation. However, this does not signify that they were moved to act solely by their moral belief. Humeans could argue that the agent who was moved to go to the meeting instead of the cinema did not act by their bare belief. This belief being that fulfilling their promise to attend the meeting was the right thing to do. Although they chose to attend the meeting they might have not felt any desire to go to the meeting itself. A different deeply rooted desire could have motivated them to attend the meeting.
This desire could have been the agents’ desire to please their manager. Attending the meeting would have demonstrated their commitment to work and increased their chances of receiving a promotion. However, it is unlikely that the agent would admit to having this desire when asked what desire motivated them to attend the meeting. This desire characterizes the agent as being a sycophant because it involves them acting obsequiously towards their manager in order to gain advantage. The agent behaves in a self-serving way by not admitting to having this desire as they do not want to be perceived negatively. As a consequence, it is likely the agent will talk about their experience in an unspecific manner using general language. In other similar cases agents usually do not describe every factor that contributes to them being motivated. Therefore, their self-reports are likely to also lack completeness and truthfulness. Humeans insist a desire is present in these cases even if agents provide contradictory reports.
Secondly, I shall challenge the assumption that all desires have the same feeling by investigating the nature of desire. In contrast to Hume, Smith considers that desires do not have a certain phenomenological content. He argues that desires have a different phenomenology to sensations so some exist where no sensation or feeling exists. He uses this to propose that desires should be considered as propositional attitudes rather than feelings. As desires do not have a distinct phenomenology there is a possibility agents might be deceived by their own pre-existing desires. Agents could honestly try to convey their motivations but their explanations could still be insufficient. Their explanations might not include every element involved because they are not directly aware of their desires. They might not have been entirely conscious of the desire that they actually sought to satisfy.
Suppose there is an individual who buys groceries everyday and there are two grocery stalls on either side of the road. They both sell identical groceries for the same prices. The only distinction between them is that next to one stall there is a busker who always sings romantic songs. Anyone who buys groceries from this stall is able to listen to the music and the agent always purchases groceries from this stall. However, if it were suggested that the reason they purchased groceries from this stall was because they enjoy listening to romantic songs they would repudiate this clam. This is because they genuinely believed that the busker had no place in their motivation. Assume the busker has now left and there is no singing heard at the stall then the agents’ preference would vanish. Therefore, it seems acceptable to propose that the agent desired to buy groceries from the stall where they could listen to romantic songs. This is most likely due to the fact that the agent enjoys listening to the busker singing romantic songs.
The agent’s refusal to admit to having a desire to listen to romantic songs was sincere. Desires do not always have the same phenomenology so they do not generate a particular feeling. Therefore, even if they genuinely try to explain their motivations they could be missing desires because they are unable to identify them. He was blinded towards the actual desire driving his motivation and did not reflect on it. As a result, Humeans contend that agents in these cases are mistaken about their desire. Desires can exist even if the agent does not recognize these desires within themselves. Although the agent did not acknowledge their desire to listen to romantic songs they still had that desire. This highlights the implausibility of any Non-Humean conception of desire that suggests desire only exists if the person believes there is a desire present.
5. Conclusion
In evaluating the philosophical premises of the dispute between Humeans and Non-Humeans I have showed it is plausible to reaffirm myself as a Humean. Non-Humeans have attempted to challenge the explanatory power of this account by offering counterexamples. This includes the promise thought experiment that implies that feelings of obligation and desire are derived from different sites. Humeans are able to overcome this objection by emphasizing that desire does not always have the same phenomenology so they can remain unrecognized by agents. Although the Humean account presents sophisticated arguments about how individuals in these cases have desires and actually act on them, a Non-Humean worry still persists. This worry concerns the idea that individuals ought to have authority over their own mental states including desires and beliefs. Individual autonomy implies that individuals themselves should know better than anyone else whether they have desires or not. They have the capacity to follow reasons and desires that are given as their own and not the result of distorting or deceiving extrinsic forces created by Humeans. In order to solve this puzzle regarding moral motivation we must improve our understanding of who has ultimate control over mental states.