Some motivational cognitivists believe that there are besires—cognitive mental states (typically moral beliefs) that share the key feature of desire (typically desire’s ‘direction of fit’) in virtue of which they are capable of being directly motivational. Besires have been criticized by Humeans and cognitivists alike as philosophically extravagant, incoherent, ad hoc, and incompatible with folk psychology. I provide a response to these standard objections to besires—one motivated independently of common anti-Humean intuitions about the motivational efficacy of moral judgments. I proceed (...) by examining a hypothesis about the nature of appetitive desires—that these paradigmatic motivational attitudes are a mode of perceptual experience—and argue that this hypothesis is committed to the existence of besires. However, despite its commitment to besires, this hypothesis is not extravagant, incoherent, ad hoc, or incompatible with folk psychology. In other words, the standard complaints about besires all fail. The upshot is that there is nothing bizarre about besires, and motivational cognitivism takes on no additional costs by positing them. (shrink)

I ARGUE THAT SPINOZA’S DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT OF ’CONATION’ IS A CONSISTENT ANALYSIS BASED UPON HIS CLAIM THAT TELEOLOGICAL OR FUNCTIONAL EXPLANATION IS EITHER REDUCIBLE TO CAUSAL EXPLANATION (IN TERMS OF DRIVES) OR IS NOT GENUINELY EXPLANATORY. SEVERAL IMPORTANT CONSEQUENCES OF THIS FOR SPINOZA’S ACCOUNT OF HUMAN APPETITION ARE PURSUED, AND SOME CONSEQUENCES FOR HIS POLITICAL THEORY ARE MENTIONED IN CLOSING.

In his much-explored argument for the tripartition of the soul in book IV of the Republic, Socrates makes use of two principles, which I shall call the principle of opposition and the principle of qualification. The aim of the present paper is to explain, in particular, the second of these principles, so as to reveal its role in that argument and in the conception of an appetite and of the appetitive part that is central to the larger argument of the (...) Republic as a whole. Section 1 briefly introduces the principle of opposition, analyzes the principle of qualification, and presents the argument for tripartition. Section 2 uses the analysis of the principle of qualification to interpret a claim Socrates makes about the soul and its relation to the good, which seems at odds with the account of appetites uncovered in Sect. 1. Then, in Sect. 3, the relevance of the principle of qualification to Socratic intellectualism—the view that knowledge is sufficient for virtue—is explored. In Sect. 4, appetites are returned to with the focus now on the varieties of them that Socrates recognizes. In Sect. 5, a view is put forward about the nature of the appetitive part (Appetite), its beliefs, and its ability to be persuaded by the rational part (Reason). In Sect. 6, it is argued that Appetite and Reason are both souls, capable of working in harmony, but also of being opposed, thereby underwriting an important part of the analogy between the polis and the soul on which much of the Republic relies. (shrink)

Why is there a new explosion of interest in authentic ethnic foods and exotic cooking shows, where macho chefs promote sensual adventures in the kitchen? Why do we watch TV ads that promise more sex if we serve the right breakfast cereal? Why is the hunger strike such a potent political tool? Food inevitably engages questions of sensuality and power, of our connections to our bodies and to our world. Carnal Appetites brilliantly uses the lens of food and eating to (...) ask how we eat into culture, eat into identities, indeed eat into ourselves. Drawing on interviews, theory, and her own war with anorexia, Probyn argues that food is replacing sex in our imagination and experience of bodily pleasure. Our culinary cravings and habits express the turmoil in gender roles, in families, and even in the world economy, where famine coexists with plenty. Probyn explores these dark interconnections to forge a new visceral ethics rooted in the language of hunger and satiety, disgust and pleasure, gluttonyand restraint. From the fat pride movement and diet fads to genetically altered grain and colonial cannibalism, Carnal Appetites looks at what we eat to tell us who we are. (shrink)

There are two types ofaisthēsisin theTimaeus, which involve distinct physiological processes and different kinds of soul, appetite and reason respectively. This distinction explains Timaeus’ ambivalent attitude towardsaisthēsis: on the one hand, it is one of the main causes of the disruption of the orbits of the immortal soul upon embodiment; on the other hand, it plays a central role in restoring the immortal soul to its original, god-like condition.

Republic 554c-d—where the oligarchic individual is said to restrain his appetites ‘by compulsion and fear’, rather than by persuasion or by taming them with speech—is often cited as evidence that the appetitive part of the soul can be ‘persuaded’. I argue that the passage does not actually support that conclusion. I offer an alternative reading and suggest that appetite, on Plato’s view, is not open to persuasion.

Leibniz sometimes tells us that there are only two fundamental types of mental states: perceptions and appetitions, that is, mental representations and desire-like states. While this may sound like an overly sparse ontology of mental states, the philosophy of mind that Leibniz builds from these elements is surprisingly nuanced and powerful. What makes this possible is that he distinguishes different sub-types of these mental states. Leibniz famously differentiates between unconscious and conscious perceptions, which gives him an advantage over philosophers like (...) Descartes, for whom all perceptions are conscious. He also distinguishes between reflective and unreflective perceptions, as well as between degrees of perceptual distinctness. Leibniz furthermore follows scholastic thinkers like Thomas Aquinas in distinguishing different types of appetitions. Uncovering what those are and what roles they play in Leibniz’s philosophy of mind are the central aims of this chapter. (shrink)

Our view is that fundamental appetitive and defensive motivation systems evolved to mediate a complex array of adaptive behaviors that support the organism’s drive to survive—defending against threat and securing resources. Activation of these motive systems engages processes that facilitate attention allocation, information intake, sympathetic arousal, and, depending on context, will prompt tactical actions that can be directed either toward or away from the strategic goal, whether defensively or appetitively determined. Research from our laboratory that measures autonomic, central, and somatic (...) reactions when processing emotional scenes is described which indicates that motivationally relevant cues, whether appetitive or defensive, capture attention preferentially, prompt enhanced perceptual processing and information gathering, and occasion metabolic arousal that mobilizes the organism for coping actions. (shrink)

In Book II of the Republic, Socrates briefly depicts a city where each inhabitant contributes to the welfare of all by performing the role for which he or she is naturally suited. Socrates calls this city the `true city ' and the `healthy one'. Nearly all commentators have argued that Socrates' praise of the city cannot be taken at face value, claiming that it does not represent Socrates' preferred community. The point of this paper is to argue otherwise. The claim (...) is that Socrates genuinely believes the city is a healthy and desirable city, and that he believes that the First City is in fact superior to the Kallipolis. (shrink)

This is the first book to deal with both the psychological and neurobiological mechanisms in appetites for drugs, food, sex, and gambling, and considers whether there are common factors between them. The authors approach this by looking at the bases of both normal and abnormal appetites in humans. The focus on human appetites will be of great interest to psychologists and clinicians alike.The EBBS Publications Series is designed to provide researchers and students with authoritative, topical reviews of major areas in (...) the brain and behaviour sciences. Each volume will include specially commissioned and edited chapters by leading researchers, presented in a lively and accessible style. (shrink)

The mature Leibniz often describes monads as having two types of modifications: perceptions and appetites. But why would monads need appetites? When reading secondary literature about Leibniz, it can easily look as if appetites are superfluous: some scholars describe the inner workings of monads without saying much, if anything, about appetites. Instead, they focus on perceptions and explain the transition to new perceptions by reference to prior perceptions together with the underlying primitive force or law of the series. These interpretations (...) appear to be doing just fine without invoking appetites. And, in fact, there are texts in which Leibniz himself neglects appetites almost completely. Some passages suggest that perceptions cause other perceptions, and other texts indicate that the monads themselves cause perceptions directly. If that is the case, it is not clear what purpose appetites serve; they do not appear to be needed for explaining monadic change. One possible response to the question why monads need appetites is the following. Appetites, according to Leibniz, are monadic tendencies to transition to new perceptions. Perhaps without such tendencies, no change would occur in a monad. On this interpretation, a full explanation of monadic change needs to invoke tendencies, and those in turn are (or include) appetites. I think that this response is partially correct, as I will argue later. Yet, it does not fully explain the function of appetites. How precisely are appetites (viewed as tendencies) supposed to figure into the explanation—do they function as causes of change, and if so, what kinds of causes? Are they efficient, final, or formal causes, or perhaps causes of yet another type? Or might they figure into the explanation in some non-causal way? This paper explores possible answers to the question what role appetites play in the lives of monads. There is not enough time to discuss these answers in much detail or exhaust the logical space, but I will briefly consider the options that strike me as the most promising contenders. These options are: (1) appetites are superfluous; there is no sense in which they explain or cause monadic change; (2) appetites are formal causes; (3) appetites are final causes; (4) appetites are efficient causes; (5) appetites are ultimately the same as perceptions (or aspects of perceptions), and perceptions in turn cause or explain monadic change; and (6) appetites are not causally involved in monadic change, but they are explanatory in a loose, derivative sense. I will argue for a version of the last option. The resulting picture of monadic change is admittedly radical and strange but there are excellent reasons to embrace it. (shrink)

Leibniz sometimes tells us that there are only two fundamental types of mental states: perceptions and appetitions, that is, mental representations and desire-like states. While this may sound like an overly sparse ontology of mental states, the philosophy of mind that Leibniz builds from these elements is surprisingly nuanced and powerful. What makes this possible is that he distinguishes different sub-types of these mental states. Leibniz famously differentiates between unconscious and conscious perceptions, which gives him an advantage over philosophers like (...) Descartes, for whom all perceptions are conscious. He also distinguishes between reflective and unreflective perceptions, as well as between degrees of perceptual distinctness. Leibniz furthermore follows scholastic thinkers like Thomas Aquinas in distinguishing different types of appetitions. Uncovering what those are and what roles they play in Leibniz’s philosophy of mind are the central aims of this chapter. (shrink)

Section 1 of this essay distinguishes between four interpretations of Socratic intellectualism, which are, very roughly: a version in which on any given occasion desire, and then action, is determined by what we think will turn out best for us, that being what we all, always, really desire; a version in which on any given occasion action is determined by what we think will best satisfy our permanent desire for what is really best for us; a version formed by the (...) assimilation of to, labelled the ‘standard’ version’ by Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith, and treated by them as a single alternative to their own interpretation; and Brickhouse and Smith’s own version. Section 2 considers, in particular, Brickhouse and Smith’s handling of the ‘appetites and passions’, which is the most distinctive feature of interpretation. Section 3 discusses Brickhouse and Smith’s defence of ‘Socratic studies’ in its historical context, and assesses the contribution made by their distinctive interpretation of ‘the philosophy of Socrates’. One question raised in this section, and one that is clearly fundamental to the existence of ‘Socratic studies’, is how different Brickhouse and Smith’s Socrates turns out to be from Plato himself, i.e., the Plato of the post-‘Socratic’ dialogues; to which the answer offered is that on Brickhouse and Smith’s interpretation Socratic moral psychology becomes rather less distinguishable from its ‘Platonic’ counterpart—as that is currently understood—than it is on the interpretation they oppose. (shrink)

Hendrik Lorenz presents a comprehensive study of Plato's and Aristotle's conceptions of non-rational desire. They see this as something that humans share with animals, and which aims primarily at the pleasures of food, drink, and sex. Lorenz explores the cognitive resources that both philosophers make available for the explanation of such desires, and what they take rationality to add to the motivational structure of human beings. In doing so, he finds conceptions of the mind that are coherent and deeply integrated (...) with both philosophers' views about such topics as the relation between body and soul, or the nature of the virtues. (shrink)

To wonder a question, I argue, is to have a kind of appetitive desire. This helps answer a range of objections to the view that wondering is a kind of desire for knowledge. It may also imply that wondering is not subject to rational norms.

This paper tests the comparative effectiveness of spokes-characters, both ‘celebrity’ and ‘non-celebrity’, in promoting healthy versus non-healthy foods. An experimental study among 6- to 7-year-old children in Belgium demonstrates that adding a spokes-character to a food product increases the appetite, the wished-for frequency of consumption and the expected number of purchase requests for that product. This finding holds true for healthy foods as well as for unhealthy foods. The effect of the celebrity spokes-character exceeds that of a similar gnome. Nevertheless, (...) the latter is also capable of promoting the healthy and unhealthy products. These findings suggest that using ‘celebrity’ spokes-characters to promote healthy foods to children might indeed be an effective strategy to change children’s diets. Even the use of similar, non-celebrity spokes-characters could be quite fruitful. (shrink)

Popular interest in the topic of food has exploded in the past decade. Due in part to books by Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver, and Eric Schlosser and films such as Food, Inc., Super Size Me, and Forks over Knives, people are starting to think critically about where their food originates, how it is processed, and how their consumption choices affect the environment, nonhuman animals, and other people. At the same time, there is rising concern about the dangers of obesity. Although (...) the voices raising these concerns are by no means monolithic, one of the most common solutions offered to various food-related issues is the suggestion that people educate themselves and make.. (shrink)

[O]ffers up a delectable intellectual challenge: can we better understand the concepts of philosophers if we look at their culinary choices? Guiding us around the philosopher's banquet table with erudition, wit, and irreverence, Michel Onfray offers surprising insights on foods ranging from fillet of cod to barley soup, from sausage to wine and coffee. Tracing the edible obsessions of philosophers from Diogenes to Sartre, Onfray considers how their ideas relate to their diets. Would Diogenes have been an opponent of civilization (...) without his taste for raw octopus? Would Rousseau have been such a proponent of frugality if his daily menu had included something more than dairy products? Nietzsche was grumpy about bad cooks and the retardation of human evolution, and Sartre was repelled by shellfish because they are 'food buried in an object, and you have to pry them out'"--Back cover. (shrink)

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This response challenges Jensen's analysis in no substantial way. Rather, it explains more fully some of the moral character categories that Aristotle provides. It argues that Aristotle understood there to be two forms of continence: the continence that enables us to control natural appetites and “some form” of continence directed towards unnatural appetites, generally engendered by some pathology or abuse.

The aim of this paper is to provide an account of how hunger motivates us to seek food and eat. It seems that the way that it feels to be hungry must play some role in it fulfilling this function. We propose that hunger is best viewed as a complex state involving both affective and somatic constituents, as well as, crucially, changes in the way in which the hungry agent’s attention is deployed. We argue that in order to capture the (...) distinctive way in which hunger motivates we need to articulate the relations amongst such components. The resulting account explains how hunger as an aversive affective reaction to a state of need motivates us specifically to eat and not to just to rid ourselves of the unpleasant sensations associated to it. We suggest, however, that there is more than this to the overall affective experience of the hungry agent, because hunger ordinarily facilitates the elicitation of other, positive affective reactions such as interest and appetite, and recruits them to further its function. (shrink)

Enneads I: 8.14 poses significant problems for scholars working in the Plotinian secondary literature. In that passage, Plotinus gives the impression that the body and not the soul is causally responsible for vice. The difficulty is that in many other sections of the same text, Plotinus makes it abundantly clear that the body, as matter, is a mere privation of being and therefore represents the lowest rung on the proverbial metaphysical ladder. A crucial aspect to Plotinus’s emanationism, however, is that (...) lower levels of a metaphysical hierarchy cannot causally influence higher ones and, thus, there is an inconsistency in the Egyptian’s magnum opus, or so it would seem. Scholars have sought to work through this paradox by positing that Plotinus is a “paleolithic Platonist” or Socratic. The advantage of this approach is that one may be able to resolve the tension by invoking Socrates’s eliminativist solution to the problem of weakness of will, as found in The Protagoras. In the following article, I argue that such attempts are not wrong-headed just underdetermined. They take up the standard reading of Socratic moral intellectualism, namely the “informational” interpretation and, therefore, fail to render a coherent view of Plotinus’s moral philosophy. The following paper, in contrast, utilizes a new reading of intellectualism advanced by Brickhouse and Smith, which, when subtended with a “powers approach” to causality, resolves the aforementioned, problematic passage of Enneads. (shrink)