The Transparency of Desire as Motivation

Shuhei Shimamura [PDF]

Abstract

Evans claims that we introspect our belief that p simply by judging, at the firstorder,
outward-looking level, that it is the case that p. This is sometimes called
the transparency account of belief introspection. Recently, several authors such
as Moran, Byrne, and Ashwell have attempted to extend similar outward-looking
accounts to the realm of attitudes with motivational power, or desires. In this
paper, I point out that their attempts fail either in adequately explaining the
authority of desire introspection or in being outward-looking. I claim that their
failure comes from a common root: their self-ascriptive procedures, unlike
Evans’s, do not invite us to redeploy the ability to hold the attitude that is being
self-ascribed. Instead, I offer a series of alternative transparency accounts of
desire introspection satisfying this redeployment condition.

Keywords

Belief, Desire, Introspection, Self-knowledge, Transparency

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