Three Faces of Desire

Alan Belk is a sessional instructor in the Philosophy Department at the
University of Guelph.

Timothy Schroeder displays an impressive familiarity with current work
in brain science and the body of work that constitutes philosophy of
mind. Any philosophical theory of mind, he believes, must take into
account what neuroscientists (and psychologists) are doing. Philosophers
on their own have a bad track record when it comes to developing an
account of what the mind is, although it is perhaps no worse than that
of scientists and psychologists. Perhaps it is, Schroeder argues,
because scientists and their ilk ignore everything philosophers say
about the mind, and most philosophers have not jumped aboard the
naturalist bandwagon and still seem to think that the difference between
my mind and that of a bat (whatever it is like) is quantitative rather
than qualitative.

The three faces of desire are reward (we aim to satisfy desires because
their satisfaction provides a reward), motivation (the anticipated and
attainable satisfaction of a desire moves us into action directed toward
satisfaction), and pleasure (pleasure is the representation of change
due to desire satisfaction). Through the examination of these, Schroeder
creates an account of desire that he makes philosophically rigorous and
that includes both common sense and counterintuitive claims. An example
of the latter is that desires are realized through a biological reward
system such as that centred on dopamine-releasing neurons in the
hypothalamus, a claim that would have been unthinkable not too many
years ago.

Three Faces of Desire is technical philosophy and, as such, will appeal
mainly to those with a philosophical education and an interest in the
mind.