Humean nature. How desire explains action, thought, and feeling

Description

Neil Sinhababu defends the Humean Theory of Motivation, according to which desire drives all human action and practical reasoning. Desire motivates us to pursue its object, makes thoughts of its object pleasant or unpleasant, focuses attention on its object, and is amplified by vivid representations of its object. These aspects of desire explain a vast range of psychological phenomena - why motivation often accompanies moral belief, how intentions shape our planning, how we exercise willpower, what it is to be a human self, how we express our emotions in action, why we procrastinate, and what we daydream about. Some philosophers regard such phenomena as troublesome for the Humean Theory. Read more... Abstract: Neil Sinhababu defends the Humean Theory of Motivation, according to which desire drives all human action and practical reasoning. This theory helps us to understand core aspects of human nature, such as intention, the will, moral belief, emotion, and the self; and it has revolutionary consequences for ethics. Read more...