Three Faces of Desire [Hardcover]

To desire something is a condition familiar to everyone. It is uncontroversial that desiring has something to do with motivation, something to do with pleasure, and something to do with reward. Call these the three faces of desire. The standard philosophical theory at present holds that the motivational face of desire presents its unique essence--to desire a state of affairs is to be disposed to act so as to bring it about. A familiar but less standard account holds the hedonic face of desire to reveal to true nature of desire. In this view, to desire something is to tend to pleasure if it seems that the desired state of affairs has been achieved, or displeasure if it seems otherwise, thus tying desire to feelings instead of actions.

InThree Faces of Desire, Schroeder goes beyond actions and feelings to advance a novel and controversial theory of desire that puts the focus on desire's neglected face, reward. Informed by contemporary science as much as by the philosophical tradition,Three Faces of Desirediscusses recent scientific discoveries that tell us much about the way that actions and feelings are produced in the brain. In particular, recent experiments reveal that a distinctive system is responsible for promoting action, on the one hand, and causing feelings of pleasure and displeasure, on the other. This system, the brain's reward system, is the causal origin of both action and feeling, and is the key to understanding the nature of desire.

A refreshing reexamination of desire theoryThree Faces of Desireintroduces a rich body of neuroscientific data that has been neglected by philosophy of mind for some time, but because of the use Schroeder has made of it, it is doubtful that this neglect will persist for long. -Anthony Landreth,Philosophical Psychology

...ambitious, informative, and very often insightful... --Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

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