Affective Experience, Reasons for Action, and Desire

A/Prof Declan Smithies (Ohio State University)

What is the role of affective experience in explaining how our desires provide us with reasons for action? When we desire that p, we are thereby disposed to feel attracted to the prospect that p, or to feel averse to the prospect that not-p. In this paper, we argue that these affective experiences – feelings of attraction and aversion – provide us with reasons for action in virtue of their phenomenal character. Moreover, we argue that desires provide us with reasons for action only because they dispose us to have affective experiences. On this account, affective experience has a central role to play in explaining how desires provide reasons for action.