Suppose I have the desire to eat some salty food, and when I am making my decision about what to eat, I am aware of the fact that eating too much salty food is bad for me. Despite this belief of mine, I act on my desire to eat the salty food.



According to Searle: what makes my desire have causal effectiveness in the action I performed is just the fact that I chose to act on it. Something’s missing here. It seems to me that my desire exerted some force on me, some pull on me: that it was causally effective (although not causally sufficient) in the action I performed before I chose to act on it; in fact, that it was causally effective in my CHOOSING to act on it. Am I wrong here, or is this just me? Suppose that every time before I eat, I have the desire to eat salty food, and before I make the decision about what to eat, I have awareness of the fact that eating too much salty food is bad for me. Despite having this belief, I tend to act on my desire to eat salty food. So, I have a tendency to act on my desire to eat salty food. It seems to me that what explains this tendency is the causal effectiveness of my desire. It’s not that the desire doesn’t have causal effectiveness unless I choose to act on it.



The kind of causal effectiveness a desire has on you, before you choose to act on it, is interesting. Because it has causal effectiveness even if you don’t choose to act on it. For this reason: it has causal effectiveness EVEN IF it doesn’t make anything happen. In this respect, it’s like gravity: it has causal effectiveness even if there is no matter on which it is exerting a force. (think of a black hole in a universe devoid of matter).

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"The kind of causal effectiveness a desire has on you, before you choose to act on it, is interesting. Because it has causal effectiveness even if you don’t choose to act on it"

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But would you feel that same effectiveness on you if you never tried salt before, so do we only feel its effectiveness after we have tried it, like say drugs or intoxicants.?

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"The kind of causal effectiveness a desire has on you, before you choose to act on it, is interesting. Because it has causal effectiveness even if you don’t choose to act on it"

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But would you feel that same effectiveness on you if you never tried salt before, so do we only feel its effectiveness after we have tried it, like say drugs or intoxicants.?

The experience that I have when I am desiring that I eat salty food is the experience of being pulled toward doing the eating of the salty food. That’s the causal effectiveness that the desire has. It has no causal effectiveness, if I’m not desiring that I eat salty food, because then there would be no desire to have the causal effectiveness. Now, it seems that I wouldn’t have the desire that I eat salty food, if I’ve never eaten salty food before. The reason is: the desire that I eat salty food is acquired as a result of having eaten it: that, of course, doesn’t mean that having eaten it was sufficient for the acquisition of the desire, but it was necessary. So, my desire that I eat salty food requires that I’ve eaten it before. And since that desire can’t have causal effectiveness, unless I have that desire, the desire has causal effectiveness only if I’ve eaten salty food before. Now: could I have acquired the desire that I eat salty food, even though I’ve never eat it? I don’t see why not. I could have acquired it because you told me that salty food tastes delicious, and that I should try some, and because I trust your judgment. Now: would my desire still have causal effectiveness? Sure it would, if it’s a genuine desire, it has some causal effectiveness. But this isn’t the sort of case that’s happening in the original example I gave. In that example, I have a habitual desire that I eat salty food, based on my having eaten some salty food before.

Now, it might seem like I’m being inconsistent. If the desire that I have that I eat salty food required that I had eaten salty food before, then it seems that I couldn’t have had it any other way. But I suggest that I could have had the desire even if I never ate salty food before, because I could have had it as a result of you telling that salty food tastes delicious. The reason why it seems inconsistent is because the desire that I eat salty food has a narrow construal and a broad construal.

A desire with a narrow construal has a content that is not determined by what causes the desire.
A desire with a broad construal has a content that is determined by what causes the desire.

The desire that I have to eat salty food, when it has a narrow construal, isn’t determined by what causes the desire. So, under a narrow construal, the desire that I have to eat salty food that is caused by my just having eaten it, is the same as the desire that I would’ve had, if it had been caused by your telling me that salty food is delicious. But under a broad construal, the desires wouldn’t be the same. What’s the intuitive reason for why not? Because the way the salty food appears to me when I have the actual desire is different from the way the salty food would appear to me if I were to have the hypothetical desire. Salty food appears different to me when I’ve eaten it before, and it tasted good, versus when I’ve never eaten it before, and therefore don’t know anything about how it tastes. So, how I am not being inconsistent is this:

The desire that I now have that I eat salty food, when the desire is broadly construed, requires that I had eaten salty food before. When it’s narrowly construed, then it doesn’t require it. When it’s narrowly construed, I could’ve had the same desire, having been caused by you telling me that salty food is delicious, and not having been caused by me having eaten salty food.

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Now: could I have acquired the desire that I eat salty food, even though I’ve never eat it? I don’t see why not.

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that was a very interesting response, i agree with you. I guess we face this kind of desire like say in advertising on TV , making the things being advertised desirable etc, but i guess their is a scale of "effectiveness" . Say if i describe the wonders of salty food to you , but some one else will tell you the bad things of a high salt diet such as high blood pressure and stroke, might that not really stop the desire perhaps or limited it greatly? but similarly children are taught about the dangers of drugs in schools but that does not stop them from trying them and getting hooked on them in later life i guess.

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The desire that I now have that I eat salty food, when the desire is broadly construed, requires that I had eaten salty food before. When it’s narrowly construed, then it doesn’t require it. When it’s narrowly construed, I could’ve had the same desire, having been caused by you telling me that salty food is delicious, and not having been caused by me having eaten salty food.

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I guess eating the salt is the point of no return, a sensory experience that validates the advertising and hype. Interestingly that "heightened" taste becomes a desire that just cant be got rid of, and perhaps must be battled with for the rest of ones life.

The question of what causes you to have the desires that you have is a very interesting one. But the question I was trying to ask is the causal role the desire has on you after you have already acquired the desire. Searle says that, typically: your having a desire that you do P isn’t causally sufficient for your producing the action that P. For example, my having the desire to eat this salty food isn’t causally sufficient for me eating it, especially when I also have the desire that I not eat it, say, because I believe that I’ve eaten too much salty food already. There is a gap between my having the desires, and my eating the food or not eating it, where I have to decide what to do. In that gap, I exercise free will, and, in doing so, act on one of my desires, for example, I act on the desire to eat the salty food, and in doing so, I make that desire the causally effective one, and I eat the salty food. This is Searle’s account. There are exceptions to this, when the desire you have is in fact causally sufficient for the action you produce. But these are few and far in between, at least for cognitively normal people. In such cases, you are not a rational agent: you’re not deliberating or making a decision, and when you act, the action you produce is more like a reflexive behavior than an action. For example, think of a case when you’re in a state of rage, and you hit someone.

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my having the desire to eat this salty food isn’t causally sufficient for me eating it, especially when I also have the desire that I not eat it, say, because I believe that I’ve eaten too much salty food already.
There is a gap between my having the desires, and my eating the food or not eating it, where I have to decide what to do. In that gap, I exercise free will, and, in doing so, act on one of my desires

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interesting example, i guess its like most food no matter how good it is after a certain amount of time we want to try something else. (the exception is of course drugs and intoxicants)

The fact that one say misses salty food after a certain period of time , does that mean one is acting in "free" will ? if there is a craving involved can one say one has freedom of choice?

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There are exceptions to this, when the desire you have is in fact causally sufficient for the action you produce. But these are few and far in between, at least for cognitively normal people. In such cases, you are not a rational agent: you’re not deliberating or making a decision, and when you act, the action you produce is more like a reflexive behavior than an action. For example, think of a case when you’re in a state of rage, and you hit someone.

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is a person more rational the less they act on desire? , can it be said then if a person were to be desire less
they are truly free?

In order for you to freely will to do X, at least two antecedent conditions must hold:

There needs to be some alternative courses of action available to you. For example, if I am to freely will to buy the Honda, there needs to be at least one alternative course of action available to me: for example, not buying it, or buying something else, the Toyota.

You need to have the capacity to be aware of the alternative courses of action. So, if I am to freely will to buy the Honda, I need to have the capacity to be aware that I can not buy it, or buy the Toyota.

When you are wanting to do X, and there are some alternative courses of action available to you, and you aware of what they are, and you are considering what to do, THEN you are experiencing the GAP: the gap between your desires and the alternative courses of action, on the one side, and the decision you need to make, on the other. This is when you need to exercise free will in order to make a decision. The decision doesn’t just get made for you. When I’m trying to figure out if I should buy the Honda or not, that decision isn’t just going to be made for me. I can’t just sit around and wait until the decision about what to do just happens. I have to make it.

Now, suppose you punch my mother in the face, right in front of me. That’s probably going to be a situation where I’m going to reflexively hit you. I’m not going to have free will: I’m not going to be able to be aware of alternative courses of action available to me. I’m going to be full of rage, and the rage is going to be causally sufficient for me to hit you. This is a situation where I’m not acting rationally. Rational action requires that the action be produced as the result of the exercise of free will.

Now, what about cravings? When you’re an addict, and you’re craving a drug—do you have free will? I’m not sure how to answer this. According to the traditional conception of free will, free will does not admit of degrees: you either have it, or you don’t. But there’s obviously a difference between:

When I’m an addict; I want to use my drug of choice; I’m aware of alternative possibilities; and I have to make a decision about what to do;

When I’m the same person, but I want to buy a Honda; I’m aware of alternative possibilities; and I have to make a decision about what to do.

Perhaps I have free will in both situations, but I have less of a capacity to exercise it in the first than in the second.


There’s also a difference between:

When I’m an addict; I want to use my drug of choice; I’m aware of alternative possibilities; and I have to make a decision about what to do;

When I’m the same person, but I’m a non-addict, I want to use my drug of choice; I’m aware of alternative possibilities; and I have to make a decision about what to do.

Again, perhaps I have free will in both situations, but I have less of a capacity to exercise it in the first than in the second.

You say:

is a person more rational the less they act on desire? , can it be said then if a person were to be desire less they are truly free


Rational action requires that you have desires. When you act rationally, the aim of your action is the fulfillment of your desires, given what your beliefs are. For example:

I desire that I lose weight.
I believe that joining Weight Watchers is the best way for me to lose weight.
Therefore, I join Weight Watchers.

The action that I perform here is rational. I desire that I lose weight. I am aware of other alternative courses of action: other ways of losing weight. So, I have free will. I believe that Weight Watchers is the best way to lose the weight. After considering all this, I make my decision, and join Weight Watchers. The aim of my action is the fulfillment of my desire that I lose weight, given my belief.

I’m unsatisfied with the answer I gave about the addict: that when the addict has free will, he has less of a capacity to exercise it than someone else who is exactly similar and relevantly similarly situated, except for the fact that he is not an addict.

A capacity gets diminished if certain conditions don’t obtain. For example, my capacity to understand language gets diminished if I’m substantially deprived of verbal stimulation when I’m growing up, early in life. And when my capacity is diminished, it manifests itself in my not understanding much of what others say, and my not communicating well. Now, what about the addict? What’s the condition that fails to obtain in virtue of which he has less of a capacity to exercise free will? There doesn’t seem to be one. And if his capacity is diminished, how does it manifest itself? Well, if it manifests itself in him not exercising free will, then he didn’t have free will in the first place. So, I don’t think the answer works. I think we need to have a better understanding of what free will is. Here’s a proposal:

Free will admits of degree
How much free will you have is a function of the relative strengths of the competing desires you have.
The more equitable the distribution of strengths of desires, the more free will that you have.
For a set of competing desires that you have, the strength of each desire is relative to all the others, with the strength of all the desires equaling 100%
For example, suppose I have the competing desires:

I want that I buy the Toyota: strength is 25%
I want that I buy the Mazda: strength is 25%
I want that I buy the Honda: strength is 25%
I want that I buy the Ford: strength is 25%

In this situation, I have maximal free will: the distribution of relative strengths of desires is completely equal. This is an ideal case of free will. The odds of me choosing one of the cars are equal to the odds of me choosing any of the other cars, other things being equal. So, when I do make the choice, it will seem like I’m really the one making the choice, and not any of my desires. And the way it seems will be the way it is.

Now, let’s take the addict’s situation. The addict has the competing desires:

I want that I smoke crack cocaine: strength is 99%
I want that I don’t smoke crack cocaine: strength is 1%

In this situation, I have almost no free will: the distribution of relative strengths of desires is extremely unequal. The odds of me choosing to smoke crack cocaine are very high. So, when I do make the choice, it will seem less like I’m making the choice, and more like my desire is making the choice for me. And the way it seems will be the way it is.

I think this is right, or at least on the right track

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The action that I perform here is rational. I desire that I lose weight. I am aware of other alternative courses of action: other ways of losing weight. So, I have free will. I believe that Weight Watchers is the best way to lose the weight. After considering all this, I make my decision, and join Weight Watchers. The aim of my action is the fulfillment of my desire that I lose weight, given my belief.

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interesting how one desire causes another one, if say fast food / high fat food wasn't so tasty there would be no desire to eat it. so there would be no desire to buy products from the weight loss industry i guess.

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For example, suppose I have the competing desires:

I want that I buy the Toyota: strength is 25%
I want that I buy the Mazda: strength is 25%
I want that I buy the Honda: strength is 25%
I want that I buy the Ford: strength is 25%

In this situation, I have maximal free will: the distribution of relative strengths of desires is completely equal. This is an ideal case of free will. The odds of me choosing one of the cars are equal to the odds of me choosing any of the other cars, other things being equal. So, when I do make the choice, it will seem like I’m really the one making the choice, and not any of my desires. And the way it seems will be the way it is.

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If the mind can be taken over by emotions such as anger, isn't it part of the set of innate desires that we have also no control over? (love, jealousy, etc,) and the fact we have these innate desires , would they not play havoc with our free will?

When you ultimately buy your car you'll probably be checking which fulfills the function of a "good" car, like facts about safety, fuel consumption, etc..details that can be listed and checked against other models. but then comes the aesthetics and how you feel when you drive it that cant really perhaps be defined.


if a computer had to decide on which car to choose and evaluated that each model had the same functionality maybe it would not be able to make a decision? (other than a picking one out randomly)
perhaps if we really had free will we would be as indecisive?...... your final choice of car might be a random one to if you liked them all ..or would it be ? ( innate desires influencing your choice perhaps) may be not having total free will is a mercy that stops our minds from "crashing" due to this indecision?