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Attitudinal Theories of Pleasure and De Re Desires

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2021

Elizabeth Ventham*
Affiliation:
The University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Abstract

This article has two main aims. First, it will defend an ‘attitudinal’ account of pleasure, that is, an account of what it is that makes an experience pleasurable for a subject that explains it in terms of a certain kind of de re desire that the subject has towards that experience. Second, in doing so, the article aims to further our understanding of unconscious desires, and of what the subjects of such desires can be. The article begins by introducing two existing accounts of what makes an experience pleasurable. It then offers a diagnosis of a recent objection to attitudinal accounts from Bramble and existing responses from attitudinal theorists, arguing that the two positions are currently at a stalemate. After this, I argue for the possible existence of unknowable and unconscious de re desires, and show how such desires provide the best defence of such ‘attitudinal’ accounts.

Type
Reply
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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