The Concept-Deployment Asymmetry Objection

I wish to raise an objection to the Desire-as-Belief Thesis; the claim that the desire to ϕ is equivalent to the belief that ϕ is good. According to this objection, believing that ϕ is good requires that one deploy the concept of the good while desiring to ϕ does not. Call this the concept-deployment asymmetry objection.

My argument for concept-deployment asymmetry runs as follows: We begin by drawing a distinction between apprehending that X is F and apprehending X as F, where X is some state of affairs or proposition and F is an evaluative concept, such as goodness or truth. It is worth noting, at the very outset, that the distinction between apprehending that and apprehending as is a theoretical one; it is not intended to capture the semantic significance of the expressions in ordinary English. The theoretical distinction hinges on the observation that there are two different ways in which an attitude may count as evaluative vis-à-vis goodness or truth. We may gain a firmer handle on this distinction by contrasting what it means to say that the belief that it is good to give to charity is evaluative vis-à-vis the good versus what it means to say that it is evaluative vis-à-vis the truth.

There is a straightforward sense in which the belief that it is good to give to charity is evaluative vis-à-vis the good. I maintain that this sense is tied to the propositional content of the belief. That is to say, the belief that it is good to give to charity is evaluative vis-à-vis the good in virtue of its propositional content. That this is so, is suggested by the fact that if we keep the attitude of belief fixed, but alter its propositional content so that the concept of the good no longer features therein, the attitude of belief no longer counts as evaluative vis-à-vis the good. For example, believing that it is raining outside does not entail an evaluation of its raining outside as good. However, the belief that it is raining outside and the belief that it is good to give to charity are both the same type of attitude—namely, a belief. They only differ in terms of their propositional content. The former has the propositional content, “it is raining outside” and the latter has the propositional content, “it is good to give to charity”. Given that the only difference between the two beliefs has to do with their propositional content, and given that this difference is enough to make the latter, but not the former, evaluative vis-à-vis the good, it follows that whether or not a belief counts as evaluative vis-à-vis the good depends on its propositional content.

Let us now contrast the sense in which the belief that it is good to give to charity is evaluative vis-à-vis the good, with the sense in which it is evaluative vis-à-vis the truth. We begin by noting that believing that it is good to give to charity entails apprehending the proposition, “it is good to give to charity” as being true. Hence, there is a straightforward sense in which the belief that it is good to give to charity is evaluative vis-à-vis the truth. However, and herein lays the rub, if one believes that it is good to give to charity, one's belief counts as evaluative vis-à-vis the truth in virtue of the intrinsic nature of the attitude, regardless of its propositional content. That this is so is suggested by the fact that (1) the belief that it is good to give to charity is evaluative vis-à-vis the truth, even though the concept of truth does not feature as part of the propositional content of the belief and (2) if we keep the attitude of belief fixed, but alter the attitude's propositional content, it remains evaluative vis-à-vis the truth. For example, there is a sense in which both the belief that it is good to give to charity and the belief that the founder of charity X is telling the truth are evaluative vis-à-vis the truth, even though the concept of truth only features as part of the propositional content of the latter. This is the same sense in which all beliefs, regardless of their propositional content, may be said to be evaluative vis-à-vis the truth.

To believe a proposition just is to assess that proposition as true. This suggests that the sense in which the belief that it is good to give to charity is evaluative vis-à-vis the truth has to do with the intrinsic nature of the attitude itself, independent of its particular propositional content. The upshot is that the sense in which the belief that it is good to give to charity is evaluative vis-à-vis the good (a sense that is tied to the propositional content of the belief) and the sense in which the belief that it is good to give to charity is evaluative vis-à-vis the truth (a sense that is tied to the nature of the attitude itself, independent of its propositional content) instantiate two different ways in which an attitude may be evaluative vis-à-vis goodness or truth.

I use the expression apprehending that X is F to pick out the sense in which the belief that giving to charity is good is an evaluation vis-à-vis the good. I use the expression apprehending X as F to pick out the sense in which all beliefs may be said to be evaluations vis-à-vis the truth. One upshot of this way of putting things is that when we say that an attitude is an instance of apprehending that X is F, we are essentially making a claim about its propositional content, and not a claim about attitudes of a particular type. By contrast, when we say that an attitude is an instance of apprehending X as F, we are essentially making a claim about all attitudes of a particular type, regardless of their propositional content. Hence, when we say that believing that it is good to give to charity is an instance of apprehending that X is F (where X is the state of affairs of giving to charity, and F is the evaluative concept of goodness) we are actually making a claim about the propositional content of the belief, rather than a claim about the type of attitude that beliefs are.

By contrast, when we say that believing that it is good to give to charity is an instance of apprehending X as F (where X is the proposition, “it is good to give to charity”, and F is evaluative concept, true) we are actually making a claim about the type of attitude a belief is, rather than a claim about its propositional content. Since GG theory is, at heart, a claim about the type of attitude a desire is, and not simply a claim about the propositional content of a particular desire, I believe GG theory is best understood as the claim that desires involve apprehending X as F (where X refers to that which is desired and F refers to the evaluative concept of the good). In fact, it would do violence to GG theory to construe it as committed to the claim that desires involve apprehending that X is F (where X refers to that which is desired and F refers to the evaluative concept of the good) since this would make GG theory a thesis about desires with a certain propositional content—namely, ones in which the evaluative concept of the good figures—rather than a theory about desires, simpliciter.

With the distinction between apprehending that X is F and apprehending X as F in hand, we may now unpack GG theory—i.e., the claim that desire aims at the good—by saying that desiring to ϕ entails apprehending ϕ as good. On this view, the aim of a propositional attitude is specified by the apprehending as relation rather than the apprehending that relation. This makes sense given that the apprehending that relation varies as we alter the propositional content of an attitude, while the apprehending as relation remains the same as we alter the propositional content of an attitude. Hence, the apprehending as relation is able to capture the intuition that the aim of a propositional attitude remains the same regardless of its propositional content.

Moreover, while the apprehending as relation specifies the aim of a propositional attitude, the apprehending that relation bestows a propositional attitude with a certain evaluative flexibility. For example, it is in virtue of apprehending that X is F (where F is the evaluative concept of the good) that a belief is able to be evaluative vis-à-vis the good. Or, to give another example, consider the belief that apples are delicious. It is in virtue of apprehending that X is F (where F is evaluative concept delicious) that the belief that apples are delicious is able to be evaluative vis-à-vis the delicious. (This point generalises, pari passu, to the belief that Brussels sprouts are disgusting, the belief that roses are beautiful, and so on.) Hence, the apprehending that relation is that which allows the attitude of belief to be evaluative vis-à-vis something other than truth. In short, it gives belief evaluative promiscuity.

This brings us to the final step of our argument in favour of concept-deployment asymmetry. Let us say that an agent deploys some concept, F, when she has attitude Y, just in case F features as part of the propositional content of Y. Believing that ϕ is good requires that one deploy the concept of the good because it entails apprehending that ϕ is good. By contrast, desiring that ϕ does not require that one deploy the concept of the good because it entails apprehending ϕ as good, but does not entail apprehending that ϕ is good. This, I claim, represents a fundamental asymmetry between desiring to ϕ and believing that ϕ is good. Consequently, the Desire-as-Belief Thesis, which holds that the two are equivalent, must be false.