Daniel Coren

How is willpower possible? Which desires are relevant to well-being? Despite a surge of interest in both questions, recent philosophical discussions have not connected them. I connect them here. In particular, the puzzle of synchronic self-control says that synchronic self-control requires a contradiction, namely, wanting not to do what we most want to do. Three responses have been developed: Sripada’s divided mind view, Mele’s motivational shift thesis, and Kennett and Smith’s non-actional approach. These responses do not incorporate distinctions from desire-satisfaction theories of well-being. I argue that distinguishing between behavioural desires and genuine-attraction desires disarms one objection to synchronic self-control. Conversely, disarming that objection salvages an axiologically crucial claim in recent versions of desire-satisfaction theory.

Unlike Yiddish (fargin) and Sanskrit (muditā), English has no single word to describe the practice of sharing someone else’s joy at their success. Sympathetic joy has also escaped attention in philosophy. We are familiar with schadenfreude, begrudging, envy, jealousy, and other terms describing either (a) pleasure at someone else’s misfortune or (b) displeasure at someone else’s good fortune. But what, exactly, is sympathetic joy? I argue that it is a short-term or long-term feeling of great delight at another’s good fortune, requiring no more than minimal understanding of the relevant person and event. It is intensified relative to understanding, sharing, and positive disposal. It is importantly different from empathetic emotions and also from vicarious pride. It may be group-directed. Empirical research suggests it occurs fairly often, activates the brain in the same way as does sympathetic sadness, and may increase our well-being. It is primarily not a reactive attitude (an emotional reaction to good or bad will), but, rather, a sign of good will toward another.

It is well known that Aristotle tries to make room for self-motion – an idea he inherits to some extent from Plato – within his other commitments to causal determinism while at the same time modifying the idea. However, one argument in Physics VII 1 seems to pose a problem for the bare possibility of self-motion; in it he seems to argue that everything that moves must be moved by something else. The text in which this argument appears is itself vexed on a number of fronts, because it is not clear how Physics VII fits with the rest of the Physics, and also because there are two distinct manuscript traditions for Physics VII. So the argument in Physics VII 1 has not been adequately taken into account in discussions of self-motion. I argue for a new and charitable reading of Aristotle’s Physics VII 1 α241b35-242a49 / β241b25-242a15. I show that the argument is compatible with Aristotle’s endorsements of self-motion; I defend the argument’s most controversial premise; and I argue that my reading has some useful implications for understanding Aristotelian self-motion.

I argue that to remove all backward-looking grounds and justification from the practice, as some theorists recommend, is to remove (not revise) moral responsibility. The most paradigmatic cases of moral responsibility must feature desert and retributive elements. So, moral responsibility must be (at least partially) backward-looking. When we hold people responsible, one reason we do so is that we believe that they deserve punishment or reward simply in virtue of the action for which we hold them responsible. None of this rebuts responsibility skepticism. For instance, forward-looking theories might adopt Myisha Cherry’s proposal: anger as love without blameworthiness.

I explain what Aristotle means when, after puzzling about the matter of motion in incomplete animals (those without sight, smell, hearing), he suggests in De Anima III 11.433b31-434a5 that just as incomplete animals are moved indeterminately, desire and phantasia are present in those animals, but present indeterminately. I argue that self-motion and its directing faculties in incomplete animals differ in degree but not in kind from those of complete animals. I examine how an object of desire differs for an incomplete animal. Using a comparison with Aristotle’s account of recollection, especially in unfavorable circumstances, I describe indeterminate self-motion. Finally, I discuss implications for our understanding of Aristotle’s accounts of the faculties of the soul and incomplete animals.

Despite their differences, responsibility theories of all types (skeptics, forward-looking, backward-looking) concur on the following conditional: If someone deserved to suffer for an act, then they would be blameworthy for that act. Here I sketch a way of rejecting that conditional. In particular, using some of Śāntideva’s distinctions, I offer a new way of thinking about desert: Wrongdoers deserve to, and do, suffer for their wrongdoings, but they do not deserve our blame. It may be that vice is (part of) its own deserved punishment, whether or not anyone can have the free will required for blameworthiness. More generally, wrongdoers may not deserve negative responses of any kind from anyone else, yet they may still deservedly suffer in proportion to their wrongdoings.

The universe is enormous, perhaps unimaginably so. In comparison, we are very small. Does this suggest that humanity has little if any cosmic significance? And if we don’t matter, should that matter to us? Blaise Pascal, Frank Ramsey, Bertrand Russell, Susan Wolf, Harry Frankfurt, Stephen Hawking, and others have offered insightful answers to those questions. For example, Pascal and Ramsey emphasize that whereas the stars (in all their enormity) cannot think, human beings can. Through an exploration of some features of awe and its positive effects on us, I offer a novel way of answering the second question: even if we don’t matter, we, unlike the stars, naturally benefit from observing our own smallness. I explore implications for accounts of the absurdity of human life. Life might be absurd. But I give reasons to think that life isn’t absurd in the ways some such as Nagel and Camus suggest. Finally, I connect non-symmetric awe with Buddhist insights to strengthen a recent and more positive account of how to find meaning in life.

Self-control requires wanting not to do what we most want to do. Yet we always do what we most want to do, if we do anything intentionally at that time (The Law of Desire). Therefore, self-control is impossible. So runs a well-studied puzzle. The three standard analyses attack one of the argument’s premises. For standard treatments assume that if a desire is our strongest desire, then it is stronger than all others. But that assumption is false. For we may have desires of equal strength. I describe cases which feature tied desires, self-control, and doing what we most want to do. Following insights from computer science (Buridan’s Principle), equal-strength desires are possible any time we try to decide. My proposal may also be used to bolster all three standard analyses.