Uncertainty and Reasoning

Abstract

In the first half, the chapter explains how desires can come in degrees. The most complex question here is how degrees of uncertainty in our reasons beliefs get expressed with respect to desires. The answer is that they get expressed as uncertainty about what we want. In the second half, the chapter turns to our capacity to reason with our desires. It focuses on instrumentalism, the view that only instrumental desires can be changed by reasoning. This might seem problematic for desire-as-belief. But the chapter shows that instrumentalism is false, in light of the fact that some desires are neither instrumental nor ultimate.