Neuroscientific Reward Theories of Desire

Some naturalistically inclined philosophers aim to give accounts of mental phenomena in terms of states and processes uncovered by experimental psychology, in particular cognitive neuroscience. Those who have pursued this strategy to give a theory of desire have converged on the neuroscience of reward, including reward learning and reward-based motivation. In articulating their respective views, philosophers also make substantive claims about the nature of desire that they take to be consistent with the empirical literature. Yet there is substantial disagreement on many fronts: how to understand ‘reward,’ how to relate desires to reward, and whether to use the neuroscientific concept of ‘reward’ itself or a related concept. Accordingly, philosophers differ on issues like whether a reward-based theory of desire constitutes an action theory, an evaluative theory, both, or something else. This chapter covers theories of desire based on the neuroscience of reward. It discusses the philosophical motivations for turning to reward processing as a basis for a theory of desire, as well as the various ways philosophers have understood this empirical literature, defined desire in terms of it, and drawn philosophical conclusions about the nature of desire.