Desire and Psychology

This chapter explores how work in psychology can inform philosophical theorising about desire. It considers how work in behavioural psychology and animal learning can inform a philosophical account of the kind of representation in desire and associated rational norms; how work in affective neuroscience contributes to an account of the different elements of desire; and how psychological models of appetite and drug craving that emphasise the role of imagery and cognition as part of this process can shed light on the phenomenology and representational format of experiences of desire.