Whyte on desire fulfilment conditions: a simple problem

• Autores: Jake Chandler
• Localización: Disputatio, ISSN-e 0873-626X, Vol. 2, Nº. 21, 2006, págs. 1-4
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • According to Jamie Whyte, the proper assignment of fulfilment conditions to an agent�s set of desires proceeds in three steps.

    First, one identifies various desire extinction and behavioural reinforcement conditions to obtain the fulfilment conditions of a certain subset of the agent�s desires. With these fulfilment conditions in hand, one then appeals to a principle connecting desire fulfilment conditions with belief truth conditions to obtain the truth conditions of a number of the agent�s beliefs. Finally, one uses these belief truth conditions to generate, via a third principle, the fulfilment conditions for the remaining desires.

    There is, however, a very straightforward reason why this strategy cannot yield the required results.