Enjoyment and Reasons

Enjoyment consists in a causal harmony: the experience or activity φ

causes both the occurrent belief, of φ, under A, that it is occurring; and the

felt desire, of φ under A, that it should occur for its own sake. The “of φ,

under A” belief/desire pair is typically a reason for one to have the experience

or engage in the activity. That is the burden of this chapter. We emphasize the

“typically”: one can enjoy φ when the relevant belief/desire pair does

constitute such a reason. Canvassing the distinction between the two cases

yields an account of the explanatory-justificatory role of enjoyment. This may

strike some as odd. Why focus on the “of φ, under A” belief/desire pairs?

Why not begin with the obvious fact that the prospect of enjoyment is a

reason for action? Because our characterization of the explanatory-

justificatory role of the “φ, under A” belief/desire pairs allows us to define a

variety of enjoyment characterized by the fact that the of “φ, under A”

belief/desire pairs are reasons to φ. Such enjoyments not only explain the

reason-providing role of the prospect of enjoyment, they play a central role in

one’s life and are a key building block of our account of beauty. An essential

preliminary is clarifying the notion of a reason for action.

I. Reasons and Values

It may appear that, in our talk of reasons for action, we have already

turned down the wrong road. After all, it is only in some cases that an “φ,

under A” belief/desire pair is a reason for action—namely, when φ is an

activity; surely, it is just confused to describe the pair as a reason for action

when φ is an experience. Reasons for action guide our voluntary choices,

1

but, so the objection goes, there is no clear sense in which reasons similarly

guide our choice of experiences. The latter claim is of course false. Having

an experience is typically under one’s voluntary control in two ways: one can

often determine whether it occurs, and how long it endures. One can control

whether one has the experience at all (by tasting or not tasting the wine, for

example), and one can often control the duration of the experience (by how

long one keeps the wine glass to one’s lips, for example). By “a reason to

have an experience,” we mean a reason to exercise control in one of the

above ways.

Talk of “reasons for action” is equivocal in least two ways. Reasons

may be considerations that motivate one to act and which one regards as

justifying the action (at least to some degree); or, they may be considerations

that should play a motivational-justificatory role whether or not they do so.

An example: Robert is a prominent wine critic. His doctor has informed him

he has severe and chronic gout, and must stop drinking the wines in which he

delights. Robert persists nonetheless; he thinks of himself as a badly injured

warrior who, although doomed to defeat, defiantly refuses to cease fighting

for his ideal, the ideal being the refinement of taste as a source of pleasure.

His friends try to change his mind, but their arguments fall on deaf ears. The

problem is not that Robert fails to believe that ceasing his gourmet pursuits

would preserve his health, nor is it that does not desire to remain healthy;

the problem is that the belief/desire pair fails to play the motivational-

justificatory role of a reason. It fails to motivate Robert to alter his habits,

and he denies the pair any justificatory role in dinning decisions; as he says

with regard to his health, “I am just not paying any attention to that.”

2

Robert’s friends, who realize that the pair does not for Robert play the

motivational-justificatory role of a reason to abandon his gourmet pursuits,

nonetheless think it should. The hardliners insist that it should play a

decisive role; the softliners merely think it should play some role, albeit it a

possibly overridden one. Both groups agree, however, that the pair is a

reason in the “should play” sense.

We will focus on reasons for action as considerations that do (or would

in appropriate circumstances) play a motivational-justificatory role in guiding

and evaluating thought and action. We will call such reasons first-person

reasons for action. The “first-person” label contrasts such reasons with

“third-person” reasons, reasons in friends’ “should play” sense. One regards

φ’s having an array of features A as a third-person reason, under A, for x to φ

if and only if one thinks that an appropriate of “φ under A” belief/desire pair

should play the role of a first-person reason for x—even if in fact it does not

play that role. Third-person reasons raise important and interesting

questions; however, given our purposes, we will put those issues aside. First-

person reasons comprise our exclusive concern. We take them to consist of

appropriate belief/desire pairs. We first identify the general motivational-

justificatory role such pairs play when they serve as first-person reasons and

then turn to the “of φ under A” belief/desire pairs that comprise our primary

concern. An essential preliminary is addressing an objection to the

assumption that first-person reasons are belief/desire pairs.

A. “Humeans” Versus “Kantians”

3

The objection: Aren’t we taking sides in the long-standing debate

about what sort of psychological state is required to account for the

motivational dimension of reasons? “Humeans”—crudely—insist that beliefs

alone cannot motivate; a motivational factor—a desire, hope, aspiration, an

allegiance to an ideal, or some such thing—is required. “Kantians”—equally

crudely—insist that beliefs may motivate on their own. Our answer is that

these crude extremes are untenable. Plausible Humeans must interpret

“desire” broadly to include such diverse sources of motivation as values,

ideals, needs, commitments, persona loyalties, and patterns of emotional

reaction. Plausible Kantians must refer to such sources of motivation to

explain why the same belief may motivate one person but not another. We

use “desire” to refer to the items in the broad and variegated range of

motivating factors that both Humeans and Kantians must recognize.

Desires so construed are particularly responsive to beliefs, which

can play a central role in creating, eliminating, and modifying desires. We

complete our gloss on our use of “desire” by offering examples of creation,

elimination, and modification. Take elimination first. Suppose that, by the

time your hosts take you to dinner after your arrival in Beijing, you are utterly

famished; the first dish that arrives looks appealing, and you immediately

form the desire to eat some; as you serve yourself, you ask what it is. The

answer, “Stomach lining,” eliminates your desire to eat. Two more examples:

In Cyrano de Bergerac, Roxane is in love with the author of the love letters,

whom she mistakenly believes to be Christian; when she finally realizes that

Cyrano is the author, she ceases to desire Christian. When Charles discovers

4

that Jim thinks him a buffoon, Charles is unable to put the disrespect aside,

and his desire to vote in Jim’s favor for tenure disappears.

Beliefs can also create desires. Hungry only for steak, you do not

desire to eat the meat before you, which you have mistakenly identified as

pork; when I point out that it is steak, you immediately form the desire to eat

it. To take a more elaborate example, imagine a lawyer’s client, a victim of

years of spousal abuse, killed her husband with a shotgun blast as he walked

in the door of their home. The lawyer argues for acquittal not merely by

arguing that, as legally required for self-defense, the husband posed an

immediate threat of grievous bodily harm, but also by portraying the woman

as an innocent, long-suffering victim, trying for the sake of the children to

hold the marriage together despite ever-increasing brutal physical and

psychological domination until, finally, the shotgun blast was the only real

route to save, not only herself, but also to salvage any reasonable life for the

children. If the picture works as the lawyer hopes, it generates a desire to

acquit.

Finally, changes in belief can work changes in desire. Suppose you

desire to be kind to your spouse, grow roses, and teach philosophy

effectively. Over time, you acquire a variety of interrelated beliefs about

what counts as being kind, about the pros and cons of rose-growing

strategies, and about what philosophy is and how you can most effectively

teach it. Your beliefs about what counts as kind focuses your original desires

on the types of activities those beliefs pick out; your beliefs about the pros

and cons of rose-growing strategies lead you to desire to grow roses in this

5

way or that; your insights into the nature of philosophy and how to teach it

lead you to desire to teach in particular ways.

In sum, we mean by “desire” any of a wide range of motivational

states, states are typically inextricably tied to beliefs, which may create,

eliminate, and modify them.

B. The Motivational-Justificatory Role

A first-person reason for one to perform some action θ is a belief/desire

pair that plays, or in appropriate circumstances would play, a certain

motivational-justificatory role to do θ.1 An example: Smith devotes

considerable time to chess; he studies the game, analyzes his past games,

seeks out chess partners, browses in the chess section of bookstores, and so

on. When asked why he engages in these activities, he explains that a well-

played game displays the beauty of forces in dynamic tension and reveals

creativity, courage, and practical judgment in an exercise of intuition and

calculation akin to both mathematics and art. This belief combines with

various desires to motivate him to engage in a variety of actions, and the

belief/desire pairs serve as at least part of the justification for performing the

actions, a justification that he offers to himself and, if fully truthful, to others.

The chess example involves the explicit articulation of reasons, and

this may suggest the implausibly rationalistic view that a reason always plays

its motivational-justificatory role through explicit reasoning. Worse yet, it

may associate reasons with dispassionate reflection. Reasons do course

sometimes operate explicitly and dispassionately. Reflecting on his need to

1 Comparison to agent-relative reasons.

6

improve his ability to blend strategy and tactics, Smith may explicitly and

dispassionately reason his way to the conclusion that he should study former

world champion Mikhail Tal’s games. The same reasons, however, could

operate implicitly and in the presence of passion. Imagine that Smith,

without prior reasoning, accidentally happens on a collection of Tal’s games

while wandering around a bookstore to kill time. The collection catches his

eye; the conviction, “I need this!” takes hold of him, and straightaway he

decides to buy the book. The conviction and the decision occur against the

background of an emotion-laden memory of a recent bitter defeat caused by

his lack of skill in blending strategy and tactics. Despite the passion and lack

of explicit reasoning, the same belief/desire pair that figures in the explicit

reasoning may also operate in this case. If Smith were later asked why he

bought the book, it would hardly be odd for him to say, “I wanted to improve

my ability to blend strategy and tactics, and I realize that realized I needed to

study Tal’s games to do so.” In offering this answer, he would both justify his

choice and identify a motive. 0ne may on occasion treat such after the fact

rationalizations skeptically, as the likely products of self-deception or

fabrication, on the whole, however, they are part and parcel of the routine

conduct of everyday life, and one generally accepts them unless one has

specific grounds for doubt.2 We take it to be clear that belief/desire pairs can

play a distinctive motivational-justificatory role in guiding and evaluating

thought and action. Neither the motive nor the justification need be decisive.

2 See the excellent account of after-the-fact attribution of reasons in Paul Grice, Aspects of Reason (Oxford University Press, 2001); see also the related discussion of “deeming” in the attribution of intentions in Paul Grice, “Meaning Revisited,” in Paul Grice, Studies in the Ways of Words (Harvard University Press, 1969).

7

All that is required is that the belief/desire pair provide some, possibly

overridden, motivation and justification.

For our purposes, it is enough to note that a distinctive motivational-

justificatory role exists; we need not describe it in detail—with one exception.

We take it to be clear that a first-person reason plays its motivational-

justificatory role at least in part through a belief that the relevant

belief/desire pair justifies action. One is not blindly driven along by one’s

first-person reasons; rather, one guides one’s conduct by the light of the

justifications one takes them to provide. In support, recall Smith. He desires

to improve his ability to bend strategy and tactics, and he believes that he

can do so by studying Tal’s games. To see this belief/desire pair as first-

person reason for Smith to buy the collection of Tal’s games is, in part, to see

Smith as prepared, to the extent he has sufficient self-knowledge and is

truthful with himself and others, to offer the pair as a justification for buying

the book. One cannot be prepared, at the time one acts, to truthfully identify

the belief/desire pair as a reason unless one believes, at that time, that it is.

The belief need not, of course, be present to one’s mind; Smith may buy the

book with little or no self-conscious thought at all. We assume therefore that

the following necessary condition holds: a belief/desire pair is a first-person

reason for one to perform an action θ only if one believes it provides (at least

some degree of) justification for doing θ.

II. First-Person-Reason Enjoyments

Enjoyments in which the “of φ, under A” belief/desire pair functions as

first-person reason to φ comprise an important type of enjoyment. Call them,

8

first-person-reason enjoyments. It would, of course, be wrong to single out

such enjoyments as a special type if the relevant “of φ, under A” belief/desire

pair involved an enjoyment were always a first-person reason to φ. But this is

clearly not the case, as the following examples show.

A. Enjoyments That Lack the Relevant First-Person Reason

Thomas Gouge’s intensely religious upbringing instilled in him the

conviction that a man should not feel erotic desire for another man. The

adolescent Gouge nonetheless enjoys looking at his best friend under an

array of features A that includes several features indicative of sexual

attraction. Thus, he believes, of his experience of looking at his friend, under

A, that it is occurring, and he desires, of the experience, under A, that it

should occur for its own sake. Gouge’s religious convictions, however, lead

him to conclude that the belief/desire pair does not provide even the most

miniscule degree of justification for looking in a sexual way at his friend; he

sees the desire as an alien invader to be resisted and destroyed, not a citizen

of the realm of desires capable of providing him with a justification for action.

Even though the relevant belief/desire pair does not serve as a first-person

reason for Gouge, he does enjoy looking at his friend in a sexual way; he

regards the enjoyment as a temptation Satan has placed in his path, but he

enjoys it nonetheless.

Such examples abound. Suppose Sarah is eating a desert she

mistakenly thought contained no chocolate. She suddenly finds herself

occurrently believing, of her taste experience, under tasting chocolate, that it

is occurring; and having the felt desire, of the experience, under tasting

9

chocolate, that it should occur for its own sake. She reacts with disgust.

Until recently, she suffered from an uncontrollable urge to eat to chocolate,

and her inability to resist diminished her self-respect; finally, she rebelled

against by banning chocolate entirely from her diet. She now views any

desire for chocolate just as Gouge views any sexual attraction to men, an

alien invader to be resisted and destroyed, not a citizen of the realm of

justification-providing desires. The sudden taste of chocolate does not make

Sarah waver from her convictions; she spits out the desert and attacks the

desire by recalling vivid memories of her loss of self-respect and her weight

gain. She most certainly does not regard the belief/desire pair as providing

any degree of justification for tasting the chocolate.

Is there another class of examples in which one does not believe that

the associated “of φ, under A” belief/desire pair does not provide any

justification to φ, but in which that pair nonetheless does not serve as a first-

person reason to φ? Suppose, for example, you are having scotch in the

lobby bar after a transatlantic flight; the combination of jet lag and alcohol

has produced a detached, hazy self-consciousness from which you

bemusedly observe the bar. You enjoy the experience. Must the associated

“of φ, under A” belief/desire serve as a first-person reason to have the

experience? There is no need to answer the question here; we do, however,

offer the following considerations. Recall that one is not blindly driven along

by one’s first-person reasons; rather, one guides one’s conduct by the light of

the justifications one takes them to provide, and there are certainly

circumstances in which you would believe that the bar belief/desire pair

provides a justification for having your experience, and in which that belief

10

would guide your conduct. Suppose someone asked you why you were

gazing out at the bar instead of preparing for the paper you must present

tomorrow. You might well respond, “I am enjoying it,” intending thereby to

indicate that your desire for the experience plus the belief that it is occurring

justifying your devoting time to the experience. Does this show that the

belief/desire pair serves as a first-person reason to have the experience even

no one—neither you nor someone else—raises the question of why you are

having the experience? It is impossible to answer without a more detailed

account of the motivational-justificatory role of a reason.

B. First-Person-Reason Enjoyments: Definition and Feedback Loop

The enjoyments which consistently occupy center stage in one’s life

are typically first-person-reason enjoyments, enjoyments in which the

associated “φ, under A” belief/desire pair serves as a first-person reason to φ.

Imagine Victoria is watching her eight–year old daughter perform in the

school play put on by her daughters’ fourth grade class. She enjoys the

experience of watching the performance under an array A that includes,

among a variety of other features, watching my daughter perform in the

school play, watching her daughter do what many other children have done

but do it in her particular way as something new to her. Thus, she believes,

of her experience, under A, that it is occurring, and she desires, of that

experience, under A, that it should occur for its own sake. The belief/desire

pair functions as a first-person reason. She regards the pair as providing (at

least a partial) justification for watching her daughter perform, a justification

she would readily, indeed passionately, offer to others. If she were to offer

11

the pair to others as a justification, she would describe some or all of the

features in A, intending thereby to specify the features she believes watching

her daughter exemplifies, and with regard to which she is filled with desire.

Thus, the belief/desire pair is not merely a first-person reason to watch her

daughter perform; it is a reason to have that experience as exemplifying the

features in A. We will express this by saying that the pair is a reason under A

for Victoria to have the experience.

We define first-person-reason enjoyment as follows:

x first-person-reason enjoys an experience or activity φ under A if and only if

(1) x φ’s, and x's φing causes (2) – (3):

(2) (a) x occurrently believes, of φ, under A, that it occurs; (b) and has the felt desire, of φ, under A, that it should occur for its own sake;

(3) the belief/desire pair in (2) is a first-person reason under A for x to φ.

Two points bear emphasis.

First, the first-person reason consists of an occurrent belief and a felt

desire, the same belief and desire that are components of the feeling of

enjoyment. In this way, the first-person-reason affirmation of φing is manifest

in the feeling of enjoyment. One may rightly object that it is not manifest

that the belief/desire pair is a first-person reason; it is just the components of

that reason, the belief and desire that are present to consciousness.

However, if one has sufficient self-knowledge and is sufficiently reflective,

one may be able to readily identify the present-to-mind belief and desire pair

as a first-person reason.

12

Second, what do we mean by saying that φ causes the first-person

reason? Our answer rests on a point we made earlier: a belief/desire pair

functions as a first-person reason only if one believes it provides some

justification for action. The enjoyed experience or activity causes—or

causally sustains—the belief/desire pair in its first-person-reason role by

causing (causally sustaining) the belief that the pair provides a justification.

We will (as we have been) use ‘cause’ for “cause to come into existence or

causally sustain in existence”; we will, however, sometimes use ‘causally

sustains’ when the context calls for it. The notion of causation to which we

appeal continues to be the pragmatic, context-driven everyday concept of

causation. To fully explain a particular use of the concept, one must exhibit

the characteristic patterns in which the concept is typically deployed. We do

so in the course of this section.

Why single out this type of enjoyment as a particularly important? This

question divides into two. What is the rationale for condition (3)? And, what

is what the rationale for including the condition that φ causes (3)? Our

answer in both cases is the same: first-person-reason enjoyments so defined

play an important descriptive and explanatory role. It is, however,

convenient to consider the questions separately, beginning with the rationale

for requiring (3).

A sufficient reason to include (3) is that enjoyments characterized by

this condition play a central role in one’s life. Consider Victoria’s enjoyment

of watching her daughter perform. When she enjoys watching her daughter

perform under an array A that includes, among a variety of other features,

watching my daughter perform in the school play, watching her daughter do

13

what many other children have done but do it in her particular way as

something new to her. For Victoria, the associated belief/desire serves as

a first-person reason to have the experience of watching her daughter

perform. She finds in the belief/desire pair a justification for having the

experience; he pair reveals the experience or activity as something she is

for, not against. Compare Gouge’s enjoyment of looking at his best friend in

a sexual way. Gouge cannot tear his gaze away. He is held in the causal grip

of the experience, which makes him believe, of it, under the relevant array of

features A, that it is occurring, and to desire, of it, under A, that it should

occur for its own sake. This belief/desire pair does not, however, function as

a first-person reason to gaze at his friend in a sexual way; rather, Gouge

regards it as a Satanic temptation thrown in his path and, as such, he sees

the pair as something to be resisted and, if possible, destroyed.

We take it to be clear that enjoyments in which the “of φ, under A”

belief/desire pair functions as a first-person reason play a central role in one’s

life. On its own, this is a good reason to single out such enjoyments as a type

worthy of attention. Further reason is provided by the rationale for requiring

that the enjoyed experience or activity causes the relevant “of φ, under A”

belief/desire pair (by causing the belief that the pair provides a justification).

C. Causation

There are two reasons for the causal requirement. The first is that the

requirement partially explains the power enjoyment can exercise. It explains

in part the power enjoyment can exercise over one. It explains in part why

one eats another piece of chocolate or has another bottle of wine, why one

14

goes sailing for hours on end, and why, although the annoyance of one’s

dinner companion is visibly increasing, one cannot stop gazing at the

attractive person at the other table. The power of first-person-reason

enjoyments does not consist merely in the blind impulse to satisfy a felt

desire; those enjoyments also invoke the authority of reason by making us

think, “This is justified.” Consider the following example. Jim, who is

married, is having lunch with a much younger woman whom knows is eager

to begin a sexual and romantic relationship with him. The activity of dinning

with her causes him to believe, of that activity, that it is occurring, and to

desire, of the activity, under an appropriate array A, that it should occur for

its own sake. The belief that the experience has the features in A causally

causes him to believe that the pair justifies his dining with the woman and

thereby causally sustains the belief/desire pair in its role as a first-person

reason to engage in that activity. The activity-caused belief plays this further

causal role because the array A includes features which depict a vision Jim

finds compelling. He sees the dinning activity as romantic rebellion in the

name of freedom, love, and passion in the face of social mores that require

fidelity even in a marriage from which ardor has been absent for years.

The causal power of first-person-reason enjoyments extends beyond

merely making one believe that the associated belief/desire pair justifies;

such enjoyments can capture on in a reason-mediated feedback loop in which

the enjoyed experience or activity plays a double causal role: it causes the

belief/desire pair, and it causes the conviction that the belief/desire pair

provides a justification for engaging in that activity thereby causally

sustaining the belief/desire pair in its role as a first-person reason. Suppose

15

Jim on that reason by continuing to dine. His continuing to dine may—and

suppose it does—cause him to believe, of the activity, under A, that it is

occurring; and to desire, of it, under A, that it should occur for its own sake.

Thus, he continues to enjoy the activity. In addition, the belief/desire pair

may continue to serve—and suppose it does indeed serve—as a first-person

reason to dine. Assume he acts on that reason by continuing to dine, and

suppose that doing so causes him to believe, of it, under A, that it is

occurring; and to desire, of it, under A, that it should occur for its own sake,

where belief/desire pair may continue to serve as a first-person reason to

dine. Assume he acts on that reason by continuing to dine . . . and so on—

until the meal finally ends, or other factors or interests intervene.

As the “assume’s” and “suppose’s” indicate, the feedback loop

requires not only that one act on the first-person reason, but that one’s doing

so have certain effects. One may not act. One may resist the desire to eat

another piece of chocolate, to continue to sail, or to continue to look at the

attractive person; or one may simply not have the relevant desires to

continue. Or one may act and the relevant effects may not occur after, for

example, the tenth piece of chocolate, the fifth hour of sailing, or the second

the second continuous minute of looking too long at the attractive person.3

Such feedback loops nonetheless play an important explanatory and

justificatory role, and it is the importance of this role that forms the final part

of the rationale for requiring that the enjoyed experience or activity cause

the first-person reason. The role in the context of enjoyment is just a special

case of a type of explanation and justification common in daily life. Consider

the following example. 3 Footnote about enjoying writing the last word, etc.

16

A friend has invited you to go sailing. You accepted the invitation only

because you thought it would be impolite to refuse. You have been sailing

before and, while you did not find it unendurable, you found it difficult to see

what people find so attractive about wandering about a body of water at very

slow speeds. Your expressing this opinion of sailing to your friend is what

prompted the invitation. The friend had insisted that you give sailing another

try on his boat; “you might,” he said, “change your mind.” He was indeed

correct. The boat, an ultralight racer, moves with an ease and grace utterly

lacking in your early experiences; it is all different—the feel of the graceful

motion of the boat and its easy speed, the sense of being not at odds with

the wind and waves but in harmony with them. You express your surprise

and enthusiasm to your friend by identifying the features of the experience

for which you find yourself filled with desire. You are, as you realize enjoying

it. The belief involved in this enjoyment is the belief, of the activity, under an

array A that captures your new found sense of sailing, that it is occurring; you

desire, of the activity, under A, that is should occur for its own sake, and the

belief/desire pair serves as a first-person reason to sail. Your activity causally

sustains the pair as a first-person reason by causally sustaining your belief

that the pair provides a justification. It is this conviction that underlies your

enthusiastic specification the array of features your sailing activity has

revealed; the discovery of those features is the initial cause of the belief, and

their continued presence in your activity is a sustaining cause.

Recall that the “φ” in an “of φ, under A” belief/desire pair is not a type

of experience or activity put a non-repeatable individual. It is the occurrence

of that individual that causes (or fails to cause) one to be willing to offer the

17

pair as a justification for φing. As Gouge, for example, explores his

homoerotic side, a wide range of experiences and activities will trigger (or fail

to trigger) his willingness to offer the associated “of φ, under A” belief/desire

pairs as justifications. In this way, he discovers what types of “of φ, under A”

belief/desire pairs play a justificatory role for him, and what types do not.

There are many of possibilities. The emerging pattern may, for example,

reveal the types of men to whom he is attracted, or, reflecting on the various

A’s in the “of φ, under A” pairs, Gouge may come to the conclusion that

gender matters less than certain personality traits that, as he now realizes,

he conceptualized as “male.” While the foregoing points stand out rather

clearly in examples of exploring new dimensions of one’s psyche, they hold

generally. Imagine that, after your excursion on your friend’s boat, you go

sailing regularly. Suppose that, for the most part at least, you first-person-

reason enjoy the activity. The pattern of particular “of φ, under A”

belief/desire pairs may reveal one or more significant patterns; you may

discover that you prefer sailing alone, or that “φ’s” and “A’s” involving high

winds and large waves do, or do not, yield belief/desire pairs you regard as

providing justifications. Similarly, when Ziva meets her husband for lunch, or

when Mason returns yet again to his beloved Warsaw, the experiences and

activities of each continue discontinuous sequences of similar experiences

and activities comprising evolving patterns; the patterns may be more or less

stable, or more or less shifting. Each will respond or fail to respond with the

belief that associated “of φ, under A” belief/desire pairs justify φing. If Ziva or

Mason fails to respond in this way, that may signal a loss of interest, or some

other sort of change that explains the lack of response. Responding with the

18

belief on the other hand adds to the pattern which reveals what one takes to

provide justifications, and which confirms or disconfirms one’s generalizations

in that regard. This theme—causal responses that confirm or disconfirm the

relevant generalizations—plays an important role in first-person-reason

enjoyments, and it that role that motivates including in the definition the

requirement that the enjoyed experience or activity cause the first-person

reason.

This general pattern plays a prominent role in the context of first-

person-reason enjoyments. The previous example of Jim’s dining activity

illustrates confirmation, and a continuation of the example illustrates

disconfirmation. In previous example, Jim’s dining activity causes him to

believe that the relevant belief/desire pair justifies dining with the woman by

causing him to see the activity as a romantic rebellion in the name of

freedom, love, and passion. Imagine that Jim has dined with the woman with

increasing frequency over the last few months, and that his current dining

activity is part of a series of “of φ, under A” belief/desire pairs where the

“A’s” characterized “φ’s” in terms of romantic rebellion, freedom, love, and

passion. His current activity adds to the pattern and confirms his conviction

that such belief/desire pairs provide justifications.

Compare a continuation of this example. In the continuation, the

causal relations collapse. To this end, imagine that Jim’s enjoyment—and

with it, the confirmation provided by the continuation of the series of

justifying belief/desire pairs—came as a surprise. He met the woman with

the intention of ending their incipient affair, and intention he abandons—but

only momentarily. As the meal progresses, his thought keeps returning to

19

Brangien’s outburst in Tristan and Isolde after she realizes Isolde and Tristan

have accidently drunk the love potion: “Iseult, my friend, and Tristan, you,

you have drunk death together.” He begins to see himself trapped in a future

of passion, ecstasy, lies, remorse, recrimination, and destruction. This vision

of the future grows stronger and more certain until he finally thinks, “I must

not do this,” and with this thought the dinning activity ceases to causally

sustain his conviction that the belief/desire pair provides a justification; that

belief is replaced by the certainty that the belief/desire pair is an alien

invader to be resisted. His romantic visions and his enjoyment dissolve,

leaving just the brute fact of the woman’s physical presence.

The two dining examples illustrate patterns of confirmation and

disconfirmation that figure prominently in one’s life—both inside and outside

one’s enjoyments. The importance of these patterns is the ultimate reason

for requiring, in the definition of first-person-reason enjoyment, that the

enjoyed experience or activity cause the relevant first-person reason.

III. Valuing

A special subtype of first-person-reason enjoyment plays a key role in

our account of beauty. Our definition the sub-type employs the notion of

valuing. We first clarify that notion.

An example is helpful. Recall the example in which Victoria first-

person reason enjoys watching her daughter perform. Victoria may certainly

value the fact that her daughter’s performance in the play has certain

features. To value its having those features is to regard its having those

features as, in and of itself, a third-person reason to act in ways that

20

contribute to the performance’s having those features. It is to think that (i)

one should have an appropriate belief/desire pair, and that (ii) that pair

should serve as a first-person reason to act in ways that contribute to the

performances having the features in question. In general, one directly values

an x’s having an array of features A if and only if one regards x’s having A as,

in and of itself, a third-person reason to act in ways that contribute to its

being the case that x has A. One indirectly values x’s having A if and only if

one regards x’s having A as, in and of itself, a third-person reason act in ways

that contribute to its being the case that x has A, but would not do so if it

were not the case that, for some y and A’, one directly values y’s having an

array A’, and believed that x’s having A realized y’s having A’. One values x’s

having an array of features A if and only if one directly or indirectly values x’s

having A.

We will focus on valuing experiences and activities. One directly

values an experience or activity φ’s having an array of features A if and only

if one regards φ’s having A as, in and of itself, a third-person reason, under A,

to have or do φ. One indirectly values φ’s having A if and only if, for some ψ

and A’, (1) one directly values φ’s having the array A’; (2) one regards φ’s

having A as, in and of itself, a third-person reason to have or do φ; (3) at least

part of one’s reason for so regarding φ’s having A is that one believes that φ’s

having A is an instance of φ’s having A’. One values φ’s having an array of

features A if and only if one directly or indirectly values φ’s having A. One

certainly does value experiences activities. To value sailing or playing chess,

for example, is to value an activity, and one values an experience when one

values looking at Gauguin's Riders, contemplating Turing's demonstration of

21

the undecidability of the predicate calculus, or listening to Miles Davis’s Kind

of Blue. In all these case, one values the experience’s or activities having

certain features. Suppose, for example, that Victoria values the experience

of watching her daughter perform. She will value the experience’s having

certain features—for example, watching my daughter reveal a surprising

degree of acting talent, and watching her daughter do what many other

children have done but do it in her particular way as something new to her. It

is important to note that cases of valuing experiences and activities divide

into two types. An elaboration of the Victoria example illustrates both.

In the first case, Victoria has a conception of herself as a certain sort of

parent. The conception is—in part—a conception of herself as having certain

experiences and engaging in certain activities in regard to her daughter. It is

important to Victoria, not only that she attend to her daughter, but also that

the attention itself have certain features. When Victoria watches her

daughter perform, she believes her experience of watching her perform has

the feature being an experience of the type that realizes conception of

herself as a parent. She directly values the experience’s having this feature.

She also indirectly values the experience’s having an array of features A,

including, for example, watching my daughter reveal a surprising degree of

acting talent, and watching her daughter do what many other children have

done but do it in her particular way as something new to her. She regards

the experience’s having these features as in and of itself, a third-person

reason to have the experience, and at least part of her reason for doing so is

that she believes that having those features is an instance having the feature

22

being an experience of the type that realizes her conception of herself as a

parent.

In the second case, Victoria directly values the experience’s having the

features in A. She may do so while also indirectly valuing the experience’s

having those features as an instance of having the feature being a parent of

a certain sort. But she may value it directly while not valuing also valuing it

as the instantiation of any other feature. Victoria may watch her daughter

perform and think, “This is worth experiencing.” When asked why she values

it, she may simply identify the features in A.

Examples abound. When one goes sailing in heavy weather with the

intention of displaying courage, teaches a class with the intention of teaching

well, dines romantically with one’s wife, or makes an intuitive sacrifice of a

knight in a game of chess, one may value the particular experiences and

activities as realizing the relevant arrays of features. One may value the

experiences and activities directly or indirectly.

IV. Valuing and Enjoying

Value-enjoyments are first-person reason enjoyments in which the “of

φ, under A” belief/desire pair only functions as first-person reason, under Al,

to φ, but in which one also believes one values φ’s having A. It would, of

course, be wrong to single out such enjoyments as a special type if it were

true that, whenever the relevant “of φ, under A” belief/desire pair served as a

first-person reason, under A, to φ, one also believed one valued φ’s having A.

But this is clearly not the case, as the following example shows.

23

A. First-Person-Reason Enjoyments That Are Not Value-Enjoyments

Imagine Howard is first-person-reason enjoying the taste of a large

amount of catsup on a tuna fish sandwich. The following belief/desire pair

serves as a first-person reason: he believes, of his taste experience, under

the feature taste of tuna fish mixed with catsup, that it is occurring; and, he

desires, of that experience, under that feature, that it should occur for its own

sake. It does not follow from Howard’s desiring the experience for its own

sake that he values it. As we defined desiring for its own sake, however, to

desire, of φ, under A, that it occur for its own sake is just to desire that, and

not to desire it merely as a means to some other end. Howard does not

desire the experience for its own sake because he values it. That would

require that he regard the experience of tasting catsup-laden tuna fish as, in

and of itself, a third-person reason to have the experience. He does not have

any such attitude. He does not think that the fact that the experience is an

experience of tasting catsup and tuna fish shows that he should have the “φ

under A” belief/desire pair and that it should play the role of a first-person

reason for him to have the experience. If Howard did not have the desire, he

would not think he should. Further, there is no need to appeal to beliefs

about values to explain why Howard regards the belief/desire pair as

providing a justification; it is sufficient that he has the belief/desire pair and

finds no objection to satisfying he desire. His finding no objection is certainly

explained in terms of his values, but finding no objection on that basis is

consistent with holding that rejecting the claim that one should have the

belief/desire pair even if one happened not to.

We define value-enjoyment as follows:

24

x value-enjoys an experience or activity φ under A if and only if

(1) x φ’s, and x's φing causes (2) – (4):

(2) (a) x occurrently believes, of φ, under A, that it occurs; (b) and has the felt desire, of φ, under A, that it should occur for its own sake;

(3) the belief/desire pair in (2) is a first-person reason, under A, for x to φ;

(4) x occurrently believes that x values φ’s having A.

This raises three questions. Why require that one believe that one directly

values φ’s having A? Why require that the belief be occurrent? And, why

require that x’s φing cause the belief?

B. Believing One Values φ’s Having A

Why require that one believe one directly values φ’s having A? The

answer may seem obvious: it is important to one to enjoy what one values;

after all, one does not count as leading a happy life unless one enjoys enough

of what one values. This answer is inadequate, however; it motivates

requiring that one value what one enjoys, but that is not what (4) requires; it

requires that one believe that one value the enjoyed experience or activity.

To see the rationale for this requirement, suppose Victoria value-enjoys

watching her eight–year old daughter perform in the school play. She enjoys

the experience of watching the performance under an array A that includes,

among a variety of other features, watching my daughter perform in the

school play, watching her daughter do what many other children have done

but do it in her particular way as something new to her. Why should it matter

that Victoria believes that she values the experience’s having A? It matters

to Victoria. To see why, consider the following parallel between one’s

25

relations to others and one’s relation to oneself. One’s conception of others

and one’s understanding of one’s relationship with them is pieced-together

from various perceptions and interactions; one’s conception and

understanding of oneself is similarly pieced-together except that one has an

a private perspective on our activities and experiences that others cannot

share. We take it to be clear that one has a profound interest in piecing

together a picture of oneself, and in particular those parts of the picture that

consist of experiences and activities that one values. The explanation, we

suggest, lies in Heidegger’s cryptic observation that a person is “das Seiende,

dem es in seinem Sein um dieses selbst geht.” 4 Charles Taylor offers the

following gloss: the “human subject is such that the question arises

inescapably, which kind of being he is going to realize. A person is not just

de facto a certain kind of being with certain desires, but it is somehow ‘up to’

him what kind of being he is going to be.”5 There is no need to develop this

theme here, however.

C. The Occurrent Belief

Why also require that the belief be occurrent? It is important to

Victoria that the belief be occurrent. As we noted already, it is important to

Victoria that, not only that she attend to her daughter, but also that the

attention itself realize certain aspects of her conception of being a parent;

hence, it is important to her to monitor through an occurrent belief whether

she is achieving this goal. In addition, the occurrent belief adds to the feeling

4 Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 7th ed. (Tubingen Niemeyer Verlag, 1953), p. 42. 5 Charles Taylor, “Responsibility for Self,” in Rorty, The Identities of Persons, pp. 281 – 282.

26

of enjoyment. In general, the feeling of enjoyment consists in the way the

desire feels against the background of the occurrent belief that the desire is

fulfilled. In value-enjoyments, that background includes, not just the

occurrent belief, of φ, under A, that it is occurring; it also includes occurrent

belief that one values φ having A as an instance of something one values

more generally, in Victoria’s case being a parent of such-and-such sort. This

gives Victoria’s feeling of enjoyment at watching her daughter a depth and

meaning it would otherwise lack.

D. Causation

Why require that he experience or activity cause the occurrent belief?

Our answer is that the causal relation adds to the explanation of the power

enjoyment can exercise. As also we noted earlier, the power of first-person-

reason enjoyments consists in invoking the authority of reason by making us

think, “This is justified.” To this, we now add that the experience or activity

invokes the authority of reason by also making one occurrently think “This is

something I value.” To think this is to regard the relevant belief/desire pair

as a justification for having the experience or engaging in the activity.

27