Higher order desire, or just another desire would seem to be the question.

Doesn't every desire want to rule the other desires, and so is also a desire about other desires?

For instance, the drug addict can go to extremes to get his fix, and is able to set aside other desires and use reason to do so... what would disqualify it from being a higher order desire according to the wiki description? And if there's nothing to disqualify that, what's the point of speaking of higher order desires?

For instance, the drug addict can go to extremes to get his fix, and is able to set aside other desires and use reason to do so... what would disqualify it from being a higher order desire according to the wiki description? — ChatteringMonkey

The wiki points out that there is a higher order desire to get better rather than indulge in trying to get a fix. All of this seems intuitively clear. Conversely, there can be a conflict in desires as to what to do about not getting a fix. That's when a higher-order volition is the deciding factor as to how badly the drug user wants to get better or worse. The higher-order volition being that as to what to do about the drug users addiction. Whether to indulge in it or not, and for what sake? For the sake of getting better of course.

Yeah, i don't think i agree that it's that intuitively clear. I think you need to replace the desire for getting a fix with some other desire. 'Just abstaining' to get better, is not a great strategy i don't think.

Also my point was that every desire seems to 'philosophise' as Nietzsche puts it, and as such is trying to conqueror other desires. It works both ways it seems to me, and as such there doesn't seem to be a difference in the mechanics of it.

But, people do have conflicting desires. Theres a conflict in the drug users mind as to how badly they want to get better. Higher order volition's seem to resolve the issue of a conflict in desire.

Conflicting desires absolutely, but that doesn't necessarily imply a natural hierarchy or a seperate desire to resolve conflicts. Love can conquer addiction, and addiction can conquer love...

I mean, i'm not necessary opposed to the idea, but i don't think it's prima facie evident either. Maybe there are desires that are more controling, like a kind of will to power or Freuds reality principle.

Conflicting desires absolutely, but that doesn't necessarily imply a natural hierarchy or a seperate desire to resolve conflicts. — ChatteringMonkey

Why wouldn't a hierarchy be the natural form here?

If we take brains to be about making smart decisions (on the whole), then desires will generally be adaptive states with known benefits. Over the long run, we would learn to like what is best for us. And I mean this over both evolutionary and developmental timescales.

So we would start from the point of view that our desires are usually correct or functional at some level.

Of course drug-taking stands out as something which cuts across an evolved and generally well-adapted neurobiology. It hits the reward button for no good reason. Or - more functionally - it offers a way to escape what we desire to escape and find difficult to escape.

But anyway. To get back to more normal life choices, the brain would naturally be organised hierarchically so as to weigh desires in best balanced ways. And a key dimension to this would be to be able to balance short term gain against long term gain. Even a cat stalking a bird has to be able to regulate its impulses. It must sneak up carefully rather than rush headlong from the start.

Intelligent behaviour is about being able to manage a hierarchy of action. The further off the goal, the more steps it has to take to get there. A bigger brain allows that kind of organised thinking.

The orbitofrontal cortex in particular is an area that allows us to construct a hierarchy of desire, focusing on the eventual outcome of following a path of actions. It can damp the urgent signals coming from the amydala and other emotional structures, balancing an immediate desire to react (like get out of this burning building) with a counter-desire created at a more general level (well I'm a firefighter here to do my job).

So the brain itself is hierarchically organised. It is designed so that mostly it works in harmony. Our immediate instincts and our general life goals are in accord enough that we can just go with the flow. We don't have to wrestle with any dilemmas.

But also, life quite naturally needs to be broken down into the immediate steps to reach some eventual goal. The larger the brain, the greater the distance there can be between the two. And there is plenty of scope for conflicts that need to be balanced. If you are crossing a river, the desire to get to the other side needs to be balanced against a rising feeling that it is rather faster and deeper than you first thought. Sometimes, if not often, the immediate does have to win out. That has to be part of the neurology too.

And all that is just the neuroscience. Humans are also linguistic creatures. We are socialised to have habits of self-regulation. We learn the habit of talking out our goals and needs in a social light. This adds a whole other layer of complexity to volition. We find it quite easy to take on a cultural agenda and so frame our decisions in a social light where our actions will be judged.

The fire fighter doesn't run from the blaze because s/he IS a fire fighter. S/he has the training. And it is fire fighting school which has thought through the balance of when to stay, when to go. There is a clear intellectual overlay that shapes the neurobiology.

So human volition is structurally complex. It has both a neurobiology and a cultural overlay. But hierarchical organisation is very natural. Our choices need to be adaptive - the first order of business. But then that soon breaks down into what seems most adaptive right now, and what seems most adaptive in terms of long term goals. Volition gets polarised to have these two opposing focuses, so allowing them to be best balanced - that balancing being the higher order of desiring or choosing.

And again, mostly in life, our short and long term desires are in an adaptive balance. We have learnt that higher order state and can just go with its habitual flow. Conflict then reveals that the easy balance is absent. Volition breaks down into a starker choice between what is best right now, what is best long term.

So the hierarchical story would be that mostly we are desiring at a holistic meta level - the state which reflects a thoughtlessly habitual adaptation to live in terms of the immediate and the distant. The alarm goes. We just get out of bed, get to work on time. It is only when we stop to think "why?" that a conflict may be revealed, a habitual state of desire start to break down into competing impulses.

A hierarchy is a state of integrated differentiation. And so a desire gets broken down into the short term and the long term on its way to being integrated as some generalised and unthinking balance. But that higher level balance can always be decomposed into a conflict or dilemma again.

That is the great advantage of hierarchical design. You get both the integration and the differentiation, the harmony and the conflict, as the possibilities of the one processing structure.

The alarm goes. We just get out of bed, get to work on time. It is only when we stop to think "why?" that a conflict may be revealed, a habitual state of desire start to break down into competing impulses. — apokrisis

So, what is happening when we pause and reflect on an action before it is undertaken? Is there indeed some higher order volition operating in the background as we go by doing things? As if some narrator who wants to see things done in a certain way for some ultimate purpose? I think there is some truth to there being a higher-order volition in everyone's mind that guides us through life. Would you agree with that assessment?

So, what is happening when we pause and reflect on an action before it is undertaken? Is there indeed some higher order volition operating in the background as we go by doing things? As if some narrator who wants to see things done in a certain way for some ultimate purpose? — Posty McPostface

I am saying this is the socially constructed aspect of human voluntary behaviour. We are taught that we have to be in charge of our every action. That then cashes out as learning to pay attention where that seems necessary.

So just for neurobiological reasons, we might pause and reflect when a situation is uncertain. If unthinking habit can't carry us safely through to our general goals, then we have to let attention try to figure out some plan. And be there ready constantly to keep stepping in as necessary.

Then as modern humans, expected to moderate all our desires and impulses within a framework of social judgement, we are meant to be always in attentional control of our choices - as we are always going to be held responsible for them under prevailing laws and custom.

So a narrator is us standing in for society inside our heads, running everything through that cultural filter.

An exhausting business, eh? :grin:

I think there is some truth to there being a higher-order volition if everyone's mind that guides us through life. Would you agree with that assessment? — Posty McPostface

My view is that this higher-order of choosing is the social one. And that is still so even when modern culture is supposedly all about the celebration of the self-actualising individual.

You can regard it as society's cleverest manipulative trick. There are ways you should behave as that is what is functional at a social level of human evolution. And the best way to get you to behave like that is to get you to own the responsibility.

You know you have "freewill" and so could always act anti-socially. And in having such a sharp sense of what that would be like, you can then safely choose the pro-social path on the whole (that is, in a balanced fashion where your needs are also being served, as they should if society matters a damn).

So I definitely don't see any higher order volition in the sense of tapping into some hidden better self that lies beyond our ugly animal impulses. That is Romanticism.

But also, that Romantic model of the self is exactly the one which has evolved as the best way to sell pro-social modern behaviour. It maximises our individual competitive freedoms within a restraining framework of social co-operation.

So we are taught to believe this myth about the nature of human individuality. We are actually socially constructed creatures. But believing we are completely responsible for all our own successes and failures in life is the way to produce the modern citizen, completely at home in a striving, neo-liberal, self-reliant, upwardly mobile and consumerist world ...

... hey, wait a minute! ...

I am saying this is the socially constructed aspect of human voluntary behaviour. We are taught that we have to be in charge of our every action. That then cashes out as learning to pay attention where that seems necessary. — apokrisis

Well, yes. To some extent we can be programmed and told what volition is desirable for society or otherwise. To have a new car, a family, procreate-have kids, save for retirement and so on. But, a higher-order volition seems to be something else in some manner. Speaking of falling in love or being a good citizen or such, aren't reflexive attitudes towards reality; but, wholly self-cultivated. Thus, them being of a higher-order. Self-love is perhaps, as per Harry Frankfurt, the highest of volitions one can have.

So a narrator is us standing in for society inside our heads, running everything through that cultural filter. — apokrisis

Yes, agreed. Freud and other talk about sublimation; but, I don't think people would be able to live that way if we had a mind full of conflicting desires and needs.

An exhausting business, eh? :grin: — apokrisis

Quite.

My view is that this higher-order of choosing is the social one. And that is still so even when modern culture is supposedly all about the celebration of the self-actualising individual. — apokrisis

What do you mean?

So I definitely don't see any higher order volition in the sense of tapping into some hidden better self that lies beyond our ugly animal impulses. That is Romanticism. — apokrisis

Well, having read some of Frankfurt's works, he does talk about self love, being the highest-order volition that one can attain. I think there's some truth to that, given the self being the common denominator in every social or a-social decision.

But also, that Romantic model of the self is exactly the one which has evolved as the best way to sell pro-social modern behaviour. It maximises our individual competitive freedoms within a restraining framework of social co-operation.

So we are taught to believe this myth about the nature of human individuality. We are actually socially constructed creatures. But believing we are completely responsible for all our own successes and failures in life is the way to produce the modern citizen, completely at home in a striving, neo-liberal, self-reliant, upwardly mobile and consumerist world ... — apokrisis

Yes, the concept seems to have gotten exploited to some degree by society at large. I guess it depends on how much you value productivity and your time spent on enhancing it, heh.

But, a higher-order volition seems to be something else in some manner. Speaking of falling in love or being a good citizen or such, aren't reflexive attitudes towards reality; but, wholly self-cultivated. Thus, them being of a higher-order. Self-love is perhaps, as per Harry Frankfurt, the highest of volitions one can have. — Posty McPostface

Are they wholly self-cultivated? They are supposedly top of the national school curriculum where I live. They are a basis of a healthy education and a healthy society.

So sure, there are higher order thoughts about our desires. But it is constructing that conscious hierarchy that is point. It is a basic skill we need to learn. And schools are meant to institutionalise that.

Well, having read some of Frankfurt's works, he does talk about self love, being the highest-order volition that one can attain. — Posty McPostface

Loving your fellow humans and a shared environment also seem pretty important. Self-love would be part of the balanced mix.

Yes, the concept seems to have gotten exploited to some degree by society at large. — Posty McPostface

I think it is clear it has run out of control and taken on a life of its own. Society starts to exist for its own sake. Or worse yet, for the sake of a privileged elite.

But it is hard to push social democracy once a muddled philosophy of the human condition has become as pervasive in popular global culture as it has.

Are they wholly self-cultivated? They are supposedly top of the national school curriculum where I live. They are a basis of a healthy education and a healthy society. — apokrisis

Well, self-love is almost entirely self cultivated. But, it can be encouraged through education and such to a person. I take it you live in some Scandinavian country? Great place to be for yourself and your kids.

So sure, there are higher order thoughts about our desires. But it is constructing that conscious hierarchy that is point. It is a basic skill we need to learn. And schools are meant to institutionalise that. — apokrisis

I'm not too sure about that. The Hume saying of reason being the handmaiden to the passions comes to mind here. I don't quite know how malleable are passions and desires, through reasoning to them.

Loving your fellow humans and a shared environment also seem pretty important. Self-love would be part of the balanced mix. — apokrisis

Yes, certainly.

I think it is clear it has run out of control and taken on a life of its own. Society starts to exist for its own sake. Or worse yet, for the sake of a privileged elite.

But it is hard to push social democracy once a muddled philosophy of the human condition has become as pervasive in popular global culture as it has. — apokrisis

Care to expand on that last part a little more?

Well, self-love is almost entirely self cultivated. — Posty McPostface

Most psychologists would say it is down to a loving childhood environment. It is only the lack of that means you would have to make an effort on your own.

I take it you live in some Scandinavian country? — Posty McPostface

The Scandinavia of the South Pacific. :)

Not actually paradise. But still a very good place for bringing up kids.

I don't quite know how malleable are passions and desires, through reasoning to them. — Posty McPostface

You don't argue with them. You construct suitable habits that give them useful employment. It is a process of domestication - if you want to view them as untamed animals. You want to get them accustomed to the harness that is going to give them direction, make use of their energy ... to continue with a bad psychological analogy.

Care to expand on that last part a little more? — Posty McPostface

I've argued the case to the point of most folk's boredom. To understand our modern condition, you have to look at how life exists to maximise entropy production. And so modern technological humans are nature's answer to the problem of vast reserves of energy-dense fossil carbon that requires burning.

We are that kind of society - one burning up a planet - for a very good reason. So it shouldn't be surprising that any sensible response to climate change keeps getting derailed by politics.

We need to be thinking really selfishly to continue the way we are behaving. And so that is the culture we have created. One that ensures we won't suddenly turn nutty and green.

Most psychologists would say it is down to a loving childhood environment. It is only the lack of that means you would have to make an effort on your own. — apokrisis

Yes, but it comes down to the nuclear family, and those conditions. The best social environment doesn't matter if the nuclear family is dysfunctional.

You don't argue with them. You construct suitable habits that give them useful employment. — apokrisis

So, you're talking about incentive's for good behaviour, no? There's some limit to doing that in my mind. The cultivation of good traits, though, is highly individualistic, and hard to persuade otherwise.

We need to be thinking really selfishly to continue the way we are behaving. And so that is the culture we have created. One that ensures we won't suddenly turn nutty and green. — apokrisis

I agree, but, if you ask my generation, the Millennial, they'll tell you that behaving selfishly is *ucked, and has lead to their current predicament or the predicament we will face in the future. Also, consumer behaviour is changing dramatically. People, on the grassroots scale, are more aware of the problem that climate change entails than on the macro scale, which is lagging as much as it can due to special interest groups and others. Besides, *it's the economy stupid*, that is changing minds. Electric vehicles are simply superior to gas powered automobiles. Solar panels, are *cool* and people want them. So, I would say that some semblance of a higher-order volition for the world is at play. At worst it's the economy working its magic in unseen ways.

Chicken or egg?

Yes, but it comes down to the nuclear family, and those conditions. The best social environment doesn't matter if the nuclear family is dysfunctional. — Posty McPostface

In what sense would a best social environment have nuclear families? Isn't that a big part of the problem?

Besides, nuclear families have evolved to be atomic individuals. Today's kids probably look back fondly to when everyone sat around the dinner table eating the exact same food, spent the evening watching one of the three TV channels, or went for long Sunday drives in the countryside in the one family car.

Or probably not. :)

The cultivation of good traits, though, is highly individualistic, and hard to persuade otherwise. — Posty McPostface

You are very pessimistic. Social science tells otherwise. Moving to another country likewise.

I agree, but, if you ask my generation, the Millennial, they'll tell you that behaving selfishly is *ucked, and has lead to their current predicament or the predicament we will face in the future. Also, consumer behaviour is changing dramatically. People, on the grassroots scale, are more aware of the problem that climate change entails than on the macro scale, which is lagging as much as it can due to special interest groups and others. Besides, *it's the economy stupid*, that is changing minds. Electric vehicles are simply superior to gas powered automobiles. Solar panels, are *cool* and people want them. So, I would say that some semblance of a higher-order volition for the world is at play. At worst it's the economy working its magic in unseen ways. — Posty McPostface

Now you are very optimistic. I agree that this is all possible. But how do you explain Trump, for instance. The smarter we need to be, the dumber we are prepared to vote.

As for the unseen magic of the markets, the world has run off the road into the muddy ditch and is spinning its wheels with the accelerator rammed to the floor. Vast debt, zero interest rates. In a year, everywhere you know could be Venezuela.

In what sense would a best social environment have nuclear families? Isn't that a big part of the problem? — apokrisis

I don't know what you're implying here; but, I figure what your advocating for is an earlier age to maturity or at least treating individuals as mature?

You are very pessimistic. Social science tells otherwise. Moving to another country likewise. — apokrisis

There's nothing pessimistic about saying that traits are highly individualistic or at least not as plastic as you think they are. Up to a certain age at least. But, you might be able to teach an old dog new tricks.

Now you are very optimistic. I agree that this is all possible. But how do you explain Trump, for instance. The smarter we need to be, the dumber we are prepared to vote. — apokrisis

Trump is just a passing president. The economy doesn't really care about him that much. I might be wrong though.

As for the unseen magic of the markets, the world has run off the road into the muddy ditch and is spinning its wheels with the accelerator rammed to the floor. Vast debt, zero interest rates. In a year, everywhere you know could be Venezuela. — apokrisis

Now you are being pessimistic. I don't think there's anything like that happening in the near future. I could be wrong.

Higher-order volitions (or higher-order desire), as opposed to action-determining volitions, are volitions about volitions. — Wikipedia

People who are very hungry will eat whatever they can find: grass, bugs, boot leather. But one would not generally say that they desire these things. Their desire is more likely for steak and chips, macaroni cheese, and ice-cream, or whatever their cultural equivalents are.

In which case it seems to me that hunger is not a desire, though it may give rise to desire. Rather, central to desire is an image, a fantasy indeed, because it is the absence of the thing that makes it a desire rather than a fact. When the waiter has delivered the steak, one does not then say, 'I want steak', one says 'thank you' and starts eating. Desire is for what one does not have. It is an attractive image to be realised, or not. When I say image, I mean any form of representation that may be also verbal, tactile, olfactory, etc, not strictly visual.

Mental life is in the business of representations, and seemingly inevitably, I represent myself to myself, and thereby am able to form desires for an imagined self. "I wish I was young, handsome, intelligent, rich, talented and loved by everyone." This seems to be what wiki means by 'higher-order volitions'.


"I wish I had the determination to achieve at least some of the possibilities in that direction." Is this a higher-order-higher-order volition? I will simply note for now that there is the usual psyche triple - me, my representation of myself and my idealised self.

People who are very hungry will eat whatever they can find: grass, bugs, boot leather. But one would not generally say that they desire these things. Their desire is more likely for steak and chips, macaroni cheese, and ice-cream, or whatever their cultural equivalents are. — unenlightened

There is a problem with this issue though. If we are all just autonomic responses and nothing more than that, then where is our free will? It's the choice we have to entertain alternative desires, that gives rise to a compatabilist conception of a free will and not determinism. But, I get what you're aiming at, or I think I do. Namely, you think that if we had all our desires laid out in simple terms, then there would be no conflict. Yet, you, of all, would know that we have conflicting desires. Thus, this gives me pause to think that there are higher order desires that we have, at least at some level.

Desire is for what one does not have. It is an attractive image to be realised, or not. When I say image, I mean any form of representation that may be also verbal, tactile, olfactory, etc, not strictly visual. — unenlightened

I get this; but, this isn't relevant. We are trying to talk about different conceptions of desire. One can be to eat something or have a drink of water; but, I have a family that needs to be fed, so their interests (hopefully) come before my own. That's a higher-order volition, which stems from love or care for a significant other. Confusing the two isn't a good idea and only leads to confusion.

Mental life is in the business of representations, and seemingly inevitably, I represent myself to myself, and thereby am able to form desires for an imagined self. "I wish I was young, handsome, intelligent, rich, talented and loved by everyone." This seems to be what wiki means by 'higher-order volitions'. — unenlightened

Well, a higher order volition stems, most often, from a feeling (most often love, or most appropriately). What you're describing is the entertainment of fantasy or wishful thinking, not a higher-order volition.

So, do we have higher order volitions? It would seem so to my mind. — Posty McPostface

To my mind, it's yes and no. :wink: My bottom line here is: do we need a special word to describe desires about desires? Human desires are hard enough to understand in the first place. :smile: Maybe another word just confuses matters? :chin: So I think we do have these higher-order volitions, but I'm not convinced that they are distinctive enough to recognise separately. :up: :smile:

So I think we do have these higher-order volitions, but I'm not convinced that they are distinctive enough to recognise separately. :up: :smile: — Pattern-chaser

Isn't, at the very least, being a 'good citizen' something akin to a higher-order volition? Or the love for your family? These are things which supersede the basic desires that we have. Not to bring in any psychological jargon; but, it seems like higher order volitions originate from the super-ego. What do you think?

Well, a higher order volition stems, most often, from a feeling (most often love, or most appropriately). — Posty McPostface

So a higher order volition is one that you approve of - a desirable desire. I've no problem with that, but it's not quite what wiki is talking about. Suppose I am at best a mediocre husband and father, but I wish I was better, and try to be better. That's a higher desire or volition, no? (Incidentally, are you happy to say that volition is a desire one tries to realise, as distinct from a desire one entertains but does not act on for whatever reason?)

But suppose I am a mediocre burglar, but I wish I was better, and try to be better. You don't want to call that a 'higher desire', though it has the same form, of an ambition to transform myself?

I'm just not getting this. Probably my fault. :blush:

Second-order volition are desires about desires, or to desire to change the process, the how, of desiring. — Wikipedia

There's a process of desiring? It feels to me like desire is an emotion, or something pretty similar. For that reason, I wonder if there is a process at all, or if it's just something we do - or feel - without process, planning or anything else. :chin: How can I meaningfully have a desire about a desire?

Suppose I am at best a mediocre husband and father, but I wish I was better, and try to be better. That's a higher desire or volition, no? (Incidentally, are you happy to say that volition is a desire one tries to realise, as distinct from a desire one entertains but does not act on for whatever reason?) — unenlightened

To the first question, yes, I suppose so; but the reasoning is backwards. It starts from the higher order volition of (in this case) love, that (the reasoning follows here) I want to be a better husband. As to whether a volition is something that can only be acted upon, I suppose so also.

But suppose I am a mediocre burglar, but I wish I was better, and try to be better. You don't want to call that a 'higher desire', though it has the same form, of an ambition to transform myself? — unenlightened

There's no higher order volition in this case, unless we're talking about a burglar that just loves his job so much that he wants to get better at it for the sake of getting better.

There's a process of desiring? It feels to me like desire is an emotion, or something pretty similar. For that reason, I wonder if there is a process at all, or if it's just something we do - or feel - without process, planning or anything else. :chin: — Pattern-chaser

Well, don't you have conflicting desires at all? If you do then, there's something that's guiding you when a decision is made to act on any particular desire. I would call it a higher-order volition.

How can I meaningfully have a desire about a desire? — Pattern-chaser

Well, when it comes to deciding on what desire to act upon, then there seems to be a desire about a desire or higher-order volition at play, no?