Enjoyment, Reasons, and Value
The definition of first-person-reason enjoyment adds to the
requirements for plain enjoyment the condition that the “of φ, under A”
belief/desire pair functions as first-person reason, under A, to φ. The
definition of value-enjoyment adds the definition of first-person-reason
enjoyment the requirement that the enjoyer value φ’s having A. We begin
with first-person-reason enjoyment.
First-Person Reason Enjoyment
It would, of course, be wrong to single out such enjoyments as a
significant 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.
Enjoyments Without The 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 indicative of sexual attraction. Thus, in terms of the
definition of enjoyment, 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
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his friend; he views 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 in the same way in regards its
constituent belief/desire: a temptation Satan has placed in his path. But he
enjoys nonetheless.1
Such examples abound. Suppose Sarah is eating a desert she
mistakenly thought contained no chocolate. She suddenly finds herself with
the occurrent belief, of her taste experience, under tasting chocolate, that it
is occurring; and with the felt desire, of the experience, under tasting
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
and banned chocolate 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. The sudden taste of chocolate does not undermine
Sarah’s 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.2
1
Weakness of the will.
2
Weakness of the will.
2
Is there another class of examples in which you do 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, and unlike Gouge and Sarah,
you do not view your desire as an alien force; you have no objection to it.
Must the associated “of φ, under A” belief/desire serve as a first-person
reason to have the experience? Given our purposes, there is no need to
answer the question. We do, however, offer the following considerations.
One fact is clear. If 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,” thereby offering (on our view) that the
relevant belief/desire pair as a justification for devoting time to the
experience. But suppose neither you nor anyone else ever raise the question
of why you are devoting time to the experience. Must the belief/desire pair
nonetheless serve as a first-person reason to have the experience? It is
impossible to answer without a more detailed account of the motivationaljustificatory role of a reason.
A Definition
To define first-person reason enjoyment, first consider an example.
Imagine Victoria is watching her eight–year old daughter perform in the
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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
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.
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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 will be able to readily identify the presentto-mind belief and desire pair as comprising a first-person reason. 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
contextually convenient. 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 such a concept, one must exhibit the
characteristic patterns in which it is typically deployed. We do so in the
course of this section.
Our claim is that the definition characterizes a type of enjoyment that
plays a central role in our lives. Why think that is true? The question divides
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into two. What is the rationale for condition (3)—the belief/desire pair is a
first-person reason? And, what is what the rationale for including the
condition that φ causes the pair to serve as a first-person reason? Indeed,
what does that mean? What causal mechanism do we have in mind?
To see the rationale for (3), recall the point we made earlier: we
guide our actions by the light of the justifications we take our first-person
reasons to provide. We may lament that the light is weak, all too subject to
distorting factors such as prejudice, and that such light as it does give is too
frequently disregarded, but it is the light by which we proceed nonetheless.
The point applies to enjoyments insofar as we are able to control when they
occur and how long they endure. First-person reason enjoyments figure
prominently in our lives because what is of actions generally is true of our
enjoyment-seeking actions: we try to perform those for which we find some
at least some degree of justification in our belief/desire pairs. To illustrate
the point, return to Victoria. When she enjoys the experience watching her
daughter perform, the relevant belief/desire serves as a first-person reason
to have that experience. Now, recall that an “of φ, under A” belief desire
pair is a reason for you under A to φ only if you believe that the pair provides
at least some justification for φing. Thus, Victoria believes the pair provides
at least some justification for having the experience. This is distinguishes it
from the enjoyments illustrated by the Gouge and Sarah examples in which
the belief/desire pair is resisted as an alien invader.3 We seek first-person
We leave open the possibility illustrated by the jet lag example that there are
enjoyments in which you have no objection to the associated belief/desire pair, but
in which the pair is not a first-person reason.
3
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reason enjoyments and avoid as alien those that are not. This is sufficient
reason to single such enjoyments out as a type worthy of attention.
Causation
Now we turn to the rationale for the requirement that φ cause the “of
φ, under A” belief/desire pair to serve as a first-person reason under A for x
to φ. We begin by explaining the causal mechanism we have in mind.
To
see what we have in mind, recall that the following is a necessary condition
of an “of φ, under A” belief/desire pair serving as a first-person reason under
A for x to φ: x must believe that the pair provides some degree of
justification for x’s φing. Our claim is that claim is that φ “causes the firstperson reason” by creating or causally sustaining the belief that the pair
provides some degree of justification. This is not to claim that φ is causally
sufficient for the pair serving as a first-person reason; it is just to claim that
φ is a part of the causal ancestry the pair’s serving as a first-person reason.
Examples are in order, but first two points bear emphasis to avoid
misunderstanding. The first is that the “φ” in an “of φ, under A” belief/desire
pair is not a type of experience or activity but a non-repeatable individual. It
is the occurrence of that individual that causes one to believe the pair
provides a justification for φing.
The second point is that, typically at least, we explain the causal
power of the experience or activity in part by appeal to what you value. For
example, when you wonder what prompted my outburst of protest at a
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faculty meeting, I explain that it was a passionate defense of a moral
principle against the siren call of expediency made me think, and that fact
made me think there was at least some justification for it. I add that we are
all too easily seduced by expediency, and that I place a high value on
defending against such seductions. My addition explains why my regarding
my speaking out as the defense of a moral principle lead me to regard that
fact about it as providing a justification for doings so—indeed, in this case, a
sufficient justification. The explanation is causal on our everyday, pragmatic
notion of causation. I understand my speaking out a defense of morality
against the seduction of expediency, and that understanding combines with
what I value produce in me the belief that my action’ having certain features
justifies performing the action. On our everyday, pragmatic understanding of
causation, the explanation is causal even if you reason your way to the
belief; reasoning is one way to produce a belief. The links between one’s
values and one’s beliefs about justification may be far from obvious.
Suppose that Victoria has long held the following view on self-defense: when
a safe retreat is available, one should retreat instead of defend when
attacked with unlawful force. However, when a mugger threatens here with
a knife, attitudes inculcated through years of self-defense classes take hold,
and, confident she can repel the attack, she stands her ground even though
she has a safe retreat. With the clarity that can occur in times of stress, she
thinks, “Self-defense, in this situation, is justified.” Afterwards, Victoria
remains convinced that she defense was justified, but it is only after
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considerable reflection and some reinterpretation of her values that she can
give herself an adequate explanation of why.
We offer some examples, beginning with an extended example
concerning sailing. 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.
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.
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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.
Our experience and activities can clearly cause or causally sustain the
belief that a particular “of φ, under A” belief/desire pair provides a
justification for φing. In doing so, they may, in various ways the examples
illustrate, reveal and illuminate what we value. This is an important aspect
of our lives, but why is it one that belongs in a definition of first-personreason enjoyment? Because it provides an explanation of the power
enjoyment can exercise over us. It explains in part why one eats another
piece of chocolate or has another bottle of wine, why one 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. It exercises this power by holding us in a feedback loop in which
a first-person reason enjoyment gives rise to a first-person reason
enjoyment, which gives rise to . . . .
The Feedback Loop
Imagine Howard first-person-reason enjoys the taste of tuna fish and
catsup. His taste experience, call it τ, plays a double causal role. (1) It
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causes him to believe, of τ, under an appropriate array A, that it occurs, and
to desire, of τ, under A, that it should occur. (2) It causes the conviction
that pair provides at least some degree of justification for having the taste
experience thereby causally sustaining the belief/desire pair in its role as a
first-person reason. The power of first-person-reason enjoyments does not
consist merely in the impulse to satisfy a felt desire; the enjoyments also
causally invoke the authority of reason by making us think, “This is justified.”
Suppose Howard acts on that reason by continuing to taste the tuna (by
taking another bite of his sandwich), and assume: (1) the taste experience τ
causes (2) – (3): (2) Howard (a) believes, of τ, under A, that it is occurring;
and (b) desires, of τ, under A, that it should occur for its own sake; (3)
belief/desire pair to serve as a first-person reason, under A, for Howard to
have τ. That is, Howard continues to first-person-reason enjoy having the
taste experience τ. In such a case, τ continues to play its double causal role:
causing Howard to have the “of τ, under A” belief/desire pair, and causing
the belief that the pair provides at least some degree of justification for
having τ and thereby causally sustaining the belief/desire pair in its role as a
first-person reason.
Suppose Howard acts on that reason by continuing to
taste the tuna (by taking another bite of his sandwich), and assume (1) the
taste experience τ causes (2) – (3) . . . and so on—until the sandwich is
gone, or other factors or interests intervene.
The feedback loop explains in part why we eat yet another piece of
chocolate, have one more bottle of wine, sail for hours on end, and cannot
take our eyes off the attractive person at the other table. This is not to say
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that first-person reason enjoyment always initiates a feedback loop. 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.4 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.
First-person reason enjoyment is of considerable independent interest,
but our primary concern is with the special case of value-enjoyment. To
value enjoy φ under A is to first-person-reason enjoy φ under A, and to
value φ’s having A. It would, of course, be wrong to single out such
enjoyments as a special type if having a first-person reason entailed
valuing—if, whenever an “of φ, under A” belief/desire pair served as a firstperson reason, under A, for one to φ, one also one valued φ’s having A. But,
as we saw in Chapter 3, this is clearly not the case. We note that Howard
can first-person reason enjoy tasting tuna fish and catsup without valuing the
experience.
Value-Enjoyment
We first state the definition fully and then motivate and explain it.
4
Footnote about enjoying writing the last word, etc.
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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 values φ’s having A.
Why require that x values φ’s having A? And, why require that x's φing
cause x to value φ’s having A? We take the first question first.
One reason for requiring that x values φ’s having A is that valueenjoyments “outrank” first-person-reason enjoyments that are not also
value-enjoyments.
An example illustrates the idea. Imagine Howard first-
person-reason enjoying (but not value-enjoying) the taste of tuna fish and
catsup when a colleague tells him that a visiting faculty member will give a
talk on “The Law and Sociology of Age Discrimination” in about five minutes,
and that, if he wants to attend, he cannot bring his sandwich. Howard is
quite that he will value-enjoy listening to the talk if he goes, and he
abandons the sandwich to do so. Howard illustrates the general truth that
we chose value-enjoyments over first-person-reason enjoyments that are not
also value-enjoyments—other things being equal. The explanation of the
general truth is that our plans aimed at the successful realization of what we
value lie at the center of our lives, and our ideal of happiness includes the
ideal, not just of realizing enough what we value, but of enjoying enough of
that realization as it occurs. The “enough” allows for slippage. Howard may
forego the talk for the sandwich without putting his happiness at risk; it is
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only enough slippage that does that. This is why it is only other things being
equal that we prefer value-enjoyments, but this gives the enjoyments
sufficient importance to justify singling them out as a type worth
consideration.
Now why require that the experience or activity φ cause the enjoyer to
value φ’s having A? An essential preliminary is explaining the causal
mechanism. We describe the typical causal ancestry; there are other
possible causal paths, but they do not matter for our purposes. To begin,
recall that to value φ’s have A is to think (1) that φ’s having A provides some
degree of justification for φ, and (2) that φ’s having A is a sufficient
justification for thinking (1). The enjoyed experience or activity causes—or
causally sustains—x’s valuing φ’s have A by causing (causally sustaining) the
conviction that (1) and (2) are true. An example is in order. Suppose you
value activity of playing a particular game of chess as having an array of
properties A. A includes the properties of the beauty of forces in dynamic
tension and the display of creativity, courage, and practical judgment in an
exercise of intuition and calculation akin to both mathematics and art. You
value the particular activity at least in part because it causes your engaging
in it causes you to believe it realizes A. You value the properties in A. That
is, you think (a) that if an activity has A, then its having A justifies (to some
degree) your engaging in that activity, and (b) that its having A is sufficient
justification for thinking (a). This belief combines with your belief your
particular activity has A to lead you to value it. Thus the activity is part of
the causal ancestry of the valuing.
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In the chess example, it may be clear to you the causal path may be
clear to you. You may realize both that you value the properties in A and
that your valuing A caused your valuing of your chess playing activity. But
causation need not always be so transparent. Suppose Jones has always
found Chinese landscape painting an uninteresting art form worth at most a
passing glance. He nonetheless finds himself valuing looking at Guo Xi’s
Snow Mountain. Jones says he values the unbroken flow created by the
many separate, orthogonal lines. There are two essentials points. First,
Jones has to have some concept of the properties he values. The definition
of value requires it. But Jones’ ability to describe the properties may be
quite limited. Recall:
x has a concept C if and only if (1) x can, at least
under ideal conditions, describe a more or less limited range of stereotypes;
(2) x has the ability to make judgments of relevant similarity and
dissimilarity to the stereotypes; and, (3) the actual and possible pattern of
judgments exhibits C-appropriate characteristics. Jones may satisfy these
conditions while only being able to indicate Guo Xi’s Snow Mountain as an
example and characterize at least one of the relevant properties as unbroken
flow created by the many separate, orthogonal lines. Thus—and this is the
second point—Jones may have to discover a fuller characterization of the
properties in A and in the course of doing so may have to discover what
properties he values that caused him to value the experience of looking at
Guo Xi’s Snow Mountain. As a further illustration, imagine Gouge exploring
his homoerotic side. A wide range of experiences and activities will cause
him—or fail to cause him—to value those experiences and activities as having
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various properties. In this way, he discovers what properties he values.
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
properties, Gouge may come to the conclusion that gender matters less than
certain personality traits that, as he now realizes, he conceptualized as
“male.”
Why does this causal pattern belong in a definition of valueenjoyment? Because it provides an explanation of the power enjoyment can
exercise over us.
The Feedback Loop
When discussing the feedback loop in the case of first-person reason
enjoyment, we noted that part of the explanation of the power of such
enjoyments came from their making us think, “This is justified.” Valueenjoyments not only make us think that, they also make us think, “I value
this.” The thought can reinforce the causal relations involved in valueenjoyment. It makes us see the “of φ, under A” belief/desire pair, not
merely as citizen of the realm of justifiers, but as a privileged member of the
inner circle of cases in which find in the world’s being a certain way a
sufficient justification for believing a particular having or doing is justified (to
some degree). To see how this can reinforce causal relations, return to
Howard and Victoria. Howard thinks his tuna fish and catsup belief/desire
pair justifies his having the taste experience, but he would not think this if he
did not he did not desire to have the experience and expect to continue to
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enjoy it. Should the desire begin to wane or the expectation to weaken,
Howard’s justification for his taste experience will also weaken and in may
abandon the tuna fish and catsup concoction in favor of other pursuits.
Compare Victoria and imagine the same: her desire to watch her daughter
begins to wane and her expectation of enjoyment to weaken. Victoria not
only believes that her experience’s having a certain array A of properties
justifies her having that experience, she also thinks that the experience’s
having A is sufficient justification that belief. The latter thought may
reinforce the desire and sustain the expectation of enjoyment. She may
think, “This is something I value and so something I should desire and should
enjoy.” The thought need not, but certainly may, play a role in causally
sustaining the desire and hence the enjoyment.
The feedback loop reinforces our value-enjoyments, and is absence
can undermine them. The following example illustrates both. Married Jim is
having lunch with a much younger woman who is, as he knows, eager to
initiate a sexual and romantic relationship. As the lunch begins, he valueenjoys the dinning activity under an array A that characterizes the activity as
a romantic rebellion in the name of freedom, love, and passion in the face of
social mores that require fidelity in a marriage from which ardor has long
been absent. The activity causes him to value it for having A because in
general he values the properties in A, and the causal feedback loop operates
reinforcing his enjoyment and riveting his attention on the activity. Things
change as the lunch progresses. It is one of a recent series of lunches, and,
lately, Jim has begun to question the wisdom of pursuing a relationship with
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the woman. As the lunch progresses, his thoughts keep returning to
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 that the causal relations required for valueenjoyment collapse. His romantic visions and his enjoyment dissolve,
leaving just the brute fact of the woman’s physical presence.
Value-Enjoyment and Beauty
In the next chapter, we will argue that the enjoyment of beauty is a
special case of value-enjoyment.
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