In contemporary philosophy, the will is often regarded as a sheer philosophical fiction. In Will as Commitment and Resolve, Davenport argues not only that the will is the central power of human agency that makes decisions and forms intentions but also that it includes the capacity to generate new motivation different in structure from prepurposive desires.
The concept of "projective motivation" is the central innovation in Davenport's existential account of the everyday notion of striving will. Beginning with the contrast between "eastern" and "western" attitudes toward assertive willing, Davenport traces the lineage of the idea of projective motivation from NeoPlatonic and Christian conceptions of divine motivation to Scotus, Kant, Marx, Arendt, and Levinas.
Rich with historical detail, this book includes an extended examination of Platonic and Aristotelian eudaimonist theories of human motivation. Drawing on contemporary critiques of egoism, Davenport argues that happiness is primarily a byproduct of activities and pursuits aimed at other agent-transcending goods for their own sake. In particular, the motives in virtues and in the practices as defined by Alasdair MacIntyre are projective rather than eudaimonist.
This theory is supported by analyses of radical evil, accounts of intrinsic motivation in existential psychology, and contemporary theories of identity-forming commitment in analytic moral psychology. Following Viktor Frankl, Joseph Raz, and others, Davenport argues that Harry Frankfurt's conception of caring requires objective values worth caring about, which serve as rational grounds for projecting new final ends. The argument concludes with a taxonomy of values or goods, devotion to which can make life meaningful for us.
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Preface: The Project of an Existential Theory of Personhood
- Part I: The Idea of Willing as Projective Motivation
- 1 Introduction
- 1. The Heroic Will
- 2. The Existential Theory of Striving Will as Projective Motivation
- 3. An Outline of the Main Argument
- 4. The Limits of This Analysis
- 5. A Reader’s Guide: Ways through the Text
- 2 The Heroic Will in Eastern and Western Perspectives
- 1. The Paradigmatically ‘‘Eastern’’ Attitude toward Will and Willfulness
- 2. The Paradigmatically ‘‘Western’’ Attitude
- 3. The Continental Inversion
- 4. Contemporary Moral Psychology as Corrective
- 3 From Action Theory to Projective Motivation
- 1. The Decline of the Will
- 2. Kane’s Three Senses of ‘‘Will’’
- 3. Four Basic Concepts of the Will
- 4 The Erosiac Structure of Desire in Plato and Aristotle
- 1. Toward an Existential Theory of Motivation
- 2. Plato’s Erosiac Model of Motivation
- 3. From Plato’s Middle Soul to Aristotle’s Intellectual Appetite
- 5 Aristotelian Desires and the Problems of Egoism
- 1. Aristotle and the Typology of Erosiac Desire
- 2. Formal and Material Egoism
- Part II: The Existential Critique of Eudaimonism
- 6 Psychological Eudaimonism: A Reading of Aristotle
- 1. The Highest or Complete Good in Aristotle’s Eudaimonism
- 2. Excursus: Maximal Inclusivism, Virtue Inclusivism, and Dominant-End Models
- 3. The A-Eudaimonist System: An Idealized Aristotelian Model
- 7 The Paradox of Eudaimonism: An Existential Critique
- 1. Elements of the Pure Motive of Virtue
- 2. Annas and Kraut on the Motive of Virtue in Friendship
- 3. The Paradox of Eudaimonism: Desiring Eudaimonia as a By-Product of Virtue
- 4. Why the Paradox Cannot Be Solved by Denying that Eudaimonia Motivates Virtue
- 5. Magnanimity as Aristotle’s Answer to the Paradox
- 6. Why the Paradox Cannot Be Solved by Second-Order Desire Subsuming First-Order Desire
- 7. The Existential Solution: Pure Motives as Projects of the Striving Will
- 8. The Paradox as One of Several Related Objections to Eudaimonism
- 8 Contemporary Solutions to the Paradox and Their Problems
- 1. Cooper’s Solution: Virtuous Motivation as a Constitutive Means to Eudaimonia
- 2. Gottlieb’s Solution: Pushing Desire for Eudaimonia into the ‘‘Background’’
- 3. Indirect Eudaimonism: a Possible Parfitian Solution?
- 4. Sherman on Friendship
- 5. Practices, Virtue, and External Eudaimonism
- 6. Watson’s Pure Aretaic Naturalism
- 7. Social Holist Eudaimonism as a Radical Solution?
- 8. Conclusion: Toward a Rejection of the Transmission Principle
- Part III: Case Studies for the Existential Will as Projective Motivation
- 9 Divine and Human Creativity: From Plato to Levinas
- 1. Thick and Thin Concepts of Motivation
- 2. The Neoplatonic Projective Model of Divine Agapē
- 3. Arendt on Creative Work
- 4. Levinas on Superabundant Will and Volitional Generosity
- 5. The General Structure of Projective Motivation
- 10 Radical Evil and Projective Strength of Will
- 1. Why Eudaimonism Misses Virtue and Vice in Their Most Radical Forms
- 2. Toward an Existential Theory of Radical Evil: Six Forms of Volitional Hatred
- 3. Aquinas and Kierkegaard on Evil: A Response to MacIntyre
- 4. Projective Strength of Will versus Enkrateia
- 11 Scotus and Kant: The Moral Will and Its Limits
- 1. The Medieval Shift away from Eudaimonism: Scotus and the Moral Will
- 2. Kant and the Projective Motive of Duty
- 3. Projective Willing and Libertarian Freedom
- 12 Existential Psychology and Intrinsic Motivation: Deci, Maslow, and Frankl
- 1. Twentieth-Century Psychological Theories of Motivation
- 2. From Drive Theories to Intrinsic Motivation
- 3. An Existential Reinterpretation of Intrinsic Motivation
- 4. Maslow’s Eudaimonism
- 5. Frankl’s Existential Will to Meaning
- 6. How Caring Benefits the Agent: Frankfurt on Means and Ends
- 7. Self-Esteem as By-Product
- 8. Willed Carelessness: Emily Fox Gordon’s Case
- 9. Willed Inferiority: Sartre
- 13 Caring, Aretaic Commitment, and Existential Resolve
- 1. Frankfurtian Care as Projective Motivation
- 2. Aretaic Commitment and Backward-Looking Considerations
- 14 An Existential Objectivist Account of What Is Worth Caring About
- 1. Existential Objectivism
- 2. Caring and the Good in Recent Political Philosophy
- 3. Three Initial Reasons for Objectivism
- 4. Frankfurtian Arguments for Subjectivism and Objectivist Rebuttals
- 5. The Reciprocal Relation between Value Insight and Volitional Resolve
- 6. Toward a Taxonomy of Signi.cant Grounds for Caring
- Conclusion: The Danger of Willfulness Revisited
- Notes
- Glossary of Definitions, Technical Terms, and Abbreviations
- Bibliography
- Index
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