Desire and Human Agency

Paper Summary:

This paper examines Harry Frankfurt's model of desire and volition, as well as Charles Taylor's model for strong and weak evaluation in an attempt to conceptualize the role of human will in moral behavior.

From the Paper:

"In his essay, "Freedom of the will and the concept of a person," Harry Frankfurt describes two sorts of human desires: first-order and second-order. A first order desire, which human animals have in common with other animals, is simply a desire for some object or action. An example of a first-order desire shared by human and non-human animals is sex, or, more accurately, the pleasure associated with sex. Second order-desires, however, are desires which have, as their object, another desire."

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