What is Desire-as-Belief?

This chapter explains some basic assumptions and terminology and then introduces desire-as-belief—the view that our desires are a subset of our beliefs. The view is explained in part by an analogy to a natural view about the nature of disbelief, and that analogy helps fend off an initial objection to the view stemming from the distinction between two directions of fit. The chapter goes on to describe some simple attractions of desire-as-belief and also defends it from some further initial objections, such as the worry that inconsistent beliefs are irrational whereas inconsistent desires need not be, and a more general concern about how desire-as-belief relates to Plato’s distinction between Reason and passion.

Perception versus action: The computations may be the same but the direction of fit differs

Although predictive coding may offer a computational principle that unifies perception and action, states with different directions of fit are involved (with indicative and imperative contents, respectively). Predictive states are adjusted to fit the world in the course of perception, but in the case of action, the corresponding states act as a fixed target towards which the agent adjusts the world. This well-recognised distinction helps side-step some problems discussed in the target article.