Three Faces of Desire

Desires lead to actions, influence feelings, and determine what counts as reward. Recent empirical evidence shows that these three aspects of desire stem from a common biological origin. Informed by contemporary science as much as by the philosophical tradition. Three Faces of Desire reveals this common foundation and builds a striking new philosophical theory of desire that puts desire's neglected face -- reward -- at its core. Schroeder dives into the way that actions and feelings are produced in the brain, arguing that a distinctive system is responsible for promoting action, on the one hand and causing feelings of pleasure and displeasure, on the other. This system, the brain's reward system is the causal origin of both action and feeling, and is the key to understanding the nature of desire.

Timothy Schroeder grew up on the Canadian prairies, an environment that afforded him plenty of time for philosophical speculation. He received his B.A. from the University of Lethbridge and his Ph.D. from Stanford University, and is now Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Manitoba.

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