Abstract

Ambivalence of desire and action in light of it are ordinary human engagements and yet received conceptions of desire and action deny that such action is possible. This paper contains an analysis of the possibility of fertile ambivalent compromises conjointly with a reconstruction of (Davidsonian) basic rationality and of action-desire relations. It is argued that the Aristotelian practical syllogism ought not to be conceived as paralysing the ambivalent agent. The practical syllogism makes compromise behaviour possible, including compromise action in the strong sense of acting to satisfy both of one's contrary desires at once. One's action can to a certain extent fulfil both desires by not exactly satisfying either. In showing this, attitudes including desires are analysed in terms of a soft identity, according to which they are both defined by concrete interlinkages with other attitudes and actual and possible behaviour, and transcend any such connections. In particular, not only do desires have a range, but rather the relation of desire and fulfilment is such that to want something allows a wider range as to what counts as fulfilment.