Open Journal of Philosophy
2012. Vol.2, No.1, 25-31
Published Online February 2012 in SciRes (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/ojpp) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojpp.2012.21004
Second-Order Volition and Conflict between Desires
Hengxi Li1, Hengwei Li2*
1Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China
2Center for the Studies of Language and Cognition, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
Received August 9th, 2011; re vis ed Se ptember 12th, 2011; a ccepted September 22nd, 2011
In Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person, Harry Frankfurt put forward a theory that what is
essential to be a person is second-order volition. The notion of second-order volition can be used as a key
conceptual tool in understanding the conflict between desires. By means of the notion, this paper argues
that the conflict between desires in our minds lies in the conflict between second-order volitions, other
than the conflict between first-order desires. Based on this claim, this paper suggests that, due to the mis-
understanding of the nature of the conflict between desires, the analysis of unwilling addict and wanton
addict given by Frankfurt is thus wrong, and in his follow-up articles he made wrong description of the
phenomenon concerning the conflict between desires.
Keywords: Second-Order Volition; Conflict between Desires; First-Order Desire; Unwilling
Addict; Wanton
Introduction
In Harry Frankfurt’s seminal essay Freedom of the Will and
the Concept of a Person, he put forward the conception of sec-
ond-order volition. We think that this conception provides a key
conceptual tool by which we shall argue in this paper that the
conflict between different desires is not the conflict between
first-order desires, but the conflict between second-order voli-
tions about first-order desires. Based on the claim, we shall
point out that Frankfurt misunderstood the essence of conflict
between desires, which cause him to falsely analyze unwilling
addict and wanton addict and describe the phenomena involve-
ing conflict between desires.
Second-Order Volition and the Essence
of a Person
In Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person Frank-
furt argued that the essence of a person lies in the particular
structure of will. As a person, one has not only first-order de-
sires, but also second-order desires. “It seems to be peculiarly
characteristic of humans…that they are able to form what I call
‘second -order desi res’ or ‘desi res of the sec ond ord er ’ ” ( Fr a n kf u t,
1988: p. 12). Any desire that concerns about first-order desire
can be called second-order desire, which includes two situa-
tions: “when he wants simply to have a certain desire or when
he wants a certain desire to be his will”. What is will? Accord-
ing to Frankfurt, will is “effective desire” (Frankfut, 1988: p.
14). The so-called effective desire is the one that finally bring
about an action. It is not hard to see that the simple want of
some desire (this kind of second-order desire will be called as
second-order desire in the narrow sense for convenience) is
different from the want of some desire to be one’s will. First of
all, second-order desire in the narrow sense indicates that a
person has not had the desire he wants, because a person will
not have desire to something he has already possessed, and
desire always points to a state which is wanted but not satisfied.
Secondly, the precondition of wanting some desire to be his
will is that he has already had such desire. A person can want
some desires he has not had, however he can not want some
desire he has not have to be his will. Finally, second-order de-
sire in the narrow sense does not indicate whether or not a per-
son wants the desire he wants to be his will. It is one thing for a
person to want a desire and another for him to want the desire
to be his will. So to speak, second-order desire in the narrow
sense of the word does not have logical connection with sec-
ond-order volition.
The reason why Frankfurt distinguished two kinds of sec-
ond-order desire, namely the second-order desire in the narrow
sense and the second-order volition, is that he believes that only
the second-order volition expresses a connection between de-
sire and will, namely the want of a desire to be his will, and it is
through the want of a desire to be his will that a person cares
about his own will. Frankfurt thinks the essence of a person is
his concern about whether he wants a desire to be his will or
which desire he wants to be his will. Since there is no logical
connection between the second-order desire in the narrow sense
of the word and the second-order volition, it is possible to
imagine a creature that has second-order desire but no sec-
ond-order volition. This kind of creature may want a desire, but
it does not care if the desire it wants could be transformed into
its will. Whether it works or not, anyway, it goes where the
desire takes it to, it does not care it at all. “It is logically possi-
ble, however unlikely, that there should be an agent with sec-
ond-order desires but with no volitions of the second order.
Such a creature, in my view, would not be a person. I shall use
the term ‘wanton’ to refer to agents who have first-order desires
but who are not persons because, whether or not they have de-
sires of the second order, they have no second-order volitions”
(Frankfut, 1988: p. 16). Frankfurt demonstrated his view that
the essence of a person lies in second-order volition by com-
paring the discrepancy between the attitude of a person, here a
unwilling addict, and that of a wanton to their respective desire
*Corresponding author.

H. X. LI ET AL.
(Frankfut, 1988: pp. 16-19). Thus, our intent in this paper is to
show that this comparison made by Frankfurt includes wrong
description about unwilling addict and wanton addict. Now, let
us review how Frankfurt compared them.
Frankfurt describes unwilling addict as follows:
The unwilling addict has conflicting first-order desires: he
wants to take the drug, and he also wants to refrain from taking
it. In addition to these first-order desires, however, he has a
volition of the second order. He is not a neutral with regard to
the conflict between his desire to take the drug and his desire to
refrain from taking it. It is the latter, and not the former, that he
wants to constitute his will (Frankfut, 1988: p. 17).
Although the unwilling addict can not prevent his desire to
take drugs from being his will, he concerns about his own will.
The fact that he does not want the desire to take drugs to be his
will is the right point qualifying an unwilling addict as a person.
A wanton addict may in the same way face the conflict between
first-order desires. According to Frankfurt, a wanton “does not
prefer that one of his conflicting desires should be paramount
over the other; he does not prefer that one first-order desire
rather than the other should constitute his will” (Frankfut, 1988:
p. 18). Anyway, “the wanton addict can not or does not care
which of his conflicting first-order desires wins out”. This ab-
sence of concern about his own will makes a wanton unquali-
fied to be regarded as a person.
We think that Frankfurt’s above description about unwilling
addict and wanton is wrong since neither unwilling addict nor
wanton has conflict between first-order desires; furthermore, I
will argue that neither unwilling addict nor wanton has conflict
between desires at all. Frankfurt’s misunderstanding about the
essence of conflict between desires made him falsely thought
that both the unwilling addict and the wanton addict have or
possibly have conflict between first-order desires.
Conflict between Desires
Perhaps we can distinguish two kinds of desire: desire of
state and desire of action. When we want to do something, we
always want to fulfill a desire of state by taking the action. In
other word, desire of action is always motivated by desire of
state. However, not every desire of state can motivate our desire
of action. The essence of desire of an action is to fulfill the
desire of state that trigger our desire of this action. Since the
essence of desire of action is to achieve other desires, thus, 1)
when a person truly believes that his desire can not be achieved
through action, this desire will not trigger a desire of an action.
A lot of people have a desire of flying in the sky, however they
will definitely mock the first one who wants to achieve this
desire since they do not actually believe human being can fly
into the sky, and here as a desire of being in certain state, the
desire of flying in the sky fails to trigger the desire of action.
Certainly the person who has the desire of action probably does
not have a belief about whether his action can fulfill his desire,
however it is not the case at all that he does not believe his
action may achieve his desire. Sometimes our holding the men-
tality of trying to do something is the case; 2) Even if a person
believes he can fulfill a desire, the desire itself may not suffi-
ciently trigger a desire of action. Obviously, a person always
has a lot of desires that he believes to be achievable, but he may
not have the capacity to fulfill them simultaneously. There are
different factors that result in the lack of the capacity. For ex-
ample, sometimes we do not have such capacity logically. A
person who plans to give up smoking can not have capacity that
makes him fulfill the desire to smoke, while fulfilling the desire
to refrain from smoking at the same time. Likewise, a person’s
material power may fulfill each of different desires, however,
his material power is not enough to fulfill all such different
desires at the same time. Anyway, we can not fulfill all our
desire s by only action.
Since an action can only fulfill a specific desire, and as a
person, one have second-order volition, the problem of deciding
which desire to be fulfilled matters to us. Sometimes, to solve
this problem is not too much intractable, since according to the
strength of the desire, or its importance to us, we can easily
decide which desire to be fulfilled. Obviously, however, the
strength and the importance of different desires seem to put the
same influence on us, which makes us in a quandary and do not
know how to make a decision. We constantly look for reasons
for the fulfillment of each desire, just like the balance that
swings restlessly due to the constant weight change on two
trays. When this happens, we are facing conflict between de-
sires, more specifically, the conflict of second-order volition,
because when we face conflicts, what constitutes a conflict lies
in that we want not only this desire of actions to be our will, but
also another one, however, in view of foregoing reasons, only
one desire of actions can become our will. Conflict between
desires exists only when different desires of actions compete to
become the next action. Desires of actions are maybe various,
but one action procedure can only represent one desire of action,
and when different desires of action are required to occupy the
next action procedure, a conflict or competitio n emerges. Hence
we can see that the essence of conflict between desires lies in
the conflict that occurs when one decide whic h desire of actio n
he want to put into action, and which desire of action he want
to be his will, in other words, conflict between desires is actu-
ally the conflict of second-order volitions.
The fact that the conflict between second-order volitions is
essential to conflict between desires indicates that different
desires themselves related to conflicting second-order volitions
do not conflict with each other. Second-order volition, namely
wanting a desire to be will, expresses a relation between the
person and his desires which have occurred in him, while con-
flict between desires is essentially the relation between different
second-order volitions. We can say that conflict between de-
sires is the conflict between second-order volitions that a per-
son triggers in his internal world: since only one desire can
become his next will, the two second-order volitions that result
from not only wanting this desires of action to become his next
will but also that thus constitute a conflict. Our deliberation,
balance and weigh again and again, and thinking over is not a
process to simply choose a desire from all desires, but a process
to choose one from different second-order volitions to solve the
conflict caused by the person oneself. In fact, it is just a process
of making decision.
The process of making a decision starts with the threshold
that we establish for whether we endorse a desire of action to be
our will, and we ourselves are the guardians of this threshold.
Each desire of action passing through this threshold is what we
want to be our will. Even for those desires that we take actions
immediately once they appear without any deliberation, the
reason that they become our wills is that we actually accept the
second-order volition of the desires. No matter how negligible a
desire is, it will not become a person’s will by itself. When we
say that a desire cause an action, the view that implies in such
26

H. X. LI ET AL.
statement is that it is we ourselves that accept or identify this
desire to become our will and cause an action, namely, a sec-
ond-order volition. When we face conflict between desires this
point will become more obvious because the essence of conflict
between desires just is the conflict between second-order voli-
tions, and in this situation we have to decide to endorse which
second-order volition.
Unwilling Addict
According to Frankfurt’s description about unwilling addict
quoted above, unwilling addict faces a conflict between first-
order desires: he wants to take the drug, and he wants to refrain
from taking it. This part of the paper will present an analysis on
unwilling addict, and demonstrate that unwilling addict does
not have a conflict between first-order desires.
Conflict between desires can be divided into two types: the
conflict of fulfilling which desire of action, and the conflict of
whether to fulfill a desire of actions or not. The general form of
the first type can be de scribed as: the conf lict between wantin g
desire of action A to be will and wanting desire of action B to
be will. Certainly, desires involved in this type of conflict can
be more than two. Nevertheless, no matter how many desires
are involved in, the essence of conflict between desires remains
the same. Furthermore, it is through this type of conflict that we
see that the essence of conflict between desires rightly rests in
the conflict of second-order volitions. No matter what desires
of action they are, the desire of action A and B itself will not
conflict with each other. A person may desire to purchase both
a house and a car, but he can only afford one of them. In such
situation, his two desires alone may not constitute a conflict
because it is possible that based on his current situation, he
wants the desire to buy a house to be his will, and do not want
another desire to buy a car to be his will at all. Yet, this does
not mean that he does not desire a car, but that based on current
situation, he does not want to transform the desire to buy a car
into his will. The desire to buy a car may appear in his mind
unexpectedly, however, whether to transform this desire to his
will depends on the person himself. It is because the sec-
ond-order volition completely depends on the person himself
that we can say that conflict between desires is engendered by
the person himself. Thus, only when he wants to use the money
to buy both a house and a car will these two desires conflict,
because this situation means he want the desire to buy a house
to be his will, and also want another desire to buy a car to be his
will, but he can only identify one of these two second-order
volitions, in other words, he can only endorse one desire of
action, desire to buy a house or buy a car, as his will.
Another type of conflict between desires is the conflict of
whether to fulfill a desire. Actually, we have mentioned this
type of conflict in part Ⅱ, namely, we do not possibly have
capacity to fulfill two different desires logically, although we
can fulfill each of them separately. We can describe the general
form of this type of conflict as: a conflict between wanting the
desire to take action A to be will and wanting the desire not to
take Action A to be will.1 When Frankfurt says that the unwell-
ing addict faces conflict between desires, what Frankfurt means
is that the unwilling addict faces conflict of whether to fulfill
the desire to take the drug or not. Frankfurt suggests that un-
willing addicts face a conflict between first-order desires,
which is conflict between two desires of action. Obviously,
Frankfurt thinks that the two first-order desires in conflict are
the desire to take the drug and the desire to refrain from taking
it.
The desire to take the drug and the desire to refrain from
taking it are two desires in conflict. And if the desires are both
desires to act-first-order desires, then it indicates that the es-
sence of conflict between desires is not the conflict of second-
order volitions because the desire to act is the first-order desire,
but not the second-order volition which is a desire about a de-
sire, expressing a relationship between a person and desires to
act occurring in him. Hence if we insist that conflict between
desires is conflict of second-order volitions, we have to analyze
these two desires to take the drug and refrain from taking it,
figuring out if there is anything that bewilder us and make us to
believe this conflict is conflict between desires to act, or the
conflict between first-order desires described by Frankfurt.
It is definitely felt that the relationship between the desire to
take the drug and the desire to refrain from taking it is different
from the relationship between the conflict of the desire to buy a
house and the desire to buy a car. In the latter relationship, to
buy a house and to buy a car are logically unrelated, any of
which does not entail the other. However, the desire to take the
drug and the desire to refrain from taking it is another situation.
Obviously, desire to take the drug is a pure first-order desire.
The desire to take the drug, under specific physical condition,
will inevitably happen to the addict. Unlike the desire to take
the drug. The desire not to take the drug or to refrain from tak-
ing it, however, is inseparable from and depends on the desire
to take the drug, in fact, the former entails the latter: only if a
person desires to take the drug, he may desire not to take the
drug.
The particularity of the desire not to take the drug goes be-
yond its entailment of the desire to take the drug. The first-
order desire to take the drug does not depend on the person
himself, but just as whether a person want the desire to buy a
car to be his will totally depends on a person himself, the desire
not to take the drug totally depends on the person himself. Ac-
tually, the fact that the desire to refrain from taking the drug
depends on a person himself demonstrates such desire is a brief
description of a second-order volition. A person desires not to
take the drug, or, put it more specifically, he restrain himself
from fulfilling the desire to take the drug, is actually that he
does want the desire to take the drug not to be his will. Thus, to
desire not to take the drug does not simply entail the first-order
desire to take the drug, furthermore, it is the difference in the
level of desire that leads to the entailment. The former is a sec-
ond-order volition concerned about the latter, and the latter is
just a first-order desire. The desire not to take the drug is actu-
ally a negative second-order volition of the desire to take the
1Here we need to make some distinctions among the following concepts o
r
relationship between concepts, such as not to want to take action A, to wan
t
not to take action A, to want to take action A and not to want totake action
A, and to want to take action A and to want not to take action A. When a
person wants to take action A, he is not able not to want to take action Aat
the same time; Not to want to take action A is not a desire, but a logica
l
negation of a desire. But when a person wants to take action A, he can cer-
tainly want not to take action A, to want not to take action A is an expres-
sion of a desire, just as to want to take action A is. Consider the difference
between not to want to take cigarette and to want not to take cigarette, a
person is not able both to want to take cigarette and not to want to take
cigarette, however a person who wants to take cigarette certainly is able to
want not to take cigarette. Not to desire to do something is certainly differ-
ent from to desires not to do it, to want to take action A contradicts logically
with not to want to take action A, and to want to take action A is mentally in
conflict with to want not to take action A.

H. X. LI ET AL.
drug, a first-order desire, hence it must entail the desire to take
the drug.
Thus, when we say that the desire to take the drug and the
desire not to take the drug, or the desire to refrain from taking
he drug, are two conflicting desires, the desire not to take the
drug is actually negative second-order volition of the former.
Now here arises the question: when the desire not to take the
drug causes conflict between desires, is the desire to take the
drug just expresses a first-order desire about action? To put it in
another way, is conflict between desires faced by the addict a
conflict between the addict’s first-order desire to take the drug
and his negative second-order volition? Frankfurt gives an
affirmative answer to this question in Three Concepts of Free
Action. He says “there is a conflict within him, between a
first-order desire to do what he actually does and a second-
order volition that this first-order desire not to be effective in
determining his action” (Frankfurt, 1988: p. 48). First of all, I
think Frankfurt denies his description about unwilling addict in
Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person, since herein
what the addict faces is no longer the conflict between first-
order desires, but the conflict between first-order desire and
second-order volition. Secondly, Frankfurt does not carry this
denial throughout, and he misunderstands the basic relationship
between a person and his desire, namely, the one of second-
order volition put forward by him. As we have stated clearly,
first-order desire will not drive a person directly to act. Even an
desire that we in no way hesitate to fulfill implies second-order
volition, namely, we want this desire to be our will, instead of
wanting this desire not to be our will. And this is the key point
when Frankfurt reveals that the second-order volition is the
essence of a person: We not only have first-order desire, but as
a person, we have to answer the question of whether we en-
dorse the first-order desire to be our will. Hence when the de-
sire to take the drug conflicts with the desire to refrain from
taking it, the negative second-order volition of the former, the
desire to take the drug is not simply a first-order desire as an
internal primitive drive, but actually affirmative second-order
volition of this desire to act: to make the desire to take the drug
to be one’s own will.
It is imaginable of the mental activities experienced by a
drug addict in conflict between desires: he is ceaselessly look-
ing for reasons for his two desires in conflict with each other,
which is like a person who is incessantly adjusting weights onto
the two trays of an unbalanced scale. A person is not to look for
reason for anything beyond his control. So-called something-
beyond-one’s-control means something about which one can
make no difference that he wants by one’s own efforts. The
first-order desire to take drugs occurs with a particular strength
in one’s mind, which is totally beyond his limitation of control,
and the first-order desire inevitably and persistently drives him
to take an action to meet it, which is also beyond his control.
Therefore, when he is to look for reasons for the desire to take
drugs, he does not do this for the first-order desire. Although
the addict is incapable of controlling the power inherent in the
first-order desire, he at least believes that he can make the de-
sire to take drugs or the desire to refrain from taking drugs be
his will, and that he can express the second-order volition on
the desire to take drugs. So the process to look for reasons is in
fact a process to eventually endorse a second-order volition.
When the addict is to look for reasons for his own two desires
in conflict with each other, he literally intend to establish his
own attitude toward the desire to take drugs in the end: he have
to make the scale of attitude stop, and he have to make a deci-
sion of whether to take drugs or not, in order to stop swaying
between his two second-order volitions. So what the addict is
really doing is to look for reasons for the two second-order
volitions on the desire to take drugs. To put it in another way,
when the addict facing a conflict between desires, his mental
activity of looking for reasons indicates that what he is facing is
a conflict of second-order volitions.
Based on above argument, we can say that Frankfurt’s view
that an unwilling addict faces first-order conflict is wrong, for
he does not face a conflict between first-order desires. When
we say the unwilling addict faces the conflict between to want
to take the drug and to refrain from taking it, he actually faces a
conflict between two second-order volitions, a conflict between
affirmative second-order volition of the desire to take the drug
and its negative second-order volition.
Wanton Addict
In the elucidation of view that the essence of a person lies in
his possession of second-order volition, Frankfurt imagined a
logically possible creature, namely a wanton addict, as a con-
trast to the unwilling addict. Frankfurt thinks a wanton addict
also may encounter a conflict between first-order desires just as
an unwilling addict does (Frankfurt, 1988: p. 18). However,
unlike an unwilling addict, a wanton addict does not care about
his will. For him, there is no problem of which desire he want
to be his will. It is this difference that distinguishes a wanton
addict from an unwilling addict.
In fact, the concept of the wanton addict proposed by Frank-
furt for the sake of explaining his theory is rather ambiguous.
On the one hand, a wanton addict may experience the conflict
between first-order desires; on the other hand, the wanton ad-
dict may not care about his will when he experiences such con-
flict. First of all, my above argument that conflict between de-
sires that an unwilling addict faces is the conflict of sec-
ond-order volitions is true of the case of a wanton addict. That
is to say: the conflict between first-order desires does not pos-
sibly exist in the wanton addict because conflict between de-
sires does not possibly exist on the first-order level. Secondly,
what does it mean by claiming that the wanton addict who faces
the conflict between first-order desires does not care about his
will? Obviously, the wanton does not possibly have the conflict
of second-order volition as we understand, since in our defini-
tion wanton is the creature who owns first-order desire but no
second-order volition. Furthermore, if a person is facing con-
flict of second-order volition, it is impossible for him to be
careless of his own will because the conflict of second-order
volition is caused by one’s concern about his own will. The
statement that an agent faces the conflict of second-order voli-
tion but does not care about his own will is paradoxical. So the
thesis that a wanton addict faces the conflict between first-order
desires and does not care about his will is the most confused.
How is it possible for him not to concern about his will when
facing conflict between desires? It goes beyond our under-
standing unless Frankfurt explicated what the conflict between
first-order desires really mean. Only when understanding what
the conflict between first-order desires refers to can we com-
prehend why the concept of a wanton who faces the conflict
contains no contradi c t i o n i n itself.
Then what can a wanton facing the conflict between first-
order desires refer to? It might refer to a situation in which
there is not a conflict between desires at all, but which is possi-
28

H. X. LI ET AL.
bly misunderstood as a conflict. Frankfurt says: “in any event
he is, in respect of his wanton lack of concern, no different
from an animal” (Frankfurt, 1988: p. 18). Frankfurt thinks that
there are two causes responsible for a wanton’s carelessness of
his own will, “it is due either to his lack of the capacity for
reflection or his mindless indifference to the enterprise of
evaluating his own desires and motives” (Frankfurt, 1988: pp.
18-19). Obviously, the latter cause is essentially different from
the former one, since evaluation must contain reflection. The
latter will not be analyzed here since, as stated before, it is dif-
ficult to understand how a wanton in the conflict of first-order
desire does not care about his will, while a wanton, if he cares
about his will, could not be mindless indifferent to the evalua-
tion of one’s desire or motivation.
It is the lack of the capacity for reflection that causes a wan-
ton who faces the conflict between first-order desires to be
careless of his will. However, a further claim can be made that
when the capacity for reflection is absent, there would not be a
conflict between desires at all, a conflict between first-order
desires, if it is understandable. Conflict between desires re-
quires that a creature facing a conflict between desires must be
capable of reflecting. When a desire arises in the creature, no
matter whether we respond to it immediately or not, its capabi-
lity for reflection enables it to take the desire as an object of its
reflection. It is the capacity that opens up an inner mental space
for it, the emergence of which cuts off the direct connection
between desires and bodily motions, temporarily suspends and
sets aside the internal driving force of desire, and makes the
desire an evaluated and examined object by reflection; the pur-
pose of these reflective mental activities is to answer whether to
allow this driving force to function or not and to make a final
decision. It is in this inner mental space that we can analyze
different desires, compare them, evaluate them and express our
attitudes toward them. As an attitude to a first-order desire,
second-order volition arises just in this inner mental space. A
desire passing through the inner mental space is, of course,
possibly allowed to engender a bodily motion, but it is essen-
tially different from a desire which directly and immediately
triggers a bodily. The fundamental difference originates from
the fact that the desire passing through the mental space of
reflection has already been a second-order volition.
There could not be conflict between desires without the ca-
pacity for reflection because only such capacity can create an
inner mental space which can accommodate different desires
and is an arena in which different desires compete. However,
lack of reflection does not mean there is no force to prevent a
desire from fulfillment. When we say that desire directly cau ses
bodily action, what we mean is not that as long as a desire ap-
pears, it must trigger corresponding bodily action, but that the
direct connection between desire and bodily action will not be
cut off by an inner mental space. If we treat animals as a crea-
ture without reflection, we might as well imagine what the
connection between desire and bodily action is like to be. As far
as an animal without reflection is concerned, once a desire2
arises in it, it will either immediately cause corresponding bod-
ily action or not cause such action. In the latter case, however,
no bodily action may be due to an opposite mental force to
occur in him. For example, when a cat desires to eat the fish on
the table but fears punishment, the desire to eat the fish does
not prompt a corresponding bodily action due to the fear of
punishment. For a cat, if we are sure that it has no capacity of
reflection, it can not form an inner mental space in which it can
compare different mental forces, including desires, thus these
forces is simply opposite, and can not constitute a conflict.
So a wanton addict without the capacity of reflection has no
conflict between desires, no matter first-order desires or sec-
ond-order desires. Rather, conflict between desires is simply he
conflict of second-order volitions. The lack of capacity for re-
flection already thoroughly shut the door for the emergence of
conflicts of desi re s. Wha t they actua lly expe rie nce is me rely the
continuous occurrence of opposite driving forces in succession
of time, which on no account can be regarded as conflicts of
desires although we might misunderstand that they constitute
the conflict.
Conflict between Desires and Struggle of Desires
As argued above, conflict between desires can not arise on
first-order level, and conflict between desires is meant to be
conflict of second-order volitions about first-order desires, thus
1) neither unwilling addict nor wanton addict have conflict of
first-order desire, 2) according to definition, if wanton addict
does not have second-order desire, they does not have conflict
between desires either. However, unwilling addict needs further
investigation and here arises the question: does unwilling addict
have conflict between desires? This question matters because
its answer will show to us what conditions are necessary for the
existence of conflicts between desires.
According to the explanation of conflict between desires
proposed by this paper, when a person experience conflict be-
tween desires, he is in a situation in which he want not only this
desire to be his will but also that desire to be his will at the
same time. As mentioned earlier, the process of conflict be-
tween desires is the process of making decision. The reason
why we sway between different desires is that we do not know
how on earth to decide. According to Frankfurt, under this
situation, a person “does not know what he really wants”
(Frankfurt, 1992: p. 9). If conflict between desires means a
person doesn’t know how to make a decision, then conflicts of
desires will disappear immediately once he makes the decision.
For an unwilling addict, although the irresistible desire of tak-
ing the drug makes him unable to make a decision on whether
to take the drug or not since we can only make decision on
things under our control. Although we can not say that an un-
willing addict can make a decision, but it’s safe to claim that,
according to Frankfurt, an unwilling addict has wholeheartedly
endorsed the second-order volition of wanting the desire to
refrain from taking the drug not to be his will. And this whole-
hearted endorsement equivalent of making a decision elimi-
nates conflict between desires.
According to the theory on conflict between desires put for-
ward in this essay, for unwilling addict, and for anyone who
makes decision after experiencing conflict between desires,
once they make decision, conflict between desires will disap-
pear immediately. Nevertheless the conclusion is different from
the viewpoint about conflict between desires held by Frankfurt.
In many places, Frankfurt made descriptions of a person’s de-
sire situation when he makes decision, herein we chose two
examples:
2When it comes to animal desire, what we talk about is the desire simply as
inner drive. Animals certainly can not express such desire by language, they
can not say: “I want…”. However, as far as inner drive is concerned, it is
j
ust the same force that drives an addict to take the drug, when he says: “I
want to take dru gs”.
When someone identifies himself with one other than with
another of his own desires, the result is not necessarily to

H. X. LI ET AL.
eliminate the conflict between those desires, or even to reduce
its severity, but to alter its nature. Suppose that a person with
two conflicting desires identifies with on rather than with the
other. This might cause the other—the desire with which the
person does not identify—to become substantially weaker than
it was, or to disappear altogether. But it need not. Quite possi-
bly, the conflict between the two desires will remain as virulent
as before. What the person’s commitment to the one eliminates
is not the conflict between it and the other. It eliminates the
conflict within the person as to which of these desires he pre-
fers to be his motive. The conflict between the desires is in this
way transformed into a conflict between one of them and the
person who has identified himself with its rival. That person is
no longer uncertain which side he is on, in the conflict between
the two desires, and the persistence of this conflict need not
subvert or diminish the wholeheartedness of his commitment to
the desire with which he identifies (Frankfurt, 1988: p. 172,
original emphasis).
As in the case of the unwilling addict, the unity of a healthy
will is quite compatible with certain kinds of virulent psychic
conflict. Wholeheartedness does not require that a person be
altogether untroubled by inner opposition to his will. It just
requires that he must be resolutely on the side of the forces
struggling within him and not on the side of any other. Con-
cerning the opposition of these forces, he has to know where he
himself stands. In other words, he must know what he wants
(Frankfurt, 1992: p. 9).
If our understanding is right, it is very obvious, according to
Frankfurt, that conflict between desires still exists when some-
one has made decision. In fact, the fundamental reason why
Frankfurt makes such description of the desire situation in deci-
sion making is that he thinks there exists conflict of first-order
desires. However in the first paragraph quotation, it is also
found that Frankfurt appears to think there exists conflict of
second-order volitions, “It eliminates the conflict within the
person as to which of these desires he prefers to be his motive”.
Frankfurt thinks decision eliminates conflict of second-order
volition and makes the original conflict of first-order desire be
transformed into conflict between a first-order desire and a
person who has second-order volition. As a result, there are
three conflicts according to Frankfurt. Yet we hold that there
are no three conflicts, but only conflict between desires as con-
flict of second-order volition, and once a decision is made,
conflict between desires does not change its nature, but disap-
pear. There is no anything like changed nature of conflict be-
tween desires, what does change is the nature of first-order
desire itself. Then if decision making eliminates conflict of
second-order volitions, what is the conflict that Frankfurt men-
tioned not be eliminated? First of all, we have demonstrated
that there is no conflict of first-order desire. Secondly, when we
make decision, conflict between desires disappears although the
first-order desires that constitute conflict may not disappear. A
person who is on a diet has made up his mind not to eat any fat,
though he probably swallows saliva when he sees a roast duck
and his desire to eat it as a pure first-order desire still drive him.
Here, the key point is that the desire to eat a roast duck has not
constituted a second-order volition any more. With the decision
being made, his desire to eat the duck has returned into a pure
first-order desire immediately as an internal driving force.
Therefore when a decision is made, the conflict of the desires
disappears, which results in the change of nature of the desire
that we do not identify: it no longer constitute a second-order
volition and returns into a first-order desire as pure driving
force.
When a person makes decision, this pure first-order desire as
driving force, unlike Frankfurt says, collides with the one who
makes decision. Actually, we can hardly understand what this
kind conflict is unless it means that, even after the decision is
made, this first-order desire purely functioning as driving force
still intrudes into us. To distinguish conflict between desires
from struggle of desires may help us to understand that such
intrusion is not a kind of conflict. Imagine that the person who
is on a diet has decided not to eat roast duck, however the roast
duck still stimulates his sense and even the imagination of the
duck drives him to eat it. Since he has decided not to take roast
duck, he will not have second-order volition of desire to eat
duck because the existence of this second-order volition means
he has not made the decision. He is certainly still struck by
desire even after he has made the decision, however, what is
essential is that he no longer thinks over the desire, and no
longer thinks over how to act. Once determined, the person who
is on a diet no longer deliberate on whether to make desire to
eat duck to be his will. Instead, what he needs to do is to strug-
gle with the attack from the desire in order to prevent the desire
to eat duck from constituting a second-order volition again. A
person will not conflict with his first-order desire; however, he
will struggle with his first-order desire. When a person is
struggling with his desire, he does not think over the desire, but
make an action targeting at the desire. Struggle happens after
the decision is made while conflict happens before that. A per-
son probably makes a decision, or even makes up his mind,
however, when he struggles with first-order desire, he may
become irresolute and begin to change his mind. The experi-
ence of irresolution which we are rather familiar with means
that a person returns from struggling with the desire to facing
conflict between desires, indicating that the desire which be-
comes the object of our struggle after decision is made acquires
its second-order volition in our inner mental space. The trans-
forming process from hesitation to resolution and to the change
of mind as we always experienced, so to speak, is in fact the
very process in which the conflict between desires is trans-
formed to be the struggle against desire and then return back to
conflict between desires again.
Thus, when an addict is called an unwilling addict, it does
mean that there is no conflict between desires in him at all, but
not that the addict will not struggle with his irresistible desire.
Although we have made the conclusion that unwilling ad-
dicts do not have conflict between desires, the situation of un-
willing addict is prescribed, especially his irresistible desire for
drugs. However, regarding those inner subjective experience
such as desire and conflict between desires, a significant ques-
tion remains to be answered: whether or not does the drugger
himself believe that his desire is irresistible? By raising this
question here, it’s meant to articulate that the occurrence of
conflict between desires is related to one’s belief towards his
desire.
Suppose that a drugger desire to take the drug and he must
have a belief towards this desire. Firstly, suppose that this be-
lief is: he believes this desire is irresistible to him.3 Although
3Here we do not care about whether desire of this drugger is actually irre-
sistible or not, what we care about is his belief about whether he can resistit.
Actually whether it is irresistibleor not has no connection with whether he
believes in the irresistibility of this desire. It is probably that desire of taking
he drug can be resisted, but he does not believe that it can be resisted, and
vise versa. My purpose herein is to demonstrate that conflict between desires
has connection with a person’s belief about whether a desire i s controllable.
30

H. X. LI ET AL.
the desire seems irresistible to him, he still can express his atti-
tude towards this desire, which is a second-order volition. But
no matter what attitude he expresses, once he believes this de-
sire to take the drug is irresistible, conflict between desires will
not happen. The existence of conflict between desires indicates
that a person does not know how to decide his will, but he be-
lieves his final will depends on his choice from conflicting
second-order volitions. As long as desire to take the drug is
irresistible, it means his will has been decided by irresistibility
of desire. Actually, this is the very meaning of “being irresisti-
ble”. Since it is believed that a desire is irresistible, then it is
meaningless to think over whether to fulfill this desire. Thus,
when an drugger believes his desire to take the drug is irresisti-
ble, conflict between desires will not arise. At this point, the
belief that a desire is irresistible functions as a sufficient condi-
tion for the absence of conflict between desires.
If the drugger’s belief towards the desire to take the drug is
it’s resistible, then how it will be? It will be uncertain. He may
completely accept this desire to be his will, at this point he is a
willing drugger. However, he may also resist this desire from
the beginning and struggle against his desire of taking the drug,
certainly he may face conflict between desires, and decide
whether to make desire to take the drug to be his will or not.
Thus to believe a desire is resistible may not lead to conflict
between desires. At this point, the belief that the desire can be
resisted is a necessary condition for conflict between desires to
arise because conflict between desires arise only when we be-
lieve the desires we are facing are controllable. Through the
investigation into drugger’s belief towards desires, the conclu-
sion is that whether conflict between desires exists or not has
no connection with actual controllability of desire, but related
to a person’s belief about whether his desire is controllable or
not. Although a person’s belief about whether his desire is con-
trollable or not may be wrong, this belief is vital for whether a
person will actually face conflict between desires.
Conclusion
The major point that we have argued for in this paper is that:
conflict between desires is conflict of second-order volitions
and can not arise on the first-order. Based on the claim, we
point out the mistake in Frankfurt’s viewpoint regarding con-
flict between desires, especially his mistake in treating conflict
between desires as conflict of first-order desire. Probably this
mistake can be taken as another example illustrating how lan-
guage gives rise to confusions in our thoughts. Imagine how we
report to others about our experience of conflict between de-
sires. We will say “I want to do this, and I want to do that as
well”. The way of our reports that seems to be concerned only
with two first-order desires to act easily misguides us to the
wrong impression that it’s just a conflict of two first-order de-
sires. When Frankfurt proposes the essence of a person lies in
second-order volition, he opens up a gate toward the under-
standing of human agency; yet he missed the first stream of
light coming through this gate when he mistook conflicts of
desire as conflict between first-order desires.
REFERENCES
Frankfurt, H. (1988). The importance of what we care about: Philoso-
phical essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Frankfurt, H. (1992). The faintest passion. Proceedings and Addresse of
the American Philosophical Association, 66, 5-16.
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