Editing Experience (section)

=== Desire and agency ===
[[Desire]]s comprise a wide class of [[mental state]]s. They include unconscious desires, but only their conscious forms are directly relevant to experience.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Strandberg |first1=Caj |title=Expressivism and Dispositional Desires: 2. a distinction in mind |journal=American Philosophical Quarterly |date=2012 |volume=49 |issue=1 |pages=81–91 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/STREAD}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bartlett |first1=Gary |title=Occurrent States |journal=Canadian Journal of Philosophy |date=2018 |volume=48 |issue=1 |pages=1–17 |doi=10.1080/00455091.2017.1323531 |s2cid=220316213 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/BAROS-4|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kriegel |first1=Uriah |title=The Varieties of Consciousness |date=2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/KRITVO-5 |chapter=2. Conative Phenomenology}}</ref> Conscious desires involve the experience of wanting or wishing something. This is often understood in a very wide sense, in which phenomena like love, intention, and thirst are seen as forms of desire.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Parmisano |first1=S. F. |title=New Catholic Encyclopedia: Desire |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-and-social-reform/sociology-general-terms-and-concepts/desire |access-date=5 October 2021}}</ref> They are usually understood as attitudes toward conceivable [[states of affairs]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Pettit |first1=Philip |title=Desire - Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/desire/v-1 |website=www.rep.routledge.com |access-date=4 May 2021 |language=en}}</ref> They represent their objects as being valuable in some sense and aim to realize them by changing the world correspondingly. This can either happen in a positive or a negative sense. In the positive sense, the object is experienced as good and the aim is to create or maintain it. In the negative sense, the object is experienced as bad and the aim is to destroy it or to hinder it from coming into existence.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sandkühler |first1=Hans Jörg |title=Enzyklopädie Philosophie |date=2010 |publisher=Meiner |url=https://meiner.de/enzyklopadie-philosophie-14071.html |chapter=Begehren/Begierde}}</ref> In intrinsic desires, the object is desired for its own sake, whereas in extrinsic desires, the object is desired because of the positive consequences associated with it.<ref name="HonderichDesire"/> Desires come in different degrees of intensity and their satisfaction is usually experienced as pleasurable.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mele |first1=Alfred R. |title=Motivation and Agency |date=2003 |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/MELMAA-2 |chapter=7. Motivational Strength}}</ref><ref name="HonderichDesire">{{cite book |last1=Honderich |first1=Ted |title=The Oxford Companion to Philosophy |date=2005 |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/HONTOC-2 |chapter=desire}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Schroeder |first1=Timothy |title=Desire: philosophical issues |journal=WIREs Cognitive Science |date=2010 |volume=1 |issue=3 |pages=363–370 |doi=10.1002/wcs.3 |pmid=26271376 |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wcs.3 |language=en |issn=1939-5086|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

[[Agency (philosophy)|Agency]] refers to the capacity to [[Action (philosophy)|act]] and the manifestation of this capacity.<ref name="Schlosser">{{cite web |last1=Schlosser |first1=Markus |title=Agency |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/agency/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=9 October 2021 |date=2019}}</ref><ref name="Mylopoulos">{{cite book |last1=Mylopoulos |first1=Myrto |last2=Shepherd |first2=Joshua |title=The Experience of Agency |date=9 July 2020 |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198749677.013.8 |isbn=978-0-19-874967-7 |url=https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198749677.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780198749677-e-8 |language=en}}</ref> Its experience involves various different aspects, including the formation of [[intention]]s, when planning possible courses of action, the decision between different alternatives, and the effort when trying to realize the intended course of action.<ref name="Mylopoulos"/><ref name="Schlosser"/> It is often held that desires provide the [[motivation]]al force behind agency.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Mele AR |title=Motivation: Essentially Motivation-Constituting Attitudes |journal=Philosophical Review |date=1995 |volume=104 |issue=3 |pages=387–423 |doi=10.2307/2185634 |jstor=2185634 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/MELMEM|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Miller C |title=Motivation in Agents |journal=Noûs |date=2008 |volume=42 |issue=2 |pages=222–266 |doi=10.1111/j.1468-0068.2008.00679.x |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/MILMIA-2|url-access=subscription }}</ref> But not all experiences of desire are accompanied by the experience of agency. This is the case, for example, when a desire is fulfilled without the agent trying to do so or when no possible course of action is available to the agent to fulfill the desire.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wall |first1=David |title=Are There Passive Desires? |journal=Dialectica |date=2009 |volume=63 |issue=2 |pages=133–155 |doi=10.1111/dltc.2009.63.issue-2 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/WALATP-8|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

In a more restricted sense, the term "[[sense of agency]]" refers to the impression of being in control and being the owner of one's action.<ref name="Schlosser"/><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Moore |first1=James W. |title=What Is the Sense of Agency and Why Does it Matter? |journal=Frontiers in Psychology |date=29 August 2016 |volume=7 |pages=1272 |doi=10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01272 |pmid=27621713 |pmc=5002400 |issn=1664-1078|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kawabe |first1=Takahiro |last2=Roseboom |first2=Warrick |last3=Nishida |first3=Shin'ya |title=The sense of agency is action–effect causality perception based on cross-modal grouping |journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |date=22 July 2013 |volume=280 |issue=1763 |pages=20130991 |doi=10.1098/rspb.2013.0991 |pmid=23740784 |pmc=3774240 |issn=0962-8452}}</ref> It is often held that two components are the central sources of the sense of agency. On the one hand, the agent constantly makes predictions about how their intentions will influence their bodily movement and compares these predictions to the sensory feedback. On this view, a positive match generates a sense of agency while a negative match disrupts the sense of agency.<ref name="Schlosser"/><ref name="Moore"/> On the other hand, when looking backward, the agent interprets their intention as the cause of the action. In the successful case, the intention precedes the action and the action is consistent with the intention.<ref name="Schlosser"/><ref name="Moore">{{cite journal |last1=Moore |first1=James W. |title=What Is the Sense of Agency and Why Does it Matter? |journal=Frontiers in Psychology |date=2016 |volume=7 |pages=1272 |doi=10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01272 |pmid=27621713 |pmc=5002400 |issn=1664-1078|doi-access=free }}</ref>