First order desires

In his famous paper "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person", Harry Frankfurt distinguishes first order desires from higher order desires. To simplify, higher order desires are the desires we have about our first order desires. For example, a person's first order desire may be to use cocaine, but his higher order desire may be to want not to want to use cocaine.

Frankfurt uses many examples of types of drug addicts to illustrate his arguments. Though the paper is considered highly influential and important, his arguments about what constitutes a "person" in the moral sense of the term and what defines free will are controversial and criticized for not taking into account the complicated nature of the human mind and its desires. Even within his paper, he notes that he has simplified these complexities, while still illuminating important aspects of moral and legal philosophy.

See also

• second-order desire