Will as Commitment and Resolve: An Existential Account of Creativity, Love, Virtue, and Happiness

In contemporary philosophy, the will is often regarded as a sheer philosophical fiction. In Will as Commitment and Resolve, Davenport argues not only that the will is the central power of human agency that makes decisions and forms intentions but also that it includes the capacity to generate new motivation different in structure from prepurposive desires.

The concept of "projective motivation" is the central innovation in Davenport's existential account of the everyday notion of striving w...