In a brief and deeply interesting 2017 Acta Analytica paper, Peter Baumann argues that there are cases of necessarily incompatible but mutually consistent desires, that this is a common problem, and that there is no solution in sight. I’ll argue that Baumann fails to note certain non-trivial assumptions that must be made for the possibility of consistent incompatible desires; if consistent incompatible desires do exist then they’re sometimes beneficial; and if they are sometimes involved with problematic outcomes then the mere (...) presence of incompatibility and consistency does not cause the subject to frustrate the (more) beneficial desire. In short, if there is a problem of consistent incompatible desires then it is not the problem that Baumann identifies. (shrink)

This article responds to Daniel Coren’s very insightful critical discussion of Baumann. It clarifies and defends the view that there is a problem of mutually consistent but necessarily incompatible desires. Distinguishing explicitly between semantic and syntactic consistency, one can show that the problem remains under each interpretation of “consistent.”.