Questioning Fyfe’s Desirism: Introduction
Posted in Desirism, Ethics, Morality, Philosophy on | 6 minutes | 80 Comments →
With a minor caveat or two, I tend to agree with Dostoevsky that, “Without God everything is permissible.”
Alonzo Fyfe hosts Atheist Ethicist, a blog focused on, well.. atheism and ethics. Alonzo defends the moral theory of desire utilitarianism, sometimes referred to as desirism, and I took this to be his introductory-level article on the theory.
It so happens that I accept many if not most of Fyfe’s starting premises. I’ll also freely concede that I (and arguably every other person in the world) will make decisions according to the basic tenets of the theory. To recast a classic Dylan song in desirist language, everyone aims to fulfill some desire, from the selfless servant to the wandering nomad to the greedy capitalist. Even the most ascetic monk struggling to eliminate desire (tanha) acts to fulfill a desire: the desire to spiritually mature.
In the rest of this introduction, I hope to illustrate that I’ve understood Fyfe’s core premises as he himself delineates them, and addressed desirism accordingly, both of which are preconditions for any worthy response.
If you were to ask me to summarize my current position on desirism, I would say something like,
1) I agree desirism is efficient in that it provides a working formula for determining the most useful course of action relative to some desire,
2) I agree desirism is accurate in that it accurately describes how individuals tend to make moral decisions in the real world, but
3) neither desirism’s efficiency nor its accuracy necessarily make it true, or even worthy of being called the best moral theory.
So where do Fyfe and I agree?
I agree that beliefs and desires comprise the two foundational attitudes one might have about some proposition, meaning that an agent can either believe something about some proposition (i.e., that it is true or untrue), or an agent can desire something about some proposition (i.e., that it should be made true or kept untrue).
I agree that “(Beliefs + Desires) -> Intentions -> Intentional action,” which is really just a formulaic iteration of Fyfe’s statement that, “desires are the primary reasons for action that exist.”
I agree with Fyfe’s definition of a desire as, “a disposition to make or keep a proposition true,” and I think that’s a useful definition.
According to Fyfe, a “desire that P” is fulfilled when the proposition P has been made true and conversely, a “desire that P” is thwarted when the proposition P has been kept untrue. For example, my desire to type is fulfilled when I am typing, and thwarted when I cannot type. I agree that desires can either be fulfilled or thwarted, and I think that’s a useful definition.
I agree that the question that lies at the root of all moral concepts is, “What types of desires should we have?”
I agree that in the vast majority of cases, in fact possibly all of them, “desire fulfillment is what human action aims towards.” This is what I meant when I said that I believe desirism is accurate — because it accurately describes how individuals tend to make decisions in the real world.
I agree that,
A right act is an act that a person with good desires would have performed, and a wrong act is an act that a person with good desires would not have performed.
I agree that,
The value of an action is derived from whether or not a person with good desires would have performed that action. An action that a person with good desires would have performed would be an ‘obligation’ or ‘duty’. An action that a person with good desires would not have performed would be ‘prohibited’. And an action that a person with good desires may or may not perform is ‘permissible’ in the sense of ‘neither obligatory nor prohibited’.
My question is, how do we distinguish between the three? How do we know if a person has good desires, vs. bad or permissible desires? Who – or what – is the ultimate arbiter of such decisions?
Fyfe says,
“Good” = “Is such as to fulfill the desires in question.”
“Bad” = “Is such as to thwart the desires in question.”
Desires have the capacity to be ‘such as to fulfill other desires’ or ‘such as to thwart other desires’. Because of this, we have the ability to evaluate desires as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Examples of good desires would be charity and honesty (a desire to prevent the thwarting of other people’s desires, and an aversion to representing to others as ‘true’ propositions that one sincerely believes are ‘false’).
I agree that charity and honesty in fact are good desires, and I would even agree that they are good at least in part because, as desirism would predict – they fulfill more and stronger desires than they thwart – but I believe this only works because the desires in question are intrinsically good to begin with; that is to say, they are not necessarily good because desirism makes them so.
This may just be a matter of semantics, but I don’t see that X can be accurately described as good simply because it fulfills other desires, specifically, more and stronger desires than it thwarts. Granted, Fyfe clarified that he intends good to be interpreted in a generic or utilitarian manner, i.e., ‘such as to fulfill other desires,’ but I think the words capable or useful would be more appropriate if that is the sentiment we wish to convey. Using either of those words would also carry the added bonus of eliminating any tendency to conflate the “generic good” with the “moral good” — which is not an uncommon conflation from what I’ve seen.
How does desirism address what Fyfe describes as the specific or moral good? Perhaps it does not or cannot and I’m evaluating the theory against claims it does not make? Or, perhaps I’ve missed something somewhere along the way?
Either way, until successfully demonstrated otherwise, I will argue that desirism lacks sufficient foundation to decide what types of desires we should have, because as we’ll see, it can lead to conditions where things most moral people find repulsive can be rightly called good (i.e. torture of children).
I will also question desirism’s ability to resolve disagreement over what types of desires we should have. More specifically, I will argue that desirism cannot ground moral prescriptions to anything beyond personal or group preference (note: I do not necessarily intend ‘group’ as a synonym for ‘majority’ there).
Lastly, I will argue that desirism does not permit Fyfe or anyone else the liberty to label entire groups as evil.
Before we get to any of that, however.. does anybody see any misunderstandings or oversights I might have made, or anything else that might be pertinent to the aforementioned objections?
MS
says...“My question is, how do we distinguish between the three? How do we know if a person has good desires, vs. bad or permissible desires? Who – or what – is the ultimate arbiter of such decisions?”
Same question here, and I was wondering what you had in mind with the word “useful”in your first core premise, and if the above was meant as part of the word useful…
TaiChi
says...“This may just be a matter of semantics, but I don’t see that X can be accurately described as good simply because it fulfills other desires, specifically, more and stronger desires than it thwarts.” ~ cl
I don’t think it is supposed to be obvious that a desire which tends to fulfil other desires is good. Instead, I think Fyfe is offering a non-obvious definition of the good that is plausible just if his definition makes the right sort of predictions about what to call “good” (or “evil”). The point of giving such a definition is that, if we find it correctly predicts our use of moral terminology in obvious cases, we should feel confident about applying it to non-obvious cases. The clarity in ethical grey-areas is therefore purchased at the cost of unintuitiveness, but I hope you’ll agree, it’s worth the price.
“How does desirism address what Fyfe describes as the specific or moral good? Perhaps it does not or cannot and I’m evaluating the theory against claims it does not make? Or, perhaps I’ve missed something somewhere along the way?” ~ cl
It does. Desires are what are morally good or evil, and they are morally good or evil insofar as they tend to fulfill or thwart other desires (which other desires. Moral goods as such are derivative from good desires – e.g. the practice of charity is good because the desire to be charitable is a good desire, and not vice versa.
I’m not quite sure why you think Fyfe doesn’t address this – the whole of section V of the introduction you reference deals with moral concepts. Perhaps you meant this as part of your point that Desirism is non-obvious, that it therefore can’t be said to describe the moral good?
Your future objections look to be on target. A nice first post.
TaiChi
says...Drat, no editing. The part which begins “(which other desires” was going to be: “(which other desires? All of the desires which exist – moral terms are wide in their scope)”, or something like that.
Thomas Reid
says...Fair summary if you ask me. I look forward to future posts.
cl
says...MS,
I didn’t have useful in mind when I wrote the snippet you cited. Useful as it applies to the first premise means something like “capable of fulfilling the desire(s) in question.
You could rephrase my objection as, “that X is useful has no bearing on whether X is good.”
TaiChi,
Now that you mention it, I think he alludes to this when – in section IV – he says, “this covers every instance of good and bad in the real world.” Though I don’t necessarily agree that such covers every instance of good and bad in the real world, I do agree that desirism is accurate, meaning that it accurately describes how individuals tend to make moral decisions in the real world, and also that with it, we can accurately predict what desires/acts a person will praise/condemn, but accuracy in those respects doesn’t necessarily make desirism accurate when it comes to making true statements.
I don’t consider that an unreasonable point, but whether or not it’s worth the cost is hard for me to say. As I’ll address further in upcoming posts, nobody seems to be factoring our deficiencies of intelligence into their act-value assessments. As a quick sketch of what I mean, take the 20th century in the United States for example. It is not unreasonable to say that much of what people living in the first half called ‘good’ – precisely because they believed it fulfilled more and stronger desires than it thwarted – actually turned out to be ‘bad’ – precisely because it actually thwarted more and stronger desires than it fulfilled: e.g. desires for unsustainable farming, desires to use lead and asbestos in housing, or desires to use styrofoam. In fact, wouldn’t you agree that each of those is an excellent example of a non-obvious case where desirism failed to make an accurate prediction? Desires for unsustainable farming and the use of lead, asbestos, and styrofoam were each considered ‘good’ or at least ‘permissible’ desires in the first half of the 20th century, but in actuality they were really ‘bad’ desires and we could not recognize this due to our deficiencies of intelligence.
On a tangential note, this principle will support my argument that an omniscient, omnibenevolent, omni-just Consciousness (i.e. God) is the best possible arbiter of morality.
In response to my question of whether desirism addresses the moral good, you said,
I get that, but I don’t see that this criteria can establish the ‘moral good’. As Fyfe alludes to when he makes the distinction between the ‘moral good’ and the ‘generic good’, then mentions the psychopath, ‘good’ in this sense really just means something more like ‘capable of and/or fulfilling the desires in question’, i.e.,
So, I still don’t see where or how desirism can address the ‘moral good’, as Fyfe clearly specifies he’s in fact talking about the ‘generic good’, at least up to IV in his introductory article. I’ve read the whole article a few times, I’m certainly familiar with the points you reference from section V, but I retain my objections despite them: that a desire fulfills more and stronger desires than it thwarts doesn’t make it good, because, as Cartesian’s Nazi example pointed out, by desirism we can also make torture of innocents ‘good’ although none of us believes that “torture of innocents is good” is a true statement.
My question is, what makes a desire good? Simply to say, “that if fulfills more and stronger desires than it thwarts” does not make it good, as our growing list of both hypothetical and real-world examples continues to testify.
Thomas,
Well thanks! As it stands, I’m actually enjoying your guys’ discussion on necessity and contingency. I’ve got something to add, but even after three reads it’s still a mess. I will post something up if I can sort it out.
TaiChi
says...Cl,
“..accuracy in those respects doesn’t necessarily make desirism accurate when it comes to making true statements.”
Since I don’t know what other aspects you are referring to, I await persuasion.
“In fact, wouldn’t you agree that each of those is an excellent example of a non-obvious case where desirism failed to make an accurate prediction? ”
No. No more than the erroneous classification of water as an element prior to the 18th century would threaten the definition of ‘element’as ‘consisting of one type of atom’. Definitions do not entail their infallible use.
“deficiencies of intelligence”
‘Deficiences of knowledge’ seems a kinder way to put it. But yes, this is important. That the folk who use moral terms may lack knowledge means that we cannot just take their use of terms as correct, and so we cannot simply read off the meaning of moral terms from the situations in which they are used. We need to take into account their beliefs, too, which prompt the use of moral language. By doing so we can reconcile the apparently contradictory use of terms in, say, the first versus the second half ot the 20th century.
“So, I still don’t see where or how desirism can address the ‘moral good’, as Fyfe clearly specifies he’s in fact talking about the ‘generic good’, at least up to IV in his introductory article. ”
Suppose the psychopath desires to murder. Then to murder is, relative to the psychopath, good. It fulfills his desire. But for the psychopath to murder describes an event, not a desire. And moral good or evil only assess desires. So whereas the murder is not apt for moral assesment, the psychopath’s desire to murder is. On the whole, the desire to murder is desire-thwarting, so the desire to murder is evil.
So that’s the distinction between generic good and moral good – they generally apply to different kinds of things, and the former is agent-relative, whereas the latter is not.
“..that a desire fulfills more and stronger desires than it thwarts doesn’t make it good, because, as Cartesian’s
Nazi example pointed out, by desirism we can also make torture of innocents ‘good’ although none of us believes that “torture of innocents is good” is a true statement.”
I’m sympathetic to Cartesian’s example. If Desirism really does concern only those desires which exist then I think the theory makes a fatally wrong prediction here. The fact that Cartesian’s example may well be practically impossible, as some would argue, does nothing to diminish it’s potency, for the point of a definition is to have a rule which would tell us whether a term applies in all possible situations, not just some. On the other hand, I think the theory is easily rehabilitated if we consider, not just existing desires, but the range of possible desires of all agents.
I’m not interested in defending that view here, nor in defending Fyfe’s Desirism against Cartesian’s example. But I’m impressed enough in the theory to defend it against other attacks.
faithlessgod
says...Hi cl et al
First Fye’s essay is a good starting point but it is relatively old and some of Fyfe’s ideas have been revised in the light of scrutiny from many (including me). For example, he would no longer use the phrase “We are seeking to maximize desire fulfillment over desire thwarting”. If or when issues come up on this and other revised points come up, I will draw your attention to them.
However, AFAICT, so far the issues you raise are simpler and do not revolve around such revisions.
Desirism is based on the desire fulfilment theory of value (DFTV)which is predicated on the lack of support for intrinsic value. It is an extrinsic value theory.
You appear to accept this extrinsic value theory but then make an exception, without argument yet, that it does not apply to moral value. You instead posit, again without argument, an alternate intrinsic value theory.
1. You need to provide a ratio-empirical argument at least equal to that of DFTV for your intrinsic value theory (ITV).
2. You need to show that when these theories clash that your ITV is demonstrably superior to DFTV.
3. Since your ITV is apparently based on some form of Divine Command Theory which is logically incoherent in this context, you first need to show that your theory is logically coherent otherwise you have no argument.
4. You have completely omitted Fyfe’s application (in this essay) of DFTV to explaining “useful”. Since you posit a different and non-desirist definition of “useful” you need explain this egregious omission.
5. Given the above points, you need to show how the DFTV is inaccurate in regard to “moral” and “useful” evaluations even though you agree the theory is accurate.
6. You need to show how your definition of “useful” is better than the DFTV one.
7. If a model is efficient and accurate then surely these are sufficient conditions to be true in this context. On what basis do you seek necessary conditions?
8. You are confused over the semantic issues here but Tai Chi seems to be dealing with this so I will leave that up to his capable hands.
That is enough for now.
On a side note and I do not want to be side-tracked by comments not directly addressing the OP, but Cartesian’s Nazi example (and Thomas Reid’s) is a big fail – a poor straw man argument – and if anyone thinks this is a good argument then they do not understand desirism and have rendered themselves incapable of providing criticism of this theory. (I have already pointed out these errors in various blogs such as Luke’s,my own, Justin Martyr and Thomas Reid’s)
Thomas Reid
says...faithlessgod,
Regarding your points 1 through 3, I honestly think you should tone it down on promulgating this disjunction between divine command theory and desirism, unless you can show that accepting one necessarily entails denying the other.
As a sort of inductive argument it seems helpful to use this comparison when explaining why you prefer one theory over the other. But again, unless it can be shown that there is a disjunction here, supposed objections to divine command theory just aren’t relevant to objections to desirism formed on the basis of desirism’s fundamentals. And on this point it seems pretty clear that the Nazi objection is a valid objection requiring some modification to the theory. We can find similar, real-world, examples to the Nazi objection, such as child sacrifice in Aztec culture (I mentioned it briefly back at CSA).
Regarding my original syllogism (http://impartialism.blogspot.com/2009/11/letter-to-thomas-reid-iii-on-desirism.html) you declared that the second premise was unsound but only by simply denying the parameters of the example posed to you. I argued how it was possible to create a scenario where a desire “overall tends to fulfill more than thwart all other desires” (I quoted your definition of a “good desire”) and yet it was still an obviously evil desire. Now unless you can show the scenario is not possible, the objection stands. Cartesian’s example at CSA follows the same line of reasoning. I won’t put words in his mouth, but I’m guessing cl has similar reservations. I look forward to reading your responses on the series here.
cl
says...TaiChi,
My apologies; I just finished responding to faithlessgod and Thomas, when I remembered that you had a comment before theirs I haven’t addressed yet. I’ll try my best to get to it promptly but for now I’ve gotta run.
faithlessgod,
Correct. Since that was never being contested, I’m unsure as to your reasoning for mentioning it. Now that you mention it, do you see the problem with your statement? To say that the extrinsic value theory of desirism is predicated on the “lack of support” for an intrinsic value theory is to use a textbook argument from ignorance. Curious: can you show me words from Fyfe that concur with your assessment here? Meaning, does Fyfe also claim desirism is “predicated on the lack of support for intrinsic value?” I would imagine he does not, because I would not expect a writer of his caliber to settle for an argument from ignorance.
Hmmm… to paraphrase, I stated that I believe desirism is accurate and efficient, but that these do not make it true or worthy of being called the best moral theory. Is that what you’re referring to? If so, I gave my perfunctory argument, and included examples in the thread – none of which you addressed.
Further, note this is the introductory post to the series, as in, the type of post where one would typically jettison expanded arguments in favor of a brief sketch of their opening premises / questions / definitions / etc. I offer these now as a courtesy, so that later on, folks will have a clear set of statements to hold me accountable to.
Given that consideration, most of your points 1-8 are unwarranted, but I am interested in 4. I would accept your criticism if you would show how my definition of “useful” in premise 1 has compromised this discussion.
Though the claim that one understands a nuanced philosophical theory 100% is likely never true, I disagree, and would ask that if you’re not going to take the time to support a claim, don’t make it. Actually identify these “semantic issues” you claim I’m confused about; don’t just assert them. I put real time into this introductory piece, precisely to silence baseless, off-the-cuff claims that I “misunderstand” Fyfe’s terminology. I’ve listed over a dozen of Fyfe’s premises in his own words, and addressed them accordingly. If you think I misunderstand something, by all means, I welcome your enlightenment, but don’t just sit on the sidelines and lob orange peels; actually do the work. If you can, and it is valid, then it will be for the better.
Alright, while I somewhat admire confidence, now you’re just coming across like an ass. I say that because your comment completely omits any possibility that desirism – or your own understanding of it – might contain some flaws. Instead, you simply denounce critics as incompetent, assuring us that you’ve “pointed out these errors” elsewhere. I have certainly heard you assert that Cartesian’s example fails, but I have not seen you make a case that is anywhere near as persuasive as said example. AFAICT, Cartesian’s example has persuaded more thinkers than your assertions, and, you don’t find me or Cartesian running around claiming that anyone who disagrees with us is incomptetent.
More, Fyfe himself conceded that per desirism, child torture can be referred to as ‘good’ given certain circumstances:
That should be a big clue right there, meaning that the relevance to Cartesian’s example should be apparent. Granted, Fyfe states that he doesn’t think this raises a problem for desirism, but as you can probably imagine, I disagree. Specifically, such raises a problem for desirism’s reliability in apprehending ‘good’ desires.
Thomas,
That’s exactly correct, and part of why I maintain most of faithlessgod’s points 1-8 are unwarranted.
I agree. I’d clarify that the Nazi and child torture/sacrifice examples are instances where – given the necessary antecedent conditions – desirism can evaluate as ‘good’ desires that any moral person would obviously and instinctually evaluate as ‘bad’. The reason it does this – IMO – is because of the arbitrary definition of ‘good’ Fyfe uses.
Now, I can hear somebody thinking, “But Fyfe’s definition of ‘good’ is not arbitrary, it’s objective: it’s based on the sum total of desires that exist,” or something like that. True, that would make Fyfe’s definition of ‘good’ objective, in the sense that it has a referent in reality: the sum total of agents’ desires. In that sense, Fyfe’s definition is not arbitrary. However, we need to remember that the sum total of agents’ desires is actually nothing more than a large set of subjective feelings. As such, they are no more inherently true than our subjective feelings that use of asbestos and styrofoam was ‘good’ [note I’m referring only to desires Fyfe would call malleable].
This leads right back to one of my central objections: X cannot rightly be called ‘good’ simply because it fulfills more and stronger desires than it thwarts.
You articulate this to faithlessgod thusly:
While I always appreciate hesitancy to speak for others, that’s exactly what I’m saying, and I agree with you that the burden of production falls to faithlessgod and/or anyone else who says these examples fail.
faithlessgod
says...Thomas
Certainly denying DCT does not entail accepting desirism. One does not need desirism to show the flaws of DVT, just reason.
However since CL brought in an intrinsic value argument in his post and implied DCT in a comment to this post – in addition to DCT points in the comment thread on Luke’s site which led to this post (well, it led me to this post) my points 1 to 3 are quite relevant issues that Cl needs to deal with.
You yet again bring up Nazi examples (and others). Well since desirism can easily deal with such examples and DCT miserably fails, the problem is with your theory not mine.
I have repeatedly explained to you the straw man you are arguing for and merely repeating the straw man is not an argument. Either address and criticise the actual desirist solution to the challenge or concede defeat.
faithlessgod
says...Hi CL
Alonzo, myself and others have written much on the failure of intrinsic value – providing evidence and arguments (Mackie’s “Inventing Right and Wrong” is the classic modern starting point). It is certainly not an argument from ignorance.
In your comment you said:“to paraphrase, I stated that I believe desirism is accurate and efficient, but that these do not make it true or worthy of being called the best moral theory. Is that what you’re referring to? If so, I gave my perfunctory argument, and included examples in the thread – none of which you addressed.”
In your OP all you said was “I agree that charity and honesty in fact are good desires, and I would even agree that they are good at least in part because, as desirism would predict – they fulfill more and stronger desires than they thwart – but I believe this only works because the desires in question are intrinsically good to begin with; that is to say, they are not necessarily good because desirism makes them so.” and the rest of the post was over semantic issues of moral terms. (Why interfere with Tai Chi when he is doing a good job so far?) So nothing you have said here excuses you from answering points 1,2 and 3 in any forthcoming posts.
” I am interested in 4. I would accept your criticism if you would show how my definition of “useful” in premise 1 has compromised this discussion.”
It is in the original essay by Alonzo! Look it up you claim to have read it a few times, now prove it!
“Further, note this is the introductory post to the series, as in, the type of post where one would typically jettison expanded arguments in favor of a brief sketch of their opening premises / questions / definitions / etc.
Given that consideration, most of your points 1-8 are unwarranted”
I was listing the points that you would need to deal with or resolve based on your introduction. You asked for feedback and you got it! You have not shown that any of these points are unwarranted and need to be dealt with in your follow up posts.
cl
says...Sorry TaiChi, I guess the squeaky wheel gets the grease:
faithlessgod,
I’m aware that I asked for feedback; I asked if anybody saw any oversights or misunderstandings I might have made. You proceeded to lecture me on what I had to do regarding DCT, but the topic under discussion is whether or not I’ve understood desirism as delineated by Fyfe. Granted, I expect that it’s likely I do misunderstand one or more of Fyfe’s intended meanings. However, you simply waltzed in and asserted that I was confused with no supporting evidence, then denounced supporters of Cartesian’s Nazi example as incompetent, which is just a step or two away from an ad hominem argument.
You seem to imply I’m unfamiliar with Fyfe’s introductory article. Note the I didn’t ask you where Fyfe defines “useful” but how my definition of useful compromises this discussion. Sure, I’ll do the work for you: From Fyfe’s essay, section IV(B):
There it is. Now, again, how does my definition of “useful” compromise this discussion?
You did not meaningfully answer my questions,
“can you show me words from Fyfe that concur with your assessment here? Meaning, does Fyfe also claim desirism is ‘predicated on the lack of support for intrinsic value?'” You simply replied that,
That does not point me to an argument where Alonzo claims desirism is “predicated on the lack of support for intrinsic value.” It may well be that he’s written such, or something categorically equivalent, but if that’s the case then it’s your job as positive claimant to back that up. Can you show me a link?
I didn’t say either Mackie’s argument or what you and Alonzo have written elsewhere constitutes an argument from ignorance. I said that your claim here – specifically, that “the desire fulfilment theory of value (DFTV) [is] predicated on the lack of support for intrinsic value – constitutes an argument from ignorance, as stated here.
This (the claim in bold) is incorrect. From the OP, in fact beginning the third paragraph, I said,
So the bit about charity and ITV was clearly NOT all I said. Further, your claim that such was “without argument” also untrue: I gave a perfunctory argument explaining why I believe that, although desirism is efficient and accurate, such does not necessarily make it true:
I also included more real-world examples in the thread: asbestos, styrofoam, etc. You did not address them.
Now, one last try: can you clearly answer each of the following, please..
How does my definition of ‘useful’ compromise this discussion?
Can you show me a link to an article or comment or something where Alonzo could reasonably be said to concur with your statement that desirism is ‘predicated on the lack of support for intrinsic value?’
Did you address either the perfunctory argument previously cited [I don’t see that X can be accurately described as good simply because it fulfills other desires, specifically, more and stronger desires than it thwarts], or the specific examples cited [asbestos, styrofoam, etc.]? If yes, where? If no, why not – and more importantly – will you?
Can you summarize your allegedly-sound refutation of Cartesian’s Nazi example here? If not, can you point to a link where you have?
If you cannot answer those questions clearly and succinctly, though your comments will remain welcome, I don’t see that further progress is likely and as such, I’ll no longer take the time to re-explain what is clearly written, while you overlook it.
No offense, but it takes enough time to write these posts.
faithlessgod
says...You complained on a thread on Luke’s site of remaining on topic but now you insist on going off topic in your own thread!
Anyway there is nothing to refute in Cartesian’s Nazi or equivalent arguments since they are not a conclusion of desirism, but straw men. It is quite boring when people repeatedly make the same mistakes and ignore objections as if they never occurred well. About whether they are incompetent, being mislead, acting maliciously or whatever, I have no opinion. Certainly persisting this way is evidence that they are failing to address desirism, that is my point.Anyway the first thiing that springs to mind is this thread http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=7374 – search for my comments, which shows this. If you want to address this then do so in a post of your own here I will respond there. Lets get back on topic?
You are being really silly over your obsession with the phrase “predicated on the lack of support for intrinsic value?” The point remains the same given that intrinsic value does not exist, how can we get a realist theory of value? DF is one such answer out of many, and IMHO the best I have seen to date. Trivially all such theories are predicated on the lack of support for intrinsic value, otherwise why bother to search for alternatives?
As you have now conceded, you gave a different definition of useful that contradicts the whole point of Fyfe’s essay, that compromises this discussion. and it is most certainly legitimate to point this out.
As for lecturing you on DCT. Lecture? I was referring to your intrinsic value claim which contradicts the whole extrinsic value basis of Fyfe’s argument. I gave you three short points which you needed to address in any follow up post. If you think that a lecture you must be watching too much MTV.
IIRC, Tai Chi was addressing your semantic confusion of the term “good” carry on with him, I said then and repeat now I would let him carry on with that. I was and am addressing other failings in your introduction. I was not addressing what you agreed with! Why bother to repeat your three claims I did not need to address? Bizarre.
How about you just get on with your follow up post and lets see what you have?
cl
says...faithlessgod,
Regarding IVT, as Thomas Reid noted, you took a comment I made in passing and addressed it as if it were the meat of the claim, emphasizing a perceived disjunction between two theories when this post – and this series – is about desirism, not DCT. That is why I denounced most of your points as unwarranted, because your opinions of what I need to do in order to persuade you of DCT have no bearing on what I need to do regarding Fyfe’s desirism.
Yet another accusation with nothing to support it. Fascinating.
Yet, you said we were incompetent (technically, incapable), so have you retracted your previous opinion that we are incapable, or, is your current statement that you have no opinion false?
Grab a dictionary, look up concede and then realize that you are mistaken. I’ve conceded no such thing and now you’re putting words in my mouth. Rather, I listed the pertinent source material, then asked you to explain how my definition of ‘useful’ compromised this dicussion. You still haven’t answered that question, by the way. I would imagine you understand the difference between assertions and supported claims, but every time I give you a chance you come back empty-handed. What am I supposed to do? Write a few thousand more words only to have to read them back to you?
I would love to, and probably could have by now, but somebody keeps gassing on.
faithlessgod
says...Well You seem to want to continue gassing on, I do not. You asked for feedback on your post, I gave it to you, deal with it.
cl
says...I have been; I’ve dealt with every objection you raised. Each time I passed a question back to you, you either moved on to something else or replied with a non-sequitur. For example, all your comments on DCT.
I’m all for constructive criticism, but that entails actually demonstrating your case and staying on topic. Desirism is the topic, not DCT, which factored into the OP only peripherally.
So, if you could, go ahead and support the claims you’ve made. Else, I’ll catch you on the next one.
cl
says...http://www.thewarfareismental.net
Thomas Reid,
So I was looking for fodder for future posts in this series, and I just finished reading faithlessgod’s post and your response.
I agree with your three objections as stated. However, I couldn’t get fully behind your reasoning for objection 1, that desirism is an internally contradictory theory. Perhaps I just didn’t fully understand what you were saying, but either way, I think the examples raised by yourself, Cartesian, myself and others better illustrate that desirism can be contradictory, both the hypothetical examples we’ve discussed, and the real-world ones. I’ll discuss this in more detail later, but I do agree with your three objections as you stated them.
To date, I’ve not seen any refutation of the Nazi example from any of desirism’s defenders, nor have I heard a successful explanation of why the Nazi example constitutes a strawman argument, though I have asked for both.
cl
says...TaiChi,
You had raised the point about Fyfe “offering a non-obvious definition of the good that is plausible just if his definition makes the right sort of predictions,” and in response to that, I had said,
You replied,
The other aspects I was referring to were desirism’s accuracy and efficiency. IOW,
1) I agree desirism is accurate;
2) I agree desirism is efficient;
3) But neither its accuracy or efficiency make it true.
Does that make sense? If so, do you agree? Disagree?
Moving on to the asbestos/styrofoam examples, you really don’t think desirism cast a wrong prediction? I thought that was a slam dunk, so much so that I intend to expound on it significantly in Part 2. Of course, maybe I’m off, but I’m really interested in hearing why you don’t think desirism cast a wrong prediction in those cases.
Elsewhere, I’ve referred to it as ‘lack of knowledge’, but yeah, I agree. The point is that I’m trying not to imply stupidity. There are simply things we do not and cannot know at any given time.
Could you expand on that point possibly? The way I see it, in the first half of the 20th century, desirism would necessarily uphold asbestos/styrofoam as ‘good’ because they tended (we thought) to fulfill more and stronger desires than they thwarted, yet, once we learned more about those things, desirism would also necessarily uphold them as ‘bad’ because they actually tend to thwart more and stronger desires than they fulfill. I see this as a clear-cut, real-world example supporting the claim that desirism can lead to contradictory conclusions for the same desire(s).
I understand all that, I think. The generic good is in fact agent-relative as you say, however, the moral good is agents-relative, as it pertains to how a desire affects the sum total of desires that exist. Another way of saying this would be that the generic good is what’s good to the agent, the moral good is what’s good for all the agents. Or, the generic good is what the person thinks is good, whereas the moral good is what’s really good. Right?
What I don’t understand is how desirism can tell us what the moral good is in any situation. It can only tell us a desire is good relative to whether or not it fulfills more and stronger desires than it thwarts.
TaiChi
says...cl,
“The other aspects I was referring to were desirism’s accuracy and efficiency. IOW,
1) I agree desirism is accurate;
2) I agree desirism is efficient;
3) But neither its accuracy or efficiency make it true.
Does that make sense?”
Not really, no. What I wanted from you were the other OTHER aspects that elucidate your 3 – i.e. the reason why you feel justified in claiming that the predictive power and efficiency of Desirism are not sufficient grounds for thinking it true. What extra is missing, that would constitute sufficient grounds for thinking it true?
“The way I see it, in the first half of the 20th century, desirism would necessarily uphold asbestos/styrofoam as ‘good’ because they tended (we thought) to fulfill more and stronger desires than they thwarted, yet, once we learned more about those things, desirism would also necessarily uphold them as ‘bad’ because they actually tend to thwart more and stronger desires than they fulfill. I see this as a clear-cut, real-world example supporting the claim that desirism can lead to contradictory conclusions for the same desire(s).”
Whether a desire is desire-satisficing or desire-thwarting is an objective fact. Different people have different opinions on matters of objective fact, and some of these opinions can be wrong. So people can be wrong about which desires are desire-satisficing rather than desire-thwarting. Thus, Desirism is not bound to conclude that moral good coincides popular opinion, and this effectively dismantles your criticism.
But obviously, once can’t propose a theory about morality and then insulate it from criticism by pointing out, when counterexamples are produced, that the theory is objective and therefore need not conform to popular opinion. The recognition that the verdicts given by opinion and theory differ places an obligation on one who is proposing the theory to give an explanation of those opinions which plausibly show the opinions to be incorrect.
One kind of explanation to give would be to assert that, although those who hold opinions contradicting the theory have a grasp of the moral concepts they are using, they lack access to the facts required to apply these concepts correctly. And this is just the kind of explanation that seems appropriate in your asbestos/styrofoam cases – people didn’t know any better. Had they access to the facts that we do today, then they would make just the same judgments we do, and use the same terms to describe them. Surely some of what is known now but was not known then includes facts about how asbestos and styrofoam are desire-thwarting materials. So the Desirist can point to this epistemic difference to explain a different application of moral terminology whilst retaining his theory.
Finally, I want to add that I find it curious you think this is a slam-dunk refutation of Desirism, for Desirism is not essential to your example at all. It remains a fact, without the interpretive schema of Desirism, that people in the early twentieth century thought styrofoam and asbestos were good, and that people nowadays think these are bad. So the contradiction is there, if it is a contradiction, regardless. Perhaps you should conclude that “there is nothing either good or
bad, but thinking makes it so”.
“I understand all that, I think. The generic good is in fact agent-relative as you say, however, the moral good is agents-relative, as it pertains to how a desire affects the sum total of desires that exist… Right?”
Right.
“What I don’t understand is how desirism can tell us what the moral good is in any situation. It can only tell us a desire is good relative to whether or not it fulfills more and stronger desires than it thwarts.”
Well, I don’t know what to say to your insistence on drawing a division between what Desirism describes as moral good and what you think of as moral good. I accept that this is your view, of course, but unless you offer a reason for this division, I can’t help you see things another way.
cl
says...Ah, got it now.
If desirism could not easily be made to lead to contradictions (specifically, labelling the same desire as both ‘good’ and ‘bad’), I would say that constitutes solid additional evidence for thinking it true.
If you want to argue that the desire to use asbestos/styrofoam was *really* desire-thwarting all along, I’m willing to grant that, and in fact, it turns out this is what you do apparently argue in the paragraph, “One kind of explanation… whilst retaining his theory.”
I disagree that such dismantles my criticism – either my specific criticism of asbestos/styrofoam, or my general criticism of desirism’s amenability to contradictory evaluations. The way I see it, the proponent of desirism needs to explain why the theory should be regarded as true if faithful application of it can and has been shown to lead to error. You allude to this when you say,
So why should the theory be regarded as true, especially since it’s undeniable that faithful application of it can be shown and has been shown to lead to error?
Whoa, whoa, whoa… I didn’t say “slam-dunk refutation of desirism.” I said I felt that asbestos/styrofoam was a slam-dunk example of an instance where “desirism cast a wrong prediction.” I maintain that such is true: faithful application of desirist principles led people to the erroneous conclusion that the desires to use asbestos/styrofoam were good.
Certainly. My point is that a faithful application of desirism could not prevent the error. The use of asbestos/styrofoam was decreed as ‘good’ or at least ‘permissible’ at that time, precisely because a faithful application of desirism led us to that conclusion.
How am I insisting on a drawing a division? I just described what I think of as moral-good in desirist terms, and you said “right.”
I’m puzzled as to the view and division you allude to..
faithlessgod
says...Oh dear, you are really getting ridiculous.
So lets go over this one more time.
1. It is a FACT that you did not indicate in your summary of desirism that the essay to which you referred provided an explanation of useful – which you did not acknowledge in the OP.
2. It is a FACT that you conceded this by you quoting his actual explanation in a comment here.
3. It is a FACT that you used a different definition of useful for which you have given NO ARGUMENT. All you said was “Granted, Fyfe clarified that he intends good to be interpreted in a generic or utilitarian manner, i.e., ‘such as to fulfill other desires,’ but I think the words capable or useful would be more appropriate if that is the sentiment we wish to convey.” Now on what basis do you think so? Where is the argument for this?
4. I now see another error the quote above, this is not over the generic good but desirism’s explanation of moral good as should be quite clear to anyone who read his essay. (And generic and utilitarian are quite different concepts).
5. “How does desirism address what Fyfe describes as the specific or moral good? Perhaps it does not or cannot and I’m evaluating the theory against claims it does not make? Or, perhaps I’ve missed something somewhere along the way?” Yes you missed something on the way. As myself and Tai Chi are pointing out.
6. You asked how one distinguishes between good,bad and permissible desires and provided Fyfe’s answer but without the extrinsic value argument provided in the essay, indeed that is the whol basis of the essay. You then introduced an intrinsic value alternative without any argument “but I believe this only works because the desires in question are intrinsically good to begin with; that is to say, they are not necessarily good because desirism makes them so.” Looks like an argument from belief. My previous suggestion was that you need to make an actual argument in your follow up to this post. That still stands, with or without DCT as an explanation. Your call.
7. Further Fyfe makes no argument that these are necessarily so, only that he claims that this model “handles every instance of good and bad in the real world”.
You finally make claims about what you plan to do – which does reflate to point 7 above – but until you provide any argument for those last three paragraphs, in your next post ion this topic, then there is nothing yet to address.
Now I review back what I originally wrote there is not much difference. It is up to you what intrinsic value theory you might use.
In all you responses there is only one really useful question you asked, the answer being obvious, especially since you finally quoted Fyfe’s “useful” explanation clearly not to you. You asked “Now, again, how does my definition of “useful” compromise this discussion?”
Here are a few related examples:
The Nazis found it useful to take advantage of the largely Christian German nation – it was after all the home of the Lutheran Protestant Reformation. It was part of their original definition of the Aryan nation – German as a first language speaking Christians (which deals with German as a first language speaking Jews of course). Then their is Got-Mit-Uns and their non-denominational Positive Christianity and so on and so forth. Having “God with us” was most certainly as useful tool to further their promotion of desire-thwarting desires.
On the other hand, no doubt, the Allies were fighting a “just War” and believed God was on their side too. It was also useful in helping support their cause which was to inhibit the Nazi’s desire-thwarting desires.
Indeed through history both sides in many issues have found God useful to have on their side whether it is slave owners using it to justify their desire-thwarting desires or those opposed to slavery using it to inhibit such desire-thwarting desires. Whether it is misogynist societies using it to support the desire-thwarting of half their population or opponents using it to emancipate women and so promote desire-fulling desires.
Indeed God as a useful idea has been know for a long time as Seneca the Younger said “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful”
Indeed many still find God a useful idea today to sometimes to promote desire-fulfilling desires such as honesty and charity but also to promote desire-thwarting desires such as Sharia Law states, voters in favour of Proposition 9 in California, the September the 11th Plane Bombers etc.
All in all, these examples goes to show a wide divergence between your unexplained application of useful and desirism’s explanation of useful, of which the latter is quite consistent with the above (and other) usage and yours is not.
So, yes, your re-definition of useful does compromise this discussion.
faithlessgod
says...Two points that will help you provide better criticism of desirism rather than worthless criticisms.
1. First regarding Cartesian/Reid Nazi arguments.
I specifically answered Reid in three posts and for him to still claim that he has seen no refutation is a plain lie. Quite ironic given that we are discussing morality. One certainly could not use him as a reliable guide to what is moral. This is what is called a legitimate ad hominem, that is a valid argument point but that does not apply to anyone else.
So, for everyone else, these arguments all resolve around a classical conception of a form of act utilitarianism, (whether that is held or not by any modern act utilitarian is irrelevant). It is sometime labelled Desire Fulfilment Act Utilitarianism by myself and Fyfe. Regardless of modern utilitarian responses, it is not desirism.
Indeed this is the main reason I came up with the label “desirism”, so as to minimise confusion between Desire Utilitarianism and Act Utilitarianism (whether based on maximising desire fulfilment or some other utility).
These arguments are straw men.
2. Regarding “It is not unreasonable to say that much of what people living in the first half called ‘good’ – precisely because they believed it fulfilled more and stronger desires than it thwarted – actually turned out to be ‘bad’ – precisely because it actually thwarted more and stronger desires than it fulfilled: e.g. desires for unsustainable farming, desires to use lead and asbestos in housing, or desires to use styrofoam. In fact, wouldn’t you agree that each of those is an excellent example of a non-obvious case where desirism failed to make an accurate prediction? ”
Not so. The development of asbestos etc. are not “moral goods” AFAICS here the correct value term is “useful”, in the desirist usage
of this term.
Anyway it is certainly the case that these were once regarded as useful and now are not, indeed they are hazardous and harmful.
Desirism or more accurately in this scenario DFTV would predict these would be regarded as useful when originally developed – due the lack of certain facts – and predict that in the light of such new fact this evaluation would change, as it has.
What desirism would say is that if, in the light of these new facts, people persisted in using these materials and practices
they creating pseudo-justifications to carry on using them – such as would do so by denying or ignoring these facts. It would also show that such desires are bad and actions are wrong since these would not be the desires and actions of a good person, one with good desires that is desires that tend to fulfil other desires.
As opposed to point 1 above this is a far better question and one worthy of an answer or further debate. I hope you continue with type 2 examples than type 1, that would at least show you are beginning to understand desirism to try to criticise it and not something else.
Thomas Reid
says...cl,
You said:
To see the difference, it might be easiest to contrast Objection 1 with Objection 3.
Objection 3 (the famed “Nazi example”) demonstrates that it is possible to have a scenario where desirism would judge a certain desire to be good that we know, through some other means, is actually evil. So desirism is false on this view, although it is still coherent.
In the case of Objection 1, desirism labels the exact same desire both good and evil. Since that is impossible, desirism must be false. This objection exposes the problem of assuming that we have only two outcomes with respect to certain desires: either a desire will (a) overall tend to fulfill more than thwart all other desires or (b) overall tend to thwart more than fulfill all other desires. In fact, there may be a desire D such that both D and ~D overall tend to fulfill more than thwart all other desires (such as in the example I constructed). If D happens to be worthy of moral analysis, then desirism cannot be used to analyze D. So in these cases, either D is not a moral desire, or desirism is false.
As you can see, the difference between Objection 1 and Objection 3 is that the former relies entirely on desirism’s principles to generate a contradictory result (thus I said it was internally contradictory), whereas in Objection 3 it produces a result that contradicts facts known by some other means (intuition, for example).
Make of faithlessgod’s responses what you will.
cl
says...faithlessgod,
Correct; I felt no need to, because my definition does not compromise the discussion. You have not shown that it does.
You then proceed to quote,
Nowhere in what you quoted did I offer a definition of useful. I said that I felt Fyfe’s definition of good really reflects what the average person means when they use the terms capable or useful. The argument was laid out: I said I don’t see that [desire] X can rightly be called good simply because it tends to fulfill other desires.
I did define ‘useful’ as I intended it in my premise 1, and I defined it there as, ‘capable of fulfilling the desires in question.’ My definition of ‘useful’ as such does not compromise this discussion. I’ve asked you several times to actually support your assertion that it does. Comment after comment, you simply re-asserted it.
I understand the difference between the generic good and the moral good as delineated in Fyfe’s essay. I explained this to TaiChi thusly:
Clearly, I understand the man.
Correct, and this time, you wrote five paragraphs that are irrelevant.
Fyfe said, “Useful things are useful in the sense that they fulfill desires.”
I said, “capable of fulfilling the desire(s) in question.”
Further, none of my objections to desirism are founded upon a definition of ‘useful’ that differs from Fyfe’s.
That’s why neither of my uses of the word ‘useful’ compromise this discussion.
Thomas Reid
says...bah, I said this poorly:
That ought to read:
“In fact, there may be a desire D such that both fulfilling D and thwarting D overall tend to fulfill more than thwart all other desires (such as in the example I constructed).”
cl
says...faithlessgod,
I see. Now you resort to implying that the dissenting commenter is a liar. I’m not impressed.
I read all three of your posts, and Reid’s. I see that you both made some decent points, but overall, Reid’s objections are sound (your complaining about the DFAU/DU disjunction temporarily notwithstanding, which I’ll address soon enough). Reid’s objections were also more clearly articulated than your responses, which is consistent with the claim that he put more thought into his objections that you did to your responses. Point is, your responses weren’t anywhere near sound enough to justify your accusation.
Justify your ad hominen however you want; it’s a bunch of crap to me. First you labeled all supporters of the Nazi example incapable, then you turned around and denied that you had an opinion as to their incompetence, and now you imply that a single dissenter a liar. In my experience, presumptuous and aggressive attitudes like these tend to ruin what could otherwise be fruitful discussions. I don’t know what school of rationalism you subscribe to, but I was taught to doubt myself first and give the interlocutor the benefit of the doubt – not to mention basic respect. I can attest that it works wonders.
Incidentally, I would say your desire to label Thomas a liar and denounce supporters of the Nazi example as incapable thwarts more desires than it fulfills: it might fulfill some desire of yours – perhaps to flex your own ego, avoid cognitive dissonance, or who knows what – but it thwarts the desires of the rest of, who want to have a meaningful discussion and get on the same page.
Listen, your welcomed to keep spouting smarmy arrogance all day long, but I’ve not got the time for it today, as it’s a beautiful outside. So on that note, I’ll see ya around.
cl
says...Thomas,
I see the distinctions between 1 and 3: 3 provides a label of ‘good’ for desire(s) the average person clearly believes are ‘bad’ (for whatever reasons), whereas 1 provides a label of both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ for the same desire(s) depending on the antecedent conditions. Right?
My objection to 1 was echoed by a guy named Dan in one of faithlessgod’s threads:
faithlessgod affirmed Dan’s objection in this regard, as do I, but I’m interested in hearing your thoughts.
However, presuming we’re on the same page regarding the antecedent conditions, I do believe that the Nazi example considers all desires that exist, and since here your language indicates that you are clearly evaluating desires
as opposed to acts – as far as I can see – this undermines the “strawman” criticism which – as far as I can see – is founded on the DFAU/DU disjunction.
I’m fully with you regarding 3. However, I’m not sure we can say 1 “relies entirely on desirism’s principles,” because – as I understand it – one of desirism’s core principles is that we are to evaluate desires based on their tendency to fulfill other desires (i.e., all other desires that exist). 1 does not seem to consider all desires that exist – but again – maybe I’m simply misunderstanding you.
I have; he’s not wrong, you’re a liar, we misunderstand desirism and anyone who supports the Nazi example is automatically incapable. Frankly, I wasn’t impressed.
I consider such objections to be petulant and rude. Nothing irks me more than personal accusations and ad hominem arguments. Unfortunately, it seems there are people like that on every forum – even the good ones.
On the other hand, I try to remember that truly rational people see that stuff for what it’s worth, so at the end of the day I’m not too worried about it. Still, don’t be surprised if I spend far less time addressing faithlessgod in the future. I just don’t have the time these days.
Thomas Reid
says...cl,
You said:
The parameters of Objection 1 would be that any and all other desires are thwarted or fulfilled to the same extent regardless of the outcome of the evaluation contained in the example. I fully agree that I didn’t make this clear in my first post on the topic. But, that’s only because I thought it was a pretty obvious requirement in order for my objection to go through. faithlessgod made a similar point to yours, and so in later correspondence with him I modified the objection to require explicitly all else to be the same regardless of whether the particular desire in the example was thwarted or fulfilled.
In any event, I still don’t see how the scenario I proposed is not possible, and so I think the objection stands. Unless you have additional questions, you can have the last word here, because I’m interested to see your next post.
TaiChi
says...Cl,
“So why should the theory be regarded as true, especially since it’s undeniable that faithful application of it can be shown and has been shown to lead to error?”
Because the theory explains the error – those who erroneously use moral terms lack access to the facts which would allow them to judge matters correctly. As I’ve patiently explained.
You appear to be under the misapprehension that a philosophical theory ought guarantee the correct use of a term it analyzes. Why?
“I maintain that such is true: faithful application of desirist principles led people to the erroneous conclusion that the desires to use asbestos/styrofoam were good.”
I doubt that is true, since Desirism is a recent invention. But in any case, so what? The error is quite obviously that of the people, and not of Desirism.
“My point is that a faithful application of desirism could not prevent the error.”
And any other moral theory could? Shall we then conclude that no moral theory is true?
Of course not. We are not testing a method, but a set of definitions. And these definitions can be accurate regardless of Desirism’s utility as a method of determining the good.
“How am I insisting on a drawing a division?”
By complaining that Desirism only tells us a desire is good relative to whether or not it fulfills more and stronger desires than it thwarts, not whether the desire is morally good. That’s begging the question against the Desirist.
Jnester
says...I’m only a little acquainted with this theory, but I think the topic is interesting and I’m able to follow your terms pretty clearly, Cl. That’s more than I can say for much I’ve read on the theory.
faithlessgod
says...Ok, Reid’s objection #3, again. :-(
His argument is predicated on the idea that a right act is one that maximises desire fulfilment – given the distribution of desires in that population. Reid’s principle point here is that the value of a desire can change not only by the distribution of desires in a population, but by changing the underlying population.
Now whilst act utilitarians would have various objections to Reid’s interpretation of act utilitarianism, Reid is not critiquing a desirist analysis. And a desirist analysis would make the same objection to the Act Utilitarian solution as Reid does.
A desirist analysis is predicated upon the idea that a right act is the act that a person with desire-fulfilling desires would perform.
The establishment of whether a desire fulfils (directly) or tends (indirectly) to fulfil other desires is invariant with respect the the distribution of the desire in the population and a fortiori the overall constituents of the population. This is the whole point of the solution that desirism offers to the problem of morality in general. That is the analysis is the same regardless of the distribution of the desires in the population or the constituents (past, present or future) of a population.
Since the whole basis of Reid’s objection fails to address a desirist solution, it is a straw man.
Comprende?
Thomas Reid
says...faithlessgod,
You wrote:
Nope. Objection #3 (the “Nazi example”) is predicated on the idea that an evil desire mistakenly is pronounced good just because it tends overall to fulfill more than thwart all other desires.
No, that’s not right, are you sure you meant this? The desire to sacrifice children to Molech was desire-fulfilling, but it wasn’t a good desire. Moreover, you’ve said repeatedly in the past that good desires are those that overall tend to fulfill more than thwart all other desires. So it’s not really true that a right act is the act that a person with desire-fulfilling desires would perform, because those aren’t necessarily good desires on your earlier definition.
But this is not under dispute in Objection 3. I never argued that whether or not the desire fulfills / tends to fulfill other desires depends on the distribution of the other desires. Of course, the other desires would have to exist or be possible to exist in order for the desire under question to fulfill them, but that should not be controversial between us.
The entire issue with respect to Objection 3 is, and always has been, what do we say of desire D when it tends overall to fulfill more than thwart all other desires, but D is still obviously an evil desire? Now, that conclusion does depend on a certain existence and distribution of certain desires, sure. But there’s nothing within desirism that doesn’t permit the reality of such a state of affairs. If there is, then please point this out to me, for I’ll have to add another objection to my list.
Sure, the analysis is the same regardless of the distribution, it’s just that the conclusion offered is different. You’re a sharp enough guy faithlessgod, I refuse to believe you don’t see the problem here. Did you read TaiChi’s proposed solutions to this exact problem back at CSA (the Sean McDowell thread)? If so, what did you think of them?
cl
says...faithlessgod,
The summary is that 1) I find your strawman claim wanting, and 2) I find that you’ve built a strawman of your own.
1) In your third letter to Thomas, you alleged he’d built a strawman: “..Reid persists in criticising
a desire fulfilment act utilitarianism (DFAU) as if it is desirism, when it is not.”
Luke Muelhauser writes on the DFAU/DU distinction thusly:
The desirism FAQ I linked to also treats the DFAU/DU distinction thusly:
In Thomas Reid’s introductory essay on DU, under ‘Brief Synopsis’ we find,
That statement indicates a clear understanding of the DFAU/DU distinction, and this is further supported by Reid’s summary of his objection as expressed in this thread:
Note that in both instances, Reid’s objects of evaluation are the desires themselves (DU), not the acts the desires precede (DFAU).
This makes Reid’s statement that the Nazi example,
..true, as well as worthy of being called a “desirist analysis” IMHO.
2) I say that you’ve built a strawman of your own because I concur with Reid when he objects to your,
..with,
As Reid pointed out, and I concur, you are apparently addressing an agrument Reid did not make, a.k.a., you’ve built a strawman.
Thomas Reid,
When faithlessgod says,
I agree that this is an accurate delineation, because ‘good’ and ‘desire-fulfilling’ are reasonably synonymous according to DU as delineated by Fyfe: “A right act is an act that a person with good desires would have performed, and a wrong act is an act that a person with good desires would not have performed.”
faithlessgod seems to have merely substituted ‘good’ with ‘desire-fulfilling.’ If that’s the case, would you agree such resolves the discrepancy? Or, have I possibly overlooked something?
Thomas Reid
says...(reposted since I formatted #34 so poorly, sorry)
cl,
You asked:
Yes, if he had just said in comment #31: “A desirist analysis is predicated upon the idea that a right act is the act that a person with good desires would perform”, I wouldn’t have said anything, for it seems that is what a desirist analysis comprises.
I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that on the desirist view, “good desires” are not necessarily just those that fulfill desires, but instead they are desires that overall tend to fulfill more than thwart all other desires. I’m pretty sure faithlessgod would agree to this, since he’s defended this definition previously in our blog exchange.
cl
says...Thomas,
Correct, and this is yet another example of solid understanding of DU. This puts an even higher burden of production on faithlessgod, as it undermines his claims that you conflate DFAU/DU.
TaiChi
says...Reid,
Regarding Objection #1..
“This objection exposes the problem of assuming that we have only two outcomes with respect to certain desires: either a desire will (a) overall tend to fulfill more than thwart all other desires or (b) overall tend to thwart more than fulfill all other desires.” ~ Reid
I’ve nowhere seen Fyfe or any other of Desirism’s defenders say that every desire must be either good or bad. So where do you take the view that Desirism excludes the option of moral neutrality?
“Suppose that if A’s desire for X is thwarted, then B’s desire for Y will be fulfilled and B’s desire will be stronger than A’s.
Suppose also that if A’s desire for X is fulfilled, then B’s desire for Y will be thwarted and A’s desire will be stronger than B’s. In each case, A and B influence only each other’s desire.
Should A’s desire be fulfilled?
If A’s desire for X is thwarted, then total desire fulfillment will increase. Therefore A’s desire for X [is] bad, that is it ought to be thwarted.
If A’s desire for X is fulfilled, then total desire fulfillment will increase. Therefore A’s desire for X is good, in the moral sense.
So is A’s desire for X good or bad? DU would seem to tell us “both”.” ~ Reid, from his “Desire Utilitarianism” post.
Unlike faithlessgod, I’m going to allow the presumption that this sketch could describe a moral conflict. Instead, I’d like to point out what I find defective in your analysis.
You begin your analysis by asking “Should A’s desire be fulfilled?”. This seems like the wrong question, since what Desirism evaluates is desires generally, and not the desires of a specific agent. The question should instead be: “Is the desire for X a good desire?”, the answer to this question allowing us to infer that A’s desire for X is good.
More importantly, your question goes wrong on the point that it asks whether a desire should be fulfilled, rather than whether the desire itself would tend to fulfill rather than thwart other desires. So here’s my criticism: you are comparing the effect of desire-fulfillment to desire-thwarting on desires in general, whereas you should be comparing the effect of the desire itself to the absence of the desire.
TaiChi
says...faithlessgod,
“The establishment of whether a desire fulfils (directly) or tends (indirectly) to fulfil other desires is invariant with respect the the distribution of the desire in the population and a fortiori the overall constituents of the population.” ~ fatihlessgod
With respect, I don’t really get this either. Perhaps it might help if you said just what desires counted in our calculations of moral value. Given any desire X, are we to assess X according to (a) its effect of desire satisfaction/thwarting in the present age, (b) its effect of desire satisfaction/thwarting over the course of human history, (c) its effect of desire satisfaction/thwarting over various possible situations, with weighting being given to those situations that are more likely than others, or (d) something else?
faithlessgod
says...Much of the argument is misleading. and irrelevant. No-one has responded to the only point that was relevant to Reid’s objection #3, certainly not Reid. So lets go back to Reid’s original statement
“For example, suppose the Nazis’s strongest desire is the extermination of the Jews, and suppose also that the Nazis are successful in defeating all others who oppose this view. Then the extermination of the Jews will move from “bad” to “good”. One need not adjust one’s malleable desires to make them “good”, one could also adjust the population.”
Unlike what has recently been discussed here, the whole point of Reid’s objection is that, under his claimed understandingly of desirism, a “bad” desire becomes a “good” desire due to a specific change of circumstance, namely the adjustment of a population. This is Reid’s argument that we are addressing.
I already answered this and no-one has responded in any adequate way. Further his argument makes no sense under desirism but does make some sense under act utilitarianism – I am sure utilitarians can meet his objections, but that is there job not mine.
When one performs an ethical evaluation of a desire one concludes as to whether it is desire-fulfilling desire, a desire-thwarting desires or a desire-neutral desire. It makes no difference to the evaluation as to whether the desire
in question is fulfilled or not.
In this case it is agreed that the desire to exterminate a people is a desire-thwarting desire. Reid, implies, but makes no argument, that if, in one circumstance, this desire is fulfilled and the people exterminated that this desire inexplicably becomes as desire-fulling desire. Until he explains how this can be he has failed to show that according to desirism a “bad” desire can become a “good” desire in this way.
Further we know that the desire to exterminate people has sometimes succeed in the past and sometimes failed. And this is still the case and threat today. A person with desire-fulfilling desires will seek to inhibit such a desire-thwarting desire. This would still be the case if all such people were eliminated from the planet. It would still be the case that a person with desire-fulfilling desires would discourage such a desire-thwarting desire as such as to exterminate a people or group.
Some may note that I have avoided using such subjective terms as “good”, “bad” and “”evil”. This is to avoid semantic confusion here. Desirism – and any objective moral model – does not need such terms and, in order for Reid’s criticism to succeed, he needs to show the change in status from a ethically undesirable (desire-thwarting) desire to a ethically desirable (desire-fulfilling) desire. If he does then it would be the case, that under desirism a “bad” desire becomes “good” in a significant fashion.
So far throughout this debate here and elsewhere there he has been zero argument to support his position.
faithlessgod
says...Hi TaiChi. You ask:
“Perhaps it might help if you said just what desires counted in our calculations of moral value. Given any desire X, are we to assess X according to (a) its effect of desire satisfaction/thwarting in the present age, (b) its effect of desire satisfaction/thwarting over the course of human history, (c) its effect of desire satisfaction/thwarting over various possible situations, with weighting being given to those situations that are more likely than others, or (d) something else?”
(d)You evaluate a causal desire in terms of its material and physical affect on (the fulfilment of) all other (effected) desires. The actual distribution, strengths and constitution in any population of both the causal and affected desires are confounding factors that must be eliminated in this analysis.
Further it is not satisficing/thwarting. In ethics this is based on the arguments of C.I. Lewis and James Griffin (Fyfe got it from Lewis, I got it from Griffin), where it is (external state) fulfilling/thwarting compared to (internal state) satisfying/frustrating. (Satisficing is a related but different economic concept that combines satisfaction and sufficiency).
faithlessgod
says...Thomas Reid
“are you sure you meant this?”
Yes
“The desire to sacrifice children to Molech was desire-fulfilling, but it wasn’t a good desire.”
No, that is not a desire-fulfilling desire, it is a desire-thwarting desire.
“Moreover, you’ve said repeatedly in the past that good desires are those that overall tend to fulfill more than thwart all other desires.”
That is correct and quiet consistent with everything I have written.
“So it’s not really true that a right act is the act that a person with desire-fulfilling desires would perform, because those aren’t necessarily good desires on your earlier definition.”
Yes it is true. These are two ways of saying the same thing. I am using a desire-fulling desire as a alternative for good desire since people keep on introducing semantic confusions here. Whenever I use “desire-fulfilling”, “desire-thwarting” or “desire-neutral” as a qualifier to a desire I am using these to indicate what desirism would otherwise say is a “good”, “bad, or “neutral” desire respectively.
“But this is not under dispute in Objection 3. I never argued that whether or not the desire fulfills / tends to fulfill other desires depends on the distribution of the other desires”
This is a pointless riposte as you have ignored the final clause by me which was the whole point of me writing that paragraph, namely as I said “the overall constituents of the population”. This is exactly the basis of your argument (which I just requoted in a previous comment).
“The entire issue with respect to Objection 3 is, and always has been, what do we say of desire D when it tends overall to fulfill more than thwart all other desires, but D is still obviously an evil desire? ”
Then you are deeply confused, reread your original argument that I just quoted in a previous comment. This not the issue with Objection #3 at all.
I know your a sharp enough guy Thomas Reid, I refuse to believe you don’t see the problem here.
If you want to refer to argument from elsewhere please quote it or make them afresh here, I do not know what you are talking about otherwise.
faithlessgod
says...Tai Chi
“More importantly, your question goes wrong on the point that it asks whether a desire should be fulfilled, rather than whether the desire itself would tend to fulfill rather than thwart other desires. So here’s my criticism: you are comparing the effect of desire-fulfillment to desire-thwarting on desires in general, whereas you should be comparing the effect of the desire itself to the absence of the desire.”
Hear, hear!
faithlessgod
says...Cl
“The summary is that 1) I find your strawman claim wanting, and 2) I find that you’ve built a strawman of your own.”
Unfortunately none of your following argument pertains in the slightest to the issues at hand as I have discussed in some of the previous few comments. It does not appear that you are capable of looking at this objectively as your unconsidered agreement with Reid’s point indicates:
“As Reid pointed out, and I concur, you are apparently addressing an agrument Reid did not make, a.k.a., you’ve built a strawman.”
Anyone just looking at the original argument (which you claimed to have read) would have noted Reid’s ommission (which I pointed out just now to Reid) namely the dispute was specifically over the changed constituency of a population, not over the distribution of desires. This alone tells against your ability to objectively assess the issues.
Thomas Reid
says...TaiChi,
In response to my…
…you wrote…
I didn’t mean to suggest they have defended this idea. I’m only saying that unless one makes this assumption, you will run into trouble trying to apply desirism. Either such situations as the example I concocted are not possible, or desirism is false. Since I see no reason why the example I proposed is not possible, I conclude desirism is false.
I agree with what you’re saying – I should have worded the question better. Given that, do you agree that desirism pronounces the desire both good and bad?
Fair enough. To make Objection #1 more direct, I can replace “should A’s desire be fulfilled?” with “would this desire overall tend to fulfill more than thwart all other desires?”. Would you agree that the objection retains its force given the substitution? We could rephrase the observation like this:
(1) In the presence of this desire, other desires overall would tend to be fulfilled more than thwarted.
But also:
(2) In the absence of this desire, other desires overall would tend to be fulfilled more than thwarted.
So what should we do, promote or discourage this desire? Well, if desirism is true then apparently we should do both, which is absurd.
Thomas Reid
says...faithlessgod,
I thought I made a “desirist-approved” statement with:
I was surprised to see you respond with:
Could you clear up for me what are the necessary and sufficient conditions to establish, on the desirist view, what is and is not a “good desire”?
In our blog exchange, you said a good desire was one that “overall tends to fulfill more than thwart all other desires”. Call this definition A. So I conclude that, in order to be called a “good” desire, it is not enough for a desire merely to fulfill other desires.
But now it appears you are saying that to be a “good” desire one simply has to fulfill (or tend to fulfill) other desires. Call this definition B. From this I conclude that some (any?) amount of desire-fulfillment is sufficient to declare the desire under question “good”.
A and B are obviously not the same, and yet you appear to be using them synonymously. Why?
cl
says...faithlessgod,
In your third letter to Reid, you said his premise 2 (The desire to exterminate the Jews overall tends to fulfill more than thwart all other desires) was unsound. Numerically, I am having a problem with this.
Let’s assume for simplicity that we have no other humans alive save for 100 Nazis and 10 Jews, and that we have a distribution of only two desires: the Nazis’ desire to exterminate those 10 Jews, and those 10 Jews’ desire to escape. In this case, we have 110 total desires.
Temporarily ignoring the question of which desires are stronger, we might say that if fulfilled, the Nazis’ desire would thwart 10 other desires (the Jews’) – whereas – if fulfilled, the Jews’ desire would thwart 100 other desires (the Nazis’). Right?
cl
says...faithlessgod,
I’m reposting this here for reference:
In *MY* aforementioned Nazi example, would you agree that fulfillment of the Nazis’ desire fulfills 100 desires and thwarts 10? Just a simple “yes” or “no” would be helpful.
TaiChi
says...faithlessgod,
“(d)You evaluate a causal desire in terms of its material and physical affect on (the fulfilment of) all other (effected) desires. The actual distribution, strengths and constitution in any population of both the causal and affected desires are confounding factors that must be eliminated in this analysis.” ~ faithlessgod
Ah, I think I’m coming around to your view. When you, or Fyfe, or Luke, say “all other desires that exist”, ‘all’ functions to pick out types of desires, and not tokens of desires. So this is why, in Cartesian’s torture example, the sheer quantity of desire to torture (a mass of tokens) fails to entail that desire to torture is good – nothing in the example manages to change the types of desires we are dealing with. The desire to torture remains as evil as ever, because it is the type of desire to thwart other types of desire.
Would you agree to the type/token distinction I’m applying here?
TaiChi
says...Thomas Reid,
“I didn’t mean to suggest they have defended this idea. I’m only saying that unless one makes this assumption, you will run into trouble trying to apply desirism. ” ~ Reid
I’m afraid I don’t see why. Can you provide an argument?
“Either such situations as the example I concocted are not possible, or desirism is false. Since I see no reason why the example I proposed is not possible, I conclude desirism is false.” ~ Reid
As I said, I’m happy to allow that it is possible. I just don’t think your counterexamples genuinely contradict Desirism.
“Given that, do you agree that desirism pronounces the desire both good and bad?” ~ Reid
No. Instead, I think Desirism pronounces the desire for X in your example as good. There, you tell us that whoever’s desire for X is fulfilled, the outcome will be positive – we’ll have one fulfilled desire, and one thwarted desire, but the fulfilled desire will be stronger than the thwarted one. Therefore, the existence of the desire tends to fulfil more and greater desires than it thwarts.
“Fair enough. To make Objection #1 more direct, I can replace “should A’s desire be fulfilled?” with “would this desire overall tend to fulfill more than thwart all other desires?”. Would you agree that the objection retains its force given the substitution? We could rephrase the observation like this:
(1) In the presence of this desire, other desires overall would tend to be fulfilled more than thwarted.
But also:
(2) In the absence of this desire, other desires overall would tend to be fulfilled more than thwarted.
So what should we do, promote or discourage this desire? Well, if desirism is true then apparently we should do both, which is absurd.” ~ Reid
Your substitution seems fine to me. But now it looks as though your example is incoherent.
To be pedantic, I think your (1) is ill-formed: it should link the tendency to fulfil desires with the desire in question, whereas your expression allows for any old desire to count as good so long as the other existing desires are desire-fulfilling. I mean, e.g., that the desire to murder would satisfy (1) if one lived in a utopia, where the other desires were generally desire-fulfilling. So you want something more like..
“(`1) If desire X exists, then more desires will be fulfilled over desires thwarted.”
.. which expresses the tendency of the desire to bring about a better balance of desire fulfillment to thwarting. But now look at a reconstrual of (2) along the same lines..
“(`2) If desire X does not exist, then more desires will be fulfilled over desires thwarted.”
.. and you should see that (`1) and (`2) are contradictory. For from (`1) we can infer..
“(`3) If desire X does not exist, then less desires will be fulfilled over desires thwarted.”
.. and (`3) clearly contradicts (`2). So, if I’m right about (`1) and (`2) being better expressions of Desirism than your (1) and (2), it follows that no objection can be mounted along the lines you propose.
faithlessgod
says...Hi Tai Chi
“Would you agree to the type/token distinction I’m applying here?”
Yes!
I wrote a post on specifically the type/token distinction, I dunno if you have read it. Blogger changed their settings and so some of my search and indexing is screwed up – and I have had no time to fix it – but if you have not read it, I can find a link.
faithlessgod
says...There is no definition B, only A. My use of prefixes point to definition A not B.
faithlessgod
says...“Numerically, I am having a problem with this.”
Because you are thinking in terms of desire fulfilment act utilitarianism – where the right act is the act that maximises utility where the utility is desire fulfilment.
More importantly you have again failed to address the key point of Reid’s Objection #3 which was over the change in desirist status of a desire from “bad” to “good” due to a change in population. Reid’s objection was based on desirism showing that the Nazi desire was indeed bad when Jews existed but became good when they did not.
So when are you going to address Objection #3? Until you do, all this is evidence that your conclusion over objection #3 is very premature and you should take it back for now.
faithlessgod
says...“In
*MY* aforementioned Nazi example, would you agree that fulfillment of the Nazis’ desire fulfills 100 desires and thwarts 10? Just a simple “yes” or “no” would be helpful.”
How is this helpful? Since your question does not seem to be relevant to what you quoted from me such as “any specific act and distribution of desires being only one particular circumstance”. So as far as desirism is concerned whether the answer is yes with this 100:10 ratio and no with say a 10:100 is not relevant to the analysis – it just shows the failing of Act Utilitarianism.
Comprende?
Thomas Reid
says...TaiChi,
Your comment #48 is a good response to my Objection #1 (as we’ve modified it here). Let me think it over and see if Objection #1 still can be formulated with any force.
Thomas Reid
says...Alright, this could be a very helpful thread of discussion.
TaiChi, you asked faithlessgod in comment #47:
…to which faithlessgod gave an enthusiastic:
Now, if we are not to consider desires as tokens, then would either of you care to explain your understanding of the ontology of these desire-types? Furthermore, would you explain how these desire-types could possibly tend to fulfill or thwart other desire-types without consideration of their tokens? Should we be thinking about some kind of Platonic existence of “torture” whose strength or size rises and falls depending on the tokens instantiated?
To me this simply raises more questions than it answers. Help?
faithlessgod
says...No Platonism required (nor was it ever in any version).
See here (the post I mentioned to Tai Chi).
cl
says...TaiChi,
1) Earlier in the thread, you and I were discussing the asbestos/styrofoam example, and we apparently agreed that “lack of acceses to facts” led to an evaluation of ‘good’ for a desire that was actually ‘evil’. In that context I asked,
I’ve got the answer to my own question: because it is true – with caveats I’ll get to.
I agree with you that I’ve been looking at the weakness of the agents and thinking that somehow undermines the truth of the theory. It doesn’t. As an analogy, evaluation of the desire to use asbestos/styrofoam as ‘good’ is like a group of scientists plugging wrong numbers into a computer: though an incorrect answer was returned, the flaw was in the values the programmers fed their program, not the program itself.
2) You said,
It’s not that. Rather, I’m of the opinion that moral theories ‘ought’ to be called ‘good’ or ‘preferable’ to the degree that their faithful application entails correct evaluations.
3) Again in the context of asbestos/styrofoam, when I argued that,
..you replied,
Desirism is a recent invention in the world of ethics and philosophy, but with few exceptions people have been making moral decisions according to its principles all along. So it’s true that people could apply the principles of desirism long before those principles were articulated into a unified theory.
4) When I said,
You replied,
Yes; I believe DCT could, but let’s save that for a more appropriate time. Also, I would say that desirism remains true despite our limited ability to access its truth.
So, the DCT remark temporarily notwithstanding, all of that should be pretty straight-forward and free of objection. Right?
If so, then here’s the part where I’m still not following you..
5) When I asked,
You replied,
But – according to desirism – the definition of a ‘good’ desire is one that tends to fulfill more and stronger desires than it thwarts. That’s exactly what Fyfe, Luke, et al. write. As far as I can see, I’m defining ‘moral good’ the same way they do.
So it’s unclear to me exactly what you’re trying to say.
TaiChi
says...faithlessgod,
That’s excellent: I’m officially back on the bandwagon. But, boy, is it easy to mistake Desirism for a token-theory rather than a type-theory. The locution “A good desire overall tends to fulfill more than thwart all other desires” is so readily misunderstood to be referring to tokens, and yet is so often repeated verbatim that it would seem to a critic that it was clear and unambiguous. “A good desire-type overall tends to fulfill more than thwart all other desire-types” would be a minor change to the usual expression, but well worth adopting, if conversations like these are any indication.
Reid,
“Now, if we are not to consider desires as tokens, then would either of you care to explain your understanding of the ontology of these desire-types? ” ~ Reid
I presume that a desire-type exists in virtue of its particular instances.
“Furthermore, would you explain how these desire-types could possibly tend to fulfill or thwart other desire-types without consideration of their tokens?” ~ Reid
If nominalism about desire-types is true, then to say that desire-types have a tendency to fulfil other desires is to say that every token of the type has the tendency to fulfil other desires. A desire-type is a kind of class, and predication of the class amounts to predication of the memebers of the class.
“Should we be thinking about some kind of Platonic existence of “torture” whose strength or size rises and falls depending on the tokens instantiated?” ~ Reid
If the desire to torture is evaluated as a desire-type, then no, the ideal strength of the desire won’t depend upon the number of tokens instantiated. (I’m not sure I’ve understood you here).
“To me this simply raises more questions than it answers. Help?” ~ Reid
It raises the usual metaphysical problems of the relation between particulars and universals, so far as I can tell. Desire-types are no more puzzling than the animal-types: we talk about “dogs”, and wonder whether the term picks out individuals or some archetype; we ascribe dogs the tendency to chase cats, and might wonder just how the category of “dog” can have such a tendency, or, if the term identifies only particulars, how it can be true that individual dogs have such a tendency even though there are some dogs who ignore cats altogether.
So if there’s a question here that needs to be answered, it’s not only Desirists who should be concerned – everyone using universals should be concerned.
TaiChi
says...Cl,
“As an analogy, evaluation of the desire to use asbestos/styrofoam as ‘good’ is like a group of scientists plugging wrong numbers into a computer: though an incorrect answer was returned, the flaw was in the values the programmers fed their program, not the program itself.” ~ cl
That’s a good analogy.
It’s not that. Rather, I’m of the opinion that “moral theories ‘ought’ to be called ‘good’ or ‘preferable’ to the degree that their faithful application entails correct evaluations.” ~ cl
“Good” in the sense of ‘useful’, yeah. But I feel that’s beside the point – first we have to know what’s true, then we can work out what is useful.
“So it’s true that people could apply the principles of desirism long before those principles were articulated into a unified theory.” ~ cl
It’s possible. Their moral opinions then roughly match what a Desirist would predict. But I think you’re assuming that because these are similar outcomes, they must have the same sorts of cause, i.e., the deliberative processes must be similar.
“Yes; I believe DCT could, but let’s save that for a more appropriate time.” ~ cl
I think you’ll have trouble showing that, since you’d need some criterion to assess DCT, and what else but Desirism could do the job? But then DCT would only be supported insofar as Desirism could be practically applied.
” As far as I can see, I’m defining
‘moral good’ the same way they do. ~ cl
My response on this matter wasn’t terribly important, so I think we can drop it. But what I took you to be doing is to be raising a Moorean ‘further question’ objection, which I believe to be illegitimate.
Thomas Reid
says...TaiChi,
Thanks for taking a crack at this. faithlessgod, I’d like to get your opinion on these matters as well. The post you provided in comment #55 was helpful, but left some questions unanswered. To your comments TaiChi:
This seems critical to get right. If nominalism about desire-types is true, then this precludes them being classes, right? I take a class to be an abstract object, characterized by causal impotence. So if they are classes, I don’t see how they can tend to fulfill or thwart other desires. Since the desirist is committed to the idea that they are causally potent, it seems to me that nominalism about desire-types would have to be true. Agreed?
I’m trying to make sense of “overall tend to fulfill more desires than thwart” given that we are evaluating desire-types. The concept of ideal strength would imply some kind of spectrum of strength, right? And if that is true, then I don’t see how we can think of variable strength without considering the number and strength of the tokens.
But maybe we are not to think about ideal strength, or a strength spectrum at all, when performing the analysis of whether a desire-type overall tends to fulfill more than thwart other desire-types? Perhaps we are to just look at the ratio of fulfilled to thwarted desire-types? I’m thinking about something along the lines of cl’s “balance of desires” concept he introduced here.
Your thoughts about how we should be implementing the analysis?
Do you find anything concerning about the use of universals? I’m not concerned that they’re being employed by desirism (if they indeed are), just a little surprised. I don’t usually encounter naturalists (like faithlessgod) that include universals in their ontology. But, if universals are being employed, I think this raises the potency issue I described above.
On a different note, I think if we are evaluating desire-types, then Objection #1 would no longer apply (assuming I could even formulate it given your earlier comments on this thread).
cl
says...Quick question: does anyone know if Fyfe writes on this token-type distinction?
faithlessgod
says...AFAIK, I am saying nothing different to Fyfe, I am expressing the same propositions only using different language to make this point which is over the evaluation focus being on desires not actions nor desire-acts – which is just another form of act-valuation. That is it. Some people get it one way, others another way. It is the same propositions underlying our different ways of expressing it.
A “desire-type” is the desire, a “desire-token” is just a single occurrence or instance of that desire. “Overall” covers the range of circumstances at which a desire occurs. Ditto for “generally” and so on.
This is all very simple. The litmus test for anyone understanding this is if they go on about the distribution and strengths of a desire in a particular situation – then this is still a act valuation (even if it is done indirectly on the act and directly on the desire) and is failing to treat the desire as the evaluation focus.
Desires are persistent entities and we are asking whether the desire under question is to be promoted or inhibited generally or overall, and these terms are to emphasize not to commit the fallacy of a hasty generalisation from a single instance – which, incidentally, all criticisms based on DFAU also fail on.
TaiChi
says...Reid,
I’m only briefly acquainted with this issue, so I doubt I’ll be much help to you. However..
” If nominalism about desire-types is true, then this precludes them being classes, right? I take a class to be an abstract object, characterized by causal impotence.” ~ Reid
No, that’s not the way classes are usually understood. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_(philosophy)
“Since the desirist is committed to the idea that they are causally potent, it seems to me that nominalism about desire-types would have to be true. Agreed?” ~ Reid
Not really. We’d just have to tweak our description of desirism. Instead of talking about desire-types, and assuming that these desire-types are collections of desire-tokens which have something in common, we’d talk explicitly about the desire-tokens which are associated with a Platonic desire-type, and ascribe tendencies to these.
“And if that is true, then I don’t see how we can think of variable strength without considering the number and strength of the tokens.” ~ Reid
I’m still not sure where you mean to go with this. Is there some distinction you are making between ‘variable strength’ and ‘strength’ simpliciter?
“But maybe we are not to think about ideal strength, or a strength spectrum at all, when performing the analysis of whether a desire-type overall tends to fulfill more than thwart other desire-types?” ~ Reid
I don’t think this is a question the Desirist can avoid. The strength of a desire-type surely makes a difference to whether the desire-type tends to fulfil rather than thwart other desire-types.
“Your thoughts about how we should be implementing the analysis?” ~ Reid
I’m not sure. But I think cl’s ‘balance of desires’ might be better replaced by something like..
DV(d1s1) | C = (f1sc + f2sc .. fnsc) / (t1sc + t2sc .. tnsc)
.. where (i) the “d1s1” is the desire-type in question at some specified strength, and “C” is a circumstance in which “d1s1” exists, so that “DV(d1s1) | C” is represents the ‘desire value’ given to “d1s1” in circumstance “C”; (ii) “f1sc” is another desire-type which is generally fulfilled in “C”, having the strength “s” specified in “C”, and where “f2sc” is yet another desire type along the same lines, and so on for all of the form “fnsc”; (iii) “t1sc” is still another desire-type which is generally thwarted in “C”, having the strength “s” specified in “C”, and where “t2sc” is a further desire-type along the same lines, and so on for all of the form “tnsc”; (iv) the numerical values of instances of the form “fnsc” are determined by the strength of the particular desire in “C”, according to some scale of measurement, and so too for instances of the form “tnsc”.
That looks awful, I know – unfortunately I can’t use subscripts, so you’ll have to imagine that in “f1sc” the “1” and the “c” are dropped half a line. But intuitively, the equation would give us a ratio of the desire-types that are fulfilled to desire-types that are thwarted, each desire-type being weighted according to their strength. A result higher than 1 indicates that the desire-type is good, a desire less than 1 indicates the desire type is bad. A desire-value of 1 indicates neutrality. Of course, in practice the measurements of desire strength are going to come with margins of error, so results which are close to 1 might be treated as neutral if 1 falls with that margin.
In case you were wondering why I specify a circumstance, there are three reasons. Firstly, because the effect of desire-types on other desire-types depends upon the material circumstances of those who desire. Secondly, because if I were to take into account all the cicumstances, then that also means taking into account a possible infinity of values for the strength of desire-types, but it seems the strengths of some desire-types would affect other desire-types, and this makes the maths impossible. And thirdly because, having listened to one of Luke’s podcasts again, it seems Fyfe allows that moral value to change over time with a change in circumstance.
So there’s a first pass at an analysis which includes the strength of desire-types. It’s quite possible that it’s garbage, but I’m sure faithlessgod won’t let me suffer under that delusion for long if it contradicts Fyfe.
“ Do you find anything concerning about the use of universals? ~ Reid”
I’m too ignorant to be concerned about the matter. I just presume that Nominalism is defensible, and get on with thinking about philosophical issues that I’m more interested in. And if Nominalism is defensible, then the use of universals qua language-terms is also defensible,
because what these language terms refer to, the Nominalist tells us, are ultimately particular things.
faithlessgod
says...On the one hand I am glad that Tai Chi gets the basic desirist model now but on the other hand this thread is devolving, IMHO, into pointless philosphical discussion.
Desirism is a practical ethical model, it is metaphysically neutral – no metaphysics required – the key point is that evaluation focus is on desires, not act, rules nor single instances of any of the above. That is the only point I wanted to make.
So to date all of Reid’s 3 objections are still failures.
Now can we get back to the points I raised over the problems in cl’s post? Cl first complained that I did not make an argument over my issues with “useful” and then, when I did, dismissed them with an argument.
So as far as I can see all my criticisms still stand and in addition my point over the confusion between DFAU and desirism committed by cl and Reid have been explicitly confirmed by their comments in this conversation thread.
Thomas Reid
says...TaiChi,
In response to my:
You wrote:
But the link you provided states a set is treated as an abstract object. One of the properties of such objects is that they are causally impotent:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abstract-objects/
So its up to the desirist to maintain that either these desire-types are not abstract objects (classes or the like) or show how they can tend to overall fulfill or thwart other desires while still exhibiting causal inefficacy. I take it this is not a trivial point.
When I forced the issue that a nominalist approach must be taken, you said:
This explanation is at odds with faithlessgod’s, since he maintains that “No Platonism required (nor was it ever in any version).” (comment #55)
How do we understand the “strength” of a desire-type? I still don’t know what it means to say a desire-type is strong or weak, since the very concept of strength implies variability. Maybe this is just an essential property that varies between desire-types, but the strength of a single desire-type does not change? Moving on:
Yes, that’s how I read it as well. Care to comment, faithlessgod?
I followed that, and agree with your comments about margin of error and the requirement for a particular circumstance to make the math intelligible.
Thomas Reid
says...faithlessgod,
You wrote:
It’s simply false that metaphysics are not required. You yourself claim that these desire-types are “persistent entities”. Well, what kind of entities are they? Are they a class, a substance, a property, something else? Answering the question implies doing metaphysics.
Relax. If you weren’t so eager to declare victory (and also, either here or elsewhere, accuse me of not being a reliable guide to what is moral, and not interested in truth or ethics) and instead explained your views more clearly, then the conversation might move a little quicker. I’ve already said I don’t think #1 applies anymore. Depending on the outcome of this conversation, #3 may not apply either.
Good grief man. Don’t you think you’ve been more than a little obscure about this token-type distinction up until now? We (cartesian, TaiChi, cl, myself) are not idiots, and yet all fell for this misunderstanding. I think TaiChi made a very good request in comment #57 to include this explicitly in the definition of “good desire” to avoid anymore confusion here, and I suggest you adopt it if that is what you intend.
Finally, it’s not at all clear to me that Fyfe (or Luke) appreciate or assent to this distinction. It’s not that they need to, of course, it’s just that it doesn’t seem like the ontology of these desire-types have been worked out yet. I mean, if Fyfe thought about it in terms of types, why on earth would he have written:
“It would seem that, according to desirism, if we can come up with a case where torturing a child fulfills ‘good’ desires, then desirism would then have to condone the torturing of that child.”
http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=7435
cl
says...Part of the problem for me was that this turned into a discussion over “faithlessgod’s desirism” which – though claimed to be more or less identical to Fyfe’s – is expressed less clearly. This left me with the unfortunate task of trying to reconcile the theory as articulated by two individuals with very different styles of writing.
Personally, the only thing I’ve gained in this discussion is the distinction between desires-as-tokens and desires-as-types, and I’m not exactly sure what to make of it.
Are we saying that desirism, then, should only evaluate desires-as-types? Indeed, many questions remain, for me, and I’ll be expanding on them here in the thread, and in Pt. 2.
TaiChi,
The minute the token-type distinction entered the picture, I became aware of the need to rework the balance of desires equation.
faithlessgod,
I’d love to continue with you, provided:
1) No talk of DCT from you;
2) No accusations of lying;
3) You actually answer the questions I ask.
The point behind 1 is that what you think I need to do in order to make a cogent argument for DCT isn’t relevant to our understanding of desirism, whatsoever.
The point behind 2 is not that I have any hard feelings against you, but that it’s easier to catch flies with honey than vinegar. Regardless of who they’re from, accusations and insults usually tend to push people farther away from common ground.
The point behind 3 is that when you don’t answer the questions I ask, I’m unable to learn.
So, on that, I’ll pass the ball to you. Choose whatever topic you’d like. It would help me – greatly – if you could distill your remaining objections into concise, single-sentence statements.
I still have some objections and questions, too, which I’ll do my best to get to later today.
cl
says...YES. I second that, then third it. For me, it’s not about being right or crushing desirism’s defenders. Like I’ve said before, if in fact somebody can make it ‘click’ for me, then I’ll join them in the trenches.
I think if we all do our best to promote clarity and respect, then progress – for whoever needs it – will come much faster.
faithlessgod
says...Desires are persistent entities – they are brain states. A desire to eat is persistent although only switched under certain biological and social circumstances.
It is the same with any desire. As I said no metaphysics required.
The type-token distinction is just one way out of many to make the same point. One does not generalise from a particular instance – that is why I use “overall” across diverse circumstances and Fyfe uses “generally”, one just looks at what is in common across the range of circumstances. Dwelling on the philosophy of type-tokens is irrelevant once you get this, it is just a ladder to understanding. Once you have the understanding you no longer need the ladder.
Pleased to see you are dropping objection #1, which was my first objection to desirism too BTW.
As for objection #3, given that you (I presume) now understand how the evaluation is applied, it should be clear to that it makes no difference as to how the population changes as a result of the fulfilment of a desire, as to the value of that desire.
One can up with cases where one is forced to torture a child, but these are moral dilemmas in extreme situations, setup due to immoral actions one cannot avoid facing e,g, Sophie’s choice or Jack Bauer and terrorists who are happy to die for their god, springs to mind. However at the extremes everyone is an act utilitarian and this exceptional circumstance is no basis to infer that an aversion to torture (of children or adults) is not be promoted. It is still the that people generally have many reasons to promote an aversion to torture. And unlike, Jack Bauer, if someone is forced to into such actions we would not want them to do so without remorse etc.
TaiChi
says...Reid,
The link I provided distinguishes classes from sets. In any case, the point in bringing in the notion of a class was to emphasize that, however you understand categorical terms like “desire-type”, there are associated instances of the type of which we can talk about, instead of talking about the type itself.
“This explanation is at odds with faithlessgod’s, since he maintains that “No Platonism required (nor was it ever in any version).” (comment #55)” ~ Reid
Read it again, please – I’m indulging you in the hypothetical that Platonism is true to show that reference to Platonic universals isn’t required to explain Desirism – we can always talk about the particulars instead. Obviously, if Nominalism is true, then talk of universals boils down to talk of particulars anyway. So there you have it: if Desirism is true, either of Platonism or Nominalism could be true, and Desirism is compatible with them both. I fully agree with faithlessgod that no metaphysics is required, because the metaphysical issue is irrelevant to the truth of the theory.
“How do we understand the “strength” of a desire-type?” ~ Reid
Well, you know what it is for an individual desire to be strong or weak, don’t you? The strength of a desire-type, in some particular circumstance, is the average strength of desires-tokens of that type in that circumstance. At least, that’s how imagined it when drawing up the desire value equation.
faithlessgod,
“The litmus test for anyone understanding this is if they go on about the distribution and strengths of a desire in a particular situation – then this is still a act valuation (even if it is done indirectly on the act and directly on the desire) and is failing to treat the desire as the evaluation focus.” ~ faithlessgod
The problem is, you’re labelling multiple misunderstandings under the singular description of confusing Desirism with Desire Fulfillment Act Utilitarianism: (i) evaluating acts rather than desires, (ii) evaluating desire-tokens instead of desire-types, and now (iii), the fallacy of hasty generalization. It’s confusing.
Thomas Reid
says...Guys,
We’ve reached a point in the conversation where I need to think some more before moving forward. I appreciate the conversation. I’ll hold back on the comments until cl posts here or I post anything back at my place. To me the type-token distinction actually does raise a host of metaphysical issues that I’d like to mull over.
Just some final comments for you TaiChi. In response to my:
OK, now I see what you mean to say, although I’m still not sure that’s true. Like I said, I need to think this over.
But see, if that’s the case, then the theory still falls to a formulation of Objection #3. That’s because the particular desire-tokens simply may not have enough strength to generate a result of “bad desire” in cases where we know that something is obviously a bad desire.
TaiChi
says...Reid,
“But see, if that’s the case, then the theory still falls to a formulation of Objection #3. That’s because the particular desire-tokens simply may not have enough strength to generate a result of “bad desire” in cases where we know that something is obviously a bad desire.” ~ Reid
That’s yet to be shown. Certainly the Naziland example doesn’t show it, and I’m not sure whether any counterexample one could offer would not (i) treat malleable desires as immalleable or vice versa, or (ii) fail to generate the kind of strong intuitions that allow us to conclude the theory is false. To give up on the theory because we’ve now identified the mere form of a counterexample to it seems premature.
“We’ve reached a point in the conversation where I need to think some more before moving forward.” ~ Reid
Sweet as. Catch you on the next one.
faithlessgod
says...Hi Tai Chi
The issue of desire strength is relevant to how people are actually motivated and how the institution of morality can influence the strengths of such motivations. However it is a confounding factor when determining the ethical value of a desire.
There are a number of significant differences between DFAU and Desirism, however the three you listed here are all consequences over one point – the difference between desire and acts as the evaluation focus, that is (ii) and (iii) are entailments of (i).
faithlessgod
says...I have repeatedly addressed objection#3 and neither you nor cl has answered my latest most concise refutation, rather you seem to be repeatedly ignoring a desirist analysis and further are not even addressing your own objection #3. Once again, desire strength and population change are irrelevant to the ethical value of a desire.
faithlessgod
says...Thomas
You say you need to think some more before we move on.
I suggest you give me some examples of what you think would be problems for desirism but do not provide your own analysis nor what you think the problems are. Then let me provide a desirist analysis and then you can seek to find fault in that analysis?
Thomas Reid
says...Hi faithlessgod,
Well, how about you tell me if you agree with TaiChi’s equation in comment #62. If you don’t, could you provide your own understanding of the right analysis?
TaiChi,
Final comment, I promise: I just realized in comment #64 that I mentioned that sets are treated like abstract objects. But the same goes for classes as well, which is what I should have said. Sorry to create the confusion. Causal inefficacy is understood to be true for both.
faithlessgod
says...First the type/token distinction was a pedagogical and pragamtic device so that one properly focuses on desires as the evaluation focus not acts. There are none of the philosophical implications you guys have been labouring over.
Desire strength does not play a role in desire fulfilment. Strengths determine which desire is acted upon in any agent in any circumstance, but when we are evaluating a desire, it is a given it is being acted upon and so its strength is irrelevant.
So the formula is unnecessary, although if Tai Chi might finds it useful for himself, that is fine.
It is far simpler just to see the desire-desire objective relations which are invariant to any specific weighting schemes – which can only due to a particular circumstance which can only be selected on an ad hoc basis.
Anonymous
says...TaiChi
faithlessgod,
“The issue of desire strength .. is a confounding factor when determining the ethical value of a desire.” ~ faithlessgod
There are two issues here. First, whether the strength of a desire we are evaluating makes a difference to its moral status. Second, whether the strength of the other desires in our circumstance of evaluation makes a difference to the evaluation of the desire in question.
I think the answer to the first is obviously affirmative. Suppose one is evaluating the desire for reflective solitude. At a moderate strength, this desire is a good thing, for taking oneself away form the noise of everyday living to think about what is really important clarifies the desires on has and allows one to plan for their fulfillment. But at an extreme strength, the desire leads to asceticism, which is a form of self-denial, a giving up on the fulfillment of other desires in pursuit of this one. And so whether the desire for reflective solitude is good or not depends upon just what the strength of that desire is.
A reply to the second issue follows from the first. If a desire for reflective solitude depends for its moral value on the strength of that desire, then this is ultimately because of how the strength of that desire compares with the strength of other desires. A strong desire for reflective solitude turns out to be desire-thwarting only because it overrules a number of other weaker desires. Were those other desires stronger, it would not overrule them, and would therefore not be desire-thwarting. So we need to know both the strength of our test desire, and of the other desires we are assessing it against, in order to predict whether the test desire tends to fulfil more and stronger desires than it thwarts.
“..that is (ii) and (iii) are entailments of (i).” ~ faithlessgod
I can’t see that (doesn’t (ii) flatly contradict (i), since a desire-token is not an act?). But in any case, if “A -> (B & C)” is true, and some person affirms B or C (or both), this does not allow you to infer that they also believe A, or would believe A if they were being consistent. B and/or C might well be true, though A isn’t. So you can’t assume that anyone who believes desire-tokens are to be evaluated, or that a toy example easily generalizes to moral universal, also believes the objects of evaluation to be acts.
Reid,
“I just realized in comment #64 that I mentioned that sets are treated like abstract objects. But the same goes for classes as well, which is what I should have said. Sorry to create the confusion. Causal inefficacy is understood to be true for both.” ~ Reid
I should’ve seen that. You’re quite right – I tried to use “class” as a more transparent term of referral. Well, it can be dropped, and we can talk of individuals instead, all the same.
faithlessgod
says...Tai Chi
There are a number of issues I have with your strength argument that really warrants a full blog post in reply, not sure if I want to get out of my blogging slumber yet.
In short once one establishes the ethical value of a desire that establishes, at the same time, whether it is to be promoted, inhibited or neither. The relative strength compared to other desires is not relevant in determining the ethical value.
Now unless shown otherwise (such as the mentally ill or young) the agent is the best person to determine their own utility. If someone chooses to become an ascetic that is their choice. Further I see no necessary implication that the desire for reflective solitude is ethically good, it might be just neutral.
So your second point does not follow since strengths apply only to the use of social forces to mould each other to create a better society, having obtained a solid ground of what is praiseworthy and blameworthy.
As for A, B and C, AFAICS they are all indicators of the evaluation focus being on an act not a desire. A single instance of a desire (or desire-token) has a 1:1 correspondence to a single act. However when considering a desire there might be different actions at different circumstances to fulfil the same desire, which is why the focus is on the desire not the act, since all these various actions as intentional actions all due to the same desire.
faithlessgod
says...Tai Chi
This thread has surely run its course. It got sidetracked on the point that I did not want to but the OP was happy to go, where I have pointed out that they were not criticising desirism but act utilitarianism, a point which has been confirmed way beyond doubt, in this thread.
I give three links in the first comment in Cl’s latest post for you, or anyone else, to pursue these ideas further.
TaiChi
says...faithlessgod,
Despite your soothing assertion that the strength of desire is irrelevant, you’ve given me no reason to doubt my arguments are sound. So I won’t doubt them.
As for A, B, and C… I intended to explain to you why you weren’t getting through to the likes of Reid and cl. That B and C indicate A, if true, is beside the point, for not everyone who holds B and/or C holds A. You confuse others by assuming that they do.
Thanks for the discussion, everybody.