“Why Shouldn’t Desirism Be Considered Respectable?”
Posted in Common Sense Atheism, Desirism, Ethics, Morality, Philosophy on | 6 minutes | 16 Comments →
In the thread of Something That Made Me Thing Of Desirism, commenter James Gray asks a salient question to bossmanham:
Great post here. This may be one of the reasons desirism hasn’t moved beyond the sphere of internet atheists who enjoy it. It falls to the same or similar objections that Bentham and Mill’s utilitarianism falls to. [bossmanham]
Utilitarianism is a respectable theory that has gone far beyond the sphere of internet atheists. So, why shouldn’t desirism then be considered respectable and worthy of going beyond such a sphere? [James Gray]
I began a reply of my own, only to realize it quickly grew to post-length. Frankly, I believe several reasons exist, and keep in mind I’m not assuming desirism as comparable to Mill or Bentham’s utilitarianism. Here’s just a quick rundown:
1) Although he expresses key tenets quite clearly in some places, Alonzo is unclear and seemingly contradictory in expressing other fundamentals. For example, I would agree with Alonzo’s clear statement that “desires are the only reasons for intentional action that exist.” Of course, we could have a discussion about exactly what “desires” and “intentional” mean, but that’s another story. Contrast that to Alonzo’s statements about whether or what desirism prescribes. It’s unclear to me why he even refers to desirism as a utilitarian theory. When asked if desirism prescribes maximization of desire fulfillment, he says no. Traditionally, a utilitarian moral theory identifies something to maximize.
2) When asked if desire fulfillment has any sort of intrinsic moral value, Alonzo says no. Yet, if that’s the case, then on what grounds can the theory justify its prescriptions? A moral theory has to be able to give clear answers to questions of the type, “Why should [or shouldn’t] I do X?” From any answer given, that which is to be maximized can be identified. To say, “We should do X because it will fulfill our desires best as possible” implies that we ought to do that which will fulfill our desires best as possible. Alonzo’s claim that he has answered Moore because “ought” is a subspecies of “is” doesn’t persuade me.
3) By Alonzo’s own words, desirism has “nothing to say to a moral agent at the time of decision.” Then, why consider it a moral theory at all? As many other commenters have remarked, desirism is more a description of human psychology than a moral theory.
4) This one might seem petty, but what happens to Alonzo’s theory in the hypothetical example of a single moral agent? Is all permissible when there are no “other desires’ to thwart? Is it permissible to thwart one’s one desires?
5) Cartesian’s Nazi example – which is just a more detailed version of the 1000 sadists problem – clearly demonstrates that “good” denotes something above and beyond “that which tends to fulfill other desires.” Desirism cannot prevent the brainwashing dilemma.
6) I honestly believe that Alonzo has trouble confronting his bias [and confirmation bias] in certain areas. He says without distinction that parents of fat children should be condemned. This shows a serious disregard for nuance. Sure, there are instances where parents of an obese child ought to be condemned, but there are also instances where parents have taken proactive measures to ensure healthy eating habits that – for whatever reason – the child rejects. It’s not like all parents have 100% control of what goes into their child’s mouth. During infancy and toddler years, sure, but by the time school starts, things get more complicated. To me, across-the-board condemnation of entire groups should be reserved only for those groups where culpability is a prerequisite for group membership [i.e. rapists]. These issues are something any serious writer should take painstaking steps to recognize and avoid. I know because unexamined, I’ve seen them wreak havoc in my own ideas, and others’.
7) In practice, I believe Alonzo makes certain moral judgments from his own intuition and/or bias. For example, I suspect that his harsh attacks against all creationists – more specifically his claim that what all creationists believe leads to death and maiming – stem from bias. I suspect that his claim the Greeks were “probably wrong” concerning pederasty stems from intuition or possibly Western bias, too. Why? If there is no intrinsic moral value, then that means pederasty is neutral by default and has value only in relation to other desires fulfilled / thwarted. So, in those instances where pederasty would actually fulfill more than thwart other desires, why can’t it be good?
8) Re 7, Alonzo might reply that “desirism makes hypothetical prescriptions” and that “people generally” have reason to promote an aversion to pederasty. Well, “people generally’ don’t exist. Actual people with varying beliefs and opinions do. When Alonzo uses this technique, he loads the evaluation. To say something like “people generally have reason to promote an aversion to porno” is true only of the people who actually have such reason. Is Alonzo suggesting majoritarianism? He’ll say no. I would agree with Alonzo that desirism does not follow the traditional “one person one vote” concept found in democratic majoritarianism, but I think “desire majoritarianism” is a better name for the theory. Whereas traditional utilitarianism might commit to some principle like happiness or health and work from there, desirism makes hypothetical prescriptions based on those desires that would tend to fulfill the majority of desires.
Anyway, there are eight reasons off the top of my head with no coffee. I didn’t take bossmanham’s mention of Mill and Bentham to imply that desirism was “only as good as” their respective theories. Personally, though I think there is a very valid core to desirism, and though I agree traditional utilitarianism entails some of the same objections as desirism, I find traditional utilitarianism more respectable than desirism because it is more clearly expressed than desirism.
I think Alonzo has simply re-packaged existing utilitarian concepts while simultaneously denying intrinsic moral value and the existence of anything to maximize. That he and Luke need tens of thousands of words and 3 series’ across two blogs to clarify the theory also works against it in IMHO. I can read a basic introduction to Millian utilitarianism and walk away feeling like I have a solid grasp on the concept. It’s straightforward and clear.
James Gray
says...It is unadvised just like thwarting anyone else’s desires.
This is a standard counterexample to utilitarianism, but it is easily avoided in various ways. For example, the pleasures gained are insignificant in the example. They are not profound or fulfilling.
Some of what you say is against Alonzo and not desirism.
There are some idealistic elements to desirism. What “ought to be” is different than what is in the sense that what ought to be is merely “possible” and need not be “actual.”
Desire fulfillment maximization is based on virtue. Whatever personal desires (or goals) lead to the greatest desire fulfillment are those that should be promoted.
Actual desires might be less relevant to desirism than ideal desires (those that would be present given a maximally coherent system of desires). However, actual desires obviously do have some relevance. I’m not sure how he deals with that issue.
People “generally” might indeed be meant only to be a rule of thumb. There could be exceptions to the rule. He isn’t an absolutist. The situation is relevant.
Also, there are many anti-realist utilitarians. Hume and R. M. Hare, for example. The main difference seems to be that Alonzo wants to restrict things more than traditional utilitarianism. Instead of talking about the morality of “actions” he says that “desires” (as character traits) are the main concern. This is not a big difference really. Utilitarians could also talk about desires and virtue when it concerns them.
bossmanham
says...For example, the pleasures gained are insignificant in the example. They are not profound or fulfilling.
How are we supposed to determine what constitutes more and less fulfilling desires? Who are you to say that someone else’s desires aren’t significant.
Desire fulfillment maximization is based on virtue. Whatever personal desires (or goals) lead to the greatest desire fulfillment are those that should be promoted.
Who says? This sounds utterly arbitrary.
James Gray
says...You probably can’t. You have to make a guess. We can figure out the answer to some extent by comparison. Punching someone in the face tends to thwart more desires than it fulfills, so we shouldn’t do it without overriding special circumstances. We might be able to find a clear cut example, such as self-defense.
I didn’t say their desires aren’t significant. I said certain desire types are less significant than others. I am giving a possible response that could be given, but Alonzo might not agree with it.
Mill’s utilitarianism is based on the idea that intellectual pleasures are better than pleasures of eating etc. That is actually based on arguments provided in Plato’s Republic. I think the argument makes a lot of sense. We experience different types of pleasures and can decide that some are more important or have a higher “quality” than others.
“Who are you to say?” has become an anti-philosophical cliche that is quite meaningless. The question should be, “How do we know what pleasures have higher quality?” and the answer is, “The same way we know that pleasures are satisfying or fulfilling. We experience them.”
Fife seems to not go this route and instead just cares about which desires tend to fulfill “more” desires, but this is quite problematic. Again, there might be some clear cut examples and tendencies we can discover from personal experience, but the intensity and quality of the desire (or desire fulfillment) could be part of the equation.
For example, eating doughnuts might fulfill two desires (to taste something good and end hunger) and it might only thwart one desire (to lose weight), but it might still be that the two first desires mentioned are superficial and much less fulfilling than the third.
Alonzo Fife. That’s pretty much the definition of desirism. It says we should “try to desire certain things.” In other words, we should have desire impulses or habits. Desires are taken to be character traits. Desirism doesn’t say: It’s wrong to do something if it thwarts too many desires. It does say: Try to have desires that tend to fulfill other desires.
From his website:
— http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2008/09/desire-utilitarianism-vs-virtue-theory.html
Tshepang Lekhonkhobe
says...I understand that you couldn’t wait to get this post out in the wild, but you should have worked on adding links.
One other thing, Alonzo says that Desirism isn’t a utilitarian theory.
cl
says...James,
The 1000 sadists problem is a standard counterexample to utilitarianism. However, Cartestian’s modification of it, is not. In Cartesian’s example, you could not dismiss their pleasures or desire thus.
Certainly, but I’m not saying that any alleged flaw of Alonzo’s makes the theory untrue. I’m saying that if my claims are true, they constitute a major reason why desirism shouldn’t be respectable – Alonzo is its founder. In the same way atheists often expect Christians to explain every single “contradiction” they perceive in Jesus’ words, that I ask of Alonzo – and it’s fair. I’m under no obligation to respect an explanation of a theory that is – IMHO – rife with contradiction.
Yet, Alonzo outright denies that desirism prescribes maximization of desire fulfillment, which makes me question whether you and he are on the same page – or whether he and I are on the same page.
I agree, but it’s worse than that. “People generally” allows Alonzo to make evaluations based on the desire constituency: i.e., the majority. This pushes desirism one step closer to the majoritarianism Alonzo claims it is not.
On the one hand, I agree, and that’s why I said I feel Alonzo has simply re-packaged existing utilitarian concepts while simultaneously denying intrinsic moral value and the existence of anything to maximize. On the other hand, the difference might be more significant than you think. Desires don’t affect other people unless acted on.
From your comments to bossmanham:
I disagree with these types of across-the-board generalizations. It all depends on the situation, as you yourself just said. Even if I didn’t, it’s a quite a stretch from “punching people is bad” to “what creationists believe leads to death and maiming” and “the parents of fat children ought to be condemned.”
Not exactly, you said:
Yet, they are not, so bossmanham’s objection stands: you need to justify your claim.
Yet, Luke [who I consider desirism’s co-defender with Fyfe] claims we ought to reject experience as a measure of truth. One of Luke’s main goals is to defend desirism without appeal to experience, intution, etc. After all, there are all sorts of pleasures that are satisfying and fulfilling, that the average person would not describe as “good.” So, again, I think you need to provide something besides personal experience to justify your claim here.
At least it seems we agree on something!
I disagree, and I believe the quote you just provided will vindicate me. If a right action is an action that a person with good desires would perform, then a wrong action is an action that a person with bad desires would perform. Desirism does provide for judgment – not just of a desire – but of an action as wrong.
Tshepang Lekhonkhobe,
I didn’t see the need. I’m not quoting Fyfe in an out-of-context or controversial way. Besides, anyone who reads at CSA ought to be familiar with the links by now. I posted them in at least three of the last half-dozen posts on desirism – which I know you’ve been on. Still, let me go get them for you:
Also, from Short-List Theories of Morality,
So there you go. I’d much prefer that we discuss the meat rather than nitpick ;)
James Gray
says...Yes, that is fair, but I thought that the topic at hand was just desirism.
Desires that fulfill other desires are good desires. Actions can be judged as good if they are produced from good desires.
Again, I am not familiar with these arguments from him, and it might be that the arguments are against Fife rather than desirism.
I told you what those words were supposed to mean. I clarified myself. The pleasures gained are insignificant in value.
Personal experience can be taken to be observation. If Luke doesn’t want to count experiences at all, then he won’t get anywhere. Again, I admitted that Fife and Luke might not say the same thing I say. I might agree that they say wrong things, but they aren’t here to defend themselves right now.
I don’t understand what you are saying here. I agree with what you said, but I don’t see how it proves me wrong.
cl
says...James,
The topic at hand is why I don’t find desirism respectable. Certain issues with the founder play a role in my decision.
Yet, we can think of instances both hypothetical and actual where a desire seems to fulfill other desires, that we would not call good [by “we” there I’m alluding to you and I and anyone else in our immediate discussion]. As I mentioned, Cartesian’s Nazi example. According to desirism’s definition of good, the Nazis in that example would have good desires. Unless you want to invoke the hypothetical “people generally,” but that’s just another step towards a majoritarian theory IMHO.
That depends where the error is. If a faithful and accurate application of desirism leads Fyfe to those conclusions, then I’m going to argue the theory is flawed. I think that is more likely than the claim that Fyfe is misusing his own theory, but who knows.
Yet, as I told you, in Cartesian’s example, this is not the case. Why don’t you address the example? That might save time and cordiality.
I agree with you. It just sounds to me like you agree with desirism more than you ought. After all, it was you who asked why it wasn’t respectable, and I haven’t seen one good argument that invalidates any of my points.
Because desirism does seem to say that “It’s wrong to do something if it thwarts too many desires.” If a right action is an action that a person with good desires would perform, then a wrong action is an action that a person with bad desires would perform. You appeared to be telling me desirism doesn’t say something that it does in fact seem to be saying.
James Gray
says...I don’t see why you say that. The example is not about high minded pleasures. Yes, they are numerous, but that doesn’t mean they have a high quality.
Additionally, a state of affairs of many people watching a non-torturing show might lead to comparable pleasures. Desires that thwart desires aren’t good when they leads to fulfilling desires when another desire that doesn’t thwart desires leads to fulfilling the same sort of desires. Right and wrong are based on possibilities. You have to consider each possibility.
I don’t know what to think about desirism at this time. I have been questioning your main arguments rather than disproving them because I simply don’t know how successful they are.
I am also unsatisfied with many of the explanations and implementations of the theory, but I want to be as charitable as possible. The strongest arguments against a theory are those that are the most charitable to the theory.
This might be where generality comes in. A desire to watch people get tortured is not a good desire because it will generally lead to more thwarted desires than fulfilled ones.
James Gray
says...It is possibly a counterintuitive theory. It might also be revisionist. It’s not based on what we think morality means, but Fife thinks his theory is the “best” offered at this time.
cl
says...James,
What exactly is a “high minded pleasure?” How is that relevant? Fyfe’s claim is that good desires are those desires that tend to fulfill other desires. Yet, in Cartesian’s example, the Nazi’s desires to fulfill other desires, so why is it that we resist calling them good? If there was truly nothing more to “good” than being “other desire fulfilling,” then the Nazis’ desires should be called good. However, if we refuse to call the Nazis’ desires good, then there must be something more to “good” than the simple “other desire fulfilling.” That’s the question, and I’ve not once seen a coherent answer.
Personally, I hesitate to call the Nazis’ desires “good” because I believe torturing innocent people is intrinsically wrong, whether it fulfills other desires or not. For what it’s worth, I think that’s why everybody hesitates to call the Nazis’ desires good.
James Gray
says...High minded pleasure is what I was talking about when I brought up Mill’s idea that pleasure can have various levels of quality. I talked about how merely counting desires could be the wrong way to go about desirism because one very important desire might thwart two or more superficial ones — but we could still say that the qualitatively superior desire is more important.
This might not be what desirism is meant to do, and it might not be able to do it. It was just an idea. It might be one way utilitarianism is potentially superior to desirism.
cl
says...This has been explored in the type-token distinction. The problem is, if we go that route, we’re right back to the question bossmanham tossed out: how do we decide which desires are more significant than others?
James Gray
says...I answered that question. I don’t see it as a big problem. Ethics is messy and complex, and anyone who says otherwise doesn’t understand it very well.
If you try to take experience out of morality nothing will be left.
cl
says...You did answer, but you did not answer persuasively. All you did was assert that the Nazis’ desires weren’t significant, and when asked to explain, you basically just passed us off to Mill and called it a day!
The question of who becomes the arbiter of “significant desires” – and on what grounds – remains on the table. It seems to me that you can’t answer that question for other people, nor could I, and that’s just another reason I say I’d be an error theorist if I were an atheist. You might decree intellectual pursuits as significant desires for yourself, but I don’t see how you could justify holding other people to your criteria of significant desires – and that’s what you would have to do in order to judge the Nazis’ desires. That – I think – is what bossmanham was getting at, and, as I said, the question remains on the table.
I agree with both of those as stated.
James Gray
says...The “who’s to say?” question is always irrelevant to philosophy. We are to say. We have felt pain and know it matters. We know that certain desires are more important than others because that’s how we experience them. Mill said that a “competent judge” of such things will have experienced a variety of pleasures to know which are most important. Well, I think we have experienced a variety of desires and know what it’s like to have them “fulfilled.”
Fife wants to distance himself from experience because my desire for certain things might never be “knowingly fulfilled.” We might not know our wife was cheating on us, for example. That is another issue, but I don’t think it negates the fact that experiences count. Again, that might actually count against desirism in the long run.
Whether or not I satisfactorily answered the question is something you can rightfully judge, but I don’t think I said anything especially controversial and I don’t have a lot more to add to the topic at this time.
I would like to add that I’m not convinced that pleasure given a “bad context” necessarily makes the pleasure worthless. It so happens that these sorts of pleasures don’t help make us happy people overall. They are superficial rather than fulfilling. The desire for such evil pleasures might even motivate evil behavior.
I don’t consider myself a utilitarian or desirism-ist, so I don’t fully understand how they deal with all of these complexities. I personally think that doing wrong tends to be wrong in part because people get hurt. The pain caused by the immoral sadist is more important than the pleasure gained. However, I share the sympathy that utilitarians don’t quite deal with the issue the right way. Something like the categorical imperative seems to do a better job in this area.
James Gray
says...To clarify, the position that some pleasures/desire fulfillment are better than others is not what I consider very controversial.
I must admit that whether or not utilitarianism or desirism can adequately answer these difficult counterexamples is another issue. Utilitarians can tell us that greater value exists if we can get pleasure without hurting others — we can compare our options and try to do the “best” option — but how exactly utilitarianism works is a little unclear. For one thing the rule against harm seems to be more important than the rule of helping people. Some have suggested that harm tends to be much more disruptive to us and helping people tends to have less of an impact.