In this post I wish to continue to consider some points that Richard Carrier made with respect to desire utilitarianism.
I presented the case of a person asked to choose among two options:
Option 1: The person is made to falsely believe that their child is healthy and happy while the child is, in fact, being tortured.
Option 2: The person is made to falsely believe that their child is being tortured while the child is, in fact, healthy and happy.
I suggested that the fact that many people report that they would choose Option 2 suggests that people do not care about happiness as much as they care about realizing states of affairs in which that which they desire (the health and happiness of their children) is made true.
I have already raised the objection that the person who claims that happiness is the only value needs to provide us with an account as to how a person can be constituted so as to pursue happiness but cannot be constituted so as to pursue anything else, such as the health and happiness of their children.
Carrier also suggestion that a person who values only happiness or satisfaction would have reason to choose Option 2 because he cared about what type of person he was.
The problem with this option is addressed in the question, "What is he?"
A person who acts out of a concern to be a particular type of person can never actually be that type of person. The best he can hope for is to go through the motions – to play the part – of somebody who is a particular type of person.
Let us say that he is concerned with being the type of person who loves his children. If all of his actions are motivated by a desire to be a particular type of person, and none of them are grounded in a selfless concern for the well-being of his children, then he is simply is not the type of person who loves his children. Instead, he is somebody who has no love for his children who is playing the part . . . pretending . . . to be somebody who loves his children.
Instead, he is merely somebody who loves his own happiness, and who can (fortunately) harvest happiness by caring for his children. The children are still a mere means to the agent’s own happiness – to be discarded as irrelevant the instant they should cease to serve their purpose.
Desire utilitarianism can make sense of the desire to be a particular type of person. It says that, through praise and reward and simple repetition, a person can change their desires so that they can actually come to value something he does not yet value. He does so by first acting like he is somebody with a particular desire (pretending). Through repetition and self-gratification he can acquire the desire he seeks. As he acquires the desire, he becomes the person he wants to be. As he acquires an interest in his own children’s welfare (rather than an interest in his own happiness for which the welfare of the children is a means).
There is one way in which a happiness theorist can make sense of the idea of somebody being a particular type of person. Somebody can have an interest, for example, in being the type of person who is made happy by the welfare of children. However, this option presents two different questions.
How is it the case that “being a particular type of person” has value? To a happiness theorist, this can only mean that being a certain type of person makes the agent happy. It can only be for the sake of the agent’s own happiness that he is motivated to be a particular type of person.
How can it be that being somebody who has an interest in being a particular type of person have value? It can only be because the thought of being somebody who wants to be a particular kind of person makes the person happy.
Are we getting any closer to the nature of value?
The other problem is more serious.
By hypothesis, our agent wants to be a particular type of person – a person who finds happiness in the welfare of children. However, this drive does not give him any incentive at all to choose Option 2.
Why?
In this case, being the type of person who finds happiness from the welfare of children is simply cannot be realized. The route to happiness is the route to the belief that the child is healthy and happy. The agent may wish that the route to happiness was through the other route. Furthermore, he may value the type of person who wished that the route to happiness was the route that brought about the welfare of the child. However, his wishes, in this case, do not count for anything. Reality has simply conspired to make it the case that happiness, in fact, is found in the option that brings about the torture of the child.
The desire utilitarian does not face this problem. The desire utilitarian, who desires that the child is healthy and happy, seeks to realize a state of affairs in which the proposition, "The child is healthy and happy," is true. That state is realized in Option 2.
If we think that an agent can rationally choose Option 2, then we have to hold that something other than (or, more recisely, in addition to) happiness has value.
5 comments:
I think it's very difficult for a subject to actually imagine the possibility of "knowing" that one's child is being tortured, when at the time of the survey/experiment they'd be actually TOLD that their child is actually happy. I think this factor of inability to imagine would greatly confound the outcome of such study.
Wouldn't it follow that they'd have just as much trouble imagining "knowing" that their child is being tortured if they actually were presented with that choice by an evil genius, and thus choose the same outcome anyway?
Now specifics...
"...being the type of person who finds happiness from the welfare of children simply cannot be realized."That is a statement contrary to scientific fact. I reject all theories that reject demonstrated empirical facts. So should you. Perhaps you meant something else?
The route to happiness is the route to the belief that the child is healthy and happy.No, its the route to the belief that your action will ensure he will be. The differences are rather important.
But more to the point (and this is what tells me you haven't read my book), the issue isn't some sort of metaphysical turning point met at the decision, but an overall effect of character on your life.
If you are a reasonably compassionate person, your whole life will be (statistically) better for you than if you were not a reasonably compassionate person (all else being equal). That's an empirically demonstrable fact (as my book discusses). Therefore, if you want to be happy (and you are rationally and fully informed) you will want to be reasonably compassionate. If you want to be reasonably compassionate, you will do everything you know how to do, to become that. And as a result, you eventually will become that.
And once you are that, your reasonable compassion will physically cause you to make reasonably compassionate choices, which is why reasonable compassion will produce (statistically) a long-term aggregate benefit in your life (as my book explains), and thus the reason you would want to become that sort of person, and so on around.
Now, at the point of deciding between Option 1 and 2, you either have engaged this process, or you have not. If you have not, then if you make a fully informed rational decision, you will not choose Option 2, you will choose Option 1. You will only make Option 2 (under those specific conditions) if it makes you uncomfortable to choose Option 1 (and thus choosing Option 2 produces greater satisfaction), and you will only be uncomfortable choosing Option 1 if you are a reasonably compassionate person.
That's how it works. You can substitute other value chains. Reasonable compassion isn't the only virtue that would motivate choosing Option 2, but pick any path and the argument is the same, or else the virtue in question cannot be argued for as pursuit-worthy. But for simplicity's sake I'll stick with reasonable compassion...
The immediate satisfaction from choosing Option 2 comes from being a reasonably compassionate person and wanting to continue being such a person, and having that property and desire is motivated by the overall effect it will have on your whole life (not just at that one moment of decision).
Thus, happiness is your reason for being that sort of person, and being that sort of person is your reason for choosing Option 2, which in turn contributes to your happiness (because compassionate people derive pleasure from making compassionate choices).
All this is built on scientific facts: what we know about the reality of human psychology and decision-making and the statistical effects of behaviors and so on.
This theory also explains everything, from the bottom up.
By contrast...
The desire utilitarian, who desires that the child is healthy and happy, seeks to realize a state of affairs in which the proposition, "The child is healthy and happy," is true.But why? Why should anyone care about that proposition being true? Because they "desire that the child is healthy and happy" -- but why should they desire that? Why will they? And why would they choose that desire over all others? That is, why not seek to realize a state of affairs in which the proposition, "I am healthy and happy, to hell with the child" is true?
My theory answers that question. I'm so far not seeing how yours does. But I confess I haven't examined it in enough detail, so I'm sure you can fill me in on that. Just be sure your answer derives from science, not the armchair, and I'll be happy. But you may be surprised to find it's already my own answer as well.
Hello Richard. I realize this is a conversation between you and Alonzo, but I was curious if you wouldn't mind addressing a question. Does the theory you advocate work for non-human animals as well?
Eneasz: It depends on what you mean by "work for." If you mean are moral propositions entailed by my theory (in conjunction with natural facts) true for animals other than humans, the answer is: yes, but animals will almost never be able to comprehend this fact and thus can't employ moral reasoning and thus can't benefit from it.
For example, would apes be better off if they could fulfill moral commandments of cooperation, trade, justice, alliance-building, and so on? Obviously. They could organize and defend themselves very effectively against poachers if they could implement their own police and military and develop moral alliances with other armed humans, visiting and making pleas to the UN and engaging in honest trade for modern weapons. But they can't even comprehend this stuff.
I don't know how much Koko can understand these things, for instance. From what I have seen, she can probably comprehend a lot more than apes in the wild, but I doubt anywhere near enough to actually successfully implement an effective system of moral behavior, and I further doubt she could teach what she has learned to apes in the wild, if she were to rejoin them.
Animals also differ from us in many respects, and since moral propositions derive their truth value from natural facts about us (physiologically, psychologically, etc.), a different moral system may be true for another species than is true for us. I argue in my book there will almost always be considerable overlap in the moral systems of species capable of developing advanced civilizations, but humans are the only species on earth to which that conclusion would apply.
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