Desirism Book - Part 0022 - Proto-Morality

With this posting, we will have a foundation on which a moral system can be built. We will have all of the essential elements and all of the necessary tools. The next step, then, will be to actually build a moral system on this foundation.

At this point, our universe contains two people, each with one desire. There is Alph with a desire to gather stones, and Bett with his desire to scatter stones.

I also want to stipulate that both Alph and Bett are so constituted so that praise can create new desires, while condemnation can create new aversions. For example, if Bett condemns Alph for scattering stones, Alph will acquire an aversion to scattering stones. In our hypothetical universe, Bett has no reason to do this (since Alph has no reason to scatter stones to begin with). However, the power exists if a reason to use it should appear.

I also want to add the stipulation that this feature is not very precise. Creating an aversion to scattering stones is easier than creating an aversion to scattering red stones. This, in turn, is easier than creating an aversion to scattering a red stone after one has already scattered a blue stone.

In other words, the propositions that this system will select to be the objects of its new desires and aversions will tend to be simple and general propositions. It would be possible to create an aversion to scattering red stones - it will only require more work as one condemns the scattering of red stones only and praises the scattering of stones that are not red until the brain figures out the rule.

With these stipulations in place, we have a world in which Alph is spending all of his time gathering stones, and Bett is spending all of his time scattering stones. Both are making or keeping true the propositions that are the objects of their desires. It is the best of all possible world.

Now, I am going to give each person a second desire - an aversion to their own pain. This may be described as "a desire that I not be in pain."

At this point, neither participant cares about the pain of the other. Thus, Alph can be fully aware that an act of his will cause Bett pain. However, so long as Bett continues to scatter stones, Alph has no reason to refrain from that action. It is true that Alph has reason to avoid injuring Bett or doing anything that would prevent Bett from scattering stones, but he has no reason to avoid causing Bett pain.

Similarly, Bett has no reason to avoid causing Alph pain.

However, Alph's aversion to pain does give him reason to cause Bett to acquire an aversion to causing pain to others. Alph can create this aversion in Bett by condemning Bett whenever Bett performs an action that causes pain. Once Bett acquires this aversion, then Bett will seek to create states of affairs in which both propositions, "I am scattering stones" and "I am not causing pain to others" are true at the same time.

Everything said here about Alph is also true of Bett. He has a reason to cause Alph to have an aversion to causing pain to others. He can accomplish this by condemning Alph whenever Alph performs an action that causes pain.

The next thing to note is that both Alph and Bett can become aware of these relevant facts. They can both come to realize that they live in a world in which "everybody" (that is, both Alph and Bett) has a reason to promote a universal aversion to causing pain by condemning anybody who causes pain to others.

If we want, we can imagine a world with 100 Alphs and 100 Betts. It will still be true that everybody has reason to promote a universal aversion to causing pain by condemning those who cause pain.

With this, we have all of the makings for a proto-moral system.

I call this a proto-moral system because it is still just a foundation on which a moral system can be built. We still have a lot of building to do. However, all of the basic elements are here.

If we were to come across this community, we would see a group of people who habitually condemned those who caused pain to others. In doing so, they would not ask those who they condemned, "What were you trying to do?" or "Would that have been an effective means to accomplishing your own ends?" These do not matter to the assessment. Seeing their behavior, we would almost certainly translate their linguistic utterances into the English phrase, "It is wrong to cause pain to others," with all of the relevant behavioral characteristics.

We would even discover these people defending themselves from condemnation by claiming, "It wasn't my fault," meaning, "Even with an aversion to causing pain to others, that pain you want to condemn me for could not have been avoided. Condemning people under these circumstances simply does no good - it is not something that people have any reason to do."

In other words, this community would have a fully compatibalist concept of free will and responsibility.

I am going to get into each of these details and more in the posts to come. More specifically, the next step is to discover what can be said about this community of people who each have two desires (a desire to either gather or scatter stones and an aversion to pain) and the capacity to create new desires in others using praise and condemnation.