On Desire 2018. Part 37: Comparitive vs Absolute Values

You know . . . I hate using the term "absolute values" in this title. I fear it will call to mind a doctrine of absolute moral values that are unchanging and without exception - a type of value whose existence I reject.

In this post, I need to distinguish between preference and desire.

The difference is that preference is a comparative value, while desire is an absolute value.

The point of this posting: I want to argue that the logic of "good" and "desire" is the logic of absolute or assigned values. The logic of "ought" and "preferences" is the logic of comparatives. Because the logic of desire is like the logic of good, this is at least consistent with associating "good" with "that which is such as to fulfill the desires in question".

Now, for the discussion.

A desire is an assignment of a value to the importance of a proposition being true (or false). This assignment is non-comparative. It simply says, "take proposition that I am eating pumpkin pie with whipped cream and assign it a value of 5." At this point we know only that this is a desire that P - that the agent wants P (where P = "I am eating pumpkin pie with whipped cream") to be true. It doesn't say anything about any other state of affairs.

"Preference", on the other hand, is a comparative. I prefer pumpkin pie with whipped cream over plain pumpkin pie. This is a way of saying that the value attached to the importance of the proposition "I am eating pumpkin pie with whipped cream" being true is higher than the value assigned to the importance of the proposition "I am eating pumpkin pie without whipped cream" being true.

Olivier Massin, in the article I have been criticizing, (Massin, Olivier, (2017), “Desires, Values, and Norms” In Deonna J. & Lauria F. (eds). The Nature of Desire. Oxford University Press.) has argued that "desire" is in the "guise of the ought" rather than the "guise of the good" because the logic of desire is like that of "ought" and not "good".

Contra Massin, it is actually easy to both illustrate Massin's error and the logic of comparitives versus absolute (or assigned) values by looking at desires and preferences.

If A is better than B, then B is worse than A by the same amount. Another way to say the same thing is that if A is better than B, then it is not possible for the agent to be indifferent as to whether A or B obtains. There is no way for the preference of B over A to be zero. If the value of A over B is positive, then the value of B over A must be negative, and vise versa. This is the logic of comparative values.

Yet, as I have been arguing in the previous posts, the fact that an agent assigns a value to A does not imply that not-A has a negative value. Indeed, I have suggested that whenever the value assigned to a proposition being true is N, then the value assigned to a proposition being false must be 0. This is what the N stands for - the distance from 0 that represents the value of the proposition being true. I have illustrated by an example in which I assigned a state of affairs where I am in pain to be -8. I assigned a state of being in a little pain the value of -2. And I argued that the value of being in no pain at all is 0.

Notice the difference here. If the value of "A over B" is 8, then the value of "B over A" cannot be zero. But if the assigned value of A is 8, then the assigned value of not-A is 0. value of being in a little pain My aversion to a little pain is -2. And my aversion to no pain is 0.

Preferences, as described her, "prohibit indifference to the negation of their content". One cannot prefer A over B and be indifferent to B over A. However, desires do not prohibit indifference to the negation of their content. A person can have a strong aversion to a pain of -8, but be indifferent to a pain of 0. He must, necessarily prefer "no pain" to "pain", but this does not imply that "no pain" must be desired.

Massin notices this property of prohibited indifference to the negation of content is a property of comparatives when he examines the "guise of the better". He presents the "guise of the better" as an alternative to the "guise of the good" that would be immune to his objections. Specifically, "guise of the better" prohibits indifference to the negation of their content. A cannot be better than B without B being worse than A. Thus, "guise of the better" does not have the problems that Massin attributes to "guise of the good".

Notice, "better" is a comparative. It follows the logic of comparatives. He wrote, "betterness is naturally construed as the formal object of preferences, rather than of desires."

He did not see that "betterness" is to "good" what "preferences" are to "desire". In both pairs, the first term is the comparative version of the second term. A "guise of the better" thesis would match the logic of preferences, where a "guise of the good" thesis would match the logic of desires.

Betterness and preferences follow the logic of comparatives - prohibiting indifference to the negation of their content. If A is better than/preferred to B than the agent cannot be indifferent to B over A.

Goodness and desires follow the logic of non-comparatives. It is quite compatible with A being good/desired or bad/desired-not that the agent is indifferent to not-A.