tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post2417544929759172963..comments2023-10-24T04:29:23.693-06:00Comments on Atheist Ethicist: Desirism vs Subjectivism III: Merely Stating a PreferenceAlonzo Fyfehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-339185186593735152009-08-27T10:11:47.942-06:002009-08-27T10:11:47.942-06:00Alonzo, I think I agree with everything in your la...Alonzo, I think I agree with everything in your last comment. I am not sure that it is really much different than what I was trying to say (maybe I did not say it quite as well.)<br /><br />I suspect that you would say, with some truth, that some philosophers(certainly subjectivists)spend to much time poking holes in the arguments of traditional ethical objectivists. It is not that hard to show that "goodness" or "oughtness" are not intrinsic to people or actions. <br /><br />But I do try in my own mind to separate my meta-ethical ruminations and my normative thoughts. I agree with you completely on how we really do work in the real world when we have conflicts. I am not quite sure that I am as optimistic as you are over our ability to clearly outline our desires and how they affect our actions. But that may be just me. I still suspect that in many areas that are gray, we ultimately just fall back on winging it to some extent.<br /><br />But I do have a question:<br /><br />You say, <i>"Why is it the case that I must be speaking about my own desires when I use moral language? There are a lot of desires in the universe – all of them just as real as my own. The claim that I am only capable of talking about my own preferences is simply false.</i><br /><br />Later you say:<br /><i>If somebody says to me that the reasons for his intentional actions are not his own desires then he is mistaken. He may claim that there is an outside motivational power, but no such outside motivational power exists.</i><br /><br />What then is the purpose of knowing that there are lots of desires in the universe or specifically what they are if they cannot serve as an outside motivational power?<br /><br />Sure, I can talk about your desires (and I do think they can affect me by simply knowing them) but you as much admit that I am ultimately moved only by my own desires (which seems to be similar to my original point if my desire is seen generically as a preference.) <br /><br />But I think we have spoken at cross purposes. You are primarily dealing with pragmatic methods of dealing with moral conflict (and stating our preferences does little in and of itself) while I am simply focusing, on my original comments on the maybe trivial point that it all reduces to preferences and desires and not specifically on the best way to convince people to change a malleable desire.Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08324751751266266009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-21062601234036776312009-08-27T09:17:39.731-06:002009-08-27T09:17:39.731-06:00If you begin with the fact that A has a desire tha...If you begin with the fact that A has a desire that P, that B has a desire that not P, that there are no relevant counter-weighting desires, and we are at the moment of action, then A is going to act so as to fulfill his desire and thwart B's desires. That's all can be said on the matter.<br /><br />If somebody says to me that the reasons for his intentional actions are not his own desires then he is mistaken. He may claim that there is an outside motivational power, but no such outside motivational power exists.<br /><br />The only way you are going to be able to convince a person to choose to act different in the short term is to point out that a different action will best fulfill that agent's current desires given his current beliefs. That is the only option available.<br /><br />However, over the longer term, you have another option - the option of changing that person's desires. This is not done by reason (since desires are not 'reasonable' or subject to reason). This is done through the use of such tools as praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment that <i>over time</i> has an effect of molding the desires of others.<br /><br />Furthermore, there is a set of relevant facts concerning the reasons for action that exist for molding desires.<br /><br />Morality is not about convincing you to do or to forbear some action today. Today, you are going to do the act that best fulfills your current desires given your current beliefs.<br /><br />A few years from now you will also act to as to fulfill your desires a few years from now given your beliefs a few years from now. Given this fact, I have reason to act in ways so as to mold those future desires, so you are less likely to choose to do actions that thwart my desires and more likely to do actions that fulfill my desires.<br /><br />This social institution of molding desires so that, over the long run, people tend to act so as to fulfill the desires of others and tend not to act in ways that thwart the desires of others - that is the concern of morality.Alonzo Fyfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-25946456987049878312009-08-27T07:38:50.204-06:002009-08-27T07:38:50.204-06:00I am quite busy at school (beginning of the year a...I am quite busy at school (beginning of the year and No Child Left Behind and such) so I don't have a lot of time to respond to the last four or five postings, so I will do what I can here.<br /><br />First, Alonzo, thank you for your thoughtful responses. You have been fair. I will say though, that I have not actually proposed a framework for developing normative propositions, per se, certainly not in my comments you are quoting--I am not at all sure that I could, even if I wanted to--I don't believe that a meta-ethical subjective position leads to that and I really don't claim it does. That may be where I am confused. You are presenting a normative framework, whose conclusions I often agree. I am just not sure I accept (or maybe understand) the underlying premises--or that the premises you state lead to your goal.<br /><br />Anyway, a few points.<br />You go on about how I should not restrict myself to talking only about my desires as if I were saying that my subjective preferences exist in some bubble, completely separate from all other concerns. If I were in fact claiming that my subjective reality were bubbled off from all other subjective concerns, I would not just be unwise, I would be factually wrong. That is not what I claim at all. When I think about ethics, I am thinking about conflicts between what I desire and what you desire. Obvious the conflict can and often is immediate in that it affects me right now. But, I am being deliberately generic here. If I have a preference for allowing homosexuals to marry, an issue that does not necessarily affect me in any immediate sense, then I will act only to the extent that I desire to act--either to change someone's own desires, or to coerce some behavior. It is still my desire that moves me, even if my desire takes into consideration other people's immediate concerns. If I take sides in any conflict even when that conflict involves other people's conflicting desires and does not affect me at all, per se (in other words if I turned and walked away, I would unlikely be affected by the conflict) then it is still the case that on some generic level, for whatever reason, I now have a desire (or preference) that the the conflict be resolved in a particular way--even though I have no immediate, or obvious stake in the issue. (1)<br /><br />My point, that you critique, is that what will move me to act, is a desire. I can look at other peoples desires, of course, but until some desire builds in me I am not likely to act short of coercion.<br /><br />My concern is that when someone says to me "I am not moved to restrict some behavior or require some behavior of your's because of my desires, per se, but because I have analyzed all the desires of the whole of humanity" then I am tempted responde, "No, you are moved because that is your preferences. Don't pretend otherwise. You may have this preference because you are aware of other people's desire and filled with empathy, or what not; you may have all the facts of the universe at your disposal, and all of that may move me to share your desires. Feel free to share with me what you value (whether you are honest and admit that you have your own preferences or pretend that it is a fact of nature that we ought to prefer this or that) and I may share your values. Show me how doing this or that leads to some state and convince me or cojole me to value this state. It doesn't matter because you are not going to convince me willing to desire something until it is in some way connected to something I in fact value or desire."<br /><br />Forgive any typos, I am about to start first block. I want this to post.Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08324751751266266009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-45580970472026717322009-08-26T20:59:20.711-06:002009-08-26T20:59:20.711-06:00I am not entirely convinced that praise and condem...I am not entirely convinced that praise and condemnation create desires that did not previously exist. Rather, it could simply be that people have a strong pre-existing desire to be praised and another strong desire not to be condemned.<br /><br />Similarly, suppose that you do not have a desire to eat rice cakes. However, if I were offer you $5 if you eat one, and you respond to this offer by eating a rice cake, you would not be eating a rice cake because you had a desire to eat rice cakes. You would be eating the rice cake in order to satisfy your desire for the $5. (And your apparent desire for the $5 might only be because having the $5 serves as a means to fulfill some other desire.)<br /><br />In fact, it might even be true that <i>no</i> desires are malleable - that people only want a relatively small number of things (food, friends, social status, security, etc.) and all the various desires that people <i>appear</i> to have are only sought as means to those ends, even if we are not consciously aware of it.Doug S.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-56230261187992505312009-08-26T12:07:48.204-06:002009-08-26T12:07:48.204-06:00Perhaps you could use blogger's "schedule...Perhaps you could use blogger's "scheduled post" feature to post open threads?josefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06650991894634101445noreply@blogger.com