tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post5662095967438816174..comments2023-10-24T04:29:23.693-06:00Comments on Atheist Ethicist: For the Love of FreedomAlonzo Fyfehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-2592852096165936372009-05-01T15:32:00.000-06:002009-05-01T15:32:00.000-06:00Alonzo wrote:
"I believe that people who follow t...Alonzo wrote: <br />"I believe that people who follow their own desires can treat people quite cruelly. This is one of the reasons why I deny that morality has to do with people following their own desires."<br /><br />I unerstand that you qualify DU by saying that the desires that count are GOOD desires. I think that this is begging the question and, to my eyes, collaspses DU into a tautology of sorts (Good acts are thsoe which promote good desires," which states the obvious but leaves completely open what a "good" desire is. <br /><br />This is why I think many people (like RichardW) see DU as so malleable that it can be used to justify anything. Any desire you like can be called a "good" one and any act that you don't like can be somehow "found" to be based on a "bad" desire. <br /><br />I will read your most recent post now.Kevin Currie-Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17401531417243089948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-5223219232265674532009-05-01T10:46:00.000-06:002009-05-01T10:46:00.000-06:00Alonzo beat me to it. But yes, you misunderstand. ...Alonzo beat me to it. But yes, you misunderstand. Please don't state that DU is something that it's not, especially if what you're saying is the OPPOSITE of what it is.Eneasznoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-24055482394868330312009-05-01T07:50:00.000-06:002009-05-01T07:50:00.000-06:00And, RichardW, for clarification:
You wrote, "Alo...And, RichardW, for clarification:<br /><br />You wrote, "Alonzo is living in a land of wishful thinking where, if only people would truly follow all their desires, they would treat everyone equally."<br /><br />I believe that people who follow their own desires can treat people quite cruelly. This is one of the reasons why I deny that morality has to do with people following their own desires.<br /><br />Morality is about giving people desires where, if they were to follow them, they would treat others well. If they already had those desires, there would be no need for morality.<br /><br />Everything else in your post were the absurd implications of an absurd assumption that I do not share.Alonzo Fyfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-45814441200054033002009-05-01T07:45:00.000-06:002009-05-01T07:45:00.000-06:00RichardW
It was nice of you to visit and attempt ...RichardW<br /><br />It was nice of you to visit and attempt to engage in intelligent debate for as long as it lasted. It is sad that you have decided to descend into insults and personal attacks such as this.<br /><br />Anyway, I addressed Kevin's remarks already in:<br /><br /><A HREF="http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/" REL="nofollow">Giving People (Moral) Reasons</A>Alonzo Fyfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-42444033814501472212009-05-01T07:34:00.000-06:002009-05-01T07:34:00.000-06:00Well said, Kevin.
Alonzo is living in a land of w...Well said, Kevin.<br /><br />Alonzo is living in a land of wishful thinking where, if only people would <I>truly</I> follow <I>all</I> their desires, they would treat everyone equally.<br /><br />But his make-believe doesn't stop there. He insists that this somehow makes the claim that people should treat others equally into an objective moral truth.<br /><br />It doesn't. Even if his wishful thinking scenario were true, it would only make it <I>rational</I> to treat everyone equally, not <I>moral</I> to do so.<br /><br />His confusion is so severe that he calls himself both a moral realist and a moral anti-realist at the same time!Richard Weinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18095903892283146064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-43506443949454288562009-05-01T04:48:00.000-06:002009-05-01T04:48:00.000-06:00"The first point to take is that the question is s..."The first point to take is that the question is set up to be about a science-fiction universe filled with creatures that are difficult to imagine. We are supposed to imagine a creature with a desire to continue reaping the benefits of slavery, and no desires that could be thwarted by slavery."<br /><br />I am catching this discussion in the middle, but this should not be difficult to imagine. Prior to the Civil War, such a view was quite commonplace. <br /><br />And whether it is difficult to imagine is actually beside the point, which seems to be that DU seems a theory that is compatible with just about any moral vision one could have. If my desire is fulfilled by owning slaves, then DU can be used to justify that (even if in a utilitarian fashion which says that more desires are fulfilled by ownership of slaves than not). <br /><br />"The creature with no desire that can be thwarted by a desire to own slaves is a creature of science fiction."<br /><br />But you are acting like all desires are created equal. What if the slaveholder's strongest desire is to have free labor for his planation, and only secondarily has concerns about whether slaves might revolt (which he figures can be easily met with the weight of then-in-place slave laws outlawing rebellion)? <br /><br />You don't offer any persuasive reason for DU to take an anti-slavery stance except for a very strange assumption that you know the slaveowner's desires better than he. <br /><br />"The creature with no desire that can be thwarted by a desire to own slaves is a creature of science fiction."<br /><br />I would suspect that the creature with completely non-contradictory desires is a creature of science fiction. Take for instance the environmentalist who has a strong desire to have a car (which indirectly damages the environment), or the person who wants to donate time to a charity but also has a desire to sleep in? Are you saying then, using the same reasoning, that since they have desires that thwart other desires, that their desires are somehow wrong? <br /><br />"The real moral question is whether or not people generally have reason to give him a reason not to have slaves"<br /><br />One of the biggest problems with moral theory is the realization that giving a person reason to do x means finding a reason that would be persuasive to that particular person. I am not sure any of the reasons you are giving would be persuasive to the slave-owner (especially if he were living in a country that was slave-owning). <br /><br /> "Even the slave owner himself has many and strong reason to promote, overall, an aversion in people generally to depriving others of freedom. "<br /><br />Do you think this would be persuasive to ta slave-owner living under Plessy v Ferguson? The "others" you talk about would have then been quickly written off as unequal to slaveowners, and thus, unworthy of freedom. In fact, the argument at the time was that slavery was a good thing for blacks because they were thought to be savages that couldn't handle freedom. <br /><br />Obviously, we know that this view changed, but I am not sure that your statement that people generally have reason to want others to be free does not jibe with the facts that many nations at many times did not see this as reasonable. <br /><br />The general point of this, though, is that DU and its talk of what promotes desire seems quite malleable enough to disqualify itself as a moral theory. Whatever one's desires are, it seems that one can mold a DU justification for it (as I daresay the slaveholder would do, and you have done in your defense.)Kevin Currie-Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17401531417243089948noreply@blogger.com