The Role of Reason in Morality

It's a rainy night, you are out on some back road with no cell phone coverage, and you have a flat tire.

Reason and a few true beliefs will tell you how to change the tire so that you can continue the trip. You will also need a few tools - a tire iron and a jack, as well as an inflated spare tire, or something that can serve each role.

You can try to reason with the tire. You can tell the tire how much better off you will be if it would just inflate itself and stop this leaking. You can inform the tire that it is placing an unfair burden on you, forcing you out into the rain and, perhaps, putting your life at risk. However, I predict that this will do little good.

The role of reason in morality is much like the role of reason in changing a tire. Reason will not turn a wicked person into a good person. Reason will only tell you how to use the tools that you have available to help make it the case that there are more good people and fewer wicked people, or that most people are a morally better than they otherwise would have been.

The tools relevant to changing the character of people, at least within the institution of morality, are reward and punishment - including praise and condemnation.

These tools alter behavior in two ways.

One way they modify behavior is to serve as incentives and deterrents. People act so as to obtain a reward and avoid a punishment. To be an effective reward or punishment, these tools must act on existing desires, offering something the agent already has a desire for or an aversion to, or by giving or taking away something that is useful as a means towards those ends.

However, morality is not concerned with these effects. This system applies more to law, sporting events, and games.

Morality is concerned with the effect that reward and punishment has on desires themselves - altering behavior by strengthening particular desires and aversions.

One of the main difference in these effects is that they are active even when the agent is not being watched. A threat of punishment for taking the property of others is effective only if the agent believes that he has a chance of getting caught and punished. In contrast, a sufficiently strong aversion to taking the property of others will prevent the agent from taking property even when he has no fear of getting caught.

This is the realm of morality.

It is relevant to add that praise functions as a reward in these matters, and condemnation acts as punishment.

It is also important to note that rewards such as praise and punishments such as condemnation work not only on those being rewarded or punished, but on those who witness the reward or punishment - even if the person rewarded or punished is a fictional character.

Desires are immune to reason. You cannot reason a person into having an aversion to taking property any more than you can reason a person into liking the taste of spinach. However, we can change a person's desires by rewarding that which we want to encourage and condemning that which we want to discourage.

Note that you can use reason on somebody who has good desires and is missing some relevant piece of information. If somebody has a desire to help the poor, then providing a reasoned argument that a particular policy will not help the poor should convince the person to abandon the policy. If it does not, then we have reason to question whether the individual's desire for that policy is actually grounded on a concern for the poor.

However, rewards and punishments (including praise and condemnation) are what we use to mold desires themselves.

Reason tells us how to use these tools of reward and punishment to alter desires the same way it tell us how to use a jack and a tire iron to change a flat tire. Desires provide the motivation for praise and condemnation just as they provide the motivation for using the jack and tire iron. Reason tells us how to use the tools efficiently.

Here, then, briefly, are the roles of reason in morality.

• To get a good person to do the right thing.

• To govern the use of reward, punishment, praise, and condemnation to make people morally better.

Here is something reason cannot do:

• Make a wicked person good.

Peter Railton's Naturalistic Reductionism - Part 6 - Moral Realism Itself

Here, we take a look at Railton's moral realism.

Recall, in Railton's argument for non-moral value realism, he used an example of a dehydrated tourist, Lonnie, facing an option of whether to drink milk or water. ("Moral Realism", The Philosophical Review, Vol. 95, No. 2 (Apr., 1986), pp 163-207.)  Drinking water would deal with his dehydration and cause him to feel better, while drinking milk would cause him to feel worse. These facts obtain regardless of what Lonnie believes or wants to be the case. Furthermore, through experience, Lonnie can learn about the better value of drinking water or clear soda instead of milk.

To start with, Railton identified morality with social rationality. Specifically, with:

...what would be rationally approved of were the interests of all potentially affected individuals counted equally under circumstances of full and vivid information.

In the same way that the drinking of water instead of milk is what a fully informed Lonnie would prescribe for his less informed, dehydrated self, moral institutions are what a fully informed community would recommend for its less informed self.

Furthermore, Railton suggested that immoral institutions would, at least in some cases, leave a community with something akin to a social upset stomach.

Just as an individual who significantly discounts some of his interests will be liable to certain sorts of dissatisfaction, so will a social arrangement - for example, a form of production, a social or political hierarchy, etc. - that departs from social rationality by significantly discounting the interests of a particular group have a potential for dissatisfaction and unrest.

Railton went on to identify some confounding circumstances that might interfere with this social unrest. He included social oppression, a lack of information or experience that would prevent the agent's from knowing that their interests are being neglected, and the small size or weakness of the group being harmed as confounding factors.

Still, according to Railton, there would be instances where injustice would lead to dissatisfaction and unrest in something like the way that drinking milk would lead to an upset stomach. These experiences of unrest would inform a community not to do those things - to change or improve its institutions, making them more just.

I see two problems with this account.

The first is that Railton established as one of his conditions for realism that the values be independent of the agent's beliefs about value. The upset stomach from drinking milk and the relief of symptoms from drinking water are independent of the agent's beliefs about the value of drinking milk or water. Consequently, the value of drinking each - whether bad or good - is real.

However, social unrest seems to depend heavily on beliefs. A society experiences unrest when a segment of the population believes that it is being treated unjustly and have the power to alter the forms of society to their advantage.

However, beliefs need not conform to morality. For example, when members of a dominant race or religion in an area sees its influence declining towards a state of equality, they may see this loss of prestige and privilege as "oppression" - as robbing them of something that is their right. The social unrest that results is better explained in terms of the belief that an injustice is taking place than the actual fact of injustice.

Can Railton actually separate these ill consequences from belief?

Second, this account is of little use in accounting for the countless smaller moral infractions that take place - or that could take place but do not - each day. The co-worker who takes somebody else's lunch out of the refrigerator, the drunk driver, the relative who borrows a few hundred dollars and never repays it . . . none of this can be understood in terms of social unrest resulting from unjust institutions. However, all of them have something to do with morality.

Railton's idea comes from a long tradition in moral philosophy that takes the society to be like an individual and to say that morality is for the community what practicality is to the individual. Plato went this route when the compared different types of societies to different types of individuals. The society governed by its philosopher kings are like an individual governed by reason and learning, while a society governed by its monied elite is like the individual governed by his acquisitive passions.

However, there are important differences between individuals and societies. Societies are made up of distinct entities each acting on their own interests and desires. While individuals may not be the fully integrated wholes they were once thought to be, we are still significantly more integrated than societies. The problem of integrating distinct parts is far less of a problem.

I am not denying that moral values are real. I hold that there are desires and aversions that people generally have many and strong reasons to promote. These include such things as an aversion to taking the property of others without their consent, a preference for telling the truth, an interest in repaying debts and keeping promises, and a desire to help those in desperate need.

However, this account of morality respects the fact that societies are made up of individuals with their own distinct interests. It also is relevant to all of the smaller things that morality us concerned with; not driving under the influence, repaying a debt, keeping a promise, offering somebody in trouble a helping hand. That there are desires that people generally have reason to promote is a fact of the world. They exist independent of what people believe they have reason to promote. Their benefits are available - awaiting discovery (They are like the benefits that a dehydrated person can get from drinking water instead of milk - Railton was right here.)

There is a moral realism. However, it is not Railton's moral realism.

What Morality Needs

There are three things that we must have for a moral system to emerge.

(1) Intentional agents - agents that act on beliefs to fulfill desires.

(2) Some desires are maleable.

(3) One set of tools for molding desires includes rewards and punishments.

It is another feature of our moral system that praise serves as a type of reward, and condemnation serves as a kind of punishment.

In saying this, I am denying that morality requires any type of fellow feeling, altruism, or community spirit. These are helpful, but they are not necessary.

Peter Railton provides an example of the type of belief I am rejecting.

Both social and biological evolution involve selection mechanisms that favor behaviors satisfying criteria of relative optimality that are collective (as in prisoner's dilemma cases) or genotypic (which may also be collective, as in kin selection) as well as individual or phenotypic. Were this not so, it is hardly possible that moral norms could ever have emerged or come to have the hold upon us they do. ("Moral Realism", The Philosophical Review, Vol. 95, No. 2 (Apr., 1986), pp 163-207.)

However, it is easy to describe a foundation of morality that does not involve any type of inherent kindness or altruism.

In my posts, I have illustrated some of my points by imagining a world containing a single person by the name of Alph who has one desire - a desire to gather stones. This is the only desire he has. He has no sense of altruism or concern for anybody or anything else. He does not even care about himself except insofar as it is necessary in order to make true the proposition, "I am gathering stones".

In this example, imagine that there is a limited number of stones to be gathered. After gathering all of the stones, Alph then has to scatter them again so that he can once again make true the proposition, "I am gathering stones."

Into this world, we introduce another person by the name of Betty.

Next, we give Alph the power to select Betty's desire - an ability to influence what Betty wants to do. Specifically, we give Alph the power to give Betty one of two pills. The blue pill will cause Betty to gather stones - just like Alph's. The red pill will give Betty a desire to gather stones.

Using only Alph's desire to gather stones, what should he do?

Alph has no reason to give Betty the desire to gather stones. If he did that, then Betty will be in competition for the stones that Alph is gathering.

However, if Alph gives Betty the desire to scatter stones, then, while Alph is gathering stones, Betty will be scattering them again. Assuming that Betty works as fast as Alph or faster, Alph could potentially spend all of his time gathering stones. That is to say, he could keep the proposition, "I am gathering stones" true indefinitely.

Now, instead of saying that Alph can select Betty's desire by giving her a pill, Alph can do so through a system of praise and condemnation. He takes Betty out into the field, has her take a stone from the stones that Alph has gathered, and scatter it. With each successful action, he praises Betty. If Betty picks up a stone and gathers it into the pile, he condemns her. In this way, let us assume, Betty acquires a preference for scattering stones.

Here, Betty acquires a desire that is compatible with Alph's, allowing the two of them to live in harmony. Each, while acting on their own desires, performs actions that tend to fulfill the desires of others. However, neither of our agents are altruistic in any way. Neither agent cares a bit about the other person except insofar as the other is useful in helping the agent fulfill his or her desire.

We can continue to add complexity to this system. Let's make it a large community filled with thousands of people. Further make it the case that different people are more or less efficient at gathering or scattering stones.

We can imagine a society so complex that it would be nearly impossible to calculate whether stones are being gathered faster than they are being scattered, or more slowly. However, the people in our world need not make that calculation. They only need to observe whether those who gather stones are able to work continually while those who scatter stones are running out of stones to scatter, or if it is those who scatter stones that can work continuously.

Whichever the fact of the matter is, the group that is able to work continuously has no reason to do anything other than continue working as the new person enters the world. However, those who are being frustrated have a reason to teach the new person to acquire that interest that would bring the two groups back into balance. The community brings about this coordination, even though its members still lack any kind of community spirit, kindness, altruism, or fellow feeling.

Each person in our community has a reason to cause each other person to have an aversion to causing physical harm - where "harm" is anything that prevents a person from gathering or scattering stones respectively. Similarly, they each have a reason to cause others to help them if they should fall into dire straights. Instead of being innate, we merely need a population capable of learning or acquiring new interests in ways that others can manipulate.

If those new desires are learned by praising and rewarding those who have them, and condemning and punishing those who lack them, then you have a community that has something so much like a moral system it would take a philosopher to find the difference.

One could argue that this qualifies as "selection mechanisms that favor behaviors satisfying criteria of relative optimality." However, it actually favors nothing. Agents can learn harmful and anti-social behaviors and attitudes as easily as they learned to be helpful and refrain from causing harm. The difference is that (barring conflicting desires) nobody has a reason to cause others to acquire interests that would thwart their own desires. They only have reason to cause others to acquire dispositions that would tend to fulfill their desires.

Here, we have the start of a moral system. And all we needed were intentional agents with malleable desires that could be molded using reward and punishment. All three of these things exist. Consequently, moral systems have emerged.

Hobbes and the Mistake in Commom Moral Relativism

Thomas Hobbes is credited with providing one of the cleanest accounts of common moral relativism. It is also an account in which we can clearly see the mistake of moral relativism.

Whatsoever is the object of any man’s appetite or desire; that is it which he for his part calleth good; and the object of his hate, and aversion, evil; and of his contempt, vile and inconsiderable. For these words of good, evil, and contemptible, are ever used with relation to the person that useth them. (Thomas Hobbes, Leviathon, Book 1, Chapter 6)

The statement starts off well enough.

It is true that "appetite or desire" is the source of all goodness, while "aversion" is the source of all that is bad. Here, I am referring to things that are good or bad for their own sake - and not because they serve as a means to something that is either good or bad. There is nothing simply and absolutely good or bad - good or bad because of its intrinsic properties such that it would retain its value in the absence of beings with appetites, desires, and aversion - in the universe.

Technically, there is no need to limit this to "man", either in the gendered sense, or in the sense that means "human being". Animals, too, have desires and aversions. What is good or bad for the animal is that which the animal desires or that to which an animal has an aversion. An animal has as much reason to avoid its own pain as any human does, and would use those terms if they were able to. I do not know if Hobbes would embrace this view with respect to animals - he may have thought of animals as mere machines incapable of actually experiencing pain or having desires. However, we can certainly know that this is true of animals as well.

This view is consistent with Bernard Williams' thesis regarding reasons for action.

There is a reason for A to φ iff there is some desire the satisfaction of which will be served by his φ-ing.

It is seldom specified, but it should be, that an aversion is simply a desire that something not be the case. Thus, there is a reason for A to not-φ iff there is some aversion the avoidance of which will be served by his not-φ-ing.

However, after this very promising start, and with no explanation, Hobbes, like a great many "moral relativists", goes off the rail.

Why is it that the terms "good" and "evil" can only be used with "with relation to the person that useth them?"

The idea that we can relate objects of evaluation only to our own desires and aversions is as bizarre as claiming that we can only describe the location of something relative to ourselves, and never talk about their location relative to somebody else. Where we may otherwise describe the location of Cairo relative to Egypt, and the location of Egypt relative to Africa, this bizarre limitation on language would prohibit us from reporting the location of Cairo or Egypt or Africa in any terms other than its direction and distance away from the speaker.

No sensible person would impose such a requirement.

In fact, there are very few claims that are so easily shown to be false. It is true that all value-laden term relate the object of evaluation to desires (at least insofar as the terms are a part of a true value claim). However, it is not the case that we can or do relate objects of evaluation only to our own desires. We have the capacity to know that other people exist. We have the capacity to know that other desires exist. We have the capacity to recognize the relationships that exist between objects of evaluation and those desires. We have the habit of reporting those relationships using value-laden terms.

For example, I say, "I want to buy a good present for my dad for Father's Day."

The term here does not refer to my own desires. My want to buy a good present relates to my desires, of course. However, the "good present" I am looking for - that which would make the present a good present or a poor present - would be one that would fulfill my dad's desires, not my own. Everybody who would hear such a statement would understand whose desires are relevant when it comes to evaluating possible presents.

The same applies to a case where a parent tells a young child, "Eat your vegetables. They're good for you."

The phrase "good for you" - as well as "good for us", "good for them", "good for the community" all relate objects of evaluation to a set of desires belonging to the person or group that the object of evaluation is said to be good for.

Indeed, our ability to navigate the world in which we live depends on our ability to predict the behavior of other individuals. We predict the behavior of other individuals by recognizing the value of particular objects of evaluation relative to their desires, under the assumption that they will act so as to fulfill the most and strongest of those desires. We try to please our spouses, satisfy our bosses, and avoid conflicts with strangers, by determining how the states of affairs we create relate to desires and aversions that are not our own.

It is true that when we relate an object of evaluation to desires not our own, that we are not necessarily motivated to realize that which would be called "good" or avoid that which is called "bad" in this sense. The fact that a state of affairs would fulfill a desire that my neighbor has means nothing to me unless I have a desire that my neighbor's desire be fulfilled. I may hate my neighbor and wish for him to have a bad time - perhaps hoping that he has a particularly bad vacation. The value of the vacation here, as above, is determined by measuring the vacation against my neighbor's desires, not my own.

Once we recognize that evaluative language can relate objects of evaluation to desires and aversions other than those of the person who is using the terms, we recognize that we may have an alternative way of accounting for moral terms. Moral terms do not relate objects of evaluation - be they character traits or actions - to the desires of the speaker. They relate those traits to the desires and aversions of people generally - including the speaker. One way of understanding moral terms is as evaluations of character traits or types of action that are "good for us".

Technically, desirism argues that the ultimate objects of evaluation are malleable desires - specifically, desires that we can mold using the social tools of reward, punishment, praise, and condemnation. The desires that are relevant in making these evaluations are not those of the speaker, but those that are found within the community. In other words, desirism holds that malleable desires themselves are to be evaluated according to the standard of whether they are "good for us" or "bad for us".

And it is worth noting that goodness or badness in this sense is not grounded on an account of what people BELIEVE is "good for us", or "bad for us". It is concerned with what is "good for us" or "bad for us" in fact. Because there is a fact of the matter, this is something that people can debate - and something about which some people - potentially, even, that which everybody in a community - can be just plain objectively wrong.

This is how, even though morality is relative (depending on "our" desires and aversions), it is also, at the same time, objective, real, and independent of the beliefs that dominate any community.

Once we recognize that relativism is compatible with moral realism and objective moral facts independent of belief, we recognize that many of the debates people are having on the nature of moral value - particularly debates about whether morality is relative or objective - are a waste of time. It is like arguing over whether a red car is red, or if it is a car, with each combatant making the mistake of thinking that which is red cannot be a car and that which is a car cannot be red. In fact, something can be both. And, in fact, morality can be relative (depending on "our" desires) and real and objective at the same time.

Add to this, two more facts:

Fact 1: People CAN cause others to be concerned about what is "good for us" to be concerned about - using (not reason, but) praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment.

Fact 2: People have reasons to cause others to be concerned abut what is "good for us" since they are the "us" that others would then be concerned with.

Now, you have everything you need for an moral system with objectively true and false moral claims that are independent of what anybody believes is moral or immoral - a real-world morality.

Peter Railton's Naturalistic Reductionism - Part 5 - The "Is" of "Ought"

If moral values are a part of the real world, then they must be a part of the explanation of things.

When we ask why something happened (or did not happen), a part of the explanation, at some level, must be "because it was my duty" or "because it was wrong."

It is not sufficient to say, "because I believed it was my duty" or "because I thought it would be wrong." A person can refuse to leave his house because, "I believe there is a dragon outside that will eat me," without it being the case that there is a dragon outside that will eat him. Similarly, a person can do something "because I believe it was my duty" without there being an actual duty.

So, we must establish the existence of a moral ought that is independent of belief that there is a moral ought.

Peter Railton, in arguing for moral realism, recognizes that he must establish moral values as a part of the causes of things.

Where is the place in explanation for facts about what ought to be the case-don't facts about the way things are do all the explaining there is to be done? ("Moral Realism", The Philosophical Review, Vol. 95, No. 2 (Apr., 1986), pp 163-207.) 

Here, we come to the gap between what is, and what ought to be.

There are two ways to handle this gap.

One way is to argue that "ought" represents something distinct and separate from "is" - a separate kind of thing which nonetheless has the capacity to interact with things in the real world and alter the motion of physical things.

Questions about the nature of this "different kind of thing" and, in particular, about how it interacts with physical matter in ways that cause physical objects to move in particular way without ever being discovered by physicists, are enough to argue for setting this aside as an option of last resort.

Yet, it is interesting to note that many materialist fail to recognize the significance of this.

While claiming to be materialists, they also immediately respond to any attempts to reduce morality to a set of material properties by asserting an is/ought distinction as if it was established law. Yet, if materialism is true, then either moral claims must be reduced to claims about what is, or they do not exist at all and we should quit talking about them.

SHOULD quit talking about them. That phrase hints at how difficult it would be to eliminate normative language.

So, we are left with the option of accounting for "ought" within the realm of what "is". The question is not, "Can 'ought' be derived from 'is'?" - a question that those who insist that there exists an is/ought gap answer with a dogmatic "no". The question - at least for the materialist - must be, "Given that 'ought' - if it is at all real - must be a type of 'is', what type is it?"

When it comes to the objection of denying that 'ought' (or 'should') does not exist at all, I would simply like to challenge an individual who likes this route to try to eliminate normative terms from his language.

Railton recognized this challenge, and answers his own question, "Don't facts about the way things are do all the explaining there is to be done?" by saying:

Of course they do. But then, my naturalistic moral realism commits me to the view that facts about what ought to be the case are facts of a special kind about the way things are.

In other words, "ought" is not something distinct and separate from "is". If it was, then it wouldn't exist at all. "Ought" is a subset of "is". In the huge room filled with what "is", there is a shelf in back labeled "oughts" - a part of, and not separate from, what is.

In Part 4 of this series, I described how Railton sought to establish the "is" of non-moral value (non-moral goodness). He pointed out that the "goodness" of drinking water or clear soda explains how a person can come to have a liking for it - can come to value drinking it when travelling for its own sake. It's "goodness" is reduced to its capacity to fill certain desires. In this case, it is found in the capacity that drinking water or clear soda has to alleviate the symptoms of dehydration, to which our hypothetical agent has an aversion.

In Railton's story, the agent's acquired preference for clear soda over milk when traveling also becomes a part of "what is" - explained, in part, by the goodness of drinking water and the badness of drinking milk. Among other things, this new acquired preference explains changes in the agent's behavior - a set of real-world events.

Being such as to fulfill the desires in question is a real-world property. It exists. This real-world property is also called the property of non-moral goodness. It identifies things that the agent has reason to realize - that the agent ought to make real in the practical non-moral sense of the word "ought".

I would like to repeat the point that this "ought" exists independent of whether the agent believes or wants it to be the case.

It does not exist independent of the agent's desires. In fact, it depends for its existence on (1) the agent's aversion to the symptoms of dehydration, and (2) the power of drinking water or clear soda to eliminate those symptoms. However, the aversion exists - it is a part of the real, material world. The power that drinking water or clear soda has to alleviate those symptoms exists - it is a part of the real world. Consequently, the ought exists - it is also a part of the real world,

Non-moral (practical, instrumental) oughts are real. However, their reality does not imply that moral oughts are real. Yet, they do point us in a particular direction where we can start looking for real moral oughts. If moral oughts are a species of practical, instrumental oughts, then they too might be real.

Objectively True Subjective Truths

Every subjectively true statement worth its salt can be rephrased as an objectively true statement.

My preference for butterscotch over chocolate is said to be a subjective preference.

It is something that is true of me. However, it does not imply that butterscotch has a quality such that everybody should like it, and that those who do not like it are somehow defective. I cannot argue legitimately argue from the fact that I prefer butterscotch that anybody who prefers chocolate is suffering from some sort of physical or mental defect denying them the capacity to appreciate true value.

In raising objections as I do to subjective morality I should not be interpreted as raising objectives to subjective values like these.

However, for every subjective value that actually exists it is possible to create an objective claim that says exactly the same thing. Subjectivity, in this sense, is not the opposite of objectivity; it is a sub-type of objectivity.

In the case of my preference with respect to butterscotch over chocolate, the claim that "I prefer the taste of butterscotch over chocolate" is an objectively true claim. It is a fact of the world. Anybody who says that I do not prefer the taste of butterscotch over chocolate would be mistaken. They have a false belief about the world.

The claim, "I prefer butterscotch to chocolate" is used to explain events that happen in the real world. If I go to a picnic, and there are bowls of butterscotch pudding aside chocolate pudding, I will pick up the butterscotch pudding to eat.

This is an event in the real world, which my preference for butterscotch over chocolate helps to explain. It explains this fact in the same way that gravity explains the orbit of the earth around the sun and the polarity of water explains why water expands at it freezes.

That it is a fact about me does not imply that it either is or should be a property of others as well. The fact that I am in Colorado does not imply that other people is or should be in Colorado. The fact that I am over 6 feet tall does not imply that others are or should be over six feet tall. The fact that I prefer butterscotch over chocolate does not imply that everybody else either does or should prefer butterscotch over chocolate as well.

Similarly, the fact that a claim that I have a particular property does not imply that others either do or should have the same property does not prevent it from being objective. My height, my location, and my preferences are objectively true statements even if it is the case that nobody else has the same height, the same location, or the same preferences. Facts that identify individual differences are not a "different kind of fact". They are not something other than objective.

This implies that, in any discussion, any legitimate use of a subjective claim can be replaced by its corresponding objective phrasing, and the conversation can go on much as before.

If a subjective claim cannot be replaced by an objective claim, then this suggests that we should not let it pass as something that is "true for you." We should call it out for what it is - a claim that is objectively false. This is the case of somebody trying to embrace a fiction and avoid the task of defending it. It is not a legitimate move - and it should not be treated as legitimate under the name "subjective truth".

Subjective "Morality" and Objective Morality

I have encountered elsewhere a common argument for the subjectivity of morality that really makes no sense. I have presented this response before but, perhaps, I have learned how to present it better.

(1) Whether or not something is moral or not depends on the definition of "moral".
(2) The definition of "moral" is arbitrary and subjective.
(3) Therefore, whether or not something is moral is arbitrary and subjective.

It looks like a good argument. But, consider this:

(1) Whether or not Pluto is a planet or not depends on the definition of "planet".
(2) The definition of "planet" is arbitrary and subjective.
(3) Therefore, whether or not something is a planet is arbitrary and subjective.

We can show that the meaning if the term "planet" is arbitrary and subjective by looking at its history.

Before August 24, 2006, "Pluto is a planet" was a true statement. It was an objectively true statement, and many students got marked as being "wrong" if they failed to identify Pluto as one of the nine planets.

On August 24, 2006, the proposition became false.

This change did not come about because Pluto suffered some catastrophic event that shattered it into countless small parts. The intrinsic properties of Pluto did not change as all.

What happened is that some small number of astronomers vested with authority to make such a decision voted to change the definition of "Planet." Under this new definition, Pluto did not qualify.

The types of arguments people brought to the vote were:

In favor: We should (ought to) classify like objects with like and Pluto is more like other large Kuiper Belt Objects.

Against: We would upset a bunch of people, particularly young children, who have a sentimental attachment to the idea that Pluto is a planet - and we should not do that.

Whether an astronomer voted for or against the change depended on their personal sentiments - on what was important to them.

The change, to a large degree, was arbitrary and subjective.

Yet, nowhere did we hear the argument that astronomy ceased to be a hard science, that its claims ceased to be objectively true or false.

In other words, whether "Pluto is a planet" is true or false depends on what you mean by "planet", and the definition of "planet" is arbitrary and subjective. Yet, nobody argues that this condemns astronomy to subjectivity - that there are no objective astronomical facts.

Why, then, does the argument fail?

What people seem to remember when they discuss science, that they forget when they discuss morality, is that ALL definitions are arbitrary and subjective. Language is an invention - we make it up as we go along.

To preserve objectivity, we need to follow two rules.

(1) Whatever definition we arbitrarily and subjectively decide upon, for whatever reason, we use the term consistently.

(2) We do not use the term to import any property to that which we are referring to that it does not already have. If you claim in your definition that the term refers to objects that are round, and you use the term to refer to something that is not round, then that is a mistake.

It does not matter how we define moral terms - as long as we use the term consistently and, when we call something "moral", we are not assigning to it a property that it does not in fact have (such as an intrinsic property of "ought to be doneness").

Often, when people say that morality is subjective, it seems to be the case that they are using this to legitimize the practice of ignoring the second rule above. They do want to assign a property of "ought to be doneness" to something that does not exist. Rather than saying that using a term that means "having an intrinsic ought-to-be-doneness" to something that does not have it is objectively false - which it is, they want to claim that it is "subjectively true" or "true for me".

In fact, it is "subjectively true" in the same way that the earth is 6000 years old is "subjectively true". It is objectively false.

Anybody who acts as if such a statement is true - and says that this is legitimate because it is "true for them" - is, in fact, objectively wrong, and should be regarded as such.

Peter Railton's Naturalistic Reductionism - Part 4 - Value Realism

On his way to establishing moral realism, Peter Railton first worked to establish value realism. ("Moral Realism", The Philosophical Review, Vol. 95, No. 2 (Apr., 1986), pp 163-207.)

Value realism has two requirements:

(1) independence: it exists and has certain determinate features independent of whether we think it exists or has those features, independent, even, of whether we have good reason to think this;

(2) feedback: it is such-and we are such-that we are able to interact with it, and this interaction exerts the relevant sort of shaping influence or control upon our perceptions, thought, and action.

The first matter relates to a distinction that I have been making that confuses a lot of debate about objective values.

It is a distinction between whether value claims can be true in a world where beliefs and desires did not exist, versus whether value claims can be true independent of whether or not people believe or want them to be true.

Railton uses the phrase, "whether we think it exists or has those features" when he discusses the independence of value. Thus, he is using the second type of objectivity described above. This is the same type of objectivity that scientists use, and allows for values to be as real as anything in science.

With this in mind, Railton begins the search for real values in the agent's subjective interests:

Consider first the notion of someone's subjective interests - his wants or desires, conscious or unconscious. Subjective interest can be seen as a secondary quality, akin to taste. For me to take a subjective interest in something is to say that it has a positive valence for me, that is, that in ordinary circumstances it excites a positive attitude or inclination (not necessarily conscious) in me. 

Railton does not like this idea because desire can be misinformed. Consequently, rather than talking about an agent's actual desires, he instead wants to place value in an agent's fully informed and rational self could choose his desires. More specifically, he imagines a fully informed an rational self deciding what desires he would want the less informed and less perfectly rational self to have.

Whenever a philosopher begins to talk about informed desires, I question whether that philosopher has carefully considered the distinction between desires-as-ends and desires-as-means.

Desires-as-means are bundles of desires-as-ends and beliefs. The beliefs can be true of false, so rationality and true and complete beliefs are relevant.

However, as Railton himself said earlier in the article, rationality is not applicable to ultimate ends.

Consider Railton's case of a vacationer.

Railton describes a vacationer, Lonnie, suffering from dehydration. Lonnie wants a glass of milk. However, the hard-to-digest milk will only upset his stomach and make him feel worse. The fully informed and rational Lonnie would want this Lonnie to desire water instead, or some clear soda. That will cure the dehydration and allow Lonnie to feel better.

Here, we seem to be talking about instrumental desire. The desire for something to drink is a means to fulfill other desires - mostly, the desire to not feel so poorly. A desire-as-means for water is better than the desire-as-means for milk these other desires. Drinking water will fulfill the relevant desires, while drinking milk will thwart them. Desires-as-means can be informed by reason and an awareness of the relevant facts in this way.

We could take the desire for milk as an end-desire. That is to say, our agent simply likes milk - and will drink milk for its own sake. To the degree that drinking milk is an end-desire, it is immune to reason. The agent will continue to want milk even if he is aware of all of the facts. He may discover that he has more reason to refrain from drinking milk at this moment, but this has no effect on the desire.

A person with a particularly strong desire to drink alcohol, take drugs, eat chocolate, or gamble knows all too well that true beliefs and reason have no effect on the desire. Avoiding the harmful activity requires having more and stronger desires to put against it. And, since future desires do not have backwards causation, those more and stronger reasons have to be found in the present.

However, Railton then goes on to describe how the agent can come to acquire a new end-desire through what amounts to a system of biological reward and punishment.

For example, suppose that Lonnie gives in to his craving and drinks the milk. Soon afterwards, he feels much worse. Still unable to identify the source of his malaise and still in the grips of a desire for the familiar, his attention is caught by a green-and-red sign in the window of a small shop he is moping past: "7-Up," it says. He rushes inside and buys a bottle. Although it is lukewarm, he drinks it eagerly. "Mmm," he thinks, "I'll have another." He buys a second bottle, and drains it to the bottom. By now he has had his fill of tepid soda, and carries on. Within a few hours, his mood is improving. When he passes the store again on the way back to his hotel, his pleasant association with drinking 7-Up leads him to buy some more and carry it along with him. That night, in the dim solitude of his room, he finds the soda's reassuringly familiar taste consoling, and so downs another few bottles before finally finding sleep. When he wakes up the next morning, he feels very much better. To make a dull story short: the next time Lonnie is laid low abroad, he may have some conscious or unconscious, reasoned or superstitious, tendency to seek out 7-Up. Unable to find that, he might seek something quite like it, say, a local lime-flavored soda, or perhaps even the agua mineral con gaz he had previously scorned. Over time, as Lonnie travels more and suffers similar malaise, he regularly drinks clearish liquids and regularly feels better, eventually developing an actual desire for such liquids-and an aversion to other drinks, such as milk-in such circumstances.

What began as a desire-as-means becomes something desired as an end.

At the same time, we may also tell a story about how drinking milk, resulting in fee,Inge of poor health, results in Lonnie coming to acquire an aversion to drinking milk, at least when traveling. Even under conditions where he is not dehydrated, he comes to desire clear sodas and to have an aversion to drinking milk.

Here we have an example of value that fits both of Railton's requirements for value realism.

Requirement 1: Independence. The effects of drinking milk or water on the fulfillment of the agent's desires is independent of the agent's beliefs. That one will cause him to feel better and the other worse are objective facts - true in the world. People who deny these facts are wrong.

Requirement 2: Causal interaction. An agent is able to interact with these objects - or, more precisely, their desire-fulfilling and desire-thwarting properties in ways that bring about relevant changes in the agent's attitudes and actions. That which has positive value becomes that which the agent pursues and that which has negative value becomes that which the agent avoids.

Values, then, are real.

Desirism states that desires are real, they exist as propositional attitudes that take the form, "Agent desires that P", and whether P is true in some state of affairs S is a matter of empirical fact. All of the parts of value are real, so the whole is real. Indeed, we cannot explain or predict the motion of real-world events without appealing and postulating the existence of desires as providing motivational reasons that give value to states of affairs.

The next question, then, is whether moral value is a type of real value.

Peter Railton's Naturalistic Reductionism - Part 3 - Hume's Knave

Twice in my recent philosophical wanderings a I have bumped into David Hume's sensible knave.

Hume's sensible knave is a person who realizes the benefits of living in a community of just and moral individuals - people who do not lie or take the property of others without consent, who keep promises and repay debts, who refrain from violence except in defense of the innocent, who prefer true beliefs to harmful fictions, and the like.

At the same time the sensible knave recognizes that, if he lies just this once, or takes some available property without consent, the whole institution of justice and morality will not collapse. He can obtain the benefits of this immoral act and still preserve the benefits of living in a just and moral society.

Is he ignoring some reason to be moral? If so, what is it?

Hume says that perhaps he is not missing anything - that his reasoning may be functioning perfectly. What he lacks are the correct sentiments - the correct interests.

I must confess that, if a man think that this reasoning much requires an answer, it would be a little difficult to find any which will to him appear satisfactory and convincing. If his heart rebel not against such pernicious maxims, if he feel no reluctance to the thoughts of villainy or baseness, he has indeed lost a considerable motive to virtue; and we may expect that this practice will be answerable to his speculation.

Desirism recognizes this as the distinction between the desires an agent has and the desires that people generally have reason to cause agent's to have. Insofar as knave's "heart not rebel against such pernicious doctrine," the knave has not acquired the desires people generally have reason to promote. Those desires would prevent an agent from wanting to engage in the immoral actions.

There is, for the knave, a gap between the desires the agent has the desires the agent should have. The size of that gap determines the quality of a person's moral character.

Perhaps to try to prevent tempting people towards this option, Hume claims that his knave is at risk of slipping up and making a mistake that will cost him more than he has gained. Furthermore, according to Hume:

Inward peace of mind, consciousness of integrity, a satisfactory review of our own conduct; these are circumstances, very requisite to happiness, and will be cherished and cultivated by every honest man, who feels the importance of them.

However, he might not get caught, and he also need not suffer any pains of self-condemnation. These are contingent facts the knave may avoid. If this is his situation, then, why be moral?

Note that knavery will not tempt the moral person. The moral person - just like the knave - does what he wants and avoids what he dislikes. However, he includes among his wants some desires like the desire to help others in need. Among his dislikes, he includes such things as an aversion to lying and taking the property of others without their consent. These likes and dislikes direct his behavior in the same way that liking chocolate and disliking liver and onions would direct his behavior.

Christine Korsgaard referred to Hume's knave in her book "Normativity" to explain her theory of reflective endorsement to justify moral claims.

For Korsgaard, the knave, recognizing the virtues of honesty and generosity, will recognize himself as lacking these virtues. This means that he recognizes himself as lacking qualities which he has reason to praise and promote in others. Similarly, he recognizes himself as having qualities he would condemn in others. Such a person must also see himself as somebody who is undeserving of praise and deserving of condemnation. The principles of morality are justified, according to Korsgaard, because they survive not only as the sources of evaluation but as the objects of evaluation.

On the other hand, Peter Railton argues that the knave need to suffer these types of problems ("Moral Realism", The Philosophical Review, Vol. 95, No. 2 (Apr., 1986), pp 163-207).

Yet Knave himself could say, perhaps because he accepts Hume's analysis of justice, "Yes, my attitude is unjust." And by Hume's own account of the relation of reason and passion, Knave could add "But what is that to me?" without failing to grasp the content of his previous assertion.

The fact that an individual does not have the desires that people generally have reason to support does not imply that he lacks the capacity to judge whether an action is one that would be done by somebody who has those interests. This is no more a problem then the fact that a person has no fear of flying makes it impossible for her to predict the behavior of somebody who has such a fear.

We therefore must distinguish the business of saying what an individual values from the business of saying what it is for him to make measurements against the criteria of a species of evaluation that he recognizes to be genuine.

When there is a gap between what a person desires and what they "should desire", you cannot use reason to convince that person to behave morally. In the short term, you need to appeal to his desires directly. You need to offer to reward him (to fulfill an existing desire) for behaving morally or punish him (thwart an existing desire) if he should fail. In the long term, one can use rewards (such as praise) and punishments (such as condemnation) to actually change those desires - to give the agent a desire to keep promises, repay debts, and help those in need. But this requires rewards and punishment - not reason.

A Conservative Plan for Getting Money out of Government

I know that it is a lot of fun to imagine that one's political opponents are nothing but a bunch of villainous monsters - utterly lacking in both moral and intellectual virtues. However, in fact, there is a conservative plan for getting money out of government and some of it makes a lot more sense than what we hear from liberals.

The idea is to keep money out of government by keeping government small. Consequently, (1) there is nothing to buy, and (2) the influence of money is easier to notice and easier to control.

Here is the problem from a conservative perspective.

You set up an agency to regulate some industry . . . energy, medicine, prescription drugs, banking, insurance, law, transportation, education, whatever.

As soon as you do this, you create an incentive for the people in that industry to start to spend a great deal of money determining the nature of that regulation.

This influence takes a number of forms - and these forms show how the liberal plan of merely reducing political contributions is, at best, naive.

Of course, those seeking to control the regulation have the option to make direct political contributions to the candidates who support their industry.

This need not take the form of bribery and other forms of corruption. It's simply a matter of, "Candidate A says that he favors legislation that would create Regulation R, which will benefit our business by making it harder for others to enter the industry and compete against us," or similar effects. There is no "corruption" in contributing to help the politician whose promises align with your interests. Everybody does it. If you are contributing money to a politician who promises to do less to help others and more to help you - then you are engaged in the same practice.

However, we are going to assume that we will restrict this. Certain people with what we may call 'undesirable' political interests are going to be barred from directly contributing to the poltiical process. We will, in effect, pass laws requiring that they remain silent while we negotiate policies that have a direct impact on their welfare.

Those with the money still have a great many options at their disposal.

Here's an example. Unless you are an employee in the energy industry, or you work for the regulatory agencies, you have absolutely no idea what specific regulations have been enacted or how they are applied. You are completely in the dark. Consequently, you cannot protest those regulations or interpretations that conflict with your interests, nor can you lobby for regulations or interpretations that would be in your interest.

On the other hand, somebody in the regulated industry has an incentive to set up a set of offices and hire a staff whose job it is to know exactly what those regulations are. In fact, businesses have to do this - they cannot comply with regulations unless they know what they are.

(NOTE: This is actually one reason why businesses like regulations even though they protest against them. The cost of compliance - the cost of merely figuring out what the regulations are - is so great that it prevents others from coming along and entering the industry. Thus, it frees them from competition.)

Anyway, the relevant business has an office that knows what the regulations are.

Not only that, they have an incentive to establish relationships between their business and the people regulators. They are dealing with the regulators on a regular basis. This is more than enough opportunity to establish personal relationships. They know the regulations - their birthdays, their marital status, the status of their children, the charities that the regulator supports.

Do you even know the name of the Secretary of the Department of Energy? (NOTE: It's Dr. Ernest Moniz, but I had to look it up.)

In fact, if somebody leaves the Department of Energy (for example), these companies have an incentive to hire them. This is due substantially to the fact that they have personal relationships with people who are in the industry - people who are creating and interpreting the regulations.

There are two ways in which this business can influence regulation. One is by petitioning the regulatory agency itself. They can ask for decisions on how to decide this or that ambiguous case. Or, if they are held in violation of some regulation, they can send their experts in to appeal the decision. Of course, they have an incentive to invest a great deal of effort, and put top minds, into promoting the interpretation of the rule that best serves their interests.

Again, unless you are in a special position with respect to the energy industry or its regulations, or you have a very strange hobby, you do not even know that any of this is happening - and you are not paying anybody anything to represent your interests.

The second option is to introduce laws that will alter the regulations.

Here, too, note that most of these alterations enter into law through channels that are completely dark to you. This is not because you cannot see what they are doing if you looked. It is because it takes so much effort to look that, for virtually the whole population, it is not worth the effort.

Employees in the industry will write up the law and have a legislator introduce it as an amendment to some bill.

Remember, we are assuming that we have blocked direct contributions to politicians.

In many cases, large contributions will not be necessary. It will still be obvious that the business and its employees will favor the change, and the general public will never know what happened. The general public is, by necessity, too uninformed.

Independent of this, the business also has the resources they need to produce "research" that will establish the benefits of this law. This need not be a case of a legislator consciously abandoning the public interest in order to serve the interest of some industry. In many cases, this will involve a legislator trying to serve the public interest, but only being presented with one side of the argument regarding any particular decision. At the legislative hearings, the representatives of the industry, or the experts they fund, will show up with the relevant data, while those speaking on the other side will not be nearly so well funded.

Another avenue that the business has to promote these interests is to introduce these arguments into the press. They will keep a contact list of bloggers, pundits, sympathetic reporters, and writers who will repeat the research that they provide. They business will fund a think-tank whose purpose it will be to take this information and get it out into the public.

Please note we have assumed limits on direct contributions to politicians. Such a restriction will have a minimum impact on any of this. Direct contributions to politicians is a small fraction of the political industry that uses government power to direct wealth and power away from the masses who are substantially uninformed about what is going on and into the pockets of those within a particular regulated industry.

What is the conservative plan to reduce these impacts?

Quite simply. . . reduce regulation.

If regulations were few and simple, then there will be little use for massive expenditures that businesses put into manipulating this regulation.

Many of the regulations do not serve the public good anyway - they have been distorted and manipulated by those who are being regulated and who have the potential to realize substantial profits through this manipulation. Meanwhile, you and the other regular citizens you know are not even aware of what they are doing or the costs that they create.

Now, this battle cry of "reduce regulation" can go too far and in the wrong direction. After all, prohibitions on murder, theft, and the destruction of property are "regulations" - but not regulations that we would want to eliminate. Restrictions placed on a business that it cannot kill people or steal or destroy their property are not the types of regulations we have reason to do without.

Yet, in the current mess of massive regulatory confusion - bought and paid for by the industries being regulated - businesses have actually been successful in writing into the regulations legal immunity causing death or otherwise harming individuals and destroying the property of others. They sometimes obtain government aid in taking the property or wealth of others for their own use, directly or indirectly.

This leaves us with a regulatory system that, in many cases, does the opposite of what we would want a regulatory system to do - precisely because it is so large and so complex that it provides successful cover for such schemes. Reduce regulation, and limit it's impact to preventing businesses from killing, destroying the property of, or taking without consent the property of others, and this will reduce the power and influence of money in politics.

Just try to actually reduce regulations and focus those that remain on the legitimate objectives of a regulatory system and see who screams the loudest. It will be the industries who have spend years and countless dollars manipulating the regulatory environment to their benefit - the people with the money.

Peter Railton's Naturalistic Reductionism - Part 2 - The Values of Science and Morality

In my first post in this series, I wrote about how desirism handles an issue that Peter Railton brought up in his article, Moral Realism, (The Philosophical Review, Vol. 95, No. 2 (Apr., 1986), pp 163-207.) This being the assertion that two people can be in agreement on all of the facts of the matter and still make different value judgments.

I handled this by saying that two people who agree on all of the facts of the matter will agree about the relationships that exists between objects of evaluation of desires, yet can still be expected to have different desires. This is true in the same way that two people who agree on all of the facts of the matter will know the locations of things, but will not necessarily share the same location.

Railton reports this fact by saying"

This claim is defended in part by appeal to the instrumental (hypothetical) character of reason, which prevents reason from dictating ultimate values.

This should be taken as another way of saying that knowledge of facts does not change an agent's desires any more than it would change an agent's age or height.

Here, we do have to remember the distinction between desires-as-ends and desires-as-means. Because desires-as-means contain beliefs about how the means relate to ends, knowledge of facts are relevant to desires-as-means.

However, in this discussion, we are talking about desires-as-ends, or what Railton calls "ultimate desires". This term, "ultimate values" has an important ambiguity in that it does not actually distinguish between an agent's desires-as-ends as I use the term and "value judgments" (or beliefs about relationships between states of affairs and desires). This ambiguity creates a risk of confusion later on.

This is said to generate a problem in that a debate on matters of morality would seem to require starting with some agreement about ultimate values. Since ultimate values cannot be determined by reason, then agreement on matters of morality cannot be determined by reason.

Again, I want to stress the distinction between value-judgments (statements about relationships between objects of evaluation and desires) and an agent's desires-as-ends. The objection above requires equivocating between these two concepts.

Railton's first response to this, however, brings up the fact that even the most objective of empirical claims depends to a substantial degree on shared values.

The long-running debate over inductive logic well illustrates that rational choice among competing hypotheses requires much richer and more controversial criteria of theory choice than can be squeezed from instrumental reason alone. Unfortunately for the contrast Ayer wished to make, we find that argument is possible on scientific questions only if some system of values is presupposed.

Indeed, scientists do share a common set of values. The value of science itself and its methods is one that cannot be defended by a laboratory experiment without, at best, begging the question regarding the value of conclusions drawn from laboratory experiments. Given the fact that even science is not as value-free as many believe, the claim that debates on morality also requires shared values seems less significant.

I think that it is still important to determine whether the shared values necessary for debates on morality to be the same shared values required by scientific debates, or if morality requires its own unique shared values. Reducing morality to a science would seem to require the former, and that has not, as of yet, been established.

As it turns out, agreement on matters of the form, "Agent has a desire that P" and "P is true in S" are, in fact, matters where agreement requires the same values shared by science. Where value-claims are taken to be claims about these types of relationships, then the only values that the agents need to agree upon to reach the same moral conclusions are the values that guide scientific research.

Desirism Book - Part 0016 - Realism about Values

We have a problem when it comes to talking about whether or not values are real.

The standard definition of "realism" on a subject holds that "propositions made within that subject are literally true."

But what does it mean for a proposition to be literally true?

This account holds that values are real. Desires exist as propositional attitudes that can be expressed in the form of "Agent desires that P". In our sample universe, "Alph desires that he is gathering stones." For any given state of affairs S, P is true in S, or it is false. While Alph is actually gathering stones, "Alph is gathering stones" is true in S. When he is scattering stones so that he may return to gathering them later, P is false in S.

In this example, Alph values gathering stones as an end in itself, and values scattering stones as a means to an end.

Everything in this example is real. The desires are real. It is really the case that P is true in S - or it is not the case that P is true in S - as the case may be. Nothing is left up to opinion. Alph values gathering stones as a matter of fact.

However, when one talks about "realism" with respect to values, one is often assumed to be talking about value as intrinsic mind-independent properties. If one does not think that values are mind-independent entities - if one thinks that they are in any way dependent on desires - then this is taken to be an anti-realist position about values.

However, this attitude contains an assumption that I think we need to reject. It is the assumption that the literal meaning of value terms are that they refer to mind-independent, intrinsic value properties. Thus, the only way that a value claim can be "literally" true is if claims referring to mind-independent, intrinsic-value properties are literally true.

I think all such claims are false. Yet, at the same time, to hold that the claim that values are dependent on desires is an anti-realist position is highly misleading. In effect, it suggests that relationships between states of affairs and desires are not real when, in fact, they are.

To clarify our language, I wish to propose first that the "literal meaning" of value-laden terms does not, in fact, refer to mind-independent intrinsic values. It refers to reasons for action. Those reasons may spring from mind-independent intrinsic values (if they exist). However, at the same time, it is possible for desires to provide reasons for action. Consequently, relating an object of evaluation to one or more desires is a perfectly legitimate given the literal meaning of value-laden terms.

Given that desires are the only things that provide reasons for action, it turns out that value claims that relate objects of evaluation to desires are the only ones that are literally true. These are the only real values. None of the others - those that refer to divine commands, intrinsic values, categorical imperatives, and the like - are true. None of these refer to anything that is real.

Yet, it would be a mistake to think that the only true value claims one can make are those that relate objects of evaluation to their own desires. People have the capacity to know the desires of others, and they have the capacity to know whether an object of evaluation fulfills the desires of others. Thus, they can make true statements about the relationships between objects of evaluation and the desires of others. In fact, they can make true statements about the relationships between objects of evaluation and the desires of whole populations.

These relationships between states of affairs and desires other than those of the agent are as objective, as mind-independent (that is, as independent of the beliefs and desires of the person making the claim) as any claim in science. When the agent is making a true statement, he is making a statement whose truth is entirely independent of what the agent believes or desires. There is a fact of the matter, and that fact describes something that exists in the real world.

This should be enough to say that the agent is a realist about value.

Peter Railton's Naturalistic Reductionism - Part 1 - Beliefs and Values

A member of the studio audience has asked for my opinion on Peter Railton's Naturalistic Reductionism.

The thesis that I defend in these posts is . . . exactly . . . naturalistic reductionism. I argue that all true value terms can be reduced to claims about relationships between states of affairs and desires. Technically, value terms have to do with reasons to act - whatever those reasons are. However, since only desires provide reasons to act, true value claims refer to desires, while all claims that refer to things other than desires (God, intrinsic value, social contracts, categorical imperatives, etc.) are false.

Since Peter Railton defends naturalistic reductionism, I have been asked to compare and contrast the views defended here and Railton's.

I haven't actually read Railton's views before the reader made me aware of them, so I do not actually have an idea, at the start of this project, what the answer will be. But, it sounds like an interesting adventure.

I will be referencing Railton's article, Moral Realism, The Philosophical Review, Vol. 95, No. 2 (Apr., 1986), pp 163-207.

The first thing I would like to discuss is a statement that Railton makes about the relationship between belief and value. This is supposed to provide an argument against any type of reductive materialism.

Perhaps the most frequently heard argument for the fact/value distinction is epistemic: it is claimed that disputes over questions of value can persist even after all rational or scientific means of adjudication have been deployed, hence, value judgments cannot be cognitive in the sense that factual or logical judgments are. 

This argument, at best, seems to be begging the question. The only way that one can embrace the conclusion is if one already accepts it as true.

As a reductive materialist, naturally, I deny that disputes over questions of value can persist even after all rational or scientific means of adjudication have been deployed.

After all, value is a relationship between states of affairs and desires. Desires are propositional attitudes that take the form, "Agent desires that P". Whether or not a state of affairs S has value depends on whether or not P is true in S. If it is, then the agent has a motivating reason to realize that state of affairs.

Once all of the rational or scientific means of adjudication have been deployed, there is nothing else left. Once all of the rational and scientific means of adjudication have been deployed, we will know whether the agent desires that P, and whether P is true in S. Thus, we will know whether the agent has a motivating reason to realize S.

Now, one thing that is true is that, once all of the rational or scientific means of adjudication have been deployed, two agents can still desire different things. One of them can still prefer butterscotch to chocolate while the other still prefers chocolate to butterscotch. However, these are not matters of belief. They are matters of desire.

The fact that different desires can persist even after all rational or scientific means of adjudication have been deployed should be seen as no more surprising as the fact that differences in age, height, or handedness will persist as well. Nobody argues that, once all of the rational or scientific means of adjudication have been deployed, two agents will come to have the same age. Similarly, if we take two agents, one with an appendix and one without, and subject them to rational and scientific adjudication, one will still have an appendix and the other still will not.

Desires are like handedness or having an appendix. A statement that agent has a "desire that P" is a statement about the physical organization of the agent's body - just like the statement that the agent has an appendix. And, also like the appendix, it is not a structure that is under the influence of beliefs. Rational or scientific means of adjudication are irrelevant.

Yet, I suspect that those who believe that differences in value judgments persist even after all rational or scientific means of adjudication have been deployed are making precisely this mistake. They note that, after all rational scientific means of adjudication have been deployed, agents have different desires, and that consequently "value judgments" (which they equate with desires) cannot be cognitive. They fail to properly distinguish between a value judgment and a desire.

A value judgment - or, at least, a true value judgment - is a belief about the relationships that exist between an object of evaluation and a set of desires. (Actually, as I said above, it is a belief about relationships that exist between an object of evaluation and a set of reasons for action, but only desires provide reasons for action, so true value judgments relate objects of evaluation to desires.)

A desire is not a belief about a relationship between an object of evaluation and desires. Consequently, the fact that different desires persist in the face of all rational or scientific adjudication is not proof that different value judgments persist.

This is an account of the view that I have been defending on an issue that Railton brings up in his article. I guess I really should take a look at how Dr. Railton addresses this issue.

"A Good Life" Vs "The Life of a Good Person"

Is "Living the life of a good person" compatible with "Having a good life?"

Well, not directly. And it doesn't really matter all that much. But, indirectly, yes.

I am understanding a good life as a life that sees the fulfillment of one's self-regarding desires. The life of a good person is a life lived by a person who has those desires that people generally have reason to promote and lacks those desires that people generally have reason to inhibit.

The desires that people generally have reason to promote are generally going to be desires that tend to fulfill the desires of other people. A desire does not have to be other-regarding to fulfill the desires of other people; it can be a self-regarding desire that tends to fulfill the desires of others as a side effect. However, it is not unreasonable to expect that other-regarding desires are going to have a big advantage in this calculation.

Similarly, the desires that people generally have reason to inhibit are self-regarding desires - particularly those that thwart the desires of others.

Inhibiting self-regarding desires is not the same as thwarting self-regarding desires. There is a difference between the case in which an agent has a desire the P and P is false (the desire is thwarted) and one in which an agent has no interest in P and P is false. Since a good life is a life in which one's self-regarding desires are fulfilled, causing people to lack certain self-regarding interests, or weakening those self-regarding interests to the point that the agent cares little about them, will subtract nothing to little from "a good life".

Yet, in some cases, the other-regarding desires of morality will be set to override and force the thwarting of the agent's stronger self-regarding desires. This implies self-sacrifice in the name of being a good person.

So, why be moral?

There are two important things to note about the actions of a good person.

First, the good person still gets what matters most to him.

A person has $20000 to spend. He could spend it on a luxurious vacation, or he can donate it to an organization that is working to protect children from malaria.

Let's look at the vacation options. Our agent would really like a South Seas Island vacation, but would like a European vacation even more. She sacrifices the South Sea vacation for the European vacation, but she still gets that which she wants most.

Now, we give this agent an other-regarding interest in the health and well-being of children. We make this desire stronger than the desire for a vacation. The agent now sacrifices the European vacation for the sake of protecting the health and welfare of several children.

This agent is still doing what he wants most. He is, in effect, buying the thing that it is most important for him to buy with his money - the health and well-being of a number of children. In a sense, for the good person, acting to protect children rather than go on vacation is the same type of decision as the decision to go to Europe rather than the South Seas.

This still counts as an act of self- sacrifice. The agent is sacrificing self-regarding desires in order to fulfill other-regarding desires. However, for the good person, the sacrifice is still made for the sake of something he wants more than a European vacation.

Second, that which is other-person-regarding for the agent serves the self-regarding interests of others.

When the person contributes $20,000 to protect children from malaria, he is serving the self-regarding interests of those children.

If our agent is a part of a generally moral community then, at the same time she is acting on her other-regarding desires, so are others. She will be living in a community where others generally tell the truth, try to help those in dire need, keep promises, repay debts, refuse to take the property of others without consent, and refrain from acts of violence except in the defense of the innocent and helpless.

Living in this type of society will make it easier for the agent to actually fulfill more of even her self-regarding desires than living in a community of selfish, lying, violent, thieving murderers.

Consequently, by forming a community whose members take part in institutions that successfully promote other-regarding desires generally, many of her self-regarding interests (and, of these, particularly the strongest of those interests - the interests that people generally would want to secure) are protected.

As an added benefit, our agent will also be better able to fulfill her other-regarding interests in such a society.

So, back to our original question.

Is living the life of a good person compatible with living a good life?

Not directly. A good person has a number of other-regarding desires that will sometimes outweigh and thwart the self-regarding desires, the fulfillment of which makes up a good life.

But it doesn't matter. The good person who is fulfilling other-regarding desires is still doing what she wants most to do. What she is sacrificing is simply of less importance to her than what she is accomplishing.

And, indirectly, yes it is. One's self-regarding desires (particularly one's strongest self-regarding desires) have a greater chance of fulfillment in a community filled with people having other-regarding interests than it is in a community of selfish, lying, thieving murderers.

Heathwood's Theory of Well-Being - Part 5 - Mental State Theories

Some philosophers do not like mental state theories, often for these two reasons: (i) a person can be radically deceived about his situation and still lead a good life according to such theories; and (ii) a life filled with only ‘‘base pleasures’’ is still a good one (at least according the mental state theory currently under consideration). ("Desire Satisfactionism and Hedonism" (Philosophical Studies, 2006, 128:539-563). 

I do not like mental state theories.

However, I think that only the first of these objections gives good reason to reject mental state theories.

The second objection does not work. There is no standard by which we can judge a desire to actually be "base" - other than the fact that somebody has an aversion to it. However, if this is the case, we have the thwarting of the second-order desire to use to evaluate it. Doing so any other way seems to require a claim of intrinsic value or external reasons - an appeal to value entities that do not exist.

However, the first objection has some bite.

As I expressed in the Part 4 of this series, brain-state theories fall victim to Robert Nozick's experience machine objection. It implies that the best life one can hope for is to have the molecules in one's brain organized in a particular way. Once the brain is placed in a proper configuration, that is it. Nothing else matters.

Heathwood responds to this objection as follows:

The deceived life and the base life still rank high in terms of welfare, but we are inclined to judge them unfavorably because they rank poorly on other scales on which a life can be measured, such as the scales that measure dignity, or virtue, or achievement.

I allow that a person can sacrifice a "good life" for the sake of something else. However, these are cases where a person chooses to thwart self-regarding desires for the sake of fulfilling other-regarding desires. These are acts of self-sacrifice - sacrificing oneself for another person, for one's children, for one's country, or for the sake of scientific advancement or in the production of some aesthetic value. It would be odd to conceive of choosing to live an undeceived life as an act of self-sacrifice.

Choosing against the experience machine is, by definition, a sacrifice of pleasure and freedom from pain. If one stipulates that welfare consists of having the most pleasure and least pain then, by definition, the experience machine provides the most welfare. But is this sense of welfare the same sense that people generally use when they talk about human well-being?

I have given one reason to think that it is not - this being the fact that we do not consider refusing to enter the experience machine an act of self-sacrifice.

Another reason to believe that it is not is because it would be true by definition that a life inside of an experience machine is "the best possible life that I can have for myself - the life in which I am as well off as I can possibly be." Any disagreement with this point would constitute a failure to understand what "well-being" means.

Third, let's assume that I grab somebody off of the street and throw her into a Nozickian experience machine against her will. Under this conception, we would have to consider this to be a case of providing somebody with a forced benefit. It would have to be thought of in the same way we might think of injecting a person with a cure to a painful disease against his will. Such an action may violate a person's autonomy, but it does no harm. In fact, I should be able to use - without question - the defense that I did it for his own good, like pushing him out of the way of a runaway trolley car.

Indeed, debating a law that required everybody to enter an experience machine would have to be conceived of in the same way as a law that forced everybody to get immunized against a disease. It can be defended in virtue of being "for the public good". It would make everybody in the community as well off as they could possibly be.

If there is anybody in the community who would prefer to live their life helping others, then this, too, would have to consider the fact that the best thing one can do for others is to get them into an experience machine. They cannot be made any better off.

I am not ignoring the fact that Heathwood says that these other standards exist. However, to the degree that these other standards realize something of value, it is not in virtue of their contribution to well-being. Indeed, they must be things, for the sake of which, well-being is sacrificed.

So, it is not just the case that there are other scales that we use to evaluate a life. These are scales that we use to judge whether or not others are well-off. The common conception of welfare seems to be tied more to getting what people want for themselves. Of course, this includes experiencing pleasure and avoiding pain, However, these are just two of a long list of things that people want for themselves.

To be more explicit: there is no reason to base welfare purely on the desire to experience pleasure and avoid pain. There is nothing special about these desires that would justify including them and excluding others.

It was one thing to make the argument that these are the only desires that matter under the (false) belief that there are no desires but those for pleasure and the avoidance of pain. However, Heathwood himself has identified other things that people want: his "other measures": dignity, virtue, and
achievement. Heathwood, it seems would either have to argue that these things have intrinsic value, or that they are things that have value in virtue of being desired. Intrinsic values do not exist. Consequently, these must be other things that people desire. Furthermore, they desire these things for themselves and not just for others.

I think the experience machine adquately rules out any brain-state theory. Every brain-state theory says, "Organize the molecules in the brain in a particular configuration, and that is all that matters." Clearly, that is not all that matters. Our "desires that P" includes propositions "P" that have nothing to do with the state of the brain of the person with the desire.

Heathwood's Theory of Well-Being - Part 4 - Heathwood's Subjective Desire Satisfaction Theory of Well-Being

Chris Heathwood seeks to defend a theory of well-being that he calls "Subjective a Desire Satisfactionism" ("Desire Satisfactionism and Hedonism" (Philosophical Studies, 2006, 128:539-563). It's main elements are:

(i) Every instance of subjective desire satisfaction is intrinsically good for its subject.
(ii) Every instance of subjective desire frustration is intrinsically bad for its subject.
(iii) The intrinsic value for its subject of an instance of subjective desire satisfaction = the intensity of the desire subjectively satisfied.
(iv) The intrinsic value for its subject of an instance of subjective desire frustration = minus (the intensity of the desire subjectively frustrated).
(v) The intrinsic value of a life for the one who lives it = the sum of the values of all the instances of subjective desire subjectively satisfaction and frustration contained therein.

I will admit that well-being has not been a core interest of mine. However, a part of my reason for dismissing it has been on the grounds that well-being is only a portion of what matters. What matters, for a person with a desire that P, is the realization of a state of affairs where P is true. There are many "states of affairs where P is true" that do not translate into improved well-being even for the person with the desire that P.

Take the case of Alph. He has only one desire - a desire that the planet Pandora B exist. He has before him a button. Pressing the button will bring Pandra B into existence, but slay the person who pushed it. Alph, in this example, has no reason to continue living.

I am using Bernard Williams' account of what it means to "have a reason".

A has a reason to φ iff A has some desire the satisfaction of which will be served by his φ-ing.

Alph, in this example, has no reason to continue living - it does not serve his one and only desire. However, he has a reason to push the button, which will realize a state of affairs in which P, "Pandora B exists" is true. He presses the button - bringing Pandora B into existence, and ending his life.

Alph got what he wanted, but got nothing in the way of well-being.

With this in mind, I divided desires up into self-regarding desires and other-regarding desires.

Self-regarding desires take the subject (the agent with the desire) as the object of the desire. "I desire that I am not in pain" is a self-regarding desire.

Other-regarding desires take other persons and other things as a desire. Alph's desire that the planet Pandora B exist is an other-thing-regarding desire.

Well-being is the objective fulfillment of self-regarding desires.

Because well-being is only one of several things that can matter to a person, I did not give it much more thought than this. I have been concerned with people getting what they want - and arguing that morality is grounded on this - and not with various subsets of those wants.

However, now that I have been drawn into the discussion, I think I can say a few things about it.

I agree with Heathwood on the matter of defective desires. Namely, a desire is not defective unless it is instrumentally bad and, if this is the case, the reduction of well-being is attributed to the desires instrumentally thwarted by the fulfillment of the intrinsic desire.

I like the way that Heathwood handles now-for-then desires. Specifically, he argued that what matters for well-being is the subjective satisfaction of a desire when the agent has it. For me, this would translate into the fulfillment of a self-regarding desire when the agent has it.

I also like the way that Heathwood handles harm-to-self desires, which are self-regarding desires that diminish overall well-being when satisfied. Namely, the satisfaction of the specific desire contributes to well-being but implies the thwarting of a number of other desires that result in an overall reduction in well-being.

However, I have problems linking well-being to the subjective satisfaction of a desire as opposed to the objective satisfaction of a self-regarding desire.

The difference between the two has to do with truth value. A "desire that P" is subjectively satisfied if the agent believes that P. A "desire that P" is objectively fulfilled if P is true.

I would argue that, when a desire is subjectively satisfied, this often leads to the objective fulfillment of other self-regarding desires. Specifically, it generally results in an experience of pleasure, and thus objectively fulfills the self-regarding desire that "I feel pleasure". Similarly, the subjective frustration of a desire (e.g., the false belief that one's child has been killed in an accident) would objectively thwart the self-regarding aversion to pain.

(NOTE: Later in this article, Heathwood equates the subjective satisfaction of a desire with pleasure. That is a further complication that I cannot fit into this post - so I will be ignoring it for now.)

Anyway, what I can say is that the subjective satisfaction or subjective frustration of a desire does contribute something to well-being. They bring about either objectively fulfill a self-regarding desire to experience pleasure objectively thwart a self-regarding desires to avoid pain. However, that does not make them the be-all and end-all of well-being.

The objection that I have to Heathwood's account goes back to Nozick's experience machine.

If Heathwood is right, then no life goes better than the life of a person who is hoooked up to a Nozickian experience machine. The experience machine will feed the agent signals that will generate beliefs that her desires (self-regarding and other-regarding) are fulfilled. If she desires to be a beloved President of the United States, the experience machine will give her that experience. But, in fact, she will live and die as a body laying in a pool of goo, doing nothing.

I find it odd to say that the best possible life that a person can hope for is a life that many people (including me) would run away from.

On the other hand, the "objective fulfillment of self-regarding desires" answers the experience machine example accurately.

It says that if a person's self-regarding desires consist solely of, "that I experience pleasure" and "that I not be in pain", then the experience machine is a good option.

However, a person who has self-regarding desires that cannot be fulfilled within the machine - e.g., "that I contribute to well-being of others" or "that I become President of the United States," the experience machine fails to provide a tempting offer.

Let me repeat, I have not given a lot of thought to theories of well-being. Specifically, I have not spent much time searching for objections to the "objective fulfillment of self-regarding desires" theory. It does seem to have one advantage of Heathwood's subjective desire satisfaction theory. However, the world is a large and complex place filled with landmines that can still blow this alternative to pieces.

Desirism Book - Part 0015 - The "Location" Analogy

In the previous posting, I address the question of whether values are objective.

They clearly are not objective in one sense. Values exist as relationships between states of affairs and desires. There are no values without desires; thus no "objective values" in this first sense.

However, values are completely objective in another sense. Claims about the relationships between states of affairs and desires are as objectively true (or false) as any claim in science.

If an agent has a desire that P, and there is a state of affairs S where P is true in S, then S has value to that agent. The agent has a motivating reason to realize S as a matter of fact.

In such a universe, this relationship exists as an objective fact. A person does not know these things lacks some knowledge about the universe. A person who denies any of these things is, quite simply, wrong.

To understand how this works, think of the property of location.

Nothing has an absolute, intrinsic location. Absolute, intrinsic location does not exist.

In fact, you cannot give the location of anything other than by giving its position relative to something else. Denver is in Colorado. The earth orbits the sun. The keys are in my coat pocket. The land mine is seven meters ahead of you and one meter to your right.

All location claims are relational - describing relationships between one thing and another.

Furthermore, there is no law of nature that dictates which item must be used as a reference point. When it comes to choosing a reference point (Colorado, the sun, my coat pocket, you), we choose what is conventional and convenient under the circumstances given the context.

There is an infinite number of ways in which I can describe the location of Denver. It is in Colorado, in the United States, on planet earth, about 30 miles southeast of Boulder, and where Brian lives (assuming the speaker and listener both know who Brian is). All of these are legitimate location claims.

We do have standards - such as latitude and longitude - that we use in making location claims. We choose to use the equator as one axis, and a line going through the north and south poles and Greenwich, England as the other axis. Why Greenwich, England? There's a historical reason for it - but nothing that justifies the claim that it is the one true and correct base reference point for longitude. We just . . . decided.

If philosophers were to debate the one right and true reference point for all location claims, they would be wasting a lot of time.

However, in spite of these facts, nobody has any trouble including location claims in scientific publications. Location claims are taken to be as true (or false) as any claim made in science.

In particular, the fact that a reference point is selected by custom and convenience is never used to question whether the relationship claim is true or false - or to challenge the claim that, if it is true, then it is true as a matter of fact and not as a matter of opinion.

All of these are true of relationships between states of affairs and desires as well.

We cannot tell the value of a state of affairs without describing its relationship to one or more desires. When we describe such a relationship, we describe what a particular set of people has reason to realize or prevent. It is only in virtue of having the requisite desires that one has the reasons to realize or prevent such a state of affairs. However, they have those reasons as a matter of fact.

There is no law of nature that dictates which desires are relevant in making such a claim. We can describe how a state of affairs stands in relationship to the desires of Uncle Joe, to the people of Atlanta, my pet rabbit Fluffy, or to those living near the coast.

When we choose a reference point, we choose it as a matter of convenience and convention - not because some law of nature dictates that particular use. It is because, "This is the relationship that we have decided to talk about. Other relationships exist, but we are talking about this relationship - in the same way that other rabbits exist, but we are talking about Fluffy."

There are some relationships that people have many and strong reasons to make a part of our conversation.

Take 'health' for example. This is a term used to describe changes in the functioning of the body or mind relative to the desires of the person whose body or mind is being evaluated. People, having reasons to avoid illness and injury, have many and strong reasons to make these relationships a topic of conversation. For convenience sake, we use the term 'health', 'illness', and 'injury' to describe these relationships.

Where these relationships exist, they exist as a matter of fact.

I will be arguing that the best use of moral terms uses them to describe relationships between malleable end-desires (or intrinsic desires) and the other end-desires of those they interact with. To make this case, I will need a universe with many people, with malleable desires, and with an ability to mold those desires through the use of tools such as reward, praise, condemnation, and punishment.

However, as far as this book goes, we are not yet in that universe. All we have at this point is a universe with one agent (Alph) and one desire (to gather stones).

Our universe so far is one in which Alph, as a matter of fact, has a motivating reason to realize a state of affairs where "Alph is gathering stones" is true. It is a world where Alph sometimes has a reason to scatter stones (though not an intrinsic reason), just as he has a reason to know where the stones are, to avoid falling off of a cliff, and to eat or drink that which allows him to realize a state in which he is gathering stones.

Gathering stones has value for Alph.

And that - within this hypothetical universe - is a fact.