Heathwood's Theory of Well Being - Part 2 Supplemental - Self-Sacrifice

In the last post I argued that a desire fulfillment theory of a good life has a problem with actions of genuine self-sacrifice.

Desire fulfillment theory (a.k.a desire satisfaction theory) says that a good life is a life in which a person gets what he wants. In the case where an individual voluntarily chooses to sacrifice himself for the sake of another (or for the sake of a principle), the agent still gets what he wants. It just so happens that he wants that which benefits another person more than he wants that which benefits himself. However, he is still getting what he wants most and only giving up something that he values less. Thus, on desire fulfillment theory, he obtains an overall benefit and necessarily ends up better off as a result.

I applied this to the case of a parent making a sacrifice for his child, a soldier who is severely injured while serving her country, and the scientist who sacrifices her health in the pursuit of scientific knowledge.

Further research brought me to Heathwood's article, “Desire Fulfillment Theory” (forthcoming in G. Fletcher (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Well-Being, Routledge, 2016).

I am going to have to buy this book.

There, Heathwood discusses the problem of idealistic and self-sacrificial desires.

On the scheme that I am using, this would indicate a distinction between what I would call other-person-regarding desires and other-thing-regarding desires. More specifically, another-person-regarding desire is a desire that takes another person as its object. In other words, the proposition P that identifies the object of a “desire that P” is a proposition that refers to another person or other people. An example of this is that, “I hope that Jim does well in the bowling tournament this weekend.”

An other-thing-regarding desire is a desire where the proposition P for a “desire that P” refers to something other than a person. The scientist who sacrifices his or her own health in order to expose some hidden truth of the world would have an other-thing-regarding desire. The same would be true for the individual who sacrifices his welfare for the sake of a moral principle – because it is wrong to lie or because he had made a promise. The moral principle one serves is a thing, not a person. The principle might benefit other people, but that is not the motivation behind the action.

Heathwood mentions the option of excluding other-regarding desires by fiat – which is the option that I prefer.

I would not say that the reasons for this move are not merely “by fiat”. Language is an invention which can be made more or less useful. We have reasons to distinguish between “benefit to self” and “benefit to others” that provide reasons to adopt a language in which we have terms that recognize and respect these differences. Given that agents are always fulfilling their desires, a good dividing line for judging whether a person selfish or altruistic is on the line between that which fulfills the agent's self-regarding desires and that which fulfills other-regarding desires.

Writing against this move, Heathwood writes:

Plausibly devoted parents are sometimes benefitted when their intrinsic desires concerning their children’s welfare are satisfied; presumably some such desires are altruistic. Conversely, desires based on moral considerations should, intuitively, also sometimes count. People can become quite invested in justice, for example; if the just outcome is their heart’s desire, it doesn’t seem right to rule out all possibility of benefit.

However, other-regarding desire seldom, if ever, stand without the company of some self-regarding desire as well.

First, there is the case that it is “my child” that obtains the benefit or “my country” that is being served. There is a self-regarding element in each of these desires. While they are, at the same time, also other-regarding, the fulfillment of the self-regarding element will satisfy the criterion that what benefits a person is the fulfillment of a self-regarding desire.

Second, there are often, of not always, self-regarding desires that accompany an other-regarding desire. The person with an aversion to lying – a desire that not-P where P = “I tell a lie” has a self-regarding desire, the fulfillment of which would count as providing a benefit on this model. A soldier can find some value in fulfilling the desire “that I have served my country.” In fact, self-regarding desires are so common that many people suggest that every apparent act of altruism can ultimately be reduced to the “selfish” fulfillment of a self-regarding desire.

Heathwood argues elsewhere that the issue of self-sacrifice (for the sake of other persons or other things) can be handled using a “summative” account of welfare. Specifically, an act of self-sacrifice fulfills a desire, but it thwarts more desires than it fulfills, so the agent ends up being worse off.

Against this, I would like to know how or why a person can rationally choose an action that he has more and stronger reasons to choose not to perform.

I will not get into this issue in any great detail here. Instead, I want to discuss this issue more fully in another post.

Heathwood's Theory of Well-Being - Part 2 - Simple Desire Satisfactionism

The topic under discussion is "A good life" or what it means to be doing well.

Simple Desire Satisfactionism is a theory of a good life that states that a good life simply consists in getting what one wants – fulfilling the most and strongest of one’s own desires. More specifically, in the terms already put down in this blog, it means that, for a person who has a desire that P, desire that Q, and a desire that R, his life is going well if a state of affairs (or series of affairs) is realized in which P, Q, and R are all true.

If we use the example that I have been using in the desirism book posts, where Alph has one desire, which is to gather stones, so long as there are stones to gather, Alph is having a pretty good life – as good as a life can be. We may not like it, but Alph has no reason to complain.

Heathwood discusses this theory in his article, "Desire Satisfactionism and Hedonism" (Philosophical Studies, 2006, 128:539-563).

He notes, correctly, that when we talk about desire satisfaction we are talking about what Heathwood calls “intrinsic desires” and what I call “end-desires”. These are things that are desired/valued for their own sake. They are distinguished from things that are desired/valued as a means to an end.

When Alph has gathered all of his stones he has a “desire as means” to scatter stones so that he can gather them again. However, this scattering of stones does not contribute to his well-being or the quality of his life. It is work – something he must do though he has no end-desire to do so in order to once again realize a state in which he is gathering stones.

I dislike the use of the term “satisfaction” because it hints at a physical sensation such as “pleasure” that one might have when thinking that one has gotten something that one wants. I prefer to use the term “fulfillment” – indicating that, for an agent with a desire that P, a state of affairs in which P is true fulfills the requirements for being a state that the agent values.

Similarly, I fear that the term “intrinsic” desires suggests value that is intrinsic to objects of evaluation and, thus, not dependent on desires. The value of any state of affairs S is, in fact, extrinsic – depending on there being a desire that P and that P is true in S. Even then, the state S is only valued/desired in this way by those with the desire that P. Instead, I use the term “end-desires” or “desires as an end” as opposed to “desires as a means”.

Terminology aside, Heathwood brings up a couple of problems with the “simple desire satisfaction theory”. These objections are effective against the theory. However, they point to possible improvements.

One problem concerns future desires. Heathwood uses an example from Richard Brandt that involved a person at age 20 who desires that rock music be played at his 50th birthday party. However, by the time he turns 50, he no longer likes rock music. Instead, he prefers easy listening, and wants easy listening for his birthday party. Simple desire satisfaction theory states that fulfilling the desire of his 20-year-old self will contribute to the quality of his life – his well-being. However, this seems not to be the case.

Heathwood answers this objection, sensibly, by arguing that what matters is getting what one wants when one wants it. It means getting rock music while one wants rock music, and getting easy listening when one wants easy listening. Now-for-then desires, or desires for some future state, are not included among the desires that contribute to the quality of a life since they are not desires that can be fulfilled while one has them.

This implies that a person's life can neither be improved upon or diminished by what happens after the person has died.

Heathwood notes a second problem with simple desire satisfaction theory that comes from remote desires – or desires for things so far removed from a life that it cannot influence its quality. He uses Derek Parfit’s example of a person who meets a stranger on a train. Over the course of the trip, the agent learns that the stranger is ill and sincerely comes to hope that the stranger is cured of his affliction. However, he never sees the stranger again and never learns that the stranger, actually, comes to be cured. This is a desire that is fulfilled, but it does not seem to contribute to the quality of the agent’s life.

Heathwood answers this objection with another modification to simple desire satisfaction theory. Simply, Heathwood suggests that the satisfaction of a desire only counts if the agent is aware that it has been satisfied.

In providing this objection, Heathwood dismisses Parfit’s suggestion that the only desires that count are desires “about the agent’s own lives” (though this raises questions about what those desires are).
I have an objection that suggests that Parfit may be closer to the truth than Heathwood on this matter.
My objection has to do with the possibility of genuine self-sacrifice. This is a case in which an agent sacrifices or lessens the quality of his or her own life for the same of something or somebody else. A parent who sacrifices for his child, the soldier who sacrifices for her country, and the scientist who is so devoted to her research that she neglects her own well-being are examples of this.

Under Heathwood’s account it would seem that the only form of self-sacrifice that exists involves helping others in a way that one does not learn about whether the act was a success or a failure. The soldier who gives his life for his country would perform an act of genuine self-sacrifice. However, the soldier who becomes paralyzed or loses a limb learns whether her sacrifice was successful. Thus, this person has only traded something of lesser value for something of greater value in her own life. She has not performed a genuine sacrifice.

I would like to suggest an answer much like Parfit’s. The desires that matter in measuring the quality of a life are the desires that take the self as an object. These are desires where the proposition that is the object of the desire refers to the agent who has it. “I desire that I have lots of money,” “I desire that I not be in pain,” “I desire that I see my grandchildren graduate from college.” These desires are self-referencing and count towards the quality of a person’s life.

An act that is performed where an agent thwarts self-referencing desires to fulfill other-referencing desires, then, would be acts of genuine self-sacrifice. The soldier who becomes paralyzed or loses a limb has performed an actual act of self-sacrifice in that her self-regarding desires (those regarding the use of the limbs that are paralyzed or lost) are sacrificed so that an other-regarding desire (the safety of her comrades in arms, her country, and its fellow citizens) are fulfilled. This is a sacrifice of self for others.

This suggestion will still require some work. There is a question as to how to handle desires that are both self-regarding and other-regarding, such as the parent who desires that his children are healthy or that his country is protected. There are also questions regarding self-regarding harms, such as a person who has performed some criminal act and, feeling guilty, wants to be punished.
Heathwood discusses a similar case to these in the next part of his article. I will look at his discussion and try to provide some clarification on these issues in a future post.

The Myth that Atheism is the Lack of a Belief in God

I have been in discussion with some atheists recently regarding two of their more popular myths.

By "myth", I mean false feel-good beliefs brought into a culture and embraced against all evidence.

These myths are:

(1) Atheism is the lack of belief in a god.

(2) The claim that criticizing a religion does not imply criticism of all of the people who identify with that religion.

In this post, I will discuss the first of these myths. I will discuss the second myth later.

Both of these myths have to do with claims about the meaning of terms. Consequently, we must start with an account of the meaning of terms.

When attempting to defend the claim that atheism means the lack of a belief in a god they typically answer that it is built directly into the term. Atheist comes from the parts “a” (without or not) and theist (belief in a god). Thus, atheism means “without belief in a god.”

If this is a reasonable way to proceed then, contrary to the claims of every physicist and chemist, you cannot split an atom. The term “atom” come from the part “a” (without or not) and “tomos” (to cut or split into parts). It literally means “that which cannot be divided further.”

Just think, all these years in which physicists and chemists have been using the term 'atom' incorrectly.

In fact, that is not how one determines the current meaning of a term within a language.

The meaning of a term is determined by the theory that best explains and predicts the behavior of native speakers of a language engaged in using that term. The behavior in question particularly concerns linguistic behavior, but may include other forms of behavior as well.

One can support a theory with observations about behavior consistent with the theory, and falsify a theory with observations that are inconsistent.

Let us take the term "atheist" it " atheism". The "lack of a belief in God theory" predicts that native speakers of a language would be totally comfortable with assigning the term "atheist" to rocks, squirrels, and peopled with such undeveloped brains that they cannot form such complex beliefs. In act, they would view these assignments as obviously true. "Of course they lack belief in a god."

Observations show us that these predictions fail.

This, then, gives us reason to reject the "lack of a belief in God" hypothesis.

Here is a competing theory.

Atheism is the belief that the proposition, "At least one God exists" is certainly or almost certainly false.

This predicts that native speakers will only apply the term to those who assert that they have a particular belief. They will not apply it to rocks, squirrels, mentally impaired adults, or particularly young children. Indeed, this is what we observe among native English speakers in general.

I must offer a precaution here. Many of my readers are likely to be people who have bought into this atheist myth. A clique or sub tribe, consisting of significantly less than 0.01% of the native speakers of English, gave adopted a private language that redefines the term. However, this does not change the fact that, in the linguistic community at large, the term is used consistently with the second theory.

As a part of this myth, many in this clique that have adopted this private definition actually assert that it is the “correct” meaning of the term. They respond with condescention and ridicule when encountering members of the 99.99% who use the term with its standard English meaning. Thus, they add fiction upon fiction – myth upon myth.

There is a reason why this clique of atheists have adopted this myth. Unfortunately, it is not because the belief is grounded on sound reason.

It is grounded on the belief that the absence of a belief does not have to be defended rationally. By denying that atheism is "a belief that P", they feel justified in asserting that they need not offer argument in defense of that which is believed.

In other words, this clique of atheists is playing word games as an alternative to engaging in rational debate. By equivocating on the meaning of the term "atheism", they (often smugly) cross their arms and say, "I don't have to defend nothing. I don't have a belief to defend. It's your job to do the defending."

The statement, in most cases, is actually a lie. Those who employ this mythical definition of atheism still have the belief that the proposition, "at least one God exists" is certainly or almost certainly false. If somebody tries to use this “lack of a belief in God” claim, just ask them, “Is the following proposition true, almost certainly true, probably true, unknowable, probably false, almost certainly false, or certainly false?” Then give them the proposition, “At least one god exists.”

If they answer, “almost certainly false” or “certainly false” then they DO have a belief. In fact, they have exactly that belief that identifies them as “atheist” in the common understanding of the term. All of that talk about lack of a belief in God is just rhetorical nonsense.

In fact, one can now bypass this “lack of a belief in God” nonsense by saying, “Let’s talk about this instead.”

In spite of these protests, I expect that this atheist clique will continue to embrace the “atheism is the lack of a belief in god” myth.

Atheists are human. Among humans, it is all too easy for myths and fictions to worm their way into a community to such an extent that the community cannot easily abandon it – in spite of the weight of reason and evidence stacked against it. This fiction has become so much a part of the identity of this atheist sub-group that one cannot even be considered a full member unless one embraces (or at least pays lip service) to this myth. To question the myth is to risk banishment.

Yet, they will eagerly condemn theists who display these very same qualities.

Or, atheism is the belief that the proposition, 'at least one God exists' is certainly or almost certainly false.

And I, by the way, am an atheist as the term is used in English - and I see no reason to try to hide that fact behind some verbal smoke and mirrors.

On the Charge of Being an "Intellectual Lightweight"

Against both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, I have claimed that being an intellectual lightweight is a fault. I placed it in a list that also included hate-monger get bigotry and a disregard for the humanity of those who are not Americans.

Yet, there is an important difference between these three qualities.

I want to start by saying something about the context. The post was written and charges made in the context of talking about applicants for the job of President of the United States. It is a position for which we have reason to require a certain amount of intellectual acuity.

Furthermore, there clearly is nothing actually wrong with not knowing things.

All of us are ignorant of a great many things. There are whole fields of study about which I know very little. I do not apologize for it. Each of us has only a limited amount of time on this world - insufficient to capture more than a small percentage of the sum of human knowledge - itself a very small fraction of what can be known.

Not knowing things is not a failing.

Still, we have a number of moral responsibilities regarding knowledge - many of which depend on and respect the fact that, individually, we are substantially ignorant.

Curiosity is a virtue. A thirst to know is something that we all have reason to promote through general praise. At the same time, intellectual laziness - intellectual sloth - is something we have reason to condemn.

There is a distinction between those who lack knowledge in an area because they are focusing on other subjects, and those who lack knowledge because they are content to be ignorant.

Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump both show signs not only of ignorance, but of intellectual sloth. Having been given significant amounts of time to learn about matters that they claim are important to them, they come back still knowing little or nothing about those subjects.

Sanders wants to break up the banks, but cannot identify the statutes that would guide such an action or the department that has responsibility to take action given those statutes. He has not educated himself on matters of foreign policy - a subject that he seems to bore him, even though a President cannot ignore matters of foreign policy and many of his economic plans have foreign policy consequences. For example, depriving a developing country of the opportunity to trade with the United States - wrecking their economy - risks creating a generation of vengeful potential recruits into terrorist organizations.

Trump, when asked who he consults with on foreign policy matters, answered that he talks to himself, "Because I have a very good brain."

If a person actually does have a very good brain, one of the things that would be obvious to him is how much he does not know.

There are a lot of people in the world with very good brains. The trick is to find those who have focused those brains on the subjects important to the decisions one wants to make and find out what they know that one does not know.

Intellectual arrogance when lives are at stake is a vice. The person who thinks that they know everything, and that nobody else can provide them with information or interpretations that are useful, is a very dangerous person.

In the same way that conservatives deny the scientific consensus on evolution, climate change, sex education, and the biological facts regarding homosexuality, many liberals follow the liberal program of denying the scientific consensus on genetically modified food, nuclear power, alternative medicine, and the genetic influence on behavior. Sanders and Trump both obviously get their scientific beliefs, not from scientists, but from political ideology.

The level of arrogance there escapes notice only because we refuse to pay attention to it. Here is a body of experts who, in many cases, devote nearly every waking hour reading and doing research on a subject. Then the politician comes along and thinks that a few moments of thought is all that he needs to dismiss the scientist as being wrong.

An intellectually honest person says, "I don't know everything. I need to surround myself with experts and get my opinions from them."

An individual could, of course, choose to become an expert in some field by devoting their own time to its study. I have my own opinions on matters of moral philosophy that I think are well earned. I have actually studied climate change, minimum wage, international trade, and the economics of political decision-making. However, you will not read a post where I proclaim my expertise on matters in the Middle East, drug laws, wall-street regulation, or public education.

It is no crime to not know - the best of us does not know infinitely more than he or she knows.
It is a moral crime to fail to respect the fact of one's ignorance, to fail to take advantage of what different people have acquired an expertise in, to pretend to know what one does not, and to fail to exercise a measure of moral responsibility regarding beliefs when the lives and well-being of others are at stake.

As with the previous comparisons, Trump is far worse on this scale than Sanders. One clear measure of the difference is that Sanders is willing to say, “I do not know” (or some variation on that theme). Trump, on the other hand, tries to bullshit his way through the question. He cannot possibly admit to having any limitation. In this, Sanders obviously has the morally superior attitude. Trump is, in effect, lying – pretending to have knowledge he does not have and trying to disguise his ignorance in bluster and nonsense.

It is on this measure that Trump and Sanders both fail . . . Trump being far worse than Sanders.

The Three Failings of Trump

It seems that the Republicans have selected Trump as their candidate for President of the United States.

I was caught entirely by surprise - as were a great many others.

The reason for my surprise is because I did not think people would actually vote for such poor candidate. I was confident that voters would ultimately turn away from him and give their vote to somebody worthy the office of President.

I was mistaken.

(1) He has a total disregard for people outside of the United States.

In fact, both Trump and Sanders seem to regard those who are not native to the United States as mere things - entities that have no value outside of their usefulness. They certainly are not to be thought of as human beings. Consequently, they cannot be treated inhumanely. Their suffering is not human suffering, and they possess no human rights.

For Trump, this means that the families - the children - of suspected terrorists are legitimate military targets. It means they can be tortured.

By the way, one of the implications of embracing a moral principle is that, by their nature, moral principles are universal. If it is legitimate for the American government to torture suspected terrorists, then it is legitimate for foreign government to torture American soldiers. We cannot consistently say that this is a legitimate practice and then assert that others are wrong to use this practice on us.

Do you recall the person in the movies who would round up everybody in a community and slaughter them because they are suspected of aiding the enemy. Nothing Trump has said suggests that he would find this morally objectionable.

In fact, nothing Trump has said suggests that he finds anything morally objectionable.

Worse, is the fact that it seems that if he were to do such a thing – if he were to destroy a whole town in Pakistan or Syria on the grounds that it supported potential terrorists – a depressingly large number of Americans would likely cheer it as an example of bold and decisive action that proves that America is not a country to be messed with. After all, we must assume that those who vote him into this position share his views.

(2) He has a simple-minded “us” versus “them” way of looking at the world that is the very essence of bigotry.

Sanders was always painting millionaires and billionaires as the enemies of civilization – people whose only goal was to enrich themselves at the expense of everybody else. He painted the whole class as nothing but evil, disregarding the differences among individuals.

Trump thinks the same way about women, Muslims, and Mexicans. They are all lesser human beings – if they may be thought of as human beings at all – and should all be considered (1) emotional and incompetent and as having worth only in terms of how good they look, (2) terrorists, (3) rapists and murderers respectively. While he seems to acknowledge the theoretical possibility of there being individuals who do not fit the mold, this possibility has no implications for policy. Anybody who is not white and male is presumed inferior unless proven otherwise – and the bar has to be set unusually high to make sure that nobody who can fake their way across.

There have always been some Americans who have thought the same way. If not, then the KKK and Jim Crow laws would never have existed. However, it is depressing to see that there are enough of these kinds of people still in the United States to give Donald Trump the Republican nomination.

(3) Trump is an intellectual light-weight.

He knows nothing about the issues that he presents.

He thinks that the National Enquirer is a reliable news source. He retweets nonsense as if it is true, and when challenged on the fact that they are false (and, not only false, but lies that are used to promote immoral attitudes such as racial bigotry), he merely says that he does not have an obligation to check the accuracy of everything he passes on. He does not care about truth or facts.

He does not base his conclusions on the evidence. Instead, he holds the evidence up to his pre-conceived notions (including the bigotries I mentioned in the previous section) and uses those beliefs to evaluate the evidence.

He does not need advisers – in matters of foreign policy or economics, for example – because to count as a good adviser is to tell him what he already believes, and he doesn’t need anybody to tell him what he already believes.

The Limits of Analogy

Comparing Sanders to Trump in these qualities is unfair to Sanders in a way. Sanders does have all of these same failings, but not nearly to the degree that Trump has them. Sanders’ failings made it possible for him to commit significant mistakes – errors that had consequences he did not foresee or (in the case of harming the global poor) did not care to see. With Sanders, it would be a case of good intentions having bad consequences.

Trump, on the other hand, seems capable of intentional evil. He shows no evidence of having a moral compass at all. He praises the tyrants of the world for being strong leaders. He jokes about killing reporters who print things he does not like (and seriously supports laws that would make it easier to imprison such people).

Consequently, his actions seem not to be limited by any sense that some things are immoral. The only restraint he will likely recognize is what he can get away with. Making such a person President can have some very unfortunate consequences.

Heathwood's Theory of Well-Being - Part 1 - Overview

I did not make it to Chris Heathwood's presentation on Friday . . . 

. . . Or, actually, I did and saw that the presentation was being given in a small conference room - a table with about 12 chairs surrounding it. This gave me the impression that they were not expecting members of the general public to attend.

Still, I found the homework that I did interesting.

I read a paper from Chris Heathwood's about the good life called, "Desire Satisfactionism and Hedonism" (Philosophical Studies, 2006, 128:539-563) in which he undertook the following project:

Step 1: Present the most plausible desire-satisfaction theory of well-being.

Step 2: Present the most plausible pleasure theory of well-being.

Step 3: Argue that the two theories are actually the same theory.

There are three major factions involved in the philosophical battles regarding a good life.

Faction 1: The good life is the one with the most desire satisfaction.

Faction 2: The good life is the life with the most pleasure and least pain.

Faction 3: the good life is the life with the most items on an objective goods list - friends, knowledge, family, virtue, etc.

Heathwood's article did not consider Faction 3 - the objective list theorist. There is good reason to discard it. This standard of well-being requires a list of items having some type of intrinsic prescriptivity - an "ought-to-be-doneness" built into the nature of those things that make it onto the list.

However, nothing in the real world has this type of value. Intrinsic prescriptivity is a fiction. An "objective list" of the elements of a worthwhile life that is not determined by their capacity to fulfill desires is an empty list. Things only have value in virtue of their capacity to make true the propositions that are the objects of desires. Either the propositions are true in the object of evaluation, or the object of evaluation has the capacity to make them true.

A devoted reader will have no difficulty concluding that I am to be found in Faction 1. All value is found in making or keeping true the propositions that are the objects of desires.

I might also be found within a certain subset of the community for Faction 2 - the hedonist theory of well-being. I hold that the sensations of pleasure or pain have no value in themselves, but have value in virtue of the fact that agents have a desire for pleasure and an aversion to pain. Neuroscience has an explanation for this phenomenon based on the fact that the sensation of pain is processed in one part of the brain, and the aversion to pain in a different section. This makes it possible to eliminate the aversion to pain without eliminating the sensation of pain itself.

On this interpretation, the value of obtaining pleasure consists in making true the proposition, "I am experiencing pleasure" and "I am not in pain" for those people who have a desire for pleasure and an aversion to pain. This version of Faction 2 is actually a version of Faction 1 - a version where only the desire for pleasure and aversion to pain are the only desires that are relevant to well-being.

I will say in advance that I think Heathwood provides an excellent account of desire-satisfactionism. However, I think his pleasure theory is less successful as is his attempt to argue that the two theories are alike.

I am going to spread this discussion out over a few posts. In my next post, I will give some attention to his desire satisfaction theory of well-being.

I will state at the start that I think Heathwood's best account of the "desire satisfaction" faction account of well-being is quite good. I am anxious to get into it. 

Desirism Book - Part 0012 - The Reader's Point of View

I suspect that there are a number of readers who look at this life we are imagining in which Alph gathers stones, scatters them, and gathers them again with dread. It is absurd to say that there is any value here - to say that Alph has a life worth living. The best des that this says something about value will be taken as absolutely bizarre.

In fact, the philosophical literature discusses an imagined case of a fully informed agent with a desire to count blades of grass - not unlike Alph's desire to gather stones. In imagining this student sitting in the field counting the grass, day after day, it is difficult to imagine that this is a very good life.

What I suspect is happening in this case is that the reader is taking her own desires in examining the imagined world. Each of her own desires has their own proposition. She sees none of those propositions as being true in the state of affairs she imagines. Consequently, she has no motivating reason to realize such a state of affairs. From this she judges that it has no value.

However, we are not concerned at this point as to whether the reader has any reason at all to realize a state of affairs in which Alph, with his one desire to gather stones, exists.

If I were to ask the reader to imagine Charlie, living in New York, I would say that he is near the Atlantic ocean. In saying this, I certainly do not mean to imply that the reader is near the Atlantic ocean. Nor do I need to reader to approve of the fact that Charlie is near the Atlantic ocean. I am only describing a relationship that exists in fact between the Atlantic Ocean and Charley. The reader is only being asked to acknowledge that this relationship exists.

Consequently, when I say that Alph has one desire - to gather stones, then I am saying that states of affairs in which Alph is gathering stones are states of affairs that Alph has reason to bring about. I am saying that scattering stones, to Alph, would have instrumental value once all the stones are gathered. I am saying that having a large pile of stones is an unintended consequent (like getting pregnant is often an unintended consequent of having sex). I am saying that an outside observer cannot have reason to choose one world over another until that outside observer has desires, in which case he would choose the world where the propositions that are the objects of those desires are true.

These are all relationships that exist - no different from the proposed relationship between the location of the Atlantic Ocean to Charlie.

Everything said here would remain just as true if I were to say that Alph had one desire - to count blades of grass. Then counting blades of grass would be the only end-reason for any of Alph's actions. Alph would eat only insofar as eating was necessary to help him to continue to count blades of grass. If asked to choose between being in a world where there was no grass and a different world existing where somebody else (Betty) with a desire to count grass lived on a planet filled with grass, Alph would be indifferent between the two. This is because neither world is a world where "I am counting blades of grass" is true.

The fact that the reader has more than one desire and none of them include counting blades of grass, and has no desire with propositions that would be true in the imagined world with the imagined grass counter, and would not want to be that person is irrelevant. It is as irrelevant as her aversion to living in New York or near the ocean is to the fact that Charlie, who lives in New York, is near the ocean.

So, I ask the reader to set those feelings and those judgments aside. We are looking only at the relationships that exist in this imagined world - a world in which there is one person (Alph) with one desire (a desire to gather stones).

Desirism Book - Part 0011 - Socrates, the Pig, and the Unbiased Observer

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is only because they only know their own side of the question. (John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism)

As I continue to examine what is true in a universe with one person (Alph) with one desire (to gather stones), I want to turn my attention to another famous example from the history of philosophy. This is John Stuart Mill's quote provided above.

In the full context of this quote, Mill was arguing that some pleasures were better than others - intrinsically better.

To determine this, we need to only ask those who can experience both which they would prefer. This is how he came to the conclusion that poetry is better than pushpin as discussed in an earlier post.

Here, the question is asked of somebody capable of experiencing a life as Socrates dissatisfied and imagining the life of the fool which he would prefer. Clearly, such a person would select the life of Socrates dissatisfied over the life of the happy fool, suggesting that the happiness of the fool is of a lower quality.

The account we are looking at here will deny this claim in a particular sense. I am not going to argue that the life of the fool is to be selected. I am not going to argue that it is a tie. I am going to argue that the question is incomplete - like asking if Jim is taller. Taller than whom?

I am going to start by comparing a world that contains Alph, where Alph has a desire to gather stones, and Alph is gathering stones to a world containing Alph with his desire and no stones. Which world has the greater value?

We can't answer the question without answering "to whom?"

The first Alph prefers his universe - the universe within which Alph has is gathering stones. It is a universe within which the proposition, "I (Alph1) am gathering stones" is true.

The second Alph is indifferent between the two worlds. In neither world is, "I am gathering stones" true, so he has no reason to choose one over the other.

What about some impartial observer? If an impartial observer truly was impartial, she would have no reason to choose one world over the other. If, instead, we give this impartial observer some desires, then we look for the world within which the propositions that are the objects of those desires are true.

Now let us look at two world where one contains a human dissatisfied and the other contains a pig satisfied.

Here, too, we need to identify the desires the agent has, the strengths of those desires, the propositions that are the objects of those desires, and whether those propositions are true in either world. we will identify the universe she has the most and strongest reason to choose by identifying the one that fulfills the most and strongest of those desires.

The same procedure applies to determining if it is better to be Socrates dissatisfied or a fool satisfied. I think it is safe to assume that if we take the desires of Socrates as our starting point, such a person would have many and strong reasons to choose against being the lucky fool. Even the fool may have more or stronger reasons to be Socrates dissatisfied, but, being a fool, incapable of figuring this out.

Once again, the decisions of an impartial observer will depend on the desires we give this imaginary person, in which case the world to choose in the world in which the propositions P of the most and strongest desires will be made true.

This, then, is how these comparisons among possible worlds are to be made. What matters are the desires of the person making the choice. The desires that the being the chooser becomes are relevant only to the degree that they directly or indirectly make true the propositions that are the objects of the chooser's desires.

Well-Being and the Resonance Constraint

I have been doing some homework recently . . . some advanced reading.

Tomorrow (Friday, April 29) I intend to go to the University of Colorado and attend a lecture by Chris Heathwood on "The Resonance Constraint". I'm using this as an excuse to scout out the philosophy department where I hope to be studying as of August of next year.

In preparation for the lecture, I have been doing some reading.

"The Resonance Constraint" is one of three main arguments against the idea that well-being involves meeting some set of objective criteria. It is used to argue that well-being is subjective in some sense - depending on the likes and dislikes of the individual.

We will start with a basic fact that some lives go better than others. Each of our lives could have gone better than it did. For my part, simply being handed $50,000 would be the difference between possibly going to graduate school and definitely going - with a clear impact on my well-being.

But what is well-being exactly?

A hedonist account of well-being says that the quality of a life is determined by the amount of pleasure one experiences and the pain one avoids. We can evaluate lives by making a simple hedonistic calculation.

Here, right at the start, I often make a mistake, and I want to warn readers to watch out for it. I slip into the assumption that all value can be reduced to well-being - as if well-being is the only thing that matters. I am not the only one who makes this mistake. Sam Harris bases all of morality on "the well-being of conscious creatures" as if nothing else could matter, or at least have moral significance.

When I step back and think of it, that is not true.

Because I make this mistake, when I read about a hedonistic theory of well-being my first instinct is to reject it. After all, I reject a hedonistic (and any brain-state) theory of value. If all value reduces to claims about well-being, and I reject a brain-state theory of value, I would have to reject a brain-state theory of well-being, right?

Then I remind myself that it is a mistake to reduce all value to well-being. If it were true that well-being is the only thing that matters, then a person would never be able to sacrifice their well-being for some other good. A scientist could never sacrifice her health to acquire new scientific knowledge. A parent could not make himself worse off in order to benefit his children, and a soldier could never sacrifice his well-being for the benefit of his fellow soldiers.

One could say that all value involves well-being for somebody. After all, when a person sacrifices their own well-being, they do so for the well-being of others.

There's two arguments against this response.

The first is that it is not the case that all sacrifice is for well-being. Consider the case of the scientist who sacrifices her well-being to acquire knowledge. The knowledge need not be useful - though still valued for its own sake.

The second is that, when a person sacrifices their well-being for another, in many cases the sacrifice is greater than the benefit of the other, and yet still done willingly. Many parents would not hesitate to make a sacrifice for their child even where the benefit to the child is less than that which is sacrificed.

The concept of well-being represents a subset of that which is important. So, I remind myself, why can it not represent the amount of pleasure experienced and pain avoided in a person's life? This is clearly something the scientist, the parent, and the soldier can give up for the sake of others when they sacrifice their well-being.

The Resonance Constraint is said to provide an argument against this thesis.

What is intrinsically valuable for a person must have a connection with what he would find in some degree compelling or attractive, at least if he were rational and aware. It would be an intolerably alienated conception of someone's good to image that it might fail in any such way to engage him. (Railton, P. (2003). ‘Facts and values’, in facts, values, and norms: Essays toward a morality of consequence (pp. 43–84). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.)

In this light, we are invited to ask whether we can sensibly talk about the well-being of a person who has no interest in pleasure - but who does have interests in other things (e.g., in raising his children or building water purification plants in poor parts of the world).

Chris Heathwood - the person who will be speaking at the lecture tomorrow - argues that a hedonist can handle the Resonance Constraint by adopting an attitude-based theory of pleasure. The attitude-theory (or propositional-attitude theory) identifies pleasure with a propositional attitude rather than a sensation. Thus, according to Healthwood, "the life of the desirer of peace and quiet over sensory pleasure very well may be filled with pleasure, though none of it sensory." In other words, there is a type of pleasure inherent in the fulfillment of all desire - or, at least, in the desires that are relevant to well-being, whichever they may be.

How about this. Instead of equating well-being with pleasure (and the absence of pain), we equate it with the fulfillment of self-regarding desires. A person can still sacrifice well-being for others (the fulfillment of other-regarding desires). A person who cares noting about pleasure can still have a good life. It is still true that some people are better off than others, even though what makes one person better off may not make somebody else better off.

Please excuse me for a while - I have some reading to do.

Desirism Book - Part 0010 - GE Moore's Beautiful World

Let us imagine one world exceedingly beautiful....And then imagine the ugliest world you can possibly conceive. Imagine it simply one heap of filth, containing everything that is most disgusting to us, for whatever reason, and the whole, as far as may be, without one redeeming feature. The only thing we are not entitled to imagine is that any human being ever has or ever, by any possibility, can, live in either, can ever see and enjoy the beauty of the one or hate the foulness of the other.... [S]till, is it irrational to hold that it is better that the beautiful world should exist than the one which is ugly? Would it not be well, in any case, to do what we could to produce it rather than the other? Certainly I cannot help thinking that it would; and I hope that some may agree with me in this extreme instance. G.E. Moore, Principia Ethica

I sped past imaginings of this sort in an earlier post. Here, I want to pause and spend some more time with them. It will help us with an understanding what is true in our universe in which there is one person (Alph) and one desire (to gather stones).

These imaginings can serve a couple of purposes.

In one purpose, this serve as an argument against the idea that the only thing humans seek is the establishment of a particular brain state - be it happiness, satisfaction, or a surplus of pleasure over pain. It shows us that there are things that humans will choose - such as the realization of a beautiful planet rather than an ugly planet - even were the options do not include changes in brain states.

We see this interpretation particularly when we focus on the phrase, "Would it not be well to do what we could to produce it rather than the other?" Moore is asking about what we have reason to do.

On this measure, Moore's example describes something real, and the account that I am presenting here can make sense of it.

In a previous post I gave Alph a desire that the planet Pandora B exists - a planet that may well fit Moore's description of an exceedingly beautiful world. This desire is fulfilled in any universe where the proposition "Pandora B exists" is true - even a universe where the propositions "Alph is experiencing Pandora B" can never be true.

In fact, we imagined a case in which Alph could bring the planet into existence only by destroying himself. Yet, given our initial assumptions, he had reason to bring the planet into existence, and no reason not to.

All of this matches one interpretation of Moore's famous example.

However, there is another interpretation of the argument. It may be interpreted to mean that the value of the beautiful planet exists within the planet itself. In a universe where no being capable of experiencing it even exists, it would still be better - in some impersonal observer sense - that the universe with the beautiful planet exist rather than the universe with the ugly planet.

Our model of Alph and his one desire does not support this.

One point to be made against the example interpreted this way is to ask, "Which is the beautiful world, and which is the ugly world?"

Moore asked us to imagine a world "of filth, containing everything that is most disgusting to us".

Note the phrase, "to us".

Let us imagine another creature - one that evolved from the dung beetle. Imagine the ugly planet being a huge ball of dung. To us, certainly, we may have reason to bring about the world that is beautiful to us and not the dung world. However, the dung beetle creatures have reason to bring about world that is beautiful to them - the big ball of dung - rather than the clean world of our imaginings.

This creates a problem for the idea that we can completely remove the idea of some type of creature with desires and interests in determining what is beautiful. If we cannot make a judgment of which planet is beautiful without having a subject and knowing something about them, we cannot make a judgment as to which world should exist even if could never be visited or seen.

Now, let us return Alph to his original state - the one where he has one desire, a desire to gather stones.

Now, ask him which planet should exist.

At best, he would answer with a shrug, though he has no reason to do even that much. Both options have the same relevance to making or keeping the proposition, "I am gathering stones" true. Because they have no relevance, they give Alph no reason for action - not even a reason to choose to answer the question.

To choose a planet to continue to exist is an action - but not one that he has any reason to take.

Desirism Book - Part 0009 - Pushpin and Poetry

Prejudice apart, the game of push-pin is of equal value with the arts and sciences of music and poetry. If the game of push-pin furnish more pleasure, it is more valuable than either - Jeremy Bentham (Jeremy Bentham, from The Rationale of Reward, excerpted and reprinted in: The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill, ed. John Troyer (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2003), p. 94.)

I agree.

Not about the pleasure part, but about the relative merits of pushpin and poetry.

Pushpin is a game requiring two players, so it is not suitable for our imaginary world that contains just one person (Alph). However, we can make the same point by substituting the act of gathering stones for pushpin.

Prejudice apart, the act of gathering stones is of equal value with the arts and sciences of music and poetry. What gives a state of affairs P any end-value is that it is the object of a "desire that P", which gives states of affairs in which P is true end- value to those who have it.

Please note that "pleasure" is not a part of the equation. Humans in the real world may have a desire to experience pleasure and the capacity to do so. Alph, in this model, may have the capacity to feel pleasure (depending on how pleasure is defined) but, under our assumptions, has no desire to experience pleasure - thus no reason to do so.

It does not matter whether P = "I am gathering stones" or P = "I am reading poetry", what gives P its value is that it stands in a particular relationship to a "desire that P". Those with a "desire that P" have a reason to realize such a state. There is no value to be given to gathering stones or to poetry - no reason to prefer one over the other - independent of their relationship to desires that exist.

In a more complex universe - ones with more people and more desires, there may be elements that give more value to one over the other. Poetry promotes the ability to read, which provides instrumental value by aiding communication. Poetry may also give people a better understanding of the emotional states or of other points of view. There may be a simple second order preference that the population have more people who desire to read poetry and fewer who value gathering stones. All of these would count as additional reasons to read poetry - and to promote a desire to read poetry.

These types of situations may alter our value judgment. However, none of these conditions exist in a world with one person and one desire. Nothing else exists in that world that can give poetry more value than gathering stones.

I also want to say something about the strength of a desire. An agent who has a weak desire to gather stones and a strong desire to read poetry has a stronger reason to read poetry. He would prefer reading poetry under conditions where he could do either. However, this also does not apply to our current situation where Alph has only one desire. In the future, I will introduce a second desire and examine some of its implications - but there is still more to say about a single agent with a single desire.

It is said that we have some sort of intuition that poetry is better than push-pin or gathering stones. However, that judgment comes from our own likes and dislikes. We are the ones who prefer that Alph spends his time reading poetry rather than gathering stones. Consequently, the world in which Alph is reading poetry has more value to us.

However, we – and our preferences - do not exist in this model, at least not yet. This model contains Alph and his one desire to gather stones. Alph has no reason to read poetry – not unless the poetry includes a clue as to where he might find some more stones to gather.

There is nothing in poetry that generates a reason or a natural command that it be read – by Alph, or by anybody else.

There is no good or bad, better or worse, best or worst, that does not relate an object of evaluation to a set of desires. In a world where only one desire exists (e.g., Alph’s desire to gather stones) then all of the goodness and badness that exists relates the object of evaluation to that desire. In that world, at least.

How Bigotry Works - Presidential Edition

There are people who say, "I will not vote for a black person" or "Women are not fit to be President."

However, this is not the way bigotry works in most cases.

Bigotry also and often works by making a person feel uncomfortable about certain things. When they feel uncomfortable, they look for a reason for the discomfort. Of course, they want a socially acceptable reason - a reason that they can use in front of others without being embarrassed. So, they don't want to explain their attitude in terms of race or gender. Instead, they seek something nebulous like, "I don't think he's smart enough to handle the job," or "I think she is scheming and dishonest."

These are perfectly legitimate reasons if true, but they are not always true.

This is not at all done consciously, by the way. A person gets the uneasy feeling, and immediately jumps to "she strikes me as a scheming liar" or "he's just not ambitious enough to do a good job." They are not consciously rejecting a racist explanation; they never admit to themselves that their brain works that way.

I have admitted to having my own prejudices. Intellectually - in the realm of belief - I know that they are not only unfounded, but they are wrong. However, I did not learn my prejudices simply as a set of beliefs. I learned them at an emotional level. I can change my beliefs by a careful evaluation of the facts. However, even a perfect understanding of the facts often has a limited impact on emotions.

I would like to be able to turn these emotions off. However, it is no more possible to turn off a gut-level prejudice than it is to turn off a fear of spiders or an aversion to the taste of liver and onions. One simply cannot reason a person either into or out of these types of attitudes.

Since I am aware of these dispositions, I can take steps to make sure that they do not cause me to act in ways harmful to others. When examining a perspective candidate, I know to ask whether I have solid evidence for any derogatory beliefs, or if I am going merely on "gut feeling" which may be tainted by an underlying learned emotional response based on race or gender.

(NOTE: This is one reason why I favor affirmative action and even quotas. In issues such as hiring and promotion there is a subjective element - an element based on feeling. This is a perfect opportunity for prejudice to appear, even from a person who - on the level of belief - condemns bigotry.)

In this election, there are certainly people who will not vote for Clinton because she is a woman - who will knowingly and openly declare that to be their reason.

However, there will be a much larger set of people who will simply feel uncomfortable at the thought of a woman in that position. The idea of a female President - a female leader - a woman exhibiting the characteristics of ambition and planning that are essential to enter such a position. A man can show those tendencies and characteristics without generating more than a shrug in response - but a woman? It's not proper for a woman.

Many of these people will look around for reasons for this discomfort. In doing so, they are going to rule out reasons that go against social convention or might even go against their own beliefs. They will not accept the idea that they are the type of person that they believe ought to be condemned for their bigotry. They will settle on reasons like, "She's dishonest," or "She's too ambitious and only interested in herself," or they will assume her guilt in this or that "scandal" because it feels right to think of her as guilty..

However, the next question to ask is, "Can I find actual, solid evidence in favor of these judgments? Or am I just basing them on a gut feeling that, itself, could be being fed by an underlying prejudice?"

Here is the time for anybody who thinks it is actually important to cast a vote that is warranted and not a vote based on bigotry to do some research. Here is the time when it is important to go to the effort to look at the facts and determine whether one's attitude is based on evidence, or just a feeling itself tainted by prejudices learned, not on the level of belief, but on the level of emotion.

And be careful . . . emotion also has the power to cause one to see evidence where not exists - to give extra emphasis to testimony that supports the prejudice and find some excuse to dismiss the evidence that challenges the prejudice. For anybody who takes this challenge seriously, it will involve some hard work. But it could be useful.

Desirism Book - Part 0008 - Desire (Preference) Satisfaction

In the model I am using, we have one person (Alph) with one desire (to gather stones). This means that there is only one reason for intentional action that exists (to realize a state in which Alph is gathering stones), and only one kind of state that has end-value (a state where "I am gathering stones" spoken by Alph is true.

Some may see this as a desire-satisfaction theory. In one sense, it would be correct. However, in another sense - or a couple of other senses - this would be wrong. To prevent future confusion, I want to clarify the exact type f desire-satisfaction theory this is.

One popular form of desire satisfaction theory focuses on the felt sense of satisfaction. In this sense, satisfaction serves the same role that "pleasure" dies in traditional hedonism. "Pain" is replaced with the felt state of  "frustration".

However, on the theory being advanced here, the felt sense of satisfaction or frustration has no value. As we did with pleasure, pain, and unhappiness, we can look at satisfaction and frustration in two ways. Either (1) it is a felt sensation alone, where the agent can have an independent desire for or aversion to that sensation, or (2) the term refers to a type of sensation for which the individual has a built in desire or aversion.

If it is the former, then satisfaction and frustration can exist in this model, but the agent lacks the independent desire or aversion. Thus, the agent lacks an end-reason to seek satisfaction or avoid frustration.

If the latter, then satisfaction and frustration cannot exist within our model. We are assuming that out agent has only one desire - and that is a desire to gather stones. There is no desire for a felt sensation of satisfaction, and no aversion to a felt sensation of frustration.

Another popular form of desire satisfaction theory imagines that desire satisfaction is a thing in itself having intrinsic value. As such, it is that thing to be maximized in utilitarian theories. "The right act is the act that maximizes desire satisfaction."  Peter Singer's moral theory seems to follow this model.

An agent is to consider the preferences of a close family matter as being equal to those of a total stranger.

This is not that theory. Intrinsic value does not exist.

On this model, Alph seeks one thing - to be gathering stones. He is not seeking desire satisfaction. He is seeking a state in which he is gathering stones. Desire satisfaction, as something distinct from gathering stones, does not exist.

We can use the phrase, "desire satisfaction" to refer to the fact that Alph has a reason to realize a state in which he is gathering stones founded on a desire to gather stones. However, this phrase introduces nothing new. It is a description of what already exists.

In order to put some distance between this theory and theories that refer to the felt sense of satisfaction, I tend to use the term “desire fulfillment”. A desire that P sets up a set of condition to be realized. As soon as P is made or kept true, the condition has been met and the desire that P has been fulfilled. There is no need for a felt sensation of satisfaction. This does not imply that such a sensation cannot exist or that a person cannot desire “that I am experiencing a felt sense of satisfaction”. It simply is not necessary and is not a part of our model at this point.

It may help to see the difference between desire satisfaction and desire fulfillment if we imagine Alph with a different desire. Let us give Alph a desire that the planet Pandora B come into existence. The only way for Alph to bring Pandora B into existence is to press a red button labeled “Create Pandora B”. However, pressing the button will destroy Alph. He will cease to exist as Pandora B comes into existence.

For the sake of this example, Pandora B will come into existence without any form of life – without any creature capable of having desires and without the possibility that a desiring creature can evolve on Pandora B. We do not want to confuse the issue by adding additional desires.

If we look at the reasons for action that exists, Alph has a reason to press the button. Alph has a desire that P where P  = “The planet Pandora B exists”. Consequently, Alph has a reason to press the button.

Alph has no reason not to press the button. Certainly, doing so will end his existence, but Alph has no desire to continue to exist. Nor does he have a desire that requires his continued existence as a means. He has this one desire – that Pandora B come into existence – and the fulfillment of that desire requires that he live no longer than needed to press the button.

So, he presses the button.

He ceases to exist, and Pandora B springs into existence.

The desire has been fulfilled. That is to say, the check box “Pandora B exists” can now be checked – this has been made true.

However, there is no desire satisfaction. In fact, there is no desire at all. The one and only desire that did exist no longer exists. All that exists is Pandora B.

Some people may want to refer to this as a desire satisfaction theory, and streatch the definition of “satisfaction” to include cases in which the object of a desire has been realized even though it generates no felt sense of satisfaction. There are those who write about “objective desire satisfaction” that covers situations in which a desire is fulfilled or thwarted without the agent knowing about it.

However, I fear that the term will confuse some, so I will stick with the term “desire fulfillment”. A desire that P is fulfilled in any state of affairs where P is made or kept true.

Desirism Book - Part 0007 - Reasons

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

This is Bernard Williams’ theory of reasons, and it fits quite snugly in the current account. (Williams, B., 1979. “Internal and External Reasons,” reprinted in Moral Luck, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981, 101–13.)

We have created one person (Alph) with one desire (to gather stones). In order for a reason to exist, it is going to have to be in service to satisfying this one desire – the only desire that exists. There is no reason to do anything else.

As a reminder, serving this desire is to be understood to mean making the proposition “I am gathering stones” spoken by Alph true. It is not to be equated with generating any type of psychological sensation such as pleasure or happiness.

On the question of pleasure, happiness, or the psychological sensation of being satisfied, in this imaginary universe either these things do not exist, or they exist without there being a reason to bring them about. The question of existence turns on whether a desire for pleasure, happiness, or satisfaction is built into the meaning of the term. If what we call pleasure is a physical sensation that, by definition, people desire for its own sake then there is no pleasure in this hypothetical universe.  This is because there is nothing that agents desire for their own sake other than Alph’s desire that he be gathering stones.

Later in this series I will be giving Alph more desires. I will also be adding more people, each with their own desires. Consequently, more reasons will come into existence. Yet, they will be coming into existence only because there will be more desires. They will not emerge from nothing.

If Alph has gathered all of his stones together, he will then have a reason to scatter stones. Having all of the stones gathered means that the proposition, “I am gathering stones” is now false. The only way to change that from “false” to “true” would be to scatter the stones. Then, they can be gathered again. That is the reason for scattering stones – to restore a state in which “I am gathering stones” spoken by Alph can once again be made true.

Alph also has a reason to preserve his own life. He cannot make or keep the proposition, “I am gathering stones” true if he should die. So, he has a reason to avoid walking off of a cliff as he gathers stones. If he needs food and water in order to survive, he has reason to eat and to drink – and to grow food and discover water. However, he has no motivating hunger or thirst. These would require the addition of new desires. He eats and drinks only insofar as these are essential to making or keeping the proposition, “I am gathering stones” true.

Alph may or may not have reason to look in the next valley for more rocks to gather. He has a reason to look in the next valley just in case there are rocks in the next valley to gather. If there are no rocks to gather, he has no reason to look into the next valley. We may assume that he does not know whether there are rocks in the next valley. This means that he does not know whether he has reason to go into the next valley for rocks. He knows that there is a possibility that there are rocks in the next valley to gather. This means that he knows that there is a possibility that he has a reason to the next valley. The possibility of rocks generates a possibility of a reason. It does not generate an actual reason.

Consequently, a person who knows that there are no rocks in the next valley can honestly report, “You are wasting your time looking for rocks in the next valley. There are none.”

We can illustrate this another way by looking at an example where a thirsty person reaches for a glass that contains what she thinks is clean water, though it is in fact poison. An observer can tell her, “You don’t want to do that.” When she asks why, he reports that it is poison. The point here is that his original statement, “You don’t want to do that,” is true. The agent may not know that she does not want to do that, and may think that she does want to do that insofar as she is thirsty and thinks that the glass contains clean water. However, in fact, she does not want to drink from the glass. She has no reason to drink from the glass.

Let us assume that we give Alph a choice. He may choose that a beautiful planet exists, or that an ugly planet exists. He has no reason to choose one or the other. There exists, in this simple universe, no reason to choose one over the other. There is nothing about the nature of the planets that creates a reason – a demand – that it be chosen.

In fact, in our simple universe, there is nothing in either planet that generates a reason to call it beautiful – unless it turns out that one contains a number of rocks to be gathered and the other contains no rocks. Now, if we assume that Alph can get to the planet with rocks in order to gather them, now he has a reason to choose one planet over the other. But insofar as choosing that a planet continue to exist does not serve his desire to be gathering stones, he has no reason to choose that planet, or any planet.

I will have more to say on beauty in a future posting. My purpose here is to discuss reasons for intentional action. In our imaginary universe which consists of Alph with his desire to gather stones, there is only one reason for intentional action that exists. Alph has an end-reason to gather stones – and has an instrumental reason, and means-reasons to do those things that will help to make or keep the proposition “I am gathering stones” true. No other reasons for intentional action exist. 

"Discovering" Morality in Personal Advanage

Because Bernie Sanders lost the primary election in New York on April 19, there are people declaring that independents have a moral right to vote in party primary elections.

The relationship between those two facts comes from the observation that independents who tend to support Sanders tend to vote in the Democratic primary where they are able. Consequently, Sanders would have been able to pick up a higher percentage of the vote if New York had an open primary than he received under the closed primary. From this it apparently follows that closed primaries violate a fundamental voting right of those who are not members of a political party.

This is clearly not a valid argument. However, it does illustrate how people often approach moral issues. What is asserted to be a fundamental right is something that the individual "became aware of" because it provides them with a personal advantage.

We can well imagine what those who are making this claim would have discovered about morality if it were the case that independents tended to vote for Clinton rather than Sanders. In this case, Sanders would have been collecting a higher percentage of the votes among Democrats. However, when independents were allowed to have a say, Sanders' share of the votes would have dropped.

In this case, it is not difficult to image that Sanders and his supporters would have "discovered" the moral principle that an organization has the right to choose its own leaders and representatives. Nowhere else - or almost nowhere else - are people who do not belong to an organization allowed to come in and help decide who the organization selects as its leaders and representatives. If an individual wants a voice is the decision of a group, a minimum requirement is to join the group.

In other words, the moral principles being embraced in this case are those of convenience, with no reliance on any type of impersonal standard.

Further evidence of this comes from Sanders' attitude towards the use of a caucus to select a candidate.

Sanders has tended to do well where states select their delegates during a caucus system.

To vote in a caucus, a voter must devote a considerable amount of time out of their day, on a specific day, to go to a common location with other caucus voters, to engage in a long discussion and debate and, from there, to select delegates.

This is an exceptional burden for many people. Those who have family and business commitments, those who are ill, and those who find it difficult to travel tend to be excluded from the caucus system. The decisions are made, instead, by those who are younger, healthier, and with fewer commitments to family or work.

In this election, the type of voter who could make it to a caucus tended to support Sanders, whereas the rules tended to provide excessive burdens on those who supported Clinton. Consequently, Sanders received more votes (and, thus, more delegates) in a caucus system than he would have received if the state had selected their delegates in a primary - whether open or closed.

Yet, Sanders failed to become aware of any moral problems with a caucus system that tended to prevent even registered Democrats from having a say in the selection of their group's representatives.

This suggests a highly selective sense of moral awareness, tuned quite closely to what provides the individual with a personal advantage.

In effect, the caucus system has the same practical effect as voter ID laws. Republicans claim to support voter ID laws because it limits voter fraud - even though there is almost no voter fraud to limit. As a matter of fact, Republicans tend to favor voter ID laws because it places an extra burden on certain types of voters, and those types of voters tend to vote for Democrats. In other words, they favor the law for its practical effect at preventing eligible voters who would otherwise have cast their votes for Democratic candidates from voting.

Democrats tend to object to voter ID laws - again, claiming that it interferes with a right to vote, though we would have to ask if they would find voter ID laws so objectionable if it were the case that such a law would tend to reduce the number of Republican voters from voting. A disposition to discover moral principles promoting acts and policies that provide the discoverer with a material advantage is clearly not confined to members of the Republican party.

Indeed, the practice of "discovering" moral principles that provide one with an personal advantage is very common. These simply provide some clear illustrations of the practice. Yet, the fact that it is common is not an argument in favor of continuing or even promoting the practice. It is a practice that ought to be uncommon - even rare. It is a practice that we have reason to criticize and condemn.

Desirism Book - Part 0006 - Nozick's Experience Machine

To the regular readers of my blog, I am sorry. I addressed Nozick's experience machine in a post outside this series just a few days ago. However, I have come to realize that it has a place in this series, right about here. Much of what I say here will repeat what I wrote about a week ago, altered slightly to fit into the context of this series.

We have one person (Alph) with one desire (a desire to gather stones or a desire "that I am gathering stones".)

I have just mentioned that what matters for a person with a desire that P are states where P is true. Insofar as Alph desires to gather stones, Alph has a motivating reason to realize states where the proposition, “I am gathering stones” is true.

Robert Nozick has asked that we consider the option of an experience machine – a machine that will artificially generate the impressions of any given state of affairs. If Alph were hooked up to this experience machine, it would be impossible for Alph to distinguish in virtue of sensation between actually gathering stones and having the machine-generated sensation of gathering stones.

So, would Alph choose to be hooked up to the experience machine?

We may assume, to provide extra incentive, that the real world has a limited number of stones, requiring that Alph spend some of his time scattering stones so that he can gather them again. However, the experience machine world will have an unlimited amount of stones, allowing Alph to have the permanent sensation of gathering stones.

On the model we are establishing here, Alph would respond to the offer of the experience machine by saying, "No, thank you. Your experience machine provides nothing of value. I have no reason to accept your offer."

The reason for this response comes directly from the fact that Alph’s desire to gather stones is a desire that the proposition, “I am gathering stones” be made or kept true. The experience machine cannot make it the case that the proposition, “I am gathering stones” is true. In fact, as long as Alph is hooked up to the machine, the proposition, “I am gathering stones” is false – and thus a state of affairs Alph has no interest in.

We can see this distinction better if we take a different example.

In this example, Betty has a desire that her children are healthy and happy. She is given a choice between entering the experience machine where she will get impressions that her children are in perfect health and happy – while their children are, instead, taken to a torture chamber.

Or, she can choose to enter the experience machine where she will be given impressions that her children are tortured mercilessly while, in fact, her children are healthy and happy.

Insofar as Betty truly desires that her children are healthy and happy, she has reason to choose the second option, and no reason to choose the first option. The second option is the only available option that makes the proposition “my children are healthy and happy” true.

There are some desires where their objects are such that the experience machine can make them true. Insofar as we focus on these desires, an agent will have reason to enter the experience machine.

The person who enjoys the experience of eating a steak, but wishes to avoid the cholesterol, calories and other possible health effects or wishes that no cow be killed to provide the steak, will have reason to enter the experience machine.

In fact, all of these caveats after the word “but” are optional. They can be stricken from the example. As long as the agent has a desire “that I am having the experience of eating a steak” rather than a desire “that I am eating a steak”, the agent has a reason to enter the experience machine. The reason the experience machine is successful is because it has the capacity to make the proposition, “I am having the experience of eating a steak” true – so it fulfills the desire in question.

The idea that a desire that P is a motivational attitude that the proposition P is to be made or kept true is to be understood literally. This is going to play a significant roll in what follows.