In comments to yesterday’s blog, one commenter, ADHR, gave a particularly sophisticated set of responses to my position. I want to take advantage of this opportunity to address these concerns.
Yesterday, ADHR pointed out that a statement that I made, When people act so as to make the lives of others worse off than they would have otherwise been, and uses poor reasoning to defend their action, it is perfectly legitimate to condemn them for it. could not be taken as literally true. There are countless cases, rising from ignorance to a lack of options, where people act in ways that make the lives of others worse off without doing anything worthy of condemnation.
I made this statement in the context of a discussion as to whether somebody who owns a pharmacy should be permitted to refuse to sell birth control for religious reasons. I argued that such a decision deserves private condemnation but not violence (whether in the form of private violence or criminal penalties).
The objection is entirely accurate. As written, my statement above fit into a theory of morality that evaluated actions according to their intrinsic merit – that making another worse off is not only intrinsically wrong but deserving of condemnation. It is not a theory that I hold to.
I wrote too quickly.
It would have been more precise for me to say that the desires of others (the desire to have more ready access to prescription drugs they want) gives them reason to evaluate the attitudes of those who could easily fulfill those desires, but who refuse to do so. These thwarted (legitimate) desires gives them reasons-for-action for condemning, so as to inhibit, the owners.
This justification for condemnation comes from the fact that a person of good moral character would have presumed in favor of providing his or her neighbors with what they want, and would have accepted the need to thwart those desires only after receiving proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Because the owners are using religious arguments, no proof beyond a reasonable doubt is being offered.
When it comes to doing harm to others, “Because I have faith that my God would be pleased by the harm that I do to you,” does not qualify as proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the harm is necessary.
However, I argue that these reasons-for-action for condemning this owners’ attitude do not justify physical violence in the form of criminal penalties. I argue that, for the sake of keeping the peace, there should be a strong presumption in favor of liberty that is only outweighed by evidence beyond reasonable doubt of significant harm to others.
ADHR’s first example does demonstrate that the original expression, taken literally, does fail. Indeed, all moral theories that base morality on the intrinsic value of actions will fail, because intrinsic value does not exist, and actions are caused by desire.
ADHR goes on to raise objections against introducing desires to solve this problem. And, I have to see if I get this right, because it is a sophisticated set of objections.
If a good desire is defined in terms of fulfilling the desires of others, what is it that defines the desires others have?
I cannot tell if ADHR is familiar with other posts that I have written that addressed this question. I regret that, as this post gets longer, I tend to write as if my readers are familiar with everything else that I have written, which is certainly a false assumption.
Either way, a ‘desire that P’ is a propositional attitude such that the agent with the desire is moved to make or keep P true to a degree determined by the strength of the desire. We explain and predict intentional action by postulating a set of beliefs (attitudes that a particular proposition is true or false) and desires (attitudes that a particular proposition is to be made or kept true or false) assigning different strengths to desires until we have the best explanation and can make the best predictions about an agent’s intentional actions.
Desires are the only reasons for intentional action that exist.
Desires are the only reasons that exist for or against condemning a particular (type of) person. Condemnation makes sense as a tool for inhibiting desire-thwarting desires.
An agent acts to fulfill the more and stronger of his desires, given his beliefs – and seeks to act so as to fulfill the more and stronger of his desires.
Since the bad desire only causes actions that generally prevent the fulfillment of the desires of others, and the good desire only causes actions that generally fulfill the desires of others, it follows that the good desire can cause an action that, in a particular case, prevents the fulfillment of the desires of others (and vice versa for a bad desire causing a beneficial action).
Yes, it is true that on this theory a person will sometimes act in ways that thwart the desires of others. This happens when the desires that will cause an agent to behave differently in the current situation would tend to cause agents to fulfill more and stronger desires in other actual situations. If it is the case that condemnation followed actually acting so as to make the lives of others worse off, then under these conditions condemnation would be appropriate.
Yes, I know that this is what I said in the quote above.
I miswrote. I was trying to come up with a statement that was close enough to the truth to work in a post without getting too technical.
So, ultimately, we are looking for what people generally have the more and the stronger reason to condemn. They have the more and the stronger reason to condemn where condemnation will inhibit attitudes (desires) that tend to thwart the desires of others. In the case of the pharmacy owners who choose not to fulfill prescriptions to birth control, this clearly thwarts the desires of others. This gives others a reason to condemn the attitudes responsible for this choice, so as to reduce the incidence of these desire-thwarting attitudes.
Note that in desire utilitarianism a desire is fulfilled if the proposition that is the object of a desire is made or kept true, and thwarted if the proposition that is the object of a desire is made or kept false. Desires that have as their object a proposition that cannot be true (e.g., “I serve God’s will) cannot be fulfilled. Therefore, nothing in the real world can be judged negatively by saying that they interfere with the fulfillment of such a desire. If the owners of the pharmacy are desiring to fulfill God’s will, nobody can interfere with that result, because no person can, in fact, ever fulfill the will of a God that does not exist.
Anyway, condemnation may inhibit attitudes that thwart the desires of others even where those attitudes, in some rare circumstance, actually fulfill desires.
That's much clearer to me. Thanks, Alonzo. I still have two lingering questions, though.
ReplyDeleteFirst, your description of desires suggests that they're something like psychological/neural "pushes" towards bodily movement. If that's so, then any action that one takes is a result of these "pushes" being, somehow, combined in the physical system of the agent, correct? That is, say I have a desire to steal something, but also a desire to respect other people's property. Whether I act on the former or the latter depends just on which is a stronger "push".
Reasons, I think, we generally take as legitimate grounds for criticizing someone's conduct: we can give praise to people who act with good reasons, and we can blame people who act with bad reasons. So, when we discover someone's reasons for action, we have discovered something that we can use as a grounds for critique.
So, here's the question: if desires are the only reasons, and desires are causes, how do desires ground critique? It's something I've never really understood about causal views of reasons: the evaluation of action doesn't seem to connect to the idea of causation.
Second, there are a number of prima facie plausible cases where an action is performed intentionally without any desire at all. I realize there's a "philosopher's sense" of desire that could be brought into play here; so, for the sake of clarity, from this point on I'm using "desire" in its more common-place sense, as a felt urge for some object, and "pro-attitude" will cover the "philosopher's sense", as whatever it is that leads one to act.
So, given that, it's pretty easy to see that there are cases of intentional action that don't have an associated desire. Whenever I do something I really don't want to, but feel obligated to, then I lack a desire. I do, however, have a pro-attitude towards the action, in the form of my belief that the action was obligatory. So far, so good for your account.
However, there's a problem with invoking pro-attitudes as reasons for action. Whatever it is that I do, I must have had some pro-attitude towards it -- or else, I wouldn't have done it (at least, I wouldn't have done it intentionally). So, from the fact that I acted, we can infer that I had a pro-attitude towards the action. But this suggests that pro-attitudes are just a way of identifying an action as intentional. That is, we look at an intentional action and say "oh, there must be a pro-attitude". Pro-attitudes don't seem to exist as something in their own right that can exist before an action and produce it.
Further, since pro-attitudes are still attitudes, they must be psychological states, whatever they are. But many actions appear to be done for reasons that are not attitudes, but states of affairs. For instance, if it is raining, I may take my umbrella when I leave because it is raining. It could be because I don't want to get wet, or I believe I should keep my suit from getting wet, but does it need to be?
So, second question: how can pro-attitudes exist prior to action, given that we know them only as a way of marking actions as intentional; and how can it be that all actions are done because of a pro-attitude, when many actions are done for no attitude at all?
(I should probably have pointed out that I'm writing my doctoral diss. on action-explanation and related metaethical issues. So, I have significant interests in these questions.)
On the blog I've created, I have attempted to use the theory of desire utilitarianism to criticize and/or evaluate issues. Hopefully, my understanding of the theory is full enough that I can try to answer these questions myself.
ReplyDeleteIn answer to your first question: Yes, I think the equation of a desire to 'psychological/neural "pushes" towards bodily movement' is fairly accurate. When accounting for actions, a desire is not only competing against counter-desires (as in your example of stealing), but also against aversions to a given desire. For instance, if I've been raised with the attitude that stealing is a negative thing (or been lead to believe that stealing has dire consequences), then my desire to steal may be limited by my aversion.
"So, here's the question: if desires are the only reasons, and desires are causes, how do desires ground critique?"
_As far as my own understanding goes, a desire is grounds for critique in an attempt to build a stronger aversion to acting on the desire. In other words, the penalties for stealing *should* not be viewed as a punishment for the action, but rather as an attempt to correct that sort of behavior in the future - to, as Mr. Fyfe has put it, 'turn down the knob' on the desire to steal.
Now, with regards to your second question, I can't think of a plausible cause where an action is performed intentionally without the involvement of a desire/desires.
As they're defined in this blog setting, a desire is an attitude that a state of affairs is to be made or kept true. In what sort of circumstance would you imagine an agent intentionally doing something in which there was not a desire to bring about or avoid a state of affairs?
So, in a case where "I do something I really don't want to, but feel obligated to," a commonplace use of the word 'desire' doesn't really fit. In this sort of circumstance, desire utilitarianism indeed holds that some things are seen as a means to an end - I feel obligated to work out because I desire the state of affairs where 'I am fit' is true. Regardless of the circumstance, this theory operates on the claim that all actions are caused by desires in this sort of understanding.
"So, second question: how can pro-attitudes exist prior to action, given that we know them only as a way of marking actions as intentional; and how can it be that all actions are done because of a pro-attitude, when many actions are done for no attitude at all?"
_I'm not sure that I understand the first part of the question. The short answer off the top of my head is that just because we don't always know an agent's attitude before its actions, that doesn't mean the attitude doesn't exist objectively.
The second part, I think, was answered above. If a desire is an attitude about a proposition - that a state of affairs is to be made or kept true - then I can't imagine an action done while divorced from desires.