Prescriptions

Over in another section of the blogosphere an objection was raised against Desirism regarding its use of the terms "ought" and "prescription". A member of that studio audience wrote:

(See: Common Sense Atheism: All the Desires that Exist

Well, desirism does not explain why I ought to act in any particular way, except redefining “ought” to mean “there are reasons for others to encourage these desires”. That’s hardly a prescription, and I hold that presenting it as such is misleading.

There are two questions to answer relevant to this objection.

Question #1: Is the accusation that this is a case of redefining 'ought' accurate?

Philosophers have, for centuries, recognized that the language of value contains a distinction between practical 'ought' and moral 'ought', and a great deal of metaphorical philosophical ink has been spilled trying to account for the difference.

Religious ethics explains it in terms of a difference between what we want and what God wants. Kant sought to explain it in terms of a difference between hypothetical and categorical imperatives. John Stuart Mill simply asserted that the happiness of poetry was better than the happiness of pushpin, while G.E. Moore raised the objection that Mill failed to distinguish between what is desired and what ought to be desired.

Furthermore, when people engaging in moral debates, they are constantly offering up reasons in defense of their moral claims that have nothing at all to do with the 'ought' of practical reason. They point to the harmful effects on others as if that alone is morally relevant, independent of what the agent they are speaking to thinks about those who would be harmed. In fact, not being moved by the harms suffered by others is considered the epitome of evil.

If it were true that the only 'ought' in common English were the form of prescription defined in this objection, then all native English speakers should agree that it is true by definition that a child-rapist with 1 year to live trapped alone on an island with a child morally ought to rape that child any time the urge strikes him. Yet, native English speakers do not so readily agree to the conclusion that this is true by definition.

Contrary to the assertion made in this objection, native English speakers use the term 'ought' in two distinct ways. One way refers to the reasons that an agent has for doing or refraining from some action. The other, moral 'ought' refers to reasons outside of the individual's desires at the desires the agent should have.

If somebody's claim about what words mean in a language generates the conclusion that, "(Almost) nobody else ever uses this term correctly. I - or I and a bare handful of others - are the only people who use the term correctly," then there is something wrong with that person's understanding of language.

Words get their meaning by social custom. There can be no such thing as a word that "every competent speaker of the language but me and a small group of others uses wrongly."

Please note: This is the same argument I apply to those who claim that 'atheist' means 'lacking a belief in God' when competent English speakers the world over use it to mean, 'One who holds that the proposition that a god exists is false or almost certainly false." These people also claim that "we few actually use the word correctly, and everybody else who has used the word another way for decades or longer are using it incorrectly."

However, for the sake of argument, let us say that I am wrong about this. Somehow, I missed the fact that people only use the term 'ought' to refer to things a person has an interest in doing.

This leads us to Question #2.

Question #2: What does it matter that I am redefining a term, as long as I do not equivocate on my definition?

I can well imagine somebody raising the following objections:

Well, your theory does not explain the properties of aluminum, sulfur, carbon, and the like except by redefining "atom" to mean "the smallest piece of an element which, itself, is made up of electrons, neutrons, and protons.

Or:

Well, your theory does not explain the causes and symptoms of malaria except by redefining "malaria" to mean "a set of symptoms characterized by the following . . ."

Remember, the original definition of 'atom' was 'thing without parts', and the original definition of 'malaria' was 'bad air.' The definitions of these terms changed over time. The definitions of a lot of words have changed. The only time redefining a term is objectionable is when a person jumps back and forth between two different meanings.

Terms are constantly being re-defined. In fact, every invention of a new term - such as when a new species gets named - is a 're-definition' of a term from having no meaning to having a particular (arbitrarily assigned) meaning.

I deny that I am using moral terms in any way that is substantially different from normal usage. However, even if it is, a dispute over definitions is not a dispute over what is true in the world. It is merely a dispute over what language we are going to use to describe those truths. Since words have no meaning that is carved in stone by nature itself, there is no objective way to settle those types of disputes. This is as true for atoms and malaria as it is for prescriptive 'oughts'.

However, let's pretend that I am wrong about this. Let us pretend that there is a law of Nature or of God that dictates that no term shall ever be re-defined AND that Nature or God has assigned the meaning used in the original objection.

Even here, I am still free to invent new terms to describe the theory without changing the content of the theory one iota.

Let us stipulate that the terms "prescription" and "pought" refer to the reasons that an agent has for performing a particular action or realizing a particular state. At the same time, "mrescriptions" and "mought" refer to "reasons for others to encourage these desires".

Recognize that when we are talking about reasons that people have to encourage (or discourage) a particular desire we are still making a prescription to those others. We are telling them what desires they pought to encourage. The relationshhip between these two terms is that the desires that A, B, and C pought to encourage in D are the desires that D mought to have. You are mrescribing for D the desires that you are prescribing A, B, and C to create in D.

This third option might be clearer and more precise. However, the terms 'pought', 'mrescription', and 'mought' do not exist in the English Language. So, I cannot expect people who read them to have any idea what they mean.

I could use Option 3. It would be more precise. However, native English speakers do not know these words. I would have to teach them how to speak the language just to write on the topic.

As I see it, I have no need to go to this option. English contains a well-known and widely used distinction among two different types of prescriptions. The English language suits my purpose quite well, so I do not need to invent another.

Still, the important point here is that none of these elements describe a dispute about what is true in the world. They merely describe a dispute over which language we are going to use when we talk about the world. So, there is nothing in this dispute that has any potential to identify any type of break between the claims made in this theory and what is true in the world.