Enlightened Self-Interest

A member of the studio audience wrote:

[I]n support of the role of prescriptivity in moral language one might point out that the facts you're pidgeonholing as "moral" look like they fall more naturally under "enlightened self-interest" or somesuch.

Actually, no.

"Enlightened self-interest" is an ambiguous term - having two possible meanings.

One of these meanings makes claims about enlightened self-interest trivially true - true in a very uninteresting and unimportant way. The other makes claims of enlightened self-interest false, though not so trivially false.

The distinction here is between interests OF the self versus interests IN the self.

Those who suggest that claims about enlightened self-interest are both true and important usually equivocate between these two meanings. They start off with speaking as if all interests we have are interests IN the self. They all aim for the benefit of the agent. When they are backed into a corner by arguments that show this to be false they switch the second meaning of self-interest - interests OF the self. This version of the theory is true, but does not have any of the implications of the version they began with. When their opponent gives up attacking this second (trivially true) claim, the advocate of self-interest theory declares victory and switches back to the first (false) definition of self-interest.

The trivially true version of self-interest (interests OF the self) states that an agent's actions are motivated entirely by the agent’s own desires. The desires of others may affect his actions - but only insofar as he has a desire to fulfill (or to thwart) the other person's desires.

This is true in a biological sense - only my brain is hooked up to my muscles in the right way. My choices have to come from my brain - meaning my brain states (my beliefs and my desires). They do not come from outside my brain.

More importantly, though, this is logically true. Let us say that you were to hook up a remote control device such that you could control my body remotely. Now it is your beliefs and your desires that control this body. If that is the case, then the actions that this body now performs are no longer my actions. They would be your actions. Actions belong to (are the responsibility of) the brain whose brain states (beliefs and desires) are the proximate cause of the choices controlling those actions.

That is to say, all interests that motivate an agent's action are interests of the self - the agent's own beliefs and desires. If they do not come from an agent's beliefs and desires, then they are not his actions.

When people talk about enlightened self-interest they tend to want to be saying something more robust than saying, "The desires that cause my intentional actions are the desires in my brain."

Now, the claim that all actions are motivated by desires OF the self is quite different from the claim that all actions are motivated by desires IN the self.

A desire IN the self is a desire that P where the self ("I") is the object of the desire - "I desire that I...". I desire that I experience pleasure. I desire that I have more money. I desire that I am admired by all.

While the claim that the desires that motivate an agent's action are desires OF the self is trivially true, the claim that the desires that motivate an agent's actions are desires IN the self is sometimes false. The range of possible desires that an agent can have is as broad as the range of possible beliefs that an agent can have.

An agent can have a desire that no child suffers, or a desire that a particular piece of wilderness remain untouched by humans. He can desire that humans (or their descendents) exist far into the indefinite future and desire that the SOB that kidnapped and raped that child be made to suffer for his crimes. Just as he can believe that a God exists, he can desire that a God exist. And just as he can believe that the claims made in the Bible are true, he can desire that the claims made in the Bible are true.

The desires that Jim might have that would give him reason to condemn bank robbers almost certainly includes some self-interested desires (he desires that his money be safe), but it could also include desires in things other than the self. he may desires the well-being of others for its own sake - not for any benefit it may provide to him. He sees a society where bank robbing is rampant as one of widespread suffering and condemns bank-robbery as a way of reducing that potential for suffering.

Desirism says that Jim's reasons for actions that exist for condemning bank robbers must necessarily be his desires - desires OF Jim. But it not necessarily be desires IN the self - desires of which Jim is the object.

Perhaps more importantly, the desires that agents have reason to create in others are often not desires IN the self. In fact, praise and condemnation are more reasonably used to inhibit or reduce desires in the self (selfishness) and to promote desires OF the self that are desires IN the well-being of others, or desires in things that tend to lead to the well-being of others, or aversions to things that tend to thwart the desires of others.

The Categorical Issue and the Elements of Morality

A member of the studio audience wrote:

[Y]ou seem to share a lot of ground (indeed, all the ground except the "ineliminability" of certain things from moral language) with what I would regard as one of the standard moral anti-realist positions.

There is another thing I do not share.

I do not share the idea that "categorical" was ever a part of morality as practiced. There is nothing to eliminate. Morality was adopted and embraced as a technique for fulfilling desires. At some point some theorists came along and asserted that its principles are categorical, but that never made it into the meaning.

Desirism accurately describes morality as practiced. That makes it a realist theory.

Look at the elements that it can account for:

The central role that rewards (such as praise) and punishments (such as condemnation) play in the institution of morality. This is something that very few competing theories even address. Let us say that moral claims are categorical - how does this account for the practice of responding to virtue with praise and vice with condemnation?

It accounts for 'ought' implies 'can' because it only makes sense to apply praise and condemnation where it can cause the reward-learning system to effect a change in desires.

It accounts for the fact that moral claims act like truth-bearing propositions. They are truth-bearing propositions in that they make claims as to whether an act is indicative of desires that people have many and strong reasons to promote or inhibit through praise or inhibit through praise or condemnation.

It also accounts for the emotive component of moral utterances - because they often contain the praise or condemnation that the truth-bearing component says that people generally have reason to present.

It accounts for the types of evidence that people bring to moral debates - evidence supporting or refuting the truth of the proposition that people generally have reason to apply rewards such as praise or punishments such as condemnation in particular ways.

It accounts fit the three categories of moral claims - obligation, non-obligatory permission, and prohibition.

By the way, it also accounts for a fourth moral category - supererogatory action or acts above and beyond the call of duty. Some actions exhibit desires that people generally have many and strong reason to promote. However, praise and condemnation cannot be expected to bring about a desire of such strength in the public at large. We have reason to praise these people and call them heroes. But we recognize that most people can never acquire such a virtue. By virtue of 'ought' implies 'can' we do not hold them to be obligated to do so.

It fits moral claims into a general theory that can be applied to all value-laden terms. It says that all value-laden terms relate states of affairs to desires. They differ in the objects of evaluation, the desires that are relevant, the nature of the relationship (direct or indirect), and whether the relevant desires are fulfilled to thwarted.

Beauty. This term is applied to things seen and heard based on whether the experience of seeing or hearing directly fulfills the desires of the seer or hearer.

Illness and Injury: These terms evaluate changes or deviations in physical or mental functioning according to whether they tend to thwart (or give others reason to thwart) - directly or indirectly - the desires of the agent whose functioning is being examined. Furthermore, if the cause of the change is a macro cause that primitive people can see (getting trampled by a horse) it is an injury. If it is a micro cause (such as cancer or poisoning) it is an illness.

Useful: This term can refer to just about anything, but never in terms of its ability to fulfill desires directly. It is always used to identify the object of evaluation as something with the capacity to fulfill desires indirectly - in virtue of its ability to bring about something else that can fulfill desires directly.

Dangerous: This term is also used to evaluate just about anything according to its potential to thwart desires indirectly.

Virtue: This term is applied to malleable desires - desires that can be learned through triggering the reward-laerning system. A virtue tends to fulfill other desires - giving others reason to use rewards (such as praise) or punishments (such as condemnation) to facilitate the learning of that desire.

There is no categorical theory that can come close to accounting for so much of the actual use of value-laden terms in general, and moral terms in specific, such that it makes sense to claim that a "categorical" component is built into the meaning of these terms. Not only can this element be eliminated, it never existed to start with.

"Anti-realism," to most people, means the loss of moral restraint. It means passion unconstrained by the effects of praise and condemnation so that everybody does what they please whenever they please no matter what they please. The fact that this is what "anti-realism" with respect to morality means to most people tells us something about what "morality" means to most people. It tells us what they take to be "real" by telling us what they think anti-realism says is not real.

What is real is the institution of using rewards (such as praise) and punishment (such as condemnation) to promote desires that tend to fulfill other desires, while inhibiting desires that tend to thwart other desires. The "categorical" nature of morality is a mistake. "Categorical" was never a part of the meaning of moral terms. This is just a theory that some people adopted - a mistake, to be discarded.

If a non-categorical theory does a better job of accounting for the elements of morality (and can fit it into a broader theory that also handles a wide variety of non-moral value-laden terms - and can fit the theory in with what is known about biology; specifically, the reward-learning system and the effects of desires on choosing actions), then I am more than comfortable with saying that this claim of "categorical" values was never there to be eliminated.

Having said this, I do not think that the meanings of moral terms are worth debating. I have little interest in convincing somebody who holds that moral terms contain some claim about categorical value that cannot be eliminated that they are wrong. If they are right, this means that all of their moral claims are false and irrelevant anyway. The debate over whether desirism is the best account of morality as practiced, or the next-best alternative to an account that renders all moral claims false and irrelevant - is only of passive interest.

Obligation, Prohibition, and Non-Obligatory Permission

Before travelling much further, let me make sure that we keep this discussion in its context.

Assume that you are an intentional agent with desires, surrounded by a community of intentional agents with desires.

Desires - expressed in the form "desire that P" where P is a proposition - motivate agents to realize states of affairs in which the propositions that are the objects of their desires are true.

As I have argued, you have four ways to cause other agents to choose actions that would realize the propositions that are the objects of your desires.

If one of those agents has a desire that Q, you could:

(1) Bargain: "If you help me to realize P, then I will help you to realize Q".

(2) Threaten: "If you do not help me to realize P, then I will act so as to realize not-Q".

(3) Alter beliefs: "You can most efficiently realize Q through actions that will have, as a side effect, the realization of P."

(4) Alter desires: Give the person with a desire that Q a desire that R that will, given his beliefs, motivate him to act in ways that will realize P.

I have asserted that morality has to do with method (4). Specifically, morality is concerned with the use of rewards in the biological sense (such as praise) and punishments in the biological sense (such as condemnation) to trigger the reward-learning system to adjust desires.

A good desire - or a "virtue", in this sense - is a desire that people can and generally have many and strong reasons to create or promote using these tools. A "vice", on the other hand, is a desire that people generally have many and strong reasons to inhibit or extinguish using these tools.

I should also extend this to cover the concepts of moral obligation, non-obligatory permission, and moral prohibition.

A "moral obligation" is an act that a person with good desires (a virtuous person) would perform.

If an agent performs this action, we have at least prima facie evidence that the agent has those desires that people generally have many and strong reasons to create or promote, and lacks those desires that people generally have reasons to inhibit or extinguish.

The tools for creating and promoting this virtue in others involve using rewards (such as praise). The virtuous person - the person who does what he ought - gets praise and reward, as a way of encouraging like desires in them and in others who are a witness to these rewards and praise.

On the other hand, the person who does not do what he ought - who shirks an obligation - is to be subject to what are punishments in the biological sense, which includes moral condemnation.

But, remember, an obligation is not what people actually praise others for doing and condemn them for not doing. It is what people have the most and strongest reasons to praise people for doing and condemn them for not doing.

People - even whole cultures - might be wrong about what they have reason to praise or condemn, as with a group who thinks that eliminating a certain disposition in others (homosexuality) is necessary to prevent widespread suffering at the hands of an evil and malicious deity.

A moral prohibition, on these same terms, is an act that a person with good desires would not perform. Of an agent does perform such an act, then it follows that the agent either lacks certain virtues, or has certain vices. People generally have many and strong reasons to bring the social tool of punishment (in the biological sense - which includes condemnation) to bear against such individuals. This serves to trigger the reward-learning system to inhibit the relevant desires or promote the virtuous aversions that would then cause people to choose not to perform similar actions.

Between these, we have the realm of non-obligatory permissions.

I cannot simply use the term "permission" here because "permitted" means "not prohibited" - and even obligatory actions are permitted. However, obligatory actions do not exhaust the realm of that which is permitted.

My decision to write this post, for example, is permissible, but not obligatory. I have a non-obligatory permission to eat oatmeal for breakfast, or to have some of the leftover pizza instead.

The fact is, there are some desires that we have reason to want some people to have, but not all people. A variety of desires, in some areas, reduces conflict and produces a mutually beneficial harmony.

One clear example of this are desires related to the choice of a job. Rather than having everybody want to be engineers and trying to get some to live the disappointed life of a teacher, we get better social harmony and desire fulfillment if some people liked engineering and others liked teaching. So, the professions of engineering and teaching fall into the realm of non-obligatory permissions.

We reduce competition and conflict as well if we like different foods. What to eat tends to fall into the realm of non-obligatory permissions. What we do for entertainment fits that category.

In all of these cases, we can certainly find a subset that is morally prohibited. "Burglar" is not a morally permissible profession because people generally have many and strong reason to use rewards and punishments to promote an aversion to taking the property of others without consent. I think we have many and strong reasons to promote an aversion to eating human flesh, and to entertain oneself with child pornography.

However, the existence of some prohibitions in this realm does not disprove the claim that there is also, within this realm, a vast area of non-obligatory permissions. And the reason for non-obligatory permissions is because there are some desires we have no particular reason to make universal or to extinguish using those social tools that touch on the reward-learning system.

Categorical Prescriptivity and the Meaning of Moral Terms

Another comment from the studio audience.

How is this not simply a metaethical error theory (there are no moral facts, strongly construed), combined with an attempt to reconstruct something "almost as good" as morality? . . . For example, someone who held this position might say that there are no moral facts as people generally construe them, since there are no categorical prescriptions, and that is an ineliminable part of standard moral discourse. However, insofar as we form a community of people who care about other people's welfare, there are certain "moral-like" imperatives that apply to us because of that fact.

Well, I would accept that if it were the case that categorical prescriptions were an ineliminable part of standard moral discourse, then it would follow that desirism is an error theory combined with a proposal for something "almost as good" (though I would argue that it is, in fact, significantly better than the fiction and myth of categorical prescriptions).

As it turns out, I reject the antecedent. I hold that people invented and embraced morality because they saw in it a significant potential for realizing those states of affairs in which the propositions that are the objects of their desire-states are true.

They did not fully grasp what it is exactly that had this great potential. Some suggested that they must be categorical imperatives. However, we have to reject this option because categorical imperatives, in virtue of the fact that they do not exist, do not have any potential to help people in realizing their desires.

So, categorical prescriptions - far from being an ineliminable part of moral discourse - is a theory about the nature of what has this great potential that can easily be eliminated in virtue of the fact that categorical prescriptions do not exist.

Furthermore, I don't think that there is any such thing as an ineliminable part of discourse. Language is an invention, and we can do with it what we choose. If chemists can elminate "having no parts" from the definition of an atom, and biologists can eliminate "bad air" from the definition of "malaria", then ethicists can eliminate "categorical prescriptivity" from moral terms.

Still, as I final point, I do not think that this question is worth a great amount of debate. If somebody wants to insist that moral terms, to them, refer to categorical prescriptivity, I do not need to argue that this fails to correspond to the public use of the term. It is enough to argue that 'morality' understood this way does not exist and, as such, it has no relevance in real-world decision making and is not worth bringing up as if it is relevant to any choice being made.

Whereas desires that people generally have many and strong reason to promote using rewards such as praise and punishments such as condemnation are very real and are very much worth bringing up when discussing real decisions that are to be made in the real world. The fact of these desires are particularly relevant to decisions governing the use of rewards such as praise and punishments such as condemnation.

I have "real" and "of great importance in real-world decision making" on my side. You can keep "categorical prescriptivity" and, in keeping it, render all of your moral claims false and irrelevant in the real world.

Moral "Ought" and Prescriptivity

I would like to address this comment:

I am not sure I understand. I think I agree with you that people act from desires and influence others to implement those desires. To me this describes the situation as it is and does not imply a moral "should" or "ought".

Could you explain what elements of moral "ought" might be missing from this description.

It is commonly understood that description and prescription are mutually exclusive categories. I disagree with this.

Ultimately, I hold that it is a very strange view that seems to assume that the universe is made up of two different types of things that can somehow interact with each other - things that can be described and not prescribed, and things that can be prescribed but not described.

Ultimately, I hold that "prescriptions" are a subset of "descriptions". All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. All prescriptions are descriptions, but not all descriptions are prescriptions.

So, what does a prescription describe?

It describes a relationship between some possible state of affairs and desires.

There are two types of ought - practical ought and moral ought.

If Agent has a desire that P, and action X can improve the possibility of P, then A ought to do X (unless A has more and stronger reasons - desire that Q - that are incompatible with P).

For moral ought, I propose that is a description of the case in which people generally have many and strong reasons act (desires) so as to apply rewards (such as praise) and punishments (such as condemnation) in order to promote or inhibit particular desires or aversions.

My question would then be - what aspects of conventional "ought" as used in practice is not captured by this claim?

"It's wrong to lie."

People generally have many and strong reasons to apply rewards (such as praise) and punishments (such as condemnation) so as to promote an aversion to lying.

What is there that is found in the actual use of moral "ought" and "should" that is missing from this account?

Ultimately . . . let's say you don't want to use moral "ought" in this case. You want to insist that moral "ought" requires some kind of categorical imperative or a command from God.

I answer . . . Fine. Then moral "ought" does not exist. We quit using "ought" statements in all real-world decision making. Desires that people generally have many and strong reasons to promote or inhibit using rewards and condemnation still exist.

Or, let's say that you want to apply moral "ought" to . . . day, the greatest good for the greatest number.

Again, are you limiting yourself to that which is objectively true of "the greatest good for the greatest number?" If you are, then I am going to agree with everything you say. But, if you are assigning qualities to "the greatest good for the greatest number" (e.g., that it has some sort of intrinsic prescriptivity or that people are always justified in condemning those who do not promote the greatest good for the greatest number), then I am going to accuse you of making things up.

When I apply moral "ought" to "that which people generally have many and strong reasons to apply rewards (such as praise) and punishments (such as condemnation) so to promote those desires that would motivate such an action," am I saying anything about this subject that is not objectively true?

If I am, then I would also be guilty of making stuff up. So, I try to avoid that. But if that is your accusation, I need you to specify, exactly, what I am saying about these desires that people have many and strong reasons to promote that is not true. What is it, exactly, that I am making up or leaving out?

A Desire for Justice

Austin Nedved is kind enough to be providing me with a useful foil with which i can work. His comments are reasonably well informed, well presented, and represent common forms if objections that I gave encountered. I hope that Austin does not mind my use of these conveniences.

AUSTIN: [W]hat we desire the most is justice.

ALONZO: Regardless of what your personal concept if justice may be, we can falsify this claim just by pointing out the massive differences in what different communities call "justice". This alone should disprove any claim that there is a thing called "justice["] that we desire the most.

AUSTIN: The conventionalist argument you are making here refutes itself. A great number of cultures subordinate experimental science to divine revelation. Some have even rejected the validity of experimental science outright. Others still have rejected anything that conflicted with what Aristotle had said. But surely this does not entail that there is no truth, or that there are no legitimate sources of knowledge. The Conventionalist's claim that the multiplicity of understandings of what constitutes truth prevents us from having an objectively true understanding of truth, is self-defeating.

I was not making a conventionalist claim. My argument was not, "Everybody disagrees, so there is no truth". Instead, my argument took Austin's claim as a claim that has implications in the observable world, and showed that the observations of the world falsify the hypothesis.

Let us assume that somebody were to make the claim that what we desire most is broccoli. If true, this would have implications for what we would expect to observe in the eating habits of different cultures. That is to say, we would expect to find people throughout the world eating a lot of broccoli if it were available, and putting a great deal if effort into making sure it is available.

Let's assume that we discover in places where broccoli is available that one group mostly eats potatoes, another mostly eats beef, and yet another mostly eats pasta, while a fourth mostly eats broccoli. In the light of these observations, it would be hard to maintain the thesis that what we desire the most is broccoli.

One way out of this would be to note that the first culture's word for potatoes us 'broccoli'. The second culture calls beef 'broccoli', while the third calls pasta 'broccoli'. If this us what we find, then thus too would refute the thesis that there is a single thing called 'broccoli' that we desire.

Neither horn of the dilemma makes use of "the conventionalist argument". That is to say, if one were to make these objections to the claim, "What we desire the most is broccoli," we would not expect the broccoli theorist to answer, "Your conventionalist argument refutes itself." The conventionalist argument is not in play.

There are those who argue that the fact of moral disagreement among individuals or cultures implies that there is no fact of the matter. One leading proponent of this argument was J.L. Mackie. He had two main arguments against 'objective value' - one of which is the Argument from Disagreement. People have different opinions on what has value, so objective value does not exist.

However, this us as problematic as saying that people have different opinions on the age of the earth, so there us no fact of the matter. Or, even more problematically, people have different opinions on objective value, so there is no objective value.

Now, we could interpret Mackie as saying that we gave no objective way to resolve these disputes. However, this is a mere assertion - not an argument. And it us a question-begging assertion at that.

Anyway, I am a moral realist. I hold that there are moral facts independent of the sentiments of the speaker. There is moral disagreement, but that simply implies that some people are wrong. It does not imply that there is no fact of the matter.

The types of things that people can be wrong about include beliefs in a god, or intrinsic values, or making inferences from false premises such as a social contract, impartial observers, or decisions made behind a veil of ignorance.

Certainly, one of the things we can know in this world of facts is that it is not the case that what we desire the most is broccoli. We know this by looking at the world and seeing people showing great interest in a number of things, many of which are not broccoli. This appeal to the fact that people have a number of different likes and dislikes is not a "conventionalist argument". It is an observation that falsified the hypothesis, "What we desire the most is broccoli." This same set if observations also falsified the thesis, "What we desire the most is stamp collecting," and, as it turns out, "What we desire the most is justice."

Instead, we have a range of desires - for sex, for pleasure, to eat, to drink, for companionship, to avoid pain. We have the capacity to learn desires based on our experience - cultural preferences, learned fears, and other likes and dislikes. In this, there is no evidence that what we desire most is broccoli or stamp collecting or justice.

Implications of a Moral Should

In my last post I suggested that moral statements have two main components.

(1) A truth-bearing component that says, "People generally have many and strong reasons to apply the tools of reward (such as praise) and punishment (such as condemnation) to the reward-learning system of others so as to promote those desires and aversions that would cause people to choose that which is called good, and refrain from choosing that which is called evil.

(2) an emotive component - the very act of praise or condemnation that the truth-bearing component says that people generally have many and strong reasons to employ.

Also, desires are the only reasons for action that exist. The many and strong reasons I mentioned in (1) turn out to be many and strong desires. Desires, in turn, are propositional attitudes. A desire that P is a mental state that motivates an agent to choose those actions that would realize P in a universe in which the agent's beliefs are rue and complete.

People, when they make moral claims, actually make all sorts of references to reasons for action other than desires. Divine commands, categorical imperatives, intrinsic values, social contracts, impartial observers - all are offered up as reasons to offer rewards such as praise and punishments such as condemnation. Yet, all of these claims are false. None of these reasons exist.

Others offer the suggestion that the truth-bearing component only refers to the desires of the speaker. It merely states, "I have a pro or con attitude towards you doing X" yet, they consistently deny that merely having a pro or con attitude justifies the implications that moral claims have. Is it morally permissible to kiss somebody based on the fact, "I have a pro-attitude towards killing you"?

It is true that people never sincerely assert, "P is true" unless they believe that P is true. however, this does not imply that, "I believe that P" is a part of the meaning of "P is true." similarly, a person does not generality "P is good" (or, what amounts to the same thing, "P is good" is true) unless they have a pro attitude towards P. But this does not imply that ir is a part if the meaning.

But if you want to use the term "moral should" to refer to something else - a red flower, for example - you are free to do so - so long as you limit yourself to making objectively true claims about those red flowers. Everything else I would put in the category of "make-believe".

So, what is objectively true about these components - when combined with the fact that desires are the only reasons for action that exist?

(3) The truth of the truth-bearing component is independent of the sentiments of the person making the claim.

It does not matter what you believe, or what your opinion is, or what you feel - there is a fact of the matter as to what sentiments people generally have the mist and strongest reasons to promote or inhibit. Any assertions you make about thus fact could be completely wrong.

(4) Whole societies can be mistaken about what is right and wrong.

The beliefs and sentiments, even those that dominate a society, are not necessarily the right one's for that society. People may think that they have reason to promote or inhibit certain desires, only to be totally wrong.

A clear example would be a society under the grips of a primitive superstition. Such people might think, for example, that some busy-body dirty with nothing more useful to do with its time will visit suffering on a community that tolerates homosexual activity. Even if everybody agrees with thus, they would all be wrong. No such reason for action exists. It would be a mistake to appeal to the sentiments of the majority to decide right and wrong.

(5) A person can know that something is wrong and not care.

There is nothing about the fact that people generally have reason to employ punishment events to the reward-learning systems of others that would inhibit their dispositions to perform certain acts that implies that a particular agent has a reason not to perform those acts.

The purpose of morality is not to keep people from doing what they already have reasons to refrain from doing. It is to give them reasons they might not already have to refrain from those actions.

Some of those reasons take the form if incentives and deterrence. These incentives and deterrence act on the desires the agent already has - desires to be fulfilled by the incentives or thwarted by deterrence. But these are not the reasons that morality speaks of.

The reasons of morality involve the creation or strengthening of some desires, and the weakening and extinguishing of others. It does not appeal to the reasons the agent has, but those that reward and punishment have the capacity to cause.

Some will continue to protest that this is at odds with the fundamental definition of morality. However, against those protests, I remind the reader that you cannot define things into existence. Decide how you want to define the word 'Pegasus', defining it as a winged horse will not allow winged horses to come into existence.

You can define morality as what appeals to the sentiments of the speaker. Even under desirism, "the sentiments of the speaker" are real, and we can make objectively true claims about them. Any objectively true statement about the sentiments of the speaker has to be one that desirism agrees with – otherwise, desirism is in error. Otherwise, the implication is that desirism contradicts a fact about the sentiments of the speaker.

However, when you go outside if what is objectively true of the sentiments of the speaker, or draw implications that do not follow from these facts, you have left reality behind and entered the realm of make believe. It is said that you cannot derive 'ought' from 'is', and that there us a gap between 'fact' and 'value'. I have a better term for what stands outside of the realm of 'fact' and it is not 'value'. It is 'fiction'.

Complain, if you want, that this does not capture your perfect super-dictionary definition of moral 'should'. But take care - your quest for the best definition may well define morality right out of existence.

Moral "Should" - A Comment from the Audience

A member of the studio audience writes:

There seems to be a problem here. If I personally have no reasons not to lie, and doing so would overall benefit me, there can be no possible reason why I should not lie. (Suppose I am unbothered by the negative consequences that others would inflict on me for lying.) This results in an absurd situation in which it is "reasonable" for me to lie, while it is also reasonable for others to try to prevent me from lying.

I do not see this as an absurd situation. In fact, I think it is quite common.

Lying would still be counted as immoral in this case. It is still true that people generally have many and strong reasons to promote an aversion to lying. The person who lies can be condemned as evil for not having aversions that people generally have many and strong reasons to create through acts of condemnation. Yet, it may still be the case that he has no reason not to lie. People generally have failed to give him such a reason.

Fortunately, I think there is a solution to this problem, and this solution involves distinguishing between two different sorts of "oughts": "ought" in the non-moral sense, and "ought" in the ethical sense. We are using the term non-morally when we say something like "If you want your car to have a long life, you ought to change the oil frequently." "Ought" is being used in the ethical sense when we say something along the lines of "I understand that, while murdering that person might benefit you, you ought not to kill him."

Desirism allows for something very similar to what you write here. "I understand that, while murdering that person may benefit you, people generally have many strong reasons to apply forms if punishment (such as condemnation) to the reward-learning system of others as a way of inhibiting the desires that would motivate such an action."

However - i suspect you are wanting to assert some sort of Kantian categorical imperative - an "ought" that does not have a goal. It's "just wrong" and that is all there is to it.

"Ought" in this categorical sense does not exist. There is no such thing as "just wrong". All 'just wrong' claims, no matter how popular, are false.

Desires are the only reasons for action that exist. They are the only kinds we find any actual evidence for - found in their ability to explain and predict intentional actions. Desires are propositional attitudes that can be expressed in the form "desire that P". The goal of a desire that P is a state of affairs in which P is true. All of our behavior is goal directed - including praise and condemnation. All of our motivation comes from our own desires.

Your definition captures the categorical nature of moral statements, but at the cost if making them mythical entities of no relevance or importance in the real world. My use sacrifices the categorical element of moral ought, but allows moral claims to remain true an important. They are all about malleable desires that people have many, strong, and real interests in promoting.

There is a precedent for this in chemistry. It was proposed that atoms were made up of parts. It could have been argued that thus claim violated the essential meaning of the word 'atom'. The word comes from ancient Greece and means literally, "without parts". Chemists faced a choice. They could have kept the essential meaning and insisted that a huge number of claims made in chemistry before that point were false. Or it could drop this essential meaning and allow chemistry tp progress much as it had.

Please note that this choice in no way threatened the objectivity of chemistry.

Ethics faces the same choice. It can preserve the categorical element of moral term and render all moral claims false. Or it can abandon that element and allow moral claims to remain potentially true and important.

I opt for the second option.

It should go without saying what we desire the most is justice.

Actually, this is false.

We evolved dispositions towards those desires that brought our ancestors biological success. Desires for sex, desires for food and drink, desires for the protection of our offspring, aversions to that which increase the possibility of injury and illness (e.g, the view down a steep cliff or the smell of rotting flesh).

Plus we have some malleable desires - modified by experience (particularly the social norms we pick up as children in cultures that have widely varying amounts of justice and injustice).

Regardless of what your personal concept if justice may be, we can falsify this claim just by pointing out the massive differences in what different communities call "justice". This alone should disprove any claim that there is a thing called "justice that we desire the most.

Moral "Should" Statements

A couple of weeks ago, I began what one member of the studio audience has called a reboot of desirism by talking about 'should' statements.

(1) The only sensible answer to a "should" question (e.g., Why should I do X?) is to present the agent with some reason for action that exists, or some fact that ties the action or its consequence with some reason for action that exists.

That was the last time I talked about the word "should" in its prescriptive sense.

Instead, I went into a series of posts imagining that you are an intentional agents motivated to realize that which you desire - surrounded by other intentional agents motivated to realize what they desire.

Under these assumptions, I asked what you could do as an agent with a desire that P to get another agent with a desire that Q to realize P - or at least refrain from realizing not-P.

I discussed four options:

(1) Bargaining: If you help me to realize P, I will help you to realize Q.

(2) Threatening: Unless you act to realize P, I will act to realize not-Q.

(3) Belief modification: Give the agent with a desire that Q those beliefs that will motivate him to try to realize Q with actions that would realize P.

(4) Desire modification: Instead of taking his "desire that Q" as a given, modify those desires so that the agent has desires that he will tend to realize through actions that realize P.

For example, I argued that in a simple bargain, if you should realize your side of the bargain before your counterpart realizes his, your counterpart will lose all motivation to complete their part. Realizing P will cease to be instrumental to realizing Q. Realizing P will only be completed if your counterpart has some additional motivation for realizing P after you have done your part to realize Q.

I discussed the options of reputation and an aversion to breaking promises - of which the second would be the more reliable motivation. Your "desire that P" implies a motivating reason to seek out bargains with others who you have reliably determined have an aversion to breaking promises.

And what is true of you is true of those other agents.

These are facts about the world - implications of having a desire that P bargaining with an agent with a desire that Q.

Yet, this discussion and others like it, I did not draw any conclusions expressed in the form of what you "should" do. I did not prescribe any action - I simply described the actions that were compatible with your desire that P.

Now, I want to bring back the claim that "should" has to do with "reasons for action that exist," and desires are the only reasons that exist. Should statements ARE descriptions of actions compatible with given desires that exist.

When I say, "You should do X", a sensible question to ask is, "Why should I do X?"

The sensible answer to this question is for me to describe the relationship that exists between the action that I am recommending and the reasons for action that exist. Reasons that do not exist are not relevant to what you should really do. And desires are the only reasons for action that actually exist. So, my answer to your "should" question is to relate the action to various reasons for action (desires) that exist.

At this point, we can divide these reasons for action that exist (desires) into two groups. There are reasons for action that you have, and reasons for action that exist but that you do not have. This second group of reasons for action are the reasons that other intentional agent has. It refers to desires that exist that are not your own. They are real. They exist. However, they are not yours in the same way that other hands and feet are real, but are not yours.

You are only going to be directly motivated by the reasons for action (desires) that you have - not by all of the reasons for action (desires) that exist. Your desires motivate your actions. The desires of other people motivate their actions. A claim that a particular reason for action exists does not motivate you to act directly unless that reason for action that exists is one that you have.

However, this is not all that can be said about reasons for action that exist - but that you do not have.

While those reasons may not motivate you directly, they are reasons for other people to act in particular ways that will affect you. They are reasons that exist for other people to bargain with you or threaten you. They are reasons that exist that determine whether they will keep or break bargains, tell you the truth, or act so as to realize not-P.

For the purposes of this series, one important fact is that they are reasons that exist for them to act so as to modify your desires - to give you different reasons for action. That is to say, they have reasons to use reward (such as praise) and punishment (such as condemnation) to trigger your reward-learning system in a way so as to create and strengthen in you certain desires, and to weaken or eliminate others.

In that sea of reasons for action that exist, there are a great many and strong reasons for promoting (or inhibiting) some desires - such as the desire to keep promises, to tell the truth, to refrain from threatening those who do not make threats, and the like. I can make real-world claims about the desires you have or could have and the sea of reasons for action that exist for offering rewards and condemnations.

When I say, "You should not lie" in this sense - the moral sense - I am not saying that you HAVE reasons not to lie. I am saying that there exist a great many and strong reasons for people to cause you to have a reason not to lie. I am saying that they have many and strong reasons to offer rewards (such as praise) to those who are honest, and to offer punishments (such as condemnation) to those who lie.

But I am not just making these factual claims. I am also, at the same time, giving praise to those who are honest, and condemning those who lie. I am not only stating that reasons exist to trigger the reward-learning system so as to promote honesty and discourage lying, I am trying to trigger the reward-learning system so as to promote honesty and discourage lying.

There are theories that say that moral claims aim to point out some fact that, itself, would motivate an agent to behave differently. Those claims that exist. Beliefs only interact with the desires that an agent already has - they do not create new desires or modify existing desires. The reward-learning system modifies desires. But the reward-learning system does not respond to facts. It responds to rewards (such as praise) and punishments (such as condemnation).

You can respond sensibly to my claim that you should not lie by providing evidence that people, in fact, do not generally have reasons to praise those who are honest and condemn those who are dishonest. Or, you can respond to a claim that homosexual acts are wrong by pointing out that people do not really have reasons to praise those who refrain from homosexual acts and condemn those who engage in such acts. Thus, the praise or condemnation you offer is not, in fact, praise or condemnation that people actually have genuine reasons to give. It is unjustified praise and condemnation, grounded, ultimately, on the false beliefs or malicious interests (interests or desires that people generally have reason to condemn) of those who provide it.

You may respond that this is not what you mean by the word "should", or that you do not agree with the claim that this captures how the word is actually used. Neither of these counter-claims are actually worth a great deal of effort. Neither proves that the substantive claims of this theory are false. They are merely disagreements over the language used in expressing those substantive claims, not the substantive claims themselves.

Regardless of the words people actually use, the substantive claim that people generally have many and strong reasons to use rewards (such as praise) and punishments (such as condemnation) to promote a desire to be honest and an aversion to lying remains true. The fact that you - and people generally - often have reason to bargain only with those who have an aversion to breaking promises remains true. They are true no matter what language you decide to speak when making these claims.