tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post114455422834908954..comments2023-10-24T04:29:23.693-06:00Comments on Atheist Ethicist: Desires and the Definition of "Good"Alonzo Fyfehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-1144683928522911352006-04-10T09:45:00.000-06:002006-04-10T09:45:00.000-06:00There is no such thing as intrinsic value means th...There is no such thing as intrinsic value means that there is no way that something can have value "in itself" -- independent of its relation to other things.<BR/><BR/>This does not prevent us from inventing words that identify specific extrinsic relationships. "Torture", by definition, refers to states that thwart very strong desires of the person being tortured. This is not an 'intrinsic value' claim. This is a 'definition of torture' claim.<BR/><BR/>Now, your statement about "provides an observer with no reason" is problematic.<BR/><BR/>What is typically meant, in a moral context, by "providing one with a reason" is to provide somebody with motivation. The only type of motivational force that exists is desire. So, we end up with a claim about what provides a person with a desire.<BR/><BR/>Indeed, you allude to that interpretation with your claim, "no reason for anybody to prefer" -- or "desire."<BR/><BR/>Desire utilitarianism holds that no set of factual propositions entails a desire. There is no set of fact statements that can be given to a person that entails that the agent's desires must change in any way.<BR/><BR/>Reason does not alter desires. So, any interpretation of desire utilitarianism as a theory that claims to identify a propositions that can be known through reason that entails a change in desires does not understand desire utilitarianism.<BR/><BR/>The only way to appeal to a person's motivational states is to either (1) appeal to the desires he already has, or (2) alter his desires.<BR/><BR/>You have spoken of the first option. A person with a desire to torture children is going to continue to have a desire to torture children regardless of any set of facts that I may give that person. This is true.<BR/><BR/>However, there is also option (2) -- to use praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment (rather than reason) to change a person's desires. Moral claims are not to be understood as claims of the form, "You do not wish to do this." They are claims of the form "People in society have reason to use praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment to inhibit the tendency of people to wish to do this."<BR/><BR/>Indeed, when a person says, "I did nothing wrong," this is how his claim is commonly interpreted. He is not saying, "I had no reason not to torture the child." He is saying, "You have no reason to use your tools of condemnation and punishment against people such as me."<BR/><BR/>It is also consistent with the fact that when a parent scolds a child, for example, she does not say, "You are ashamed of yourself." She says, "You should be ashamed of yourself." The parent is not making a claim about how the act relates to the desires (reasons) the child already has. The parent is making a claim about how the act relates to the desires (reasons) that the child should have, and is using condemnation and punishment to affect a change in those desires.<BR/><BR/>Claiming that a moral argument must, through reason, alter the recipient's desires is a mistake. A moral argument is a justification of society's decision to use praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment against such a person.Alonzo Fyfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-1144679340093536832006-04-10T08:29:00.000-06:002006-04-10T08:29:00.000-06:00It seems you forget statements made about your own...It seems you forget statements made about your own theory. You've made quite a point in posts lately explicitly rejecting the notion of any intrinsic good. This <I>must mean</I>, among other things, that there is nothing even in an act such as torture which "tends to thwart more desires than it fulfills" that makes it an <I>appropriate</I> candidate for condemnation, and thus by your own insitence provides an observer with no <I>reason</I> to accept your condemnation.<BR/><BR/>This is what happens when you take evaluative properties and redefine them to mean something purely descriptive. This is what I believe the commenter above is trying to point out: not that there might be circumstances when performing or refraining from an action would be of <I>equal</I> utility, but that even when something like torture is clearly desire-harmful there is no <I>reason</I> for anyone to prefer one outcome over another, except when as a contingent matter it intersects with desires that person already has. <I>Ex hypothesi</I>, there is no <I>reason</I> anyone who supports positions contrary to your own on immigration, wiretapping, or foreign policy to accept your criticisms as legitimate or authoritative, except insofar as you show that their views are contrary to their own prudential as opposed to "moral" interests.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-1144628521145852752006-04-09T18:22:00.000-06:002006-04-09T18:22:00.000-06:00AnonymousYou first ask a question of the form, "ho...<B>Anonymous</B><BR/><BR/>You first ask a question of the form, "how do we know that P", and then come back with an example that assumes that we can know that P.<BR/><BR/>There are limits to the degree that social conditioning can strengthen or weaken certain desires. However, this is accounted for within the theory. This identifies the line to be drawn between 'evil' and 'illness'. Though, still, to count as an 'illness', a desire that deserves the name must still be one that thwarts other other desires. without this, the concept of 'illness' would be misplaced.<BR/><BR/>With respect to "turning the argument on its head", it is not logically possible to turn torture into something that does not thwart desires. Why is it not the case that taking a kid to a movie is 'torture'? Well, it could be if there were aspects of the game that sufficiently thwarted strong enough desires.<BR/><BR/>Theoretically, there may be instances where there are two incompatible desires, both of which are equally susceptible to social conditioning, and both are equally useful, where it would be an arbitrary choice as to which one to inhibit. It is theorietically possible, but real-world unlikely.Alonzo Fyfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-1144605731739579432006-04-09T12:02:00.000-06:002006-04-09T12:02:00.000-06:00You say:Turning up the desire to condemn/punish th...You say:<BR/><BR/><I>Turning up the desire to condemn/punish those who torture children has the effect of generating condemnation and punishment, which turns the desire to torture children down.</I><BR/><BR/>This looks like a huge unproved assumption to me. I agree that there's evidence that it turns actual child torturing *behavior* down. But how do you know that it isn't just leading to the frustration of the desires of the would-be child torturers? Lack of expression of the desire does not equal lack of the desire itself.<BR/><BR/>To take an obvious example, centuries of condemnation and punishment of several human sexual behaviors have not extinguished desires to engage in those behaviors; it has merely thwarted those desires with varying degrees of success.<BR/><BR/>Furthermore, even if desires can be suppressed this way, what prevents someone from turning this argument on its head? If society instead condemned children who refuse to be tortured, wouldn't that (by the same logic) lead children to no longer desire to avoid torture and the total amount of desire-thwarting would go down in the same way? Nearly all humans agree *intuitively* that this solution is worse than the other one, but can you explain why and justify it by reason?<BR/><BR/>It seems to me that you still have some work to do on distinguishing the desire to torture children from the desire to avoid being tortured. They are clearly incompatible; but is the incompatibility symmetric or asymmetric, and why? Why should society favor thwarting/suppressing one desire and satisfying the other over vice versa? The combination of two incompatible desires leads inevitably to one of them being thwarted; but even if you have the ability to turn them down, how do you choose which one to turn down?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-1144556233606860852006-04-08T22:17:00.000-06:002006-04-08T22:17:00.000-06:00Heh. I just finished a post about the leaks where ...Heh. I just finished <A HREF="http://dailydoubt.blogspot.com/2006/04/broken-democracy-watch.html" REL="nofollow">a post</A> about the leaks where I quoted heavily from your Subverting Democracy post.<BR/><BR/>You're right. People seem to forget that the foundation of our country was based around the idea of NOT trusting people with power.Hume's Ghosthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13551684109760430351noreply@blogger.com