tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post6682480857327297837..comments2023-10-24T04:29:23.693-06:00Comments on Atheist Ethicist: Reflections on Rejected Moral TheoriesAlonzo Fyfehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-57660346102316952082008-03-15T03:19:00.000-06:002008-03-15T03:19:00.000-06:00I've been lurking for ages and really appreciating...I've been lurking for ages and really appreciating your careful approach - many thanks. I particularly like the evenhanded way in which you criticise behaviour or beliefs regardless of who holds them.<BR/><BR/>I think you're a bit hard on feelings in this post though. I think our feelings and emotions are like an additional sense - they give us some very useful information about the world and abour ourselves. <BR/><BR/>The trouble is that we're not informed consumers of what our feelings tell us - we identify uncritically with the feelings rather than questioning them and challenging them. <BR/><BR/>I think it's really important to engage with our feelings as well as our rationality. If for no other reason than because, if we don't have time to think about the options, we generally act on emotion. And if the emotions we tend to feel are negative, we're likely to act in a way that does harm. <BR/><BR/>I think there are some emotions that we have reason to promote in the same way as there are desires that we have reason to promote.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-40244251105814996872008-03-14T09:53:00.000-06:002008-03-14T09:53:00.000-06:00eneaszI still think that DU works . . . and one of...<B>eneasz</B><BR/><BR/>I still think that DU works . . . and one of the reasons that I like it is that it avoids the problems with each of these alternative theories.<BR/><BR/>(1) It postulates no gods<BR/><BR/>(2) It does not postulate an entity such as 'man qua man' and recognizes that desires (as the only reasons for action that exist) are necessary to bridge the gap between fact (that which exists) and value (that which provides a reason for action).<BR/><BR/>(3) It does not postulate nature rights, but does postulate rights in terms of states that we have reason to encourage people to protect or desire.<BR/><BR/>(4) It does not postulate any non-natural entities - it reduces ethics to natural properties; desires (as propositional attitudes), states of affairs, and the relationships between them (the proposition that is the object of a desire is true in the state of affairs that has value).<BR/><BR/>(5) It does not require that people have only one desire.<BR/><BR/>(6) It does not collapse into act utilitarianism because desires are rules that cannot be violated, and 'ought' implies 'can' means that there is no 'ought' to do something that violates rules that cannot be violated.<BR/><BR/>(7) It is based on desire fulfillment (which links value to truth) rather than happiness.<BR/><BR/>(8) It has no place for a person holding a moral view that there is no reason to hold. Moral positions are defended by appeal to the reasons that exist for holding them.<BR/><BR/>(9) Moral statements are propositions - they have a truth value, and some of them are true.<BR/><BR/>(10) Moral value consists on relationships between maleable desires and other desires, so they do not depend on genetics (except insofar as genetics limits the degree to which desires are maleable)<BR/><BR/>(11) It treats our 'intuitions' as moral 'first guesses', but provides a framework that we can use to test intuitions against. It does not treat intuition as special access to some sort of transcendental moral fact.Alonzo Fyfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-20093156974637281122008-03-14T09:34:00.000-06:002008-03-14T09:34:00.000-06:00While clearing away the brush is certainly importa...While clearing away the brush is certainly important, I don't think it is even on the same scale as proposing a better solution (such as DU). When someone is convinced that their current view is wrong, they won't simply go into a null-state, they will seek something else to replace it. What they replace it with could be just as bad or worse.<BR/><BR/>I personally found DU during a period of searching, having rejected the moral theories I'd so far come across, and I am immensly gratefull.<BR/><BR/>I guess what I'm getting at is that it sounds a bit like you're considering giving up on promoting DU and instead simply clearing away false theories, and I think that would be a tragedy. Not because the clearing doesn't need to be done (it does), but because DU is too important to be abandoned.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com