Isaac Newton, Alph, Betty, and Modelling Desires

In my defense of my account of morality, I have worried about the presentation that I have used to express the basic ideas used in this theory.

I present them by describing a universe that consists of a single person (Alph) with a single desire (to gather stones).

At the start, I describe specifically what it is to have a "desire that I am gathering stones". It is a desire that motivates Alph to realize a state of affairs within which the proposition, "I am gathering stones" is true. It is not a desire that stones be gathered. The creation of a pile of stones is an unintended consequence of realizing a state in which "I am gathering stones" is true, but it is not the goal or the end.

The description goes on from here. It shows the distinction between means and ends as Alph runs out of stones to gather and now must scatter stones as a means to once against realize a state in which "I am gathering stones" is true.

I introduce a second person, Betty, and give Alph the ability to choose whether Betty has a desire to gather stones or to scatter stones. I point out that Alph has a reason to cause Betty to desire to scatter stones, because this would allow Alph to continually gather stones without running out of stones to gather.

In writing this, I have always had a worry that a critic would look at this and report how such a story cannot possibly have anything interesting to say about the real world. The imagined critic would say that this is the wrong way to go about such a project.

I could not see how this skepticism could be turned into a substantive objection. Indeed, I pointed out how, in a physics class, one would learn the principles of mechanics through a method of instruction that involved frictionless surfaces and massless strings - simplifications that allowed one to look more precisely at what it is we wanted to study.

And still I remained bothered by the skeptic who refused to accept this as providing any type of useful information.

In anticipation of returning to graduate school, I have gone online to "The Great Courses" and purchased a course on introductory philosophy, "Great Ideas of Philosophy, 2nd Edition", taught by Professor Daniel N. Robinson of Oxford University.

Lecture 27, "Newton - The Saint of Science"

Professor Robinson describes Newton's "Great Idea" this way:

First, [Newton] reduces the problem. He renders the problem in utterly abstract terms. He reduces the problem to the problem of an ideal mass - a point, revolving around a center of force. No need to look at planets or peer through telescopes. Rather, once can sit with a pencil and a piece of paper . . . and determine the behavior of an ideal mass making revolutions around a center of force. Now this becomes an idealized model of an imaginable world - a possible world.

This actually makes me feel better about my idealized world consisting of a single person and a single desire, adding complexities, to explain the fundamental concepts from which a theory of morality would come to be constructed. In fact, it almost wants me to go back and start over, to create this idealized world and to explain these concepts, without the hesitation that I have felt in the past from second-guessing myself.

Because I do, in fact, think that all of the elements of morality can be demonstrated as complexity gets added to this simple model.

In more general terms, this provides me with yet another example of a problem that arises when an individual focuses too narrowly on a given field of study and ignores those things he judges to be irrelevant. Under normal circumstances, I would never have studied Newton because Newton was not a moral philosopher - so he would have nothing to say on a topic that interests me.

However, as happened here, I sometimes resolve (or I am forced - as when I was compelled to take 'core requirements' in college) to study outside of my interest, and I find hugely important information. A second example is when I was forced to take a course in the philosophy of mind and discovered that desires are propositional attitudes whereby a desire that P motivates an agent to realize a state of affairs in which P is true.

Perhaps, now, I can actually write that book.

http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2010/10/morality-in-real-world-episode-3.html

The Capacity for Moral Incoherence

In August, 1789, France's National Constituent Assembly adopted "The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen"

The very first of these rights:

"Article 1: Men are born free and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions can be founded only on the common good."

Except in Saint Dominique - now known as Haiti.

A lot of wealthy French people were making a lot of money on the slave plantations in Saint Dominique so, as a result, the slaves in Saint Dominique were not free, nor were they considered equal in rights. And when computing whether social distinctions were founded on the common good, only the good of the plantation owners was considered, not that of the slaves.

I find it completely surprising the degree to which people can sweep moral considerations aside when there is money to be made.

Of course, we saw the same thing in the United States.

"All men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Except the black slaves - who were created to be slaves. And a quarter of a million people would lay down their lives in an effort to keep them as slaves.

Even today.

There is this huge gap in wealth. Globally, the top 0.1% of the population owns 81% of the global wealth. 99.9% of the population shares the remaining 19%.

And so a call goes out that morality demands that we take some of the wealth being hoarded by this top 0.1% and use it to aid . . . um . . . people in about the $20,000 to $100,000 per year range. The people in the $0 to $1000 per year range can just go off somewhere and die.

All, of course, bought and paid for by the people in the $20,000 to $100,000 per year range, with their campaign contributions and their votes.

Of course, we are told that there is a moral principle involved here. The redistribution of wealth from the very wealthy to this middle-range group is morally required.

But we can ignore the people in the $0 to the $1000 range, in the same way that the people in France ignored the slaves in Haiti, and the people in the United States ignored their slaves (and the Native Americans) when they had a moral principle at stake.

They are just so easy to ignore.

If we don't talk about them, it is as if they do not exist. We can't have moral obligations towards THEM because . . . well . . . who are you talking about again? You say that the money should go to aid those in the $0 to $1000 per year category FIRST? That the people in the $20,000 to $100,000 per year category might even be obligated to PAY a portion of their income to provide aid, rather than receive the new set of government benefits of free college and medical care being promised to them on account of their relative (compared to the top 1%) poverty?

One studies these events in utter disbelief that so many people can so conveniently ignore such a blatant inconsistency. And, yet, it sits there as obvious as a lone tree in on a lone island in the ocean.

Perhaps it would not be so mind-boggling if the people involved just admitted, "Our goal is to take from others and to give to us. Whether those others are wealthier than us or poorer, it does not matter. What matters is merely our power to take from them and to profit thereby."

But, instead, these are cases where people claim to be acting because morality commands it - because it is the right thing to do. Morality insists that people are born free and equal. Morality insists that those who have far more than they need be made to give up some of their wealth to aid those who need more than they have. EXCEPT the slaves. EXCEPT the people of the earth living on $0 to $1000 per year.

(Particularly owing to the fact that we have obtained a great deal of our wealth by taking from the people in these countries. It is not like our business and political leaders have seen it as an inviolable duty to see to it that these people got paid a fair price for their resources and a fair wage for their labor.)

Where did these exceptions come from?

David Copp: Two Proposals Linking Morality with Rationality

David Copp starts of with two principles of rationality and moral reasons. (Copp, David, "Normativity, Deliberation, and Queerness" in A World Without Values: Essays on John Mackie's Moral Error Theory, (Richard Joyce and Simon Kirchin, eds.), 2010.)

Right out of the gate, I am afraid, I am not going to like either of these two proposals.

Authoritative Reasons Proposal: Necessarily, if a person has a moral obligation to do something, then (a) there is a moral reason for her to do it, and (b) if she is fully rational and believes she is obligated to do it or that there is a moral reason for her to do it, she takes this obligation or reason appropriately into account in deciding what to do.

This is false.

I will start with the proposition that rationality relates actions to the reasons (desires) that an agent has, while morality relates actions to the reasons (desires) that an agent morally should have. The desires that an agent morally should have are the desires that other people have reason to cause agents to have. To the degree that there is a gap between the reasons an agent has and the reasons an agent should have, there is a gap between what an agent rationally ought to do and what the agent morally ought to do.

So, if we go back to the original proposal, it is the case that if a person has a moral obligation to φ (if a person with good desires would φ), then there are moral reasons for her to do it.

Now, if this agent is fully rational, and even if she believes that she is obligated to φ (that a person with good desires would φ), she may not have a reason to φ if the reasons she has diverges from the reasons she should have.

In fact, the distance between the reasons an agent has and the reasons an agent should have - what it is rational for her to do and what it would be rational for a person with good desires to do - is the measure of moral evil.

Non-Instrumental Reasons: An agent S has a “non-instrumental reason” to φ just in case there is a reason for her to φ and the fact that this is so does not depend on S's having any particular desires, values, or interests, or on whether S's φing would be to her advantage.

I will end up agreeing that there are non-instrumental reasons. These are desires that people have other than the agent. However, I am going to have trouble with the phrase that says that "agent S HAS a 'non-instrumental reason'". It is one thing to say that a non-instrumental reason exists. It is another to say that the agent has it.

When we look at the desires that other agents have, there is a difference between saying that those desires are reasons for her to φ, and saying that those desires are reasons for causing S to acquire a reason to φ. When I write about moral reasons, I am writing about the second of these two distinctions, not the first. This is captured in the distinction between the reasons that S has, and the reasons that S should have - the reasons that others have reason to cause her to have.

So, "there is a reason for her to φ" means that there is a desire that would be fulfilled by her φing. Such a desire would count as a reason to bring it about that S does φ. However, it does not count as a reason that S has to φ. It is possible that no such reason exists.

There are what we might call "non-instrumental reasons" that exist (desires that exist) that are independent of the desires, values, and interests that S has (unless S is the only person in the world). However, to say that S has a non-instrumental reason merely because other reasons exist is confusing at best. Instead, we can more clearly express this idea by saying, "There exists non-instrumental reasons for S to φ just in case there are reasons (desires) for her to φ that are not her own and, thus, do not depend on S's having any particular desire, value, or interest."

I want to note that Kopp himself rejects Proposal 1. That is to say that Kopp is not defending these proposals. He simply wants to discuss them. Specifically, he wants to argue that, if Proposal 1 is true, "that moral naturalism has nothing to fear from the proposal".

Michael Smith: Desires Constituative of Rationality

(1) There are desires constitutive of being rational.

(2) If there were a desire constitutive of being rational, then it would answer Mackie's objection that there are no objective values without postulating non-natural properties.

I am going to have to be careful here.

I hold that the first proposition is false.

Michael Smith wants to suggest that the second proposition could be true. (Smith, Michael, "Beyond the Error Theory," in A World Without Values: Essays on John Mackie's Moral Error Theory, (Richard Joyce and Simon Kirchin, eds.), 2010.)

I need to be careful to prevent my beliefs that the first proposition is false from contaminating Smith's argument that the second proposition could be true.

However, I find this difficult.

Consider the following two claims:

(1) Fully grown horses can fly.

(2) If fully grown horses could fly, then granite would sink in water.

I take the first statement to be false.

Now, when I go to the second statement, I am confronted with the question, "How was reality changed so as to make it possible that fully grown horses can fly?"

It is only after I know what those changes are that I can then infer what those changes imply about whether granite would sink in water.

Consequently, to assess Michael Smith's claim that if desires are constituative of rationality then this would handle Mackie's error theory, , I have to consider the changes to the real world that would be required to make it the case that desires are constituative of rationality. Only then will be able to infer from those changes whither this they would answer Mackie's challenge that there are (or can be) no objective values.

More specifically, Smith wants to examine the suggestion that a statement of the form, "People intrinsically desire that P" is constituative of rationality.

I take Smith's claim of "intrinsic rationality" to be the same as what I call "desires as an end". If we accept this substitution, then I certainly have to accept that, for each has a number of intrinsic desires. There is no question here.

An obvious example is that many people have an "intrinsic aversion" to their own pain. That is to say, they see the avoidance of their own pain as an end and will choose to avoid pain even in circumstances where the agent will otherwise benefit. Offer somebody a dollar if he would endure 1 hour of painful torture, and I suspect there would be few takers.

So, the problem is not with the claim that "people intrinsically desire that P". The problem is with the claim that "people intrinsically desire that P" can be constituative of rationality.

Intrinsic desires are like eye color, opposable thumbs, being bipedal, having a spleen, and having the capacity to see color. We have acquired these through a long history of evolution. Having an aversion to pain is no more constituative of rationality than having a spleen, or having blue eyes.

Our brain is plastic - so that our desires are, in part, shaped by our experiences and not just our genes. However, the number of fingers (or even the number of arms and legs) a person has is also shaped by experience. The ability to see and to hear, and the color of one's eyes and hair, can be altered through interaction with the environment. Interactions with the environment can change the fact of whether a person has a spleen or an appendix. However, this fact does not make it the case that any of these states are constituative of rationality.

Similarly, the fact that experience can alter a person's desires does not make the desires constituative of rationality.

It may be irrational to cut off one's arm, and it may be irrational to choose to acquire an addiction to tobacco (by taking up smoking), but this does not imply that having an arm or not having an addiction to tobacco is constituative of rationality. The reason that the actions can be considered rational or irrational is because intentional actions are grounded, in part, on beliefs, and those beliefs can be checked for rationality.

Now, I can turn to the problem I have with Smith's thesis that IF desires were constituative of rationality, then we may have an answer to Mackie's objection to the existence of objective values. However, this is like saying IF having an appendix were constituative of rationality or IF eye color was constituative of rationality or IF having opposable thumbs were constituative of rationality. I can't make enough sense out of the antecedent to answer the question.

There is no desire constituative of rationality. It may still be the case that if there were desires constituative of rationality that Mackie would have a problem dealing with them. However, that issue becomes a moot point in the shadow of the fact that there are no desires constituative of rationality.

The Three Functions of Morality

A moral statement has three functions, which it carries out simultaneously.

(1) To report an objective fact, that people generally have many and strong reasons to promote a particular universal desire of aversion. For example, the claim that people should keep their promises is a report that people generally have many and strong reasons to promote universally a desire to keep one's promises or an aversion to failing to keep a promise.

(2) To praise or to condemn. For example, the claim that people should keep their promises is a statement that praises those who keep their promises and condemns those who do not.

(3) Through the use of praise and condemnation acting on the limbic system of the brain, promote the relevant desires and aversions. For example, praising those who keep promises acts on the limbic system of the brain to promote a desire to keep promises, while condemning those who break promises creates and strengthens an aversion to breaking promises (not only in those praised and condemned, but in others who experience the praising and condemnation).

Philosophers often discuss the first two options. Unfortunately, they often treat these as mutually exclusive options. Either you believe that moral claims are truth-bearing propositions, or you believe that they are expressions of approval or disapproval that are neither true nor false. Generally, asserting the former makes one a moral realist and a cognitivist. Meanwhile, a person who makes the latter claim is an anti-realist and a non-cognitivist.

Yet, there is no reason to hold that a statement cannot do both at the same time.

A person slams his hand on the table, stands abruptly, and shouts at the man standing at the door, "You lied!"

The statement, "You lied" is a truth-bearing proposition. It claims that the other agent reported as true something that agent believed to be false. There is a fact of the matter. Evidence can be brought to bear to prove or falsify such a claim.

At the same time, the speaker is expressing disapproval.

We have here, a truth-bearing proposition and an expression of disapproval rolled into one. 

We can tell similar stories about a person making a claim such as, "You promised!" or "That's mine!"

Elsewhere, I have devoted a great deal of text to demonstrating that moral claims are reports about what desires and aversions people generally have reason to promote universally. I cannot repeat those arguments here. However, for present purposes, the reader can forget that part and simply focus on the fact that a statement can both, at the same time, be a truth-bearing proposition and express an attitude towards that proposition. Debates over whether a moral statement does one thing or the other are a waste of time and effort.

As for the third function, neuroscientists are learning a great deal about how the reward centers of the brain work. A reward triggers the brain to look at what preceded the reward and then builds a desire for that predecessor. A drug addict experiences the reward of a chemical high. Her brain forms a desire to perform those actions that resulted in the high. Consequently, the agent goes through those motions for their own sake and not (or not solely) for the sake of the chemical high.

Similarly, a child shares with others to please her parents. Eventually, she comes to value sharing for its own sake, even when she can expect no praise from her parents.

The mere fact that praise and condemnation has these effects implies that if moral statements are statements of praise and condemnation then they are statements that act on the brain to mold desires. This would be true whether this was a function of moral statements or not.

However, humans long ago noticed the effects of praise and condemnation - reward and punishment - on behavior. As they did, they gained the ability to use this power to mold desires in particular ways.

This brings up the question, "What desires and aversions do we have reason to promote?"

This question returns us to the truth-bearing component of moral statements. A statement that something is obligatory or impermissible or that one has a non-obligatory permission - is a proposed answer to this question. It may be true, or it may be false. It is the type of claim that allows us to bring in evidence - to discover the fact of the matter.

That this is a debate over what desires and aversions people generally have reason to make universal makes sense of the parts of moral debate that ask, “What if everybody acted as you do?” and “How would you like it if somebody did the same to you?” It makes sense of the utilitarian arguments that are found in moral debates – arguments of the consequences of promoting an attitude universally. Mostly, it makes sense of the fact that when we make moral assertions, and when we debate them, we treat them as matters of fact. This is because they are.

Yet, the very facts that we are debating are facts that tell us what people generally have reason to praise and condemn, reward and punish. They are facts that tell us where to direct our anger, and where guilt or shame is appropriate.

A lot of space is wasted in discussions that treat these components as mutually exclusive components of morality. It is like having a debate over whether cows are warm blooded or have hair, as if a cow cannot both be warm blooded and have hair. A lot of wasted discussion can be put aside simply by recognizing that moral claims can serve more than one function at the same time.

The Capitalist Candidate

I would like to see somebody run on the Republican ticket for President of the United States as a Capitalist.

In the first debates, each candidate is given 2 minutes to introduce themselves.

My fellow Americans.

I stand before you as the only capitalist - the only defender of free markets, on this stage today. These others - either because they do not understand capitalism or because they understand but do not like capitalism - defend something quite different.

For example, when it comes to climate change, they actually support communism - every one of them. Communism says that goods are held in common, and that each person can use it (or use it up) as they see fit. Ideally, each person takes from the communal warehouse according to their needs and donates according to their ability. In fact, people just take until there is nothing left.

These other candidates argue for treating the atmosphere as a communal dumping ground for waste products. Each person can dump as much greenhouse gas as they want, and contributions to this communal warehouse are entirely voluntary. Capitalism tells us that, if we use this system, the atmosphere, as a communal dumping ground, will be destroyed. The solution is a pricing mechanism - a way to get people to pay for their use of these resources and a way to pay people for their contributions. But these communists refuse to support such a system.

Let's talk about regulation. There are two types of regulation to talk about. One type involves the use of government to interfere in the free market to create special economic advantages for some. The other type of regulation is the protection of property rights - prohibitions on theft, fraud, vandalism, the destruction of property, assault or other violence against another person, and prohibitions on murder.

When these other candidates talk about reducing government regulation, they almost never talk about the special tax breaks their clients get, or the government subsidies. These go on year after year.

To a capitalist, these types of regulations and subsidies are intolerable. They interfere with the free market. In fact, corporations have access to all sorts of government power to force transfers of wealth into their bank accounts that a truly free market would not allow. Forced transfer of wealth, from the poor and the middle class to the wealthy, is a defining characteristic of much of what the government does. A capitalist would not support this, but my opponents do.

Whenever these other candidates talk about removing regulation, they talk about giving those who run corporations special rights to take from others, to command obedience, destroy property, cause illness or injury, even kill, with little or no consequence.

A common person robs a store of $250 worth of merchandise and these people want them locked away for life. But, if a corporate executive robs its customers of $250 million dollars, the company pays a $20 million fine and it us business as usual.

When is the last time a corporate executive went to prison fir murdering people with the release of toxic chemicals into the air or groundwater?

We have two sets of laws. One provides harsh, even draconian punishments against the serfs and commoners who commit murder and robbery on a small scale, and a growing reduction in penalties when a corporate executive commits the same crimes on a massive scale.

This is not capitalism. It is a type if corporate feudalism, where the serfs face harsh restrictions and penalties, and the lords and masters can do as they please.

Remember, capitalism is all about protecting rights to private property. Well, your body is your property. Nobody may make use of your body without your consent. These anti-capitalists on the stage with me today reject the idea that women own their own bodies. They think that a woman's body belongs to the state, and the state may dictate who gets to use the woman's body.

On that matter, I would like to note that, to a capitalist, a living arrangement, voluntarily entered into by two men or two women, is just as valid as a voluntary arrangement entered into by one man and one woman. There is nothing in capitalism that calls for concern about the gender of those one enters into agreements with. And, by the way, capitalism also has no objection to raise to arrangements that consenting adults enter into voluntarily that involve more than two parties. It is not the government’s concern.

This brings me to my final point. These rights to life, liberty, and property - these rights to due process and equal protection under the law - these are not American rights. They are HUMAN rights. Anybody who argues, “He’s not an American, so he does not have the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that we do,” is somebody who rejects capitalism. These moral restrictions against depriving others of live, liberty, and property apply as much to American corporations and the American government as it does to Americans as individuals.

So, as I said, I stand here on this stage as the only capitalist. If you are a Republican because you believe in capitalism – because you think that this country should promote and defend capitalism – then I am your candidate.

As it turns out, I am not a capitalist in the sense described above. However, capitalism, properly understood, has a great deal to recommend it. It does not actually say what many of its defenders - and many of its critics - claim that it says.

Reforming the Bernie Sanders Revolution

If people intend to see the Bernie Sanders revolution continue, I would like those within the movement to make the effort to advocate for three reforms among their fellow revolutionaries.

Reform 1: The poorest of the poor around the world matter.

If the moral principle at play here is that there is a moral permission - even a moral obligation - to take firm those who have a great deal of wealth to those who have little, then there is an obligation to help those in extreme poverty.

The Sanders revolution to date has utterly ignored those who are in extreme poverty around the world except to say, in one instance, that it would be wrong to help them if doing so involves a sacrifice on the part of those who are far wealthier.

I think from a moral responsibility [sic] we've got to work with the rest of the industrialized world to address the problems of international poverty, but you don't do that by making people in this country even poorer.

Seriously, in this quote - the only quote I know of where Sanders even discusses the global poor, Sanders effectively states that morality prohibits him from helping the poorest of the poor if it means that the people from which he is taking campaign contributions may be made poorer.

This is one area where Sanders really should come forth and say, "That was a mistake. That was totally wrong."

Yet, it must also be said that the policies to date that have cut extreme global poverty in half did not result "making people in this country even poorer." The people in this country - even those in the middle class - have become slightly wealthier. Perhaps they have not gotten wealthier as quickly as they would like, but the claim that they have been made poorer is false.

If the claim is that the Sanders revolution is claiming some sort of moral high ground, he completely undermines that claim when he endorses a principle that it is wrong to help those closer to the bottom of the economic ladder if it makes those above them poorer.

In fact, this hypocrisy, if not corrected, suggests that the "Sanders revolution" is just another political power play by another political interest group buying government favors with their political contributions. It is a group buying a politician who promises to implement programs that will make them wealthier, without regard as to what the effects will be on those who are below them on the global economic ladder. Sanders may have decided to go for "the second 10%" rather than the "top 10%" (perhaps because competition among those serving the top 10% is so fierce), but he is advocating nothing that is, in fact, morally different.

Taking the interests of the poorest of the poor seriously requires building into the discussion of every policy proposal what its impact will be on the poorest of the poor. It requires the opposite of simply ignoring them as if their interests - and their status as fellow human beings - is irrelevant. And it require actively rejecting the idea that it is immoral to help the poorest of the poor if it imposes a cost on those who are considerably wealthier.

And it requires an intellectually honest evaluation of the effects on these people - not some hand-waving rationalization a that allow one to the conclusion that they will benefit along an intellectual route that contradicts real evidence and violates sound reason.

So, my first proposed reform: The poorest of the poor matter.

Reform 2: Respect the scientific consensus and the principles of evidence and rationality.

The practice of using political ideology to filter good science from bad science must end. On matters of scientific knowledge, the scientific consensus has a privileged status.

This includes such things as the climate change, genetically modified foods, nuclear power, gender differences, and innate versus learned abilities. Picking up the claim of some rogue scholar and declaring, "He is correct because I like his conclusions," or dismissing the consensus of experts because their conclusions contradict a cherished personal belief is intellectually reckless at best.

This does not mean accepting without question or criticism the claims of mainstream science. This is a burden-of-proof claim. Hard-working experts in a field are entitled to a presumption that they know what they are talking about. However, with a lot of hard work, one can understand a field well enough to question that consensus - to become one of those people whose hard work grants them a presumption of understanding. This requirement cannot be met merely by reading a couple of Internet memes and listening to a similarly uninformed friend rant during lunch.

During the political campaign, many Sanders supporters pulled out a lot of questionable data to rationalized their cherished beliefs. For example, there was the widespread use of Internet polls to "prove" that Sanders won the first Presidential debate. No reputable scholar would give an Internet poll the time of day, particularly when compared to scientific polls engineered by experts to give reliable results. Yet, because the Internet polls gave the Sanders supporters conclusions they liked, they filled social media with bogus claims that those Internet polls proved the scientifically engineered polls wrong.

So, my second proposed reform is that intellectual integrity, evidence and reason, and the scientific consensus all matter.

Reform 3: Quit using the decisive language of political scapegoating.

This refers to the types of finger-pointing language where a politician of political movement points a finger at some group of individuals and identifies them as "the other" - a threat that the politician promises to deal with if given political power.

Trump uses this when he refers to Mexicans as rapists and murderers, and when he promises to treat all Muslims as terrorists. Sanders does this when he speaks as if all millionaires and billionaires belong to sons secret club that us conspiring to rob the middle class of their wealth, their property, and their freedom.

Mexicans, Muslims, and millionaires all make up very diverse populations - sone good, some bad. Pointing a finger at a diverse group and telling the people to think of all of them as "the enemy" is the essence of bigotry.

There is no objection to the practice of pointing to the Koch brothers and their promise of a billion dollars in aid to politicians that will help them to consolidate their wealth. Similarly, there is no objection to be made to pointing out how Goldman Sachs may be purchasing influence in a future Clinton administration with over $600,000 in speakers' fees.

The problem comes when one overgeneralizes and directs political contempt to a whole group, where many individuals are entirely innocent of the wrongs being attributed to them - the way Trump targets all Mexicans, and Sanders targets all millionaires.

This is actually a more general call to discuss the issues themselves, rather than resort to "us" versus "them" scapegoating. It is an easy policy to implement. It simply involves refusing to use collective nouns in condemnation except in places where everybody in the target group is, in fact, guilty by definition.

This, then, is my third reform: Refrain from the practice of lumping people into groups and then condemning the whole group.

Conclusion

A person who is participating in the Sanders revolution, or in any movement for that matter, does not need to simply accept things as they are and follow along without question or challenge. It is perfectly legitimate - it is actually morally obligatory - to look at what is going on and ask if there are possible areas for improvement. There is always room for improvement. If the Sanders revolution were to continue, I would hope that it would come to embrace the suggestions for improvement made in this post.

Michael Smith: The Aim of Desire

To call something valuable is to say that it has other properties that provide reasons for behaving in certain ways with respect to it. (Scanlon, T.M., 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.)

We'll get this out of the way immediately - there are no such properties that provide reasons for behaving in certain ways.

Still, this is supposed to provide a way of answering Mackie's claims that there are no objective values. It does so by asserting that certain objects of evaluation have properties that give people reason to respond in a certain way to them; and that objects of evaluation are "good" or "bad" according to the type of attitude or behavior that its properties give rise to.

Michel Smith calls this "The Reasons Approach"  (Smith, Michael, "Beyond the Error Theory," in A World Without Values: Essays on John Mackie's Moral Error Theory, (Richard Joyce and Simon Kirchin, eds.), 2010.)

Because these properties are in the object, and because they rationally demand a particular attitude or behavior, all people should have (are rationally required to) have the same response.

Technically, the properties in the object of evaluation do not directly cause a particular response. Instead, they rationally require a particular response. It is still possible for an individual to become aware of the properties that demand a particular response and not respond appropriately. However, those people are irrational in some way.

Michael Smith attempts to explain this by showing how the process works for belief. If an agent has a belief that P, and a belief that P implies Q, then there exists a requirement of reason that the agent believe that Q. This is because beliefs aim at truth, and the two premises provide reason to believe that Q is true. Consequently, these two beliefs create a rational requirement to believe that Q is also true.

The problem with this Reasons Approach to answering Mackie is that we cannot come up with a similar type of relationship between beliefs about the properties of things and having a particular desire. The rational requirement to believe that Q comes from the fact that the aim of beliefs is truth. What is the aim of desire such that there can be a rational requirement to adopt a particular motivation towards a state of affairs based on beliefs regarding its properties?

If we say that desires aim at satisfaction, then this does not yield the conclusion that there are properties in the object of evaluation that warrant a particular motivation. The desires have to aim at something in the object of evaluation itself.

Smith examines the possibility that desires aim at "the good". However, this would result in a viciously circular set of claims.

It would be viciously circular to explain why a consideration is a reason for desiring in terms of the fact that the good is the aim of desire and then to immediately go on and explain the good in terms of what there is reason to desire.

An object of evaluation has properties that generate rational requirements to have particular desires, because those desires aim at objects of evaluation that have properties that generate those rational requirements.

Coming up with a property that generates reasons to be motivated in a particular way ultimately seems to require some sort of non-natural prescriptive property in the object of evaluation - the type of entity that Mackie says does not exist. The task of explaining how a natural property can generate reasons to be motivated in a particular way seems unlikely to succeed.

I hold the position that properties that generate reasons to be motivated in a particular way towards them do not exist. Evolution has molded our desires in such a way that they generally bring about behaviors that result in genetic replication. This does not mean that genetic replication is the aim of desires (the way that truth is the aim of belief). Genetic replication is an unintended side effect. However, it is a type of side effect that nature uses to select for tendencies to form certain desires and aversions.

In the case of humans, evolution has given us malleable desires - desires that are changed through our interaction with the environment. This allows us to adapt to a number of different environments, rather than having us hardwired to fit into a specific environment. These "interactions with the environment" include interactions with other people. Those people have reasons to promote certain desires in us, just as we have reasons to promote certain desires in them. It is from here that we get morality - not from "properties that provide reasons for behaving in certain ways with respect to it."

On Debating the Rationality of Ends

Sometimes I feel like an atheist pursuing a theology degree.

Such an atheist would be surrounded by people who are certain that a god exists and who spend their time in discussion over various theories regarding the properties of such a deity. Meanwhile, the atheist sits there saying, “There is no God.”

Similarly, I find myself involved in readings from people who seem to assume that there are rational requirements for desires-as-ends (other than through their tendency to fulfill or thwart other desires), engaged in debate over the nature of these requirements, while I sit here saying, “There are rational requirements of ends.”

It is only natural, of course, that those who believe in the rational requirements for desires-as-ends would enter into such a debate, and that those who hold that there are no such rational requirements would go elsewhere.

However, I hold that the existence or non-existence of these rational requirements is important. If these rational requirements exist, then they are things that a theory of morality has to consider. However, if they do not exist, then there is nothing to consider. We can move on and look at the utility of various desires and not worry about their intrinsic rationality.

In fact, the importance of whether or not these rational requirements exists to ethics is very much like the importance of whether or not a god exists. If they exist, then we have an authority that we must appeal to and that will heavily influence our answers to moral questions. If they do not exist, we must look elsewhere.

I hold that neither God nor intrinsic presciptivity nor rational requirements for desires as ends exist. All three of these are fictions, and propositions declaring their existence play no role in sound moral reasoning.

Sound moral reasoning exists, I would argue. However, sound moral reasoning involves the application of plain, vanilla means-ends rationality to the molding of ends or desires. It simply does not include premises asserting the existence of gods, intrinsic values, or standards of rationality (outside of means-ends rationality) for desires-as-ends.

There are some noted philosophers who defend this position. The most noteworthy, and the philosopher whose writings I have actually been focusing on these past several weeks, is J.L. Mackie.

Still, entering a discussion on the nature of the rationality of ends by saying that there is no such thing as a rationality of ends does have its shortfalls.

History and Morality

I would like to recommend a couple of podcasts . . . Or, more precisely, a pod-caster by the name of Mike Duncan. His podcasts are, "The History of Rome" and "Revolutions." The latter is ongoing.

Both are available – free - from iTunes. (I would recommend a donation to Mike Duncan if you find it worthwhile.) The History of Rome is done with about 200 episodes, while Revolutions is ongoing.

Just a note: The History of Rome was Duncan’s first podcast. Going through the nearly 200 episodes, one also sees Duncan’s growth through the process. I have listened through this podcast twice.

Here is what I find interesting about this.

I pretend to be a moral philosopher, concerned with what is right and wrong, and I come up with a set of ideas.

Then, I listen to one of these podcasts and ask the question, "Where does moral philosophy fit into this?"

At one point in Roman history, the Praetorian Guard in Rome auctioned off the title of Emperor to the highest bidder. The winner, Didius Julianus, won the bidding war with a bid of 25,000 Roman sesterces per man.

Where was morality?

Slavery was an unquestioned institution until the 1700’s. Nobody questioned it – not even the slaves. A particular slave may declare that his or her enslavement was unjust, but slavery itself was a legitimate institution.

Where was morality?

In September, 1792, the armies allied against France had just won a significant victory and were at risk of marching on Paris itself. The people in Paris were afraid that the people it had locked in its prisons would side with the attackers. To protect Paris – or so the claim goes – the citizens of Paris entered the prisons and executed between 1200 and 1400 prisoners. Prisoners were hauled in front of a “court”, often declared guilty in a short trial, and then thrown to the mob who hacked them apart with axes and knives.

Where was morality?

Augustus killed Caesar’s teenage son because “Rome can only have one Caesar.” In doing so, he probably prevented a future civil war. Many philosophers talk about trolley car problems where a person has to decide whether to push a fat man in front of a trolley to prevent it from slaying five others. However, this is not an actual moral problem. Nobody ever actually finds themselves in this situation, so there is no need to mold a set of institutions to cover a situation that does not ever happen. Now, think of an actual, living, teenage boy - and the prospect of continued civil war.

While the Declaration of the Rights of Man declared, “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights,” the government excluded what is now Haiti from this declaration because its people were simply making too much money from the slave plantations in the colony.

With respect to the status of women that we often hear about in the Arab world? That actually originated in Ancient Greece – the Greece of Plato and Aristotle, and exported to the Middle East through the conquests of Alexander the Great. Those ideas certainly did not come from any god. And, in fact, it did not originate in the Middle East. They came from a culture that many people in the west hold to high esteem. This particular fact is not found in the podcasts mentioned above, but does help to illustrate some of the lessons of history.

For my atheist readers who think religion is the source of all strife, history provides some evidence against this. In the history of Rome, religion is almost never a cause of bloodshed and injustice, yet there is no shortage of either.

It is from here that I draw the lesson that people do not get their violence and injustice FROM religion. The give their violent and unjust dispositions TO the religions that they invent. Eliminating religion would not solve the problem because humans would still be humans. There is no violence or injustice written into religion that cannot also be written into a secular philosophy. In fact, many prominent atheists today are quite content to write new injustices into their secular philosophies.

When we look at the French Revolution we can see how atheists played a prominent roll in defending The Terror.

Precisely because many atheists see religion as a source of problems, they blind themselves to their own capacity to write injustices into their secular philosophies. It is a blindness that is hard to maintain when one looks at the amount of violence and bloodshed in history that required no religious motivation at all.

Seriously, if you have an interest in ethics, I would strongly recommend spending some time studying history. Plug your ideas about morality into real-world decisions that real-world human beings were making. The results can be illuminating. Ask yourself whether your moral system exists only in an academic bubble, or whether you can say something about the real world.

Political Correctness

Many defenders of Donald Trump say that they are tired of "political correctness".

What many actually mean by this is that they are tired of treating "inferior" people and genders with dignity and respect.

The term "political correctness" is used to set up a rhetorical trap. It takes a huge bundle of goods, puts it in a big box, and puts a common label on the whole thing. Some of the things in this bundle actually deserve criticism. The hope, used by those who embrace this term, is that this taint can then rub off on other items that they put in the box - items that are legitimate concerns.

These days, the term and related concepts are also being used in the other direction. There are now cases where people put objects in the bundle called "political correctness" in the hopes that the virtue of some of the elements in the box can be attacked to these new items.

In both cases, "political correctness" becomes a rhetorical trap. Reject one item in the box and one is then assumed to be rejecting everything in the box. Accept one item in the box and one is then assumed to be accepting everything in the box. This mistaken inference is turned into a club for beating on others.

For example:

I object to "jokes" and figures of speech that depend on and promote stereotypes. People have a right to be judged on their individual merits (or demerits), without having to deal with the baggage that prejudice and bigotry heap upon them. This includes not only blatant discrimination, but - and perhaps even more so - the subtle forms of bigotry that heap one small cost on top of another to lower the quality of an innocent person's life.

On the other hand, there are no "cherished beliefs" that an individual ought not to be permitted to question. If somebody claims that a flying horse flew Mohammed from Mecca to Jerusalem and back, I say that this is nonsense. It is utter, complete, nonsense. It fits right up there with "aliens built the pyramids" and "the Apollo moon landings were faked."

Of course, if this cherished belief is a trivial belief with no real-world consequences, then perhaps the worst response that is warranted would be an expression of deep incredulity.

However, absurd beliefs that motivate people to take action harmful to others may require something more. If a person quotes scripture to advocate killing homosexuals or the "honor killings" and maiming of women, then we have a right - a duty - to respond with more than incredulity. We have a duty to respond with condemnation.

At this point, if the person being criticized responds, "You are criticizing my sincerely held religious beliefs," a fully appropriate response would be, "Get yourself a new set of religious beliefs and we will not have this problem."

WARNING: There are many - way too many - bigots who would take this "get yourself a new religion" response to imply, "abandon Islam" or "abandon Christianity". This is far too broad. If a person's religion calls for killing homosexuals, then "Get yourself a new religion and we would not have this problem" is fully satisfied by getting any religion that does not command the killing of homosexuals - even if it is a different version of Islam or Christianity.

Also, please note, I am talking about condemnation and criticism here, not punishment. Violence is not a legitimate response to mere words - but condemnation and criticism can be.

Here is where the "politically correctness" trap gets sprung.

By putting both of these things in the same box marked, "political correctness," people draw an inference from opposition to institutional prejudice to opposition to criticizing the beliefs of those who advocate killing homosexuals on the basis of religious faith. Because the latter position is objectionable, the inference is that the person's attitudes regarding institutional prejudice are objectionable as well.

Or, when approached from the other direction, one takes the claim that one defends the practice of criticizing sincerely held religious beliefs when they call for maiming and killing innocent people that one objects to "political correctness". From this it is inferred that one must also reject objections being made to institutional prejudice. Since the person who defends institutional prejudice is to be condemned, the person who criticizes sincerely held religious beliefs calling for the killing and maiming of others also deserves to be condemned.

This type of rhetorical trap has no place in a serious discussion of the merits of different policies. People who use a term such as this seem more interested in promoting invalid inferences than in understanding the merits of a different proposal. The very use of the term suggests that a rational discussion of merits is not in the cards.

What Does It Matter What Philosophers Think?

What does it matter what philosophers think?

Here you are, living your life. You're concerned about your health and the safety of others in your family. You have these persistent fears in the back of your head about what might happen if you lose your job, or how you are going to pay the rent if you have no job, and how you are going to get by if you can't afford the rent. In addition to your own burdens, you take on - to some extent - the burdens and worries of your friends.

And some self-absorbed self-proclaimed "philosopher" is spewing nonsense like:

For example, it makes sense to say that if an agent has a desire that P, that this is fulfilled by any state in which P is true. A person who wants a steak should be equally satisfied by any of a set of identical states. It would make no sense for him to say, "I like them all except Number 3," when there is nothing to distinguish Number 3 from any other steak.

To which the response is, "What possible reason do I have to care about what this person is writing?"

What I think I am doing is developing a better understanding of what really matters. Knowing what really matters is the first step to making a plan to realize what really matters. It is a tragedy, is it not, to devote huge amounts of time, money, and effort into realizing something that doesn't really matter? Or, worse, to make that investment in something that ought not to be?

Like a Donald Trump presidency - something that definitely ought not to be - and yet something to which people are investing time, money, and effort.

The Trump campaign that is characterized by unjustified hatred, bigotry, injustice, the use of violence to silence dissenters, a willingness to slaughter children if it can advance a political objective, the national registration and monitoring of whole segments of the population (by people who absolutely refuse to register and monitor guns), an admiration for the despotism of people like Russian President Vladimir Putin and even speaking in praise of his willingness to murder dissidents.

Most people simply judge things by their feelings. They mix this with a presumption that their feelings cannot possibly be wrong, that they are incapable of error, and anybody who reaches a different conclusion is either an idiot or morally corrupt or both. Republicans and Democrats, Atheists and Theists, Sanders supporters and Clinton supporters, assume they know all of the truths that need to be known, and that the opposition is filled with malevolent idiots.

Then there's the person who takes a step back from all of this and asks, "Really? Is there nothing more to be said?" This person begins to look for ways to sort through the mess, to look for what can be thrown out and dismissed, which requires looking for ways to hold the various options up light so that one can make those judgments.

The next thing you know, this person is asking, "What really matters? How can I know? How can I have at least some confidence that I am not being deceived?"

In that search, one ends up asking questions that end up exposing principles such as, "If an agent has a desire that P, that this is fulfilled by any state in which P is true."  One ends up being somebody who wants to know if this can be defended or refuted. One ends up reading and writing about the kinds of things that go into this blog.

This, then, leads to questions such as, "What does it take for a desire to be a desire that is worth having? That is worth cultivating? Or that is worth avoiding? How do I know? How can I have at least some assurance I am not being deceived?"

Eventually, one ends up writing a blog with posts dedicated to the issue of the rationality of ends.

Really, if you are asking the question, "What does it matter what philosophers think?" you are actually asking the wrong question.

The real question is, "What ends are worth having and how can I know?"



If that is the question that you have, then it makes very good sense to study what philosophers think - because this is exactly what they (or, at least, what a subset of them) are trying to figure out.

Michael Smith: The Rational Requirement of Universalization

If our intrinsic desires themselves are subject to rational requirements, then there must be rational requirements beyond [means-ends rationality]. (Smith, Michael, "Beyond the Error Theory," in A World Without Values: Essays on John Mackie's Moral Error Theory, (Richard Joyce and Simon Kirchin, eds.), 2010.)

I hold that there are no rational requirements for intrinsic desires -- that there is no way to evaluate desires - other than "means-ends rationality". That is to say, the only thing we can say about a desire, in terms of recommending for or against it, has to do with the degree that it tends to fulfill or thwart other desires.

In a section of Michel Smith's article cited above, Smith will examine a suggestion that this view is mistaken, derived from the writings of the Richard M. Hare.

It is a principle of Universalization.

U: RR (if a subject has an intrinsic desire that p , then either p itself is suitably universal or the satisfaction of the desire that p is consistent with the satisfaction of desires whose contents are themselves suitably universal).

To be fair, Hare did not present this principle as a principle governing the rationality of desires. Hare presented this as a principle of morality. The further claim is that only the desire to maximize happiness and minimize suffering is universal in this way.

In other words:

To be rational, our intrinsic desires must have contents that are themselves suitably universal – they must mention no particulars – or, at any rate, their satisfaction must be consistent with the satisfaction of desires whose contents are themselves suitably universal.

I wish that Smith had provided an example to help explain these principles. However, he did not, and that leaves me a bit lost as to whether my understanding is even in the right neighborhood.

For example, it makes sense to say that if an agent has a desire that P, that this is fulfilled by any state in which P is true. A person who wants a steak should be equally satisfied by any of a set of identical states. It would make no sense for him to say, "I like them all except Number 3," when there is nothing to distinguish Number 3 from any other steak.

However, if this is what is meant by this principle of universalization, I cannot see how it has anything to do with the rest of the discussion. I can't see how it provides even a hint of an challenge to Mackie's claim that there is no rationality of ends.

Instead, Hare seems to be asserting that this principle of universalization requires that we abstract out the particular people in a state of affairs. 

In a hypothetical situation involving three people, for example, this principle of rationality requires that we look at the situation from the point of view of all three people with their individual desires. The only desire that survives this test is a desire for maximum happiness and minimum suffering.

Smith alternatively describes the conclusion as saying that this universal desire would be "to maximally satisfy the desires of all three parties". This is not the same thing as the desire to maximize happiness and minimize suffering, but the difference need not concern us here.

Now, one question to answer is: "Who has this desire for maximum desire satisfaction, and how did he get it?"

Smith discusses and immediately dismisses the possibility that by imagining oneself in the position of all three participants in this event, one automatically acquires the desires of all three participants in this event - which clearly does not happen.

Another option is that there is a principle of rationality that is violated if one imagines oneself in the position of somebody else if one does not acquire the desires of that other person.

Unfortunately, this second option requires that we augment the principle of universalization with a new, second principle of rationality - the principle that states that imagining a situation from the point of view of others rationally requires the adoption of their desires.
Regardless of the merits of this second principle of rationalization, the mere fact that it is required tells us that the principle of universalization is insufficient. We need something else to get us from this imagined universal perspective to a state where an agent has an actual desire that influences real-world action.

Here, it is important to point out that Hare presented this universalization principle not as a principle of rationality, but as a principle of morality. This form of universalization does not tell us what rationality requires, it tells us what morality requires. The person who fails to act appropriately on this principle is not irrational, but immoral.

Here, i want to agree with Hare's distinction. I, too, deny that there are any principles of rationality applicable to evaluating desires-as-ends. However, it still makes sense for us to evaluate desires-as-ends in terms of the degree to which they tend to fulfill or thwart other desires. Those answers tell us whether and to what degree we have reason to promote certain desires-as-ends and weaken or inhibit others.

You cannot infer from the fact that there is no rationality of desires-as-ends that there is no morality of desires-as-ends.

Taken as a principle of morality rather than as a principle of rationality, I still have objections to raise against Hare's universalization. It fails, on practical grounds, to provide an answer to the question, "Who gets this desire and how does he get it?" My answer is that desires are evaluated according to their usefulness, and that useful desires are promoted while harmful desires are inhibited using the social tools of rewards such as praise and punishments such as condemnation. Because we cannot reason a person into goodness, we must use other tools.