Danielboy

Given that the above post is correct (And you can dispute this later):

Desires are subjective. People desire that which they value. My claim is exactly that this value is invented by the subjective view of people. My claim is that there is no such thing as objective intrinsic value. Which is why desires are subjective, oughts are subjective, morals are subjective.

I admit that the reduction can do what ought does. But the problem is, the reduction isn't objective either.

Alonzo Fyfe

Desires are mental states, that is an objective fact.

It is not the case that "value is invented by the subective view of people" any more than "height is invented by the subjective tallness of people".

There is no such thing as intrinsic value -- true.

However, desires exist. And statements about desires (statements about whether states of affairs are "such as to fulfill the desires in question") are objectively true or false. This is true in just the same way that there is no intrinsic location. However, this does not affect the fact that statements about where a person is located are objectively true or false.

The problem is that the concepts of "objective" and "subjective" when people ask questions like those in the initial poll are so screwed up that no sensible answer to the question is possible. If the question makes no sense, you can expect people to spend forever arguing about what the answer is.

Alonzo Fyfe

No.

"Our relevant desires" might be "the desires in question". However, different uses of the word "should" actually make reference to different desires. We know what the desires are by looking at the context of the question.

If I were to say, "Okay, family, where should we go for our vacation?" "We should" in this case means "our desires -- those of everybody in the family" -- not just "my desires".

If I were to say, "You should take that job in Phoenix" the "you should" means "your desires".

It is the same as if I were to say, "The keys are on the table." What are "the keys in question" or "the table in question?" These are determined by looking at the whole context in which the sentence is made. This determines "the keys in question" and "the tables in question." This might be "my keys" or "my table", but there are several possible contexts where it might mean, "Jim's car keys" and "The table in the meeting room where were were unpacking the boxes."

knowitall

Alonzo,

The expression, "3 plus 3 ought to be 6" doesn't seem to invoke desire. The condition probably implied by that expression would probably, "If my calculations are correct." But it's abnormal to hear, "Based on my calculations, I desire that 3 plus 3 is 6."

Perhaps it could be more generalized if we focussed on 'value relative to an object' rather than 'desire relative to a human.'

How about:

"ought" = "is such as to affirm value in some object or state of affairs."

Alonzo Fyfe

Duplicate post. sorry.

Danielboy

You are examining the container and ignoring the content. The container that is desire exists. But the content, which is the kind of desire that people have is totally subjective. And since different people have different desires, different people have different mores.

I also understand that you require that morality be based on all relevant desires, thus eliminating the problem of subjective personal desires. As in the need to include desires that are not mine when I make a decision for certain situations like the family vacation thing. But again I ask why is it that we have to assign weightage to desires of others as we do ours? Is it because you define morality that way or because it is some objective truth you discovered?

My problem with your theory is that I know why I would do what I desire (this is subjective morality), but why should I do what others desire (to render it an objective morality accounting for all desires)? As long as I do not aggregate all the desires of all people when I construct morality, we can no longer say that our version is objective. But when we do, we wonder why we do it.

Alonzo Fyfe

I do not see any need to introduce the concepts of "container" or "content" to understand anything that is objectively true of desires that is different from what I have already said.

A desire is a propositional attitude -- it takes the form "agent desires that P".

Different desires take different propositions "P" for their object.

If you want to define the "container" as the desire and the "content" as the proposition "P" that is the object of the desire, you can do so. But, like I said, these elements have already been captured in what I have already presented.

Different people have different desires. This is an objectively true statement. This is true in the same way that different people have different height, weight, ages, hair color, and the like. Desires are simply one physical states among many, and it is a feature that is different from one person to another.

"Different desires -> different mores" is false. If you say this, you are attributing properties to desires other than those that are objectively, literally true of desires.

For example, "I desire that P" does not imply "You ought to make it the case that P". I can say "I desire to have chocolate ice cream" or even "I want you to bring me some chocolate ice cream", but neither of these propositions entails or implies "you have an obligation to bring me some chocolate ice cream."

Anybody who tries to infer obligations on the part of others from their own desires is making an invalid inference. "Different desires" does not imply "different mores".



Actually, I require nothing. I believe that a theory must limit itself to the objective facts, and that anything that extends beyond the objective facts is fiction.

One of those objective facts is that whether a desire tends to fulfill or thwart desires genreally is substantially independent of whether it will fulfill or thwart the desires of any given individual. Just as it is an objective fact that the average height of a human is substantially independent of the height of any one person. I cannot change this fact.


This is true in exactly the same way that the chemist decides whether he is going to study 8-proton atoms or 6-proton atoms. However, once the chemist has made the decision that he is going to talk about 8-proton atoms, anything he says from that point on depends on what is objectively true of 8-proton. He has no power to make things up and say, "This is true of 8-proton atoms".

You decide whether you are going to talk about "is such as to fulfill the desires of my family". But, once you make that decision, you cannot then decide what is objectively true of "is such as to fulfill the desires of my family."

There is nothing in this that makes value any less objective than chemistry. The chemist has just as much leeway to decide which elements he is going to investigate as you have in determining which relationships between states of affairs and desires you are going to investigate.



You do not -- any more than the chemist "has to" study 8-proton atoms.

What you do "have to" do is limit your claims about any particular relationship to that which is objectively true of that relationship, just as the chemist "has to" limit what he says about an 8-proton atom to what is literally true of an 8-proton atom.

There is no "has to" beyond this.

As I have said before -- nothing at all depends on how you may want to define "morality". You can name your pet cat "morality" if you want to -- it is still just a cat. You can name any particular relationship between objects of evaluation and desires "morality" if you want. It does not change what is objectively true of that relationship.

Problems only arise if, in calling some relationship "morality" you are claiming something about that relationship that would not be true if you gave it some other name, such as "fred". But if you do this, then whatever it is that you are claiming by calling something "morality" that would not be the case if you call it "fred" is false -- make believe -- myth -- superstition -- fiction.



What do you mean by "should I do"?

What I am saying is this:

• Others have a reason, in terms of their own desire fulfillment, to promote in you desires that tend to fulfill other desires, just as you have reason, in terms of your own desire fulfillment, to promote in them desires that tend to fulfill other desires. The same goes for inhibiting desires that thwart other desires.

• The tools available for promoting desires that tend to fulfill other desires, and inhibiting desires that thwart other desires, are praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment.

• Whether a desire tends to fulfill or thwart other desires is a matter of objective fact.

Now, when you are asking, "Why should I do what others desire?" what are you asking that is not covered in these three objective facts.

To say that "you should do what others desire" is to say that other people have a reason to use praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment to cause you to have desires that tend to fulfill their desires, and to inhibit in you desires that tend to thwart other desires.



What you do has absolutely no relevance to the question of what people generally have reason to use praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment to bring about. What people generally have reason to bring about -- specifically, the desires that people generally have a reason to promote and strengthen, or to weaken and inhibit, through praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment, is almost entirely independent of whether you do or do not decide to aggreate all desires of all people in what you call "morality".

Alonzo Fyfe

There is nothing to prevent a word from having more than one unrelated meaning. Perhaps "ought" has more than one meaning. If it does, then the only meaning that I am interested in is the meaning associated with value. And "3 plus 3 ought to be 6" is not that sense of the word "ought".

The proposal:

"ought" = "is such as to affirm value in some object or state of affairs."

does not answer any questions. It would be like defining "circular" as "being such as to have the properties of a circle."

Now, there is a sense in which "he should have gotten an answer of '6'" means "'6' is the right answer to the question 'what is the sum of 3 and 3?'." And, accordingly, "He should have taken the job in Phoenix" can be taken to mean "Taking the job in Phoneix was the right answer to the question, 'what should I have done'". But they are still fundamentally different types of questions.

Danielboy

If your theory requires the use of praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment to cause one to have desires that will fulfil the desires of others, objectivity would then be contingent on the fact that people indeed use those tools to shape ones desires. In a community that does not practice these tools or for a person on a stranded island, morality as conceptualised by oneself will not be objective either (same as another one's). For if you cannot or do not compel me to consider beyond my own desires, I have absolutely no reason to lest I have a predisposition for empathy.

I agree with this. But i have no reason to only allow desires that do not, unless again society always in fact have methods with which to compel me otherwise

Bomb#20

Huh? DCT has the same is-ought structure as other theories like Utilitarianism. If having that structure makes a theory subjective, then DCT is subjective. Ascribing a magical get-out-of-subjectivity property to God isn't a defense. If any such magical property is possible, that is proof that having is-ought structure doesn't imply that a theory is subjective. If that's the case, why would you make an issue of is-ought? If we can make DCT objective by simply defining God's command as objective, then we can make Utilitarianism objective by simply defining happiness maximization as objective. Refusing to apply the laws of reasoning to God because He's God is a special-pleading fallacy.

It's easy to resolve. For morality to be real, it has to be independent of God's will. That's what Euthyphro proves. It's only a dilemma to a theist who has a theological problem with this conclusion. That's no more a real dilemma than a creationist's unwillingness to face the fact of evolution is. Theology is not evidence.

Yes. But "anything" means "any thing". Self-contradictory nonsense doesn't qualify as a "thing".