Alonzo Fyfe

Adrian Selby:

"Agent desires that P", and "P is prescribed for Agent" can mean the same thing because a desire is a mental state that prescribes for Agent those actions that will bring about the state of affairs that is desired.

A desire is a thing that prescribes.

A desire that this headache goes away is a mental state that prescribes for Agent those actions that will lead to the statement "this headache has gone away" becoming true.

A desire that we get to the movie before it starts is a mental state that prescribes for Agent those actions that will lead to the statement "We made it to the movie before it started" being true.

A desire that one's child be healthy and happy is a mental state that prescribes for Agent those actions that will make the statement "My child is healthy and happy" true.

So, whenever you say, "Agent desires that P", you are also saying, "Agent has a mental state that prescribes for Agent those actions that will make the proposition "P" true."

Jade

Well yeah, if you define 'red' as 'being such as to appear red..." then of course the two statements are identical. The problem is that most people don't define 'red' that way -- they might open a dictionary and define it as 'being of the color red', or they might point to something and say 'that color right there'. When most people think of red, they are thinking about the subjective quality, not the various objective qualities that produce that subjective sensation within us. 'Red' is the label for the qualia of redness, and it just makes good sense to divide the subjective qualia from the objective qualities that generally produce it.

If you asked Locke whether or not the rose was 'really' red, he might talk to you about how the various primary and secondary qualities of the rose (none of which 'are red') produce the subjective sensation of 'red' in your mind. If you asked Kant about the rose, he might talk to you about the difference between the thing-in-itself (the noumenal rose) and the thing as we see it (the phenomenal rose), and about how we can say almost nothing about the noumenal world. If you asked a scientist he would say (as you pointed out above) that the table absorbs every spectrum of visible light but the one which we typically see as red. They would not say that the property of redness (the qualia of red) attaches to the real world object.

It is needlessly confusing to conflate the subjective sensation with the objective qualities that produce the subjective sensation.

[Edit to add: Anyway, do you have anything to say about my proper end model?]

Adrian Selby

I think we're missing the point. The is/ought gap is a moral issue. That I desire to kill people indiscriminately could be regarded as my having a state of mind that prescribes that certain actions occur, my killing of people. It does not follow that I ought to do it. What is the case and what ought to be the case are entirely different things. We've moved to attempting to equate desires with some sort of 'prescriptive states'. However, the prescription, to have a moral dimension, must not exist solely self referentially.

Ought I prescribe certain actions? The question to me appears meaningful, and insofar as it does, that a person has desires does not mean they ought to have those desires.

Ought a person have desires that generally lead to the fulfilment of further desires regardless of who's they are? Or ought a person have desires that generally lead to the fulfilment of their own further desires? It doesn't matter what the answer is, that people prescribe actions from themselves does not entail that they ought prescribe these actions. The gap is not bridged.

Pixnaps

Technically, all you've demonstrated here is implication, not logical equivalence. The arrow only goes in one direction:

Agent desires P => (implies) P is prescribed for Agent.

but NOT:
P is prescribed for Agent => Agent desires that P.

I'm sure this has just been a problem arising from miscommunication, however. What you're talking about is PRACTICAL prescriptions, whereas Adrian is raising the question of MORAL prescriptions. It is of course entirely possible for Agent to have a moral duty (prescription) for P, even though he does not desire it at all. (Wouldn't life be easy for us otherwise!)

It is a crucial question though (one which has been raised before, and I don't recall any entirely satisfying answer) as to how the desires of other people can have any prescriptive force on us.

It is easy enough to explain practical 'oughts' in terms of our own desire fulfilment, I agree there is a perfect logical equivalence there. (The arrows do indeed go both ways, so long as you restrict "prescription" to mean the practical sort).

But is the hypothesised equivalence of moral 'oughts' with fulfilment of all desires really justified?

In a purely descriptive sense, i would say "yes". You can replace moral terms with their Desire-Utilitarian equivalents, and (ceteris paribus) the propositions' meanings and truth-values remain unchanged.

But I'm not convinced that you can go any further than that. I'm not sure how you can plausibly retain the prescriptive element of ought-statements.

Then again, perhaps this is not really a problem. What exactly do we mean by 'prescriptive' here? I think of it as being a (real) reason why something should (or "ought") to be done. And surely the fulfilment of all desires counts as a reason in favour of something? So there IS prescriptivity in that sense (perhaps).*

The only prescriptivity that is lacking is the agent-centred variety. You know, something which is rationally prescribed for the agent. His self interest. That which would fulfill his own desires. Now obviously morality is incapable of providing such a prescription. Acting according to such a self-serving prescription would not be called "moral", but rather "prudent" (eg obeying laws because you don't want to get caught & punished).

So perhaps there is no great problem here after all... just demonstrations of our tendency to make unreasonable demands of morality.

edited to add:
* = But a reason for who exactly? Moral reasons are independent of any individual's desires, which may imply that it holds no genuine prescriptive hold over any individuals. Perhaps moral reasons are not really reasons at all. To argue otherwise, wouldn't one need to posit some trans-individual entity? "Society", perhaps, if you could conceive of human society as a conscious entity itself.

But otherwise, we do seem to have a problem here. How can you have a real "reason" which does not apply to any real people? Or if moral reasons DO count as reasons to us, then why is this? How can something be a reason for me to do X, unless X is such to fulfill my (own) desires? Sounds suspiciously like an implicit appeal to intrinsic values, come to think of it.

Well, no, not really. The values are those of other people, they're real enough... for them. I'm arguing myself in circles here... the problem may be nothing more than a failure to give practical (non-moral) reasons to support moral reasons. Which may be impossible. But even if so, that doesn't mean moral reasons AREN'T reasons. They're just of a different sort, is all.

ouch, my head...

Alonzo Fyfe

The Debate So Far

I would like to begin by offering a summary of the major debate elements.

The original post attempts to offer evidence that morality is hardwired.

My objection is that a hardwired morality is a contradiction in terms. Morality's principle of 'ought' implies 'can' has to deal with the use of the tools of praise, blame, reward, and punishment, and it makes no sense to use these tools except on traits that are maleable (that is, not hardwired). The article cited in the original post is actually consistent with this in that it demonstrates a number of characteristics that seem to be hardwired (that is to say, not maleable), and points out that these traits are placed outside of the realm of morality (that we, we do not use the tools of praise, blame, reward, and punishment on those who exhibit these characteristics).

A counter-objection to this is that the objection requires employing a force of counter-causal "free will" that does not exist.

The counter-counter-objection accepts that counter-causal "free will" does not exist but denies that it is a component of the objection. The objection is fully consistent with "determined choice", which is the type of choice a computer program (e.g., a chess playing program) exhibits as it analyzes different moves and selects from among the available options. The objection states that praise, blame, reward, and punishment are causes that have effects and that it is irrational to employ these causes on traits that they cannot effect (that is, on traits that are hardwired).

A second objection to the original post argues that it violates the fact/value distinction -- that from a set of facts (as with those that are acquired in the science of neurobiology), it is impossible to imply a value, which is a "different type of statement."

My counter-objection to this is that the objection requires postulating a dualist universe, a universe of "is" properties (facts), and a separate universe of "ought" properties (values) that somehow have the capacity to interact. The "is" universe is the only universe that exists, so either value is a part of the "is" universe, or it does not exist.

There are two counter-counter objections to this.

The first counter-counter-objection simply repeats the objection; the universe of "value" must be something outside of the universe of "fact". It leaves unanswered the question of how these two universes interact.

The second counter-counter-objection notes that there are statements, such as commands and interrogatories that are not propositions but which also are not descriptive. They do not refer to a mystical "second type of universe". However, it is also true that commands and interrogatories cannot sensibly be used to answer question -- they are senseless responses to the question "Why?" Yet, value propositions are constantly used to answer interrogatories. You can't travel more than two threads in either direction of this one without finding people treating value as a predicate. If we were to cease treating value as a predicate (as a part of the EXPLANATION for why things happen) there will be huge parts of our everyday lives that we could not longer explain, such as "Why am I sitting here writing this post?"

Okay, now I will get to Pixnap's statements.


Pixnaps

Okay, you're right, I have argued for the implication, "desire -> prescription", but not "prescription -> desire" -- both of which are necessary to prove logical identity, "desire <-> prescription."

Nothing but a "Agent desire that P" prescribes actions for agent that will make P true. No other prescriptive entity exists, so where there is a prescription there must be a desire somewhere giving it life. In other words, there is no value independent of desire.

Now, you also asked about ...how the desires of other people can have any prescriptive force on us."

An example that I commonly use to address this issue involves a person who desires to rape and murder a child, and all you have in order to convince him not to do it is a radio. How do you prevent him from raping and killing the child? What set of propositions can cause this person to decide not to rape and murder the child? That is to say, how do make "do not rape the child" prescriptive for this individual.

The answer is, you cannot. If this is the goal of morality, then it is a goal that is going to be continually frustrated. If this is what morality is about, then it is not about anything real.

There are only two ways to prevent this person from raping the child -- to make "do not rape the child" prescriptive for him. These are:

(1) To alter the person's desires so that he does not want to rape the child. If you can do this, the child is safe under all circumstances, even when you are not there to watch over her.

(2) Create a situation where raping the child will lead to a state of affairs that the person does not want more than he wants to rape and murder the child. Threaten him. This is a "second best" alternative, because the instant he finds a way to rape and murder the child and avoid the bad consequences you established, the child is in danger.

Note: There is a third option, to make it so that it is not causally possible for the person to rape and murder the child (e.g., by locking him in a room where he cannot reach the child), but this option has nothing to do with prescription.

Given these facts, it does not make sense for morality to be about a set of words that can be spoken to a person in a situation (that never exists in the real world anyway) to cause him by reason alone not to rape the child. It does not say that such a person has a reason not to rape the child. It prescribes, for us giving him a reason not to rape the child, either by alterning his desires so that he acquires a reason not to rape the child, or to treatening him with consequences that he already has a reason to avoid.

This is why we prescribe desires that fulfill other desires regardless of whose they are -- because we are the holders of those desires. The prescription is for us, and it is a prescription to give people these desires.

Regardless of our impotence in preventing the hypothetical person on the hypothetical island with the hypothetical child from raping and murdering the child, we still have reason to cause real people in the real world to have an aversion to raping and murdering children and for visiting upon them consequences they already have a reason to avoid if we should discover that they have done something they should have had a reason to avoid doing.

Pixnaps

"The prescription is for us" - ah, yes, looking at it that way certainly helps to clear up a lot of the muddle!

i'd heard your "2 ways to prevent the rape" argument several times before, but the implications of that (i.e. morality being prescriptive for US, rather than the potential rapist) had previously escaped me.

I guess i'd gone some way towards that conclusion (by seeing morality as a social institution we propagate in order to fulfill our desires generally), but I never entirely gave up on the intuitive feeling that somehow the rapist really OUGHT not commit the rape... and by this i mean "ought not" in terms of some mystical god-like or intrinsic-value-ish property which proscribes him from doing so. Alas, no such things exist (and yet even once this is recognised, they are hard to let go of, aren't they!).

Anyway, thanks for clearing that up. A very fine answer. :notworthy

Vinnie

Since its contents appear to be similar to many of those in this thread, I was wondering if anyone read or heard anything about 'The Science of Good and Evil' by Michael Shermer? Its pretty new. I picked it up at the bookstore yesterday. Looks like it will be a fascinating read.

Vinnie

RED DAVE

From Robert Anthony:This is, of course, a reference to Jews.

RED DAVE