jpbrooks

Sorry about the late reply, bd. My Msntv text editor erased an entire day's worth of website search results again, and I'll have to retrieve all of my data. So this will probably be my final post on this topic.

Exactly. So only theories that purport to be making claims about the real world that are empirically testable, are refuted if they turn out to be unfalsifiable.

However, I especially like your next two comments ...

Thus, the main problem with empirically unfalsifiable versions of PE (from your assessment above) seems to be, not that they are simply unfalsifiable, but that they would have trouble explaining in what sense, if not the empirical one, their claims are meaningful.

Yes, we are admittedly straying too far off-topic. But this issue of the meaningfulness of unfalsifiable principles, claims, etc., is an interesting one.

This is why I said earlier that my originally intended line of argumentation might be irrelevant.
So, I'm content, at this point, to let your comments be the final "word" on this issue. And, I'm glad to have had the opportunity to discuss my views with you.

Mr. Sammi

bd-from-kg,

what do you think about an inherent give-take relationship within the human seeing life must have been created using exchange parameters? Do you think this could have lead to PE?

Sammi Na Boodie ()

The AntiChris

bd-from-kg

Apologies for resurrecting this but our phone line's been down for 5 days which has meant no internet access. I'd originally planned to give a detailed response to your Jan 16 post but having had time to reflect, I'd rather attempt to identify the precise source of our differences.

Using the mother and child example it seems there are two possibilities at the root of our disagreement.

It's possible that you're acknowledging that the mother is motivated by the contemplation of the inevitable anguish that she'll undoubtedly endure but that this isn't the fundamental motivation. That, because the mother's dread of grief only exists as a consequence of her love for the child, it is the mother's love that is the ultimate motivation. If this is what you're saying, then I don't think we're really in disagreement. However, I'm pretty sure this isn't your position.

It appears that what you're actually saying is that either the desires I've described have no motivational value at all (unlikely) or that whatever value they do have is irrelevant because there is a much stronger motivational force - the mother's love. In other words, the mother's desire that her child should live is a direct manifestation of her love and that any desire for subjective experiences are merely a consequence of this desire.

In my view a far more logical explanation would be that the mother's love is manifested as the pleasure she experiences from seeing her child grow and thrive. This in turn leads to the desire to sustain or prolong that pleasure and the consequent desire that her child should live.

If your account is correct, it follows, in theory at least, that a mother who derived no pleasure from her children would still be motivated to risk her life for them.

Of course, the mere fact that altruistic mothers also invariably desire subjective experiences (pleasure from the child's life and the avoidance of the pain of grief) does not prove that these desires, which indisputably possess the power to motivate, are the motivation for the mother's altruism. However, I'd need convincing evidence that they weren't the prime motivators before dismissing the possibility.

Chris

AnthonyAdams45

Would her word be enough? I know several mothers, including my own, willing to swear that they often put their children's need ahead of their own, often despising the children as they did so, but loving them all the while. If that isn't evidence, what is?

The AntiChris

I'd be reluctant to take, at face value, the word of a mother who claimed to genuinely despise and love her children simultaneously.

Parents say many things about their children out of sheer frustration or in anger. I really don't see this as evidence that such parents derive no pleasure from their children.

Chris

AnthonyAdams45

Are the two passages I quoted above intended to be logically and/or semantically equivalent. No one on this thread has ever said that parents do not derive pleasure from their children. What is, and has been at issue, was:
A love that is not dependent on pleasure, either now or in the future. In fact, some mothers perform unpleasant tasks for children they open claim only to hate, and to never love. They operate out of duty, a duty some claim (at least during their appearence on Oprah) to detest.

Now maybe these people are crazy, I don't know, but I know that some mothers have told me they loved their children at once. Just that, instant bonding, with no thought of pain or pleasure or hope or desire. If you can say that they are unaware of their own mental state, you are a better psychologist than I. It is that love that these mothers act on, not self-love.

The AntiChris

AnthonyAdams45
No, of course not. The second passage was in response to your claim that a mother who "despised" her children could also be altruistic. I assumed the point you were making was that a mother who derived no pleasure from her children could also be altruistic.
No, you're missing the point. The question at issue is whether or not a parent's desire to sustain/maximise the pleasure they derive from their children plays a necessary role in this "ultimate motivation".
Is acting out of a sense of "duty" that isn't motivated by a genuine concern or love for the child, normally considered to be altruism?I don't doubt it. We rarely submit our own emotional responses to rigorous self-analysis, so it's not surprising that the language we use to describe these emotions tends to reflect this.

Chris

bd-from-kg

The AntiChris:

Yes, that pretty well sums it up. Except that I wouldn’t say that the “desire for subjective experiences” is strictly irrelevant. All motivations are relevant. No doubt this one often plays a minor role.

Surely you would agree that the pleasure she experience from seeing her children grow and thrive has a source? It is not just a weird, inexplicable phenomenon? Well, what could that source be? Why, her love for the children and the consequent desire that they grow and thrive, of course! Her pleasure is the consequence of seeing her desire fulfilled. But once you see that, you can’t possibly also believe that she desires to see her children grow and thrive only because she wants to experience this very pleasure? That’s logically impossible. The pleasure and the desire cannot each be the cause of the other. What one desires cannot simply be the pleasure of seeing one’s desire fulfilled.

Besides, even if your position didn’t involve this logical impossibility, why would you find the one explanation “far more logical” than the other? What exactly is illogical about a desire that one’s children grow and thrive (for their sake)? Or why is it illogical to suppose that such a desire exists? It seems to me that this is not a logical question at all; it’s an empirical question. The way to settle it is to look at the evidence and consider what hypothesis provides the simplest, most parsimonious, least convoluted explanation.

Not so. A mother who was incapable of deriving pleasure from her children would obviously not love them, and therefore would of course not be motivated to risk her life for them.

No, it doesn’t. In fact, as I noted above, what it proves is that there must be another desire – a desire from which the satisfaction and the grief derive.

What would constitute evidence, much less convincing evidence, in your mind? If the mothers’ willingness to risk death (or even face certain death) to save their children isn’t “convincing evidence”, I don’t know what would be. In your last reply to AnthonyAdams45 you rejected personal testimony from the mothers themselves as to their motives as evidence. And you’ve made it clear by now that you don’t accept actions which can be explained far more parsimoniously in terms of other motivations as evidence. There really isn’t anything left. It would seem that, like 99percent, you’ve rendered your theory unfalsifiable, though in a different way.

But perhaps it’s still not hopeless. As I pointed out before, thought experiments can separate the two possible motives (a desire that the child grow and thrive and a desire to have or avoid some subjective experience) much more cleanly than any feasible real-life situations.

You’ll recall that in the other thread I quoted Nozick’s thought experiment involving an “experience machine”:

Let’s ignore Nozick’s questions for the moment and just take this idea and run with it. For example, let’s consider the following scenarios:

Scenario 1: The mother runs into the street at great risk to life and limb to snatch her child from an oncoming car.

Scenario 2: The mother plugs into an “experience machine” and lives the rest of her life in a virtual reality in which her child is fine; he lives long and prospers, and she derives great satisfaction from seeing him do so. But out in the real world the child has been badly maimed, suffers brain damage so severe that he can hardly put two words together, is in agony every second, and eventually (after ten years of this torment) dies.

Now every mother that I know of would vastly prefer Scenario 1 to Scenario 2. But why should this be, if what she really wanted all along was the satisfaction of seeing her child live and thrive? After all, she gets this satisfaction in Scenario 2 and doesn’t have to risk her life to get it. What does Scenario 1 have that could possibly make it more attractive than Scenario 2?

The answer, of course, is perfectly obvious: in Scenario 2 the child suffers and dies. But if all that the mother wants is desirable subjective experiences (satisfaction and no grief), how could this matter to her? Once she’s plugged into the experience machine, her child’s actual fate will have no effect on her; she’s guaranteed to have the most satisfactory subjective experiences that she could reasonably have hoped for. A preference for Scenario 1 is simply inexplicable in terms of motives that consist only (or even primarily) of desires for subjective experiences.

Here’s another example. Suppose that a lawyer knows that his indigent pro bono client is really innocent and tries to find proof of it that will be admissible in court. An advocate of PE will likely claim that he does so because he desires to experience the satisfaction of winning a case and keeping an innocent man out of jail. But is this true? Suppose that we offer him a special potion that will leave him totally convinced that he has gotten the man off. And with the potion comes an ironclad guarantee that he will never learn the truth; he will experience only the satisfaction that comes with believing that he has set an innocent man free. Will our lawyer jump at this opportunity? Why not? He’s never actually managed to free an innocent client before (mainly because he’s had very few innocent clients); this would be a great morale booster. In terms of his own subjective experiences, it’s a pure win-win offer. Out in the real world, of course, client will be less fortunate; he’ll rot in jail until he eventually commits suicide. But what of it? Our lawyer will know nothing about any of that. If the only thing that he really wants is desirable subjective experiences, there is no reason whatsoever not to take the offer. And yet most lawyers would reject such an offer with scorn. (And lawyers are notorious lowlifes.) The only rational explanation is that even lawyers do not desire only desirable subjective experiences; in fact, they have a number of less-than-overpowering desires that take precedence over such desires.

And yet again, suppose that Brown wants his wife and family to be protected from financial hardship if he should die. A PE advocate would presumable say that what he really wants is the peace of mind that would come from knowing that they’ll be taken care of. Both of these desires can be fulfilled by his buying an appropriate insurance policy. But that costs a lot of money, and even though Brown can afford it he’d rather keep the money for other things if he can. Now suppose that someone shows up and offers him a “peace of mind” pill. For only five dollars he can take this pill, and it will have the effect of making him believe that his family is taken care of if he dies. Of course they won’t be taken care of, but since he believes that they will, it will give him just as much peace of mind as buying the insurance policy. If what Brown wants is really the piece of mind rather than that his family actually be protected from hardship, he’ll jump at this opportunity. After all, if buying the insurance policy is just a means to the end of getting peace of mind, he won’t care how he achieves this end, and the pill is a lot cheaper than the policy. But in reality almost everyone would reject this offer, because what they really want is for their family to actually be protected, not that they come to believe that they’re protected.

One more. Jones loves his dear old mother (who lives far away) and wants her to be happy. A PE advocate would typically claim that what he really wants is to have the happiness and satisfaction that comes from knowing that she’s happy. The problem once again is that this end can be achieved just as well by a false belief that she’s happy as a true one. Thus, let’s again consider two scenarios:

Scenario 1: Jones is offered a big promotion to a very cushy, pleasant job that he likes and can do well. But the price is that his mother will be tortured mercilessly. However, he won’t know about this; he’ll believe that she’s perfectly happy.

Scenario 2: No promotion, but his mother is reasonably happy.

Now if what Jones really wants is to have the satisfaction of knowing (or what comes to the same thing, falsely believing) that his mother is happy, he will of course prefer Scenario 1. After all, there’s a big upside and no downside at all; it’s a no-brainer. But of course almost everyone would actually prefer Scenario 2, because what they really want is for their mothers to actually be happy, not to experience the happiness and satisfaction that come from believing that she’s happy.

Examples of this sort can be multiplied endlessly. Of course, with enough effort I suppose that you can come up with some kind of story to explain away any particular example. But surely it’s obvious by now that it’s far more parsimonious to explain such actions on the basis of desires for things other than subjective experiences. The mother’s motive is her desire that her child live; the lawyer’s motive is his desire that justice be done; the husband’s motive is his desire that his family be provided for; the son’s motive is his desire that his mother be happy. To continue to insist otherwise in the face of such examples requires a faith worthy of a saint. A sensible person will look at examples like these and conclude that PE is false; people are not always motivated exclusively, or even primarily, by desires for subjective experiences.

Waning Moon Conrad

I haven't read Ayn Rand or any of the others nor do I have time to.

I think it is entirely possible to be truly altruistic.

If you "do good by stealth" as that Bloke from Nazareth puts it and refrain from giving hints that it was you who did it, then you're at least on the right track.

It may be impossible for Ayn Rand to be truly altruistic but he or she has no right to go imposing their own limitations on the totality of all humans.

I wonder if the scriptwriter(s?) for "The Matrix" read this thought experiment of Nozick's?

You won't get me within cooee of such a machine!

Keith Russell

Waning, you've obviously not only not read Ayn's works, but you don't have a working knowledge of her ideas, either.

(By the way, Ayn was a she, and she died in the mid-80s. You refer to her in the present tense...)

Like you, Ms. Rand believed that altruism was very real, but unlike you, she believed that it was altogether evil.

Do you not also see the irony? You claim that Rand has no cause to force her views on others, yet you yourself explain what you believe one ought to do to be 'on the right track', as you say.

Keith.