Koyaanisqatsi

Then it is and must be subjective.

Unless a human is on that moon in order to subjectively apply (aka, enforce) his or her own personal, subjective morality!

You are only supporting my position.

If it isn't wrong for a dog to kill another dog then how can it be wrong for a man to kill another man unless a necessarily subjective application has occurred, for if "killing" were "objectively wrong" then it would apply to any form of killing, dog, man, amoeba, plant, etc., because that is the purpose of so qualifying something as "objectively true!"

Just as in bd's invalid analogy, the fact that the Earth's age is independent of humanity establishes that fact as an objectively true fact!

Again, you are merely subverting the purpose of qualifying something as "objective," which is nothing more than transposing the meaning of the word "subjectivity" onto the word "objectivity."

What is the point of doing that?

The whole reason there are qualitative delineations between that which is considered "objective" and that which is considered "subjective" (i.e., the whole reason we concocted such words to begin with) is so that such clear delineations could be easily communicated.

All you are here arguing for is graying that clarity for no justifiable purpose.

If morallity is only subject to human existence, then it is pointless to argue that it can or can't be "objectively true;" a far more proper and coherent phrase (as I mentioned previously) would be to simply state "true for all humans," but even that can never be established.

It is not possible for you (or anyone, for that matter) to establish that it is morally wrong for all humans to masturbate.

Once again and for auld lang syne, the closest you could come is a perceived state of objectivity, or, better, in keeping with the need to be as specific as possible in the words we choose, the closest anyone could ever come is to state that the majority of humans would agree that it is morally wrong to masturbate.

Once again, it does in fact come down to agreement that necessarily excludes (as you point out) a maxim that can be said to exist independentaly of human existence.

Since it does not exist independent of human existence, it is trivially pointless to label it "objective."

Would this be you as a human speaking referrencially about yourself and fellow humans as if you were speaking "outside", because that is the perception your choice of words implies; aka, the perception of objectivity, when in fact, you are not and cannot be speaking in such a manner, yes?

Again, all that is being argued for is the graying of a term already defined for a trivial and pointless end. We already have a word that describes perfectly what it is you are getting at: subjective.

Then you are merely affirming the fact that it was an invention of humans by humans for humans, aka, a subjectively applied construct.

Categorically false, if the definition and purpose of the word "objective" is to have an relevant meaning.

Again, bd's invalid analogy. The age of the Earth is said to be objectively true precisely because it exists independent of human perception or belief or existence, for that matter.

That is the defining and delineating quality of the word "objective." Why remove it?

Then you are simply misusing the term "objective" in a trivial and pointless manner as well as an invalid manner, since, once again, it is not possible to establish that masturbation's "wrongness" is "objectively true for all humans."

It cannot be done because of the inherently subjective nature of the quality of "wrongness" (aka, morality) that you are here attempting to blur.

As with everyone else, I invite you prove me wrong by establishing both the how and why of masturbation's "wrongness" being "objectively true for all humans" (a needless redundancy, since "true for all humans" suffices).

If you cannot do this in your next post, then you must concede that it is not possible to do.

That's my gauntlet thrown for the fifth time (I think?).

Establish that it is true for all humans that masturbation is "morally wrong" and provide the mechanism for it.

The reason, by the way, that I continue to use masturbation as the example is because it demonstrates the trivial nature of what is being argued without the emotional baggage of something more controversial, such as rape or murder.

The argument isn't does anyone consider murder to be morally right (though it can and has been addressed) per se, but whether or not anyond can establish that an action contains its own innate quality of "rightness" or "wrongness" that is "true for all humans."

Heads down, thumbs up.

And, once again, you have just supported my position by pointing out that the action is chosen, just as the reaction is chosen and not innate in the act itself.

I masturbate. You consider that to be morally wrong according to your own perception of what is or is not morally wrong and that is the end of it, for it is not possible for you to establish the innate quality of "wrongness" in the act of masturbation that would therefore mandate my acceptance (or denial) of your perceptions of what is or is not to be considered wrong or right!

IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO DO IN ANY POSSIBLE WORLD

If you still maintain that I am incorrect, then prove it, please.

Prove it.

Prove it and show your work.

That was not the conditional you posited in your post that I was responding to; my argument has always been that objective morality must exist independently of human existence in order for it to be considered "objective."

Anything less (such as "true for all humans") proves subjectivity. Homocentric subjectivity, at that.

Other than the fact that my argument has been that for the "rightness" or "wrongness" to be considered "objectively true" (as in the age of the Earth) it must be independent of human existence for there to be any qualitative meaning to the qualifier "objective," I fail to understand why you can recognize the absurdity of the argument, yet continue to argue it.

What is absurd is to argue for the use of the phrase "objectively true for all humans" when all you need to say is, "True for all humans."

Throwing in the qualifier "objective" is unnecessary.

YOU HAVE JUST SUPPORTED THE SUBJECTIVITY OF MORALITY!

Yes, in fact, it does! Again, bd's invalid analogy! The Earth's age is "objectively true" precisely because it is independent of human existence or belief. That is the purpose of using the qualifier "objective"!

<ol type="1">[*] Nothing is "good" or "bad" within the understanding of all human minds[*] What is "good" or "bad" within the understanding of any human mind is therefore inescapably delineated as being subjectively understood[*] If you are arguing for something being "true" within all human minds, then the use of the qualifier "objective" is redundant at best and inapplicable at worst, so don't ever do it[/list=a]

The purpose of language is to communicate specific meaning, not pointlessly and hopelessly vague meaning, so why misuse a word in this manner?

Again, what would be the point?

If you want to claim that something is "true" for all humans, then just use the proper terminology (aka, "I claim this is true for all humans").

Try to force in the phrase "objectively true" for all humans and you have automatically skewed the intention of your meaning, because "objectively true for all humans" is little more than a contradiction in terms.

I see. So you're making a subjective delineation in order to qualify what it is you consider to be the moral wrongness barometer when it comes to the action: Murder.

You have demonstrated my argument perfectly and for that I thank you.

And, just for the record, you have made a further subjective delineation that what a dog does to another dog, for example, is not to be considered at all, because you have personally concluded (based on something, I suppose, somewhere) that dogs "have no volition."

Is that correct? "Volition" is your personal, subjectively decided upon delineation point for when "human morality" (I know, in your world, that's redundant) becomes "human plus dog that has been established to display human-like volition morality," yes?

That's quite an objective subjectivity you've got going there .

Technical note: you had stated "affect" your life, consciousness or volition.

I subjectively interpreted your intended meaning in a different manner, I suppose.

[ May 31, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

Alonzo Fyfe

bd-from-kg:

On my claim that some-things-considered ethics are an ethics of selfishness et al.

Now there are lots of moral subjectivists on these boards who will give you a stiff argument on this.

Of course there are.

But, they will either assert some sort of desire-independent "intrinsic" value, or attempt to derive "ought" from "is", or exaggerate the probability or the harms of getting caught, or invent some odd metaphysical harm that the wrongdoer must necessary suffer, or presume that society will only seek retribution against people who actually do something wrong as opposed to, say, seek retribution against another for insulting one's god or violating some baseless taboo, or one of dozens of other mistakes.

And yet, at best, the welfare of others by an agent under such a system is contingent -- the reason why one should be concerned for the well being of others is the same as the reason why one should be concerned for the well being of his home, tools, or some other possession -- because one can extract more use from them that way.


What’s your objection to an ethic of selfishness, cruelty, violence, abuse, and exploitation?

What are you asking? Are you asking me the reason why I am reluctant to call a some-things-considered ethic "morality" the way that Phil might ask Sophia why she is reluctant to say that atoms do not have any parts?

If so, then, sure, Sophia may answer in the ways that you describe -- by asserting some personal distaste in using the word 'atom' in such a way, or by making some comment about how the general use of such a term will lead to a state of affairs she dislikes, or express an opinion that the use of the word 'atom' in such a way would generate more confusion and misunderstanding than using the term instead to refer to the smallest bits of an element.

But what does it say about the science of chemistry that Sophia may answer Phil's question in any of these ways? It does not disprove Sophia's claim that atoms (the way that she uses the terms) has parts. It does not make any proposition contained within Sophia's thesis false.


So it appears that this argument for preferring an all-things-considered moral theory cannot withstand critical scrutiny.

What argument is that?

Are you talking about my argument for CALLING these all-things-considered evaluations "moral evaluations?" Then, certainly, my arguments are going to be pretty much the same as Sophia's arguments for CALLING these smallest pieces of an element "atoms" even though she has discovered they are not without parts. At which point I must ask what part of the argument fails to withstand critical scrutiny. I have never claimed any special ability to deduce natural laws over what things are called.

Are you talking about my argument why you or anybody else (practical-)ought (given your/their own desires) to prefer an all-things-considered moral theory independent of whatever you may desire? I never made such an argument. Quite the opposite -- I have repeatedly asserted that no sound argument can be made. Desire-independent value does not exist, and relative to an agent's own desires the well being of others is at best contingent.

So, what claim did I make about all-things-considered value that turns out to be unable to withstand criticial scrutiny?


It just means that anyone who is not naturally inclined to "consider all things" will not find such reasons persuasive.

I have said this repeatedly myself.

I am a moral externalist. What a person morally ought to do is independent of what an agent has any reason to do. A good person will do what he morally ought because it is consitent with his desires. An evil person will not find any reasons for considering the welfare of others persuasive -- doing the right thing is not something he can be argued into. Yet, it may be possible to persuade him through other means.

Here, you typically answer back that it violates the very meaning of 'ought' to say that a person 'ought' to do something that he has no reason to do. That's fine. It also violates the very meaning of 'ought' that it applies to a disregard for the well being of others. And you can't have it both ways -- just as the word 'atom' cannot, at the same time, both refer to the minute particles of gold, iron, lead, and the like and have no parts. So, decide how you want to use the term moral-ought. Use it in an agents-reasons-only sense and end up with a morality of selfishness et al., or use it in a way that includes regard for the wellbeing of others and allow that only agents concerned for the well being of others can be persuaded to do what they ought.

I can give you my vote, but my vote on this matter is not substantially different than Sophia's vote that the smallest bits of gold, lead, etc., continue to be called 'atoms' even though they have parts.

bd-from-kg

99percent:

I may be getting closer to understanding your thinking here, but I’m not sure.

I suspect that you are confusing objective, absolute, and deontological moral theories. Absolute moral theories say that there are universally valid moral rules of the form “In any circumstances that satisfy definition X, one should [or should not] do Y”. Now in theory it is possible that there could be rules of this sort which happen to be universally valid in the sense that following them always leads to the “best” consequences. But no one has ever been able to find such a rule, and almost no one believes that there are any. Thus absolute moral theories are almost always deontological – that is, they say that the rightness or wrongness of an action depends on the intrinsic nature of the act itself rather than on its consequences.

Thus if one is determined to find “universal moral principles” - i.e., principles which are absolutely valid; which have no exceptions - one is led inevitably to a deontological moral theory. And of course, in a deontological theory, since the “rightness” of an act depends on the intrinsic nature of the act itself, it cannot depend on the happiness or unhappiness it causes. Indeed, the classic expression of the spirit of deontological morality is “Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.”

If one is a nontheist, there are strong reasons to believe that deontological theories are false. Such theories only make sense on the assumption that some acts have an inherent property of “rightness” and others of “wrongness”. But it seems to be impossible for a nontheist to give any reasonable account of the nature of such supposed properties. As philosophers have come to appreciate the difficulty of giving any intelligible account of how deontological moral principles could be valid in the absence of a “divine lawgiver”, there have come to be very few nontheistic philosophers who believe in deontological theories.

But objective moral theories are a different matter. An objective theory say only that it is sometimes objectively true that a particular action by a particular person at a particular place and time is right, and that it is sometimes objectively true that such a specific action is wrong. Such theories do not claim that there are universally valid moral principles of the kind described earlier. Objective moral theories need not be deontological; classical utilitarianism is a well-known example.

By far the most common alternative to deontological theories are consequentialist theories (again exemplified by utilitarianism). Theories of this type say that the “rightness” or “wrongness” of an action depends entirely on its consequences. (Such theories do not rule out the possibility that there are universally valid moral principles, but whether there are is not a central question in such theories, because even if there are, the “rightness” of an act does not consist in its being an instance of such a general rule, but derives from the fact that its consequences are “better” in some sense than those of the available alternatives.) Now obviously one type of consequence of some interest to most people is the happiness and unhappiness that an act causes, and practically all consequentialist theories agree that these are at least among the consequences that determine the rightness or wrongness of an act.

Needless to say, I reject deontological theories and strongly favor the consequentialist point of view. And for consequentialist theories the direct causes of happiness or unhappiness are clearly relevant to the question of whether an act is right or wrong, because (among other things) the act itself might be such a direct cause. And the fact that some people have a different concept of what happiness is (meaning that different things make different people happy) simply means that under some circumstances whether it is right to do X or Y depends on whom you are doing it to.

As to your statement that “objective morality cannot be based on empathy”, it depends in large part on what you mean by empathy”. One meaning of empathy is knowledge and understanding of what makes another person “tick”: his beliefs, attitudes, emotions, etc. Another meaning is identification with another person: “feeling his pain” and the like. Generally speaking, the rightness of an act does not depend on how much you identify with the people affected. But it is certainly proper to take into account any knowledge and understanding that you may have regarding them, because it will help you to predict what effect your action will have on them. In this sense objective morality can be “based on empathy”.

You can’t reject such utilitarian considerations as being irrelevant to objective morality and then drag them in through the back door. Besides, this is an empirical claim, which can easily be shown to be false (unless your reference to “true” happiness is a preparation for the “no true Scotsman” fallacy).

Reality is not as simple as your ivory-tower abstractions.

(1) In the real world it is often impossible to allow the one in pain to decide on the treatment. For example, suppose a patient appears to be in severe pain but fails to respond to all attempts at communication. Would it be wrong to administer treatment to relieve the pain? Suppose that it’s not just a question of pain but of survival. Would it be wrong to administer life-saving treatment that also eliminates the pain?

(2) In other cases the patient is a child. It’s obvious (I hope) that children should not be permitted to make life-and-death decisions, even about their own lives.

(3) In still other cases the patient is not in his right mind. He might refuse treatment because he thinks that the doctor is a space alien out to take over his body. Should he really be allowed to make this decision for himself?

(4) In yet other cases a person may want to end his life, but there are strong reasons to believe that this desire is transient, and that if you prevent him from carrying out this wish he will be glad that you did, and have a happy, fulfilling life.

Unfortunately for your theory, the only relevant factors in such cases are those relating to the welfare of the person involved. But this is just the sort of thing that you want to exclude from consideration in making moral judgments.

Now in your replies to my questions about how you “knew” that various moral principles and statements were valid, you ignored in every case my question “How do you deduce this from objective facts about the real world?” I already know how these claims can be justified on the basis of generally accepted moral principles; the whole point was that, IMO, they cannot be derived from such objective facts. Alonzo and I have been trying and trying to help you see that this cannot be done, but you seem to be blind to the implicit moral premises in all of your arguments, and so imagine that you have deduced the conclusions solely from objective facts about the real world.

So instead of going through these in detail, I’ll conclude by looking at your latest argument regarding slavery. It can be summarized as follows:

P1: Man needs to think and reason in order to survive.
P2: In order to think and to reason man requires volition.
P3: Slavery undermines volition.
C1: Slavery is morally wrong.

Now as it stands this isn’t even an argument; the conclusion appears out of nowhere. Clearly there are some missing premises. Here is my best guess as to what you had in mind:

P1: Survival is good.
P2: Other things being equal, anything that undermines something good is wrong.
P3: Man needs to think and reason in order to survive.
P4: In order to think and to reason man requires volition.
P5: Slavery undermines volition.
C1: Slavery undermines the ability to think and reason. (from P4 and P5)
C2: Slavery undermines survival. (from P3 and C1)
C3: Slavery undermines something good. (from P1 and C2)
C4: Other things being equal, slavery is wrong. (from P2 and C3).

Here at least is a valid argument. Unfortunately it has a few serious defects:

(i) P3 is questionable, and P5 is flat-out false.

(ii) The conclusion is weak; it says only that slavery is wrong if there are no factors other than the survival of the slaves to be taken into account. But what it enslaving them enhances the survival of the owners? P1 entails that this is a morally significant consideration.

The “other things being equal” clause found its way into the conclusion from P2, which was not among your original premises. But is it needed to make the argument go through. And if we leave this clause out of P2 it is plainly false.

(iii) At best the argument shows that slavery is wrong only to the extent that it interferes with survival, and for that matter only to the extent that it does so as a result of undermining the ability to think and reason. In practice this effect is very weak. In fact, if it could be shown that certain slaves lived longer than they would have if they had remained free, your argument would break down entirely for that case.

For example, let’s imagine that a race of unusually big, strong people is discovered in an area where there is a serious shortage of food and other necessities (or the incidence of fatal natural disasters is unusually high), so that their life expectancy is low. Many of them are enslaved, shipped to another continent, and set to heavy manual labor. But the slaves are well fed and receive good medical care, and as a result live much longer than those who remain free. Obviously your argument does not apply to them, since C2 is false. Is it therefore right to enslave them?

This shows the pitfalls of attempting to base morality entirely on survival.

Oh, and your argument has one more little flaw:

(iv) P1 is a moral premise. It cannot be derived from objective facts about the real world. So even if the argument were sound it would fail to meet the original objective.

To be sure, you did not include P1 in your original argument, but without it the argument does not go through.

bd-from-kg

Alonzo Fyfe:

On values, desires, and consequences

In your May 18, 5:22 AM post you said:

Your 6:09 AM post echoed this:

At first sight this claim is puzzling, to say the least. For example, in what sense do values that are “anchored” in desires “exist in the real world”? Why do values have to be “anchored” in this way in order to be “real”?

Your May 21, 4:06 PM post shed some light on your thinking here:

Again I’m puzzled. It seems to me that it only makes sense to say that values are “capable of causing muscles to move” if you equate values and desires. [To follow your terminology strictly one should say that a value is the relationship between a desire and the thing desired, but I don’t see how this relationship can cause muscles to move, nor do I see much point in making such subtle distinctions in a discussion of this sort.] But if values are identical to desires, you are not making an “ontological” claim at all, but stating a tautology: to maximize the satisfaction of desires is to maximize the attainment of values.

But it seems to me that you are committing an elementary error in logic. The reasoning seems to be:

To say that a thing has value is to say that it is valued.
To say that something is valued is to say that it is desired.
Therefore nothing has value unless it is desired.

A simpler (and more “classical”) version of this is: “To say that a thing is desirable is to say that it is desired”, or “It is only meaningful to say that something is desirable if it is actually desired”. But this is fallacious. It will perhaps be easier to see the fallacy if we first explore what this idea entails in some concrete situations.

(1) Suppose that Smith is a habitual user of a drug that causes irrational thinking. It isn’t addictive, but it’s ruining his life. He could escape from his self-destructive spiral simply by not taking it any more. But an aspect of the irrational thinking caused by the drug itself is that he doesn’t want to stop taking it; on the contrary, he wants a continuing, reliable supply of it. And sadly, there is no one who knows that he’s using it and cares about his welfare one way or the other. Once again, it seems reasonable to me to say that it would be desirable for Smith to stop taking the drug even though no one desires that he do so.

One of the more perverse aspects of your moral system is that in this situation, to the extent that one has a moral duty toward Smith regarding his drug habit, it is a duty to help him to obtain a continuing, regular supply of the drug. It would actually be immoral to help him to break his habit, since this would result in the satisfaction of fewer existing desires. Of course, strictly speaking this follows only if you have no desire to help Smith escape from his habit. But under your system there would be no rational reason for you to want to do so, and in any case many people would not have any such desire. Also, Smith’s desire to continue taking the drug is likely to be much stronger and more stable than any transient desire that you might have to see him stop taking it, unless you happen to have a special personal interest in him.

(2) Suppose that no one has yet conceived of the state of affairs in question. As a simple example, it’s very possible that in 1800 no one had even imagined the possibility of a telephone. But if it had been thought of, many people would probably have wanted one. It seems to me that it is reasonable to say that it would have been desirable (other things being equal) for these people to have telephones even though no one had such a desire.

In fact, there are undoubtedly many things that have not yet been thought of today that a great many people would want if they had conceived of the possibility of their existence. It seems perverse to say that none of these things is desirable merely because no one has thought of them yet.

(3) Suppose that everyone believes that they will enjoy eternal bliss if they accept Jesus as their savior. He devotes his entire life to worshiping Jesus, studying the Bible, etc. But in fact (we will stipulate for the sake of the example) Christianity is false. It seems reasonable to me to say that it would be desirable for everyone to abandon Christianity and face reality.

(4) A similar example: suppose that Buddhism is true. Then what everyone would be doing if they understood the situation is whatever is required to escape from the endless cycle of rebirth and achieve nirvana. But (we will assume for the sake of the example) the Buddha has not appeared, so no one has the slightest idea that this is true. As a result, no one has the slightest desire to follow this path, or the slightest idea of how to go about it even if they wanted to. Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to me to say that it would be desirable for them to do so and achieve nirvana.

(5) Suppose that the state of affairs in question lies far enough in the future that no one alive today will be alive then, and it happens that no one alive today desires that it come to pass, because they simply don’t care what kind of life people in the future will have. But if it should come to pass, the people who would then be alive would find it very desirable and would be very glad that it had. It seems to me that it is reasonable to say that such a state of affairs is desirable even though no one desires it.

Now you might argue here that the desires of the people involved “count” because they will exist. but this doesn’t work, because the nature of human reproduction is such that two choices with significant different consequences will, over time, result in a completely different set of people. Thus if a choice is made that does not produce the state of affairs in question, the people who would exist in it will not exist at all. So the existence of their desires is contingent on the making of the choice in question. Surely such possible desires, which will only come into existence long after the choice is made, and even then only if the choice is the one that brings them (and the people who will potentially have them) into existence, cannot be allowed to “count” under your system; to do so would be circular.

[By the way, when I gave a similar example earlier you mistakenly attributed my belief that the future in question would be “desirable” to the fact that I desired it. But in fact my grounds this belief were that the people involved would find it so.]

In each case we have a state of affairs such that, if it existed, the people involved would find it quite desirable – much more so, in fact, than the present state of affairs – and their desires would reflect this. But the desires in question are not actual, existing desires, but potential ones, and as you would put it, potential desires are not capable of “making muscles move”, so they don’t count.

There are several reasons for this situation. In (1) the state of affairs in question was not desired because the people involved were not sufficiently rational. In (2) the reason was insufficient understanding: an inability to imagine, or to recognize the possibility, of the state of affairs. In (3) the problem was false beliefs, in (4) it was lack of knowledge. In (5) the problem was that the “beneficiaries” of the state of affairs did not yet exist to have desires (and never would come to exist unless the state of affairs was actually brought into existence).

Now let’s imagine that the situation is a little different in each case.

In (1), let’s suppose that Smith’s supply of the drug happens to be interrupted for a while, and he comes to understand the effect the drug has been having on him and wants to stop taking it. Now according to your theory the state of affairs in which he has stopped taking it is desirable even though it wasn’t before. But most people (including me) would say that it was always desirable, and that Smith has simply come to recognize its desirability as a result of being free of the effects of the drug itself.

In (2), let’s suppose that someone actually thought of the idea of the telephone and publicized his idea (although he still had no idea how to actually make one). The idea catches on. Now suddenly, according to your theory) a state of affairs in which many people have telephones is desirable, though it wasn’t before. But most people would say that such a state of affairs was always desirable, and that many people have simply come to recognize its desirability now that they have imagined it.

The same kind of thing can be imagined for the remaining scenarios. (In (5), for example, we can imagine that someone portrays the possible future in question [and its bleaker alternatives] so vividly that most people come to care about which future comes to pass.) In each case your theory says that the state of affairs in question would then be desirable, although it wasn’t before. But it seems self-evident to me that if the state of affairs is desirable after the situation changes, it was always desirable; all that will have happened is that many people would have come to recognize its desirability.

Indeed, on reflection it seems quite implausible that the question of whether one future state of affairs is more desirable than another is actually determined by “counting heads” to see how many people desire the one future state over the other. If this were so, it would be self-contradictory for someone taking an “all-things-considered” point of view to say that, although he knows very well that almost everyone else wants him to try to bring about future A, he believes that he should try to bring about future B. In your theory, knowing that the consensus is overwhelmingly against him would be decisive; it would be meaningless to say that such a consensus is “wrong”.

By now the nature of the fallacy in the notion that to say that something is desirable is to say that it is desired should be clear. What matters is not whether a future state of affairs is in fact desired, but whether it would be desired by the individuals involved if they were sufficiently rational and had sufficient knowledge and understanding. To be more precise, the question is how much such individuals would value this state of affairs. (If you prefer, the question is whether, and how strongly, they would like to see the “time line” they are on continue as opposed to simply passing out of existence.)

The decisive objection, in my mind, to preference-based theories like yours is that they are not not consequentialist: they say that the “rightness” of an action is not determined by its consequences, but by the desires that actually exist. I pointed out earlier the basic problem with non-consequentialist theories, but you never responded to this point, so let me repeat it here:

“Suppose that Smith has only two choices, A and B, while Jones in the future will have the choices A' and B'. Now suppose that A and A' are essentially the same in all morally relevant ways, as are B and B', and moreover that the consequences of A and A' are essentially the same in all morally relevant ways, as are those of B and B'. Most people would say that under these conditions, if it is right for Smith to do A it is right for Jones to do A', and if it is wrong for Smith to do A it is wrong for Jones to do B'. But in your system this is not necessarily the case. If the aggregate of relevant desires is different in Jones’s case from what it was in Smith’s case, it can happen that A is right for Smith while A' is wrong for Jones, or vice-versa.”

This should make it clear why most nontheistic moral philosophers not only reject deontological theories (which have the same problem) but also reject preference-based theories and stick with consequentialism.

I believe that this line of argument can be continued to show that the most natural, defensible all-things-considered moral theory is classical utilitarianism. But I would prefer to get back to more central issues at this point, so I’ll stop here.

Alonzo Fyfe

bd-from-kg:
It seems to me that it only makes sense to say that values are "capable of causing muscles to move" if you equate values and desires.

[Note: The following material about propositional attitudes is not something I invented. It is classic 'philosophy of mind' material.]

I am not sure what you mean by the word 'equate' here.

A value is a property of a house, job, a piece of art, a sunset, anything that is being evaluated. A desire is a brain state. Whatever properties a house, job, sunset, etc., may have, none of them are brain states. But they can have the property of standing in a particular relation to a brain state.

Desires are propositional attitudes -- an attitude towards a proposition. All propositional attitudes can be written in the form:

Person A &lt;insert propositional attitude here&gt; that &lt;insert proposition P here&gt;

Examples:

Person A believes that he will get an increase of more than 3% at his next review.

Person A hopes that he will get an increase of more than 3% at his next review.

A proposition is the meaning component of a sentence. Propositions are expressed in the form of a complete sentence (which may be either true or false) such as "He will get an increase of more than 3% at his next review." However, several sentences can express the same proposition as long as all sentences mean the same thing.

There are two families of propositional attitudes; beliefs and desires. "Hope" in the example above is an example of a desire-attitude.

Beliefs differ from desires in that, if A believes that P then A has a mental attitude that the proposition P is true, whereas if A desires that P then A has a mental attitude that proposition P is to be made true or made to remain true. In other words, A is motivated to a degree proportional to the strength of the desire to act in such a way that P becomes or remains true.

If a person desires that P, and P is true in a state of affairs S, and action X will causally bring about S, then a person has a motivating reason to perform action X. That strenth of that motivating reason is determined by the strength of the desire.

However, person A may not know that he has a reason to do X. This would be the case if A does not believe that P is true of S, or that X will causally bring about S.

Beliefs and desires are encoded in the brain and triggers a signal to travel to the muscle generating the movement (barring physical defect) that will cause the action bringing about the desired end.

Whereas a house, job, piece of art, sunset, etc. does not have a property that is a brain state, it does have the capacity to play a role within proposition P. So, the value of the house is not equated to a desire. The value of the house is determined whether or not the set of propositions that are true of the house (or that would be true if A should buy the house) are propositions that A desires to make true.


To follow your terminology strictly one should say that a value is the relationship between a desire and the thing desired...

Strictly speaking, a true proposition containing a value-laden element states that a (set of) proposition(s) that are true of that which is being evaluated are propositions that are the objects of some (set of) desire(s).


but I don't see how this relationship can cause muscles to move...

An agent who desires that P and who believes that P is true of that which is being evaluated is motivated to a degree proportional to the strength of the desire to bring about that which is believed to contain P. Beliefs and desires are encoded in the brain, send a signal down the neural network, and move the arms, legs, mouth, tongue, etc.

The value in that which is being evaluated rests in P being an object of desire and P being true of that which is being evaluated.

(Though it takes only a belief that P is true of that which is being evaluated and a desire that P in order for the agent to be motivated to bring about that which is being evaluated, value depends on P actually being true. If P is in fact false, and wrongly believed to be true of that which is being evaluated, then S does not have the value the agent believes it does, though the agent will still try to bring about that which he falsely believes will make P true until he realizes his error.)


...if values are identical to desires, you are not making an "ontological" claim at all,

Are you talking about logical identity here?

I am making no claim about the meanings of words. The only type of identity I would be willing to assert would be like the identity between water and H2O. Certainly, when ancient Greeks spoke of water they did not mean H2O, yet what they called water was in fact H2O. To say that water = H2O is an ontological claim.


But it seems to me that you are committing an elementary error in logic. The reasoning seems to be:

To say that a thing has value is to say that it is valued.
To say that something is valued is to say that it is desired.
Therefore nothing has value unless it is desired.

Nope.

Your second sentence is a linguistic claim -- a claim about the meaning of words. And that is not the type of claim that I am making. Try this:

To say that a thing has value as an end in itself is to say that people are motivated to bring it about as an end in itself.
The only motivational forces that exists to drive people to bring something about as an end in itself are desires.
Therefore, nothing has (final) value unless it is the object of a desire.

Now, the second sentence is not a linguistic claim at all. It is a claim about the causes of human action.

The way to disprove this would be to show that there are other forces that would cause an individual to intentionally act to bring about a particular end.


(1) Suppose that Smith is a habitual user of a drug that causes irrational thinking...

In this example, you built your conclusion (it would be desirable for Smith to stop taking the drug) into your premises (the drug is "ruining his life"). "Ruining his life" is a value-laden expression. As a value-laden expression, it is true only if the drug is causing certain propositions about his life to be true to which somebody (Smith himself?) is averse.

Actually, the phrase 'nobody desires that he do so' is misleading. It may be the case that nobody believes that the propositions that are true of Smith's life are those to which anybody (Smith?) has a negative desire (aversion). Perhaps this is an effect of the drug. Or they may have desires that are better fulfilled by Smith not taking the drug and not know that Smith's not taking the drug will fulfill these desires. In which case, Smith's not doing so has value, but it is an undiscovered value.

You may want to answer that this is circular. But that would be a valid objection only if I were making a linguistic claim. But I am not defending a linguistic claim, I am defending an ontological claim. And such a claim can only be discredited if it can be shown that the theory cannot adequately explain a phenomenon using the entities postulated within the theory. And such a theory is defended by showing that the entities postulated in the theory do explain the phenomena (or by suggesting that the phenomena -- such ass ghosts and ESP) are not real phenomena that the theory must explain).


(2) ...it's very possible that in 1800 no one had even imagined the possibility of a telephone....

In the 1800s, it is very possible that people had desires which could better be fulfilled if they had the capacity to transmit messages to others over long distance over a short period of time -- the shorter the better. Any instrument that would fulfill these desires would have value.

In other words, in 1800, people had a desire that P (e.g., to be able to talk to their sister whenever they wanted even though their sister lived in another country). P is true in a state of affairs that includes telecommunication. Therefore, a state of affairs that includes telecommunication has value relative to those desires.


(3) Suppose that everyone believes that they will enjoy eternal bliss if they accept Jesus as their savior....

What people believe is irrelevant. A "desire that P" can only be fulfilled by a state of affairs where P is true. A state of affairs where a person desires that P, and falsely believes P is true in S, is one where he falsely believes that S has value. The value statement is false.


(4) ...suppose that Buddhism is true.

Well, actually, I can't suppose that Buddhism is true without supposing that the claims that I have made here are false, since Buddhism holds that desire-independent values exist.

Yet, your main point I believe is this:

What if people desire that P, P is true in state of affairs S, but those who desire P do not know that P is true in S.

In such a case, S has undiscovered value. But it is an undiscovered value that exists precisely because P is true within S and people desire that P.


(5) Suppose that the state of affairs in question lies far enough in the future...

Again, let me translate. Assume a future state of affairs S where, for every proposotion P true of S (or of any consequent of S), nobody today desires that P. However, for many propositions true of S, people living concurrently with S do desire that P.

Then P has no value for the people living today, and will have value for the people living concurrently with S.

In such a case, the people living today have no reason to bring about S. You can list every single proposition that is true of S. Yet, [ex hypothesi[/i] every proposition P that is true of S is a proposition that nobody today cares to make true. Therefore, listing all of those propositions is a useless exercise.


Now let's imagine that the situation is a little different in each case.

In (1), let's suppose that Smith's supply of the drug happens to be interrupted for a while...

Again, if we presume that the phrase "ruining his life" applies in this case, then this means that there were desires being thwarted in the state of affairs where Smith was taking the drug that Smith was unaware of. He had a desire-dependent reason all along to quit taking the drug, only he was not aware of them.


In (2), let's suppose that someone actually thought of the idea of the telephone...

The telephone was always a good idea, even before anybody thought of it, based in it being the case that people had desires for P where P was true in a state of affairs that included telecommunication.


In (5), for example, we can imagine that someone portrays the possible future in question...

We can also imagine a universe in which warp engines are utilized to travel among the stars, and in such a universe it would be true that Einstein's theories of relativity would need to undergo some significant revision.

This falls into the category that a theory does not need to explain every possible situation a critic can imagine. Biology does not need to explain the existence of ghosts; psychology does not need to explain astral projection.

And I do not need to explain how it is possible, in a universe where for every proposition P true of a future state S and its consequences, if nobody today desires that P we can still motivate a person into bringing about S by listing propositions true of S that we have already assumed that the agent cares nothing about.

If there is something more to this objection, then please explain to me what this "desirableness" that you are talking about is. How do we find it? What observable phenomena does it explain and predict? How does our capacity to perceive and respond to this property tie in to our evolutionary history?


Indeed, on reflection it seems quite implausible that the question of whether one future state of affairs is more desirable than another is actually determined by "counting heads" to see how many people desire the one future state over the other.

"Is determined...?" No. Too many people falsely believe in desire-independent values to actually determine things in this way. The way they do determine value is filled with errors, however. This is the only error-free way of doing things.

"...counting heads..." would not be a part of the process. A strong "desire that P" can outweigh a larger number of weaker "desires that not P".


If this were so, it would be self-contradictory for someone taking an "all-things-considered" point of view to say that, although he knows very well that almost everyone else wants him to try to bring about future A, he believes that he should try to bring about future B.

"...self-contradictory..." No. It is not a contradiction to claim that common water is made up of H2O2. It's an error -- a false statement.

And, actually, they may "want him" to bring about future A because they desire a future with property P and falsely believe that future A contains property P. The future that is best all things considered is that which actually fulfills desires (where P is true in fact, not merely believed to be true).

So, if somebody wants to jump off of a cliff because he wants to fly and believes that jumping will lead to a state of affairs in which he is flying, but you know this belief is false, then by all means stop him from jumping off the cliff. Jumping off of the cliff does not have the value he thinks it does.

But, if it is the case that the propositions that are true in future A are those that would fulfill the desires of people all-things-considered, then, yes, that is the future to bring about.


By now the nature of the fallacy in the notion that to say that something is desirable is to say that it is desired should be clear. What matters is not whether a future state of affairs is in fact desired, but whether it would be desired by the individuals involved if they were sufficiently rational and had sufficient knowledge and understanding.

What I have been saying can reasonably be expressed in the same terms that you use here.

What matters in the case of desire-dependent value is whether P (that which is desired) is true in fact of S -- independent of the agent's beliefs about S.

Another way of saying the same thing is that what has value relative to a set of desires is that which the agent would pursue if all of his beliefs were true (or, to incorporate your "sufficiency" criterion, that any beliefs the agent holds that may be false are not relevant to evaluating S).

In other words, what has value is what the agent with "sufficient knowledge and undertanding" would pursue.

However, in other posts you have used a significantly different conception of "sufficient knowledge and understanding" than I use here. For me, an agent has "sufficient knowledge and understanding" of S merely in virtue of the fact that all of his beliefs about S relevant in making desision are true of S. The agent's desires do not change in the process of acquiring sufficient knowledge and understanding, his beliefs simply become more accurate.


Suppose that Smith has only two choices, A and B...

Actually, I did answer your question. I said that it was an objection to act-consequentialism, which has a number of problems that can be handled by switching to a motive (desire) consequentialism.

Now, in part, your example contains a contradiction, because you state that "A and A' are essentially the same in all morally relevant ways" and "If the aggregate of relevant desires is different in Jones's case." If the aggreage of relevant desires is different, then the two cases are not the same in all morally relevant ways.

For example, if Smith were to break a vase that nobody cares about, and Jones were to break a vase that had a great deal of sentimental value, then this "sentamental value" is morally relevant and the two cases are not the same in all morally relevant ways.

[ June 03, 2002: Message edited by: Alonzo Fyfe ]</p>

dk

dk: - It’s used as an adverb to describe the verb “to serve” as in “a more advantages way to act”.
dk: - No I meant an honest person tells the truth out of habit, even if a lie suits his interests. A dishonest person tells a lie out of habit, even if the truth suits his interests.
dk: - No I’m saying an honest person tells the truth out of habit, the judgment is implicit as opposed to elective.
dk: - The point was that morality teaches people good habits (virtue) where immorality teaches people bad habits (vice).
dk: - The age of the earth is experimentally determined from a multitude of coherent but tentative hypothesizes pieced together to make a 4 billion year old jig saw puzzle. The puzzle can be sent into disarray by the heresy of a single new paradigm. It doesn’t matter one iota, the age of the earth remains an objective fact whether people know it or not.
dk: The Principle of Finality.
dk: - I mean objective knowledge is DISCERNED by discursive thinking, whether the facts can be experimentally tested is another matter.
dk: - This thread is about “non-theistic objective morality”, so “decrees by God” are off topic.
dk: - Discursive thinking explains objective facts from self-evident assumptions precisely because many premises are uncountable.
dk: –
1. People participate in their destiny by working of their own volition (free will) towards a suitable goal.
2. Morality doesn’t direct a person’s will or diminish passions but regulates a person’s conduct with reason.
2a. Uncontrolled passions (vices) deprive a person of reason and volition.
2b. Deprived of reason a person lacks the capacity to determine a suitable goal
2c. Deprived of volition a person lacks the power of free will
3. You tell me. The concept of regulating (sexual) conduct with (masturbation) self indulgence is unreasonable.
dk: - You need to look up ontological (existence or being) verses epistemological (validity). I must admit my explanation may have accidentally wandered into the error of equivocation. Nonetheless self-evident assumptions are unassailable and necessary to terminate regressive testing of uncountable (infinite) premises. For example Newton’s First Law of Motion couldn’t possibly test all bodies at rest and in motion for speed, direction and unbalanced forces.
dk: - That’s news to me, here I thought a non-sequitur was a fallacious argument that draws a conclusion that “does not follow” from the evidence.
dk: - To regulate conduct with self-indulgence is unreasonable hence immoral.
dk: I don’t see a contradiction, please explain. I’m sure you can list many reasons why masturbation shouldn’t be regulated. If masturbation isn’t regulated conduct then it is simply not covered under “non-theistic moral principles”.

[ June 03, 2002: Message edited by: dk ]</p>

Koyaanisqatsi

A "more advantages way to act" than what?

"More" and "better" necessarily imply comparison. That was the point I was making that you keep avoiding.

Lying is "better" than what? Better than not lying? Better than Sushi? Better than a bullet to the head?

Then, as before, your "dilemma" is not a moral dilemma at all. The honest person tells the truth out of habit. It has nothing to do with morality; it's simply a personal choice.

What judgment? There is no judgment involved in your scenario if the honest person simply tells the truth out of habit. That just means he's a creature of habit.

Now that's a judgment and it's yours and therefore subjective and, further, nothing to do with the honest person who tells the truth out of habit.

No, it is not. The age of the Earth is the age of the Earth. It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with humanity and exists completely independently of humanity.

You're mistaking homocentric self-importance for objective reality.

That's what I said. What are you saying? You lost me.

And that is?

Once again, I don't think you're using terminology properly. For example, "objective knowledge." Do you mean knowledge of "objective truths?"

Also, "discursive thinking" necessarily implies subjectivity, so you've just stated, in effect, "knowledge of 'objective truths' is produced by 'discursive thinking.'" That's certainly true, but as you can see, purely a subjective process, dependent upon the individual's cognitive abilities to process information discursively.

You had originally stated (cryptically), "For example, scientists can’t test or demonstrate the existence of 'string theory', but if 'string theory' exists then its certainly objective."

So, once again, in keeping with this "clarification" regarding discursive thinking, did you mean that Scientists can't prove String Theory, they can only currently apply discursive thinking (the basis for a "theory"), but, as I clarified before, if they could prove String Theory to be a fact of nature, then it would no longer be a "theory?" Is that it, because that is coherent.

All you've stated is that, once proved, a theory is no longer considered a theory; instead it is considered a "fact of nature" (terminology, by the way, that also carries with it an acknowledged mutability and thus, subject to my point earlier regarding a perceived objectivity).

Not in the slightest, since the only reason anyone thinks there can be such a thing as "objective morality," IMO, is a holdover from cult indoctrination; the mandate of a god creator that acts as the mechanism for objectivity.

As you can see by my own "discursive thinking," not even the proposition of a god factually existing as the barometer of objectivity could establish an objective morality.

In other words, I was demonstrating that in no possible world (even one in which a god is proved to exist) can anyone ever state or demonstrate either objective morality or the mechanism that establishes objective morality.

For the sixth time, if you feel I am incorrect then provide just one example of an "objectively immoral" action and the mechanism that establishes it as "objectively immoral."

The Bible is nothing more than a collection of wisdom sayings and morality laws and god nothing more than the fictional character created to enforce those laws through fear. This is the original basis for the misconceived notion that any kind of objectivity could possibly exist in regard to morality; a literary cheat.

Here's the breakdown of the cult:
From that power play all cults are formed and from that power play all pretense of "objective morality" derives. Therefore, demonstrating as I did the fallacy behind this lie was entirely on topic.

As I posted previously to 99, this would necessarily mean that an action in and of "itself" contains an innate "wrongness" or innate "rightness," independent of humanity and anything "outside" of that action. Thus, for masturbation to be considered "objectively immoral," the act itself must contain an innate quality of "wrongness" or "rightness."

"It" does not, of course, and therefore "objective morality" does not and cannot in any possible world "exist."

Do you understand the distinction now? When anyone argues for "objective morality," he or she is necessarily talking about personifying an action and then stating that the action--in and of itself--has an innate "wrong" or "rightness" to it that then effects those committing the action.

Thus, masturbation (to be "objectively immoral") must contain an innate quality of "wrongness" within the action for me to be considered "objectively immoral" for masturbating or else it cannot be considered "objectively immoral."

It is this "innateness" that cults rely upon, because the argument goes that "god is in everything," therefore an action such as masturbation can be "innately bad."

Get it?

You just stated that analytical reasoning allows us to separate a fact from an assumption.

How is that in any way either argumentation or counter-argumentation to what I had posted?

Discursive thinking is simply the process of analytical reasoning; going from "topic A" to "topic B" to "topic C."

"It" is not a magical mystery tour and "it" is not active in any manner.

I don't mean to be insulting, but is English your primary language? I ask because you are routinely making incoherent "points" like this one.

<ol type="1">[*] Assuming I have a "destiny," that would mean my life is predetermined, which in turn means that I have no ultimate volition.[*] Since I am living my "destiny" and therefore already actively "participating in it" as a matter of extant fact, how is it possible for me to then further participate in it?[/list=a]

You are guilty of projecting a false objectivity through your choice of words that makes no sense. Your life does not "exist" independently of "you," yet what you just wrote implies that "you" are somehow capable of stepping outside of yourself in order to apply your volition upon yourself in order to achieve a goal that was presumably set by you and yourself for yourself to fulfill your destiny, which must, by "its" nature, already have been predetermined.



I would contend your mind has fallen victim to a syndrome that I am now coining: CCDD (Cult Cognitive Dissonance Disorder); the result of being conditioned to think, for example, that a Son can be his own Father and vice versa (as well as a Ghost) all at the same time (i.e., a black white horse).

In other, more direct words, morality was created as a means to regulate conduct. Other than having a wonderful grasp of the obvious, why have you made this point and how is it relevant?

"Deprive?" Are you alluding to temporary insanity?

Invalid premise. This would only be "true" if someone were permanently "deprived of reason," in which case they would be considered mentally retarded and special care by family or society would be required.

These premises/declarations/conclusions are hopelessly non-associative and do not follow one from the other. This one, for example, is nothing more than a tautology.

This is precisely why you are guilty of presenting little more than non-sequiturs.

I agree. How this is at all relevant to anything anybody has been posting, however, is still completely beyond me.

As before, what the hell are you talking about?

All you've just established is that it is not reasonable to regulate masturbation. This, however, has nothing to do with somebody considering masturbation to be immoral.

Arguing regulatory conduct as a mechanism for objective morality, therefore, does not follow, since, again, what is or is not beneficially regulatory is entirely subjective and dependent upon the society as well as the individual.

What conduct is to be regulated and what are the reasons for that regulation? Some one must decide such things and therefore, regulatory conduct is entirely and inherently subjective.

Once again, the only possible way in which an action can be considered "objectively moral or immoral" is if there can be established an innate quality of "wrong" or "rightness" within the action "itself," independent of human perceptions/existence.

If "wrongness" and "rightness" are not innate qualities of certain actions independently of human existence, then it is, at best, trivially pointless to label them "objective," and would only serve to destroy the purpose and intended meaning of the qualifier.

No matter which way you turn, there is no and can be no "objective morality."

No, thanks, I'm well versed in both.

"May have?"

Yes, I know, which is why I asked you to please cease with the misapplication of colloquial usage of terms.

The terms you were using were not applicable to the argument you were making, other than in a misapplied colloquial sense. Please go back and re-read my entire response to what you had posted.

Beyond the fact that you've just restated (incorrectly) what I just said, it is, apparently "news to you." The phrase non-sequitur does indeed mean "does not follow;" but its technical use is that the inference "does not follow" from the premises, not necessarily the evidence.

The phrase sequitur ("it follows") is the conclusion of an inference, so to state "non-sequitur" is to state, "The conclusion to the inference you have made does not follow from the premises you provided."

I must ask again (sincerely, as I freely admit that it could very well be me who is just not applying a higher level technical understanding of how you are using these terms), is English your primary language?

Your responses are, on the whole, cryptic and lacking basic connective coherence either to my own points or to your own.

A contradiction? I demonstrated that you were using the PEM outside of its proper use in a formal, two-value syllogism and asked you to justify this misapplication.

As well as many reasons why it should be.
<ol type="1">[*] Self indulgence in this manner can lead to many different forms of anti-social behavior detrimental to the individual and, ultimately, to society as a whole[*] Self control of the sex drive strengthens an individual's sense of personal achievement and resolve, which in turn can be channeled by the individual into just about any future goal or practice[*] Succesful regulatory control over something so private and impossible to directly enforce would be an excellent indication of the effective power of the social regulatory body; a barometer of effectiveness that demonstrates the continued value of conduct regulation in general[/list=a]

There are more, but those will suffice in that they show broad enough examples of justifiable applications of how regulatory action in regard to masturbation fits under the various guidelines everyone here has been attempting to establish as "morally necessary."

Beside evading ninety percent of the arguments I posted, the topic of this thread is "What defines a non-theistic objective morality?"

All you're talking about is establishing moral principles based upon what should or should not be considered necessary conduct to regulate.

That is unquestionably a subjectively applied morality, dependent entirely upon group consensus.

[ June 03, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

99Percent

To all: Sorry for the delay in responding.

Koyaanisqatsi: Again, you are merely subverting the purpose of qualifying something as "objective," which is nothing more than transposing the meaning of the word "subjectivity" onto the word "objectivity."

What is the point of doing that?

I think you are abusing the word "objective". Morality only applies to human beings, therefore objective morality applies only to human beings. What you are trying to say is that objective morality cannot exist because anything objective must reside outside the interpretation of human beings, but in that case many other things would not objectively exist such as language, mathematics, science. Would you say that time objectively exists? After all time requires human interpretation, yes?

The whole point of objective morality is that there is a morality independently of what you feel is right or wrong. Subjectivism says that all morality is based on what you feel and value. Subjective morality is dictated by assigning values to different desires. Objectivism dictates that some values are absolute (within the human realm) and cannot be therefore relatively "valued" when deciding on your actions. One of the most obvious of these values is truth. Objectively you cannot be moral if you distort the truth, lie or be dishonest with yourself and others. Truth, which is based on objective reality, is an absolute value - it cannot be morally considered in exchange for other values.

For example, it can be objectively shown that infidelity is immoral because the person who is commiting infidelity is altering the truth to his/her spouse. When the spouse asks the unfaithful husband "where were you yesterday night?" and he answer "at work" when in truth he should be answering "I was fucking your best friend" it is obvious that the unfaithful husband is being immoral because he is altering the truth to the detriment of his wife's perception of her reality. This is objectively immorally wrong for all human beings and all societies.

Subjectivism would explain that the man values fucking the friend more than the truth of telling it to his wife, which is true, but where is the morality in this case? Seems to me that subjective morality amounts to nothing because there are no absolute values. Values can always be changed on whim. To the subjectivist who commited an immoral/moral act he can always claim in retrospect that he did it because that is what he felt doing, not because it was right or wrong.

It is not possible for you (or anyone, for that matter) to establish that it is morally wrong for all humans to masturbate.

For the record *I* don't believe masturbation is morally wrong. But it can be proven that masturbation is not objectively immoral. How? Because it is an action that does not alter the truth and does not imply use of force or threat of force on anyone else. However for some individuals masturbation might be an addiction and therefore wrong for their wellbeing and happiness, but it is up to each individual to find this because happiness is subjective to each individual (although the need for happiness for all individuals is an objective fact).

bd-from-kg: I suspect that you are confusing objective, absolute, and deontological moral theories. Absolute moral theories say that there are universally valid moral rules of the form “In any circumstances that satisfy definition X, one should [or should not] do Y”. Now in theory it is possible that there could be rules of this sort which happen to be universally valid in the sense that following them always leads to the “best” consequences. But no one has ever been able to find such a rule, and almost no one believes that there are any. Thus absolute moral theories are almost always deontological – that is, they say that the rightness or wrongness of an action depends on the intrinsic nature of the act itself rather than on its consequences.

I agree, although I would add that the consequences of absolute "right" moral actions can be determined to be truthful and therefore to be "right" regardless of its success or failure. Although many times the absolute "right" moral action could lead to undesired results but at least one can say in retrospect after the act, if in failure, that he did the "correct" action, which I think is the whole point of establishing objective morality. For example if I enter a marathon my desire is to win and that would be the best "consequence" of my actions. However in the middle of the marathon I find out I can cheat by taking an obscure shortcut - here I face a moral dilemma:

• I could take the short cut cheat and guarantee a win
• I could not take the short cut and try to win the marathon honestly but not very likely that I do

If choose not to cheat and I end up losing I can say I did the "right" action even though I did not achieve my desired result. If I win by cheating I cannot honestly say to myself that I deserved to win - I commited the "wrong" action even though I did achieve my desired result to win.

Thus if one is determined to find “universal moral principles” - i.e., principles which are absolutely valid; which have no exceptions - one is led inevitably to a deontological moral theory. And of course, in a deontological theory, since the “rightness” of an act depends on the intrinsic nature of the act itself, it cannot depend on the happiness or unhappiness it causes. Indeed, the classic expression of the spirit of deontological morality is “Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.”

I disagree. I think happiness must first be "true" or else it isn't happiness, and true happiness can only be obtained by being a moral person - a person who is honest, truthful and objective and realistic to what he wants and desires, which can vary from individual to individual. So yes, intrisic nature of acts can depend on the happiness or unhappiness it causes because true happiness arises from objective morality.

But objective moral theories are a different matter. An objective theory say only that it is sometimes objectively true that a particular action by a particular person at a particular place and time is right, and that it is sometimes objectively true that such a specific action is wrong. Such theories do not claim that there are universally valid moral principles of the kind described earlier. Objective moral theories need not be deontological; classical utilitarianism is a well-known example.

I think some of the confusion arises from not specifying what is "universally valid", in other words in trying to establish an absolute wrong and right, or an absolute good and bad. I think it is important to establish a boundary within absoluteness in order to make morality meaningful at all. Theists have it all figured out because for them God is absolute so when God dictates what is good and bad there can be nothing left to interpretation. All actions only lead to an absolute good or bad result. I cannot know if by not killing the pregnant girl I am avoiding the birth of a future Osama Bin Ladin, which would be a requirement for absolute morality.

Needless to say, I reject deontological theories and strongly favor the consequentialist point of view. And for consequentialist theories the direct causes of happiness or unhappiness are clearly relevant to the question of whether an act is right or wrong, because (among other things) the act itself might be such a direct cause. And the fact that some people have a different concept of what happiness is (meaning that different things make different people happy) simply means that under some circumstances whether it is right to do X or Y depends on whom you are doing it to.

I disagree with consequentialist theories precisely because we can never know the full extent of the consequence of our actions and worse - we can never know what the alternate result would have been if we had decided to act differently.

As to your statement that “objective morality cannot be based on empathy”, it depends in large part on what you mean by empathy”. One meaning of empathy is knowledge and understanding of what makes another person “tick”: his beliefs, attitudes, emotions, etc. Another meaning is identification with another person: “feeling his pain” and the like. Generally speaking, the rightness of an act does not depend on how much you identify with the people affected. But it is certainly proper to take into account any knowledge and understanding that you may have regarding them, because it will help you to predict what effect your action will have on them. In this sense objective morality can be “based on empathy”.

I think you should completely eliminate the empathy if you consider that people have free will (even children to a more limited degree). Those humans that don't have free will because they are unconscious, retarded or are babies must necessarily rely on the empathy of those that are taking care of them because survival and physical well being takes effort, conscious effort. Actions arising from true empathy comes from free will itself.

99%In fact I would say (but that is just my opinion) that true happiness does not come from just achieving your goals but from the fact that you first thought of what can make you happy and then decided on the actions that took you to that goal. In other words, true happiness comes from having volition and applying reason to achieve your goals.
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You can’t reject such utilitarian considerations as being irrelevant to objective morality and then drag them in through the back door. Besides, this is an empirical claim, which can easily be shown to be false (unless your reference to “true” happiness is a preparation for the “no true Scotsman” fallacy).

That is why I said it was my opinion, but I do think in objective morality you must be able to distinguish true "happiness" from that of happiness attained at the cost of other's happiness - attained against the will of others or against the truth. (see my marathon and infidelity examples above).

Reality is not as simple as your ivory-tower abstractions.

(1) In the real world it is often impossible to allow the one in pain to decide on the treatment. For example, suppose a patient appears to be in severe pain but fails to respond to all attempts at communication. Would it be wrong to administer treatment to relieve the pain? Suppose that it’s not just a question of pain but of survival. Would it be wrong to administer life-saving treatment that also eliminates the pain?

I think the moment you cannot have communication with another human being, objective morality in regards with actions that deal with that person no longer applies. How do you determine the threshold of the perceived pain? Just how much pain would be objectively acceptable? How do you objectively measure it?

(2) In other cases the patient is a child. It’s obvious (I hope) that children should not be permitted to make life-and-death decisions, even about their own lives.

Of course not, but children usually have a parent that takes care of them. Very few children can survive without someone taking care of them.

(3) In still other cases the patient is not in his right mind. He might refuse treatment because he thinks that the doctor is a space alien out to take over his body. Should he really be allowed to make this decision for himself?

Yes. The wellbeing of each individual must come from his own rational desire to be well. For example Nash did not understand how irrational he was being until he discovered it for himself (when he realized that the little girl who always followed him never aged)

(4) In yet other cases a person may want to end his life, but there are strong reasons to believe that this desire is transient, and that if you prevent him from carrying out this wish he will be glad that you did, and have a happy, fulfilling life.

And how do you do objectively determine this? You can only prevent him from carrying out this wish by jailing him in a white room - not very humane is it?

Unfortunately for your theory, the only relevant factors in such cases are those relating to the welfare of the person involved. But this is just the sort of thing that you want to exclude from consideration in making moral judgments.

From making objective moral judgements yes, but that doesn't mean that someone has to throw empathy out of the window in every moral judgement he makes. If empathy causes unhappiness in the person making a moral decision then he has to take it into consideration but that does not mean empathy is a factor in objective moral decisions, in fact it cannot because empathy is subjective.

What is important in trying to establish objective morality is that then establishes the basis for objective laws. Empathy should never be used in the rule of law.

I concede my slavery argument to be fallacious. Allow me to change it:

P1: Happiness is good.
P2: Happiness can only be perceived and valued by the individual.
P3: To pursue goals that achieve happiness reason is necessary.
P4: Reason requires volition.
P4: Slavery undermines volition.
C1: Slavery undermines reason.
C2: Slavery undermines happiness.
C3: Therefore slavery is wrong.

I doubt happiness is a moral premise. I think it is self-evident. That slavery undermines volition is also self-evident.

Koyaanisqatsi

99, I would appreciate it if you addressed my arguments in full, rather than just repeating points I've already addressed, ignoring all of my deconstruction.

I have demonstrated just the opposite.

Because human beings created it and selectively applied it only to human beings based upon our entrenched homocentricity, thereby establishing unquestionably the subjective quality of morality?

If morality only applies to human beings, then there is no innate quality of "wrongness" or "rightness" within an action and without that innate quality, all judgments of "wrong" or "right" will necessarily be subjective.

You can't avoid it or simply state, "Well, morality only applies to humans." The instant you state morality only applies to humans is the instant you have removed anything innate within the actions that would account for any kind of objectivity.

There is no way around this, accept to use the correct qualifier, "subjective."

Non sequitur. Until anybody can ever do as I have requested seven times now and provide just one example of an objectively moral action and the mechanism that establishes that objectivity, the phrase will always be an oxymoron; a black-white horse.

Incorrect. Anything objective must exist independently of the interpretation of human beings.

Language, mathematics, science all "exist" independently of the interpretation of human beings.

I think you have allowed homocentricity to cloud your take on this. If there never were any human beings, animals would still communicate with one another and the ability to discern mathematical configurations would still exist as would the scientific principles as we understand them. Whether or not those principles lie forever intellectually dormant (i.e., whether or not an Egret learns to multiply) has no bearing on the independent "existence" of those principles.

It is this independence that defines objectivity (reference yet again bd's invalid analogy regarding the age of the Earth).

No, it does not. Animals, plants, minerals, molecules; all matter experiences in some manner what we have described and labeled "time," but our description and labeling of the concept did not create it. Again, I think you are too enamored with homocentricity to see your arguments clearly.

And what, then, would the mechanism be that establishes that independence if not an innate quality of "wrongness" and "rightness" within the action?

Where does this "independence" that you are talking about come from?

Consensus? Elected officials?

You keep using the word "objective" and then describe purely (and innately) subjective parameters.

For example, if, as you claim, morality is only for humans and therefore objective morality is only for humans, then who is the one person who decides what is or is not "objectively" immoral?

As you can plainly see, the question is loaded, so let's flip it around and see if this works: when did every single human on the planet decide what is objectively immoral?

That doesn't work either.

So--if the "wrongness" and "rightness" isn't innate in the action itself (i.e., independent of human existence)--and the fact that if one person or all people decided on what was or was not "objectively moral" automatically (and unquestionably) means subjectivity, then where does this objectivity come from?

If established by group consensus, then it is necessarily subjective; one group has determined what the deal is.

If established by one person, then it is unquestionably subjective; one person acting as dictator.

If the "wrong" or "rightness" of an action is not innate in the action itself (i.e., independent of human interpretation), then what is left? The "wrong" or "rightness" is innate in the action itself and dependent upon human interpretation?


No, because then it goes right back to the individual selectively interpreting one or the other with no independent barometer established as the mechanism for stating: "You chose the wrong (aka, incorrect) one."

That's what's missing here above all else, the fact that morality is a judgment; a judgment that proclaims, "You chose the wrong thing to do."

So who is objectively making this judgment? If it's not innate in the action, then who is the one making the call?

Redundant. Morality is dictated by assigning values to different desires.

There is no need or justification to qualify "morality" any further.

What are they? Name one.

You keep thinking that the term itself mandates certain descriptive facts without providing any examples of how this could be. Objectivism does indeed dictate absolutes, which must be independent of the "human realm" in order for them to be absolutes applied to humans in some fashion.

It is meaningless to continue defining what objectivism entails in this manner until you prove such a state factually exists, because if you cannot prove such a state factually exists (and provide the mechanism for it), then the continued forcing of this qualifier is nothing more than unjustifiable word games.

In essence, all you are saying is, "By forcing the word 'objective' onto the concept of morality, this means that there are moral absolutes."

There are, however, no moral absolutes, so to defend the continued use of the qualifier "objective" when no objectivity can be established is pointless.

Yes, I know. So, four the eighth time, prove this claim and stop leaving it at definition.

Name one moral absolute and the mechanism that establishes it as "absolute."

Prove your claim.

Truth has nothing to do with morality. "Telling the truth" or "Not telling the truth" is the "realm" of morality--subjectively--but the abstract concept "Truth" has nothing intrinsically moral about it.

You are committing the same fallacy bd did with his analogy.

Categorically false! You have committed the greatest subjective sin of all in that you have simply declared that distorting, lying or being dishonest with yourself is "objectively immoral."

YOU are determining what is or is not "objectively immoral" in regard to Truth. Do you see the blatant contradiction in that sentence?

Yes, but that is not the only "Truth" out there. There is also the "Truth" that is not based on any kind of objective reality, such as a "white" lie, told for the "greater good."

Again, you're confusing "objective truth" (i.e., the age of the Earth) and "subjective truth" (i.e., "You don't look fat in that dress.")

One is the in the "realm" of the universe and the other is in the "realm" of human interaction; the one you keep trying to force morality into as a matter of inherent quality (ironically what I was arguing initially, only from the subjective side).

Apples and oranges! You're conflating "objective truth" (the Truth) with "moral truth."

Not to mention the dictatorial (subjective) declaration you just made. "It cannot be morally considered" by whom?

Again, you're simply stating it can't be this or it can't be that when in fact there is absolutely no such limitation upon what anyone considers as "telling the truth."

That's the qualifying part that makes it a matter for moral guidelines; the telling part; the action.

I would not only consider it "morally right" to tell a person I consider to be hideously ugly that they are not, in fact, hideously ugly in my eyes, but a moral obligation to hide that truth (as I see it) from them, and that's the key.

You're trying to force (like bd) the wrong context of the Truth upon the question of morality.

Again, the age of the Earth is not a moral dilemma. The decision of whether or not to lie to a loved one (aka, weighing the greater good) is, however a moral dilemma and there are justifiable circumstances wherein I could lie to a loved one or even simply hold back the truth in order to not hurt their feelings.

It can easily be argued that one outweighs the other.

You, however, are somehow declaring (based upon what, I still don't know) that lying never is outweighed or otherwise morally permissible (aka, morally "right").

Upon what do you base this declaration and how is that not a perfect example of subjectivity?

Well, several counter-examples immediately spring to mind...

1). It can easily be argued that the one committing the infidelity was lying to themselves all along as well as to their spouse and it took the act of infidelity to finally reveal the "truth" of their sham marriage.

In that scenario, it was morally wrong to remain married, since the vows taken were never actually meant by one of the parties entering into the contract and the entire marriage, ultimately, a lie to begin with, that could only fully be realized by the act of infidelity.

2). Infidelity is contingent upon both people in the marriage agreeing that a marriage necessarily entails monogamy.

If one person in that marriage does not believe in monogamy and let that be known as a general character makeup long before the marriage ever took place, then how is that person's later infidelity considered morally wrong?

A "you knew I was a snake when you picked me up" kind of thing.

3). A marriage in which one spouse gave the impression during the courting of "fulfilling the other's needs" suddenly stops upon marriage. It dawns on the frustrated spouse that the actions prior to marriage were largely a sham in order to induce marriage to establish a legal contract. Counseling is sought and an honest attempt to reconcile the issue is tried again and again and again, to no avail. So, the frustrated spouse seeks the fulfillment of their sexual needs elsewhere.

4). A spouse is verbally and physically abusive toward the other, who seeks comfort in the arms of someone else. This comfort is non-sexual until the two grow to fall in love with each other, the act of infidelity a freeing action that consummates this love and encourages the married spouse to face up to the abusive spouse to ask for a divorce, something they never had the psychological ability to do prior to the bond formed while making love, quite possibly for the very first time in their lives.

As you can see, there are many instances in which the "objective truth" of INFIDELITY can be (and must be) deconstructed down to the elements in order to ultimately assess what is or is not "morally right," and therefore, as always, necessarily a subjective interpretation, wherein everything is weighed and counter-balanced.

Thus, it is not an "absolute truth" that Infidelity if always and forever "objectively wrong."

See above scenarios that could readily and easily turn that simplistic sequence of events around.

False. As with every moral judgment, it is dependent upon the specifics of the case and the weighing of all of the elements.

What's more, you have once again subjectively declared what is or is not "objectively immoral" for all human beings in all societies.

See above scenarios.

Stop right there and realize what you just said. There are no absolute values.

If there are no absolute values, then it is impossible to state that there are absolute values to base an objective morality upon, yes?

Which is precisely what is the case and why we have a judicial system.

Just because you don't like deconstructing what is extant doesn't mean that it isn't, in fact, extant.

Why is that? Once again, the act is irrelevant. You have stated (erroneously) that it is possible to establish what is objectively immoral in regard to the act of infidelity, so why can't you state what is objectively immoral (or moral) in regard to the act of masturbation?

What is precluding you from doing so?

Then your subjectively applied moral barometers are "not altering the truth" (whatever that means) and no use of force or threat of force on anyone else.

Those are your guidelines.

They are not the guidelines, just your guidelines, correct?

If you say no, then please establish how they are "the" guidelines and not simply your guidelines, realizing of course that in so doing, you are attempting to convince us, instead of the objective quality being apparent to all (which, I would further argue to be a necessary quality to any alleged "objective morality").

How can you just declare such things and not recognize the inherent subjective opinions you are simply trying to force upon us?

According to your guidelines, masturbation is morally wrong because it forces lies to be told between parents and offspring; between peer groups and individuals; it is morally wrong because it wantonly destroys billions of potential human beings for the sake of thirty seconds of selfish pleasure; it is morally wrong because self-indulgence destroys one's character; etc., etc., etc.

Once again, no such thing as objective morality, only consensus and dissenting argumentation that, through its reasoning, coerces change.

Aka, subjectivity.

bd-from-kg

Alonzo Fyfe:

OK, let’s take your example of a house. If I understand you correctly, the kind of “property” that you call a “value” with respect to the house would be the fact that certain propositions involving the house would be true if someone acted in a certain way, and which someone desires to make true. It seems to me a bit of a stretch to call this a “property” of the house, or to say that such a property is "capable of causing muscles to move". I would say that it is the desire to make these propositions true which (being a brain state) is "capable of causing muscles to move". Hence my confusion. But I have little interest in such linguistic niceties. If you want to refer to this sort of thing as a “property” of the house, and to say that that it can “cause” action, I have no real objection.

Well, actually it is. By definition, an action is said to be caused by a “motivational force” just in case it is motivated by a desire. And a desire is by definition a desire to “bring something about”. Moreover, if an action is thought to have been taken for the purpose of “bringing something about”, the agent by definition had a “desire” to bring it about. So the second statement is actually tautological, or if you prefer, it is a stipulative definition of “desire”.

Also, I see no substantive difference between my first statement and yours.

In any case, my objection to this line of reasoning (as I made clear later in my post) is in the implicit assumption that the desire that gives something “value” or makes it “desirable” must be an actual, existing desire. And despite the fact that your version of the first statement again seems to imply this, the rest of your post suggests that you may not require that the desire in question be one that actually exists, or even one that will ever exist. So perhaps you are not guilty of the fallacy that I referred to here after all. I agree that the notion that a thing can have “value” or be “desirable” without reference to any desire is meaningless; I object only to the notion that the desire in question must be one that actually exists (or will exist).

Not necessarily. It is also true (as most people would understand the term) if Smith would be averse to the consequences of the drug if the drug itself were not making him irrational.

The idea in stipulating that no one else cares about Smith was that the only possible such “someone” is Smith himself. And it is possible that Smith does not have desires that are being thwarted by his taking the drug, but would have them if he were thinking rationally. I have no problem with calling fulfillment of such a desire an “undiscovered value”, so long as it is understood that the desire corresponding to this value is not one that Smith actually has, but one that he [i]would[i] have if he were rational – specifically, if he stopped using the drug.

True enough. Having a telephone is not a “final end”. But neither is being able to transmit messages. A “final” end is always happiness of some kind or the avoidance of unhappiness of some kind.

So you have two ways to go:

(1) Count desires for both instrumental ends and final ends. But this leads to paradoxical results. For example, A could desire P because it leads to Q, Q because it leads to R, R because it leads to S, and S because it leads to T. If all of these desires “counted” we would in effect be weighting the desire for the final end T multiple times – once for each step needed to achieve it, which is absurd.

(2) Count only desires for final ends – i.e., for happiness (or absence of unhappiness). Your theory now looks a lot different from what it appeared to be originally. We are now not to count things like John’s desire to be with Mary, or Jimmy’s desire for a skateboard, but only John’s and Jimmy’s generalized desire for happiness. This begins to look indistinguishable from classic utilitarianism. More on this later.

Fine. Once again you are considering only final ends and the corresponding desires.
No. My main point is: what if people would desire that P if they had imagined or conceptualized P, and P is true in state of affairs S?

I’m not clear about why you say that “Buddhism holds that desire-independent values exist”. Perhaps it’s because Buddhism holds that Nirvana is the supreme good (the “greatest happiness” as it is sometimes put) but that we cannot desire it, properly speaking, because we cannot imagine or conceptualize it?

If so, this is not really relevant to my point. The idea here was that there might be a state of affairs that many or all people would desire for its own sake if they had imagined or conceptualized it and had any idea that such a state was possible, but which no one has in fact imagined or conceptualized, much less recognized as being possible. It is meaningless to say that a person “really” desires something of which has no conception, and no inkling that it exists even as a concept. Yet it seems to me that such a state can reasonably be said to have value on the grounds that some people would desire it if they had imagined it, and had a true belief that such a state could be achieved.

All this is true, but the question is: other things being equal, should a person living today who is in a position to bring this state affairs into existence do so according to your moral system? You have said many times that even if a person does not have a reason to do something, there is a reason for him to do it if it will fulfill some desire that someone has. Moreover, you hold that the fact that there might be zero probability that he will actually make this choice (because he has no reason to) is irrelevant. Finally, you have said that future desires “count”. So it would seem at first sight that the answer is “yes”.

But there’s a serious complication: the desires in question will exist only if the agent chooses to bring this state of affairs into existence. That is, their existence is contingent on the very choice in question. So the question posed by this example is whether potential future desires whose existence is contingent on the outcome of the choice in question are relevant to the question of what choice “should” be made.

This is stretching the notion of “having a desire” to the point of meaninglessness. Earlier you said:

Given this definition, how can someone have desires that he is not aware of? How can one be meaningfully said to have a “mental attitude that P is to be made true” if he is not aware of any such attitude? How can one speak meaningfully of the “strength” of a desire that one is not aware of? This is unintelligible.

As I said earlier, Smith presumably would have such desires if he were thinking rationally. But you seem to be claiming that he will necessarily have these desires in his drug-induced state, even though he isn’t aware of them. There is no possible way to confirm or falsify such a claim. Thus it is not a claim about the actual state of things in the real world, but a metaphysical claim about the existence of some mysterious non-natural entities.

The only way around this, it seems to me, is to give up the claim that Smith actually has the relevant desires in his current drug-induced irrational state, and agree instead that the desires that “count” are the ones that Smith would have if he were rational.

No, but you have already agreed that it is possible:

The people who don’t care about the possible future in question may not care simply because they haven’t thought about it at all, or because they haven’t imagined vividly enough what it would be like for those who would experience it. That is, the absence of any desires relating to this world might be the result of a lack of knowledge or a lack of understanding. Supplying either of these lacks could easily change their desires. Specifically, it might create desires that had not existed.

To be sure, as you have pointed out, such changes in desires are not logically entailed by increased knowledge and understanding; they are contingent. But so what? My whole point was that it is unreasonable to say that the “value” of this possible future depends on the existence of relevant desires in someone who actually exists (as opposed to the desires of those who would come into existence if this future is “realized”). The fact that the existence of such desires is contingent not only on whether some people today obtain more knowledge and understanding, but on whether this K&U creates the relevant desires, does not weaken this point in the least; if anything it strengthens it.

This seems to miss the point. I didn’t suggest counting how many people think it’s more desirable but counting how many people desire it. And even this was meant as shorthand for the actual process, which involves considering the desires that would fulfilled by realizing this future, not simply considering how many people desire it.

Well, yes, I assumed that. That’s why I put “counting heads” in quotes. Like you, I’m forced to oversimplify sometimes.

But none of this really goes to the original point, which is that it seems implausible that the “right” answer (even in an “all-things-considered” sense) can be obtained by looking only at desires that actually exist, or even at desires that will exist. Some desires that would exist or will exist under certain conditions that do not (or might not) obtain are also relevant.

1. This is not “in other words”. The first statement implies that something has value if the agent desires it and all of his (relevant) beliefs are true. But it can easily happen that he has no beliefs at all about many relevant propositions, and that if had true beliefs about them he would not desire the thing in question.

2. What the agent would pursue if he had sufficient knowledge and understanding depends on what his desires would then be. But for some reason you consistently ignore, and even deny, the possibility that increased K&U might change a person’s desires. In fact, you say a little later: “The agent's desires do not change in the process of acquiring sufficient knowledge and understanding, his beliefs simply become more accurate.” This is an empirical claim, which can easily be shown to be false. Why are you so determined to close your eyes to this fact, which is perfectly evident to anyone with any experience of the real world?

The only reasonable definition of “sufficient” in this context is that an agent has sufficient K&U with respect to a given decision if no additional K&U would change his decision. What’s the point of a more restrictive definition?

It appears that you are determined to “disallow” desires that would be created by additional K&U from being “counted”. But this creates paradoxical situations. For example, imagine that Smith has to decide between doing X and Y. To keep things simple we’ll assume that no one will be affected by his choice but him, so all of the relevant desires are his. At the moment he is inclined to do Y because he believes (correctly) that Y will satisfy a very weak desire D0, while so far as he knows X will not satisfy any desire at all. But suppose that he has a stronger desire D1 that would be satisfied by X, and he would know this if he had certain additional K&U. As I understand it, if there are no other relevant desires – i.e., any existing desires that would be satisfied by either X or Y – then according to your moral calculus he should do X: case closed. But it might happen that this very same additional K&U would create a new desire D2 in Smith, which is stronger than D1, and which would be satisfied by Y but not by X. In that case, if he actually had this additional K&U he would choose Y. (To avoid a possible objection we will also stipulate that if he were to choose Y, he would obtain this K&U, and thus have the new desire D2 which Y would satisfy.)

So here’s the situation. Given his current K&U, Smith will choose Y. And if he had the additional K&U in question, he would still choose Y. Moreover, in the latter situation, according to your moral calculus, he should choose Y. And even though he does not have the “new” desire that Y would satisfy, he would have it if he did choose Y, so Y will satisfy more desires than X. But in spite of all this, according to your moral calculus (as I understand it), he should choose X because it would satisfy more existing desires. I see no justification for restricting the desires taken into account to existing ones, especially in view of the kind of paradoxical result that this can lead to.

I’ve searched through your earlier replies and can find nothing that can be considered an answer to this. Perhaps you can point me to this answer?

In any case, I’m baffled as to how this can be considered an objection to act-consequentialism. My point was just the opposite: that your theory is not consequentialist, and that it seems self-evident to me that a valid moral theory must be consequentialist. In particular, any theory that says that (in my example) Smith should do A but Jones should do B', or vice-versa, is, to my mind, self-evidently invalid.

I don’t consider the “aggregate of relevant desires” with respect to the vase to be a property of the act, but if you insist, I’ll modify the statement to say that the acts in question have the same morally relevant intrinsicproperties. Of course, as a consequentialist I don’t believe that actions have morally relevant intrinsic properties; this is a claim made by deontological theories. This clause was added to call attention to the fact that your theory is neither deontological nor consequentialist.

Now of course the existence of these desires could make the relevant consequences of the act different, but this isn’t necessarily the case, and since I stipulated that there was no morally relevant difference in the consequences you must assume that this is so, even if the aggregate of desires is different. For example, the vase might have sentimental value only to old Mrs. Gordon, who is in Tulsa at the moment and is going to die in one second, and so will know nothing about the fate of the vase. Are you seriously suggesting that her desire that the vase not be broken is actually morally relevant in this case? This is exactly the sort of claim which seems to be made by your theory, which I find incomprehensible.]

In summary, the main issues here, in my mind, are:

(1) In the case of an irrational person, does you theory “count” the desires that he would have if he were rational as opposed to the ones he does have?

(2) Does it count only desires for “final” ends?

(3) Does it count future desires whose existence is contingent on the choice in question?

(4) Does it count desires that would exist if someone had more knowledge and understanding?

If your answer to all of these questions is “yes”, we don’t have a serious disagreement as to what actions we would call “right”, or what we would say someone “should” do. (In fact, in this case I think that your theory is really consequentialist in spite of appearances to the contrary; indeed, it would seem to be pretty much indistinguishable - in practice at least - from classic utilitarianism.) But otherwise we do.