Alonzo Fyfe

bd-from-kg:

But future or potential desires don’t count?

Desires that will not exist do not count. Desires that will exist do count. Desires that might exist count in proportion to the probability that they will exist.


The idea here, I gather, is that once one has made a plan one has a desire to see the plan come to fruition. Thus someone who has plans has more desires that would be thwarted by his death that somone who does not.

More like -- a being that plans has more of the types of desires that would be thwarted by death. Typically. There are exceptions. I find no moral objection to killing a person who prefers death to continued life (voluntary euthanasia).


This line of thought has some disturbing implications.

Disturbing...

I take this to mean that you do not like the implications. The possible explanation for this is that you have an aversion (a negative desire) for the state of affairs described by those implications. This is an aversion that others might share. It may be a particularly strong aversion. If so, then these aversions would have to be considered in an all-things-considered evaluation of those implications. In which case, the implications may very well be bad. Very bad. All things considered.

The thesis that desire-based value is the only value that exists is not the type of claim that lends itself to an objection based on "disturbing implications." Nobody said that the world is designed to please us. Whether a fact is true or false is one thing -- whether we like it or dislike it is another.

Without proof that some additional type of value exists -- other than desire-based value -- we may have to simply accept the fact that the world is not exactly the way we want it to be.


Infants have no plans at all, and one-year-olds have very few plans. So by your reasoning it would seem that killing a one-year-old is much less wrong that killing a normal adult...

Unless, of course, we add in an aversion to killing one-year-olds.

I typically in act-utilitarian terms. Act utilitarianism is to work with in short -- well, somewhat short -- posts that show up on discussion boards. Actually, act-utilitarianism has problems that are fixed by motive-utilitarianism. The right act is not the act with the best consequences but, rather, the act that would be performed by a person with good desires -- where desires are good to the degree that they are capable of existing in harmony with other desires.

So, an aversion to killing one-year-olds (or small children) would itself have to be justified as being more in harmony with other desires than any alternative. If the aversion to killing young children is strong and wide spread (and there are evolutionary reasons to suspect it is) a case for harmony can be made.

But, again, it is not my quest to justify every one of our moral intuitions. Those intuitions are grounded more on our own personal likes and dislikes, and carry with them a number of poorly founded prejudices and rationalizations that aim at getting us more of what we want, rather than looking at what is wanted "all things considered." In the absence of evidence that desire-independent values exist, the unpleasantness of any implications is no evidence against the truth of those implicatioins.


Could you shed some light on how "hermeneutic circles" or "coherentist and connectionist epistemologies" lead to this conclusion?

Hermanuetic circles and coherentist and connectionist epistemologies are examples of cases where a proposition is defended in terms of its relationship to other propositions which, in turn, reflect back on the original proposition.

Hermaneutic circles are used to describe the science of translation. The meaning of a word is determined substantially but its context among other words. But the meanings of those other words are determined by their context, which includes the origiinal word. There is a bit of circulary in any argument that translation A is better than translation B. But this cirularity -- rather than being considered a fallacy -- is considered a necessary part of reasoning through the translation of a text.

In its most basic sense, epistemology says that knowledge is a justified true belief. Coherintest epistemologists argue that a belief is justified in virtue of its relationship to other beliefs, which in turn are justified by their relationship to still other beliefs -- including the first belief. Maximum justification comes from being a member of the largest set of coherent interconnected beliefs. The analogy often used is that of a spider web -- different beliefs (nodes) are connected to other beliefs, and a belief is justified in virtue of being a member of the largest, strongest interconnected web of beliefs.

When I argue that desires are evaluated according to their relationship to other desires, it is in the same sense that the meaning of a word is evaluated according to its context among a set of words or a belief in coherentist epistemology is evaluated according to its role among a set of beliefs.

[Note: I have adopted the word 'harmony' to explain the relevant relationship among desires. If A desires to rub B's back, and B desires to have her back rubbed by A, then those desires are in harmony.)


Your so-called "all things considered" morality doesn’t operate by taking sums at all; it works by finding the limit of an infinite recursive process.

Try explaining the difference within a post on a bulleten board -- even a particularly lengthy post that this forum seems to (fortunately) attract.

I have stated before that I simplify for illustrative purposes in places where I feel that the complexity does not contribute meaningfully to the discussion. I speak in terms of act-utilitarianism rather than desire-utilitarianism. Among theories of action I use instrumentalism over script theory. And I speak in terms of sums rather than recursive functions.

Physicists speak in terms of frictionless pullies and massless strings. Chemists speak in terms of orbiting electrons.


So this kind of procedure needs to be examined very carefully to see whether it is really designed to be "objective" or whether it was "tweaked" to guarantee the results that you want..."

Yes it does -- the power and capacity to rationalize in order to get a desired result is well known. I am not immune. Its the reason scientists insist on double-blind experiments and replicatable results. Though the claim of objectivity depends substantially on what happens where tweakedness is discovered.


But my weighing of my reasons is completely subjective.

I do not understand what you mean by this objection. (Or, more precisely, I can think of at least 12,984 things you might mean by this and do not have the capacity to respond to all of them.)

We do not, in fact, 'weigh' our reasons any more than a body moving through space 'weighs' the forces acting upon it. Our desires act on us with a power equal to their strength, and the only thing we weigh is options, looking for that option which maximizes fulfllment of our desire.


But when Smith weighs his and Jones’s desires combined he may well get a different result than Jones does when he does the same thing.

Of course, you need to add a premise that both Smith and Jones worked without error in getting these results. It's possible for each of them to add up a column of numbers and get a different result, but given the possibility of error this does not imply that no right answer is to be had.

Since both Smith and Jones are looking at the same set of facts in reaching their conclusion -- the same column of numbers, as it were -- then it seems reasonable to assume that they will come up with the same conclusion in the absence of error.


In that case the only values (or more precisely, desires) that can legitimately be counted are the agent’s.

Legitimately? Please provide a non-question-begging definition of this term.

Certainly, these other desires exist. And the relationship between states of affairs and those desires can be objectively determined. Propositions of this type are neither legitimate nor illegitimate; they are either true or false.


It’s not at all clear why the fact that Smith’s desires cause him to act should have anything to do with what Jones should do.

Any proposition using the word 'should' (or 'ought') when used in an action-guiding sense can only be true in a context that presupposes a set of desires (perhaps hypothetical desires).

So, when you use the word 'should' what set of desires are you presupposing?

Are you presupposing only Jones' desires? If so, then Smith's desires in fact have at best a contingent relevance and, perhaps, no relevance to all to any 'should' based entirely on Jones' desires.

Are you presupposing all desires? Smith's desires do have relevance to any 'should' that is founded on all desires because Smith's desires are a part of the desires that make up that set.

There is no reason at all to expect that these two answers must be equal. They are two different questions.

In order to answer your question about what Jones should do, I need to know which sense of the word 'should' you are talking about.

I can offer that, in debate, when we ask these types of questions we almost never limit the relevance to Jones' desires alone. This can be demonstrated by the types of arguments that people put forth in defense of their conclusion. It is simply not the case that every accepted argument is based solely upon what Jones desires.

If Jones is the manager of a department who catches an employee drinking, what should Jones do? We hear all sorts of arguments considering the desires of the employee, the company, and society at large. Such as: "We need to have a zero-tolerance policy on drinking at work because people who drink on the job can do serious damage to the livelihoods of others through shoddy workmanship," and "Jones should encourage him to seek treatment because you shouldn't punish somebody who gets sick, you should try to help them -- and alcoholism is a disease."

So, the word 'should' clearly does contain meanings that draw relevance from desires other than those of the agent.


Here you lose me completely. It appears that you are now saying that the fact that desires that don’t exist yet can’t legitimately be counted because the things that might bring them into existence are causes and causes are by nature contingent.

Future desires that will exist count as much as present desires that will exist. My argument here had nothing to with future desires -- it had to do with an "ought" argument that attempted to deduce an "ought" conclusion from premises that included only the desires of the agent. An "ought" argument must end with exactly the same desires it starts with because no additional facts can entail a value; no set of beliefs can entail a desire. So, if the argument begins with the desires of the agent at time T, it ends with the desires of the agent at time T, and anybody else's desires or well being becomes morally relevant only contingently -- as a part of the object of the original desires.

On my assertion that this universe is not one that contains desire-indenpendent value

No, but you haven’t shown that it isn’t.

I have never shown that there isn't a God either, or that ghosts do not exist. It is not possible to prove claims of nonexistence. The best you can do is assert that no evidence exists (no reason exists) for believing in such an entity.

For example, it seems plausible to me that values can derive from the effect that an action might have on the happiness of people who don’t exist yet...

As I have said, desires that will exist are relevant. When the desire comes into existence, the value based on that desire comes into existence. But if, in the future, there is no being that desires anything, than nothing in the future will have value.


It seems plausible to me that knowledge, understanding, and rationality might have value independently of whether anyone alive at the moment desires them, or is even capable of desiring them.

Then perhaps you can explain to me the nature of this value and, in particular, how it interacts causally with the material world to influence action. Desires do so easily enough -- desires are encoded in the brain and influence action by sending signals down nerves to the muscles.

(Note: Knowledge, understanding, and rationality do have value in that they are useful tools in the quest to fulfill desires. But these are not desire-independent values.)

To see this, imagine a world containing only one being, who has the ability to bring about a world with billions of happy, fulfilled, rational beings with a high level of knowledge and understanding

Now consider the following two possibilities:

(1) This being has no desire to bring about such a world, but no particular desire not to either. In fact, the only reason he doesn’t have such a desire is that the possibility of doing so hasn’t occurred to him, or he isn’t aware that he has the ability to do it.

(2) The being does want to bring about such a world.

I think that the fact that the people he could bring into existence would find life very meaningful and enjoyable if he did is a good reason for doing it, and for saying that it would be desirable if he did.

You desire that such a world exist -- that's where the value in option (2) comes from.

I have the same desires you do. And so I agree with you that the second option is better -- in that I prefer option (2).

But none of this shows that option (2) is better independent of these desires.

Somebody imagines a person with two options.

(1) Having a loving relationship with a member of a different race, or

(2) Having a loving relationship with a member of the same race.

He thinks that, clearly, anybody with a sufficiently high level of knowledge and understanding would see that there is something wrong with a relationship with somebody of a different race. Really? Actually, no. He is just projecting his prejudice -- his personal preference against interracial relationships -- onto those options.

I have encountered people like this -- I am related to them. I have no reason to believe that your preference over option (2) over option (1) is any different than theirs. It is simply obvious, to them, that a person of suficient knowledge and understanding would see the value in option (2). When they speak to somebody with the same prejudice, inevitably that person to will see the truth in accepting conclusion (2). But it is still nothing more than a projection of the desires of the people presenting and hearing the argument.

But, ultimately, the main point of my argument can be given in the following.

No set of facts entails a value.

No set of beliefs entails a desire.

No amount of knowledge and understanding entails a reason to act.

The only way to get the person to bring about option (2) is to import a value/desire/reason to act into the initial description of the situation. If the agent has no desire for that conclusion, then it has no value, and he has no reason to bring it about -- and no alteration of pure facts/beliefs/knowledge and understanding will change this.

These are three different aspects of the same relationship.

[ May 24, 2002: Message edited by: Alonzo Fyfe ]</p>

99Percent

I've been a bit busy lately for a proper response. I hope to have some time after the weekend.

Alonzo Fyfe

bd wrote: This will probably be my last post here for a few days (though I might sneak one in early tomorrow); I'll be on holiday during the Memorial Day weekend. See you on Tuesday.

99percent wrote: I've been a bit busy lately for a proper response. I hope to have some time after the weekend.

I WIN!

I stand alone and victorious on the battle ground. My enemies are vanquished and are in full retreat!

(glances left)

(glances right)

oh-oh. Maybe not.

HEAD FOR THE HILLS!

The AntiChris

So this is what the objective debate is all about!

Chris

Grizzly

In this debate, there are no winners.....just survivors.

Alonzo Fyfe

Actually, this has been the most useful set of discussions that I have participated in during the last decade, and I am grateful for the opportunity to exchange ideas with intelligent people.

dk

dk: - I have no idea how “better” could be considered an inherently subjective qualifier. I used it to mean, superior in merit and rank. I suppose one could argue the military rank of a private was subjectively superior to a 4 star general, but that would be nonsense.
dk: - The earth’s age demonstrates that what people believe (or accent to) has no effect upon objective knowledge. As a proposition objective morality communicates itself as far as possible, whether people accept it or not.
dk: - No the objective nature of string theory means it either exists or is non-existent. String theory states a general case that applies to the specific by the process of deduction. The objective age of the earth is contingent upon the principle of causality which states that all finite things are caused. The principle of causality applied deductively to the the specific case of “age of the earth” denotes an objective necessity, whether we believe it or not, whether the fact we believe is correct or wrong. String theory is also a general law, that can be applied deductively to the specific case to necessitate an objective fact. My point is that, if objective morality exists it states a general principle that when applied to the specific case necessitates an objective fact.
dk: - Declarative statements absent supportive text are dogmatic, either explain the comment or name your authoritative source of doctrine.
dk: - I’m stating a general principle that when applied to a specific case necessitates a objective fact. You seriously need to get past your indoctrination.
(snip)(snip)(snip)
dk: - If people don’t participate in their destiny then objective morality doesn’t exist. I’ve said this 10 times if I’ve said it once. If a self evident assumption is proven true or false it ceases to be self evident, or an assumption. The principle of the excluded middle states something can either be, or not be in the same sense at the same time. Applying the general principle of the excluded middle deductively to the specific case necessitates an objective fact.

(snip …snip)

You need to get past indoctrination, to substantiate your declarative statements. If you claim something is non-sequitur then demonstrate the point logically, with reason. That's how discussions proceed.

dk

I place instrumental value under the more general heading of pragmatism. The pragmatism of an instrumental value prevails upon immediate empiricism to explain the ascendancy of what exists. Human initiatives assert new knowledge in tension with old knowledge to formulate contradictions not easily resolved.
Instrumentalism expresses abstracts like the value of life and consciousness as normalized comparative tangibles derived from human awareness. Any general explanation begins with, “What we are aware of…”; followed by some calculated comparative correlation built upon arbitrary distributions regressively fit to accommodate bias of the lowest common denominator. The “value of a human life” is insoluble, and a quantitative definition of consciousness unintelligible precisely because human awareness is finite and limited to a narrow spectrum. Human awareness lacks the scope and breath to measure creative forces beyond the visible spectrum. Mankind quintessential changes reality by materializing creative forces with directed effort. Creative forces are fundamental to human nature and imperceptible, hence unsuited to empirical awareness. The materialization of creative forces exposes the elementary error of instrumentalism and pragmatism. Normative empirical calculations lack the scope and breath to take the measure of a man, except by reducing him to a machine or zombie. Normative processes are well suited to bureaucrats and bean counters as they gage progress towards some empirical goal, or identify some process gone amok. But as the measure of a man instrumentation and pragmatism are unsatisfactory because of intangibles beyond human awareness.

[ May 27, 2002: Message edited by: dk ]</p>

Dr. Retard

One way to find out what an objective morality is is to look at what its detractors say -- people who seek to 'deflate' morality:

1. Morality is just a matter of taste (preferences, personal values, etc.):
What is it to be a matter of taste? I hate Diet Coke and you love it. Whether Diet Coke is tasty is a matter relative to we individuals and our palletes. There is no attribute "tastiness" that Diet Coke does or does not exhibit. There is only a bundle of attributes that may or may not provoke certain pro or con attitudes in those who drink it. Similarly, I hate abortion and you love it. Whether abortion is right is a matter relative to we individuals and our brains. There is no attribute "rightness" that abortion does or does not exhibit. There is only a bundle of attributes that may or may not provoke certain pro or con attitudes in those who contemplate it. Moral properties like "rightness" and gourmet properties like "tastiness" are secondary properties, ones that depend on the reaction of perceivers.

2. When it comes to morality, believing something makes it so:
How can the truth of a domain be so sensitive to our beliefs? It's hard to see. Here's how to mistakenly think that something is like this: Our beliefs tend to accurately reflect our tastes. If I believe I hate Diet Coke, I probably really do hate it. Sometimes kids will harbor false beliefs about their own tastes ("What do you know? I DO like meatloaf!"), but humans tend to be pretty reliable in this area of belief. So: if T's truth is a matter of taste, and I believe T, then probably T is true. But my belief is not what makes T true. The fact that T states the truth about my tastes is what makes it true. The connection between belief and truth-value in matters of taste is a merely empirical connection that derives its force from our well-functioning, self-analyzing brains. So when does believing something make it so? Only when the belief in question is belief B, the belief that B is believed. Presumably moral skeptics aren't saying that moral beliefs are like this contrived self-referential belief. I conclude that they've mistaken "matter of taste" for "believing makes it so".

3. Morality is just a matter of custom (convention, might makes right, ruling ideology, etc.):
What is it to be a matter of custom? I consider giant pink sunglasses and a cowboy hat to be appropriate business attire. My boss does not. Whether it is appropriate is a matter relative to our culture, especially office culture. As it turns out, he's right and I'm wrong. There is no attribute "appropriateness" that the outfit exhibits. There is only a bundle of attributes that may or may not provoke certain pro or con attitudes in those who observe it. Similarly, I consider flag-burning OK and you consider it wrong. Whether it is wrong is a matter relative to our culture. As it turns out, you're right and I'm wrong. There is no attribute "wrongness" that flag-burning does or does not exhibit. There is only a bundle of attributes that may or may not provoke certain pro or con attitudes in those who contemplate it.

4. No moral conviction is truer than another:
There are several ways to cash this out. One is that moral convictions are just emotional residue, and that there is nothing right or wrong about one emotion rather than another. Another is that moral convictions are just instruments of social manipulation, and there is nothing right or wrong about one instrument rather than another. Another is that moral convictions are all equally erroneous and delusional in supposing some things to be really better than others, since there is no sense in something being really better than something else, or it is unlikely that such relationships really exist.

I reject all of these as completely mistaken, and to that extent, I suppose I'm an objectivist. Moral claims are not true or false by virtue of our attitudes or beliefs, they're not cognitively empty expressions, and they needn't posit nonexistent entities. Moral claims are true or false by virtue of whether the practices they praise and/or blame have the real-world ability to promote and/or harm values. Whether these values consist in the satisfaction of preferences justified merely by our attitudes and beliefs (value subjectivism), or in the existence of independently justified states of affairs (value objectivism) is, for now, beside the point. Moral systems, like science and engineering, are justified when they get the job done, whether or not 'getting the job done' is a matter whose composition can be intellectually justified.

99Percent

bd-from-kg: If life is held to be "good" because it is valued or desired, we have to consider why it is desired. Does anyone desire a life in which he would be completely unconscious? Of course not. So life is not valued for itself.

But life is required in order to have consciousness in the first place.

But what about consciousness? Is it valued for itself?

But consciousness is required in order to be able to make decisions in the first place.

Consider: if you were offered the possibility of living (and being conscious) an extra 20 years, you would certainly want to enquire into what those 20 years would be like. If they were going to be miserable, you probably would say "no thanks".

Actually, I think it is more reasonable to expect to see what "miserable" actually means as "miserable" is entirely subjective. Since as humans we have the option of killing ourselves at any moment the better decision would be to say "well, lets see how it goes and I'll decide along the way just how miserable it is and if I want to keep on living".

Both life and consciousness are valued as preconditions for those things that we do value for themselves. But that means that they are instrumental goods. And instrumental goods are by definition not fundamental: if A is valued only because it can get you B, or is a precondition for B, then B is more fundamental than A. Thus, to the extent that life and consciousness are "goods", they are not fundamental goods, and thus cannot be the foundation of a reasonable moral system.

I disagree. If there were other fundamental goods that could substitute life and consciouness in order to be able to decide for B then I would accept that life and consciousness are instrumental values, but as it currently stands, life and consciousness are the only means whereby you can then be able to decide for B. So they are fundamental.

So you have Life&gt;Consciousness&gt;Volition and then&gt; B or C.

[ May 28, 2002: Message edited by: 99Percent ]</p>