HelenM

I appreciate your comments and I agree that all of life is teaching us things (if we're willing to learn, at least)

But evidently I define 'desire' differently from you. I don't define it such that everything I do is what I want to do. Sometimes I do things I don't want to do. I do them because it's important to others that I do them. But I don't want to do them. I don't enjoy them, necessarily. If I desired to do them I'd enjoy them wouldn't I?

You are defining what I desire to do as what I decide to do and I don't think they are the same. Or at least not the way I think of 'desire'. I think of it as primarily related to my emotions, not my decisions.

Helen

DRFseven

Not necessarily. People desire things all the time that they can't say they enjoy doing. Imagine wanting a certain job more than anything, even though it was god-awful work, but you needed the money. You can think of many examples of this type.

Quote:

You are defining what I desire to do as what I decide to do and I don't think they are the same. Or at least not the way I think of 'desire'. I think of it as primarily related to my emotions, not my decisions.

But your decisions are directly related to your emotions by memory connections in the limbic system. Without emotions, you couldn't MAKE a decision, especially a moral decision.

excreationist

Alonzo Fyfe:
....There is another theory out that talks about the stages of spiritual development, that identifies atheists as people who simply cannot make it outside of the first stage of spiritual development (sometimes explained in terms of their not having good relationships with their fathers)....
Well the only theory about spiritual development I've heard about is Fowler's Stages of Faith. BTW I first read about it in a psychology textbook I think. In the "highest" (sixth) stage, you could be an atheist... it simply is about wanting to unify the world and believing in the sanctity of human life, etc - I'm not sure if committing your life to that purpose is required to be at that stage though. BTW, Jesus talked about dividing the world, and also judging others (and tormenting them eternally), so he isn't at that stage. But on the other hand as God, he is supposed to be above us.
http://www.garrettcollege.edu/faculty/tkasecamp/human%20growth%20notes/fowler's%20stages%20of%20faith.htm
It is similar to Kohlberg's stages since it involves thought becoming more and more abstract. And the thing about these stages is that people start at the bottom and go "upwards"... in that theory you are talking about, it doesn't fit the pattern - for ex-Christian atheists that involves people going backwards...
The quote said atheists "can't make it past the first stage" - but if they used to be evangelical Christians then they have made past the first stage before....! So it seems flawed - based on real world examples. On the other hand, a lot of people have shown that people go through stages that Kohlberg describes in moral development - and developmental psychology textbooks usually (or virtually always) mention his theory.

One could probably come up with a theory of logical development, whereby people also go through stages. Yet, this has no relevance to the question of whether D'Morgan's theorem is proved or not proved.
People's opinion on the matter might be described by the stage they are at though....

There are also theories on the stages on the psychological development of serial killers and rapists.
Same with that thing about denial, anger, grief, acceptance (something like that).

Even if Kohlberg et al. are correct in showing that these are the stages that people go through in fact, any assumption that these are the stages that people should go through are in need of their own separate defense.
They are just meant to be a description of patterns that seem to happen - and also maybe explanations for why people change their thought patterns... but as I said I don't think that later stages are necessarily superior to earlier stages - and that people should go through them (and become like Gandhi, etc) - in my reply to HelenM (a bit later) I point out that websites talk about problems with the stages - including the sixth stage.

HelenM:
....Apparently the site you linked to is that of a Bible-believer, so I'm sure he believes in objective morals. It seems that Kohlbergs stages having 'universal principles' as the highest stage, implies objective morality....
Well you can ignore the Bible stuff, although it is interesting that some sites compare Kohlberg's stages to the stages of morality throughout the Bible... (e.g. from the law to the gospel)
The part about how different stages deal with the ethical dilemmas in different ways is what I wanted to emphasize.

Note that it talks about an Inadequacy of Stage 6 reasoning:
It also notes problems with other stages as well.

I think we are motivated by two kinds of things - avoiding negative emotions (which are just chemicals) and seeking positive emotions (also chemicals). I think we can experience (analyse) different types of positive and negative emotions simultaneously - and we decide on a course of action (or inaction) based on which emotions/values outweigh the others...
Anyway we can choose to do something mostly being motivated by avoiding a negative outcome (fear) - rather than being motivated by seeking a positive outcome (desire)...
As you say, I guess it can sound odd using the word "desire" when you are just avoiding a negative situation...

Alonzo Fyfe

The most common way is through positive and negative reinforcement.

By punishing a child, you associate something bad with the behavior you are punishing. Experience has shown that the child will first avoid the behavior as a way of avoiding punishment. Over time, that aversion becomes internalized, and the child will continue to avoid that behavior even when he is certain that there will be no punishment.

He no longer has an aversion to the behavior as a means of avoiding punishment, he has simple aversion to that behavior itself.

Sports games are often, for children, associated with positive experiences (one gets taken to the game by their parents who also teach them to play and provide all sorts of quality time in a sports context). This is how a desire is acquired. What is initially valued as a way of spending time with family becomes desired for its own sake.

For an adult, learning a new desire is like learning a new language. It takes much more effort, and will always "speak with an accent" (as it were).


Desire is an ambiguous word allowing for multiple meanings.

What you are talking about here are cases of mixed desire. You have a desire for X, you have an aversion to Y (or a lack of interest one way or the other) in Y that is a part of X. You cannot have X without some Y, so you take the good with the bad.

You do have a desire to do things "for the sake of your family". But something you do not desire (boredom) is unfortunately a part of what you do "for the sake of your family").

Note, An aversion to Y is simply another way of saying a desire for not-Y.

There may be something else (Z) that you like, and there is nothing about Z that you do not like. Thus, you can embrase Z with full enthusiasm. Something you cannot do with X.

Now, it may be the case that the value of (X - Y) > Z. In which case, you opt to do (X - Y) rather than Z, even though your desires for (X - Y) are mixed and your desire for Z is untainted. Z is still not worth as much to you as the X in the (X - Y) option.

In this case "for the sake of your family" - "boredom" > Z (all possible alternatives). Otherwise, you would not go. You would do Z instead.

HelenM

Ok, I guess I have no linguistic justification for not calling that a 'desire'.

I'd like a way to distinguish the kind of want where I don't feel it now but I am trusting, based on various knowledge and beliefs, that I will find a course of action fulfilling, from the kind of very immediate emotional 'want' such as "I want that donut now".

I don't know how to distinguish them but it seems that they are different, to me.

I take your point; what I wrote was too simplistic. Nevertheless I think knowledge and belief as well as emotions are integral to the decisions we make.

Helen

HelenM

Ok, I concede that (see what I just wrote to DRFseven).

I don't think we can be taught to 'feel' certain things, but I can see that we can be taught to have certain beliefs and we can be taught certain information and those can change what we 'want', at least when 'want' has to do with those more complex 'wants', not the immediate "I see it - I want it!" types of desire.

Helen

Alonzo Fyfe

Please take care to avoid confusing the process of desire with the object of desire.

The process of desire certainly involves the transmissions of neural signals along neurons in the brain, which in turn involves the loss of electric potential across a cell membrane.

Yet, this does not mean that the object of our desire is the loss of electric potential across the cell membrane.

One of the things that happens when you drive your car is that it burns gasoline. Yet, people very seldom (if ever) drive their cars for the purpose of burning gasoline.

HelenM

Oh, ok. I've read the book Peace-Child, fwiw.

The thing about saying that example shows we can't trust our consciences is that the website author is assuming an objective morality and then interprets an instance of an alternate morality in a way that supports the theory. A subjectivist presumably would say "See? That alternate morality supports a subjectivist viewpoint. Because if morals were objective this culture would hold the same ones (before having Western/Christian morals introduced to them) that we have".

I would have liked to see the site address how we can know that that culture is 'wrong' and we are 'right'. I suppose the author of the site would say that the morality that agrees with the Bible is right.

But as I said, I'm trying to understand objective morality as held to by atheists.

I think my confusion is more to do with the multiple meanings of desire. Sometimes it's an immediate feeling and sometimes it's more a 'belief in future gratification' or a 'belief that not meeting felt desires will meet unmet ones in a way that overall meets more of my goals/desires' , imo.

Helen

excreationist

Alonzo Fyfe:
....Yet, this does not mean that the object of our desire is the loss of electric potential across the cell membrane....
Well I'm saying it is. I'm saying that our brain works out how to manipulate the world (and our "imagination") in order to maximize the pleasure signals or pain signals it will receive in the future. Though we aren't normally aware of that... we think we want external things like apples or cars, etc.
BTW, apparently there have been experiments where scientists have put an electrode into the "pleasure centre" of a rat's brain and when it presses a button the pleasure centre is stimulated and it feels pleasure. It associates with pressing the button with huge amounts of pleasure, which would outweigh all the other desires (even strong hunger pain signals). Anyway, they would collapse from exhaustion after a while (due to the pleasure outweighing the tiredness pain signal so they ignore their tiredness) and starve as well I think.
I think it would work like that in humans too... assuming the pleasure is sufficiently great... it would be similar to how intelligent people want to get their "fix"/high from things like drugs or gambling, etc, even though they might be aware that it is a mistake. If their fear of the consequences overpowers the intensity of the perceived near-future pleasure, then they can avoid taking the drugs, etc, due to "will-power".
Getting back to what you said, surely some chemicals and pathways(?) in the brain are used to transmit emotional information... after all there apparently is a "pleasure centre" and a "pain centre". I can't be bothered finding out the proper name for it, but I think it is in or near the limbic system. Anyway, I'm talking about signals that transmit this emotional information (dopamine chemical messages, etc?) - not general neural signals used for other things.

One of the things that happens when you drive your car is that it burns gasoline. Yet, people very seldom (if ever) drive their cars for the purpose of burning gasoline.
I don't quite see the connection with what I was saying.... maybe you could read my reply and think up another analogy.

Alonzo Fyfe

BDI theory (belief-desire-intention theory), which I pretty much assume in my writing, says exactly this.

People act to fulfill their desires, given their beliefs.

Desires determine the destination, beliefs pick the route.