The AntiChris

bd-from-kg
I thought that was precisely what I said:
This works on the premise that love is, fundamentally, a desire and that all pleasure experienced by the mother is purely a consequence of satisfying this base desire.

I'd always thought of it as a basic emotional response - a sensation (or expectation) of pleasure (the word "pleasure" is woefully inadequate here) evoked by the object of one's love. Of course, this emotional response will give rise to desires, but it makes no sense, to me at least, to talk of desires without the pre-existence of this fundamental emotional response.
Because it's oxymoronic. You've consistently used phrases such as "for their own sake" to convey your belief that such desires are not dependent on the expectation of subjective experiences. From the Shorter OED:

Desire: That emotion which is directed at the attainment or possession of some object from which pleasure or satisfaction is expected.
I really don't see how this can be construed as evidence, convincing or otherwise. If my view is correct, the mother is willing to risk her life rather than face the prospect of living with the agony of grief - a clear example of an act motivated, at least in part, by the avoidance of a "subjective experience" and one which could not be considered, by any stretch of the imagination, to be self-interested.
Forgive me a wry smile here as I recall the following exchange in a previous post:
I guess we both agree that personal testimony shouldn't always be taken at face value.

It seems to me that thought experiments, if they are to serve any purpose at all, need to be designed to test the hypothesis that's actually being advanced. In all your examples, the experiments are designed to test the theory that people are solely motivated by the conscious desire for a particular subjective experience. This is not my position and, by your own admission, apparently not exactly what PE advocates say either.

I acknowledge that the emotions and motivations we're discussing here are extremely complex and operate at different levels of consciousness - it's not simply a case of two competing conscious desires. However, it looks extremely likely to me that the desire for a subjective experience, at some level of consciousness, plays an essential role in the motivation of all acts and that altruistic acts are no exception.
Of course not - I'm always open to sound argument. I don't hold the views I do because of adherence to some dogma - I do so because human behaviour genuinely looks this way to me.

I can assure you that that your criticisms and the issue of falsifiability have caused me to re-examine my opinions closely - and reassess them to a certain extent. However, I still find the concept of a "desire for a real-world outcome as an end in itself" to be totally unconvincing. It seems an unrealistically contrived and unnecessary attempt to emphasise the distinction between altruism and self-interest.

Chris

AnthonyAdams45

Never had an unrequited love? Never wanted to get know someone who jsut didn't care about you. Never would care about you? Yet hung on to that love anyway? Despite the pain associated with it.

Have no bad habits? No practices which you know you should not pursue, but do so anyway? No activities that create more trouble that they are worth, but you do them anyway? No activities about which you have regrets, but you nevertheless participate in?

How do you reconcile these behaviours with PE? Not someone else's behaviour now, but yours. If you haven't experienced these things, I do not care to know how you explain others behaviour, as you may lack some requisite information to formulate a complete explanation. If you have, then explain how such destructive behaviour is in accord with PE?

Waning Moon Conrad

As I said, I haven't read any of her works and I've only just seen her name mentioned on these boards. So you're right.



If you could distill her argument for me I'd be very grateful.

Maybe her and I have totally different concepts of altruism. My own concept of it is that you do something to alleviate the suffering of others or augment their happiness.

If you save a Daddy Long Legs from being swept down the plughole as you're having a shower, and you don't do it to feel good yourself or bask in your own allegedly vast compassion but simply do it because you don't want to see something drown that doesn't have to drown......is that evil?

Is it not a minor manifestation of altruism?

I can't see it, but as I say above, I would be grateful if you could put her belief into a nutshell for me.

I should have read the earlier posts of this thread more carefully.
I had the impression that she didn't believe that genuine altruism was possible. I wasn't actually saying that she has no cause to force her view on others although it may read that way. What I was trying to get at was the idea that people should not assume that all other humans have the same limitations that they do - in the case of no such thing as genuine altruism, the person who states it may be incapable and is projecting that same incapacity onto the rest of humanity.

And yes I do believe that the Nazarene's advice about "good by stealth" and "not sounding thy trumpet before thee" if followed might lead to genuine altruism.

But I'm not forcing that opinion on you or ranting it at you.

The AntiChris

AnthonyAdams45 I afraid I'm missing your point. I see nothing in these desires and behaviours that's in conflict with anything I've said.

Maybe this is the source of confusion:
I guess I should attach the following disclaimers to all my posts in this thread:

.....I have not the slightest desire to defend or promote PE/PH.

I've never argued that the subconscious perception of an emotional payoff renders an act "self-interested". You, and others, may interpret it thus but it's not a term I've used.
(Originally posted Jan 16)

Chris

AnthonyAdams45

Wel, you know how these hings get tangled.

Keith Russell

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

Waning Moon Conrad: If you could distill her argument for me I'd be very grateful.

Keith: Rand didn’t define ‘altruism’ as something (anything) one wants (desires) to do; one’s desires are irrelevant to the altruist. Altruism doesn’t seek to dictate one’s specific actions; it seeks to guide one’s actions by proscribing who—morally—should benefit from one’s actions.

It may be that helping the poor actually made Mother Theresa very happy--but that is of little or no concern to the altruist. Altruism, ultimately, doesn’t view actions as moral or immoral, nor does it primarily view the motivation for the actions as moral or immoral. It is the beneficiary of the actions who, the altruist believes, should determine the morality or immorality of an action.

Working for (or helping) one’s self is generally considered immoral, working (or helping) one’s friends or families is considered more moral, while helping complete strangers is viewed as very moral. (Think of the way Mother Theresa is discussed.) But, working against one’s own interests in order to help complete strangers is viewed as the most moral. (Think of the New York firefighters and police; lauded for ‘giving their own lives while selflessly serving their fellow human beings’.)

Self-sacrifice is the highest moral good, according to altruism, and this ties in very nicely with Christianity. (God supposedly sacrificed Himself in the form of Jesus, and He did it in order to help [save] the wretched, the unredeemable—those who could not, cannot, help them themselves.)

Waning: Maybe she and I have totally different concepts of altruism. My own concept of it is that you do something to alleviate the suffering of others or augment their happiness.

Keith: That’s it in a nutshell. Doing something, anything--for others.

Waning: If you save a Daddy Long Legs from being swept down the plughole as you're having a shower, and you don't do it to feel good yourself or bask in your own allegedly vast compassion but simply do it because you don't want to see something drown that doesn't have to drown......is that evil?

Keith: So, you saved a creature because you ‘didn’t want to see it drown’? That is a personal, selfish want—to desire that suffering take place out of sight or not at all. You didn’t want to see something suffer, so you acted to bring about a situation in which you did not have to witness the suffering. Nothing wrong with it; but it has nothing to do with either morality in general, nor the morality of altruism, in particular.

Waning: Is it not a minor manifestation of altruism?

Keith: I can’t see it as such. (No.) The question isn’t ‘it is OK to save a daddy long-legs if one wants to?’ The question is, ‘is one obligated to do so, whether one wants to--or not?’

Waning: I can't see it, but as I say above, I would be grateful if you could put her belief into a nutshell for me.
[snip]

Waning: And yes I do believe that the Nazarene's advice about "good by stealth" and "not sounding thy trumpet before thee" if followed might lead to genuine altruism.

Keith: Still, the advice to do ‘good by stealth’, does not answer the question of ‘what is the good?’—and, ‘who is to do this good—and who is to benefit?’

If one desires to dedicate one’s life to help feed starving people, or build houses for the homeless, or provide legal assistance to low-income folks free-of-charge, then one has the right to choose to do those things.

Where altruism gets involved is when one doesn’t want to spend one’s life helping to feed starving people, when one does not want to build homes for the homeless, when one does not wish to work for next-to-nothing in return. In these cases, altruism states that one is—nonetheless—obligated, morally, to help those ‘less fortunate’, to help the ‘underprivileged’, to help those who ‘cannot help themselves’.

If each one of us has the right to do what we each want to do (provided we violate no one else’s right to do the same, in the process), then we have the right to choose whether or not to help others. If it is right that the choice be ours, then it is right whether we choose to help, or choose not to help. And, if it is right to make either choice, how can one choice be more moral than the other?

Keith.

Dr. Retard

Keith
It's wrong to force Bill to help the poor (i.e., it's right that the choice is his). Yet it's right for Bill to choose to help the poor.

I don't see the contradiction. Are you claiming there is one, or am I misunderstanding you?

Waning Moon Conrad

Okay - but why is it - according to Rand - evil?

Keith Russell

Gentlemen:

In my opinion, it is fine to choose to help the poor, but just as fine to choose not to.

In Ayn Rand's opinion, one should be primarily concerned with one's own interests--which will not include helping the poor. But, as we've seen, this conflicts with the notion that perhaps one has determined that it is in one's own interest to help the poor.

Rand would say that this is wrong, and is not really in one's interests--and she has some arguments to support that claim.

Her arguments are not always completely convincing, however.

My own main problem with altruism is as I've stated, that altruism claims that one should--whether one wants to, or not--choose to work for the benfit of others.

Keith.

bd-from-kg

The AntiChris:

You say:

This is ironic, to put it mildly. In this same post, by the time you made this statement you had already used both of the arguments that (as I’ve pointed out repeatedly) amount to redefining your position in such a way as to make it unfalsifiable, and then rather spectacularly failed to recognize the point of arguments that plainly do falsify any reasonably falsifiable version of it.

1. Unfalsifiability: First version.

Oh, please. Proof by definition? Haven’t I talked about this at some length already? If you’re now going to disqualify motivations based on desires for things other than pleasure or satisfaction on the grounds that this sort of thing isn’t a “real” desire (by definition) and therefore that a motivation based on it isn’t a “real” motivation (again by definition), we’re spinning our wheels. Either you’re making a substantive claim or you’re not. If you are, you can’t claim to be right “by definition”.

Anyway, surely you know better by now than to use definitions from ordinary dictionaries (rather than dictionaries of philosophy) in discussions of this kind. The sense of a word in philosophical discussions can be anywhere from subtly to radically different from its meaning in ordinary speech. The OED is the best of its kind (and it does give about the same definition as the one you quoted from the shorter version), but it’s not a philosophical dictionary.

And even as a description of how the word is used in everyday contexts this definition is wrong. People do not by any means always expect to get pleasure or satisfaction from attaining a desire. For example, a couple is in a serious auto accident; the wife remembers that her husband looked dead or near death when she last saw him. When she recovers consciousness in the hospital, naturally she desires to know how her husband is. What she expects to learn is that he’s dead. She certainly does not expect pleasure or satisfaction from coming to know this.

2. Unfalsifiability: Second version

This misses the point completely. (And it was really hard to miss, because I spelled it out very clearly.) In my case, as I made clear, I was saying that I thought the people in question were speaking a bit sloppily; their intended meaning could easily be determined by a little further questioning. But in your case you were saying that the people in question were simply wrong about what their real motives were; they’d say the same thing no matter how closely they were questioned.

But no doubt people are often mistaken about their true motives. (I said this explicitly on the “Murder for Gain” thread.) My real point was that you not only reject testimony from agents as to their motives as evidence, you also reject any behavior as evidence of truly altruistic ultimate motives. Which means that your position is unfalsifiable. You’re not putting forth an empirical hypothesis which you’re willing to put to the test of observation or experiment; you’re stating an article of faith which you’ll continue to believe no matter what observations are forthcoming; it’s not really based on evidence at all. I’ve asked you before what you would count as evidence against your belief; now I ask you again. What would (in your mind) constitute falsifying evidence? If you can’t answer this, there’s really nothing to discuss.

3. Unconscious motives

I agreed with this some time ago. Why do you keep repeating yourself? And what’s your point? Whether a motivation is conscious or unconscious is beside the point. If it is a desire for a certain state of affairs combined with a belief that acting in a certain way will tend to bring this state of affairs about, it’s a motivation. It doesn’t matter whether we are consciously aware of the desire in question. But nothing else is a motivation, by definition. An emotion in itself is not a motivation. And what we are looking at here is not the complex, mysterious process that causes desires. Nor are we looking at our reasons for believing that doing this or that will bring about the desired state of affairs. What we are looking at is the objects of the desires that motivate us.

4. What the thought experiments show

This is the question that the thought experiments are designed to shed some light on, so let’s move on to them now. You say:

Well, actually it’s the position of the great majority of PE advocates, but let’s look at what your position is. You say:

Now to say that P is essential to Q means that you can’t have Q without P. So you’re claiming that no act will be done unless it is motivated (at least in part) by a desire for a subjective experience.

Now let’s consider a choice between doing X and Y. The motive for doing X is a weak desire for a subjective experience, whereas the motives for doing Y consist of a lot of very strong desires for things other than subjective experiences. Then according to your statement, the agent is certain to do X rather than Y, because his motivation for Y lacks the essential element of a desire for a subjective experience. It simply doesn’t matter how strong the desires for other things are; no number of them, however strong, can motivate him to do Y in the face of a desire for subjective experience prompting him to do X instead. In other words, motives based on desires for subjective experiences totally dominate all motives based on any other types of desires. One way of putting this is that a desire for a subjective experience is infinitely stronger than any other kind of desire. This is a pretty strong claim.

The thought experiments are designed to test this claim – the claim that the desire for a subjective experience plays an essential role in the motivation of all acts – not the theory that people are solely motivated by desires (much less conscious desires) for subjective experiences. In each case the desire for a subjective experience - attaining happiness, satisfaction, peace of mind, or whatever - is separated from the attainment of the real-world state of affairs that it ordinarily goes with, so that we can see whether it is the desire for the real-world state of affairs or the desire for the subjective experience that is the dominant or essential motivation. And in each case we find that it is the desire for the real-world result which dominates; the person involved, when faced with a choice between them (rather than the usual “twofer”) chooses to satisfy the desire for real-world results rather than the desire for the subjective experience.

This is the phenomenon that the theory of the dominance or “essentiality” of desires for subjective experience is powerless to explain. If such a theory were true, such desires would be dominant (regardless of whether the agent is conscious of them); when faced with a choice between satisfying such a desire or satisfying a desire for something other than a subjective experience, he will opt for satisfying the desire for a subjective experience. But what we actually find is that just the opposite happens in a great many cases: the agent opts to forego the desired subjective experience for the sake of getting the desired real-world result. The “subjective-experience” theory (whatever you choose to call it) makes the wrong prediction again and again. This is what is known as “falsification”.