The Ultimate Desirism F.A.Q.
(Under Construction. Last updated October 28, 2009.)
This is the clearing house for all common questions about the moral theory I defend, desirism (aka desire utilitarianism). It is a sequel to my earlier desire utilitarianism F.A.Q., which is still useful, here.1
I will refer to desire utilitarianism as desirism because that term is shorter and leads to fewer misunderstandings.
I must stress that very little of what follows is original work. Most of what you read below is a paraphrase of work already done by Alonzo Fyfe. My work on desirism is not original research, but merely organization and popularization.
The questions are ordered by category as they are added so that the number associated with each question does not change. This is done so that I and others can write, for example “See questions 6.04 and 6.05 over here,” and link to this page.
To link to a specific question, link to this page’s URL, add a # symbol, then add the question number. For example, link to:
http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=2982#3.08
Contents:
- The Basics
- What the Theory Says
- Objections
- Desirism in Practice
- Desirism and Applied Ethics
- Other Moral Theories
The Basics
{1.01} What is desire utilitarianism / desirism? Why do you prefer the term 'desirism'?
Desire utilitarianism is a theory about morality.
There are many theories about morality. Non-cognitivism claims that moral sentences are not true or false at all, but are more like grunts of approval and disapproval. Preference utilitarianism claims that preference satisfaction is the ultimate good, and should be maximized. Error theory argues that although moral utterances make factual claims, all such claims are untrue because the moral values to which they refer to do not exist.
There are many other theories about morality. Desire utilitarianism is one of them – the one that I currently think is more plausible than all the others.
Some people prefer to call the theory desirism because the term ‘desire utilitarianism’ leads people to (incorrectly) assume that desire utilitarianism is similar to other utilitarian theories, like preference utilitarianism. Also, ‘desirism’ is shorter to type and say. For these reasons, I will refer to desire utilitarianism by its alternate name, desirism.
On this page, Alonzo Fyfe shares why he named the theory “desire utilitarianism.”
{1.02} What is the history of desirism?
Alonzo Fyfe formulated desire utilitarianism during his 12 years of formal education. His story is recorded in an online book, Desire Utilitarianism: An Atheist’s Quest for Moral Truth. Since then, Fyfe has continued to refine and correct the theory. He has also explored its implications for questions of applied ethics.
Fyfe first promoted his ideas on his website, AlonzoFyfe.com, and then on his blog, Atheist Ethicist, and then in his book, A Better Place: Essays on Desire Utilitarianism. He continues to develop and defend his theory on his blog. Fyfe has also given several interviews about his theory: 1, 2, 3.
A few other writers have been partially or fully persuaded by his views, including faithlessgod (who suggested the term ‘desirism’) and myself.
{1.03} Do any major philosophers defend desirism?
Not yet. Most major philosophers are not even aware of the theory, because Fyfe has not published his work in any peer-reviewed journals. Fyfe says this is because he doesn’t want to spend his life in ivory towers – he wants to bring his ideas directly to the people.
J.C.C. Smart has seen Fyfe’s work, and said something like “This sounds about right, but I still think there’s something with the other view,” but did not explain what that something was. Peter Singer has also seen it, and basically said, “It’s been done before,” without saying where it’s been done before or – more importantly – what’s wrong with it such that he should continue advocating a different ethical theory instead. Neither philosopher was able to show what might be wrong with desirism.
{1.04} Where can I learn more about desire utilitarianism / desirism?
The primary sources on desirism are Fyfe’s book, A Better Place, and his blog, Atheist Ethicist. Also see Fyfe’s online book, Desire Utilitarianism: An Atheist’s Quest for Moral Truth, which recounts how Fyfe developed the theory. Older articles can be found on Fyfe’s older website.
Quick summaries of desirism have been attempted by Fyfe, Richard Chappel, and faithlessgod.
I have written about desirism, mostly on this page and in my short ebook, What is Morality?, but also on other pages. I also made an index of faithlessgod’s writings on desirism.
Also see Alonzo’s podcast interview for The Infidel Guy, and his two interviews for Conversations from the Pale Blue Dot (one, two).
Fyfe has also participated in two formal debates about desirism: one, two.
{1.05} What is your personal opinion of desirism, Luke?
After losing my faith in Christianity, I could find no arguments for moral realism that weren’t just as bad as the arguments for theism that I had rejected. So, I became a moral error theorist – I did not believe there were any true moral facts.
Later, desirism was the first moral theory I found that (1) referred only to things that existed, and (2) was logically consistent. Because of this, it’s the most plausible theory of moral realism I know of.
But I’m not sure desirism is right. If it’s wrong, I’ll revert to error theory. Here are my biggest concerns about desirism:
- Why make desires the primary object of evaluation?
- It may turn out that desires do not exist in any form usable by moral realism.
- Is the notion of what qualifies as a “reason for action” clear enough to say that desires are the only kind that exist?
- Desirism is a consequentialist theory. At what point in time do we evaluate the consequences of a desire to determine its goodness? Ten years from now? Twenty? A hundred? A million?
- Are desires really persistent enough for desirism to work? When I’m unconscious, do I really have a desire to not be killed? What about desires that change with my daily appetites?
{1.06} Why should I choose desirism as my moral theory?
There are many ethical theories. You should choose among them the same way you choose a scientific theory. You pick the one that is most likely to be true.
It doesn’t matter if you like the idea of wave-particle duality, or whether it is useful to you in making decisions. What matters here is whether or not wave-particle duality is true. You choose the theory that is true.
You should choose desirism because it is more probably true than other moral theories.
{1.07} Isn't it a bit arrogant to claim that desirism is the best moral theory ever devised?
Maybe. But wouldn’t it be weirder if I defended a moral theory despite thinking it was inferior to another theory? Obviously, I defend desirism because it’s the best theory of morality I know of. Otherwise, I would be defending a different moral theory.
{1.08} If desirism is so simple, why did nobody think of it until recently?
Other moral theories postulate such exotic entities as non-natural properties, intrinsic values, hypothetical social contracts, and gods. Compared to these theories, desirism is remarkably simple. It derives morality from simple natural facts: desires, states of affairs, the effects of desires on other desires, etc. And it does not require a special epistemology but depends on a method we already know to work well: science.
But if desirism is so simple, why did nobody think of it until recently?
I think it’s because everyone was looking for the wrong thing. Most people have been convinced that morality is transcendent, intrinsic, or even literally magical. Many others thought that moral facts had to be intrinsically motivating, or “binding” in some inescapable way, or independent of desires. So, philosophers spent thousands of years looking for something that did not exist.
This is rather like the search for the “soul” – that thing that causes our personality and intentions. People were convinced that the soul was non-physical, that it survived the death of the body, and so on. So they looked for thousands of years and could not find it. Now we know the soul is simply the mind, which is itself a function of the brain, which is itself a system of neuron firings. The soul is wholly physical, and it does not survive the death of the body. But we finally found it, and we are beginning to understand it scientifically.
{1.09} What are the most frequently asked questions about desirism?
To be added…
What the Theory Says
{2.01} What does desirism claim? Give it to me in a nushell.
Desirism is both a meta-ethical theory (about what moral terms mean) and a normative theory (about how to decide what is right and wrong).
Desirism is:
- cognitivist – ethical sentences like “murder is wrong” can be true or false; they assert a proposition.
- objectivist – ethical sentences refer to facts, not opinions.
- realist – some ethical sentences are true; they correspond to reality.
- naturalist – moral facts reduce to non-moral facts about the world.
- gnostic – many ethical sentences can be known to be true; moral knowledge is possible.
- consequentialist – the goodness and badness of something (of a desire, in the case of desirism) is determined by its consequences.
Okay, so what does desirism claim?
First, desirism claims that when people make moral claims, like “Killing is wrong,” they seem to be claiming that it’s an objective fact that there are reasons for action against killing. All moral talk is about reasons for action. Reasons for action to feed the poor and show kindness to others. Reasons for action to not rape and not murder.
Second, desirism claims that desires are the only reasons for action that exist. Intrinsic values, categorical imperatives, ideal observers, divine commands, social contracts, and other foundations for moral theories do not exist.
Third, desirism claims that moral value exists as a relation between desires and states of affairs.
Fourth, desirism claims that desires themselves are the primary objects of moral evaluation. A good desire is one that tends to fulfill other desires. A bad desire is one tends to thwart other desires. Thus, a right act is one that a person with good desires would perform, and a bad act is one that a person with good desires would not perform. A good law is one that a person with good desires would enact, and a bad law is one he would not enact. And so on.
Thus, morality is the practice of shaping malleable desires: promoting desires that tend to fulfill other desires, and discouraging desires that tend to thwart other desires. Another way to think about this is to say that morality is about achieving a harmony of desires. (But not because desire fulfillment or a harmony of desires have intrinsic value. Intrinsic value does not exist.)
Here is a longer summary of desirism, by Alonzo Fyfe.
{2.02} Okay, so what are beliefs and desires?
To be added…
{2.03} Back up your first claim, that morality is about reasons for action.
To be added…
{2.04} Back up your second claim, that desires are the only reasons for action that exist.
To be added…
{2.05} Back up your third claim, that value exists as a relation between desires and states of affairs.
To be added…
{2.06} Back up your fourth claim, that desires are the primary objects of moral evaluation.
To be added…
{2.07} How could desirism be falsified?
Desirism makes a huge number of empirically falsifiable claims. For example, desirism would be falsified if it could be shown:
- that non-desire reasons for action exist, for example intrinsic values or categorical imperatives
- that desires do not exist
- that beliefs do not exist
- that agents do not form intentions from their desires, given their beliefs
- that no desires are malleable
- that desires do not tend to fulfill or thwart other desires
- that people do not generally have reason to promote desires that tend to fulfill other desires, or people do not generally have reason to inhibit desires that tend to thwart other desires
- that methods like praise, reward, condemnation, and punishment do not affect malleable desires
But desirism is also a meta-ethical theory, and so it also deals with semantic issues. Regarding these issues, desirism would be defeated if it could be shown that there is another moral theory that fits better with the broad usage of moral terms and makes only true claims.
{2.08} Are desires persistent? Do I lack the desire to not be killed while I'm unconscious?
To be added…
To be added…
{2.10} How can someone else's desires hold moral sway over me?
To be added…
{2.11} Please state desirism as a logical argument.
To be added…
{2.12} Can someone have a false belief about their own desires?
To be added…
{2.13} How can you know which desires are more malleable than others?
To be added…
Objections
{3.01} Moral talk is just the expression of someone's attitude.
This view is called moral non-cognitivism. See {6.01}.
{3.02} Values can't be objective, because if you eliminated all sentient beings, value wouldn't exist.
I happen to agree that if you eliminated all beings with desires, value would not exist. But this is a poor argument against the existence of objective values.
If planets didn’t exist, then moons wouldn’t exist. Does this mean that moons do not objectively exist? Of course not. Because the fact of the matter is that planets do exist, and so do moons, and we can research their properties and relations and make objectively true claims about them. The same is true of values.
{3.03} But "objective" means "mind-independent," and desires are not mind-independent.
Yes, moral philosophers use the word “objective” to mean “mind-independent.” Desires are mind-dependent, so desirism is not objective in this sense.
But moral philosophers do not seem to have realized that this definition of “objective” has curious consequences. For example, the recent AFP headline “Forty injured in US prison riot” would not be considered “objective.”
Why? Because “injured” is a value-laden term. It is a mind-dependent term. Injury refers to damage that is not desired. If you ask somebody to pierce your ear for an earring, that is damage but not injury. If a robber grabs you and cuts your ear to threaten you into submission, that is damage and also injury, because it was undesired. So injury is a value-laden and mind-dependent term. So the AFP headline “Forty injured in US prison riot” is not “objective,” as moral philosophers use the term.
So we need to be clearer about how we use our terms. Fyfe suggests three tiers for the objective/subjective distinction:
(1) Broad objectivism, narrow subjectivism: If a statement has truth value, it is objective. “I like ice cream” is objective, because anybody who denies it is objectively wrong. I do like ice cream, and that’s a fact. A subjective utterance might be “Ewwwww… cockroaches!”
(2) Middle objectivism, middle subjectivism: If I’m reporting my own psychological states, that’s subjective. If I’m reporting on somebody else’s psychological states, that’s objective. But this has a curious consequence. If I say “Luke likes ice cream,” that is subjective. If you say “Luke likes ice cream,” that is objective. The exact same proposition can be either an objective fact or a subjective opinion, depending on who speaks it. So here we are not classifying propositions as subjective or objective. Instead, we are classifying speech utterances. There is also the problem of saying “We like ice cream.” Is this subjective or objective or a little of both?
(3) Narrow objectivism, broad subjectivism: The philosopher’s definition: any statement about psychological states is not objective but subjective. So,”5 > 3″ and “The earth is round” are objective, but “I like ice cream” and “Forty people were injured in a US prison riot” and “There is a new outbreak of disease in Kenya” are subjective (injury and disease are value-laden terms that refer to psychological states).
With these distinctions in place, we can say that:
- Desirism is objective(1), since it is entirely factual.
- Desirism is mostly objective(2), since it refers to all desires, of which the speaker’s desires make up a negligible proportion.
- Desirism is not objective(3), since it refers to desires, which are psychological states.
What people often mean when they say something is “objective, not subjective” is that it is “factual, not a matter of opinion.” Desirism is factual, not a matter of opinion.
{3.04} Desirism may be a true theory about desires and types of value, but it's not a theory about morality. Desirism doesn't refer to intrinsic value or categorical imperatives, which is what we intuitively mean by "morality."
Throughout history, our intuitions have been dead wrong about damn near everything. It’s no surprise they were wrong about morality. The fact is that intrinsic value, categorical imperatives, and the commands of God – the traditional foundations of morality – do not exist. So nearly all moral theory is in serious error.
But that doesn’t have to be the end of the story. Water was once universally considered to be an element. Now we know it’s not, but that doesn’t mean “Water does not exist.” Atoms were once universally held to be without parts – indeed, that’s what “atom” means. We’ve discovered that’s not true, but that’s doesn’t mean atoms do not exist. Likewise, morality was once almost universally held to have a transcendent quality. Does that mean naturalist moral philosophers are not even talking about morality? I think not. Our definitions of things change as we learn more about the real world.
I think desirism is a true theory about desires and certain types of value relationships. But I think it’s worth calling it a moral theory about moral values because:
- Desirism accounts for the three categories of moral action: obligatory, forbidden, and permitted.
- Desirism accounts for mens rea or “guilty mind.”
- Desirism accounts for actions “above and beyond the call of duty.”
- Desirism is a universal consideration of reasons for action, not just a prudential or institutional consideration.
- Desirism accounts for the wrongness of negligence.
- Desirism accounts for moral dilemmas.
- Desirism explains why praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment are core components of morality.
- Desirism explains what subjectivists get right about morality: that moral value depends on desires.
- Desirism also explains what objectivists get right about morality: that moral value is independent of human opinion, and individuals and societies can be wrong about morality.
For these reasons, I think it is sensible to talk about desirism not just as a theory about desires and their relationships to states of affairs and other desires, but a theory about morality and moral value.
{3.05} You say "do what a person with good desires would do." Isn't that a hypothetical entity, something you said desirism avoids?
Desirism says you ought to “do what a person with good desires would do.” But there probably isn’t any such person with only good desires. He is a hypothetical agent.
But one of my objections to social contract theory is that the social contract is hypothetical. So how can I defend a theory that refers to hypothetical good agents?
My answer is that the “good agent” is a metaphor. When I say, “do what a person with good desires would do,” I mean “act on good desires.” The reason I conjure a hypothetical agent is that a concrete image sticks in human minds better than abstract ideas.
Now, contractarians will say the “social contract” is also a metaphor. But for what? Nothing that exists, as far as I can tell. In contrast, “act as a person with good desires would act” is a metaphor for something in the real world: namely, acting on good desires.
{3.06} But desirism is a theory about values, not facts. So desirism isn't factual.
Here’s Fyfe:
It is widely assumed that something can either present a fact (e.g., “the earth is 4.5 billion years old”), or a non-fact value (e.g., “that is a very good story”). Facts are said to be objective while values are subjective. Nothing can be both a fact and a value, and nothing can be both objective and subjective, or so it is thought.
This looks good on the surface, until you start to ask some questions about what this really means.
For example, even though people speak of values as referring to some type of subjective non-fact entity, those same values are said to be able to influence things in the real world. They cause us to behave one way or another, or to choose one thing over another. These non-fact values somehow cause the world to be different than it would have otherwise been.
How can a non-fact entity influence the flow of matter through the physical universe?
Values are facts. They are part of the physical universe. Specifically, they are relationships between desires and states of affairs. A “good” story is one that fulfills common desires about what we want a story to be like. Both stories and desires exist in the physical world, as do the relationships between them.
Values are facts. I value ice cream. That is a fact. The subjectivist says that if values were facts, that would require us all to like the same thing. This is nonsense. Height is an objective fact but this does not require that we all be the same height. Location is an objective fact even though it is impossible that even just two of us have the same location, let alone everybody.
{3.07} But why should I accept your definition of morality?
Definitions are not important. Language is an invention. Changing our words does not change what is true of the world.
Consider the propositions at the core of desirism:
(1) Desires exist.
(2) Desires are the only reasons for action that exist.
(3) Desires are propositional attitudes.
(4) People seek to realize states of affairs in which the propositions that are the objects of their desires are true.
(5) People act to realize states of affairs in which the propositions that are the object of their desires are true, given their beliefs – meaning that false or incomplete beliefs may thwart their desires.
(6) Some desires are malleable.
(7) Desires can, to different degrees, tend to fulfill or thwart other desires. That is, they can contribute to realizing the propositions that are the objects of other desires true, or contribute to preventing the realization of those propositions.
(8) To the degree that a malleable desire tends to fulfill other desires, to that degree people generally have reason to promote or encourage the formation and strength of that desire. To the degree that a malleable desire tends to thwart other desires, to that degree people generally have reason to inhibit or discourage the formation and strength of that desire.
(9) The tools for promoting or inhibiting desires include praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment.
These are true propositions, and they make no reference to morality, or even “value.” If you decide that the word “morality” refers to intrinsic value or God’s commands or categorical imperatives or imaginary social contracts, then you are welcome to use the word “morality” in that way, but you will be talking about things that do not exist.
Value terms are about reasons for action, and moral value terms are usually spoken of in the context of a universal consideration of reasons for action (not just prudential reasons for action). Desirism is a theory about reasons for action, and especially about a universal consideration of reasons for action. That’s why I think it makes sense to consider it a theory about morality.
Also, desirism accounts for many common features of moral theory, which is another reason to consider it a theory about morality. See question {3.04}.
{3.08} Desirism does not account for motivational internalism, and that's a problem.
To be added…
{3.09} Desirism isn't grounded in practical rationality, and that's a problem.
To be added…
{3.10} What is the greatest objection to desirism you've ever heard?
Alonzo Fyfe thinks that:
…the greatest objection to {desirism} says that there are no desires.
{This} is because we have too many questions to answer about what a desire is and who has them. Some people predict that when we come up with a theory of intentional action that can handle all of these questions, that this theory will be so radically different from the theory of beliefs and desires that the latter will face elimination, {and this would falsify desirism.}
One of the questions is: At what point do creatures actually acquire desires. Let’s say that plants and amoeba have no desires. Do worms? Oysters? Lobsters? Sharks? Insects? Frogs? Snakes? Cattle? It seems difficult to draw a line somewhere.
Do thermostats have desires? Is it reasonable to explain what a thermostat does as having a desire for the temperature of the room to be at 72 degrees, a belief that it is at 68 degrees, and thus it forms the intentional act of heating the room.
…Another relevant question to ask is: Under what conditions do machines acquire desires?
We must wait for neuroscientists to answer these questions. Until then, there are no solid competitors to the standard belief-desire model of intentional action (BDI theory) on which desirism is founded. BDI theory can be used to successfully predict physical phenomena in the universe (in particular, the behavior of others), and it is the best theory we have for doing so.
For a very accessible introduction to this problem, see Daniel Dennett’s Kinds of Minds.
{3.11} What about G.E. Moore's naturalistic fallacy?
To be added…
{3.12} What about Hume's is/ought gap?
To be added…
{3.13} But how can you have ethics without God?
To be added…
{3.14} But how can you have ethics without intrinsic values?
To be added…
{3.15} Can desirism solve the 1000 Sadists Problem?
To be added…
{3.16} How does desirism respond to the explanatory argument against moral realism?
To be added…
{3.17} Desirism is just your favorite way to justify your own moral intuitions.
To be added…
{3.18} What if a B-Theory of time, instead of an A-Theory of time, is correct? How does that affect desirism?
To be added…
{3.19} How can you say that desirism is the One True Theory of ethics?
To be added…
{3.20} If moral value is derived from the relationships between billions of desires, how could you ever calculate the moral value of something?
According to desirism, a morally good desire is one that tends to fulfill more and stronger desires than it tends to thwart. But this would require (1) counting up all the desires in the world, (2) measuring their strengths, and (3) mapping all their causal relationships. And this, we cannot do. So even if desirism is true, it is unusable, right?
No. We often make judgments even though we do not have all the information. In fact, all our judgments are that way. We even make complex judgments we are fairly certain about while lacking much information. We can use our reasoning and make “educated guesses” and also estimate how prone to error each educated guess is.
As for (1) counting desires, we can estimate these. For example, it is quite clear that the detonation of an atomic bomb in Tokyo would thwart more desires than a serial killer in Siberia. And we can use evidence and argument to approach accurate estimates in more difficult cases. But there is a need for moral experts here. We need people to weigh the arguments and study the data and take surveys and count desires. Those researching applied ethics under a consequentialist framework have been doing basically this for several decades already.
We can also (2) measure the strengths of desires. While we don’t yet know what a desire looks like in the brain or how to measure it directly, neuroscience will eventually tell us. In the meantime, the crude tools we possess will have to do. People could tell when one thing was hotter than another before they had thermometers to give precise numbers. And we can tell that Tom’s desire for warm shelter is stronger than his desire for ice cream. You might be surprised to learn how precisely we can currently measure the strengths of desires through methods such as an economist’s willingness to pay algorithms.
Finally, (3) mapping the causal relationships of desires may be the most difficult. This always requires a great deal of theorizing and argument and counter-argument. But as more evidence is accumulated and more prejudices are left behind, we may yet be able to understand how certain desires cause the fulfillment or thwarting of other desires. Many cases are not much disputed – for example, the desire to rape pretty clearly causes a great many strong desires to be thwarted around the world each year.
{3.21} But "objective" means "not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased." And desirism is not objective in that way.
As explained in section {3.03}, there are many definitions of the term “objective.” Desirism is objective according to some definitions, and not objective according to others.
But desirism is objective even given the definition above: “not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased.” According to desirism, the terms “good” and “evil” refer to desires that tend to fulfill or thwart other desires, respectively. And the truth of whether a desire tends to fulfill or thwart other desires is based on the facts of the matter, and is not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, prejudice, or bias.
For example, it may be my personal feeling that black people should not enjoy the same human rights that white people do. Even if everyone was racist – including blacks themselves – it would still be a fact that this racism thwarts a great many desires of blacks. Even if blacks believed their racism did not thwart their own desires, it would still be the case that it thwarted a great many of their desires. Even if the blacks interpreted their circumstance to say that this culture of racism fulfilled their own desires, and even if blacks themselves were prejudiced and biased against their own kind, it would still be a fact that racism thwarts a great many desires of blacks. See {3.22}.
{3.22} Racism is not evil according to desirism because desires would be fulfilled equally whether nobody was racist or everybody was racist.
Sometimes I used the Knob Metaphor to illustrate what I mean by desires that “tend to fulfill” or “tend to thwart” other desires. Imagine a knob that controls the strength of a given desire within a population. If we turn the knob to the left, the strength of that desire decreases in the population. If we turn the knob to the right, the strength of that desire increases. To say that a desire is good is to say that if we turn its knob to the right, more desires will be fulfilled (or fewer desires thwarted). To say that a desire is bad is to say that if we turn its knob to the right, more desires will be thwarted (or fewer desires fulfilled).
Since each desire is a reason for action, there are more reasons for action to increase the suffusion of a good desire in a population than there are to decrease it. (That is what it means to say it is a good desire.)
So let’s consider the knob for racism. To keep things simple, let’s define “racism” as a desire to deny blacks many privileges that whites enjoy, for example freedom to travel, freedom to choose one’s labor, freedom to vote, freedom to defend oneself in court, and freedom from physical abuse.
Is racism a good desire or a bad desire, according to desirism?
Racism is a bad desire because it tends to thwart other desires. That is, if we suffuse a society with racism by “turning its knob to the right” (or, in the real world, by praising and rewarding racism), then this racism will cause a great many desires to be thwarted. Sure, the desires of the racists will be fulfilled, but a great many desires of the blacks will be thwarted. Their desires for freedom to travel, freedom to choose one’s labor, freedom to vote, freedom to defend oneself in court, and freedom from physical abuse will be thwarted.
Now, suppose we deplete a society of racism by “turning its knob to the left” (or, in the real world, by condemning and punishing racism). In that case, fewer racist desires will be thwarted, because there will be fewer racist desires. And also, the desires of blacks will be better fulfilled – for example their desires for freedom of travel, freedom to choose one’s labor, and so on.
So there are more reasons for action to deplete a society of racism than to suffuse it with the same. Thus, racism is a bad desire.
Note that this is true even if we turn the knob all the way to the right, such that everyone is racist, even blacks. Why? It may help to call to mind comedian Dave Chappelle’s character Clayton Bigsby, a blind white supremacist who doesn’t know he’s black, and remains a racist even when he learns the truth. Even if every black person on earth desired that blacks be denied freedom of travel, freedom to choose one’s labor, and so on – and even if they believed this denial of freedoms actually fulfilled their own desires – it would still be a fact that this racist denial of freedoms greatly thwarted the desires of blacks.
The only way this could not be the case is if we also changed the desires of blacks such that they no longer desired freedom of travel, freedom to choose one’s labor, freedom to vote, freedom to defend oneself in court, and freedom from physical abuse. But morality is concerned with malleable desires and many of these desires are not very malleable. (In contrast, racism is extremely malleable, having gone from near-total suffusion to a minority desire in many societies in just a few generations.) Moreover, at least one of these desires could not be reversed: the desire for freedom from physical abuse. Abuse is defined in terms of that to which you have an aversion, and it’s not possible to have a positive desire for something to which you have an aversion (a negative desire).
{3.23} Desirism is basically Maoist.
To be added…
Desirism in Practice
{4.01} How do I use desirism to make moral decisions? What ought I to do?
According to desirism, the question “Should I do x?” can be answered by solving another problem: “Would a person with good desires do x?”
And what is a good desire? A good desire is one that tends to fulfill other desires.
An example: should I rape someone? No, because rape is caused by a desire to rape, and a desire to rape is a bad desire, because that desire tends to thwart, rather than fulfill, other desires.
One image that can help you make moral decisions is to imagine a set of knobs that control the number and strength of desires in a population. You can “turn a desire up” so that everyone strongly has that desire, or you can “turn a desire down” so that nobody has that desire.
If your turn the rape-desire knob to the right, then more desires will be thwarted. Either the desires of the victims will be thwarted, or the desires of the rapists to rape will be thwarted (if their potential victims evade them).
But if you turn the rape-desire knob all the way to the left, then no desires are thwarted. The desires of the potential victims are not thwarted, and the rapists have no desires to rape that are being thwarted.
But why not turn the knob which controls the aversion to rape, instead? Why not make it so that everybody has the desire to rape, but as it happens everybody enjoys being raped?
In the case of rape, this is impossible because rape is defined as “undesired forced sexual intercourse.” Once somebody has lost the aversion to forced intercourse, it is no longer called “rape.”
Turning desire-knobs is an important moral practice. You ought to promote desires that tend to fulfill other desires, and discourage desires that tend to thwart other desires.
But that is not all. As Fyfe writes,
What you ought to do is that which a person with good desires would do. But a person with good desires is not always going to be spending his time turning knobs on other desires. He has other concerns in addition to this one.
The father who reads to his child before bedtime has a desire that tends to fulfill other desires. But it is not a desire to “turn knobs” on other desires. Instead, it is a desire for the welfare of his child, and a love for the child that motivates him to spend time with the child. Because of these desires, he is likely to spend time with his child instead of performing some other activity that would qualify as “turning the knob” on other desires.
In fact, {it makes no sense to turn knobs all the time.} What would it mean to spend time promoting parental affection that would cause fathers to spend more time with their children, if one is not permitted to act on that desire and spend time with one’s children for no reason other than one desires to do so? The practice of promoting desires has to be made consistent with moral permission to act on those desires.
The reason we promote good desires is so that people will act on those good desires.
In summary: you ought to do what a person with good desires – desires that tend to fulfill other desires – would do.
For answers to what you should do in a given situation, see the section on applied ethics.
{4.02} How do I become a better person?
Fyfe writes:
A person with good desires has it made. When she asks the question, “What should I do?” the answer comes back, “Whatever you want to do.” The person with good desires is somebody who wants to find a cure for diabetes, or wants to prevent the suffering caused by malaria, or wants to teach children about the real world. This is their passion. In pursuing their passion, they also tend to fulfill the desires of others.
…It’s the rest of us who have to worry… about the gap between what we want to do and what we should do.
Our desires, especially when we’re young, are shaped by biology and other people. But as we grow, we gain some ability to choose our own desires. And we can choose to foster in ourselves good desires – desires that tend to fulfill other desires.
As a young man, I knew that intense desires for addictive drugs would probably thwart many of my future desires (for success, health, good relationships, etc.), and so I have avoided addictive drugs my whole life. To a great extent, I chose not to desire addictive drugs. As it happens, this was was probably a morally good aversion for me to develop, since addiction to drugs tends to thwart lots of desires, not just those of the addict.
Another way to choose good desires – to become a better person – is to acquire a good habit. Exercise is a good habit, and one can actually acquire a desire to exercise through various psychological techniques. For example, make exercise pleasurable by doing it with your friends or by rewarding yourself after a job well done.
To become a better person, study desirism to learn which desires are good and which desires are bad. Then, choose the desires in yourself you can most successfully change from bad to good, and change them.
Science has a lot to say about how you can change your desires. The most trustworthy collection of these techniques I have found so far is Psychological Self-Help by Clayton E. Tucker-Ladd.
{4.03} Can I be religious and also accept desirism?
Yes, it’s possible to accept desirism and theism without being inconsistent.
Many people believe in a god or gods without thinking they are the source of moral values. And if God existed, it could still be true that desires are the only reasons for action that exist. God’s desires would affect the moral landscape about as little as adding one more human and their desires into the world, unless God’s desires were as strong as those of a billion people combined (and it’s a bit hard to think of God so intensely desirous – like a horny teenager times a million).
And if God was anything like the violent, misogynistic despot of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, then the people of earth would have very strong reasons to change God’s desires such that they fulfilled billions of desires rather than thwarting them.
{4.04} In what ways am I morally responsible for my beliefs?
To be added. For now, see here.
Desirism and Applied Ethics
{5.01} What about animals? Don't they have desires?
As far as we know, desires are a product of sufficiently complex brains, and many “higher” animals certainly seem to have desires. A plant probably does not have desires, since it lacks a brain.
But wherever desires are, there is no reason to exclude them from moral consideration. It is not the case that human desires have intrinsic value and animal desires do not. Intrinsic value does not exist.
The implications of desirism for our interaction with animals are complex, but it is a fair guess that our annual thwarting of billions of animal desires is morally evil. Desirism suggests that we ought to radically change how we interact with animals, but nobody is quite sure how. The philosophical work on this issue just hasn’t been done yet.
But here’s a start: one, two, three.
{5.02} Is it okay to harm someone to prevent them from doing wrong?
To be added…
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{5.07} Is libertarianism good?
To be added…
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{5.09} What should we do about offensive speech?
To be added…
{5.10} Should "free speech" include the call to do harm?
To be added…
{5.11} Do people always have the right to their own opinion?
To be added…
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{5.13} What about stem cell research?
To be added…
{5.14} What about homosexuality?
To be added…
{5.15} What about pornography?
To be added…
{5.16} Is capital punishment okay?
To be added…
{5.17} What should we do about global warming and other environmental issues?
To be added…
{5.18} What about human cloning?
To be added…
{5.19} What about space development?
To be added…
{5.20} What is the value of survival?
To be added…
{5.21} What is the value of truth?
To be added…
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{5.24} What obligations do we have to children?
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{5.27} How would desirism respond to Sophie's Choice?
To be added…
{5.28} How does desirism deal with trolley problems?
To be added…
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{5.30} What about keeping promises?
To be added…
{5.31} Does desirism promote totalitarianism?
To be added…
{5.32} Would desirism recommend that we design robots with artificial intelligence and then enslave them, as long as we design them to desire to serve humans?
To be added…
{5.33} What if we had a knob that could re-engineer people's desires? What should we do with it?
To be added…
Other Moral Theories
{6.01} What's wrong with non-cognitivism?
Non-cognitivism is the view that moral sentences like “Murder is wrong” do not actually assert a proposition, but are in fact a kind of expressive utterance, like “Murder… yuck!” In this way, moral sentences are held to be like questions or commands, which cannot be true or false:
True or false: What is your favorite color?
True or false: Close the door.
The first problem with non-cognitivism is that it fails its most basic test. Hand somebody a list of questions with True and False checkboxes for each one and they will just be confused. Hand them a list of commands with True and False checkboxes and they will stare at you blankly. But hand them a list of moral sentences like “Murder is wrong” and “Stealing is good” and they will start checking boxes.
Let’s say somebody shouts “Murder is wrong!” and you ask them “Wait, do you just mean that you have a ‘yuck’ reaction to murder, or do you mean that murder has the property of ‘being morally wrong’?” They will choose the latter. They will tell you they meant that murder really is wrong, as a matter of fact.
Here is some further evidence2 that moral sentences are meant to assert propositions:
- Moral sentences are expressed in the indicative mood.
- They can be transformed into questions.
- They are embedded in propositional attitude contexts.
- They are considered to have an objective, impersonal character.
- Moral predicates (“good”) are transformed into abstract terms (“goodness”), suggesting they are meant to name properties.
- Moral sentences are subject to debate that looks just like factual debate.
- They appear as premises in arguments considered valid.
So non-cognitivism just isn’t true about the way 99% of people use moral sentences. It also suffers from other problems.
That’s why I favor a cognitivist theory. Moral sentences really do assert something. Now, it could be the case that these assertions always refer to something that does not exist (moral value), just as theological assertions always refer to something that does not exist (God), but it would still be the case that moral sentences assert something.
{6.02} What's wrong with relativism?
Moral relativism is the position that moral statements are not objectively factual, but instead are relative to individual and cultural concerns; there is no universal standard by which we can assess the truth of a moral claim.
But if moral statements are relative to something, does this mean they are not objective and factual? Certainly not. Consider the following statements:
- I live in California.
- I’m taller than most people.
- Seven is greater than two.
- The earth is 93 million miles from the sun.
Relationships and relative states are facts. They are objectively true or false.
So maybe relativism is just a descriptive claim about human societies: that different cultures consider different things to be right and wrong. That’s obviously true. But it doesn’t mean all those cultures are right. Different cultures believe different things about the origins of the universe, too, but there is an objective fact of the matter, and some cultures believe something closer to the truth than others.
So maybe relativism is just moral nihilism, the view that objective moral values do not exist. That’s a reasonable default position. After all, if someone claims that objective moral values do exist, he ought to show some evidence for it. In this case, the problem with moral relativism is that I do provide good evidence that objective moral values exist.
{6.03} What's wrong with subjectivism?
There are many types of moral subjectivism.
One type claims that moral sentences like “Murder is wrong” are statements not about some fact “out there in the world” but about the speaker’s opinion. “Murder is wrong” really means “I have the opinion that murder is wrong.”
Let’s test this theory. Ask people what they think about murder. They will say, “Murder is wrong.” Then ask them if they really just mean that they have the opinion that murder is wrong. Most of them will say, “No, it’s not just my opinion. Murder is wrong!”
Now these people may be incorrect that murder is wrong. But it is false to claim that they’re just saying something about their own opinion. So that kind of subjectivism fails its most obvious test.
Another type of subjectivism claims that there are facts about people’s moral opinions, but that there are no facts about whether murder really is wrong or whether charity really is right. And this is a sensible default position. Someone who wants to say that certain things really are wrong should give some evidence that “rightness” and “wrongness” exist. The problem with this type of subjectivism is that I do provide good evidence that these properties exist.
A final type of subjectivism claims that moral facts exist, but they are relative to states of mind. Murder is wrong because God’s mind disapproves of it, or because an ideal observer would disapprove of it, or because it would thwart lots of desires. Desirism agrees with this type of subjectivism, because desirism states that moral values are relative to desires, which are brain states.
But that’s not usually what people mean by “subjectivism.” Subjectivists often try to say that someone cannot be wrong about morality. We can each invent our own morality, because everything is “subjective.” This is where desirism disagrees with subjectivism. Desirism claims that moral values exist as relations between desires and states of affairs. And it is certainly possible to be wrong about those relations. For example, it is false to say that the desire to rape tends to fulfill more and stronger desires than it fulfills.
Also see: one, two, three, four.
{6.04} What's wrong with error theory?
Error theory argues that (1) morality is centrally committed to X, and (2) X does not exist.
For example, Mackie argued3 that morality is centrally committed to intrinsic prescriptivity, and that intrinsic prescriptivity does not exist. I agree that intrinsic prescriptivity does not exist, but I don’t think morality is centrally committed to it.
Another example. Joyce argues that morality is committed to the queer notion of moral inescapability, that people are bound by morality even if they make no moral judgments at all. He then argues that moral inescapability does not exist. Depending on what it means to be “bound” by morality, I might or might not agree that moral inescapability is false. But I do not agree that morality is committed to moral inescapability.
In The Error in Error Theory, Finlay writes that:
For centuries, water was almost universally assumed to be an element rather than the compound it actually is. But we do not take seriously the analogous proposal that until Lavoisier, thought and talk about ‘water’ was systematically false because there was no such stuff–and we would not even if the assumption had been universal.
Fyfe offers another example, atoms:
…the fact that the word ‘atom’ means ‘without parts’ {plus the fact that atoms were once universally thought to be without parts} does not, in fact, force us to view the universe is one in which these smallest pieces of gold, carbon, lead, and oxygen are not made up of parts. Whether or not these smallest pieces of each element can be further split into parts is not a matter for the linguist to decide. And when it is discovered that these smallest pieces can be divided into parts, we simply need to revise our language.
And I’ll give one more example. It seems plausible that at one time most moral systems were intimately tied to the idea of transcendent obligations – obligations to a god, for example. At that time it would have seemed sensible to argue that morality is “centrally committed” to transcendent obligation. Does this mean that ethical naturalists – whether their theories are correct or not – are not even talking about morality, because their theories do not include the transcendent? I think not.
Desirism agrees with error theory that the vast majority of our moral discourse – about God’s commands, intrinsic values, categorical imperatives, and so on – is in error. But desirism says, “Just as with water and atoms, we’ve discovered what morality really refers to, and we don’t have to abandon moral terms just because they don’t actually refer to God’s commands or intrinsic values.”
Furthermore, desirism accounts for a great many things that appear regularly in moral discourse: the three categories of moral action (obligatory, forbidden, permissible), actions “above and beyond the call of duty,” mens rea or “guilty mind,” moral dilemmas, and so on. That’s why it makes sense to keep using moral terms even though they don’t actually refer to God’s commands or intrinsic values or categorical imperatives – just as water isn’t actually an element, and atoms aren’t actually indivisible.
{6.05} What's wrong with contractarianism?
To be added…
{6.06} What's wrong with common utilitarianism?
Common utilitarian ethical theories claim that X has intrinsic value, and thus ought to be maximized. Bentham argued that pleasure has intrinsic value, and should be maximized. Mill argued that happiness has intrinsic value. Hare argued that preference satisfaction is what has intrinsic value. These theories promote “the greatest good for the greatest number.”
Many people object that these utilitarian theories fail because they give surprising results. For example, they fail the 1000 Sadists Problem. Imagine a world in which 1000 sadists want to rape a child. The greatest good for the greatest number is for the sadists to rape the child. The child will endure great suffering, but her suffering is not as great as the pleasure / happiness / preference satisfaction experienced by the 1000 sadists. The objection goes like this: Surely we all know that it would be wrong for the sadists to rape the child, so therefore utilitarianism cannot be right.
I don’t think this is a good objection. The objection assumes that we are born with some kind of highly accurate morality-detector, or that our pre-philosophical moral intuitions are usually correct. But there is no evidence for either of these assumptions. So, the fact that most of us feel that something is wrong provides no evidence that it is wrong.
So, I don’t think the 1000 sadists problem, stated this way, is a real problem. (But, desirism “solves” this problem anyway. See {3.10}.)
Instead, I think common utilitarian theories fail because they depend on the existence of intrinsic values, and intrinsic values do not exist. We can’t explain any facts about the world better by postulating intrinsic values than by postulating less exotic entities, for example desires. To quote Alonzo Fyfe: “By the powers vested in me by Occam’s Razor, intrinsic values do not exist.”
{6.07} What's wrong with Kantianism?
To be added…
{6.08} What's wrong with virtue ethics?
Virtue ethics says that right acts are those done out of a virtuous character. But what is virtuous? Virtue is a habit or quality that allows a something to fulfill its purpose. The virtues for an axe are sharpness and durability. The virtues for a hunting dog are a sensitive nose, stealth, and obedience.
But notice that the virtues of a hunting dog are assigned by someone outside the dog: its master. So are the virtues for an axe. An axe’s purpose is to chop wood only because we gave it that purpose. If a hurricane lodged a sharp, slender piece of rock into the end of a short stick, that stick-and-stone would have no intrinsic purpose. It would only have a purpose if somebody came along and decided to use it to chop wood, or pound in a tent peg, or prop up a stool, or set a trap to catch a mouse.
If humans have a purpose, it must be intrinsic to humans or else assigned from the outside, for example by God. The first option fails because God does not exist. The second option fails because intrinsic purpose does not exist. Nobody has ever shown me evidence that intrinsic purpose exists. (And if you think evolution provides intrinsic purpose, please see question {6.10}.)
Actually, desirism can be considered a kind of virtue ethics, but with no commitment to intrinsic purpose or externally-assigned purpose, and a foundation for virtue in consequentialism. See here.
{6.09} Isn't happiness the sole good?
Many people believe that:
- All action is aimed at the agent’s happiness.
- Therefore, happiness is the sole good.
Ignoring the legitimacy of inference from (1) to (2) for now, let me explain why (1) is false.
All action is not aimed at the agent’s happiness.
Let’s do a thought experiment. A mad scientist has captured you and a close friend you care about deeply. He gives you two options, and you must choose one:
- Your friend will have his memory erased, but will be set free in good health. He will be given reason to believe that you are safe and happy. Your memory will also be erased, and you’ll be given reason to believe that your friend is being tortured endlessly. You will hear his screams. But you will be fed and cared for and given as much freedom as possible.
- Your friend will be tortured endlessly on a remote island. Your memory will be erased, and you will be given reason to believe your friend is healthy and happy. You will be fed and cared for and given as much freedom as possible.
Many people, perhaps most people, will choose Option 1 – even though this does not maximize their own happiness. (There are also other examples, ones we encounter in real life.) Thus, it is false to say that people always aim toward their own happiness.
Happiness is not the only project that people aim at. We have other projects.
But it is true that we always aim at what we desire. We may desire our own happiness, but we sometimes desire other things as well. BDI theory, the most widely-accepted model of intentional action, claims that:
Belief + desire -> intention -> intentional action
Happiness theories claim something else, which is false:
Belief + desire that “I am happy” > intention -> intentional action
Happiness is not the only thing we desire, and it is not the only thing that motivates us toward intentional action.
Also see: one, two, three, four.
{6.10} Isn't morality just an evolved sentiment? What's wrong with evolutionary ethics?
It’s probably true that many of our feelings about what is right and wrong (tasteful and distasteful) have evolved.
But how can we leap from “I get a feeling of distaste when I think about rape” to the claim “Rape is morally wrong”? A mere feeling justifies no such conclusion.
Some say that evolution programmed us with moral opinions in favor of cooperation and altruism because these enable the formation of a functional society.
That may be true, but there is no valid inference from “X is an evolved trait” to “X is morally good.” If men had evolved, like male lions, to kill our step-children upon taking a new mate, would this make killing step-children moral? Or, consider this: It seems we have evolved a disposition to seek dominance over others whenever possible. Does this make the pursuit (and use) of dominance over others moral? These are invalid inferences.
Another problem is that not all our moral sentiments are evolved. Many are socially programmed. Slavery went from near-universal acceptance to wide disdain in the space of three generations. That is not the work of gradual evolution.
Evolutionary ethics also suffers from a modified Euthyphro dilemma. The evolutionary ethicist says, “What is good is that which is loved by our genes.”
To which I respond with a paraphrase of Socrates: “Is it good because it is loved by our genes, or is it loved by our genes because it is good?” Fyfe explains the dilemma:
If it is good because it is loved by our genes, then anything that comes to be loved by the genes can become good. If humans, like lions, had a disposition to slaughter their step children, or to behead their mates and eat them, or to attack neighboring tribes and tear their members to bits (all of which occurs in the natural kingdom), then these things would be good. We could not brag that humans evolved a disposition to be moral because morality would then be whatever humans evolved a disposition to do.
If, instead, it is loved by our genes because it is good, then we have not yet answered the question of what goodness is.
- Note: for coding reasons, I must use curly brackets {} instead of straight brackets [] on this page. [↩]
- Collected by Richard Joyce in The Myth of Morality, page 13. [↩]
- Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong [↩]
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Well, that’s fine, so long as he wants desirism to remain a backwater theory that no one has heard of. Keeping your theory from peer review is a pretty cowardly course–if you’re wrong, then peer review is a pretty good way to find out why, and if you’re right, then philosophers ought to be talking about it. Either way, the truth should win out. I can’t see how sheltering a theory from the gauntlet of peer criticism is good for anything. Lorkas
Luke, you are going to need to answer Kant’s critiques to consequentalism. Kant put a serious beating on it and his objections are still the ones people bring up when talking about the ethical system. IntelligentDasein
Luke, there has to be more to a more system based on desires than that they cohere with one another (and I think Alonzo believes this as well, but I’m not sure. I have an example below).
In your objection on rape, you resolve it by pointing out the fortunate coincidence that rape necessarily involves the thwarting of other desires and so it couldn’t cohere with “bad” desires into a system. This is an unsatisfying answer.
I think the fully stated objection should go something like this: Is it necessarily the case that “bad” desires like rape can’t come together in a system to promote one another?
I hope it’s ok if I reproduce part of I comment I left on Alonzo’s blog. He hasn’t answered yet, but I think it’s relevant here. Alonzo says here:
If those beliefs are false then there is a chance that you are not fulfilling the most and strongest of your desires as you could be.
…and strongest. Supposing all desires were equally desirable (and bad desires correspondingly undesirable), one would prefer those which encouraged, numerically, the greatest number of good desires and suppressed the greatest number of bad desires.
However, there is such a thing as a stronger or weaker desire. Which appears to mean a single strong desire could thwart desires numerically larger and still have reason for being promoted, provided it is sufficiently strong (this seems plausible to me).
Doesn’t that mean there is a coin of the realm that desire must consist in such that it can be weaker or stronger than other desires? And that, whatever this coin is, it cannot be (exclusively) a quantity of other desires, but something that those desires terminate in which is itself desirable? (I think this is the juncture where other theories of ethics start referring to intrinsic values.)
And, to say this from a slightly different angle, how could one initiate a system of desires like this? If one were a blank slate, I don’t see how one could use desire utilitarianism to come up with first desires. If you don’t want to accept that people are at any point blank slates, it still seems that we somehow come up with desires without thinking explicitly of whether they tend to fulfill other desires, and that desire utilitarianism could only be implemented after you, somehow, already had a collection of desires.
I find Alonzo’s stuff to be amazing, but I only just encountered it this week. I look forward to your posts on this. josef johann
IntelligentDasein,
No doubt! I will eventually add those to the FAQ. lukeprog
That’s the last time I trust the automated line-breaking feature in a comment box! josef johann
I know! Fyfe’s reluctance to publish the theory in journals annoys me to no end. :) If possible, I will bring it to the scholarly realm.
lukeprog
I recall reading an old essay by Mill where he presents an argument for act utilitarianism among these lines. Essentially, the argument goes: What is the evidence that certain things are visible? The fact that we see them. And what is the evidence that pleasure is desirable? The fact that we desire it.
It’s a stealthy way to go from “is” to “ought”, but he commits an informal fallacy in the process. “X is desirable” can either mean “X is desired” or “X ought to be desired”, but these two usages of the word are not equivalent. All he has demonstrated is that pleasure is desired, not that it ought to be desired.
When you say things like “morality is about reasons for action, and desires are the only reasons for action that exist,” I believe you are committing the same fallacy. “Reasons for action” can either mean “reasons why we do behave in certain ways” or “reasons why we should behave in certain ways”. Yes, morality is about reasons for action–reasons that we ought to behave in certain ways. But desires are not necessarily reasons why we ought to behave in certain ways. The only thing we know about them is that they are reasons why we do behave in certain ways. TK
One of the oddities I find in desirism (btw I like the new name :) is the potential for an infinite regress. Fyfe likes to translate “should” statements into “reasons-for-action” statements. So, if you say that I should give to the poor, you could translate it as “There are reasons for you to give to the poor.” But then I can ask, why should I do what there are reasons for me to do? Well, there are reasons for you to do what there are reasons for you to do. And then the cycle repeats – why should I do what there are reasons for me to do? This question never seems to be answered. I suppose it might seem intuitive to do what there are reasons for you to do, but a) you don’t seem to put much stock in intuitions, and b) it doesn’t seem to give the force of a “should” statement. Jeff H
TK,
Mill does indeed commit a fallacy, but I don’t think desirism commits the same one. I’ll add your objections to the FAQ when I can. lukeprog
It seems odd to me (not outright wrong, but odd) to call desirism a consequentialist theory. In just about all other contexts, an ethical theory is called consequentialist in so far as it judges actions by their consequences. Desirism judges desires by their consequences, and takes no direct interest in actions at all.
One fundamental question that I’d have thought a moral theory ought to try to answer is: “Now, what should I do?” Desirism seems to fall down here in two ways (leaving aside the problems inherent to most consequentialist theories, like the need to predict the future in ways that are plainly impossible in practice and maybe even in theory):
It says “you should do what someone with good desires would do”. But there are lots of different ways of having good desires, and they might predict a whole lot of very different actions. I’m not sure whether that’s a big deal, but it seems like it might be, mostly because of the way that …
The multiple levels of indirection are a bit weird. You should do what someone with good desires would do; you tell whether someone’s desires are good by seeing what those desires tend to make them do, and what impact that has on other desires. (Only other good desires? Or all desires, even the bad ones? Neither answer seems quite satisfactory.)
There are a bunch of other things that somehow don’t smell right about desirism. For instance: we’re supposed to assess desires according to what effects they have. But desires on their own don’t have effects; a desire has whatever effects it has on account of being a particular person’s desire, and that person’s other desires, and abilities, and situation in life, and so on, all make a big difference. That would be OK if we only had to assess desires in the context of particular lives (as e.g. we do with acts, for act utilitarianism), but it’s not so good when there are claims like “you should do what someone with good desires would do” flying about. Better, perhaps: you should do what you would do if you had good desires; which is to say, desires that (being held by you) tend to help other desires get fulfilled. But now, why exactly should we prefer this to “you should do whatever helps desires get fulfilled” — i.e., straightforward preference utilitarianism?
I think the answer to question 1.06 (why choose desirism?) is silly. If someone asks “Why should I accept evolution?” or “Why should I reject the theory that the Apollo moon landings were a hoax?”, there’s no point saying “Because evolution is real, and the moon landings actually happened”. What you’re being asked is “What reason is there to think it’s true?”. I suggest that the same is likely true for anyone asking “Why should I accept desirism?”. (Not certainly true: some people might be trying to choose their ethics on the basis of what makes them feel most comfortable, or something.) g
The comment editor has the ability to add numbered lists (HTML element OL) to a comment. They don’t actually display correctly in comments; or, rather, the comment-posting process removes them. (There was one in my reply above, but it’s turned into ordinary paragraphs.) Can you remove that feature from the editor, so it doesn’t function as an “attractive nuisance”? g
I strongly agree with you and Lorkas on this. Luke, have you challenged Fyfe on this (particularly that he has no good reason not to subject his work to formal peer review)? If so, what does he say? Karl
I think I did ask him once. He said something about not enough time (he’s not paid to be a philosopher) and wanting to go directly to the people. The opportunity to subject desirism to peer review is probably the strongest force pushing me to go back to school and study philosophy. But I can’t afford school. Maybe if I successfully publish a few papers I could get a scholarship, or something. lukeprog
Any thoughts on the comments from myself, g, and Jeff H about the problem of desires depending on other desires? josef johann
josef johann,
I’ll be examining these questions in future additions to the FAQ. lukeprog
I am currently exploring (trying to understand) all the implications of Determinism. One question I have is that – if Determinism is true, how malleable are any of our desires?
Thanks. Bribak
Bribak,
Determinism is unrelated to the malleability of desires, just like determinism is unrelated to the malleability of steel. lukeprog
Luke,
Maybe my understanding of Determinism is incorrect. Suppose I am inclined by all determining factors (genetics, upbringing, the complete unfolding of cause and effect) to be predisposed towards a certain thrill from a socially unacceptable behavior (which thwarts more desires than it fulfills). I can see where Desirism can maintain that society will bring its moral tools to bear (shame, punishment, etc) and I would thus now have a greater desire to avoid those moral tools being brought against me than to act on my original desire. This would in turn inhibit my performing those acts that society is condemning. But wouldn’t that original desire still be there (unmalleable by those determining factors)? Isn’t it just that society has given me a greater reason to inhibit that desire? Has my original desire really changed, or just been overridden?
Thanks.
Bribak
Bribak,
Some desires are more malleable than others. Try changing your sex preference, for example, or your desire to consume water.
Moral tools do actually modify malleable desires. I’m not sure what you think the difference is between “changed” and “overridden,” but if I grow up racist and then go to college and hear lots of cool and respectable people deriding racism, that weakens or even reverses my desire to think racist thoughts or act in racist ways. It may also change my beliefs about race.
I hope those examples help. Does that answer your question? lukeprog
I understand what Bribak is saying. And it’s true, sometimes the social tools don’t change desires — they just use the desires that people already have in order to change behavior. That is not the primary goal of the “moral project”, though. And, when we come across desires that cannot be changed, that factors into our moral calculation. Figuring out which desires can be changed, and which can’t, is a scientific question. Figuring out which desires should be changed, if they can, is a moral question (which also uses science). Kip
Luke:
How broad or narrow should a desire be defined in the evaluation? I believe you used the same argument in regards to Rule Utilitarianism with an example about lying to the Nazi’s when hiding a Jewish person in your house. What is the “rule” in question? The same would apply to the “desire” in question. It may just be a practical question, though, in how specific you should be when promoting or demoting certain desires. Should we promote the aversion to killing people? Or just the aversion to killing innocent people? Or just the aversion to killing innocent people who aren’t about to accidentally kill lots of other innocent people? Kip
Kip:
Yup, that’s a difficult and important question, I’ll address it when I can. lukeprog
Both of your answers have helped. I see “overidden” as implying that the original desire is not vanquished, it is just overidden by the now greater desire to NOT be shamed, punished, etc. by society. This would I guess align with Kip’s comment that if a desire cannot be changed, the behavior must be changed through whatever tools we can bring to bear.
Determinism seems to me to imply that different people will have different capabilities of “interior desire changing” due to determining factors that are to a large degree beyond their control. For example, some people can work their way through the tough “lot” they’ve been given in life due to the fact that they have unbelievable drive and passion (and desire) to work hard (if that’s what it takes) to escape from the spot they find themselves in. Other people don’t have that magnitude of drive and thus find themselves “stuck” where they are. That “drive” itself is largely a part of determining factors…and true change will be more difficult for those people without it.
Some people (probably most readers on this site) have a desire to find the best possible moral theory to use to become people who make better moral decisions. Others never give such things a thought. I think what Determinism says is that whether someone has the will or the desire to do the necessary searching is largely a product of predetermined factors. I think good or bad luck has a lot to do with it – the initial “hand” that you were dealt in life. At least that is my understanding of Determinism at this point.
Thanks. Bribak
Sorry for all the mess in front of my last post. I composed it in Microsoft Word and then pasted it here. I’m assuming that is the cause.
In the sentence I wrote “That “drive” itself is largely a part of determining factors…and true change will be more difficult for those people without it.” I meant to say – …a part of DETERMINED factors…not determining factors. Bribak
Bribak: “Determinism” doesn’t mean “can’t change”. It (roughly) means that the initial conditions, plus the intermediate forces, determines the outcome. In this case, the “intermediate forces” would include society using social tools to change people’s desires. Desirism is compatible with Determinism, and in fact, probably requires it. If people had Libertarian Free Will (that was unaffected by social forces), then we could not change people’s desires. Kip
I hate to break it to you, but Fyfe has written two books about desirism and written hundreds of posts on his blog. He wasn’t paid for any of that (selling a few hundred books won’t leave you much money once Lulu’s cut has been taken). The reason why Fyfe hasn’t published is because he knows that desirism cannot withstand peer-review. As a descriptive theory it suffers all the well-understood flaws of justice as mutual advantage. As a normative theory it loses all of its hard-headed appeal (no intrinsic values etc…) and cannot explain why someone should choose desirism as a normative standard rather than preference utilitarianism or eugenics. Better to be a big fish in a small pond (or big pond of small-sized fish).
Justin Martyr
Here we go again.
Fyfe is deliberately not writing for a specialist audience but, by design, communicating this ideas in a more broad format. I have read some of his more technical notes which are more than capable. If he were able to devote himself full-time to this I recall him saying he would seek peer review publication. It was one of his biggest life decisions to take employment over completing his Phd as he has written about a number of times. Now he does not have the time. I still he think he should anyway but this would mean him dropping his blog for a year or two…
Desirism is not justice as mutual advantage and there are other theories that deny intrinsic value such as Railton’s, so, as usual, Martyr’s claims fall at the slightest scrutiny.
faithlessgod
DNFTT faithlessgod
Justin,
As stated earlier, if you continue to post the same question over and over again in bold, you will be banned. I have deleted your unnecessary comment. It will be addressed in future additions of the FAQ, as I’ve said several times. Now settle down. lukeprog
Fyfe is correct; the greatest objection to desirism is that desires do not exist. Just like any emotion we think we feel, it’s all an illusion laid upon us by the mindless processes of sociobiological evolution. And neuroscience and the like won’t prove anything; the physical reaction to desire is not actually desire itself. I can’t hold a testtube containing the desire for love; it’s merely a mixture of discharged liquids. So, just like the theists who point to God as the source of objective morality, your desirism is based on delusions and magic. one more clay figurine
Hi Luke,
Question 3.01 says “Moral talk is just the expression of someone’s opinion.”
You say this view is called non-cognitivism. As I understand it, non-cognitivism is the view that moral talk is just the expression of non-cognitive attitudes.
But I’m not sure if the word “opinion” really means “non-cognitive attitude”. Many times the word opinion is used to mean someone’s BELIEF about something. For example: In my opinion, the moon landing conspiracies are all false.
So a lot of the time (maybe even all of the time) the word opinion refers to a cognitive attitude. Roman
Thanks, Roman, that could use some clarification… when I have time. lukeprog
First, I have to agree with Roman. Colloquially, we use “opinion” to mean more than one thing–including an attitude towards a question that is not questions of fact (as in, “Whether chocolate is better than vanilla is a matter of opinion.”) But we should be more careful, because we also apply the term to beliefs. So you might–if you use the “opinion” terminology– be read as confusing non-cognitivism with cognitivism. Ordinary moral judgments express opinions, according to NC (you say). So do ordinary statements about things like the world being round. When I say, “The Earth is round,” I am expressing (by stating) my belief (or opinion) that the Earth is round. When I say, “Torturing babies for fun is wrong,” I am not–according to non-cognitivism–expressing a belief at all. I am expressing an attitude, or commanding, etc.
Second, I’ve tried to read a little about desirism, but I am confused. Are desires simply to be counted up, or are they to be weighed for strength? Are desires reasons or are the reasons facts about what would fulfill desires? Would it be a good thing if everyone wanted only for everyone else’s desires to be fulfilled? Is that even coherent? Is the view in fact a view about (among other things) what regular people are saying when they make moral statements, or is it some kind of a reform? What are the reasons: desires or good desires? If the latter, are only the best desires to be counted (see above!) or are they weighted for goodness too? Why should I think of good desires as giving me better reasons for action than the desires I actually have? Don Loeb
Don,
I kept hoping that the reason people did not understand my presentation of desirism was because they had not studied moral theory. :) But I cannot hope that is the reason if you do not understand what I’ve tried to say. So give me some time to re-write what is here already and I’ll get back to you.
I appreciate you spending time to read a bit about desirism!
Cheers,
Luke lukeprog
Ok, a good start would be answering some of those questions.
d Don Loeb
Luke
“I kept hoping that the reason people did not understand my presentation of desirism was because they had not studied moral theory. :)”
In my experience it is the other way around. It is those who have not studied moral theory who find it easier to understand desirism. Now I am focused on those of my friends who became sufficiently interested to then study moral theory – we all like arguing with each other – who almost invariably come back to me with the thought that most of it is deeply mistaken and desirism is sufficient for the real world we live in and the world would be better off without all those moral theories infecting people’s minds. faithlessgod
I’ve posted some objections to desire utilitarianism at the link below, and would be interested in any and all comments:
http://merelymist.blogspot.com/2009/11/desire-utilitarianism.html Thomas Reid
Luke,
In 6.01 you wrote: “So non-cognitivism just isn’t true about the way 99% of people use moral sentences.”
Is woman a witch because 99% of villagers think she is? And because she is just as one? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g
Aren’t there any sentences that merely seem to assert something? Bebok
Bebok,
But non-cognitivism is a claim about how people use moral language. And it is a false claim. lukeprog
1) Since I don’t subscribe to any moral theories, I don’t take offense at what FLG says above. Still, it strikes me as implausible. Can he really mean that training in thinking clearly is what causes people not to be able to understand a novel approach to ethics? Or is he assuming that training in philosophy (even analytic philosophy) is not training in how to think more clearly, but indoctrination into ethical dogmatism instead? Couldn’t it be that absent such training, unclear things seem clear to people? That’s certainly been my experience. People come into my classes thinking that they have the answers and gradually come to see that those answers are not as clear or as defensible as they initially believed. Now I do not pretend to have those answers myself, though I sometimes have views. But that has been the point of philosophical training ever since Socrates, to help people see just how complicated and difficult issues that seemed simple to the average Athenian actually are. Socrates was wisest because he alone recognized that he had no wisdom. That was not arrogance exactly. He really believed it–both parts.
Bertrand Russell (one of my first atheist heroes) said that even an atheist (he had a particular one in mind, but no matter) may sometimes have trouble shaking off the dogmatic worldview that characterized his religious perspective. We should all guard against such dogmatism, even when it masquerades as the view that those who did not see the truth BEFORE learning about the alternatives are in a worse position ever to understand it than those who reach enlightenment first and only THEN begin to study the non-enlightened alternatives, if only to find them wanting.
How do you do, FLG. I am Don. Nice to meet you. I have enjoyed your blog. (In what sense does Railton deny intrinsic value, please?)
2)A woman is not a witch because 99% of the people (in some group) think she is. There are no witches. But the word, “witch,” refers to whatever it is that people (most of them, anyway) using the term are talking about. If it turns out that nothing corresponds to that, there are no witches. So the difference is this. THINGS are what they are regardless of how we speak or don’t speak about them or what we (or the majority of us) believe about them. That, I take it is your point, Bebok. Thinking it so can’t make it so. Thinking someone a witch doesn’t make her a witch. But of all the things there are, the WORD “witch” applies to some of them only if those are what people using the word are talking about. One can’t just use a word any old way without risking changing the subject. It’s precisely because the meaning of a word like “witch” is fixed by people’s linguistic commitments that we can say that there are none. My brother once told me that God exists because God is just the capacity for goodness we all have. But even if we have such a capacity, it’s not God. God is whatever (if anything, and I think not) those using the word are talking about. Don Loeb
Thomas Reid
I have replied to your post on my blog faithlessgod
Don Loeb
First my reply to Luke was reflecting my anecdotal experience nothing more.
“Still, it strikes me as implausible. Can he really mean that training in thinking clearly is what causes people not to be able to understand a novel approach to ethics?”
My friends are trained in thinking clearly (at least the ones I am referring to). One evidence of this that they did not need to study moral philosophy to come up with all the standard criteria that any moral theory needs to pass muster, they worked these out from first principles.
What they lack is what seems to infect many who do study moral philosophy (religious and atheist) that morality must have its own special rules of logic and reasoning, employ unusual entities or require linguistic contortions to make sense. This is the issue I was highlighting to Luke.
You might have guessed that this collections of friends were scientists of differing disciplines,however some were musicians, who seem to be the most skeptical bunch of people I have ever met (unless they are female singer/songwriters – again anecdotal experience…) I can only end on this point by reminding everyone again that this is all just my anecdotal experience. faithlessgod
To expand on Luke’s point Bebok
I think moral non-cognitivists:
(1) confuse motivational non-cognitivism (which is true) with moral non-cognitivism (which is false), recognising the former it is a hasty generalisation to conclude the latter
(2) recognise the illocutionary force of moral language as speech acts (which is true) and then again use the fallacy of hasty generalisation to falsely conclude that is all there is to such language. faithlessgod
faithlessgod,
Thanks. I guess (2) was my error.
Don,
As for the witch, there is nothing I can argue about. My reasoning was: People think moral statements assert something and we know that by how they use them. Villagers think woman is a witch and we know that by how they treat her. This doesn’t mean that moral sentences assert something and that woman is a witch.
I’d argue about Socrates. Plato’s Socrates likes to play stupid and highlight his alleged lack of wisdom (particularly in “Apology”), but in fact he always knows all the answers and never learns anything from his interlocutors.
Luke,
I’m still a bit confused, though. You wrote that “non-cognitivism is a claim about how people use moral language”. But in the article you linked it is defined as a conviction that moral statements have no truth conditions. So it’s also the matter of semantics, not only pragmatics.
You mentioned theological assertions. Imagine you ask all Americans if it is true that in God there are three Persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and if it is true that quadruplicity drinks procrastination. The vast majority of answers to the first one would be “Yes”, “No” and “I don’t know”, and to the latter “This doesn’t make sense.” Isn’t it mainly cultural context that makes the difference? Is asking the speakers always a reliable method here? Bebok
Bebok,
This may introduce you to how philosophers argue about semantics.
Non-cognitivism is a semantic position with practical implications. lukeprog
How is Desirism not re-heated Richard Brandt (1979) with some Kantian elements thrown-in for good measure (i.e., a quasi categorical imperative for Desirism’s universalizability claim)? Christopher
It does my heart good to see Dick Brandt mentioned–quite apart from Christopher’s question. I took the last class he ever taught–a semester-long seminar on utilitarianism–and dedicated one of my papers to his memory. Don Loeb
Christopher,
Desirism has many similarities with Brandt and Kant, and many dissimilarities, too. lukeprog
Luke,
Thanks. Bebok
I can’t promise I’ve read every word on this site yet, but it already seems on the face of it like there is way to much complexity in the discussion, which comes from a lack of understanding about some basic facts of human neurology, cognition, genetics and development.
Here are my biases, so you can evaluate them. If you accept them as premises, the conclusions should follow quite simply.
1) Human beings are a bundle of competing desires, not just one at at time. (Lots of references, but check out Dennett’s ‘Consciousness Explained’ for one, in which he describes the ‘multiple drafts’ theory of consciousness – also, see radiolab.org’s program on Morality).
2) Our desires all fall on a continuum from ‘basic’ to ‘higher’ like along Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (Maslow).
3) Because of our genetic heritage (which we can see in other primates, who exhibit way more ‘good’ and ‘moral’ behavior than we tend to think – see Primate and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved from Frans de Waal and The Evolution of Cooperation by Axelrod), we can tell that in many cases, the desires which win out and make their way to behavior are the ones which religions and legal systems have attempted to codify as ‘good’ and ‘moral’.
4) Societies, via religions and legal systems, attempt to codify certain behaviors as ‘good’ and ‘moral’ because we all tend to like those behaviors in others and see the sense in having societies that are largely free of murderers and rapists, etc., and so by providing societal pressure, the attempt is to create another set of desires to help tip the scales in favor of the behaviors we all tend to like (so that in a moral dilemma, we might weigh the ‘desire’ not to go to prison or hell, for instance).
5) When people behave badly, it is largely due to mental illness or undue stress, often as a result of poor upbringing (or poor available conditions for upbringing). By the way, the fact that huge swaths of society have mental illness and did not receive proper upbringing does not denigrate this point. (See ‘Becoming Attached’ by Robert Karen, which shows that attachment disorders in the first year of life can have profound impacts on behavior throughout life. Also consider the rather more wild and woolly claims of Lloyd DeMause in his work on Psychohistory, which suggests that a nation’s childrearing habits has an affect on whether or not it is warlike).
6) It is also important to note that when desires compete and conflict, we bring them to consciousness to think about them – hence the whole big fore-brain thing in humans – we get to agonize over conflicting desires a lot because we can use more information and think more ‘moves ahead’ so to speak.
So here’s the summary:
A human being is supposed to do whatever they want; our wants can be really conflicted, especially as our situations get more and more complex and the considerations multiply; our huge brains are there (evolved, I’d say) for the purpose of allowing us to get what we want despite all the potential considerations having to do with the consequences of what we want; and societies provide codified versions of (by and large) universally desirable behaviors to help tip the scales in favor of ‘good’ behavior as well as give us guideposts when things get really complex.
So, if you just pay close attention to what you want, and spend adequate effort considering the pros and cons, pay attention to societal guideposts, and go to therapy if you are less than completely mentally healthy, then you should be fine.
QED Eric
Hi Luke,
So I’ve read your ethics book and quite a lot of this FAQ. But I am not at all convinced that you’ve shown that moral fact exist! (Sorry!)
What I am going to say may be really obvious and already answered somewhere, but I’m afraid I haven’t found any answer to it! So I hope you can either point me in the right direction of where there is an answer or answer me directly on here. Thanks.
You say that morality is about reasons for action. Okay, that seems reasonable.
Then you say that the only reasons for action that exist are desires. I agree.
But then you say things like this:
“If the poor did not desire to be fed, there would be no reason for action to feed them.”
Here is what I think:
If the poor have a desire to be fed, then THEY have a reason to try to get fed. But the fact that the poor desire to be fed does not give ME a reason to feed them. Where would this reason for action come from? Surely I only have a reason to feed the poor if I have a desire to feed the poor? I am completely puzzled as to why other people’s desires give me reasons for action. They quite clearly don’t. My only reasons for action are my desires, other people’s reasons for action are their desires. I have no reason to try to satisfy other people’s desires, unless I have a desire to satisfy other people’s desires.
Desires are reasons for action in the sense that a person with a desire has a reason to act in a way which she believes will satisfy her desire. But that is it.
Maybe I have misunderstood desirism, and it does not claim that I have a reason to act in a way which satisfies other people’s desires.
However if it does not claim this, then it seems that I have no reason to act in a moral way. I only have reason to act in a way which satisfies my own desires.
I hope you understand my point, and I hope you can point out where I have gone wrong. Thanks. Roman
Roman,
This is a common objection to desirism. So far I have failed to explain my answer in a way that makes sense to people. I’m working on it. Thanks for your inquiry. For now, please note that desirism is not a theory that places morality under the domain of instrumental rationality, and so a “reason” is not a reason in that narrow sense… lukeprog
Hi Luke,
Thank you for your answer.
I don’t want to waste your time and draw you into a discussion about it here. I hope you can write an answer somewhere, at some point.
I will just say that it sounds interesting that you think there are reasons for action other than those to fulfill a person’s desires. However these sound worryingly strange and unscientific.
Thanks for getting back to me anyway :) Roman
“So far I have failed to explain my answer in a way that makes sense to people.”
Where are some of your attempts to answer the question? Maybe I could make sense of it. Thanks. Roman
Luke said: “After losing my faith in Christianity..”
Thought for the day: How can one lose what one never possessed?
Once you truly hear, synthesize, interiorize and become a DOER of the Word, in TIME (time is the key Luke) it becomes a part of you. Not like a timepiece strapped to your arm, but like a new limb grafted to your body.
“I am the vine, you are the branches, he who abides in Me and I in him bears much fruit..”
IN me, IN him.
But this process takes time. This is another reason faith based religion is such a hard pill for people to swallow; they want answers and they want them NOW. It doesn’t work like that with faith. Faith, like love, and wine, takes time. It is a PROCESS. And like all processes, it is comprised of progressive steps, as the making of the earth was (whether you believe in evolution or creationism). INCREASING in one’s faith is not unlike the process by which grape juice becomes wine called “fermentation.”
Hence faith literally grows and INCREASES in the beholder as the beholder consumes the Word and actualizes it. Once enough faith equity has been invested, at some point of God’s choosing it becomes part of one’s human fabric. I am a witness.
Once it becomes part of one’s human fabric, it can no longer be differentiated from the human itself and therefore cannot be extricated in the crude manner you assert is possible (“when I lost my faith..” as if you lost your iPhone). Once faith has truly taken hold, to will it out of one’s system would be like attempting to will one’s arm to detach. This is why martyrs like Stephen freely chose death over renouncing their faith. They had no other choice.
I am very deeply into science and learning more and more about atheism and its promoters every day, and I can tell you without fear of error that the more compelling atheist arguments I learn, the stronger and stronger my faith becomes. This is why I credit Chris Hitchens whenever I can. His musings–while very entertaining and humorous–ultimately have done nothing but validate and strengthen my faith. I’m actually grateful to him.
Thanks for thought provoking blog, Luke.
Peace,
Mark Mark
@Lukeprog
I find it hard to believe that you cannot afford school unless you have some ridiculous amount of debt. Really, given your enthusiasm for the subject and the work you have done on this blog, etc. I am sure you could find a graduate school where you could get be a professor’s assistant or something.
I know those positions might have a lot of applicants, but I’m sure you would have a good chance of getting one, especially if you talked to some of your connections. You’d make an excellent graduate Evolution SWAT
As a graduate student, you’d make an excellent Intro to Philosophy professor.
If you got a PhD not only would you learn a lot, but you would be able to have a greater influence and help even more people…etc. Just please don’t forget your blog if you do get a position somewhere :) Evolution SWAT
Told ya! Don Loeb
Evolution SWAT,
Thanks for your encouragement, but remember that I never even completed an undergraduate degree. Also, several philosophers have advised me to live first and do philosophy later, which is not a bad idea either. lukeprog
Don,
Lol.
I’ll bet Tannsjo doesn’t follow comment threads on blogs. :) lukeprog
Who is that? Yes you’d have to get your UG/ And yes, your application would be unconventional. But you’d reach people who can reach people. Do you know how many lawyers and doctors and philosophers write me to tell me about the influence of my classes? I AM living. Better than when I was a 9-5er! I follow, my friend. I follow. Don Loeb
Lol, Dr. Loeb. lukeprog
Torbjorn–Moral Realism?
Which part were you laughing about, Luke? Don Loeb
Maybe I named the wrong philosopher. You named some philosopher who you said was a “very productive” philosopher who would push you to complete your collaboration with him, and that was the obscure inside joke I was attempting to make.
And it was a joke. I have no doubt you are living. You strike me as a very living kind of guy.
Cheers,
Luke lukeprog
Yeah, Terence Cuneo, Not Torbjorn Tannsjo. I now get it! I live–enough to follow blogs. And much more. Yet I have not been without production.
I think you should finish your degree and go to school. I know so many people who put off doing what they wanted to . . . and never did it. Law students who decided to do corporate law “just until they finished paying off the loans,” etc.
Getting paid to do philosophy? That’s living, my friend. Don Loeb
Ah, wrong T-guy.
I dunno. I kinda think I should travel and have lots of relationships and THEN do philosophy. But yeah, getting paid to do philosophy could be a pretty good gig.
Alonzo wants to the the thing, BTW, he just hasn’t written back yet. Good luck with your operation. Ignore the pain; look forward to the drugs! lukeprog
Thanks. I appreciate the thought. I seem to be cursed with being someone who does not enjoy them. Don Loeb
I am mainly concerned with meta-ethics and this sounds like it could easily be a form of anti-realism despite the fact that you seem to think it has realist implications. Moral reality is in a sense “constructed” by our agreement and interests. Intrinsic value is pretty much the whole point of moral realism. To say that “something really matters” is to say it has intrinsic value. Otherwise it’s just about our desires. Anti-realists care about desires just as much as anyone else. James Gray
James Gray,
Yup. If “moral realism” is defined only in reference to intrinsic value, then desirism is a form of anti-realism. Tomayto, Tomahto. lukeprog
Well, we need to say what we mean by “intrinsic value”. One thing we could mean is non-instrumental value. The satisfaction of desires could be good in and of itself, and not because it leads to pleasure (or some other good thought intrinsic). I suspect you two are using it to mean having value in a way independent of people’s psychologies. But that would rule out pleasure as an intrinsic good–an odd result.
The definition of “moral realism” is vexed and much debated. Many would doubt that it can simply be stipulated (as tomaytoh/tomahto suggests). In any case, people sometimes talk about moral realism as committed to “mind independence,” but without more that is also unclear. One sort of mind independence is independence from our beliefs. And some might wish to think of moral realism as committed to mind independence in this sense–calling what has value independent of our beliefs intrinsically valuable. On this use, moral realism might be thought committed to mind independent (or intrinsic) value. What’s really valuable is so whether we believe it to be so or not. But here also desire-based value could be relevantly intrinsic. For we can desire things without believing that we do.
One other thing. Many philosophers think it preferable to treat desires as grounding reasons, not as being them. My reason for going to see Avatar is that it would satisfy my desire to see stunning visual effects, not simply that I want to. On this view reasons are facts. But, Roman, you can’t assume even that desires ground reasons, much less that they are the only things that do or could. The latter simply begs the question against, for example Kantian categorical reasons; the former begs it against views like Scanlon’s.
Of course, I am on 15 mg. of Percocet–not enjoying it, but satisfying my desire to be in less pain rather than more, other things equal. Though it involves a different (but related) use of the words, my desire to take the Percocet is instrumental, I want the drug as a means to the satisfaction of my intrinsic desire to avoid pain.
Hey, I’ve got nothing better to do for a few days.
Whoops, time for another 15 mg–something better to do after all. Sadly, it does not give me the intrinsic good of pleasure. Another argument against the existence of God, if you ask me. Don Loeb
Thank you for the quick reply. I agree that many people understand intrinsic value in different ways, but I think that tends to be a mischaracterization from what philosophers actually think about it when they endorse it.
Intrinsic value isn’t necessarily just non-instrumental, but it’s not necessarily mind-independent either. The main issue with mind-independence is just that realists insist that moral facts to exist, that they are irreducible, and that moral truth is independent of our beliefs. To say that moral facts can’t depend on psychology ignores the possibility that minds can have moral properties without being delusional. It’s a misunderstanding about what “subjective” means.
I’m not sure if desirism can escape the need for intrinsic value for a number of reasons. One is that it seems to suggest that everyone’s desires counts. The idea of intrinsic value is that something is good or bad no matter who has it. It’s not just good or bad in in an egistic sense. If desirism wants me to count everyone’s desires, then I either need a subjective desire to do so, or I need to know that your desires “really matter.”
Something a lot like desirism was introduced by Lawrence Becker in A New Stoicism. He suggested that goals produce “oughts” and moral “oughts” were just legitimate goals all things considered. In a New Stoicism, he argues that maximizing our own goals is best, which includes having coherent and comprehensive goals and so on. The problem with A New Stoicism is it seems to be a form of ethical egoism.
I would expect a good anti-realist to be an egoist. There is an assumption that we have to care about other people, but I am not convinced. A social contract still makes sense for an egoist, but it could lead to totalitarianism. James Gray
James Gray,
“I either need a subjective desire to do so, or I need to know that your desires ‘really matter,’” I think I reject the second option, but I’m not sure what you mean by the first. Could you elaborate that? Unfortunately, moral philosophers use their terms in so many different ways! lukeprog
By “subjective desire” I mean that we need to personally desire that other people’s goals succeed. The social instincts to care for other people could be manifested as the desire for good things to happen to others. James Gray
I have not read everything you have posted on your system of ethics, but I have read enough to have two requests. First, “desirism” seems, at least on a surface level, to be very similiar to a re-packaged form of hedonism, with different focuses and different terminology. Please respond to that statement.
Second, would you please explain how this system can even be called a genuine system of morality (and not merely so much obfuscation) if it does not deal with intrinsic values, on some level?
Thank you. Joel Duggins
Joel,
It depends which form of hedonism you refer to, but either way hedonism usually focuses on happiness whereas desirism acknowledges that humans have many other desires than the desire for happiness, among other differences.
As for obfuscation, desirism is quite explicit that it is offering a set of ‘reforming definitions’ (ala Brandt) for moral terms, seeing as previous definitions of moral terms were either incoherent, relativistic, or failed to refer. lukeprog
Luke,
Desirism reminds me of the work that is going on to build friendly AI. If smarter than human intelligence is possible, we’d like for it to share our morals (else we become feedstock for paperclips)!
Coherent Extrapolated Volition is one such proposal that attempts to define objective morality through the aggregation of many desires. Robert
Robert,
Thanks for the link to CEV; that’s interesting. lukeprog
Any plans to put all of this information into a wikipedia page? If your afraid of wiki language or whatever, you could send me what you want put into the wiki and I’ll do it for you. curious
Typo in 6.08:
“If humans have a purpose, it must be intrinsic to humans or else assigned from the outside, for example by God. The second option fails because God does not exist. The second option fails because intrinsic purpose does not exist.”
That second second should be a first first. ;) TaiChi
Thanks. lukeprog
1) Based on my very very very limited understanding of evolutionary ethics, I think you A) completely misrepresent the idea and B) don’t need to falsify it in order for desirism to be true.
It seems the principle(s) of Evolutionary Ethics have to do not with what it moral, or why it is moral, but rather why we have moral theories. While if true it certainly is incompatible with for example, Divine Command Theory, the fact that morality is an evolved process in our brain in no way prevents it from being true that the morality we evolved is a way that we attribute value to our desires and their relation with the world.
2) I was very disappointed to see that 2.09 is “to be added” because that is I think the hardest hurdle to jump for any moral system. (Obviously some metaethical theories like Error Theory need not deal with it.)
I looked long and hard for an answer to my questions, and finally found that one, only to see it was not added.
I don’t supposed you could move it higher on the queue ay?
I am curious why you feel I should change my desires to ones that aid other peoples desires, rather than maintain my current desires. Kaelik
I’d like to second the request for an answer to 2.09! I hope the answer will mention the current literature about moral motivation. See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-motivation/#MorJudMot Roman
Fourth, desirism claims that desires themselves are the primary objects of moral evaluation. A good desire is one that tends to fulfill other desires. A bad desire is one tends to thwart other desires. Thus, a right act is one that a person with good desires would perform, and a bad act is one that a person with good desires would not perform. A good law is one that a person with good desires would enact, and a bad law is one he would not enact. And so on.
Do only one’s own desires count? Should I desire that my desires help promote other people’s desires?
How can a desire help fulfill another desire? Isn’t it only going to do that when it causes action to occur? But we need to know how an action could possibly fulfill a desire. Desire alone can’t fulfill other desires. You could hope for all your desires to be coherent, but that would be a different theory as far as I can tell (which was possibly introduced by Lawrence Becker.) I suppose some sort of desire based cognitivism could help answer this question, but most people think that “reasons for actions” are a combination of desires and beliefs, not merely desires. James Gray
I am new to Desirism and would appreciate a bit of guidance. I am attempting to connect desirism with moral maxims. It seems to me that Desirism provides an underlying calculus that, in turn, results in the observation of certain patterns of conduct or maxims. Does the following fairly represent the tenets of desirism?
Mill’s maxim is: Do whatever produces the most happiness for the most people. One problem is that we really don’t know what produces the most happiness until after an action is completed. Fyfe [apparently also Singer with reference to preference fulfilment] moves the moment of evaluation to before any action is taken: do whatever fulfills the most desires for the most people. Both maxims (Mill’s and Fyfe’s) suggest a calculus that requires an agent pause, take into consideration all the desires in a given situation, and comparatively choose that option which he or she can do and which fulfills more and greater desires than are thwarted or at least refrain, if able to do so, from doing that which thwarts more and greater desires than are fulfilled.
Rather than running a calculus over and over, especially in urgent situations, certain patterns or rules of thumb emerge. For instance, “a desire to rape is bad because it tends to thwart more and greater desires than it fulfills. A desire to show kindness is good because it tends to fulfill more and greater desires than it thwarts.” (What is Morality; meta-ethics in plain talk, 2009 p. 26), giving rise to the moral maxims:
(1) don’t rape
(2) be kind
Moral maxims are general statements of social conduct based on desire-fulfillment tendencies or patterns, but do admit exceptions in specific instances. Ella Emma
Ella,
Does desirism result in maxims? Hard to say. For one, it’s not a monistic theory of value like Mill’s or Bentham’s. Rather, it is a radically pluralistic theory of moral value. Every reason for action that exists (in this universe, that translates to “every desire that exists”) provides reason for action, and according to desirism’s definition of moral value, contributes to moral value. Yet you might say there is something like moral maxims in that these reasons for action result in our being able to say that there are more reasons for action to have one desire than another, and thus certain desires could be thought of as ‘maxims.’ But this is all very a posteriori, not a ‘first principles’ approach to morality. lukeprog
The word “maxim” may carry unwanted connotations, so I am happy to substitute a synonym, such as guideline or principle.
I am wondering whether it is possible for a desirist to say, to a child for instance, “you should do such-and-such” or “such-and-such is good to do”. If pressed as to why, the reason is because doing such-and-such tends to fulfill more and greater desires than it thwarts. It is a statement of tendency, namely that doing such-and-such tends to fulfill more and greater desires than it thwarts. Having a statement of tendency [maxim / principle / guideline] may be important in various situations, such as the following.
(-a-) Urgent situations or emergencies, such as on a battlefield.
(-b-) Circumstances where the maxim — er, statement of tendency — is more intelligible to the recipient, such as with a child.
(-c-) Situations where the the labor of moral calculus (e.g.: taking inventory of all relevant desires, calculating which are greater, which option has more, to what extend the more and greater interact, and so on) is simply impractical, impossible, or unnecessary.
So perhaps it is not so much that desirism results in maxims, but that statements of tendency may be possible and bear practical value in various situations.
Or have I missed it entirely? Ella Emma
Ella,
Ah, then no, definitely not. Desirism does not say that people ought to do what tends to fulfill desires. That would be something like desire-fulfillment act utilitarianism, which would seem to require the notion that desire fulfillment has intrinsic value. Desirism denies that intrinsic value exists.
To get clear on what desirism does say, you may read the posts linked at the older FAQ (linked above), or hang tight for an upcoming surprise on this website that will hopefully present desirism more clearly. lukeprog
Ella,
the main difference between desire fulfillment/satisfaction utilitarianism and desirism is that desirism only tells you which desires are good. Desires are good if they promote more desires than they thwart. If pressed why this is so, I don’t know the answer. Certainly there is an expectation that some desires lead to certain actions and have consequences.
Desirism is supposedly a sort of virtue ethics about which desires to promote rather than what actions to promote.
As far as I can tell desire fulfillment utilitarianism could easily judge desires in addition to actions, etc. Desirism is a denial of some tings desire fulfillment utilitarianism does, but not necessarily everything it can do.
Desirism does not require intrinsic values, but I could imagine that someone endorses both intrinsic values and desirism. James Gray
My nephew is 10. We are walking my golden retriever around a large pond and happened upon a female turtle laying its eggs. The dog sniffed and moved off, more interested in a ground squirrel. When Daisy and I returned, we saw my nephew hoisting a large rock, about to smash the mother turtle in the process of laying her eggs. Stop it, I tell him, put the rock down and leave the turtle alone. Why, he wants to know. Would it make a green gushy mess? Probably, I respond, but the turtle is alive and of no harm to you. Its not like pounding one rock on another. After a brief silence he say: at summer camp we pounded coconuts together and all of us ate coconut inside. That was a lot like pounding one rock on another, even though the coconuts were alive and not harming everybody.
What makes it wrong to smash the egg-laying turtle, but acceptable to crack open coconuts? What would a desirist say in this case? How does one run the calculus of desire? Does the turtle and its eggs have a desire to consider? Same for the coconuts?
I have a few other cases that I’d appreciate input from those who are desirists or at least understand it. For instance, in the last season of TV show Survivor, one of the members new to the tribe took ripe bananas when he wished. A couple of the women took James to task over this: you shouldn’t eat the ripe bananas without permission of the rest of the tribe. Eat all the green bananas in the forest that you want, but these ripe bananas are protected by the rules of our tribe. Was the taking of ripe bananas without permission wrong? Ella Emma
Ella,
I appreciate your interest but unfortunately applied ethics is not simple or even intuitive according to desirism and I don’t have time to analyze your examples now. But see the old FAQ for links to articles on how desirism deals with all kinds of common questions like war and abortion and so on. lukeprog
Ella,
I would say that the turtle’s desires count as well. Of course, this leads to the problem of what happens when we include animals in the moral sphere. If a turtle and I both have desires, then why is it OK to eat the turtle?
Also, your nephew might have liked eating the turtle and it is harder to say that sort of behavior is immoral given that someone is willing to cook it for supper. James Gray
A Moral Tea Story [excuse no pun]
Here you are, a happy Utilitarian, sipping a spot of tea. Having tea! You could be phoning your mom, she misses you, sweetie. No, forget mom, the soup kitchen needs help feeding the homeless. Wait, wait: there is wildlife aplenty to clean up after that oil spill and — ahem — are you still sitting there with your tea? Utilitarianism seems unrealistically relentless.
At least picking the right choice should be easy, confident consequentialist that you are: just pick the one that has the best consequences. First do this and see what happens. Next do that and see what happens. Continue doing and comparing to find the choice with the best results: choose it, do it, compare its consequences. Er, wait, that makes no sense even if you had a TARDIS. One cannot know which action will have the best result prior to performing any action or even all actions. Consequentialism can be used retrospectively, but has no more practical advice to offer in advance than does your scolding aunt (should have called your mum, you know; I told ya it was her ticker).
My actions will be based on maximizing not the consequences, but the antecedents. I’ve forsaken “consequentialism” for, well, “antecedentism”. I will act in the way I want, satisfy my preferences, do as I desire. Problem is: my neighbour must think the same. His loud pool parties run into the wee hours of the night. All those people doing as they desire, laughing and splashing, playing loud music — which might not be so bad were it not polka all the time. Don’t they understand that my wants are deeper than their pool. That’s the difference, plus my interests have ongoing consequences, such as showing up sleepy and cranky for the big meeting tomorrow, turning lack of sleep into a bit of road rage, and other neighbours engaging in their own ways of expressing themselves.
About to toss a book at my pool-party neighbour, I glanced through a page or two first. Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by some old dude named Hume. It seems that we neighbours should show moral sentiments: love, friendship, compassion, and gratitude. I will exhibit and expect my neighbours to exhibit these sentiments. Actually, they only have to avoid being unsentimental, after that they can do as they wish. Thus, there is wrong (being unsentimental), but no “right” per se since anything that is not prohibited (wrong) is permitted (right / permissible / tolerable). If you return my lawnmower by just leaving it in front of the garage, fuel tank empty, then you are being ungrateful and can expect scorn. It can be made “right” by apologizing (recognizing wrong) and offering to fill up the tank.
We can sit here and finish that tea without a ping of conscience since, although you might still opt to wash oil off seabirds, you do no wrong by sitting with me on the porch. Unless you’ve run out of biscuits, however. ;-) Ella Emma
first you have to excuse me, this is the first time i ask a question on your website although it was a great database knowledge for me.
I have a question, can desirism explain this: that there is no such thing as good and evil in the world, because objects, taught or actions hold no moral value, just how humans use them that makes these qualities good or bad. i refer to humans only, because we are the ones that dub, or mark, stuff as good or evil. for example take fire, fire by itself is not good or bad, but the way you use it determines it’s “goodness” or “evilness”. if you use fire to warm yourself during the winter it is a good thing but use it to kill people it becomes a bad thing. This is just an example, but it could apply to may other things on a human level. Wassabi
Wassabi,
Very nice post and good question.
The position you seem committed to is known as moral irrealism or anti-realism (or antrealism).
But note that your example about fire seems to presuppose real moral value “in the world”. You say fire is good when put to one purpose but not another, as if there is some fact about which purposes are good and which ones are bad.
What I think you mean to say is that we value fire if used one way, and that most of us DISvalue it when used another. You are not claiming–or should not be–that this agreement constitutes the moral truth.
To my mind, the realism anti-realism debate is orthogonal to the desirism vs. other normative views debate. I know its defenders are likely to disagree, however, and in a way, that alone raises metaethical questions concerning desirism. Don Loeb
My apologies, I would like to correct myself and say that your website “is” a great database of knowledge, not “was”.
And yes, your correction is the point i was trying to make. Wassabi
One more minor correction, if I may. Not the “point” you were trying to make, but the CLAIM. There is a great debate over these issues. Moral irrealism, which I defend, is currently the minority view, by a large margin. I don’t think that proves anything, but it is still true that the position needs to be supported and can’t just be assumed or presupposed. It is by no means obvious. Don Loeb
Wassabi,
Yes. Desirism ageres that things do not have value apart from being valued by valuers. lukeprog
Don Loeb! You’re alive! Been trying to contact you. lukeprog