Common Sense Atheism - Latest Comments

Re: Pummel Me with Questions about Desire Utilitarianism

matt — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 01:06:26 -0000

I would like to see abortion explored some. This seems to be one of the hardest test for an ethical system, as it seems to divide pretty evenly. (and not just in the popluation, usually in our own consciences.) It would seem desire utilitarianism would tell us that the desire to have abortions is a bad desire, because if it were reduced to 0, then nobodies desires would be thwarted, especially those who value the unborn. And perhaps to a lesser degree the future desires of the unborn.

It brings up another question. Should we consider past and future desires? We have to consider past desires I would think, otherwise there would be no problems killing a sleeping man with no loved ones. No present desires are being thwarted in that scenario. (Or maybe the desires of most people not to see sleeping people murdered are?.. i dont know this desire stuff can be very hard to measure and factor.) Or do we not kill the sleeping man, because he will have a future desire to live? In this case, can we not say the same about embryos?

Desire utilitarianism is hard to grasp intuitively sometimes, but then again so is general relativity, it doesn't change its truth value. Maybe if i explored it more i could answer my own questions, but for now i must admit my reasoning when it comes to this subject seems to be a bit confused. I start thinking about this persons' desires, then these peoples', then those peoples', and i get lost, like its some giant impossible math equation. Maybe what would be most helpful, are many examples. From simple stuff like smoking cigarettes, to injecting heroin, to capital punishment, and euthanasia. What does DU tell us about these things? But I will leave it to you to put the questions to him in a more articulate way. I mostly just want lots of examples. I understand there may not be any easy answers tho.

Re: The Wrong Test for Ethical Theories

lukeprog — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:32:02 -0000

Yeah, DISQUS is being ridiculous. I'm trying to find a way out without losing all the comments.

About desire utilitarianism, the way I like to say it is that much of the theory is semantic and much of it is ontological. Many parts of the theory are about what people seem to mean when they use moral terms. Other parts of the theory are about what happens if we look for referents to what people mean in the real universe.

For example, when people talk about morality, they seem to be talking about objectively existing reasons for action. That's a semantic issue. Now, what kinds of things are found in the set "reasons for action"? God's will? Categorical imperatives? Intrinsic values? As it happens, the only things in the set that actually exists are desires. That's an ontological claim.

Anyway, I haven't addressed your criticisms very well here, but I will touch on them more thoroughly in later posts. I can't spend all my time responding to comments, or else I won't have any time to write new posts! But I do appreciate you pursuing this discussion as I far as I was able in this thread.

I suppose it feels like I'm running away from your questions, but I'd really like to address these very important objections in full, more carefully prepared blog posts, and that takes some time.

I have a vested interest in answering these questions not so much because I want "my theory" to succeed, but because if I am wrong I don't want to keep wasting my time on desire utilitarianism. So if I keep writing out the answers to these questions and I find a legitimate flaw that cannot be fixed, then I will let go of desire utilitarianism and give a big thanks to everyone who helped point out its flaws.

Re: The Wrong Test for Ethical Theories

toweltowel — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:04:07 -0000

1. "'For Lisa to not be poisoned, she SHOULD not drink poison.' This is a true statement that is not well explained without reference to normative facts."

That may or may not be a true statement, but it certainly does not appear to be a statement fit for empirical investigation. Are you perhaps thinking of the causal claim, "Lisa cannot avoid being poisoned if she drinks poison"? This latter claim is indeed empirical, but it is quite different from the above 'should' claim. So there still seems to be no empirical gain in positing normative facts.

2. "What else would 'normative' mean?" Well, something more than a nihilist would accept. And even a nihilist could accept that human animals have attitudes. Normativity is supposed to be something more, about what is appropriate.

3. On "desire utilitarianism", perhaps we are talking past each other. Consider the following two distinct claims:

A: Reasons for actions are grounded entirely in desires, goodness is grounded entirely in a desire's overall tendency to fulfill desires, rightness is grounded entirely in an action's being that which a person with good desires would perform.

B: Reasons for action, goodness, and rightness are to be identified with their naturalistic supervenience base.

I thought "desire utilitarianism" referred only to the ethical theory A. And A does not entail the metaethical theory B, and as such is clearly compatible with metaethical non-naturalism.

But I now gather that you use "desire utilitarianism" to refer to the combination of A and B:

C: Reasons for actions are identical with desires, goodness is identical with a desire's overall tendency to fulfill desires, rightness is identical with an action's being that which a person with good desires would perform.

That's fine, I suppose, so long as it is recognized that C is a combination of two distinct theories, one ethical and one metaethical. And so the point remains that a desire-based account of reasons of action has no special advantage when it comes to all the old metaethical questions.

P. S. Sorry for posting this reply in a funny place, I'm just clicking the most appropriate 'Reply' I can find.

Re: The Wrong Test for Ethical Theories

lukeprog — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:46:55 -0000

I'd rather not have the last word. How is your view any less subject to the infinite regress? And why do you think it's wise to admit hundreds and hundreds of propositions as "properly basic", without any grounds for this?

Re: The Wrong Test for Ethical Theories

anselm — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:40:48 -0000

"Basically, I think your theory of knowledge is terribly reckless with the truth."

Ok, and I am saying that your theory of knowledge, which acknowledges it is caught in an infinite regress, has no basis for saying that anything is true, including "uninterpreted experience," and so ends in epistemological nihilism. But since this is your blog, that will be my last salvo on this issue, so feel free to have the last word :)

Sincerely, I appreciate the opportunity for dialog; I know you put a tremendous amount of work into making this forum available and you are doing an excellent job.

Re: Ugly Stuff Craig Has Said

anselm — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:33:45 -0000

"And I disagree with Bertrand Russell, though he is entitled to his opinion. The universe is tremendously beautiful and amazing and meaningful and significant to me, and when you tell me it's all meaningless because it will end one day, that doesn't compute for me."

Since it's your blog, I think you deserve to get the last word :) Thanks for the opportunity for dialog

Re: Ugly Stuff Craig Has Said

lukeprog — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:01:07 -0000

And I disagree with Bertrand Russell, though he is entitled to his opinion. The universe is tremendously beautiful and amazing and meaningful and significant to me, and when you tell me it's all meaningless because it will end one day, that doesn't compute for me.

Our discussion reminds me of this.

Re: The Wrong Test for Ethical Theories

lukeprog — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:58:28 -0000

Oops, here is the link.

Here's what I'm saying. There is no theory of knowledge that can escape an infinite regress. Any principle you lay down for justifying your knowledge must itself be justified, which must itself be justified, which must itself be justified...

Here, let's look at it using the language of foundationalism: that the termination of this infinite regress ends in one or more properly basic beliefs, which are used to justify everything else. What I'm saying is that we shouldn't just allow ourselves a whole bunch of properly basic beliefs that may or may not be true (for example, that Shiva exists and lying is always wrong and all kinds of uncertain things). That's pretty reckless to do that.

I'm saying that we should only consider things to be properly basic if it is literally true that they cannot be false. What things cannot be false? Not much. It could be that the hand I hold in front of my face is not really there. It could be that I'm in the Matrix. It could even be that I don't even exist, but that my continuous stream of inner perceptions are continuously created by a Cartesian demon - I could be nothing but a stream of perceptions that is aware of its perceptions.

Wow. So, what is literally undeniable? Descartes tried to say, "I think, therefore I am." Even that was too ambitious. He should have said, "There is a thought, so a thinking thing thinks."

And these are the safest basic beliefs to admit: uninterpreted experience. From there, we build up probabilistic models of reality.

If instead we build our models of reality on a long list of (seemingly arbitrarily chosen) basic beliefs - including belief in other minds, belief in various souls and spirits and such, belief in certain moral values but not other ones - where do we stop? Why the heck should we admit such a long list of beliefs as properly basic, and how would you argue against someone who admits belief in Shiva or belief in murder's moral goodness as properly basic? I don't think you could.

Basically, I think your theory of knowledge is terribly reckless with the truth.

Re: Ugly Stuff Craig Has Said

anselm — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:30:49 -0000

"Lol! How does the emotion of despair follow logically from anything?

Even if the universe is doomed to heat death, what we do here and now is significant in the only way anything can be significant: it is significant to sentient beings for whom certain things are significant! If you need your own actions to have eternal significance a trillion trillion trillion trillion years from now and beyond, that is awfully demanding!"

Very Sisyphean attitude there! Camus would be proud of you :)
(But Bertrand Russell agrees with the theists on this one).

Re: The Wrong Test for Ethical Theories

anselm — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:24:23 -0000

Your link did not work, but that's ok. It seems you are in a classic "pot-kettle" situation when you criticize proper basicality for not having sufficient justification, yet your own criterion for truth is tautological. Or are you now saying your criterion is "properly basic" and withdrawing your previous objections to that concept? And thus that knowledge we apprehend noninferentially and psychologically directly does, indeed, qualify as "knowledge"?

And as a follow-up, what is the source of your confidence that your noetic equipment is trustworthy in translating your immediate experience into truth about fundamental reality?

Re: The Wrong Test for Ethical Theories

lukeprog — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:32:35 -0000

Experience is all we have, inner or outer. You might say that your inner experience (for example, that you talk to God) is validated because you inner experience says it is validated. That's just as circular. There is no non-circular theory of knowledge. Richard Carrier has some thoughts on that here. Carrier thinks that the safest way to end the infinite regress is to end it only with things that literally cannot be untrue: immediate, uninterpreted experience. Perhaps instead you think the infinite regress should end at an arbitrarily chosen set of thousands of basic beliefs about God and moral values and other minds and perhaps other things?

Re: Ugly Stuff Craig Has Said

lukeprog — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:25:24 -0000

Lol! How does the emotion of despair follow logically from anything?

Even if the universe is doomed to heat death, what we do here and now is significant in the only way anything can be significant: it is significant to sentient beings for whom certain things are significant! If you need your own actions to have eternal significance a trillion trillion trillion trillion years from now and beyond, that is awfully demanding!

Re: The Wrong Test for Ethical Theories

anselm — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:43:06 -0000

Since "scientific evidence" is just a systematized version of "observation and experience," aren't you saying that "I know observation and experience is the test for truth because of observation and experience"? Why isn't that circular?

Re: Ugly Stuff Craig Has Said

anselm — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:22:42 -0000

Well, of course you can define "meaning" however you like (e.g., the activity is "meaningful" if it gives a temporary boost of endorphins to the people participating), but if the human life in which the activity takes place is doomed to cease to exist, and the universe in which all humans live is doomed to cease to exist, then it ultimately has no significance and it makes no difference whether that life or that universe ever existed at all, as Bertrand Russell recognized. And as he said, the only logical response to that existential reality is "despair."

Re: The Wrong Test for Ethical Theories

lukeprog — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:21:14 -0000

Again, only by observation. I'm not saying this is a metaphysical proposition written into the fabric of the universe. I'm just saying this is an observation of how our universe seems to work, drawing on billions of human experiences throughout history.

Re: The Wrong Test for Ethical Theories

anselm — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:13:31 -0000

But since the proposition "philosophical logic and scientific evidence are our best methods for discerning truth" is not arrived at through philosophical logic and scientific evidence, how do you know that proposition is true?

Re: Ugly Stuff Craig Has Said

lukeprog — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:07:46 -0000

This is like saying that a party, or a sexual encounter, or a marriage does not have objective value because it will come to an end. Well, if that 's what you mean by "objective", then fine, but that doesn't mean that a party or a sexual encounter or a marriage doesn't have meaning.

Re: The Wrong Test for Ethical Theories

lukeprog — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:04:16 -0000

"For Lisa to not be poisoned, she SHOULD not drink poison." This is a true statement that is not well explained without reference to normative facts. That is different that moral facts, to be sure, but it is a defeater to your point #1.

> Nothing normative, I think, follows from the fact that something 'has value' for those who desire it. <

What else would "normative" mean?

Re: desire utilitarianism and ethical non-naturalism. Desire utilitarianism refers to reasons for action that exist in the natural world: desires. Ethical non-naturalists refer to reasons for action that do not exist in the natural world. (As it happens, ethical non-naturalists also refer to reasons for action that do not exist at all.)

Re: Ugly Stuff Craig Has Said

lukeprog — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:49:46 -0000

Yup!

Re: The Wrong Test for Ethical Theories

lukeprog — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:48:05 -0000

By testing I just mean that we are trying to figure out the truth about moral facts, if there are any moral facts. So far it turns out that philosophical logic and scientific evidence are our best methods for discerning truth. These criteria are, obviously, always subject to revision - what you call a "vicious infinite regress - because we only trust these criteria because they have given us more reliable knowledge than other methods so far.

Re: Ugly Stuff Craig Has Said

anselm — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 09:22:05 -0000

This issue was extensively discussed in the comments section to the March 18 post, if you want to check that out. Below is the main point I made there:

"The idea is that without God all life is objectively meaningless (regardless of the subjective meaning we invent to make us happy), because then humankind is a doomed race in a dying universe. All of our little projects are meaningless because after the heat death of the universe, it will ultimately make no objective difference whether we ever existed.

And indeed, some of the most prominent atheist thinkers who delved deeply into atheism's implications came to similar conclusions, e.g., Bertrand Russell:

"That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins -- all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's salvation henceforth be safely built." (in "A Free Man's Worship").

That doesn't mean an atheist is not subjectively happy--who could judge that anyway from the "outside"? I can see how there would be a feeling of liberation in knowing there is no accountability to traditional moral standards and we are free to engage in the "transvaluation of values" as Nietzsche called it ("freedom from ancient prohibitions" as the original post put it). This feeling could certainly be called a form of happiness. But the question is whether Camus is correct that this feeling does not compensate for the objective meaninglessness of life without God (once that fact is fully and frankly confronted)."

Re: Pummel Me with Questions about Desire Utilitarianism

hewhocutsdown — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 09:20:35 -0000

I'm not seeing how one can make the jump from:

* I have desire X and you have desire Y
to

* desire X is preferable to desire Y due to it's capacity to fulfill more desires than it thwarts.

This seems, at best, highly subjective - as is illustrated by your case of the community of sadists and the abused child. If you argue for the abuse of the child in this context, but against in a context where child-abusers are a minority, than 'morality' is merely subject to the sentient creatures in a given environment.

If you argue against, what principle or extra information are you using? It is not obvious at all that abusing a child thwarts more desires than it fulfills - how are we measuring thwarted/fulfilled desires? Without a mechanism for testing this, it's merely a new moral subjectivity.

After all, how can we argue with this that homophobia, slavery, sexism, etc are morally superior without subjecting each of them to the above test and comparing the results? It could be that some are indeed, morally superior using the mechanics of desire utilitarianism, which would cast your examples into the same fire you cast the prior arguments for morality into.

Whether or not you believe in the devil, I'm happy to play his advocate. ;)

Re: Pummel Me with Questions about Desire Utilitarianism

tinyfrog — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 05:13:13 -0000

Admittedly, I wasn't paying enough attention to the podcast to get a full understanding of it, but my question is this: how does desire utilitarianism balance the desires of different species? For example, presumably, animals wouldn't want to be killed for food. (And they certainly would not want to be hunted in a forest - where they tend to die a slow death from blood-loss after being shot with an arrow or gun.) Yet, we kill them. On the other hand, we would find the idea of killing humans for food to be evil. Why the inequality between human and animal desires? How is killing animals "right"?

Re: Ugly Stuff Craig Has Said

MountainKing — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 03:00:22 -0000

I wrote a comment before on a similar remark by anselm but somehow most of my posts get lost somewhere. He (and other apologists) are correct to point out that theres no objective meaning of life if you define objective meaning to be applied from "outside". Then they "sneakily" interchange objctive meaning and meaning to prove their point that atheism can´t apply meaning to somebodys life even though it only can´t apply OBJECTIVE meaning. The problem is that they make a second, secret assumption: meaning has to be objective meaning to be the correct, real one. Without that they only prove that people who don´t believe in supernatural beings can´t give theor lives a meaning that only an existent supernatural being can give, that´s not much more than a tautology.

Re: The Wrong Test for Ethical Theories

toweltowel — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:54:51 -0000

I'll reply to both comments here, since this is the only place 'Reply' is showing up.

1. Consider a thoroughgoing antirealism about normativity (what might be called 'nihilism'). Moral properties don't exist, value doesn't exist, reasons for action don't exist, no 'oughts', no 'shoulds'. A normative antirealist could presumably give an entirely empirically successful account of human psychology (including intentional action), invoking beliefs and desires and other psychological states, but never invoking mysterious 'reasons' that ought to be followed or taken into account. Thus I don't see any empirical gain in accepting normative reasons, much less identifying them with desires, since all the empirical work can be done by non-normative psychology.

2. Nothing normative, I think, follows from the fact that something 'has value' for those who desire it. That means only that those who desire x have a certain attitude towards x—a positively evaluating, desiring sort of attitude. And these psychological facts are acceptable to any normative antirealist, to any nihilist.

3. You draw a contrast between desire utilitarianism with ethical non-naturalism. But I think the two views are perfectly compatible, and that their compatibility reveals something important.

An ethical non-naturalist will think that reasons for action are non-natural properties (or perhaps relations) that supervene upon natural properties. But which natural properties constitute the supervenience base, i.e. what is it that gives reasons for action? Well, a non-naturalist is free to say that desires are what constitute the supervenience base, i.e. that desires are what give reasons for actions. And a non-naturalist is similarly free to say that the overall tendency of a desire to fulfill desires is what makes it instantiate the non-natural property of goodness, and that an action's being an action which a person with good desires would perform is what makes it instantiate the non-natural property of rightness.

So, in general, the ethical theory of desire utilitarianism can be easily accommodated by a non-naturalist metaethic. Of course, a metaethical naturalist could also accept desire utiltiarianism, supplementing the supervenience relations with identity (or constitution or whatever) relations. Indeed, it seems that any metaethical view could accept the ethical theory of desire utilitarianism.

What I think this reveals is that a focus on reasons for action does nothing to dispel the classic metaethical questions. It's just that now the questions are about the nature of reasons for action—are reasons for action non-natural, are they natural, are they nonexistent, or are they the artifact of superficially-descriptive-but-really-expressivist language?