tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post110907218458242391..comments2023-10-29T10:32:36.914-04:00Comments on Philosophy, et cetera: Is Immoral Value Possible?Richard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1109246014881174732005-02-24T06:53:00.000-05:002005-02-24T06:53:00.000-05:00Alethism seems to me to be a slightly different ca...Alethism seems to me to be a slightly different case. The following two claims are problematic:<br /><br />(a) "This speech act is immoral, and alethism is true."<br /><br />(b) "Someone desires immorality, and (a particular kind of) consequentialism is true."<br /><br />In both (a) and (b) we should deny one or the other of the conjuncts. But in case (a), we have no good reason to want to affirm the left-hand conjunct. In case (b), I claim, we do. People have reported desiring immorality. I take Augustine, for instance, to claim that he at one time desired immorality, and I think that we should want to take him at his word. So there's a cost associated with affirming the right-hand conjunct of (b) which is not associated with affirming the right-hand conjunct of (a). I'm not saying this cost cannot be paid, and I acknowledge that having to pay that cost does not put our "particular kind of consequentialist" into a completely untenable position. Certainly, no decisive refutation of consequentialism is going to come out of this. But I think that, since we do have some good reasons for thinking the left-hand side of (b) is true, we have those same reasons for thinking the right-hand side of (b) is false.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1109229420492055442005-02-24T02:17:00.000-05:002005-02-24T02:17:00.000-05:00David, I more or less agree with you. On your fir...David, I more or less agree with you. On your first point, if we adopt my 'schimmorality' response the meaning of morality is unchanged. It's just that a desire for unrestricted immorality is, technically, impossible. This is unproblematic because the almost-identical concept of 'schimmorality' <I>can</I> be the content of desires. So whenever we would attribute a desire for immorality, what it really is is a desire for schimmorality. (Though for practical purposes we might as well just keep calling it 'immorality'. That's the point of my 'change the meaning' response - it doesn't make any deep claims about the nature of morality, it's just a technical stipulation made for pragmatic reasons.)<br /><br />Getting to the more important point, I agree with you that we are dealing with an <I>indirect</I> version of the liar-paradox-analogue (i.e. the Adolf paradox). This has been my point all along, that consequentialism works as a translation tool to <I>convert</I> desires-for-immorality into Adolf-paradoxes.<br /><br />To quote a comment I made in the previous post: "Imagine a moral theory called Alethism, which claims that <I>it is always and only wrong to speak falsely</I>. Now imagine someone says 'this speech-act is immoral'. This gives rise to a contradiction. But the problem lies not with Alethism, but with the liar paradox. Alethism is merely the translation tool which allows the given [statement] to be turned into the liar paradox. In exactly the same way, consequentialism is merely the tool with which you've turned the painter scenario into (something very close to) my Adolf paradox."<br /><br />Now, the Liar paradox (and the Adolf paradox) are independently pre-existing problems. So I don't see how appealing to them could be an objection to any other theory. Denying consequentialism won't make the paradoxes go away. It would just mean that the paradoxes don't apply to morality-talk, since we can't translate it into desire-talk (which is where the Adolf paradox applies). But this is no remarkable gain. So the paradox gives us no reason to abandon consequentialism. (Of course you're right that we <I>could</I> avoid the immorality-paradox by denying consequentialism. But we have no intrinsic reason to prefer this option. It wouldn't make the Adolf paradox go away.)<br /><br />Lastly, you suggest that "non-consequentialists mean the same thing by 'morality' as consequentialists do", but this isn't clear to me. There's a sense in which we're all discussing the same concept, but there's another sense in which very different <I>conceptions</I> of 'morality' are being offered. So if consequentialists are recommending we adopt a particular understanding of the meaning of 'morality', it would beg the question against them for you to claim that the paradox does not arise because of the meaning of 'immoral', 'desire', etc. For that's precisely what's being disputed. (But I think we agree about the indirectness of the paradox, so this point may not matter.)Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1109226543524899542005-02-24T01:29:00.000-05:002005-02-24T01:29:00.000-05:00I don't think we're going to be able to support th...I don't think we're going to be able to support the view that the meaning of morality changes when it appears in the content of a desire. That seems even more ad hoc to me than before. Do meanings of words typically change when they appear in the content of a desire? If I say "The Statue of Liberty is in New York," don't I mean the same thing by "Statue of Liberty" as you do when you say "I wish the Statue of Liberty were in Los Angeles?" <br /><br />At any rate, I don't know how to resolve the liar paradox, but here are some considerations that might problematize your analogy with the liar paradox.<br /><br />It appears to me that "This sentence is false" is problematic in virtue of the meanings of the words which appear in that sentence. That is: If I know what "sentence," "false," etc., mean, I have all the tools I need to see why there's a problem in believing that this sentence is false. If I think "this sentence is false" is not problematic, then I probably don't mean the same thing by "sentence" or "false" as most people do.<br /><br />On the other hand, I think that when a non-consequentialist speaks of "morality," she refers to the very same thing as does a consequentialist when she speaks of morality. In other words, I think consequentialists and non-consequentialists have different beliefs about one and the same thing, i.e. morality. But I think we have seen that, for the non-consequentialist, there is nothing incoherent or problematic about a desire for immorality. You need to add the assumption that consequentialism is true in order to generate the problem. (In fact, you probably need to add the assumption that *a particular kind of* consequentialism is true; the problem under discussion might not appear for all forms of consequentialism.)<br /><br />What does this mean? If non-consequentialists mean the same thing by "morality" as consequentialists do, and a desire for immorality is not problematic for non-consequentialists, then probably, a desire for immorality is not meaningless or problematic solely in virtue of the meaning of "desire," "immorality," etc. To get the problem, I think you need to say something like this:<br /><br />"Someone desires immorality, and (a particular kind of) consequentialism is true."<br /><br />This is less like "This sentence is false" than it is like<br /><br />"Sentence S is false, and sentence S is this sentence."<br /><br />To resolve the latter problem, we can either say there are deep problems with saying sentence S is false, or we can deny someone's theory that sentence S is *this* sentence. Likewise, to resolve the former problem, we can either say that there are deep problems with a desire for immorality, or we can deny someone's theory that (a particular kind of) consequentialism is true.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1109198331748986702005-02-23T17:38:00.000-05:002005-02-23T17:38:00.000-05:00Hang on... I never suggested that "one ought to m...Hang on... I never suggested that "one ought to maximize fulfillment of all desires, except the desire for immorality". My claim was not about morality as such, but rather, about the content of desires (and particularly those that <I>invoke</I> morality). The meaning of morality is changed only <I>when appealed to in the content of a desire</I>. Really what I'm changing is the desire, not morality itself. (As I note at the end of the post, we need not alter 'morality' at all, but we then require that desires can refer only to schimmorality, and not to unrestricted immorality.)<br /><br />The restriction simply recognises that we cannot possibly have desires whose fulfilment potentially depends upon their own thwarting. Again, this is a claim not about morality, but the propositional content of desires. It is no more ad hoc than denying that "this sentence is false" has any meaning. (Perhaps both are ad hoc, but how then do you deal with the liar paradox? I think the solution, whatever it is, will also apply to self-referential desires.)Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1109163181023654292005-02-23T07:53:00.000-05:002005-02-23T07:53:00.000-05:00I am afraid that the modification you suggest may ...I am afraid that the modification you suggest may be problematically "ad hoc." There are smooth and compelling arguments for the view that one ought to maximize fulfillment of all desires. I suspect that an argument for the view that one ought to maximize fulfillment of all desires, except the desire for immorality, will not be as smooth and compelling. If so, then to modify desire-fulfillment consequentialism in this way may be to undermine its rationale.<br /><br />At any rate, Richard, thanks again for this discussion. Your counterarguments, in this discussion and in others, have been extremely challenging and thought-provoking.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1109076245272318322005-02-22T07:44:00.000-05:002005-02-22T07:44:00.000-05:00Or, to re-iterate, one can DENY that any action mu...Or, to re-iterate, one can DENY that any action must be wholly good or wholly bad, but can easily express aspects of both.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11384742711203790401noreply@blogger.com