(October 21, 2010 at 6:29 pm)theVOID Wrote: It's not something that can be desired, it's just a description of the relationship between things that exist, desires and a state of affairs.

Exactly my point. Ultimately, it's descriptive, not prescriptive. It's prescriptive within itself and that's validated by its translating of descriptions into prescriptons. But... desirism has no way of saying that any opinion that goes against desirism is objectively 'wrong'. Because desirism can't show how it itself is objectively 'right', it can only assume it is right and then from that point it is internally consistent.

Quote:If you can name me a reason for action that actually exists other than desires then this notion is fucked, but until then it stands to reason that since morality judges our reasons for action, and the only reasons for action that exist are desires, all moral statements necessarily deal with desires.

Before any of this it has to be assumed that what we value is what we should value. It is all we can value, but that doesn't mean we should value it. While I am alive I must breathe, but this doesn't mean I should breathe while I'm alive. What would that even mean? It's just describing it isn't prescribing.

Quote:I hope I've answered the "desirism needs to be desired" objection sufficiently.

Desirism needs to be desired according to desirism. That's circular reasoning.

Quote:I've argued that Desirism is true for a number of reasons,

And it can't be true from the outset unless you assume it is correct in the first place. Since it is only internally true it all relies on the premise that it itself should be valued.

Quote:Sure, and if someone doesn't care about having beliefs that are the best representation of what we know to be true then i'm not concerned with what they think.

What we value does not=what we should value. It's a logical fallacy to say that. Desirism makes sense within itself as a prescriptive system. Outside of itself it is merely descriptive because it can't show itself to be true with its own logic because that's circular reasoning.

Quote: It's like someone saying "No, I don't like it" when talking about common ancestors, and the same answer applies, "so what?"

No it's nothing like that because that's an entirely descriptive matter both internally and outside of its own subject. Desirism can only say it is "prescriptive" within its own logic. Outside it is merely description. See above.

Quote: All of your objections about ought are invalid because you failed to account for the if. I ought to eat food if and only if I wish to eat, taste something etc.

I agree with all this. I never disagreed with it. I have already said that 'ought' implies 'can'.

Quote: eating food has no intrinsic value that leads to it being an ought, it is dependent on an if. If I wish to starve to death I ought not eat.

Yes it's dependent on an 'if'. But if the 'if' is there that doesn't objectively prove that it is a 'should' or 'shouldn't' outside of any moral framework. And no moral framework can support themselves without being circular.

Quote:This is rooted in the same false objection answered above. Even if you don't want to call it morality, you can be objectively wrong in thinking that desire x will be the one that brings about a state of affairs in which more and stronger desires are fulfilled.

Well you are redefining morality from 'what should be' to 'what should be according to desirism' then. We can only do what we desire so it makes no sense to say we 'ought' to do anything different. But there is still no proof that we 'ought' to do what we desire. That goes from describing to prescribing.

Quote:It may be that you think keeping slaves will bring about a better state of affairs, in which case you are objectively wrong.

That's only if you define 'better' as 'according to desirism'. So desirism is based on the assumption that its definition of 'better' is the right one.

Quote:I would argue that this is very much morality, but whether you want to call it that or not desires exist and are the only reasons for action that exist, and there is an objectively true or false standard by which we can judge desires by their tenancy to bring about a state of affairs in which more and stronger desires are promoted vs thwarted.

And you can't objectively say that we should agree with this without circular reasoning.

Quote: We can see that conduct is action, and desires are the only reason we act, and we can also see that we need a set of rules about right and wrong. I would argue that desirism provides the best framework we have for making sense of moral language, while achieving everything we want from a moral framework.

Desires are the reason we act, yes. So it makes no sense to say we should act other than what we desire, yes. But it also makes no sense to say that Desirism objectively shows that we should act according to X desire and not according to Y desire for whatever reasons, because desirism doesn't prove that desires are anything of objective value. It merely states the obvious fact that we do what we desire.

Quote:Another thing. Can you name me a good action that is one that thwarts more and stronger desires than it promotes?

You are merely defining "good action" as one that doesn't do that but instead promotes desires. So you are asking me to refute your circular reasoning. I can only do so by saying it is circular.

Quote: What about a wrong action that promotes more and stronger desires than it thwarts?

You are merely defining "wrong action" as one that doesn't do that but instead thwarts desires. So you are asking me to refute your circular reasoning. I can only do so by saying it is circular.

Anyone could say, "To me, a "right action" is one that leads to the deaths of millions and a "wrong action" is one that doesn't lead to the deaths of millions" and all you can say is "according to desirism this is wrong". It is objectively wrong within the framework of desirism but there is nothing to say that desirism is a 'good' framework. Desirism can only say it is a better framework according to its own logic, which is circular reasoning.

Quote:The right answer is one that accurately describes the relationship between our desires and a state of affairs where that P.

According to desirism. Desirism can't support itself though so it can't say it is objectively 'better' without circular reasoning.

Quote: Relational properties ARE objective. I can't help but think you have a misconception of objectivity. Objective in moral language simply means 'not rooted in the opinions of person(s)' and as such it is objectively true that certain desires tend to bring about a state of affairs in which more and stronger desires are promoted or thwarted.

But to assume that desirism is 'better' or 'worse' in the first place is completely rooted on opinion.

When you are describing the world that may or may not be objective. When desirism is objective it is being descriptive and not prescriptive. When it is actually being prescriptive it is based on its own logic and hence completely circular and not objectively 'better' unless you already assume it is.

Quote:In morality what we want to know if an action is 'good' or 'bad', Desirism achieves that.

No it doesn't because it doesn't prove that any action is 'good' or 'bad', or any desire, or any value. It just states obvious reasoning that we can only do what desire and it makes no sense we should do what we can't do. That is all descriptive, that is objective, that is trivial, that is not about what 'ought' to be. That is about what we can do and do do. It doesn't prove that we should value anything over anything else. It assumes all that.

Quote:I'm not sure how to answer this, do you mean "why should we value a state of affairs in which more and stronger desires are promoted vs thwarted"?

That's certainly a legitimate question that can't be proved right or wrong outside of assuming desirism's definitions of 'moral' is right in the first place. Redefining what 'morality' means doesn't mean we 'should' do it.

Quote:Well it's both more and stronger, so assuming all desires are equally strong it's equal.

And why should any of those things be valued? Why are any of them moral? Why are they 'good'. Can you give me an answer without assuming desirism's definitions of 'moral' or 'good' in the first place? I think not. Desirism states that we can only do what we desire, so it makes no sense to say we should do otherwise. Desires are the only reason for action, yes. Desires therefore can be the only things that we 'ought' to do or not do, yes. But no, that is not the same as saying we should do or value X and not do or value Y. That 'X' is moral and 'Y' is immoral is all based on the assumptions that desirism carries along with its descriptive obvious statements that are trivial, I don't object to, and merely describe and not prescribe by definition. Even "Everyone values X" and "X should be" mean completely different things. If everyone valued the same thing there would be no problem in the first place. By no logic can you say anyone else is objectively 'wrong' outside of your own assumptions when they desire or value differently to yourself.

So, objectively speaking, how is desirism not entirely descriptive? It is prescriptive within itself but any prescriptive view whatsoever can be prescriptive within itself. If we assume that the descriptions of the Bible are true then it's prescriptive according to the assumption that "one ought to do what God wants". How is "objective" after making a baseless assumption really "objective" in any meaningful way?

EvF Wrote:

Quote:I don't think there is a meta ethical (normative) problem, you've simply got your concept of ought wrong.

I, or anyone, could merely say "In my opinion desirism itself isn't desirable, I don't think it ought to be followed as a moral philosophy." and you can't refute them without a circular argument.

Quote:And in doing so they would be rejecting the moral theory based on the only reasons for action that actually exist and that best represents our use of moral language.

So what? You can't prove that as 'wrong' without using the logic of desirism to validate desirism. Which is circular reasoning.

Quote:And even if they don't want to call it morality the relationships between desires and a state of affairs in which more and stronger desires are promoted actually exists and it's objectively true or false whether or not an action promotes or thwarts more desires. That is all factually true, so at best they could say "I don't want to call that morality".

No, they can also say "Why the hell should your version of morality be preferred? You can't tell me why without circular reasoning."

And now, on a side note. I find it strangely amusing that I found Sam Harris' talk about objective morality as very interesting and now I believe it to be horseshit. You seem to be no fan of Sam Harris and I am sure you dislike his moral ideas because his so-called 'objective' moral system is in no way as detailed or sophisticated as a proper moral theory like 'desirism'. However, I still find it amusing that you now nevertheless have started subscribing to an objective morality and I've went the other way. I've been getting more and more into it but recently changed my mind. I just find that funny, sorry if this isn't too relevant but I wanted to say it somewhere at some point.

Well this thread has been derailed and just when it was getting interesting.

Our definitions of what is good and bad behaviour is subjective rather than objective. Thus Hitler's actions objectively cannot be seen as bad or good.

By the way Hitler would have been seen as nothing out of the ordinary in previous centuries, look at the sheer cruelity of conquerors such as Julius Caesar and Genghis Khan. For example Julius Caesar when he conquerored Gaul killed 1 million and enslaved another million out of a total population of between 4-5 million.

I think Caesar greatly exaggerated his toll to impress the gullible, so to speak, but blood thirsty Roman plebeians that was his political base. This was a man who wrote of his own greatness in the third person. The toll of Genghis Kahn was also probably greatly exaggerated. There was a total of maybe 100,000 mongol warriors in Genghis Kahn's army. The multimillion death toll was simply not credible.

The more important difference is both Caesar and genghis Kahn incurred their toll in direct support of their military campaigns. Neither killed on a large scale purely out of unwillingness to share the earth with some people.

theVOID Wrote:This is rooted in the same false objection answered above. Even if you don't want to call it morality, you can be objectively wrong in thinking that desire x will be the one that brings about a state of affairs in which more and stronger desires are fulfilled. It may be that you think keeping slaves will bring about a better state of affairs, in which case you are objectively wrong. You may think voting for party y will bring about a better state of affairs where it turns out to be wrong.

Using a methodology for evaluating desires we can be more accurate in determining which desires tend to lead to a better state of affairs.

I would argue that this is very much morality, but whether you want to call it that or not desires exist and are the only reasons for action that exist, and there is an objectively true or false standard by which we can judge desires by their tenancy to bring about a state of affairs in which more and stronger desires are promoted vs thwarted.

It's true that we can objectively assess what will promote the fulfilment of most desires, and that desires are the only reason for action that exist. You still have to bridge the is-ought gap by explaining why we should desire things that fufill others' desires, rather than just our own. 'Ought' only makes sense within the context of a hypothetical sentence like 'If you want to succeed, you ought to study hard'. Of course, you could say, as you have, that desirism succeeds if we wish to promote others' desires, but there is no objective reason for us to want to do so. Thus, I can't see how desirism solves any problems that are not solved by, say, preference utilitarianism, which is similar to desirism in its normative prescriptions, but doesn't claim to solve any meta-ethical difficulties.

(October 25, 2010 at 2:17 am)Chuck Wrote: I think Caesar greatly exaggerated his toll to impress the gullible, so to speak, but blood thirsty Roman plebeians that was his political base. This was a man who wrote of his own greatness in the third person. The toll of Genghis Kahn was also probably greatly exaggerated. There was a total of maybe 100,000 mongol warriors in Genghis Kahn's army. The multimillion death toll was simply not credible.

The more important difference is both Caesar and genghis Kahn incurred their toll in direct support of their military campaigns. Neither killed on a large scale purely out of unwillingness to share the earth with some people.

All ancient stats must be taken with a grain of salt...or a dump truck full of salt.

(October 22, 2010 at 7:29 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote:

(October 21, 2010 at 6:29 pm)theVOID Wrote: It's not something that can be desired, it's just a description of the relationship between things that exist, desires and a state of affairs.

Exactly my point. Ultimately, it's descriptive, not prescriptive. It's prescriptive within itself and that's validated by its translating of descriptions into prescriptons. But... desirism has no way of saying that any opinion that goes against desirism is objectively 'wrong'. Because desirism can't show how it itself is objectively 'right', it can only assume it is right and then from that point it is internally consistent.

A prescription is dependent on IF and OUGHT.

IF I wish that P I OUGHT to do X. IF I wish that there exists a state of affairs in which more and stronger desires are fulfilled than thwarted then I ought to have the desires than tend to promote more and stronger desires than they thwart.

This is trivially true, the argument is whether or not this goal to achieve said state of affairs should be called morality. This is the real argument here and I argue that it should, for reasons you have already seemed to agree with, that being it's consistent with moral language, is the only reason for action that exists and morality is necessarily a standard by which we judge action.

Also, our moral intuitions also seem to have this relationship in mind subconsciously, that being the vast majority of moral Nihilists and subjectivists who say that morality is whatever the opinion of a relevant person or persons are (or that moral statements are colloquialisms) is in fact representative of the relationship between desires and a state of affairs. A falsifiability would be to name an action that is considered good by the majority of desires universally that does not have these features?

Desirism it's self is true in that it is objectively true or false that certain desires tend to promote more and other desires than they thwart and vice verse, and since desires are the only reasons for action that exist all action that we take is contingent upon the relationship between our desires and the state of affairs, thus if you want a world in which more of us are free to act as we chose without being hindered you are essentially a Desire Utilitarian regardless of whether or not you want to label it 'Morality'.

So in that sense there are no opinions that 'go against' desirism, you can chose to call something else morality but that has no impact on the truth of desirism in determining what desires tend to promote more and stronger desires than they thwart.

EvF Wrote:

Quote:If you can name me a reason for action that actually exists other than desires then this notion is fucked, but until then it stands to reason that since morality judges our reasons for action, and the only reasons for action that exist are desires, all moral statements necessarily deal with desires.

Before any of this it has to be assumed that what we value is what we should value. It is all we can value, but that doesn't mean we should value it. While I am alive I must breathe, but this doesn't mean I should breathe while I'm alive. What would that even mean? It's just describing it isn't prescribing.

1. You have your conception of 'should' without IF once again, thus your objection is based on the same fundamental flaw. If you want to live you ought to breath and avoid trucks and eat food and drink water etc. If you don't value life you ought not to breath, avoid trucks etc.

You see what happens when you ignore the If? No Ought statements work by themselves, there is nothing you ought to do for the sake of it.

Any valid prescription is necessarily a valid description of what you ought to do should you value a state of affairs in which that P.

2. Any moral framework can only tell you what to do if you already value that outcome. If you value the outcome of X you ought to do Y because Y tends towards X, in Divine command theory, you ought to do X if you value that P, where P is the avoidance of eternal hell-fire and X is the action that tends towards P.

There is no such thing as a framework of any kind that enforces or necessitates behaviour in it's self. In Desirism, whether or not you want to label it morality, if you value universal freedom of action you a) Ought to have the desires than tend to promote more and stronger desires than they thwart b) Have reason for action to promote or condemn the desires that are contrary to this value, in doing so changing the malleable desires of others to be such that tend to promote more and stronger desires than they thwart.

Is that cleared up?

The only legitimate argument here is whether or not we should call desirism morality, and even if we chose not to that does not mean that Desirism is not objectively true in it's criteria of right and wrong relative to the goal.

EvF Wrote:

Quote:I hope I've answered the "desirism needs to be desired" objection sufficiently.

Desirism needs to be desired according to desirism. That's circular reasoning.

This is false, desirism is not something that is valued, it is a framework. What needs to be valued for one to be a desire utilitarian is the desire for a state of affairs in which more and stronger desires are promoted vs the present. That is something I think we all generally value, and if we value that then we ought to have the desires that promote more and stronger desires than they thwart AND We have a reason for action in the form of our desires themselves.

EvF Wrote:

Quote:I've argued that Desirism is true for a number of reasons,

And it can't be true from the outset unless you assume it is correct in the first place. Since it is only internally true it all relies on the premise that it itself should be valued.

This is all stemming from your mistake earlier, Desirism is trivially true. The only valid debate is whether or not we should call it morality.

EvF Wrote:

Quote:Sure, and if someone doesn't care about having beliefs that are the best representation of what we know to be true then i'm not concerned with what they think.

What we value does not=what we should value. It's a logical fallacy to say that. Desirism makes sense within itself as a prescriptive system. Outside of itself it is merely descriptive because it can't show itself to be true with its own logic because that's circular reasoning.

There is NOTHING that we simply 'should' value, because no 'should' is independent of an IF. This is the last time I am going to point this out, if you continue to misuse the concept then I see no point in discussing it with you any further, it's like head-butting a wall (or talking with fr0d0).

EvF Wrote:

Quote: It's like someone saying "No, I don't like it" when talking about common ancestors, and the same answer applies, "so what?"

No it's nothing like that because that's an entirely descriptive matter both internally and outside of its own subject. Desirism can only say it is "prescriptive" within its own logic. Outside it is merely description. See above.

The only valid prescription IS a description of the relationship between desires and a state of affairs. IF you wish/desire/want/value that P you OUGHT to do X. Name me one valid prescription that is not a description of the relationship between a set of desires and a state of affairs. You won't be able to, and since that is true and you seem to think that anything that needs an IF is only 'prescriptive within its own logic' then anything you think you should do becomes 'circular' in your view.

IF you wish not to get hit by a car, you ought to check both sides of the road before crossing.

There is simply no 'you ought to check both sides of the road before crossing', and if that makes it 'circular reasoning' then you're running in circles your whole life.

See above, and the post before that, and the one before that...

EvF Wrote:

Quote: All of your objections about ought are invalid because you failed to account for the if. I ought to eat food if and only if I wish to eat, taste something etc.

I agree with all this. I never disagreed with it. I have already said that 'ought' implies 'can'.

And how is the statement "If you wish not to die, you ought to eat food and drink water" any less circular than "If you desire universal freedom of action you ought to have the desires than tend to promote more and stronger desires than they thwart"?

EvF Wrote:

Quote: eating food has no intrinsic value that leads to it being an ought, it is dependent on an if. If I wish to starve to death I ought not eat.

Yes it's dependent on an 'if'. But if the 'if' is there that doesn't objectively prove that it is a 'should' or 'shouldn't' outside of any moral framework. And no moral framework can support themselves without being circular.

Of course not, it needs to be a VALID DESCRIPTION between what your wanting that P and what will realise a state of affairs in which the statement that P is true. Your objection is like saying "If I want to catch a fish I ought to brush my hair" which I totally agree is false, but a valid description between the desire and the state of affairs in which that desire is true IS a prescription. "If i want to catch a fish I ought to get a fishing rod and bait, then cast my rod into the ocean and be patient"

Your idea of circular is flawed, it makes any should statement regardless of it being a moral framework circular.

EvF Wrote:

Quote:This is rooted in the same false objection answered above. Even if you don't want to call it morality, you can be objectively wrong in thinking that desire x will be the one that brings about a state of affairs in which more and stronger desires are fulfilled.

Well you are redefining morality from 'what should be' to 'what should be according to desirism' then. We can only do what we desire so it makes no sense to say we 'ought' to do anything different. But there is still no proof that we 'ought' to do what we desire. That goes from describing to prescribing.

Morality never has been defined as 'what should be' it's always been a standard by which we judge action, and in saying that any moral framework can be assigned like "If this framework is accepted as morality then the standards follow" This situation is no different and like I said earlier the only valid debate here is whether or not Desirism best fits moral criteria.

Also, you've got Ought wrong again, it's not a question of whether we ought to do what we desire as a desire is a future producing brain state, it's if we desire that P we ought to do x (what will bring about a state of affairs in which said desire is true). The fact that we desire something is the only reasons we have for acting as to fulfil that desire, provided that it is our strongest desire out of all possible relevant desires.

I'm out of time will get to the rest later.

(October 25, 2010 at 10:30 am)The Omnissiunt One Wrote:

theVOID Wrote:This is rooted in the same false objection answered above. Even if you don't want to call it morality, you can be objectively wrong in thinking that desire x will be the one that brings about a state of affairs in which more and stronger desires are fulfilled. It may be that you think keeping slaves will bring about a better state of affairs, in which case you are objectively wrong. You may think voting for party y will bring about a better state of affairs where it turns out to be wrong

Using a methodology for evaluating desires we can be more accurate in determining which desires tend to lead to a better state of affairs.

I would argue that this is very much morality, but whether you want to call it that or not desires exist and are the only reasons for action that exist, and there is an objectively true or false standard by which we can judge desires by their tenancy to bring about a state of affairs in which more and stronger desires are promoted vs thwarted.

It's true that we can objectively assess what will promote the fulfilment of most desires, and that desires are the only reason for action that exist. You still have to bridge the is-ought gap by explaining why we should desire things that fufill others' desires, rather than just our own.

Look at an example, propose your own if you like.

1. We desire not to have things stolen.
2. Theft is an action that tends to thwart more and stronger desires than it promotes.
3. A desire is a brain state that produces a conceptual future in which a proposition is true or false, we always act as to fulfill the strongest desire we have from a set of conflicting desires (Empirically supported)
4. We have beliefs about a set of facts that can be used to determine which action will help fulfill the desires in question. (Empirically supported)
5. Desires are the only reasons for action that exist (Empirically supported)
6. We have reason for action to promote a diversion to theft as it is a desire that tends to thwart more and stronger desires than it promotes in ourselves and, coincidentally, others.
7. These actions can be assigned a positive or negative value depending on their tendency towards a state of affairs in which more and stronger desires are promoted than thwarted.

If you agree with that the argument shifts to why we should use the label Morality.

Quote: 'Ought' only makes sense within the context of a hypothetical sentence like 'If you want to succeed, you ought to study hard'. Of course, you could say, as you have, that desirism succeeds if we wish to promote others' desires, but there is no objective reason for us to want to do so.

No moral system is supposed to make you moral, which is what you seem to be wanting, it is supposed to describe right and wrong conduct. You will not act to fulfill a state of affairs in which more and stronger desires are fulfilled than promoted unless you value such a state of affairs. I argue that Desirism best describes how we determine what actions have positive or negative value based on their tendency to this state of affairs and that the framework constructed is the best description of morality we have on the grounds that it 1) Makes perfect use of moral language 2) Provides reasons for action that actually exist (unlike any other form of moral realism) 3) Is in line with the vast majority of non-doctrinal moral intuitions (or opinions) in the vast majority of circumstances, suggesting that the value based relationship between actions and the consequences is something we've been doing all along anyway without a solid concept of it.

What Desirism gives on top of that is a methodology that can objectively determine which desires are in fact the ones that achieve a state of affairs in which more and stronger desires are promoted (fuck I need an abbreviation for that) and which are not, and these can be given a positive or negative value, and thus the label moral good and moral bad, depending on their ability to promote the state of affairs.

If you have a better explanation for morality, or a good reason why Desirism does not accurately and best describe all of those moral criteria that are relevant in our use of the definition the i'd like to hear it, otherwise Desirism is the most accurate description we have of all of these moral phenomenon and as such if you value having beliefs that are consistent with the best descriptions of events and value a state of affairs in which more desires are fulfilled than thwarted you have good reason to act according to this framework, whether or not you want to call it Morality.

Quote:Thus, I can't see how desirism solves any problems that are not solved by, say, preference utilitarianism, which is similar to desirism in its normative prescriptions, but doesn't claim to solve any meta-ethical difficulties.

Which problems do you specifically have? Examples would be nice.

[quote='theVOID' pid='101745' dateline='1288149779']

Quote:Look at an example, propose your own if you like...

If you agree with that the argument shifts to why we should use the label Morality.

Clearly your premises are true, so I think the question is why it should be called morality, unless it is prescriptive in some way. If you are saying that we should act to fulfill the most desires, then that I would call morality. But, as mentioned, it cannot derive an ought from an is, as you admit, which is the meta-ethical difficulty I was referring to. So I don't see how it's any different from various forms of utilitarianism, specifically preference utilitarianism.

(October 26, 2010 at 9:17 pm)theVOID Wrote: A prescription is dependent on IF and OUGHT.

??? What the fuck's the difference between prescribing and saying something 'ought' to be? At least in one's opinion?

Yes a prescription is dependent on an if, and so is an ought. But what's the fucking difference between the two?

Quote:IF I wish that P I OUGHT to do X. IF I wish that there exists a state of affairs in which more and stronger desires are fulfilled than thwarted then I ought to have the desires than tend to promote more and stronger desires than they thwart.

Who the fuck says you ought to simply because desirism says so? Until desirism can validate itself people can just tell it to go fuck itself.

Quote:This is trivially true

Desirism has a valid (and fucking trivially so!) coherence. Valid in itself only though, and fucking trival it indeed is - because it can't show itself to be right. I've been through this fucking multiple times.

Quote:the argument is whether or not this goal to achieve said state of affairs should be called morality.

Morality already has a definition! What is moral is what 'ought to be'. If you're redefining morality to mean 'moral within the realm of desirism' then you're still not getting and fucking objectively morality! You're merely redefining 'morality' to suit your precious fucking desirism.

My fucking point is that desirism can't show what's objectively moral really, it can't show what 'ought to be' objectively, it can only show what ought to be within its own logic. How can any fucking moral system say that it is objectively right? It can't! And redefining morality completely is just fucking cheating and not actually getting to objective morality.

Quote: This is the real argument here and I argue that it should, for reasons you have already seemed to agree with, that being it's consistent with moral language, is the only reason for action that exists and morality is necessarily a standard by which we judge action.

You can't objectively show that what's moral is what desirism says is moral O - fucking - K? You can't magically transcend the meta-ethical issue by redefining morality to mean what you want it to mean... morality already has a definition and you can't prove any moral theory to objectively be better than any other.

Quote:Also, our moral intuitions also seem to have this relationship in mind subconsciously,

It's only by our moral intuitions that we can fucking say 'X is right' or "Y is wrong" at all, all prescribing is entirely subjective. Something beging objectively moral within a certain moral framework doesn't prove, and is no closer to proving, that X or Y is objectively moral or immoral whatsoever. Prescriptive within a certain moral framework is merely descriptive in the world we actually fucking live in.

Quote:that being the vast majority of moral Nihilists and subjectivists who say that morality is whatever the opinion of a relevant person or persons are (or that moral statements are colloquialisms) is in fact representative of the relationship between desires and a state of affairs.

That proves nothing. Morality is a matter of subjective and relative opinion and there is no evidence of any objective morality outside of any entirely unproven moral framework that can't be objectively fucking substantiated is exactly where we still stand on the very valid meta-ethical issue. You can't say that any moral framework is objective because it can't use it's own logic to validate itself as being any 'better' then any other moral system.... you have to start with meta-ethics IF you actually want a fucking objective morality. And it seems impossible to me, indeed.

Science is an entirely descriptive issue. We wouldn't fucking say that we could objectively evice that scientists SHOULD research X, SHOULD experiment on Y. That would be prescribing and would be subjective and relative.

Science is completely fucking different to moral frameworks because moral frameworks are supposed to be prescriptive!! They can't objectively validate themseleves anymore than science can objectively say it should or shouldn't treat people like guinea pigs (And no, it can't.... that's a moral issue and a matter of opinion).

Morality is entirely a matter of opinion because what we ought to do is entirely a matter of opinion. Because outside of any moral framework what ought to be obviously can't be proven. And moral frameworks themselves can't be proven and the logic within them is fucking tautological to their owns reasoning (at best that is - at best it is merely coherent! Not objective in the real world).

Quote:Desirism it's self is true in that it is objectively true or false that certain desires tend to promote more and other desires than they thwart and vice verse,

So what that's descriptive and not actually a matter of moralitiy.

Quote: and since desires are the only reasons for action that exist all action that we take is contingent upon the relationship between our desires and the state of affairs,

Still descriptive

Quote: thus if you want a world in which more of us are free to act as we chose without being hindered you are essentially a Desire Utilitarian regardless of whether or not you want to label it 'Morality'.

If you want a world that supports desirism them you will value it and say desirism ought to be subscribed to, yes. That's still descriptive!!! "People who desire desirism ought to support it within its own logic".... you have not bridged any 'Is' 'ought' gap.

Quote:So in that sense there are no opinions that 'go against' desirism

Desirism is merely being descriptive though so fuck it. It's prescirptive within itself but then that means you should only listen to it if you already agree with it!

Quote: you can chose to call something else morality but that has no impact on the truth of desirism in determining what desires tend to promote more and stronger desires than they thwart.

Desirism is entirely descriptive when it is correct. When it gets prescriptive and says anyone ought to desire X or ought not to desire Y it is completely fucking unsupported!

I'm tired of repeating myself right now. Especially when I have trouble fucking explaining myself it seems :S