Was Hitler objectively bad?

[Edwardo Piet]

That makes no sense. Do you want to clarify what you mean by "objectively prescribe itself"?

I mean that whilst Desirism is a normative or IOW prescriptive moral philosophy, it can't objectively prescribe itself because it can't evidence how it itself should be desired. If it is to use it's own logic from within its own framework to show why it is desired then that is a circular argument. Hence my point is that it can't prescribe itself as a truly objective moral system because the morality of it is only desirable if you assume it is correct in the first place. If you don't value desirism then it can't refute you.

We agree here I'm sure. But I think this shows that it's not really objective because it's a total matter of opinion whether desirism itself should be valued or not. The fact it is objective within itself is completely different to saying that it itself is objective in the sense of "better": better than an alternative. If someone doesn't value desirism you can't use desirism to refute them.

Objective means "not contingent upon the opinions of person(s)". In that sense of the word they are very much objective. All definitions are.

Desirism itself is completely dependent on whether people value Desirism or not. And that's a subjective matter.

If I can demonstrate that Desirism is more coherent than other moral theories then it becomes the tentatively preferred framework for morality. That is all we ask of any of these frameworks.

It's only preferred if people actually prefer it. Obviously. People can just say "No, I don't like it" without any good reason or any reason at all, and Desirism can't refute them because Desirism can't show why we should value Desirism. Because that would be circular reasoning.

You seem to have a poor conception of what ought's are for because you continually ignore the IF.

'Ought' is obvious. 'Ought' is what should be. But, additionally: That only makes sense if it can be of course. Because it makes no sense to say something 'should' or 'ought to' be a certain way if it can't be. What do you mean I continually ignore the 'if'?

Sure, we aren't infallible, so what? We CAN be wrong.

On morality? Got any proof or even evidence for that statement? I think not. 'Wrong' within desirism is not the same as 'Wrong'. Desirism can't show itself to be right. Maybe it can even trump all other moral theories but that is still not the same as proving that it itself should be valued.

That doesn't mean there is no right answer.

No of course not. But what objectively means that there is?

A utilitarian 'better' is a state of affairs where something is maximised, in Desirism it's desire fulfilment. A state of affairs in which more and stronger desires are promoted than thwarted compared to the present is a better state of affairs.

So desirism assumes a form of utilitarianism is moral. Has it got evidence to support that, objectively?

Does desirism assume things like: 10 people with 1 good desire each being fulfilled is better or worse than 1 person with 10 good desires fulfilled? Or does it assume it as equal?

What is a moral person? Someone who has the desires than tend to promote more and stronger desires than they thwart.

How is that a moral person? What if you have the right desires but accidentally do a lot of harm?

Any prescription (what you ought or should do) is a reason for action. Desires are the only reason for action that exists. Any time we act we do so to fulfil a desire.

And we can end up doing completely different to what we desire. We could aim to do something that thwart other desires but accidentally end up fulfilling other desires, and vice-versa. All forms of rule utilitarianism reduce to act utilitarianism. And the same is true of consequentailism in fact.

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.