Meaning of Right and Wrong... Finally Answered!

[pacian]

...anyhow if you'd like to continue the discussion- we can do that, in the interests of harmony and mutual gain

Now that I can agree on Cerrone!

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It's still impossible to define a universal right and wrong within ideas of morality. It's true what you're saying with "desires", but that itself isn't morally stating right or wrongs, it's using a selfish impulse with is left unchecked by other means of comparison from other people and it's running free; in the case of the desert island dude.

Not it isn't, we can establish moral standards based on the universal considerations of the desires of all agents that need to be considered.

Lets put it this way:

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.

Desirism is both a theory about what our moral terms mean to, such as what it means to say "rape is wrong" and about how we determine these moral propositions to be true.

Morality is a standard by which we judge actions. All morality refers to someones reasons for action, causing the death of a human changes morally by intention. It cannot be morally wrong to accidentally kill someone (given no fault to the causer) but it is morally wrong to allow a death to result of your negligence given you have responsibility in a situation, and it is morally wrong to murder someone. So reasons for action are how we determine whether or not the outcome was the result of a moral right or wrong.

Desires are the only reasons for action that actually exist. If you drink coffee it is because you desire to drink coffee, if you eat pig penis is it because you desire Joe Rogan's $50,000, if you kiss the mob bosses shoes it is because you desire not to be beaten.

So how do we tie together morality and desires? Because morality is a standard by which we judge action, and actions are only the result of desires, morality in desirism is a measured relationship between the desires of all the people involved, and the state of affairs in which more and stronger desires are promoted than are thwarted.

A good desire is a desire than tends to promote other desires. A bad desire is a desire that tends to thwart other desires. When talking about action, a right action is an action that a moral person would perform, and a wrong action is one a moral person would not perform. A moral person is one who's actions tend to promote more and stronger desires than they thwarts.

Being a moral person does not just affect our actions, it also affect how we influence the desires of others, because the desire for people to be moral is in it's self a desire. We can use our praise and condemnation of others to promote good desires and thwart bad desires. The goal is to eliminate the desires that tend to thwart more and stronger desires than they promote, while promoting desires that tend to promote more and desires than they thwart.

The relationships between our desires and a state of affairs that will be realized upon performing an action is what is measured. If the action is going to promote more desires it is good, thwart them and it's bad. We can objectively say that "rape is wrong" because it thwarts more and stronger desires than it promotes.

I'll give an example.

There are a room of 100 people, and 99 of them have the desire to rape. But all 100 of them have a desire not to be raped (because it is not possible to desire non consensual acts) therefore a desire to rape is a desire that thwarts more and stronger desires than it promotes and it is an action that a moral person will not perform.

If you desire to be moral you should act like a moral person.

theVoid, after thinking about what your saying about desires, I can't say your on the wrong path. You desiring not to get murder, not to get raped, or not to be stolen from. But I feel its just a piece of what I already have been describing. For example, theses desires you talk about, where do they come from. Why would they be there in the first place. I feel that you can see these desires all come from humans self interest of wanting to survive. These desires obviously didn't come from spirits whispering into our ear what we should think, these desires are really just more mechnism to keep us going, such as not wanting to get murdered or stolen from, or raped. Its really just a piece of the puzzle and I think it ultimately leads to people wanting to survive, and that is why we have these desires, in those circumstances. I would elaborate more but I got to run...

[Edwardo Piet]

Post #37 on this thread...... has a kind of oversized quote........

[Paul the Human]

It sure does. I'll add hide tags. Try to keep the quoting to the minimum required, pacian... or use hide tags.

[theVOID]

theVoid, after thinking about what your saying about desires, I can't say your on the wrong path. You desiring not to get murder, not to get raped, or not to be stolen from. But I feel its just a piece of what I already have been describing.

I'm sure I already pointed out that our desires go far beyond survival, as does morality. Where you are unable to find survival based reasons for many moral propositions, Desires can describe all of them.

For example, theses desires you talk about, where do they come from.

Desires are brain states that are downstream from the dopamine system and are the brain states directly related to action. For example, if I say to you "I am going to KFC to get something to eat" You know that I have both the desire for food and the belief that going to KFC will help to fulfil my desires. Thus, the brain state that is 'desire' is responsible for all action I may take.

It is impossible to take action without desire.

Why would they be there in the first place. I feel that you can see these desires all come from humans self interest of wanting to survive.

My desire to smoke weed after class has nothing to do with survival...

These desires obviously didn't come from spirits whispering into our ear what we should think, these desires are really just more mechnism to keep us going, such as not wanting to get murdered or stolen from, or raped.

Not a reason to keep going, they are why we go in the first place. If you did not desire to survive you would take no action towards that end in the first place. Any animal that protects it's self from predators has a desire to survive. In that sense desires supersede survival.

Its really just a piece of the puzzle and I think it ultimately leads to people wanting to survive, and that is why we have these desires, in those circumstances. I would elaborate more but I got to run...

I don't think so. Morality is a standard by which we judge action, all actions (including actions toward survival) are informed by desires, thus morality is a standard by which we judge desires and a moral action is one that promotes more and stronger desires than it thwarts.

[The Omnissiunt One]

Desirism is...

If you desire to be moral you should act like a moral person.

Whilst I agree with everything that desirism proscribes, I don't see how it provides a motivation for moral behaviour. Obviously, if I rape someone, I will receive condemnation, and punishment. But I have no incentive to give to charity, unless someone condemns me for not doing so. It doesn't deal with the is-ought gap. To put it another way, why should I care about fulfilling others' desires, provided that not doing so doesn't result in condemnation or the thwarting of my own desires?

[downbeatplumb]

You give to charity because we have empathy we can imagine what it would be like to be in another persons situation and can decide whether to help or not depending on how we feel at the time.

End of.

[theVOID]

Desirism is...

If you desire to be moral you should act like a moral person.

Whilst I agree with everything that desirism proscribes, I don't see how it provides a motivation for moral behaviour. Obviously, if I rape someone, I will receive condemnation, and punishment. But I have no incentive to give to charity, unless someone condemns me for not doing so. It doesn't deal with the is-ought gap. To put it another way, why should I care about fulfilling others' desires, provided that not doing so doesn't result in condemnation or the thwarting of my own desires?

I wrote a really long reply and then lost it

I cbf doing all that again right now, you can wait until i'm not bummed out about it and feel like starting again or read this:

http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2010...tions.html

[Cerrone]

No response whatsoever to post 39 VOID?

I take it you agree with everything I said and have been pawned else you wouldve replied.

It's still impossible to define a universal right and wrong within ideas of morality. It's true what you're saying with "desires", but that itself isn't morally stating right or wrongs, it's using a selfish impulse with is left unchecked by other means of comparison from other people and it's running free; in the case of the desert island dude.

Not it isn't, we can establish moral standards based on the universal considerations of the desires of all agents that need to be considered.

Lets put it this way:

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.

Desirism is both a theory about what our moral terms mean to, such as what it means to say "rape is wrong" and about how we determine these moral propositions to be true.

But all of that replies on the assumption that you've first defined what "morality" itself is. What is your idea of a moral fact, or moral knowledge... or even true ethics? Morality and ethical standards differ from one culture and person to the next, as they're impossible to define universally- prove me wrong.

And if I understand you right, "Desirism" isn't even properly defined- of course the casual observer/student can attatch tags to what Desirism represents, but i'm struggling to find a cogent meaning for it.

Morality is a standard by which we judge actions. All morality refers to someones reasons for action, causing the death of a human changes morally by intention. It cannot be morally wrong to accidentally kill someone (given no fault to the causer) but it is morally wrong to allow a death to result of your negligence given you have responsibility in a situation, and it is morally wrong to murder someone. So reasons for action are how we determine whether or not the outcome was the result of a moral right or wrong.

So how do we tie together morality and desires? Because morality is a standard by which we judge action, and actions are only the result of desires, morality in desirism is a measured relationship between the desires of all the people involved, and the state of affairs in which more and stronger desires are promoted than are thwarted.

No no, that fails when stood next to consequentialism; when you take responsibility for uprighteous moral behaviour and all the indirect or direct negativity it causes. Easy example, murder isn't always morally wrong, if for example the person murdered was causing others to suffer then the consequence of that persons death would be a welcome relief to the people he had made suffer. However, by the standard of morals that includes "murder is always wrong", i'd ask you to consider that if the man in the example hadn't been murdered that the people he had caused to suffer would have likely to gone on suffering indefinately- and which is worse ultimately? Or another example thats probably easier for most people to relate to; people consider giving money to charities in africa to be a morally good thing, but the result of this is the exact opposite, as it increases the people in those countries need for dependency on outside sources and reduces their ambition for independence and/or social revolution to change their life for the better in the exact same way that somebody whoses lived a life on government handouts has grown accustomed to "not bothering to work" when somebody is ready to hand him money for nothing. Examine the long term consequences instead of the short term to really be able to get a clearer understanding of "consequentialism" in all its instances.

In fact, if you do go by your current society's (wherever you are) definition of morality, how do your actions differ in anyway from that of a slave christian?

I'd go as far as to say that deferring your entire behaviour to what is deemed currently to be morally correct, is taking the easy way out from making hard choices. No surprise there in this world of ours.

There are a room of 100 people, and 99 of them have the desire to rape. But all 100 of them have a desire not to be raped (because it is not possible to desire non consensual acts) therefore a desire to rape is a desire that thwarts more and stronger desires than it promotes and it is an action that a moral person will not perform.

If you desire to be moral you should act like a moral person.

In that same room, you have 99 people potentially ready to do other people harm, but only through their own cowardice they do not. If they were in a situation where they weren't likely to be harmed, but able to rape another person, they would do it. Therefore the consequence of watching them stand around uncomfortabley and then leaving the room is the consequence of letting those people to go and inflict harm onto others. Better that they should be cattle proded into raping each other than putting off the inevitable, they might just learn something from the experience.

So all desirism achieves universally then, is putting off the inevitable harder choices for short term gains (and we'll assume that inaction and remaining neutral is considered a short term gain as well) and forgetting to take account for the long term consequences of the act, which you didnt even consider then when creating the example... or willfully ignored.

[ib.me.ub]

I will partly agree with your on this pacian, in relation to some topics. Ultimately it is about Survival.

I have a question for you. You say that having more children, therefore more people, equals better survivability. This is true upto a certain point in time.

What happens when there are too many people for a system to support them! Does it then become morally wrong to have children?

[theVOID]

But all of that replies on the assumption that you've first defined what "morality" itself is. What is your idea of a moral fact, or moral knowledge... or even true ethics? Morality and ethical standards differ from one culture and person to the next, as they're impossible to define universally- prove me wrong.

Of course it relies on what you define morality to be, though most commonly it is used to mean "a standard by which we judge action" or phrased in another way "conformity to the rules of right conduct; moral or virtuous conduct."(Dictionary.com)

This definition fits what most people mean when they talk about and use morality, and that is all we ask of definitions so my concepts are based around this idea. There is no point in having a moral theory that does not fit with the general use of moral language and desirism certainly does.

If morality is a standard by which we judge action, and all actions are produced by internal action, and those internal actions are produced by desires, then desires are ultimately responsible for all action we (intentionally) take. Based on this a good moral theory should be based on desires, be it a subjective or objective moral theory.

I am arguing for an objective moral theory, until recently i was a moral subjectivist, but I think Desirism is a better framework that best represents our moral intuitions about right and wrong with only the use of empirically testable phenomenon and objective measurements of relationships between desires and a state of affairs. It can achieve moral facts, such as making the statement "rape is wrong" factually true instead of subjectively unpleasant.

So how do we get to moral facts? In Utilitarianism we are trying to achieve a better state of affairs, and a better state of affairs is one where more and stronger desires are promoted than thwarted compared to the present moment, a good action is one that leads to a better state of affairs. It is a fact that the desire not to be raped is more prevalent and stronger than the desire to rape, firstly because it is impossible to desire to be raped, and secondly because everyone desires not to be raped but only some desire to be rape. Thus rape is a desire that tends to thwart more and stronger desires than it promotes and this makes it morally wrong. You can apply any scenario and evaluate the desires thwarted vs promoted and determine if it is morally good or morally bad in this way.

And if I understand you right, "Desirism" isn't even properly defined- of course the casual observer/student can attatch tags to what Desirism represents, but i'm struggling to find a cogent meaning for it.

That's not true, Desirism (or Desire Utilitarianism) is a utilitarian moral theory concerned with desire fulfilment. Utilitarianism is basically the idea that a good action is one that leads to a better state of affairs, and with desire fulfilment, this better state of affairs is one in which more and stronger desires are fulfilled than at the present moment.

That of course does not apply to all situation, if the suffering someone being beaten, then the prevention of this suffering is still the morally good thing, but the killing of th
See the blog of the developer of this theory: http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/

Morality is a standard by which we judge actions. All morality refers to someones reasons for action, causing the death of a human changes morally by intention. It cannot be morally wrong to accidentally kill someone (given no fault to the causer) but it is morally wrong to allow a death to result of your negligence given you have responsibility in a situation, and it is morally wrong to murder someone. So reasons for action are how we determine whether or not the outcome was the result of a moral right or wrong.

So how do we tie together morality and desires? Because morality is a standard by which we judge action, and actions are only the result of desires, morality in desirism is a measured relationship between the desires of all the people involved, and the state of affairs in which more and stronger desires are promoted than are thwarted.

No no, that fails when stood next to consequentialism; when you take responsibility for uprighteous moral behaviour and all the indirect or direct negativity it causes. Easy example, murder isn't always morally wrong, if for example the person murdered was causing others to suffer then the consequence of that persons death would be a welcome relief to the people he had made suffer.

Bad example for one simple reason, murder is defined as wrongful killing, if the killer was of say a father who came home to see his son being beaten by a man with a bat and shot him, it would not be a wrongful killing, and thus not murder.

However, by the standard of morals that includes "murder is always wrong", i'd ask you to consider that if the man in the example hadn't been murdered that the people he had caused to suffer would have likely to gone on suffering indefinately- and which is worse ultimately?

Of course the latter, the ongoing suffering of many thwarts more and stronger desires than the death of the bad man. Nobody desires to suffer, the desire not to suffer is stronger and more prevalent than the desire to make someone suffer, thus actions that lead to the suffering was morally wrong and any action that prevents the suffering from continuing, such as the killing of the person who is enforcing the suffering, is morally good.

Or another example thats probably easier for most people to relate to; people consider giving money to charities in africa to be a morally good thing, but the result of this is the exact opposite, as it increases the people in those countries need for dependency on outside sources and reduces their ambition for independence and/or social revolution to change their life for the better in the exact same way that somebody whoses lived a life on government handouts has grown accustomed to "not bothering to work" when somebody is ready to hand him money for nothing. Examine the long term consequences instead of the short term to really be able to get a clearer understanding of "consequentialism" in all its instances.

Oh, so donating to starving children makes them worse off? That's bullshit mate, having food, clean water, medicine, education, shelter etc DOES NOT make their life worse. You're argument is totally unsubstantiated and has absolutely no resemblance to the actual data, world disease and suffering is down in impoverished nations, especially in children, disease rates are down too, education is up and life prospects are improving.

In fact, if you do go by your current society's (wherever you are) definition of morality, how do your actions differ in anyway from that of a slave christian?

I don't go by someone's morality, I have a methodology that can determine desires to be morally right or morally wrong. Application of a method to objectively determine what action will cause the fulfilment of more and stronger desires is not slavery in the slightest, it just shows that you think these actions lead to a better state of affairs and as such you take action towards this goal.

I'd go as far as to say that deferring your entire behaviour to what is deemed currently to be morally correct, is taking the easy way out from making hard choices. No surprise there in this world of ours.

You clearly have no clue what I am talking about if you have come up with this little polished turd of an objection. Desirism is not a deference of moral responsibility it is a method of determining the truth of moral propositions, and it as for making choices go, the choices you make are more likely to be morally good because you have a method for working out which actions help fulfil the most and strongest desires and thus bring about a better state of affairs, rather than intuiting it, and intuition is far more prone to error than relational measurements.

In that same room, you have 99 people potentially ready to do other people harm, but only through their own cowardice they do not. If they were in a situation where they weren't likely to be harmed, but able to rape another person, they would do it.

And they would not be moral people.

Therefore the consequence of watching them stand around uncomfortabley and then leaving the room is the consequence of letting those people to go and inflict harm onto others. Better that they should be cattle proded into raping each other than putting off the inevitable, they might just learn something from the experience.

Bizarre example, you may want to phrase it a little more clearly next time, i've had to read between the lines to make any real sense of it.

If cattle prodding them into raping each other would be an action that thwarts less desires (the desires of the bad people not to be raped) than the desires of the people that they would otherwise rape, the cattle prodding the bad people is more moral.

So all desirism achieves universally then, is putting off the inevitable harder choices for short term gains (and we'll assume that inaction and remaining neutral is considered a short term gain as well) and forgetting to take account for the long term consequences of the act, which you didnt even consider then when creating the example... or willfully ignored.

Where the hell did you get that from? Do you want to show the part of my argument that you used to make this conclusion, because i'm pretty sure you have it completely backwards. The length of consequences, short term or long term, makes no difference, what matters is what desires are ones that tend to promote more and stronger desires than they thwart, a moral person is one who's desires tend to promote more and stronger desires than they thwart, it tells you want actions are morally good and bad based on this relationship between desires and the state of affairs.