Desirism: a reassessment
Desirism -- a reassessment
Desirism arose from the ashes of morality after my anti-epiphany on Christmas Day 2007, when I quite suddenly and unexpectedly became convinced that morality is a myth. Reeling from this realization I struggled to find my footing in an amoral world. Over time I felt I had found it in desire. Since then I have happily developed a new ethics, which continues to be fruitful for my thinking and life. However I have also become aware of problems with its original formulation, including the very name “desirism.” I would now therefore like to carry out a full reassessment. In what follows I will begin with a review of the motivation for desirism, then proceed to a critique, and conclude with a summary of what I consider still to be of value.
The Reasons for Desirism
The original motivation for desirism was my having become convinced that my lifelong assumptions about morality had been radically mistaken. It hit me that deeming something to be morally right or wrong or good or bad was simply a psychological response, “just a feeling” as I came to put it, as opposed to a perception of some reality. Thus, whereas for my whole life heretofore I had thought of right and wrong and good and bad (and many other related assessments) as features of the world or properties of things (human actions, motives, people, etc.), now I conceived them as hallucinatory projections. As an analogy think of a pain in your toe. When you stub your toe there is some shock or damage to tissue in your toe, but there is no literal pain in the toe. In fact we do not feel the pain until a second later, when the shock has been transmitted via nerve fibers to the brain, where it is registered by the signaling to us of the experience of pain. So if the pain is anywhere it’s in the brain. But even in the brain there is only the firing of some neurons or whatever. So the pain is really “just a feeling,” something “in the mind,” we say. It’s psychological. The tissue damage is real and in the toe.
Just so, if I see a man kicking a dog for fun, there is the man, his action, his enjoyment, the injury to the dog, the dog’s distress – all these are real. But the wrongness of the action or the badness of the man is some kind of add-on that is not literally “there” the way those other features of the situation are. They are my projection onto the action and the man of my psychological response to what I am seeing. And what exactly is that response? It is my deep dislike of what is happening or of the man for doing it – an aversion, a desire that he not do it, a desire that he stop it, perhaps a desire to intervene, a desire that he be punished for having done it, etc. Hence “desirism.”
This view of the reality underlying (and putting the lie to) morality also suggests a relativism. For it is a commonplace that different people (or the same person at different times…or sometimes even at a single time!) have different and even incompatible desires, since our desires are thoroughly contingent, the results of countless factors both contemporary or geographically proximate (the present impinging circumstances) and historical or temporally distal (going back to the Big Bang). Obviously the man kicking the dog desires to do so, and I, watching him, desire that he not do so. (Even different people having the same desire can lead to incompatibility, such as when two people want the last remaining piece of the cake. But a different analysis would label these different desires, as Person A wants the slice for himself and Person B wants the slice for herself.) But note that this is not a moral relativism. I do not defend moral relativism as a normative fact since I find it unintelligible. I do of course recognize moral relativism as a sociological fact; but this is a fact about people’s moral beliefs and not about morality.
The problem that desirism seeks to address and ameliorate is not merely the mistaking of preferences for moral features but the banefulness of doing so. This arises precisely from the failure to recognize the desire-basis, and hence relativity, of our moral judgments. For this failure leads to both stagnation and heightened conflict arising from people holding onto their moral beliefs with uncompromising adamancy due to the assumption that they are objective truths. If our views and differences are instead conceived as matters of desire only, then, the desirist maintains, we are more likely to be open to change, to seek compromise where differences remain, and in any case to refrain from demonizing those with whom we disagree (or ourself if we feel “guilty”). The desirist likes all of those outcomes.
Desirism as I have been conceptualizing it does have one stipulation, namely that we strive to rationalize our desires. I don’t mean rationalize in the sense of some specious gussying up to make our desires seem presentable. I want us to vet our desires in a critical, logical, informed, and experienced fashion. But I also don’t mean rationalizing in the sense of justifying our desires in accordance with some presumed objective standard(s). I mean simply the having of reasons. The rational process I invoke will therefore still lead to a relativism. For example, two people can have equally compelling reasons for approving or condemning the legalization of abortion. Indeed, two people can be equally moved to opposing positions by the same considerations – this being one of the main motivations for a desire-based analysis of ethics, since the same beliefs can result in opposing motivations and actions by two people having opposite desires. Thus: Believing the dog to be suffering will encourage a sadist to keep kicking and an empathist to try to stop him. Still, the hope is that reasoning will result in more compatible desires overall. An habitual dog-kicker who becomes convinced from studying that dogs are as sensitive souls as humans are may find himself no longer wanting to kick them.
In sum: My personal journey had begun with the shocking realization that morality is not objective and hence, in this sense, not real. At first I was utterly disconcerted, having no idea how to make sense anymore of my deepest convictions. But as I worked (thought/wrote/dialogued) through this, I came to realize not only that life could go on without morality, but that it could even be better (although now all this could mean was that, after a great deal of reflection and practice, I preferred it to the previous, moralist regime). I called the result desirism. Desirism is both the empirical thesis that the real basis of our moralizing is desire and the suggestion (i.e., recommendation, not moral imperative) that we replace the moralizing of our desires with the rationalizing of our desires.
Critique of Desirism
The first sort of critique of desirism is that it has set up a straw man,
namely, a phony conception of morality. Desirism is, after all, an outgrowth of
amoralism, the view that morality is a myth. But “morality” can have different
meanings, and it is only morality in the sense of something objective that has
been rejected by the desirist. But what if the prevailing notion of morality is
not objectivist to begin with? Thomas Pölzler (2023) argues on empirical
grounds that it is not. Perhaps then desirism is a cure for a non-existent
disease. Perhaps morality in practice is, as it were, cognizant of its
relativism (however incoherent or inchoate the notion of moral relativism may
be), and hence is not the bane desirists picture it as being.
A third critique is that morality is objective and ineradicable or desirable, and we can avoid its noxious elements simply by recognizing our human fallibility and adopting an epistemic humility. In this respect, then, moral beliefs are just like nonmoral beliefs. It would be absurd to deny the existence of, for example, physical reality just because our beliefs about it may make us arrogant and lead to conflicts. The best scientists recognize that their theories are falsifiable. Just so, we can understand that our moral views may be mistaken without throwing the baby out with the bath water.
I will leave those objections stated but unaddressed as I see no way to resolve the issues definitively. I happen to be persuaded that all of them fail, and I (and others) have argued to this effect elsewhere at great length. But since I am here admitting that the results are inconclusive, there is no point in rehearsing the rebuttals here, where I am intending to develop a response that acknowledges the difficulties. Just so the following objections, which are directed at desirism itself and not simply its rejection of morality.
To begin with, note that the emphasis on desire in desirism may seem unsupported because differences of belief can and do make just as much difference in our feelings and motivations as do differences of desire. So my proposed ethics seems to be as much a beliefism as a desirism. You may condemn eating other animals if you believe they are your reincarnated ancestors, but not otherwise. I sought to address this mutuality by introducing the rationality stipulation, for reasoning about our beliefs may be the best way to determine their truth or falsity. Once established that our beliefs are true or at least rational, it then becomes the purview of our desires to determine what to do or not do, etc. If there is no good reason to believe that other animals are reincarnated human beings, then, other things equal, your desire to eat them will not be inhibited, at least for that reason, if you are rational.
But, the objection continues, there is just as much contention in the world about what is true or rational to believe about nonmoral reality as about what is morally right or wrong, good or bad, etc. Rationality is in fact contentious in at least two ways. One is its nature: What is rationality anyway? For example: Is it a categorical (and mysterious?) mandate, just as morality purports to be, or is it just another relative system of human norms, as morality may be in fact?[2] The other is: How valuable is rationality? When I stipulate that desirism incorporates rationality, I have a specific conception of rationality in mind, and I also value rationality (in that sense) highly … indeed, as essential to living the kind of life I wish everybody would lead. But both of these things – the conception and the preference -- can be and are questioned or opposed by many other people, both professional philosophers and laypersons. So I cannot simply make the stipulation of rationality. I must explain and defend it. This I have done at length elsewhere.[3] But, here again, I cannot deny that the issues are controversial. So I have not definitively established that the beliefs that also contribute to our motivations and feelings are stable or well grounded and that, therefore, it is the desires that explain ethical disagreement and hence undermine morality conceived as a universal prescriptor.
Meanwhile the desire in question is itself contentious or in need of explication. First of all there is a great deal of confusion between desire understood as a psychological attitude and desire as a synonym for motivation. I may be motivated to go to the dentist even though I don’t want to go. So, yes, I want to go to the dentist. But, no, I don’t want to go to the dentist. Both types of desire figure in desirism. The problem desirism is intended to address is desire in the sense of motivation: “What shall I do?”[4] The desirist process is supposed to result in one’s being motivated to do x rather than y or not-x (or trying to influence someone else’s motivation). However, clearly relevant are one’s psychological desires (as well as one’s beliefs, as just acknowledged above). I will be motivated to go the dentist, other things equal, if and only if my desire not to be in pain from my toothache is stronger than my desire not to be in pain from the dentist’s drilling. (The motivation then results from my net psychological desire, plus my belief that going to the dentist is the only way to relieve my toothache.)
What desirism stipulates, then, is that one rationally vet the whole constellation of relevant beliefs and (psychological) desires in the forming of an intention (or motivational desire.[5] So for instance: Are there any less painful alternatives to going to the dentist for treating toothache with equal effectiveness and safety? (Use Sensodyne, for instance?) Will going to the dentist in fact involve pain? If so, is it really such a terrible pain? Does a different dentist from your usual one offer a less painful procedure? Will the cost of going to the dentist bankrupt me? And so on. Then, having researched and reflected on these things, one will (or won’t) be motivated to go to the dentist, and, other things equal, will (or won’t) go. These latter are predictions, whereas the vetting is only something desirism recommends … the recommendation that is desirism.
Understood in this way, desirism seems to be more of a rationalism than a desirism. There is really no need to ask, “What do I want?” No more, for that matter, than there is a need to ask, “What do I believe?” Simply by going about the business of being rational one will come to believe and desire more rationally. Indeed, on my account of rationality in the broad sense, that is not even a causal claim but an analytic one. Rational desires and beliefs simply are those that persist or result from thinking rationally in the narrow sense (that is, logically). It is a given that your beliefs and desires are a product of both the relevant considerations and who or what you are. Therefore you and I may come to believe or desire differently based on the same considerations, and both of us be rational in the bargain. For example, you may believe that Pluto is a planet and I believe it isn’t, and both of us in light of all the agreed facts (or other rational beliefs) and thinking logically; and you may rate Mozart higher than I on the scale of musical genius, with both of us thoroughly acquainted with the classical music repertoire and so forth. But my point now is that the recommendation of what I have been calling desirism need make no mention of desire in any form (motivational or basic); it is simply to “Be rational” or “Act rationally.” Our desires (and beliefs) will then take care of themselves.
Desirism (so-called), then, is the recommendation that one perform such rational vetting prior to acting in lieu of or without also considering whether the action under consideration would be morally right or wrong or good or bad. Obviously this presumes that the proposed vetting is not itself the sum total of what morality would prescribe. There are certainly rationalists who maintain that doing the morally right thing simply is doing the rational thing (Immanuel Kant and Mitchell Silver are likely candidates). Morality, as I conceive it, however, would have us reason from an additional premise, namely, that we must do (or not do) what we are being advised to do (or not do). The “must” here is an ought, not a will, and it carries the implication that one must do the moral thing on pain of deserving (and maybe even being guaranteed to suffer) blame or punishment of some kind (worldly or otherworldly). Reason too implies an ought, namely, what we ought to believe, given other things we believe; but, because believing is not conceived as subject to the will the way behavior is, violations of reason do not carry the implication of deserved punishment the way violations of morality do (although see “The Spread”).[6]
And therefore, since desirism is a form of rationalism, one must do the desirist thing in the sense of being causally impelled, other things equal. So morality trades in mystical entities and forces: our having a free will that makes us responsible for what we do (or don’t do) in such a way that we deserve (and might even be guaranteed to receive) something we don’t like happening to us if we don’t do it (or do it). At the same time, and maybe for this very reason, morality is relatively weak: It can only make an appeal to us by rousing up these ghosts to motivate us. Desirism on the other hand is purely causal and empirical and hence more effective in motivating us.
However, in the end, desirism is also an appeal: as I keep calling it, a recommendation. Once set in motion, the process will (other things equal) have an “irresistible” end. But first it must be set in motion. One must be a committed desirist for this to work. (And mutatis mutandis for a rationalist.) But by the same token, if one is a committed moralist, then (other things equal) one will do what morality prescribes. For to be a committed or genuine moralist simply is to do what one believes one ought to do (and for that very reason). Note then that the picture of motivation sketched above as requiring psychological desire is not applicable to the moral case, for one can be motivated to do something based on moral belief alone. If I believe I ought to do x, and I am a moralist, then no particular psychological desire need be postulated to explain my doing x. Saying I did it because I wanted to do the right thing is just another way of saying I was (morally) motivated to do it.
Nevertheless, my claim is that desirism, or being motivated on the basis of psychological desires, would be more effective overall because it makes no appeal to supernatural entities or obscure forces in its efforts to motivate us, and so will better survive rational scrutiny. But does that not presume that the mass of humanity is adept at and highly values rationality? And does it not also presume that believing in free will and desert and perhaps even divine justice etc. is not rational? But this is only my conclusion. And I am afraid I am probably vastly outnumbered by people who believe otherwise. Do they really believe otherwise? Maybe some of them parse “free will” and “ought” and even “God” etc. in terms of naturalistic phenomena that would be completely acceptable to me. Or, again, maybe they just don’t value rationality (assuming we even mean the same thing by it) as much as I do, or over as wide a range of matters of concern.
The upshot for me of all this second guessing is that I have come to recognize the arbitrariness of desirism as I have been conceiving it. In particular it is not at all obvious that desirism would prove superior to morality in actual practice. There are simply too many variables, including regarding what we are even talking about at any given time. The carrot on a stick or the mirage that has kept me philosophizing about desirism all these years has been the belief (faith) that I was in fact ever-refining a workable system. But maybe the “refining” would be interminable … just like all the rest of the “perennial” problems of philosophy … and just like attempting to explain the ways of God to humanity.
I must mention one final objection to my project: an ad hominem one. It is obvious to anyone who knows me personally, and probably even to anyone who reads me professionally, that I am excessively moralistic. Yes, even my amoralism can descend into a moralist condemnation of moralism. Why do you think I was so into being a philosophical moralist in the first place … and now an amoralist? The first was a natural outgrowth of my personality. The second arose from my growing awareness of the personal difficulties being a psychological moralist (that is, having a moralistic personality) got me into. In the latter respect I feel very much in the mold of Socrates, who is reputed once to have laughingly denied a visitor’s contention that he was a man of virtue, by explaining that his preoccupation with virtue stemmed from his being a regular sewer! Just so, my recognition of my very moralist tendencies and the problems they create for me in human interactions is precisely what motivates my devotion to amoralism, which would counteract these tendencies by showing them to be based on falsehoods. Alas, this presumes that my emotions march in lockstep with my rational conclusions, which is pretty much what they don’t do. So my only hope is that over time, and before I die, my emotions will have been sufficiently imbued with amoralism to be consistent with it. And so that is why I keep thinking and writing and dialoguing on the subject endlessly.
But is this really an objection to the case I have been making for amoralism? Normally ad hominem is considered a fallacy: The arguments are to be judged on their merits, regardless of who makes them. But in philosophy so much depends on the intuitions of the philosopher, for it is precisely by these that we judge the merits. This is exactly why so-called experimental philosophy has come into being -- to challenge this reliance -- since philosophers’ – or at least analytic philosophers’ -- intuitions may at times be quite out of synch with those of most of humanity. (Witness my profession’s prevailing atheism.)
The typical (non-experimental) philosopher’s response is that this is nothing unusual and is quite proper. After all, do we expect physicists’ concepts and conclusions about reality to conform to the layperson’s? Who better to decide on these issues that the people who devote their lives to refining their thoughts about them?
Well, as always (I would now say), the “answer” is somewhere in between, or “yes and no,” as I like to put it. And specifically as regards my desirism: I am ready to acknowledge that much of it is probably a product of my own very peculiar “intuitions” as an (almost?) incorrigible moralist … and, for that matter, an enthusiast in all things, such that my emotions (and desires) are, as a rule, strong. But I also maintain that this means that the phenomena I observe serve to highlight things that are generally overlooked but nonetheless true of humanity – to put them in stark relief.
Granted, it is the “stark relief” that is the cause of morality’s problematicness: the extremes of resistance and conflict it can engender. So my thesis must be tempered to some degree. But to what degree, I am unable to say. In the end (as always) the reader is left to judge how much what I say resonates with her intuitions. But I do also think it is telling that the majority religion on Earth is focused on being forgiven for one’s sins. So I don’t think I am alone in seeking salvation from a strong sense of inherent guilt. The interesting twist of amoralism is that it offers this salvation by a denial of the need for forgiveness since there is no such thing as sin (or moral wrongness) in the first place.
I conclude that desirism (indeed, any attempt to know what is true about anything) has perhaps been a wild goose chase. (See also “What’s the Point?”) However, I still feel that something of value for most of us has been uncovered in my relentless chasing after this goose. I will attempt to articulate what that is in the final section of this paper.
In Lieu of Desirism
Perhaps I have become wise, and wisdom is precisely the capacity or confidence to live without knowledge, that is, without truth. (“I seem, then, in just this little thing to be wiser than this man at any rate, that what I do not know I do not think I know either” [Socrates in the Apology, Henry Cary trans., 1897].) Indeed, the possession of truth (that is, the feeling of possessing it) may be the ultimate delusion, and the chief bane of human existence. We explain things only by ignoring other things. For the same reason we are surprised that our solutions eventually stop working. In both cases we neglect to consider that our focus has been on a single item whilst neglecting the limitless background or context that supports it. So inevitably, as changes (and usually unknown to us --- just as unknown as their predecessors had been) occur in the background, our explanations appear to have failed us, and our solutions suddenly work no more and often even become problems in their own right.
Yet – this being the ultimate objection to the desirist project, or any other -- even this purported wisdom may be delusory. Like liberalism according to a standard critique, epistemic humility is not neutral. For example, Alan Duncan (and analogously, David Morris) has made an ad hominem criticism of my desirism along the following lines. Desirism purports to be only a method or procedure without any substantive commitments. (For example, one desirist could support the legalization of abortion whilst another with equal fervor opposed it.) But perhaps I have come up with such an ethics only because I live under a capitalist regime that tolerates it as innocuous (to capitalism’s ravages…or perhaps even undergirds them!).[7] And it is surely no mere coincidence that I have had a privileged life: enjoying relative leisure and good health, having liberal-minded parents and a prep-school and Ivy League education, being unvictimized by war, poverty, or oppression, and so on. Maybe if instead I had lived a life closer to the human norm I would be less enamored either of iconoclasm or of preventing intense conflicts, and more concerned either about maintaining social stability or about promoting specific substantive reforms or even revolutions by whatever means necessary. Either of those alternatives could militate in favor of moralism.[8]
A related cause for skepticism about my skepticism (my Socratic disavowal) is that it could be motivated by mere preference or desire, for instance, that, “deep down.” I do in fact know something, or at least am convinced of something, that is so aversive to me that it makes me want to deny that I do, or that anybody does, by this extreme tactic of denying truth as such. Maybe if I fully acknowledged my subconscious knowledge or belief, I would experience the burden to do something that I find very unpleasant or inconvenient or fearsome, or have to give up something that is very precious to me.
Once again I can hardly claim to be able to refute the objection (this or any other). I suppose I retain the fond wish that one could have it all: to become the calm at the center of the cyclone – to live a fully participatory life whilst still being fundamentally only an observer. But I don’t know to what degree that is a realistic goal for me, or for humanity in general. So it may boil down to an existential choice between being (or living in) the calm or being (or living in) the cyclone, the observer/discussant or the agent, and I choose the former (or have had it “chosen” for me by the luck of my placement within a capitalist system, or whatever). Surely I could at least try to hoist the critic by his own petard and suggest some overarching secular power or unconscious motive that fuels his anticapitalist or ad hominem critique. But this would only perpetuate the debate and resolve nothing.[9]
What I think we or I am left with, therefore, is not a nice neat ethics or monolithic “guide to life” but instead a set of related precepts and observations that appeal or have seemed useful to me on various occasions and may be to others without aspiring to be universal or irrevocable. And so without further ado and in no particular order:
Ethics is (that is, I recommend conceiving it as) not about finding the One Correct Answer to every question about what to do, but is rather about becoming motivated to do what makes the most sense to you (singular or multiple) after reflecting on the relevant considerations. In other words, the upshot of an ethical inquiry is not a determination of what ought to be done but is rather, other things equal, one’s doing something.[10]
Similarly, ethics is (that is, I recommend conceiving it as) a practical and not a theoretical inquiry. It is not about making judgments of right and wrong or determining who deserves blame and so forth. It is instead wholly focused on problem solving: “What is it that I (or we) want (after reflecting on the relevant considerations), and how can I (or we) get it?” This enables one to pierce through the clutter and arrive at a decision and to act.[11]
Related to the problem-solving orientation of a desirist
ethics is its forward-looking nature. For a moralist it is important not only to
figure out what would be right or wrong to do but also whether something
already done was right or wrong. A desirist has no time to waste on
categorizing things that are dead and gone, and is concerned only to deal with
what is happening or might or will happen.[12] These
are the matters that are under our control. If they are not under our control
or influenceable by us, they are not a matter for ethics to begin with. A
homely contrast between the two orientations is the spouse who is forever
berating the other for past infractions and the spouse who never does that but
instead is forever trying to figure out how to improve the situation.[13] (This presumes that the berating is not a
useful tactic for doing this.)
In the end my project is to find and suggest to others a way of living that I like. It so happens that I am a fan of rationality (of a certain sort) … and, contrary to the dogma that it is question begging to think that rationality can itself be justified rationally, on my conception of rationality it can be justified, simply in virtue of my being able to provide my reasons for being a fan of rationality. That the reasons that have caused me to like rationality will not be similarly motivating or appealing to others, even equally informed and reflective others, does not disqualify me as rational for being moved by them …or those others for not being so (that is, for not liking my kind of rationality, or even any kind if on grounds that I would call rational. Indeed, I myself have reasons for disliking rationality; see “Reasoning: Another tool in the toolbox”). I expect a relativism here as everywhere. And perhaps it is not useful, and might even be counterproductive (to my favored ends), even to retain the label and notion of “rational” … analogously to the reasons for ditching moralist terminology and notions. So I will just say that I like and advocate the having and giving of reasons for what one believes, wants, and does, and that those reasons be logical, informed by both study and experience, and further refined by dialogue and reflection.
But that is not all (and here I go beyond my rationalist conception of desirism). I have some definite desires or preferences of a substantive and not just procedural nature regarding how to live or what sort of person to be (traditional concerns of ethics). Most prominently I would have us all cultivate compassion and respect for all living things. The feelings and autonomy of others are part of the “relevant considerations” in any contemplated course of action. This is not to say that we would or even could all become bleeding hearts, or that I would want us to – just that others be given the opportunity[14] to affect our motivations and actions. In a way then this too is a procedural desire and recommendation after all.
So maybe my view should simply be
called “Marksism”? In sum, then: Marksism (like Kantianism)[15]
is both a meta-ethics and an ethics. The meta-ethics of Marksism (aka
analetheism or letheism) is the recommendation to put aside any assertions –
and, indeed, convictions – of truth about anything whatsoever and replace them
with expressions (internal as well as external) of belief and desire along with
(if helpful to mention) one's reasons for holding them that might be persuasive
to one's audience or interlocutor (and of course to oneself). The ethics
of Marksism is the recommendation to cultivate and promote rationality and
compassion in one's life and the world.
Marks, Joel. 2021. Reason and Ethics. Routledge.
Pölzler, Thomas. 2023. A Philosophical Perspective on Folk Moral Objectivism. Routledge.
[1]
Joyce (2001) is the locus classicus for this view.
[2]
Alan Duncan adds: “'Why does the dominant ideology produce it, and as such, how
does it serve that ideology?” (personal communication) See
further remarks at the very end of this paper.
[3]
In particular in Marks (2021).
[4]
Note that “shall” is not only predictive but also hortatory; nevertheless it
remains empirical because it is not categorical. There is nothing mysterious about
feeling compelled, or urging someone else, to do something. It is
mysterious for this to be somehow required “absolutely.”
[5] Alan
Duncan suggests even greater ambitions: the development of character, perhaps
ultimately even the desirist snake swallowing its own tail in Buddhistic
enlightenment about the pointlessness of desire satisfaction.
[6]
They do instead, on my account, carry the implication that things will go less
to our considered liking; but this pragmatism is wholly empirical. See
“Objection and Reply II: Utility,” pp. 98-99, in Chapter 5 of Marks (2021).
[7] “Right, the precise
criticism would be that it (specifically your epiphany) is an unconscious production of the recent changes in the
system under which you live, and thereby produces a philosophy which is a
reinforcement of that very system and those changes. Perhaps it is indeed one
of many competing ideologies which the emerging stateless techo-capital class
could adopt as their own” (Duncan, p.c.).
[8] “Yes, or even perhaps
undergird a stronger more effective amoralism. There is a dialectic here that
is predicated on the same realisation, what I think differs is how conscious
that realisation is of its own causes, and as such how effective that
realisation can be in reshaping oneself” (Duncan, p.c.).
[9] “No, the critic could maintain that this is correct,
but that they do their best to also place themselves in the historical moment,
understanding themselves and their thoughts as in their socio-historical place,
and thereby not only avoiding universalising errors, but also placing their
theory where it belongs within themselves. This is what allows me to gain the
full benefit of amoralism” (Duncan, p.c.).
[10] More broadly, as Duncan has put it (p.c.), ”Cultivation of the self towards acting deliberately.”
[11]
My favorite example is on pp.151-159 of “The Divided Amoralist,” Chapter 8 of
Marks (2021).
[12]
And this is for two reasons: (1) What has already happened is in the
past, and there is no such thing as backward causation. (2) If something
happened, then it had to happen. This is of course an expression of
determinism. So not only can we not control something after it has happened,
but even before the fact we could not ‘control” it. I admit that this
second item depends on how control (or voluntary behavior) is understood. I am
here parsing it as a so-called incompatibilist.
[13]
Admittedly, a desirist may well want to consider what has happened for guidance
of future behavior.
[14]
It is an interesting question how far this “opportunity” extends to assuring
others an active voice in our own deliberations. Or indeed, an active role,
which could go beyond “voice” and involve …well, what? I am not asking,
for example, that others be accorded opportunities to coerce our opinion
or action. (See also “The Other in Ethics.”)
[15] The meta-ethics of Kantianism is that ethics must be understood in terms of categorial imperatives. The ethics of Kantianism is (in one of its formulations) never to treat anyone merely as a means (this being a categorical imperative).
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