Translating from the objective to the subjective

Desirism purports to be an entirely subjective ethics (and its analog letheism, an entirely subjective metaphysics or epistemology). This involves, then, turning our backs on objective values. So for example, the recommendation is to avoid asserting that something is right or wrong in any absolute (i.e., moralist) sense. And to make it clear that this is what is going on, desirism recommends dropping (“abolishing”) the very vocabulary that is normally associated with objective values in many if not all cases.[1] After all, if a thoroughly convinced desirist still says things like, “I think that’s wrong,” the natural interpretation by most people, who are presumed to be objectivists,[2] will be that the desirist is making an objective assertion, namely, that “it” is objectively wrong.

            Fortunately an alternative way of speaking is ready to hand that avoids this ambiguity: I recommend speaking about one’s own mental tokens, for example, “I don’t want anybody to do that sort of thing” or “I don’t like people doing that sort of thing.” In addition, to make it clear that one is talking about something having the gravitas we normally associate with morality, as opposed to, say, a mere personal preference (such as “I wish people wouldn’t express their greetings in a singsong voice”), I recommend giving reasons. Thus, saying “I wish nobody would eat animals because animal agriculture typically involves exceedingly cruel, and of course ultimately fatal, treatment of other animals, and we just don’t need to eat them for nutrition or even gustatory pleasure” makes it clear that more than just one’s personal feelings are at stake. Furthermore, reasons – I would say by definition – are fashioned or chosen to have an influence on the auditor in the direction of the speaker’s desires (in this case, moving others to stop eating animals too).

            I acknowledge that the reason itself appears to be objective. However, if anyone doubts its truth, I would recommend saying, “I believe it because …,” then citing evidence. In other words, I would avoid saying, “It’s true because ….” or even “It’s rational to believe it because …,” since truth and rationality are themselves normally conceived as objective values.[3]

            Someone might still object that what I am recommending is mere game playing, since objectivity is implicit even in the notion of belief; for what is it to believe something but to believe it is true? I understand that analysis (although not everyone accepts it), and one way to subvert its impact would be simply to retreat to amoralism rather than maintain a thoroughgoing letheism (denial of truth).[4] However, for reasons spelled out elsewhere,[5] I currently favor the view that it’s turtles all the way down. So in this essay I am focusing only on the practical question of how to translate from the vocabulary of objective values to a subjective (or relativist) one … with an eye to ridding us of objectivist/absolutist expression and attitudes and the net-noxious actions, policies, institutions, and so forth, they lead to. So even if believing something implied that one believes it is true, I would have us focus on the subjectivity of the believing as a psychological act.

            Here again it could be observed that even what I have been treating as a subjective assertion, such as that “I believe …,” is itself an objective assertion; for am I not asserting as fact that I believe something? It is a subjective fact in that it is a fact about my psychology, but it is an objective fact (or claim) in that it is a fact (or claim) about my psychology. But, as I noted above, if anyone doubted my (or whoever’s) claim, I would recommend speaking only about one’s psychology (now that I believe that I believe… – the next turtle down) rather than doubling down on its being a fact or true that I believe…. (And, as always, one could then give reasons as well, this time for why one holds one’s meta-belief that one believes…, with an eye to moving one’s interlocutor or audience to meta-believe it too.)


[1] I acknowledge that this smacks of Newspeak. However, the vocabulary can be retained for the purpose of recommending its obsolescence … as well as understanding pre-desirist documents and phenomena (just as we need to know what “gods” and “demons” mean so as to understand some religious texts and some literature and even some human psychology).

[2] However, Thomas Pölzler questions, on empirical grounds, the common philosophical presumption that people do generally view values as objective; see e.g. his A Philosophical Perspective on Folk Moral Objectivism (Routledge, 2023).

[3] As also are funniness, beauty, and ultimately everything (for example, “a table is …,” “a tree is …,” “a planet  is…,” “an animal is…,” “a human being is …”).

[4] This is what Ronnie de Sousa recommends (personal communications).

[5] For example, in my Reasons and Ethics (Routledge 2021).

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