Is Desirism Really Rational?

I have said that desirism is a rational ethics, specifically, it is the recommendation to vet our desires or motivations rationally before acting. But there is another sense in which desirism might be claimed to be rational, namely, that anyone who is rational would, given sufficient information, likely be motivated to adopt desirism as their ethics. This latter is indeed a claim, and an empirical one, as opposed to the first assertion, which is really only a definitional stipulation. Thus, combining the two, the empirical thesis I am putting forward is that a rational and informed person would likely encourage everyone (including themself) to make their decisions about what to do based on a rational review of their desires—in a word, would encourage everyone to be (a) desirist.[1]

            But I have also said that desirism presumes atheism and amoralism. The question then arises: Is this also just a stipulation (if a person is a theist or a moralist then they can’t be a desirist by definition, just as a chemical consisting of five hydrogen atoms or nitrogen can’t be water), or is it a substantive claim? I intend it as the latter. It seems to me that a rational person  would have good reasons for rejecting both theism and moralism (i.e., belief in God and morality, by which I mean, objective values). Thus my (second) claim is that it is unlikely that an informed desirist would be a theist or a moralist (because that would be irrational and desirists are by definition rational).

            This may seem false on its face. If the only stipulation for being desirist is to be rational, then I would be claiming that theists and moralists are (or tend to be) irrational. But that is not only insulting but just kind of dumb … isn’t it? Aren’t there plenty of highly rational theists and moralists? Or, more specifically, would not plenty of people claim that their belief in God or morality is rational? So they could even call themselves desirists (if they had some peculiar reason for wanting to appropriate this label) since they might advise everyone to act on a rational basis and they happen to believe part of such a basis would be belief in God or morality.

            Well, I guess I just have to bite the bullet(s) and argue that it is irrational to believe in God or morality (or that people who believe in them are irrational at least in that regard). This is not difficult for me to do. It is so easy to refute the belief in God that I have not even bothered to present (the time-honored) arguments (which is why it may have seemed to be merely a stipulation of desirism). It takes more doing (in secular society or among the intelligentsia) to refute the belief in morality, but only because “morality” has so many meanings and because to be considered moral is widely taken to be flattering. So I have had to make clear which kind of morality I specifically object to (namely, morality in the sense of objective values), argue for its illusory nature, and strive to convince that believing in it (as real) has consequences for self and society most of us dislike.

            So, could a desirist be a theist or a moralist? Yes and no. Yes because desirism recommends only that we be rational, and it could be thought an open question whether belief in God or morality might be rational. But no because it is at least highly unlikely that such beliefs would in fact withstand rational scrutiny. And, indeed, part of the appeal of desirism is precisely that it rids us of fear of or reliance on God and of moral intransigence and conflicts and guilt etc. But these are, in the end, simply benefits of being rational (and hence part of its appeal, and so there are after all reasons for being rational).


[1] An objectivist way of putting the substantive claim would be that it is rational to be desirist. I won’t be arguing for that, as I am a subjectivist about rationality, as I am about morality.

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