Just the Facts

I am excited by the prospect of a simple and ideal frame of mind for deciding what to do and how to live. I think I have found it to be what I call desirism, although it could just as well be called rationalism or reflectivism. It has two key features: It is practical and it is factually oriented. The practical aspect means that you are focusing on what you want and how to get it. It is crucial to understand that this does not mean that you are selfish (although you might be). What you want might be entirely unselfish. Also crucial is that “how to get it” does not imply ruthlessness; for the means to your end will conform to the same considerations of what you want or what you like, which, for example, might preclude acting dishonestly. 

The ”factually oriented” part of the desirist mental state means that, in figuring out what you want and how to get it, you are interested only in relevant facts, as opposed to moral precepts or divine injunctions or any other superstitious or supernatural considerations. However, those facts can certainly include desires and feelings, other people’s as well as your own. 

So for example: You see a wallet fall out of someone’s pocket. What shall you do? Note that I do not ask “What should you do?” since I do not expect there to be one-answer-fits-all. But neither am I asking for a prediction, which would be indicated by the phrasing “What will you do?” My phrasing is chosen as an ethical question: You are pondering what to do. As my previous remarks suggest, I take this to mean that you are asking what you want and how to get it. So the question could also be phrased as, “If you reflected on the relevant facts, what would you want and how would you go about trying to get it?” or more simply, “If you thought about it, what would you do, all other things equal (for example, you don’t happen to collapse from heat stroke just before you were about to act on your decision).” You could then think of this as a hypothetical prediction. 

To continue with the example: You adduce relevant facts. These might include: “I could use the money.” “I think the person would be very happy if I retrieved the wallet for them, and very unhappy if they discovered their wallet was missing.” “If I were that person, I would want someone to return the wallet to me (intact).” “If I pick up the wallet and abscond with it, someone might notice what I’m doing and come after me or make a ruckus or call the police and I could end up in a real stew, with very long-term and serious negative consequences to boot.” And so on. 

And then you do what you do. Formally we might say you made a decision to do what you end up doing. Presumably your decision or action results from an interaction between the facts you have considered (or, not to beg any questions, instead of facts we could call them beliefs or considerations, since some of your surmises, even if highly researched, might be mistaken) and you, which is to say, your desires, your character (habitual tendencies), your worldview, and the like. Ideally the longer-term constituents of you will have themselves undergone the same kind of vetting process I am recommending for deciding what to do on a particular occasion. Thus, for example, I for one would hope that, after a lifetime of experience and study and cultural exposure, you have formed dispositions for honesty and compassion. 

This, then, is all that desirism, and in my opinion ethics, asks of us and recommends to us. It will of course turn out that different people will reach different and sometimes opposed conclusions about what to do or how to live. Thus this is a relativist ethics. But this strikes me as no more problematic than that different people have different desires and personalities. A relativist morality, on the other hand, would be quite problematic (if it were even possible), since it seems to assert both that others are wrong if they disagree with you, but right because they think they are. 

Of course there will be practical problems (galore) when people disagree. But unless we expect to live in an ideal but dreary world of clones, this is only to be expected. And even though morality presumes there are universally right answers, even a moralist regime, such as most of us live under, contains endless disagreements and strife simply because, sociologically speaking, we do indeed live in a world of moral relativism. My claim is only that there will be less strife and less intense strife and less intractable strife under a desirist regime.

There will also be less “inner” turmoil (and its consequent “outer” manifestations). Consider another kind of example: You feel somebody is treating you rudely. A moralist might react with resentment at this wrong or bad behavior. This is an unpleasant feeling, which also often leads to unpleasant retaliations and then a vicious cycle of recriminations, and ultimately damages relationships and projects of all kinds. A desirist, by contrast, will check (in both senses) the moralist reaction and reflect on what they desire; for example, they may want to continue to enjoy a good time with the other person and, long term, maintain a productive relationship, personal or working. It will often be the case, therefore, that the desirist in this kind of situation would simply ignore the (perceived) rudeness. They might even conclude, on further reflection, that there was no rudeness to begin with.

 Of course I have cherry-picked my examples and their analyses. Things can work out poorly for all concerned even after a desirist vetting. So once again, I am not promising a rose garden but only many fewer weeds.

Addendum on advice. I recently had a nightmare, and it made me wonder whether it is a good idea to wake somebody if you see they are having one. So I Googled the question and inspected various medical sites which rendered opinions on the matter. What struck me was that in every case they dispensed advice with authority. They did also give reasons for the advice. And surely it is relevant that these people are expert on the subject, in that they have much more knowledge and experience about it than I. But in the end is their expertise really entitled to override my own judgment, especially in a particular case? I sense that this presumption is a bridge too far. So here as with ethics in general I would advise (for you to take or leave) that both the dispensers and the receivers of advice conceive the pronouncements of the advisors as relevant considerations rather than the last word or the full decision. In all cases there is still the person in the position to decide whose desires etc. are also component. Of course in one sense that is simply a tautology: It is the decider who decides. But my point is that desirism endorses this provided the decider has done due diligence, which could certainly include consulting the experts.

Popular posts from this blog

Closing the Gaps

There are a couple of gaps of reasoning in my general account of desirism, which I have just thought of a way of closing. First let me remind my reader that desirism takes two forms: There are a psychological claim and an ethical recommendation. Thus, what might be called psychological desirism is the claim that moral judgments are caused by desires; or I could put it the other way and say that desires give rise to moral claims. So for example if someone wants or likes world peace, then, I claim, they will be prone to judge as wrong the violation of peace and as bad the perpetrator of such a violation. And, in the same vein, if we judge something or someone wrong or bad, I would assume that the actual cause of the judgment is some desire, whether we know it or not.  The second form of desirism is ethical desirism, or desirism proper, which is the recommendation that we forgo making, or at least ignore, judgments of right and wrong and good and bad (etc.) and focus entirely on the...
Read more

Who Is more likely to be a psychopath: the rational moralist or the emotional amoralist?

  In the Afterword to the 2011 Edition of his book The Expanding Circle (Princeton University Press), Peter Singer makes the extraordinary admission that he has seen the light about the problematic nature of objective morality. Nevertheless he ends by cleaving to it, after providing an extremely weak argument, namely that even though a moral reason is not inherently motivating, we will nevertheless, at least in certain circumstance\s, find a moral reason to be compelling, that is, rational. To me this argument sounds almost (?) circular.  But what is even more salient for me is Singer’s conception of the rational as something that is quite distinct from what he calls the “emotional.” “[W]hether a belief gives us reasons to do something is a normative question, and whether it motivates us to do it is a psychological question.” “[I]f we can accept the idea of objective moral truths, we do have an alternative to reliance on everyday moral intuitions that, according to the bes...
Read more

Eating of the Tree: The phenomenology of the moral moment

I would like to compile a set of examples of experiences that convey the moral problem , by which I mean the irresistibility of believing in moral truth when (1) in fact there is no (such thing as) moral truth and (2) the belief that there is causes serious problems in human and group (on up to international) relations. These examples will also suggest an amoral solution to the moral problem.  Here is one such example:  The dogs are barking. Day in and day out, day and night, two white dogs owned by a neighbor down the street bark and bark and bark. All the rest of us on the block are annoyed, some seriously (especially on summer evenings when you are trying to get to sleep with the windows open), and several have asked that the dogs be kept indoors or else trained; but the neighbor has ignored us. Some of us have then complained to the dog warden, who has visited and even remonstrated with the neighbor more than once; but ultimately to no avail. I suppose the treatment of t...
Read more