Key Issues for the Amoralist

My practical argument for ethical desirism contains these two premises (or, more accurately, this is my explanation of why desirism appeals to me and why  I recommend it to others, since I am not trying to prove or require anything): 

1) Moralism (the belief in objective morality or values or norms generally, possibly including truth itself) does a lot of damage (to the self, to others, to society, to nonhumans) and, more precisely, is net noxious relative to desirism (= amoralism + reflection). 

2) There are ways for a desirist (and desirist world) to achieve the practical ends a desirist deems worth keeping and without the damages inflicted by moralism (or mere, unreflecting amoralism). 

Objection: I think the chief bogeyman when one considers those two claims is that without the objective imprimatur of morality, one’s opponents, whom a moralist would deem evil-doers, will have the practical upper hand. There are two ways that might seem to be so: 

1) An amoralist is tying one hand behind their back by denying themself the resources of moralism (e.g., imperatives) and relying solely on nonmoralism (e.g., self-concern and compassion). 

2) One’s opponent, especially if themself moralist, can use “both hands” (e.g., “This will increase everyone’s welfare, and it’s the right thing to do!”).

Reply: My simple ethical prescription is: Cultivate compassion and rational reflection on your desires instead of inculcating moral injunctions. There's a better payoff, and less collateral damage. Of course that's an unprovable empirical claim. But I think what the moralist is missing when they object that I can't count on everyone having sufficient compassion or rationality, is that the same applies under the moralist regime: sans compassion or rationality, moralism won't get you very far either (and meanwhile it creates its own problems).

A conceptual objection: It seems absurd to suggest that when confronting some (as we would normally put it) outrageous or heinous event or action or utterance, all that is really going on, in moralist and amoralist alike, is a matter of disliking or aversion. (This is the thesis of empirical desirism, which goes hand in hand with the ethical desirism I am promoting.)

Reply: But an amoralist like me claims that that is indeed the pith of it. To make that seem more plausible, consider the analogy of being in the proverbial foxhole and finding yourself praying, “Please God! Please God!” It occurs to me now that atheist I, who certainly has done this, is not really praying to God. Instead what is going on is that I am expressing an extreme desire. It literally means, “I really do(n’t) want this to happen!” I submit that this is the generally the case for all or most of us.  

Just so, then, when you witness something that you cannot abide, why cannot this be in essence an extreme desire (aversion) or preference, which you are accustomed to express as a moral judgment? This would imply that what you are saying is not really a manifestation of a false, possibly even nonsensical belief, but instead is a nonliteral and misleading expression of a desire (as my empirical desirist thesis claims) – conativism in cognitivist clothing.

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