Stupid for President

Most people who come to this blog will probably already know that Richard Dawkins has an opinion piece in the Washington Post today.

Attention Governor Perry: Evolution is a Fact.

The point of the article is that intelligence should be considered a qualification for being President, and knowledge of evolution is a good litmus test for intelligence.

On that test, certain candidates for office clearly come out as unqualified. They are the types of candidates for a position as important as President that should not even be on the list - let alone the short list - of possibilities.

The population of the United States is more than 300 million and it includes some of the best and brightest that the human species has to offer, probably more so than any other country in the world. There is surely something wrong with a system for choosing a leader when, given a pool of such talent and a process that occupies more than a year and consumes billions of dollars, what rises to the top of the heap is George W Bush. Or when the likes of Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin can be mentioned as even remote possibilities.

I consider this to be an important point.

We need to make intelligence a qualification for President - or at least make stupidity a disqualifier. And it is true that a basic knowledge of reality is how you test for basic intelligence. People who do not know simple scientific facts - the earth is round, it orbits the sun, it is made up of atoms, it is 4.5 billion years old, life emerged through a gradual process of evolution - are just too stupid to be President.

Other tests of stupidity: Prayer in school is not a defense against terrorist attacks, gay marriage does not cause earthquakes or effect the course of hurricanes, and it is not the case that we need not fear the long-term consequences of our action because Jesus will be here any day now.

If we are not going to be concerned with the intellectual qualifications for president, why put an age limit on who can run for office? There are fifth graders that score higher on these qualifications than many of the people who have made it to the top of the Republican short list.

Regarding Penn Jillette's Libertarianism

I am taking a look at three claims that Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller) made in a recent opinion piece on CNN.

"I don't know" - Penn Jillette

The first, which I covered in The Egotistically Arrogant Unwarranted Claim to Knowledge concerns the virtue of admitting that one does not know. The second, which I covered in Regarding Penn Jillette's Atheism concerned the claim that atheism can be founded on not knowing how the universe came into existence.

In this posting, I will discuss the that not knowing how to help the poor and sick justifies libertarianism.

Penn writes:

And I don't think anyone really knows how to help everyone. I don't even know what's best for me. Take my uncertainty about what's best for me and multiply that by every combination of the over 300 million people in the United States and I have no idea what the government should do.

JS Mill used an argument much like this in his defense of freedom in the book "On Liberty". Mill argued that each of us is the best informed and least corruptible agent regarding the fulfillment of our own desires.

If I were to be given control over your life, the first problem you would encounter is that I will continue to act so as to fulfill the most and strongest of my desires, given my beliefs. This means that when I make choices regarding what to do with your life, I will be directing your actions towards the fulfillment of my own desires.

You might be lucky in that my desires may included a strong desire that you be healthy and happy, or a strong desire to fulfill my duty with a belief they my duty is to serve your interests. The fact that I will act in such a way so as to fulfill my desires given my beliefs does not necessarily imply that will enslave and abuse you. Though nothing necessarily rules out the possibility either.

Even if I am a particularly kind person with a strong interest in your welfare, we have a second problem. I don't know what your welfare is. You have had a lifetime of data to use in figuring this out. Every conscious moment of every day you are conducting research as to what fulfills your desires. On the other hand, I can only acquire this information through observation, and only when I am not distracted by other concerns.

Think about the simple act of deciding what you would want for supper. I could guess at what you like, but the best way for me to know what you wanted for supper would be to ask you.

It would be foolish for you to trust me to run your life.

In fact, if I were truly a kind person interested in your welfare, I would want to turn the job of running your life over to the best informed, least corruptible agent available, and that would be you. If I have little or no interest in doing that, then I probably have little or no interest in your welfare.

However, this argument has limits.

First, it only applies where it is the case that the agent is, in fact, the most informed and least corruptible agent. It doesn't apply to small children, for example. They are not granted liberty precisely because they lack the information and experience necessary to determine their interests - particularly long-term interests.

Second, there are conflicts of interests. There are cases where one person, acting so as to fulfill his own desires, would act so as to thwart the desires of others.

Consider the following situation:

An airplane crashes in the desert. The pilots, seeing that the plane was going down, land it near a lush oasis in the desert.

As it turns out, the oasis is owned. The owner uses the water that the oasis provides to run a huge network of fountains, fill a half-dozen swimming pools, water a massive tropical garden, fill several aquariums, and water acres of green lawn. In other words, he has a lot of water.

The owner, like all agents, will act to fulfill the most and strongest of his desires, given his beliefs. However, he has no desire to help the survivors. When he is told that the people from the crash will die without water, he shrugs his shoulders with indifference.

Or, perhaps, he sees this as an opportunity to sell water to the passengers. The price that would bring the best profit, he thinks, would be $10,000,000 per cup. There are a few people on the plane who could actually afford this. Everybody else has to do without. If he provides any charity to those who cannot pay $10 million per cup, then those who can pay would refuse to do so.

Now, let us assume that you also live near the crash site. You would like to help the survivors, but you lack the resources to help much. However, you have the capacity to get water from the estate to the survivors of the crash. Perhaps you work at the estate. Perhaps you are its sole security guard.

Penn seems to be arguing that there is some rule written into the very fabric of the universe that demands that the airplane survivors stay on their sand dune than die, rather than redistribute the water-wealth from the oasis owner to the crash survivors.

It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness.

If the debate over whether or not your action of getting water to the survivors would count as "compassion", then all we are doing is arguing about the definition of words. That is a conversation we can put off until after we make sure that the survivors get some water.

If, instead, the question is one of whether some mystical rule is written into the very fabric of the universe that condemns the act of getting water to the survivors as "immoral self-righteous bullying laziness," no such mystical rule exists. The people who need the water may have the water.

This does not contradict any of my earlier points that we are each the most informed and least corruptible agents in running our own lives. It simply adds the fact that what potentially fills the desires of one agent may thwart the desires if others.

In this example, I have also negated Penn's claim that we do not know how to help others. In this case, we clearly do know how to help the crash victims.

I would also argue that on a planet that has one billionaire, and a million people who need a $4.00 shot to avoid serious health problems, we also know how to help. We take $8 million from the billionaire (leaving him $992 million), and give the people their $4 shot, spending (in this example) another $4 million on administrative overhead and logistics.

Let us not pretend that we have to fold our arms and let a million people die because we "do not know" how to help them. We may not know beyond all possible doubt, but we know beyond all reasonable doubt.

Climate Change - The Tub Analogy - Causes We Can Control

A member of the studio audience made a comment regarding the tub analogy on climate change that deserves some consideration.

The tub analogy is a response to the claim that human CO2 emissions do not matter because human-caused CO2 emissions are only 3% of total emissions.

I responded by suggesting a tub that where the volume of water in the tub has stayed constant at around 270 gallons for 10,000 years. 210 gallons flow into the tub each year, and 210 gallons flow out. Now, you open a faucet that adds another 7 gallons per year to the tub, and now you see the volume of water increasing by 3.5 gallons per year. Of course anybody with any sense would say that turning on the faucet is responsible for the increased volume of water in the tub.

However, dbonfitto made the comment:

It doesn't matter if CO2 levels are rising because of emissions, cosmic rays, solar flares, or fairy dust. They're rising. The fact of the matter is that the only input we can stop right now is the faucet. We only control the man-made input. The longer we wait to close it, the more water damage we have to clean up later.

This is true.

I had written this into the previous post - but deleted it. It introduces an assumption that demagogues can use to drag red herrings across the trail and divert the discussion while burying the main and relevant point. So, to avoid a school of red herrings, I removed that part of the previous post.

However, the point is still valid.

It doesn't matter what the cause of the increase is - natural or manmade. What matters is that the faucet is the only source of input under our control, so it is the only one we can use to influence the rate at which the tub is filling up, to the point that we may need to do so.

Let us assume that we have an engineers' report that says if the volume of water in the tub reaches around 550 gallons it will crack the foundation. Since we turned on the faucet, the volume of water has started to increase. It has reached 390 gallons, and it continues to increase at 3.5 gallons per year.

This means we have about 46 years until the foundation cracks.

By turning the faucet down, we can buy ourselves some time. The more we turn it down, the more time we buy.

Even if the reason for the increase was some natural source we could not control, we can still control the rate at which the tub is filling by turning the faucet that is within our control.

Critics may then want to claim that the engineers' report is wrong and we have no reason to be concerned with the rate at which the tub is filling up. This is a legitimate concern. More importantly, it puts the discussion exactly where it needs to be - on the question of whether we have reason to be concerned with the rate at which the tub is filling. It takes the focus away from the nonsense question of whether the faucet within our control is "the cause" of the increase.

If somebody actually cares about what the right answer is, they would completely avoid this 3% argument. It is not at all difficult to see that it is not relevant. So, whenever somebody actually uses this argument, I think it is likely that he is either ideologically blind, or he can see that it is not relevant but does not care to avoid using it to deceive others.

A person doesn't need to know a thing about the science of climate change to know that this is a garbage argument. It is a garbage argument no matter what the facts are. It completely defies logic.

If we need to control the rate at which the tub is filling to avoid some harmful effects, we reach for the faucet we can turn. Is that REALLY such a hard concept to grasp - except by those who do not want to grasp it?

Regarding Penn Jillette's Atheism

I am taking a look at three claims that Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller) made in a recent opinion piece on CNN.

"I don't know" - Penn Jillette

The first, which I covered in my last post, is the virtue of "I don't know." Or, what I called, The Egotistically Arrogant Unwarranted Claim to Knowledge

The second, which I will cover today, is the claim that not knowing the origin of the universe justifies atheism.

Here is what Penn says on the subject:

What makes me libertarian is what makes me an atheist -- I don't know. If I don't know, I don't believe. I don't know exactly how we got here, and I don't think anyone else does, either. We have some of the pieces of the puzzle and we'll get more, but I'm not going to use faith to fill in the gaps. I'm not going to believe things that TV hosts state without proof. I'll wait for real evidence and then I'll believe.

In my own case, I take it further than this.

First, I reject the claim that "atheism" is a lack of belief. This may be its definition among of small club of self-important atheists who have adopted a particular (and peculiar) private language, but it is not the American English definition of the word.

In American English, an atheist is a person who believes that the proposition, "at least one God exists" is almost certainly or certainly false.

Atheists like to distinguish among strong atheists, weak atheists, and the like. This is fine for private discussions among themselves. But these are not a part of the public language.

I am an atheist in the American English sense of the word. I hold that the proposition that at least one God exists is almost certainly false.

I also hold the much of religion, as it is practiced, is immoral. However, that is not a part of atheism. It is a subsidiary belief.

So, how do I justify my belief that there almost certainly is no God?

I start where Penn starts. I do not know how the universe came into existence.

Then how can I say that it us almost certainly the case that no God is responsible? Isn't that a contradiction?

No. Not at all.

Let's assume I had a deck of cards. It is a special deck of cards with 1 billion different suits, and 1 billion and three cards of each suit (Ace through 1,000,000,000, J, Q, K).

You draw a card. Don't tell me what it is.

Somebody asks me to name what card you drew.

I answer, "I do not know".

They ask, "What do you think of the proposition that he drew the king of hearts?"

My answer, "I think that the proposition that he drew the king of hearts is almost certainly false."

There is no contradiction here. Both claims are be true. I do not know what card he drew, and the proposition that he drew the king of hearts is almost certainly false.

On the question of how the universe came into existence, I do not know how it came into existence, and the proposition that some "God" is responsible is almost certainly false.

And even if he did draw the king of hearts, and I said he drew the king of hearts, it would be utter absurdity for me to claim that I knew he drew the king of hearts. This is not knowledge. This is merely a lucky guess - no matter how "certain" I might be that my totally unfounded random belief is true.

On the issue of religion, here is something else that I know:

It is possible for a society to adopt what is substantially a fairy tale such that the whole population - or a substantial part of the population believes it is true.

This, I know.

The proof is really quite simple. Look at human history. Look at all the cultures in which whole masses of people have adopted a fairy tale story as true. If you are a Christian, look at Islam. If you are Muslim, look at Christianity. If you are neither, look at both. And everybody can look at all of the non-Christian and non-Islam fairy tales that have been widely adopted throughout history.

Now, if somebody wants to pretend to know that the card drawer drew a particular card - be it the king of hearts or ace of spades or any other card - then that is fine. If they use this pretend knowledge to determine what they wear, what they eat, when they eat, when not to eat, when to have sex, who to have sex with, what to wear while having sex, what to read, or what to not watch on television (or whether or not to have a television), there is no cause for complaint. They can be called foolish, but not immoral.

However, if somebody uses their pretend knowledge to defend conclusions on who to imprison, who to kill, who shall be permitted to kill with impunity, who shall be required to marry and who they shall marry, who shall be prohibited from marrying, who is fit for public office and who is unfit to adopt children, who shall be fed and who shall starve, who shall be permitted to drive a car, who shall get medical help and the types of medical help they shall be permitted, there is a lot of room for complaint. These people are immoral and unjust.

This is what I mean when I say that much of religion, as it is practiced, is immoral. Any religious practice that fits the description of the previous paragraph, is immoral. And there is a lot of that going on in the world. There should not be any.

Religion does not have to be practiced in ways that are immoral. And many people do not practice their religion in ways that are immoral. However, religious practice can be immoral. And much of it is immoral.

These are things that I can know - and that I claim that I do know - in addition to the claim that I do not know how the universe came into existence.

Climate Change - The Tub Analogy

A reader has posted a claim about climate change that I have responded to in the past, but would like to respond to again.

It is a type of argument that, I hold, no rational person truly concerned with reaching a reasonable conclusion about climate change would offer.

The irrationality of the argument takes a little bit of demonstration, but the demonstration is solid.

The position under discussion is:

There is scientific models that show 2 ppm of CO2 is increasing in the environment each year. Are you aware that only 3% of this 2 ppm can be attributed to man?

I need to correct this a bit. It is actually 3.5 ppmv (parts per million by volume) per year. But this will not affect the logic of the objection.

Imagine that you own a tank partially filled with water. Each year, 210 gallons of water flow into the tank, and 210 gallons of water flow out of the tank. For 10,000 years, the level of water in the tank has stayed quite close to 270 gallons.

Note: For 10,000 years, atmospheric CO2 concentration has been hovering around 270 ppmv. Deviations from this have been small.

Now, somebody opens up a faucet that starts adding 7 gallons to the tub every year. After he turns on the faucet, you notice that the volume of water in the tub increases by 3.5 gallons per year.

Note: This corresponds to the 7 ppmv that humans are adding to the atmosphere each year, and the measured increase in atmospheric concentrations of 3.5 ppmv per year.

This happened quite a few years ago, and the volume of water in the tank is now 380 gallons rather than the traditional 270 gallons.

Corresponding to the current 380 ppmv concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.

In this case, the 7 gallons of water entering the tub from the faucet represents only 3.3% of the total volume of water entering the tub.

Yet, given the following facts: (1) That the volume of water in the tub has been in equilibrium for 10000 years, (2) none of the other sources of water have changed their flow (the only source of increased volume of water entering the tub is what is coming out of the faucet), and (3) the increase in the volume of water (3.5 gallons per year) is half the volume that is coming out of the faucet (7 gallons per year) . . .

The only reasonable conclusion to draw is, of the 7 gallons going into the tub, half of it is flowing out again, and half of it is remining in the tub causing the volume of water in the tub to increase by 3.5 gallons per year.

Now, this is intuitive. In normal circumstances, people wouldn't even think twice about this. They open the faucet. They see a water volume that had been previously unchanged start to increase. They say that opening the faucet is causing the water volume to increase. It's a simple inference that nobody would find tricky.

However, when it serves a political or ideological purpose, we see that it is easy for a person to blind themselves (or intentionally attempt to blind others) to what would be a simple causal inference by making the totally irrelevant claim, "It is 3% of the volume of water flowing into the tub." It doesn't matter. The volume of water in the tub wasn't changing until the faucet was turned on and, if you turn off the faucet, the volume would return to normal. The faucet is 100% responsible for the change in volume in the tub.

The Egotistically Arrogant Unwarranted Claim to Knowledge

Penn Jillette, of Penn and Teller fame, has written an opinion piece for CNN explaining why he is an atheist and a libertarian. It rests on the fact that there are a lot of things he does not know – and he does not (will not) pretend to know. Apparently, theists and “statist” (the libertarian word for people who advocate government or “state” solutions) pretend to know things they do not.

"I don't know" - Penn Jillette

Penn actually presented three major themes, all of which are worthy of discussion.

(1) He argued in favor of the virtue of saying, “I do not know”

(2) He says that his lack of knowledge (lack of belief) about how we got here justifies his atheism.

(3) He says that his lack of knowledge about how to help the poor and sick justifies his libertarianism.

I am going to split this into three separate posts, each taking on one of these topics.

I will start with the virtue of “I do not know”.

On this, Penn is entirely accurate.

If I were asked to present a plan that would best deal with the government debt and high unemployment at the same time, I would answer, "I don’t know".

I do a lot of reading on economics. Actually, I spend about 5 hours each week listening to serious economics podcasts and lectures, which doesn’t count the time spent on keeping up with current events. I know the theories. I haven't seen any knock-down proof of any of them. I do not know which is best.

Yet, I am surrounded by people who have done a lot less studying than I have done (none, in fact) who assert that they, unlike me, know exactly what is to be done. They are so certain that they are right that they condemn any and all attempts to compromise with anybody who dares to question their keen intellect and shining wisdom.

In spite of my professed ignorance, there are still some things I can know. I can know that the argument that Jeffrey Miron gave us that I commented on in a previous post is garbage. Whatever the truth if the matter is, Miron is too ideologically blind to help us find it. He is too arrogant and intellectually reckless to care about the potential for ideological blindness. Ultimately, his muddying the waters will do far more harm than good.

Miron would do better to say, "I don't know. I am willing to work with you to try to find out. Because these garbage arguments don't help, I won't use them. Here's some arguments that seem to make sense. Let's look at those."

"I don't know (and you don't either)" is the foundation for my argument for political compromise. When Democrats and Republicans meet to determine the best course of action to take regarding the debt, the truly vicious (in the classical definition - which means exhibiting a trait that is the opposite of a moral virtue) ones are those who arrogantly pretend to a certainty they have no justification for. A tad bit of humility should drive them to the conclusion, “We will try some of this, and some of that. We will compromise.”

Opinion polls are filled mostly by ignorant people claiming to know things that they cannot possibly know. On the vast majority of questions that show up in opinion polls – e.g., a poll on legalizing drugs – the responsible person must answer, “I do not know" or not answer the poll at all. The people who give an answer, for the most part, are people claiming to know things they do not, and are too arrogant to admit this fact.

Ironically, I would wager that if a test were given on the facts relevant to answering the question, those who answer, "I don't know" will score significantly higher on average than those who pretend to know. This is because they have learned enough to realize, "This is a really complex issue, and there us a huge amount written on this subject I haven't had the time to look at yet."

The more you know, the more you realize how much stuff there is out there you do not know.

Besides, the first step to looking for answers is admitting that one does not know. The egotistically arrogant don’t need to waste time studying a question they already know an answer to. It's the intellectually responsible person worried about the possibility of being wrong who goes out and does the research.

So, I hold that the unwarranted claim to knowledge – egotistical arrogance - is one of the most significant vices that we find in America today.

It’s said that widespread moral vice is bad for a community. Moral deficiencies lead to suffering, social decay, and, ultimately, the downfall of those societies. This is why we must be diligent in defense of virtue and in opposition to vice.

Unfortunately, way too many people apply this principle to traits that are not virtues (blind faith) or are not vices (homosexuality). However, when it is applied to true virtues and true vices, the conclusion does follow. The egotistically arrogant unwarranted claim to knowledge is extremely harmful and can - depending on the knowledge people are pretending to have - destroy a nation. This is a true vice.

Rick Perry on Climate Change

Texas governor Rick Perry is an irrational idiot of the "massive global conspiracy" type.

Here is his recent comment on climate change:

"I do believe that the issue of global warming has been politicized. I think there are a substantial number or scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. I think we're seeing, almost weekly or daily, scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that manmade global warming is what is causing the climate to change. Yes, our climate has changed. They've been changing ever since the earth was formed. But I do not buy into a group of scientists who have in some cases [been] found to be manipulating this information. ..."

GOP Stands on Science .

Go to this link and watch the video in which Perry is asked the question to which he provides this answer. It is far more illuminating than even this quote can provide.

This is nuttiness of the tinfoil hat variety.

The scientists coming forward almost daily questioning the idea of manmade global warming do not exist. Perry might find comfort in believing that they exist, but that does not make them real. Neither are the cases of scientists manipulating data. Where are they? There may be unsubstantiated news reports of such things, but, like UFO abductions, no evidence that withstands scrutiny.

One of the conclusions that we can draw from this is that absolutely no amount of evidence can ever convince Perry that he is mistaken. What would that evidence look like? If the weight of evidence collected by the world's scientists is not enough, then he is going to hold his views regardless of the evidence.

This is one thing about science. You can believe what you want about the scientists, but they are required to put their evidence on the table and you can look at it separately.

Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot. The whole scientific community is involved in this massive conspiracy to extort money from governments with false emergencies. Except, of course, for a few scientists who are willing to report what Perry already knows to be true, who are then mercilessly and unjustly abused by the vast body of evil co-conspirators.

I can hardly wait for Perry to become President so he can hire people to rewrite scientific reports to reflect his truth - and the truths of his largest campaign contributors, of course.

This is the same thing we had with President Bush. President Bush applied it not only to global warming and evolution, but to questions like, "Does Iraq have weapons of mass destruction?" Bush used it, in other words, to start a war.

A Fool's Argument for the Debt Issue

Here is an argument you are going to hear a lot as the government works on a plan to try to bring our federal budget under control. Somebody will bring up an option (call it "Option A") that will help close the deficit. This will have to be either a plan to cut spending, or to increase revenue. Either way, there are people currently benefitting from the spending that is cut, or who will have to pay the revenue that will be collected. Advocates for those people will then tell us:

"Option A will do too little good. You should focus on Options B, C, D, E, F, G, and H, among others, instead."

This, from the point of view of somebody who benefits or who has an ideological attachment to taking Option A off the list.

Somebody with an ideological or financial commitment that is threatened by Option B will tell us something slightly different.

"Option B will do too little good. You should focus on Options A, C, D, E, F, G, and H, among others, instead."

And, of course, from the special interest or advocates of the dogma threatened by Option C, we can expect to hear:

"Option C will do too little good. You should focus on Options A, B, D, E, F, G, and H, among others, instead."

The end result will be the rejection of Options A through H among others. When, in fact, the problem requires the acceptance of Options A through H among others. The acceptance of these options is the very essence of “shared sacrifice” and “fair play”.

Here’s an example:

Warren Buffett, one of the mega-rich, wrote an article about taxing the mega-rich to help balance the government's budget.

Jeffrey Miron wrote the following response:

Why Warren Buffett is Wrong

Miron tells us that Buffett is wrong because Buffett's "Option A" will do too little (raising only $73 billion per year), and that we should focus on Options B (regulatory barriers to entry in starting a business), C (eliminating government favors to particular industry such as the oil and automobile industries), and D (eliminating the expense and excessive risk taking that are the moral hazard created by government bail-outs) instead.

Instead?

Of course, talk to the people whose business is being protected from competition by these "barriers to entry" regulations, and they will tell you, "This option will do too little. You should focus on taxing the rich, eliminating corporate welfare, and not bailing out Wall Street instead."

And the recipients of corporate welfare will tell us, "You should focus on taxing the rich, eliminating regulatory barriers to starting a new business, and not bailing out Wall Street instead."

To be fair, Miron offers a few other points that this objection does not apply to. This is not all that Miron says on the matter. But he does say this, and it is to this that my comments apply.

My point here is that - this is a foolish argument.

But, we can expect to be surrounded by this stupid argument everywhere we turn during the next three months.

Well, we actually see it all the time, but it is going to be particularly common in the next three months as the legislature tries to find either $1.5 trillion it can cut (harming those who will not get the money they would otherwise get), or in additional revenue it can acquire (harming those who will then pay this revenue).

My complaint is both with the people who make this argument, and the people who promote this type of demagoguery by giving it a prominent place in the public debate.

Anybody who makes this argument is either exceptionally selfish or ideologically blind. This is not somebody who cares about the country or the welfare of its people. This is somebody who cares about their own welfare regardless of what its cost is to others, or arrogantly insists on his own infallibility in adopting a particular dogma.

A person who actually cared about making a meaningful contribution to the debate would take a different path. That person would say, "I am not going to use stupid arguments like this to defend my position. If my position actually makes sense, then there should be reasonable and logical arguments I can make to defend it. If I cannot find a decent argument to defend my position, I am going to substitute foolish arguments such as this. I will, instead, use it as reason to believe my position is not as defensible as I thought it was.

The same is true of those who give space, respect, and support to those who make this kind of argument. They would say, "I want to give my space, respect, and support to those who are eager to make substantive contributions to the debate, not those who clutter the debate with foolish nonsense such as this."

With a few more people like that in the world, maybe we can clear away some of this muck and get down to having some intelligent discussions.

Dogmatic Arrogance: The Picture of the 2012 Presidential Elections

This is the picture that defines - or should define - the 2012 Presidential Election.

The question that these Republican candidates raised their hands to is this one:

Say you had a deal, a real spending cuts deal, 10 to one...spending cuts to tax increases…. [W]ho on this stage would walk away from that deal? Can you raise your hand if you feel so strongly about not raising taxes, you'd walk away on the 10 to one deal?

Every Republican candidate is refusing to go even 10% of the distance towards a budget deal.

President Obama has already said that he will go 75% of the distance towards such a deal - accepting an option consisting of three parts spending cuts and one part revenue increases that would have closed the deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years.

The Republicans refused this – because 75% isn’t far enough. Apparently, according to this picture, 90% isn’t far enough – because the Republicans are not willing to cover the other 10%.

In fact, the Republican position has been to refuse to cover even 1% of the distance towards a compromise. They are ruling out any form of revenue increase as any part of final budget package. There will be no deal unless things are done 100% the Republican way.

And, of course, we are supposed to believe that this is all Obama’s fault.

This is why America lost its AAA credit rating with Standard and Poor’s.

Because in a country where one side us willing to go 75% of the way towards compromise, and the other refuses to go even 10% (refuses, as a matter of fact, to go even 1%) there is no compromise. There is no governance. There is no possibility of America getting its political house in order.

Honestly, I cannot look at this picture without a movie quote popping into my head.

There is only one Lord of the Ring, and he does not share power.

Because this is what these Republicans are telling us. "Do you want to end political gridlock in this country? Then give us absolute power. Because anywhere in which a Democrat has any voice, there we will put stop government dead in its tracks until that voice is silenced. A Democrat can hold office, sure - as long as he is an impotent figurehead. But do not even consider doing anything.

Whereas President Obama seems to be saying, "If you put Republicans in power anywhere, that is your choice. I will respect your decision and try to work with them, meeting them more than half way to make a deal.", the Republican answer is to scoff. "More than half way? Screw that. You are going all the way, brother, or you are not going anywhere at all."

As I have written recently, the vice of refusing to compromise is the vice of arrogance. Nobody is so smart that they can guarantee that they have all the right answers. Nobody is so gifted that they can afford to close their mind and say, "Your ideas are 100% irrelevant. We are going to do thus 100% my way or not at all."

When we figure out what we are going to do in the next election, let us make sure that we reward and punish the right people. There is a true villain in this story - at least this part of it. It is this people unwilling to go 25% of the distance towards a deal, willing to leave the county in political chaos unless things go 100% their way. Like a bunch of spoiled kids.

Coddling the Super Rich - by Warren Buffett

Today, I am going to send you off to another site. An opinion article written by Warren Buffett - giving some facts relevant to taxing the rich as a way of getting our government's finances in order.

Stop Coddling the Super-Rich

The Debt Committee: A Conflict of Interests

Looking at the people being appointed to the debt committee in Washington DC, we can get a good idea of how little those who are responsible for running this country care about running this country.

Take a look at one of the people our so-called "leaders" are putting on the panel:

Patricia Lynn Murray (D-Washington).

She will serve as the Democratic co-chair of the debt supercommittee.

She is currently chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Her job is to try to figure out a strategy for the 2012 elections that will see to the largest number of elected Democrats after the next election.

In doing this, her committee is studying every Senate election in 2012. They are marking some as safe Republican or safe Democrat. They are marking others as vulnerable.

If the state has a vulnerable Republican, they are looking for a competitive Democrat, and working out a strategy to get that candidate liked by a majority of the voters. If the state has a vulnerable Democrat, they may discourage the Democrat from running for re-election to make room for a more viable candidate, or look at how to make the candidate look better to the potential voters in that state.

Most importantly, her committee is responsible for raising money - and spending money - to implement this strategy.

Now, the debt supercommittee has been made a part if that strategy. I can think of nothing that screams, "Let the bidding begin," than to put this person on the debt supercommittee - let alone appoint her as a co-chair.

Perhaps she is a qualified legislator well suited to co-chair this committee. If that's true, then have her resign her position as chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Give that job to somebody else, so that Murray can give her whole and unconflicted attention to the debt issue, which is what we deserve.

It would be a demonstration of good intentions. This committee has control of trillions of dollars in spending. By law, their proposal - the whole package, assuming it comes up with one - will get a straight up-and-down vote without amendment. Never before in American politics has so few been given so much power over so many dollars.

And they give this power to somebody whose job is to solicit huge quantities of money and other forms of support from special interest groups for the benefit of vulnerable Democratic senatorial candidates.

Like I said. Let the bidding begin.

The Debt Committee

Over the next three months, a committee if twelve people are supposed to come up with a budget package that reduces the anticipated deficit by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years - otherwise $1.2 trillion in cuts will automatically go into effect.

A mature, responsible, adult member of such a committee will walk in the door thinking that the government needs to demonstrate its seriousness about getting its finances in order. It can do so by exceeding the requirements of its charter - by reducing deficits perhaps by $3 trillion, for example.

He would also walk in with the attitude that what the country needs is an agreement that doesn't just have the endorsement of the majority of the committee members. It has to be an American solution. It really should have unanimous aporoval.

When the Founding Fathers met in Philidelphia in 1776, one of the first decisions they made was that this declaration of independence they were to consider would have to have unanimous approval (among the states). This required those founding fathers to work hard on getting everybody - or at least every state - on board (or, at least, not in opposition) to the declaration. It forced people to actually talk to and negotiate with parties with which they would have otherwise walked away from. And there would have been no United States.

Responsible members of this committee would seek to produce a unanimous agreement that reduces the deficit by twice that which is expected. Then they would prove that they actually do have the maturity and responsibility that is required to govern.

They would have the attitude that nothing is off limits - that proposals are to be evaluated on their merits rather than blind application of irreconcilable ideologies. They will demonstrate some measure if respect for ideas they do not share by approving a final project that reflects those differing opinions.

They would not only tolerate such an outcome, they would require it, because anything less could never be understood to be the project of mature adults reaching a mutual compromise.

I would suggest that the committee start with a little of everything, simply to demonstrate that nothing is off the table. Nothing is going to be ruled out by fiat.

Something will be cut from defense. Do not even try to tell me that not a single dollar of the defense budget can be removed without damaging national security. In fact, I will guarantee you that dollars are being spent on defense that actually reduce our national security - some project that is doing harm or a system that is more dangerous to those who use than to any potential enemy. So, let's start by identifying one such project that can be cut.

Some revenue loophole can be closed. Find one. The negotiator who says that there us not one absurd loophole that can be eliminated - that a taxpayer gets only by performing some activity that we have practically no good reason to encourage and many good reasons to discourage - should be tossed out as incompetent. Maybe this us a good time to get rid of the tobacco subsidy.

Social Security and Medicare can be adjusted. Here again, I am almost certain that there is something in each if these programs that costs money that is doing more harm than good. Find it. Kill it. And, thus, put the lie to the claim that these programs cannot be touched.

Then, with all options on the table, get to work.

Another thing that no mature, adult, responsible negotiator would consider doing is braging that he "won" the negotiations by forcing more concessions on the enemy than he made himself. This attitude poisons the negotiations at the start, and it cannot exist at all except on a foundation of childish egotistic arrogance. This is not some game of dodgeball on the elementary school playground being played for bragging rights. This is the governing of a country. You are there to work with other human beings to do a serious and important job, not show one-upsmanship on a child's playground.

But, well, that is a dream. Reality returns. We're not going to get rational and mature leadership from these people. We are going to get schoolyard games, and we will be all the worse because of it.

Time

As I get older, I find myself thinking more about time - or the lack of it.

I look at the list of things that I have wanted - and expected - to fit into my life. I still spend time on many of them, but the realization comes that some of them will not fit - even under the best of circumstances.

So, it is time to look at the list with an eye to saying, "That will never happen. I should rid myself of everything doing with that project, and free up resources it consumes for other things that might still fit."

I am not writing about putting aside something "for now." I am writing about putting it away things I have long wanted with the recognition that they will never be brought out again.

There isn't enough time.

I have not been working on this blog because I have been spending time on one of those other projects - a project that had best be shelved and forgotten. The fact is, there us no way I can fit both into my allotted days. It is time to say that one of them goes away - and will never return.

Having made that decision, I will be returning my efforts to this blog.

The blog itself has not produced the results I would have liked. There are two reasons for that. One has to do with not really wanting it to succeed - I hate attention.

Another comes from the fact that boastful certainty seems to draw crowds, and I am too aware (and too appreciative of the fact) that boastful certainty is a vice - the vice of arrogance (if one believes the boast), or manipulative deception (if one boasts anyway while aware that the boasts are unfounded).

It seems to me that there is a strong correlation between stupidity and zealous certainty. Today, we see in the Tea Party faction absolute conviction in the rightness of their cause. We also see in the Tea Party faction the very model of mind-boggling ignorance of science and history. These people not only fail to get the facts right. They do not care to get the facts right - because they do not want to shake the fantasy they have invented with the possibility of unpleasant truths. They utter the most absurd fictions, and they cheer each other for it, because a fiction uttered with absolute conviction outweighs a dozen hesitant facts.

So the larger, smarter, and wiser portion of the population ends up getting stampeded by a herd of intellectually blind and self-confident cattle.

Cattle who would never permit themselves and ounce of hesitation or a second thought.

Cattle who would never think to themselves, "Perhaps I am not the perfect master of all knowledge and wisdom and that somebody who disagrees with me might - just might - have the right answer."

It is one of those unfortunate and unpleasant facts about the world - that people are disposed to treat the ignorant and arrogant as if they have the perfect knowledge and wisdom they claim to have. And that, at the same time, people are disposed to ignore those who are both aware of their fallibility and unwilling to see their mistakes bring harm to others.

Allowing, as we have recently seen, the ignorant and the arrogant rule the discussion.

Enlightened Self-Interest

A member of the studio audience wrote:

[I]n support of the role of prescriptivity in moral language one might point out that the facts you're pidgeonholing as "moral" look like they fall more naturally under "enlightened self-interest" or somesuch.

Actually, no.

"Enlightened self-interest" is an ambiguous term - having two possible meanings.

One of these meanings makes claims about enlightened self-interest trivially true - true in a very uninteresting and unimportant way. The other makes claims of enlightened self-interest false, though not so trivially false.

The distinction here is between interests OF the self versus interests IN the self.

Those who suggest that claims about enlightened self-interest are both true and important usually equivocate between these two meanings. They start off with speaking as if all interests we have are interests IN the self. They all aim for the benefit of the agent. When they are backed into a corner by arguments that show this to be false they switch the second meaning of self-interest - interests OF the self. This version of the theory is true, but does not have any of the implications of the version they began with. When their opponent gives up attacking this second (trivially true) claim, the advocate of self-interest theory declares victory and switches back to the first (false) definition of self-interest.

The trivially true version of self-interest (interests OF the self) states that an agent's actions are motivated entirely by the agent’s own desires. The desires of others may affect his actions - but only insofar as he has a desire to fulfill (or to thwart) the other person's desires.

This is true in a biological sense - only my brain is hooked up to my muscles in the right way. My choices have to come from my brain - meaning my brain states (my beliefs and my desires). They do not come from outside my brain.

More importantly, though, this is logically true. Let us say that you were to hook up a remote control device such that you could control my body remotely. Now it is your beliefs and your desires that control this body. If that is the case, then the actions that this body now performs are no longer my actions. They would be your actions. Actions belong to (are the responsibility of) the brain whose brain states (beliefs and desires) are the proximate cause of the choices controlling those actions.

That is to say, all interests that motivate an agent's action are interests of the self - the agent's own beliefs and desires. If they do not come from an agent's beliefs and desires, then they are not his actions.

When people talk about enlightened self-interest they tend to want to be saying something more robust than saying, "The desires that cause my intentional actions are the desires in my brain."

Now, the claim that all actions are motivated by desires OF the self is quite different from the claim that all actions are motivated by desires IN the self.

A desire IN the self is a desire that P where the self ("I") is the object of the desire - "I desire that I...". I desire that I experience pleasure. I desire that I have more money. I desire that I am admired by all.

While the claim that the desires that motivate an agent's action are desires OF the self is trivially true, the claim that the desires that motivate an agent's actions are desires IN the self is sometimes false. The range of possible desires that an agent can have is as broad as the range of possible beliefs that an agent can have.

An agent can have a desire that no child suffers, or a desire that a particular piece of wilderness remain untouched by humans. He can desire that humans (or their descendents) exist far into the indefinite future and desire that the SOB that kidnapped and raped that child be made to suffer for his crimes. Just as he can believe that a God exists, he can desire that a God exist. And just as he can believe that the claims made in the Bible are true, he can desire that the claims made in the Bible are true.

The desires that Jim might have that would give him reason to condemn bank robbers almost certainly includes some self-interested desires (he desires that his money be safe), but it could also include desires in things other than the self. he may desires the well-being of others for its own sake - not for any benefit it may provide to him. He sees a society where bank robbing is rampant as one of widespread suffering and condemns bank-robbery as a way of reducing that potential for suffering.

Desirism says that Jim's reasons for actions that exist for condemning bank robbers must necessarily be his desires - desires OF Jim. But it not necessarily be desires IN the self - desires of which Jim is the object.

Perhaps more importantly, the desires that agents have reason to create in others are often not desires IN the self. In fact, praise and condemnation are more reasonably used to inhibit or reduce desires in the self (selfishness) and to promote desires OF the self that are desires IN the well-being of others, or desires in things that tend to lead to the well-being of others, or aversions to things that tend to thwart the desires of others.

The Categorical Issue and the Elements of Morality

A member of the studio audience wrote:

[Y]ou seem to share a lot of ground (indeed, all the ground except the "ineliminability" of certain things from moral language) with what I would regard as one of the standard moral anti-realist positions.

There is another thing I do not share.

I do not share the idea that "categorical" was ever a part of morality as practiced. There is nothing to eliminate. Morality was adopted and embraced as a technique for fulfilling desires. At some point some theorists came along and asserted that its principles are categorical, but that never made it into the meaning.

Desirism accurately describes morality as practiced. That makes it a realist theory.

Look at the elements that it can account for:

The central role that rewards (such as praise) and punishments (such as condemnation) play in the institution of morality. This is something that very few competing theories even address. Let us say that moral claims are categorical - how does this account for the practice of responding to virtue with praise and vice with condemnation?

It accounts for 'ought' implies 'can' because it only makes sense to apply praise and condemnation where it can cause the reward-learning system to effect a change in desires.

It accounts for the fact that moral claims act like truth-bearing propositions. They are truth-bearing propositions in that they make claims as to whether an act is indicative of desires that people have many and strong reasons to promote or inhibit through praise or inhibit through praise or condemnation.

It also accounts for the emotive component of moral utterances - because they often contain the praise or condemnation that the truth-bearing component says that people generally have reason to present.

It accounts for the types of evidence that people bring to moral debates - evidence supporting or refuting the truth of the proposition that people generally have reason to apply rewards such as praise or punishments such as condemnation in particular ways.

It accounts fit the three categories of moral claims - obligation, non-obligatory permission, and prohibition.

By the way, it also accounts for a fourth moral category - supererogatory action or acts above and beyond the call of duty. Some actions exhibit desires that people generally have many and strong reason to promote. However, praise and condemnation cannot be expected to bring about a desire of such strength in the public at large. We have reason to praise these people and call them heroes. But we recognize that most people can never acquire such a virtue. By virtue of 'ought' implies 'can' we do not hold them to be obligated to do so.

It fits moral claims into a general theory that can be applied to all value-laden terms. It says that all value-laden terms relate states of affairs to desires. They differ in the objects of evaluation, the desires that are relevant, the nature of the relationship (direct or indirect), and whether the relevant desires are fulfilled to thwarted.

Beauty. This term is applied to things seen and heard based on whether the experience of seeing or hearing directly fulfills the desires of the seer or hearer.

Illness and Injury: These terms evaluate changes or deviations in physical or mental functioning according to whether they tend to thwart (or give others reason to thwart) - directly or indirectly - the desires of the agent whose functioning is being examined. Furthermore, if the cause of the change is a macro cause that primitive people can see (getting trampled by a horse) it is an injury. If it is a micro cause (such as cancer or poisoning) it is an illness.

Useful: This term can refer to just about anything, but never in terms of its ability to fulfill desires directly. It is always used to identify the object of evaluation as something with the capacity to fulfill desires indirectly - in virtue of its ability to bring about something else that can fulfill desires directly.

Dangerous: This term is also used to evaluate just about anything according to its potential to thwart desires indirectly.

Virtue: This term is applied to malleable desires - desires that can be learned through triggering the reward-laerning system. A virtue tends to fulfill other desires - giving others reason to use rewards (such as praise) or punishments (such as condemnation) to facilitate the learning of that desire.

There is no categorical theory that can come close to accounting for so much of the actual use of value-laden terms in general, and moral terms in specific, such that it makes sense to claim that a "categorical" component is built into the meaning of these terms. Not only can this element be eliminated, it never existed to start with.

"Anti-realism," to most people, means the loss of moral restraint. It means passion unconstrained by the effects of praise and condemnation so that everybody does what they please whenever they please no matter what they please. The fact that this is what "anti-realism" with respect to morality means to most people tells us something about what "morality" means to most people. It tells us what they take to be "real" by telling us what they think anti-realism says is not real.

What is real is the institution of using rewards (such as praise) and punishment (such as condemnation) to promote desires that tend to fulfill other desires, while inhibiting desires that tend to thwart other desires. The "categorical" nature of morality is a mistake. "Categorical" was never a part of the meaning of moral terms. This is just a theory that some people adopted - a mistake, to be discarded.

If a non-categorical theory does a better job of accounting for the elements of morality (and can fit it into a broader theory that also handles a wide variety of non-moral value-laden terms - and can fit the theory in with what is known about biology; specifically, the reward-learning system and the effects of desires on choosing actions), then I am more than comfortable with saying that this claim of "categorical" values was never there to be eliminated.

Having said this, I do not think that the meanings of moral terms are worth debating. I have little interest in convincing somebody who holds that moral terms contain some claim about categorical value that cannot be eliminated that they are wrong. If they are right, this means that all of their moral claims are false and irrelevant anyway. The debate over whether desirism is the best account of morality as practiced, or the next-best alternative to an account that renders all moral claims false and irrelevant - is only of passive interest.

Obligation, Prohibition, and Non-Obligatory Permission

Before travelling much further, let me make sure that we keep this discussion in its context.

Assume that you are an intentional agent with desires, surrounded by a community of intentional agents with desires.

Desires - expressed in the form "desire that P" where P is a proposition - motivate agents to realize states of affairs in which the propositions that are the objects of their desires are true.

As I have argued, you have four ways to cause other agents to choose actions that would realize the propositions that are the objects of your desires.

If one of those agents has a desire that Q, you could:

(1) Bargain: "If you help me to realize P, then I will help you to realize Q".

(2) Threaten: "If you do not help me to realize P, then I will act so as to realize not-Q".

(3) Alter beliefs: "You can most efficiently realize Q through actions that will have, as a side effect, the realization of P."

(4) Alter desires: Give the person with a desire that Q a desire that R that will, given his beliefs, motivate him to act in ways that will realize P.

I have asserted that morality has to do with method (4). Specifically, morality is concerned with the use of rewards in the biological sense (such as praise) and punishments in the biological sense (such as condemnation) to trigger the reward-learning system to adjust desires.

A good desire - or a "virtue", in this sense - is a desire that people can and generally have many and strong reasons to create or promote using these tools. A "vice", on the other hand, is a desire that people generally have many and strong reasons to inhibit or extinguish using these tools.

I should also extend this to cover the concepts of moral obligation, non-obligatory permission, and moral prohibition.

A "moral obligation" is an act that a person with good desires (a virtuous person) would perform.

If an agent performs this action, we have at least prima facie evidence that the agent has those desires that people generally have many and strong reasons to create or promote, and lacks those desires that people generally have reasons to inhibit or extinguish.

The tools for creating and promoting this virtue in others involve using rewards (such as praise). The virtuous person - the person who does what he ought - gets praise and reward, as a way of encouraging like desires in them and in others who are a witness to these rewards and praise.

On the other hand, the person who does not do what he ought - who shirks an obligation - is to be subject to what are punishments in the biological sense, which includes moral condemnation.

But, remember, an obligation is not what people actually praise others for doing and condemn them for not doing. It is what people have the most and strongest reasons to praise people for doing and condemn them for not doing.

People - even whole cultures - might be wrong about what they have reason to praise or condemn, as with a group who thinks that eliminating a certain disposition in others (homosexuality) is necessary to prevent widespread suffering at the hands of an evil and malicious deity.

A moral prohibition, on these same terms, is an act that a person with good desires would not perform. Of an agent does perform such an act, then it follows that the agent either lacks certain virtues, or has certain vices. People generally have many and strong reasons to bring the social tool of punishment (in the biological sense - which includes condemnation) to bear against such individuals. This serves to trigger the reward-learning system to inhibit the relevant desires or promote the virtuous aversions that would then cause people to choose not to perform similar actions.

Between these, we have the realm of non-obligatory permissions.

I cannot simply use the term "permission" here because "permitted" means "not prohibited" - and even obligatory actions are permitted. However, obligatory actions do not exhaust the realm of that which is permitted.

My decision to write this post, for example, is permissible, but not obligatory. I have a non-obligatory permission to eat oatmeal for breakfast, or to have some of the leftover pizza instead.

The fact is, there are some desires that we have reason to want some people to have, but not all people. A variety of desires, in some areas, reduces conflict and produces a mutually beneficial harmony.

One clear example of this are desires related to the choice of a job. Rather than having everybody want to be engineers and trying to get some to live the disappointed life of a teacher, we get better social harmony and desire fulfillment if some people liked engineering and others liked teaching. So, the professions of engineering and teaching fall into the realm of non-obligatory permissions.

We reduce competition and conflict as well if we like different foods. What to eat tends to fall into the realm of non-obligatory permissions. What we do for entertainment fits that category.

In all of these cases, we can certainly find a subset that is morally prohibited. "Burglar" is not a morally permissible profession because people generally have many and strong reason to use rewards and punishments to promote an aversion to taking the property of others without consent. I think we have many and strong reasons to promote an aversion to eating human flesh, and to entertain oneself with child pornography.

However, the existence of some prohibitions in this realm does not disprove the claim that there is also, within this realm, a vast area of non-obligatory permissions. And the reason for non-obligatory permissions is because there are some desires we have no particular reason to make universal or to extinguish using those social tools that touch on the reward-learning system.

Categorical Prescriptivity and the Meaning of Moral Terms

Another comment from the studio audience.

How is this not simply a metaethical error theory (there are no moral facts, strongly construed), combined with an attempt to reconstruct something "almost as good" as morality? . . . For example, someone who held this position might say that there are no moral facts as people generally construe them, since there are no categorical prescriptions, and that is an ineliminable part of standard moral discourse. However, insofar as we form a community of people who care about other people's welfare, there are certain "moral-like" imperatives that apply to us because of that fact.

Well, I would accept that if it were the case that categorical prescriptions were an ineliminable part of standard moral discourse, then it would follow that desirism is an error theory combined with a proposal for something "almost as good" (though I would argue that it is, in fact, significantly better than the fiction and myth of categorical prescriptions).

As it turns out, I reject the antecedent. I hold that people invented and embraced morality because they saw in it a significant potential for realizing those states of affairs in which the propositions that are the objects of their desire-states are true.

They did not fully grasp what it is exactly that had this great potential. Some suggested that they must be categorical imperatives. However, we have to reject this option because categorical imperatives, in virtue of the fact that they do not exist, do not have any potential to help people in realizing their desires.

So, categorical prescriptions - far from being an ineliminable part of moral discourse - is a theory about the nature of what has this great potential that can easily be eliminated in virtue of the fact that categorical prescriptions do not exist.

Furthermore, I don't think that there is any such thing as an ineliminable part of discourse. Language is an invention, and we can do with it what we choose. If chemists can elminate "having no parts" from the definition of an atom, and biologists can eliminate "bad air" from the definition of "malaria", then ethicists can eliminate "categorical prescriptivity" from moral terms.

Still, as I final point, I do not think that this question is worth a great amount of debate. If somebody wants to insist that moral terms, to them, refer to categorical prescriptivity, I do not need to argue that this fails to correspond to the public use of the term. It is enough to argue that 'morality' understood this way does not exist and, as such, it has no relevance in real-world decision making and is not worth bringing up as if it is relevant to any choice being made.

Whereas desires that people generally have many and strong reason to promote using rewards such as praise and punishments such as condemnation are very real and are very much worth bringing up when discussing real decisions that are to be made in the real world. The fact of these desires are particularly relevant to decisions governing the use of rewards such as praise and punishments such as condemnation.

I have "real" and "of great importance in real-world decision making" on my side. You can keep "categorical prescriptivity" and, in keeping it, render all of your moral claims false and irrelevant in the real world.

Moral "Ought" and Prescriptivity

I would like to address this comment:

I am not sure I understand. I think I agree with you that people act from desires and influence others to implement those desires. To me this describes the situation as it is and does not imply a moral "should" or "ought".

Could you explain what elements of moral "ought" might be missing from this description.

It is commonly understood that description and prescription are mutually exclusive categories. I disagree with this.

Ultimately, I hold that it is a very strange view that seems to assume that the universe is made up of two different types of things that can somehow interact with each other - things that can be described and not prescribed, and things that can be prescribed but not described.

Ultimately, I hold that "prescriptions" are a subset of "descriptions". All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. All prescriptions are descriptions, but not all descriptions are prescriptions.

So, what does a prescription describe?

It describes a relationship between some possible state of affairs and desires.

There are two types of ought - practical ought and moral ought.

If Agent has a desire that P, and action X can improve the possibility of P, then A ought to do X (unless A has more and stronger reasons - desire that Q - that are incompatible with P).

For moral ought, I propose that is a description of the case in which people generally have many and strong reasons act (desires) so as to apply rewards (such as praise) and punishments (such as condemnation) in order to promote or inhibit particular desires or aversions.

My question would then be - what aspects of conventional "ought" as used in practice is not captured by this claim?

"It's wrong to lie."

People generally have many and strong reasons to apply rewards (such as praise) and punishments (such as condemnation) so as to promote an aversion to lying.

What is there that is found in the actual use of moral "ought" and "should" that is missing from this account?

Ultimately . . . let's say you don't want to use moral "ought" in this case. You want to insist that moral "ought" requires some kind of categorical imperative or a command from God.

I answer . . . Fine. Then moral "ought" does not exist. We quit using "ought" statements in all real-world decision making. Desires that people generally have many and strong reasons to promote or inhibit using rewards and condemnation still exist.

Or, let's say that you want to apply moral "ought" to . . . day, the greatest good for the greatest number.

Again, are you limiting yourself to that which is objectively true of "the greatest good for the greatest number?" If you are, then I am going to agree with everything you say. But, if you are assigning qualities to "the greatest good for the greatest number" (e.g., that it has some sort of intrinsic prescriptivity or that people are always justified in condemning those who do not promote the greatest good for the greatest number), then I am going to accuse you of making things up.

When I apply moral "ought" to "that which people generally have many and strong reasons to apply rewards (such as praise) and punishments (such as condemnation) so to promote those desires that would motivate such an action," am I saying anything about this subject that is not objectively true?

If I am, then I would also be guilty of making stuff up. So, I try to avoid that. But if that is your accusation, I need you to specify, exactly, what I am saying about these desires that people have many and strong reasons to promote that is not true. What is it, exactly, that I am making up or leaving out?

A Desire for Justice

Austin Nedved is kind enough to be providing me with a useful foil with which i can work. His comments are reasonably well informed, well presented, and represent common forms if objections that I gave encountered. I hope that Austin does not mind my use of these conveniences.

AUSTIN: [W]hat we desire the most is justice.

ALONZO: Regardless of what your personal concept if justice may be, we can falsify this claim just by pointing out the massive differences in what different communities call "justice". This alone should disprove any claim that there is a thing called "justice["] that we desire the most.

AUSTIN: The conventionalist argument you are making here refutes itself. A great number of cultures subordinate experimental science to divine revelation. Some have even rejected the validity of experimental science outright. Others still have rejected anything that conflicted with what Aristotle had said. But surely this does not entail that there is no truth, or that there are no legitimate sources of knowledge. The Conventionalist's claim that the multiplicity of understandings of what constitutes truth prevents us from having an objectively true understanding of truth, is self-defeating.

I was not making a conventionalist claim. My argument was not, "Everybody disagrees, so there is no truth". Instead, my argument took Austin's claim as a claim that has implications in the observable world, and showed that the observations of the world falsify the hypothesis.

Let us assume that somebody were to make the claim that what we desire most is broccoli. If true, this would have implications for what we would expect to observe in the eating habits of different cultures. That is to say, we would expect to find people throughout the world eating a lot of broccoli if it were available, and putting a great deal if effort into making sure it is available.

Let's assume that we discover in places where broccoli is available that one group mostly eats potatoes, another mostly eats beef, and yet another mostly eats pasta, while a fourth mostly eats broccoli. In the light of these observations, it would be hard to maintain the thesis that what we desire the most is broccoli.

One way out of this would be to note that the first culture's word for potatoes us 'broccoli'. The second culture calls beef 'broccoli', while the third calls pasta 'broccoli'. If this us what we find, then thus too would refute the thesis that there is a single thing called 'broccoli' that we desire.

Neither horn of the dilemma makes use of "the conventionalist argument". That is to say, if one were to make these objections to the claim, "What we desire the most is broccoli," we would not expect the broccoli theorist to answer, "Your conventionalist argument refutes itself." The conventionalist argument is not in play.

There are those who argue that the fact of moral disagreement among individuals or cultures implies that there is no fact of the matter. One leading proponent of this argument was J.L. Mackie. He had two main arguments against 'objective value' - one of which is the Argument from Disagreement. People have different opinions on what has value, so objective value does not exist.

However, this us as problematic as saying that people have different opinions on the age of the earth, so there us no fact of the matter. Or, even more problematically, people have different opinions on objective value, so there is no objective value.

Now, we could interpret Mackie as saying that we gave no objective way to resolve these disputes. However, this is a mere assertion - not an argument. And it us a question-begging assertion at that.

Anyway, I am a moral realist. I hold that there are moral facts independent of the sentiments of the speaker. There is moral disagreement, but that simply implies that some people are wrong. It does not imply that there is no fact of the matter.

The types of things that people can be wrong about include beliefs in a god, or intrinsic values, or making inferences from false premises such as a social contract, impartial observers, or decisions made behind a veil of ignorance.

Certainly, one of the things we can know in this world of facts is that it is not the case that what we desire the most is broccoli. We know this by looking at the world and seeing people showing great interest in a number of things, many of which are not broccoli. This appeal to the fact that people have a number of different likes and dislikes is not a "conventionalist argument". It is an observation that falsified the hypothesis, "What we desire the most is broccoli." This same set if observations also falsified the thesis, "What we desire the most is stamp collecting," and, as it turns out, "What we desire the most is justice."

Instead, we have a range of desires - for sex, for pleasure, to eat, to drink, for companionship, to avoid pain. We have the capacity to learn desires based on our experience - cultural preferences, learned fears, and other likes and dislikes. In this, there is no evidence that what we desire most is broccoli or stamp collecting or justice.

Implications of a Moral Should

In my last post I suggested that moral statements have two main components.

(1) A truth-bearing component that says, "People generally have many and strong reasons to apply the tools of reward (such as praise) and punishment (such as condemnation) to the reward-learning system of others so as to promote those desires and aversions that would cause people to choose that which is called good, and refrain from choosing that which is called evil.

(2) an emotive component - the very act of praise or condemnation that the truth-bearing component says that people generally have many and strong reasons to employ.

Also, desires are the only reasons for action that exist. The many and strong reasons I mentioned in (1) turn out to be many and strong desires. Desires, in turn, are propositional attitudes. A desire that P is a mental state that motivates an agent to choose those actions that would realize P in a universe in which the agent's beliefs are rue and complete.

People, when they make moral claims, actually make all sorts of references to reasons for action other than desires. Divine commands, categorical imperatives, intrinsic values, social contracts, impartial observers - all are offered up as reasons to offer rewards such as praise and punishments such as condemnation. Yet, all of these claims are false. None of these reasons exist.

Others offer the suggestion that the truth-bearing component only refers to the desires of the speaker. It merely states, "I have a pro or con attitude towards you doing X" yet, they consistently deny that merely having a pro or con attitude justifies the implications that moral claims have. Is it morally permissible to kiss somebody based on the fact, "I have a pro-attitude towards killing you"?

It is true that people never sincerely assert, "P is true" unless they believe that P is true. however, this does not imply that, "I believe that P" is a part of the meaning of "P is true." similarly, a person does not generality "P is good" (or, what amounts to the same thing, "P is good" is true) unless they have a pro attitude towards P. But this does not imply that ir is a part if the meaning.

But if you want to use the term "moral should" to refer to something else - a red flower, for example - you are free to do so - so long as you limit yourself to making objectively true claims about those red flowers. Everything else I would put in the category of "make-believe".

So, what is objectively true about these components - when combined with the fact that desires are the only reasons for action that exist?

(3) The truth of the truth-bearing component is independent of the sentiments of the person making the claim.

It does not matter what you believe, or what your opinion is, or what you feel - there is a fact of the matter as to what sentiments people generally have the mist and strongest reasons to promote or inhibit. Any assertions you make about thus fact could be completely wrong.

(4) Whole societies can be mistaken about what is right and wrong.

The beliefs and sentiments, even those that dominate a society, are not necessarily the right one's for that society. People may think that they have reason to promote or inhibit certain desires, only to be totally wrong.

A clear example would be a society under the grips of a primitive superstition. Such people might think, for example, that some busy-body dirty with nothing more useful to do with its time will visit suffering on a community that tolerates homosexual activity. Even if everybody agrees with thus, they would all be wrong. No such reason for action exists. It would be a mistake to appeal to the sentiments of the majority to decide right and wrong.

(5) A person can know that something is wrong and not care.

There is nothing about the fact that people generally have reason to employ punishment events to the reward-learning systems of others that would inhibit their dispositions to perform certain acts that implies that a particular agent has a reason not to perform those acts.

The purpose of morality is not to keep people from doing what they already have reasons to refrain from doing. It is to give them reasons they might not already have to refrain from those actions.

Some of those reasons take the form if incentives and deterrence. These incentives and deterrence act on the desires the agent already has - desires to be fulfilled by the incentives or thwarted by deterrence. But these are not the reasons that morality speaks of.

The reasons of morality involve the creation or strengthening of some desires, and the weakening and extinguishing of others. It does not appeal to the reasons the agent has, but those that reward and punishment have the capacity to cause.

Some will continue to protest that this is at odds with the fundamental definition of morality. However, against those protests, I remind the reader that you cannot define things into existence. Decide how you want to define the word 'Pegasus', defining it as a winged horse will not allow winged horses to come into existence.

You can define morality as what appeals to the sentiments of the speaker. Even under desirism, "the sentiments of the speaker" are real, and we can make objectively true claims about them. Any objectively true statement about the sentiments of the speaker has to be one that desirism agrees with – otherwise, desirism is in error. Otherwise, the implication is that desirism contradicts a fact about the sentiments of the speaker.

However, when you go outside if what is objectively true of the sentiments of the speaker, or draw implications that do not follow from these facts, you have left reality behind and entered the realm of make believe. It is said that you cannot derive 'ought' from 'is', and that there us a gap between 'fact' and 'value'. I have a better term for what stands outside of the realm of 'fact' and it is not 'value'. It is 'fiction'.

Complain, if you want, that this does not capture your perfect super-dictionary definition of moral 'should'. But take care - your quest for the best definition may well define morality right out of existence.

Moral "Should" - A Comment from the Audience

A member of the studio audience writes:

There seems to be a problem here. If I personally have no reasons not to lie, and doing so would overall benefit me, there can be no possible reason why I should not lie. (Suppose I am unbothered by the negative consequences that others would inflict on me for lying.) This results in an absurd situation in which it is "reasonable" for me to lie, while it is also reasonable for others to try to prevent me from lying.

I do not see this as an absurd situation. In fact, I think it is quite common.

Lying would still be counted as immoral in this case. It is still true that people generally have many and strong reasons to promote an aversion to lying. The person who lies can be condemned as evil for not having aversions that people generally have many and strong reasons to create through acts of condemnation. Yet, it may still be the case that he has no reason not to lie. People generally have failed to give him such a reason.

Fortunately, I think there is a solution to this problem, and this solution involves distinguishing between two different sorts of "oughts": "ought" in the non-moral sense, and "ought" in the ethical sense. We are using the term non-morally when we say something like "If you want your car to have a long life, you ought to change the oil frequently." "Ought" is being used in the ethical sense when we say something along the lines of "I understand that, while murdering that person might benefit you, you ought not to kill him."

Desirism allows for something very similar to what you write here. "I understand that, while murdering that person may benefit you, people generally have many strong reasons to apply forms if punishment (such as condemnation) to the reward-learning system of others as a way of inhibiting the desires that would motivate such an action."

However - i suspect you are wanting to assert some sort of Kantian categorical imperative - an "ought" that does not have a goal. It's "just wrong" and that is all there is to it.

"Ought" in this categorical sense does not exist. There is no such thing as "just wrong". All 'just wrong' claims, no matter how popular, are false.

Desires are the only reasons for action that exist. They are the only kinds we find any actual evidence for - found in their ability to explain and predict intentional actions. Desires are propositional attitudes that can be expressed in the form "desire that P". The goal of a desire that P is a state of affairs in which P is true. All of our behavior is goal directed - including praise and condemnation. All of our motivation comes from our own desires.

Your definition captures the categorical nature of moral statements, but at the cost if making them mythical entities of no relevance or importance in the real world. My use sacrifices the categorical element of moral ought, but allows moral claims to remain true an important. They are all about malleable desires that people have many, strong, and real interests in promoting.

There is a precedent for this in chemistry. It was proposed that atoms were made up of parts. It could have been argued that thus claim violated the essential meaning of the word 'atom'. The word comes from ancient Greece and means literally, "without parts". Chemists faced a choice. They could have kept the essential meaning and insisted that a huge number of claims made in chemistry before that point were false. Or it could drop this essential meaning and allow chemistry tp progress much as it had.

Please note that this choice in no way threatened the objectivity of chemistry.

Ethics faces the same choice. It can preserve the categorical element of moral term and render all moral claims false. Or it can abandon that element and allow moral claims to remain potentially true and important.

I opt for the second option.

It should go without saying what we desire the most is justice.

Actually, this is false.

We evolved dispositions towards those desires that brought our ancestors biological success. Desires for sex, desires for food and drink, desires for the protection of our offspring, aversions to that which increase the possibility of injury and illness (e.g, the view down a steep cliff or the smell of rotting flesh).

Plus we have some malleable desires - modified by experience (particularly the social norms we pick up as children in cultures that have widely varying amounts of justice and injustice).

Regardless of what your personal concept if justice may be, we can falsify this claim just by pointing out the massive differences in what different communities call "justice". This alone should disprove any claim that there is a thing called "justice that we desire the most.

Moral "Should" Statements

A couple of weeks ago, I began what one member of the studio audience has called a reboot of desirism by talking about 'should' statements.

(1) The only sensible answer to a "should" question (e.g., Why should I do X?) is to present the agent with some reason for action that exists, or some fact that ties the action or its consequence with some reason for action that exists.

That was the last time I talked about the word "should" in its prescriptive sense.

Instead, I went into a series of posts imagining that you are an intentional agents motivated to realize that which you desire - surrounded by other intentional agents motivated to realize what they desire.

Under these assumptions, I asked what you could do as an agent with a desire that P to get another agent with a desire that Q to realize P - or at least refrain from realizing not-P.

I discussed four options:

(1) Bargaining: If you help me to realize P, I will help you to realize Q.

(2) Threatening: Unless you act to realize P, I will act to realize not-Q.

(3) Belief modification: Give the agent with a desire that Q those beliefs that will motivate him to try to realize Q with actions that would realize P.

(4) Desire modification: Instead of taking his "desire that Q" as a given, modify those desires so that the agent has desires that he will tend to realize through actions that realize P.

For example, I argued that in a simple bargain, if you should realize your side of the bargain before your counterpart realizes his, your counterpart will lose all motivation to complete their part. Realizing P will cease to be instrumental to realizing Q. Realizing P will only be completed if your counterpart has some additional motivation for realizing P after you have done your part to realize Q.

I discussed the options of reputation and an aversion to breaking promises - of which the second would be the more reliable motivation. Your "desire that P" implies a motivating reason to seek out bargains with others who you have reliably determined have an aversion to breaking promises.

And what is true of you is true of those other agents.

These are facts about the world - implications of having a desire that P bargaining with an agent with a desire that Q.

Yet, this discussion and others like it, I did not draw any conclusions expressed in the form of what you "should" do. I did not prescribe any action - I simply described the actions that were compatible with your desire that P.

Now, I want to bring back the claim that "should" has to do with "reasons for action that exist," and desires are the only reasons that exist. Should statements ARE descriptions of actions compatible with given desires that exist.

When I say, "You should do X", a sensible question to ask is, "Why should I do X?"

The sensible answer to this question is for me to describe the relationship that exists between the action that I am recommending and the reasons for action that exist. Reasons that do not exist are not relevant to what you should really do. And desires are the only reasons for action that actually exist. So, my answer to your "should" question is to relate the action to various reasons for action (desires) that exist.

At this point, we can divide these reasons for action that exist (desires) into two groups. There are reasons for action that you have, and reasons for action that exist but that you do not have. This second group of reasons for action are the reasons that other intentional agent has. It refers to desires that exist that are not your own. They are real. They exist. However, they are not yours in the same way that other hands and feet are real, but are not yours.

You are only going to be directly motivated by the reasons for action (desires) that you have - not by all of the reasons for action (desires) that exist. Your desires motivate your actions. The desires of other people motivate their actions. A claim that a particular reason for action exists does not motivate you to act directly unless that reason for action that exists is one that you have.

However, this is not all that can be said about reasons for action that exist - but that you do not have.

While those reasons may not motivate you directly, they are reasons for other people to act in particular ways that will affect you. They are reasons that exist for other people to bargain with you or threaten you. They are reasons that exist that determine whether they will keep or break bargains, tell you the truth, or act so as to realize not-P.

For the purposes of this series, one important fact is that they are reasons that exist for them to act so as to modify your desires - to give you different reasons for action. That is to say, they have reasons to use reward (such as praise) and punishment (such as condemnation) to trigger your reward-learning system in a way so as to create and strengthen in you certain desires, and to weaken or eliminate others.

In that sea of reasons for action that exist, there are a great many and strong reasons for promoting (or inhibiting) some desires - such as the desire to keep promises, to tell the truth, to refrain from threatening those who do not make threats, and the like. I can make real-world claims about the desires you have or could have and the sea of reasons for action that exist for offering rewards and condemnations.

When I say, "You should not lie" in this sense - the moral sense - I am not saying that you HAVE reasons not to lie. I am saying that there exist a great many and strong reasons for people to cause you to have a reason not to lie. I am saying that they have many and strong reasons to offer rewards (such as praise) to those who are honest, and to offer punishments (such as condemnation) to those who lie.

But I am not just making these factual claims. I am also, at the same time, giving praise to those who are honest, and condemning those who lie. I am not only stating that reasons exist to trigger the reward-learning system so as to promote honesty and discourage lying, I am trying to trigger the reward-learning system so as to promote honesty and discourage lying.

There are theories that say that moral claims aim to point out some fact that, itself, would motivate an agent to behave differently. Those claims that exist. Beliefs only interact with the desires that an agent already has - they do not create new desires or modify existing desires. The reward-learning system modifies desires. But the reward-learning system does not respond to facts. It responds to rewards (such as praise) and punishments (such as condemnation).

You can respond sensibly to my claim that you should not lie by providing evidence that people, in fact, do not generally have reasons to praise those who are honest and condemn those who are dishonest. Or, you can respond to a claim that homosexual acts are wrong by pointing out that people do not really have reasons to praise those who refrain from homosexual acts and condemn those who engage in such acts. Thus, the praise or condemnation you offer is not, in fact, praise or condemnation that people actually have genuine reasons to give. It is unjustified praise and condemnation, grounded, ultimately, on the false beliefs or malicious interests (interests or desires that people generally have reason to condemn) of those who provide it.

You may respond that this is not what you mean by the word "should", or that you do not agree with the claim that this captures how the word is actually used. Neither of these counter-claims are actually worth a great deal of effort. Neither proves that the substantive claims of this theory are false. They are merely disagreements over the language used in expressing those substantive claims, not the substantive claims themselves.

Regardless of the words people actually use, the substantive claim that people generally have many and strong reasons to use rewards (such as praise) and punishments (such as condemnation) to promote a desire to be honest and an aversion to lying remains true. The fact that you - and people generally - often have reason to bargain only with those who have an aversion to breaking promises remains true. They are true no matter what language you decide to speak when making these claims.