Is this control over desire or just being at the mercy of one desire over another? Since you mentioned Nietzsche, I thought I’d quote him on the issue of will and desire:
[The fact] that one desires to combat the vehemence of a drive at all, however, does not stand within our own power; nor does the choice of any particular method; nor does the success or failure of this method. What is clearly the case is that in this entire procedure our intellect is only the blind instrument of another drive which is a rival of the drive whose vehemence is tormenting us . . . While “we” believe we are complaining about the vehemence of a drive, at bottom it is one drive which is complaining about the other; that is to say: for us to become aware that we are suffering from the vehemence [or violence] of a drive presupposes the existence of another equally vehement or even more vehement drive, and that a struggle is in prospect in which our intellect is going to have to take sides.
There is no struggle of reason against the drives; what we call “reason” is nothing more than a certain “system of relations between various passions,” a certain ordering of the drives.
Nobody is satisfied to acquire things that are merely believed to be good . . . but everyone wants the things that really are good and disdains mere belief here.
Plato, Republic 505d
Suppose there were an Experience Machine that would give you any experience you desired. Superduper neuropsychologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. All the time you would be floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to your brain.
While you were hooked into the machine you wouldn't know the experiences you believed you were having weren't real, you'd think they were all actually occurring.
Just think, you could pre-programme the machine so you would end up really thinking you looked like a Hollywood star, had won the Nobel Prize for physics, enjoyed a fulfilling marriage, scored the victorious goal in the World Cup final and lived in a penthouse overlooking the sea. Would you plug into such a machine?
Reason is able to apprehend the abstract ideal of "the best" and search for it. In this, it seeks to transcend what it currently is and become more in an outwards search. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Suppose there were an Experience Machine that would give you any experience you desired.
one desires to combat the vehemence of a drive at all, however, does not stand within our own power; nor does the choice of any particular method; nor does the success or failure of this method
So one is driven by imagination, or by imaginary things. One can immediately see the shortcomings of the experience machine, which are the limitations of the imagination. Alas my imagination could never come up with a Bach fugue, or a Picasso, or a fine oak tree, or any of the wonders of my life, so a world limited to my desires would be a feeble shadow of the real world that consistently exceeds anything I could desire. So no experience machine for me, thanks.
This is certainly a popular position. It seems to be somewhat Sam Harris' position in The Moral Landscape when he argues that morality and values can be objectively understood and grounded in science rather than relying solely on religious or subjective beliefs. The core idea being that "human well-being (desires)" should be the benchmark for evaluating moral principles, and that scientific inquiry can help identify objective moral truths. Skinner has a similar position — Count Timothy von Icarus
In this, all three also seem close to Hume, who argued that, “reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them [by figuring out how to get what our appetites want.]" — Count Timothy von Icarus
Nietzsche's whole revaluation of all values collapses into petty hedonism if we know or suspect some sort of higher good -- a good we ourselves recognize or fear we fail to recognize -- but then continue on in our current mode of being "because it's easier" or "good enough." This is exactly the sort of behavior Nietzsche spends a lot of time attacking — Count Timothy von Icarus
Would we plug into the machine?
Tough question. A common concern I've heard here is that, if you plug into the machine, all the people you know and care for miss out on you. Thus, choosing the machine is precluded because of what it does to others. This could be fixed by supposing that, per your choice, everyone goes into the machine. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Reason is obviously crucial to promoting both knowledge and freedom. And, because we can always question more, always go beyond our initial beliefs and desires, it doesn't seem to me that reason can be merely another desire. Doubt is not a desire. Further, reason is able to apprehend the abstract ideal of "the best" and search for it. In this, it seeks to transcend what it currently is and become more in an outwards search. This is, in important ways, an overcoming of desire, not simply a form of it. It is true that it is a desire for truth, but it's a desire grounded in what is beyond us, in a way other desires are not — Count Timothy von Icarus
The aim of the revaluation of all values is not to settle on some final or ultimate value system ( a higher good) but to stay in tune with the act of value posting itself as a means of not getting stuck in any particular value system. One could say that the ‘highest good’ is the continual movement from one normative conception of the good to another. Notice that this highest good is devoid of value content in itself.
Machines don’t produce value, they are devoid of meaning in themselves. What they achieve is only understandable by reference to meaningful desires and purposes that must be accessed independently of the meaninglessly calculative functioning of the machine in itself.
That is, even if his system made him really happy, if reason then convinces him that it wasn't true, that there was indeed a higher good he had missed, then he'd want the higher good. He might feel conflicted about it, many philosophers have felt conflicted about having to abandon cherished positions, but there is a powerful way in which reason is able to bowl over and reorder all our desires.
A good example might be the person who loses their faith. Their highest goal was previously to please God. They organized their life around this, spending hours in prayer each day. And yet they no longer believe in God and so no longer think "pleasing God" is truly a good. Now, no matter how much all their other desires might want to lead them back into a "fool's paradise," here they are, in the crisis of faith. — Count Timothy von Icarus
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