How is this an argument for the ethical non-realist to become a realist? They merely reply, "Not at all. Nothing of the sort 'seems to follow.' My actions are neither irrational nor impulsive. I'm not aware of 'denying the very possibility of rational freedom' -- how so? Such a view of my actions comes with extremely heavy philosophical baggage, and you would have to show me why this must be the case. On the contrary, I choose what I rationally believe is best for me. Certainly I may be wrong, in any given instance. But how is that either irrational or immoral?"

I don't know what you mean, I included the argument right below the quoted section. They can advance their own competing definition of "rational action." Apparently "rational action" for them won't entail knowing why one acts and believing it to be truly best. It will involve ordering some irrational desires to others, ordering some finite ends to others, thinking this through a bit, and then halting the process of judgement at whatever point they feel is adequate. But this isn't "doing and willing what is good because it is known as good," it is rational only in the sense that discursive reasoning has been used to some degree to enable irrational passions that are not themselves justified or known as Good.

I suppose they can say it is "rational" if all "rational" is to mean is "using some faculty of ratio." It's not really self-determining. The entire process is, by definition, driven by "whatever desires the agent just so happens to possess." One cannot have justified second-order volitions because whether or not it is good to have (or not have) a desire can only be judged against some other inchoate desire.

It's like if you created an AI probe and sent it into space with the commandment "harvest resources and reproduce." Ok, it might do some computations as it decides how best to accomplish the goal it just so happens to have. It is "rational" in this sense. But if it cannot ask: "but is it truly good that I reproduce" then it is in an important sense unfree and not self-determining. It is rational and free just within the limits of slavishly driving itself towards instinct.

But the main widely Humean responses to this I am aware of just bite the bullet and say: "yup, I'm not free in that richer sense. No one is. We're ultimately just appetite machines." Which of course opens up the rebuttal that one should only agree with them or even argue with them in good faith if one feels like. There is, strictly speaking, nothing better about falsity than truth.

I don't know what you mean, I included the argument right below the quoted section. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sorry if I missed it. Do you mean this?:

If we are incapable of desiring the good because it is known as good . . . then it seems to follow that all actions bottom out in irrational impulse. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I didn't see an argument here, just an assertion. How do we get from "not desiring the good because it is known as good" to "all actions bottom out [are motivated by] irrational impulse"?

Apparently "rational action" for them won't entail knowing why one acts and believing it to be truly best. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Help me see this. Why does the moral anti-realist not know why they act as they do?

Sorry, it's in the quote right below the section you quoted if that wasn't clear.

And obviously, the classical view of freedom is aspirational. It is not something someone perfectly attains, but rather we become more free as we get closer to it. Since we cannot always be mindful of our actions—some action is more automatic, not a matter of rational deliberation and self-conscious reflection—freedom also involves the way we intentionally train our habits and tastes (and this intentional habituation be subject to self-conscious deliberation). Likewise, the ways in which we shape our environment and institutions can enable (or retard) our capacity for self-determination.

The Humean egoist cannot rationally order their appetites and desires towards "what is truly known as best" in this way because they have eliminated the rational appetites for Goodness (will) and Truth (intellect), reducing the whole of the rational soul to its lowest faculty, discursive ratio. They might justify a second-order volition. Perhaps they master their appetite for food in order to achieve a low body fat percentage in the hopes that it will make them attractive to the opposite sex. They can order one irrational desire (for food) to another (sex), but they cannot turn around and ask: "what is the truly best way for my appetites to be ordered?" (I mean, they can, since they have these rational appetites, it's just that according to their anthropology this would make no sense). Hume himself tries to resolve this by appealing to a sort of universal human sentiment, and we can order ourselves to this "sentiment of decency," but one might suppose that this "sentiment," mere irrational feeling, is just the rational appetites, only impoverished by a deflated understanding of the rational soul.

Help me see this. Why does the moral anti-realist not know why they act as they do?

Take sex. They want to have sex. Why? If they haven't totally erased any sense of human nature they might appeal to this. But this is just awareness that one has a desire and that one plans to act on it. It isn't a self-reflective conscious understanding of the act as truly good. To ask: "is it truly good that I possess this appetite to this degree?" requires some standard by which our own appetites are judged. If we have a rational desire for the Good as such, this is the obvious benchmark. Denying this, irrational appetites can only be ordered to other irrational appetites. It's like our AI probe that has had the desire to reproduce inserted in it. It didn't choose this desire. It doesn't know it as good and assent to it. Its "rationality" is a slave to the irrational, and in this way it is limited by its own finitude. Whereas, ordered to an infinite good, the rational soul can always ask on anything: "but is it truly best?" or: "is it really true?" and in so doing transcend current belief and desire.

Just because someone is a moral anti-realist doesn’t mean they are unconcerned with the suffering of people or animals.

Sure. They just deny that the suffering of people or animals can actually be bad for them as a matter of fact. A total denial of facts about values equates to saying that the following statements:

Garry Kasparov is a better chess player than the average kindergartener;
It is bad for children to have lead dumped into their school lunches;
It would have been a bad investment to buy Enron stock in 2001 or Bear Stearns stock in 2008; or
It is bad for a bear to have its leg mangled in a bear trap.

...are neither true nor false (or true only relative to ultimately arbitrary cultural norms). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Isn't this a distortion of what moral anti-realists actually claim? Doesn't this have a touch of William Lane Craig? "Atheists can't say child murder is wrong!"

Take the example of saying “it’s bad for a child to ingest lead.” A moral anti-realist can fully accept such a statement as true within a framework of widely shared human concerns, like health, harm reduction, and wellbeing. They can use empirical facts about human biology and psychology to explain why lead is harmful and why we should act to prevent exposure, without appealing to moral facts "out there" or "mind independent".

I suspect that those who are theists already have a bright shining star of transcendence to guide them towards an objective morality - the matter is settled for them - presumably The Good emanates from God's nature.

there are particular facts about what is bad or good for X in the sense specified above — J

In what sense? You haven't truly specified a sense at all. What is occurring is hand-waving.

The anti-realist is happy to acknowledge the fact that suffering is bad for the beings concerned, in the sense that it's painful, undesirable, etc., but only in that sense. — J

If the anti-realist wants to actually abandon the concept of 'bad', then they should abandon the word. And the fact that you depend on the word proves that you haven't abandoned the concept. What you are saying is, "I am going to use the word 'bad' but I am not going to mean bad by it." That's nonsense. 'Bad' cannot be used without meaning bad, and if someone does not want to mean badness then they should not use the word 'bad'. Else we are just equivocating between a private language and a public language.

Or, "I will not say that X is bad, only that it is painful. And by 'painful' I am not connoting, in any way, 'bad'." Again, quite nonsensical. If one truly wanted to stop denoting or connoting badness, then they would use words that do not denote or connote badness. But if they do that then Count's point is even more obviously true, namely:

Sure. They just deny that the suffering of people or animals can actually be bad for them as a matter of fact — Count Timothy von Icarus

And if we are honest, this entails that they are unconcerned with the suffering of people and animals. If you cannot say that suffering is bad then you are not "concerned" with it in the relevant way.

it's in the quote right below the section you quoted if that wasn't clear. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Oh, OK, I thought that was a quote from somebody else!

I think this argument runs into trouble from the start, with this:

On such a view, every end can only be judged good relative to the pleasure or positive sentiment we associate with it.

But why? Why assume that, absent a belief in objective moral values, all the anti-realist is left with is pleasure or positive sentiment? Bottoming out in irrational impulse? Why can't the judgment that an end is good, although relative, be rooted in rational argument? True, at a certain point they will have to say some version of "Here my spade is turned" . . . but so does the moral realist. I don't see how this is less rational, more sentiment-based. And remember, the anti-realist doesn't countenance bringing in "ultimate" values at all. For them, that is irrational and sentiment-based. As you say:

there is no definitive standard by which to choose between different potential "ultimate" or even "benchmark" ends in a rational manner.

But surely the anti-realist can simply agree with this, but insist that the whole process is not therefore rendered irrational. The anti-realist doesn't acknowledge these entities at all, so can hardly be called to task for being "irrational" by not adding them into the calculative mix. Wrong, perhaps (I think so) -- but not irrational.

We both know that a great deal depends on how "rationality" is construed. You have a picture of what it means to be rational that is extremely specific, and tightly bound to one particular philosophical tradition. I don't think we should assume that the anti-realist shares this picture, nor (and I hope you agree) that this picture is uncontroversially the correct one.

Help me see this. Why does the moral anti-realist not know why they act as they do?

Take sex. They want to have sex. Why? If they haven't totally erased any sense of human nature they might appeal to this. But this is just awareness that one has a desire and that one plans to act on it. It isn't a self-reflective conscious understanding of the act as truly good. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I have to say, this sounds like a straw man. I suppose there are some immoral or amoral people who are this clueless, but an intelligent and compassionate moral anti-realist can do much better. "I have a desire to have sex with this person. Will this desire lead to healthy and harmonious consequences? Will it hurt others? Does it fit the other priorities of my life? Why do I want to act as I do?" In other words, you can be self-reflective and try to consciously understand the meaning and consequences of your actions without even asking the question, Is it truly good?

I'm probably being repetitive now, but I'll say again: To truly understand what the moral anti-realist is saying, you have to start by understanding that they don't believe in something called "the truly good." Just for the sake of comprehension, try granting them that position and then seeing whether you still think their actions are "irrational impulses."

@Count Timothy von Icarus

Consider a list of concepts:

• Bad
• Truly bad
• Actually bad
• Bad as a matter of fact

It looks to me that these all say the same thing, and they are distinctions without a difference. Someone like @J will claim that, for the moral anti-realist, animal suffering is bad but not truly bad. What is that supposed to mean? After the hundreds of posts I have read, it really looks like he has no idea what he means by that.

This is why these conversations tend to lack rigor. Unless someone can spell out the difference between 'bad' and 'truly bad', they need to stop making the distinction while pretending that they have done something substantive.

I would contend that the moral anti-realist cannot say that animal suffering is truly bad; that 'truly bad' adds nothing at all to 'bad'; and therefore that the moral anti-realist cannot say that animal suffering is bad. Of course, they can redefine 'bad' to mean something that it does not mean, but in that case they have not said that animal suffering is bad. They have only said that animal suffering is "bad."

What is "truly bad" supposed to mean?

Sure they do. But then they aren't strictly anti-realists about all values. Let's look at emotivism, which is probably the most popular form of anti-realism. The bumper sticker version of that is: "claims about value don't have truth values. They are merely pronouncements of emotion, 'hooray for x,' or 'boohoo for x.'"

If someone says: "lead is truly bad for children and it is objectively bad for them to suffer heavy mental poisoning," (i.e. their statement concerns fact and not merely "boohoo for lead poisoning") they are defaulting on strict anti-realism.

You and J are both making an appeal to slander here, which seems to me like an appeal to emotion. "What you're saying about anti-realists is mean," but then defending the position by introduction realism vis-a-vis value claims. But I already said that, to their credit, strict anti-realists virtually never act like they actually believe their own position.

Moral facts

Well this probably the kicker. You'll have to explain what makes a fact specifically "moral." IMO, the health is, ceteris paribus, beneficial for human flourishing and that there are facts about the promotion of health makes those facts "moral." I imagine that part of the disagreement here is that you would like to say that "moral facts" must deal with some sort of sui generis "moral good" that in unrelated to things like health, etc.

I don't think such a division makes sense, but at the very least it needs to be justified. Second, I don't think a rejection of a transcendent Good constitutes anti-realism. This would make Sam Harris an anti-realist. Anti-realism should mean something like emotivism. It means there aren't facts about value, talk about value is boo-hoo and hoorah. Saying "goodness reduces to this material thing," like brain states (Harris) isn't saying facts about goodness don't exist for instance.

- I think you actually did fairly well in this exchange. But here is the error:

How come something that's worthy of choice therefore ought to be chosen? Don't we need an additional factor to take us over the bridge between "worthy" and "obligatory"? — J

"Ought to be chosen" != "Obligatory"

If it did, your argument would be sound. Your own example illustrates the same fact:

Or we might say, "You betrayed your partner. That was not a worthy choice, and you shouldn't have made it." — J

If "worthy" meant "obligatory," then you would be saying, "You betrayed your partner. That was not an obligatory choice,..."

(As an aside, "choice-worthy" != "ought to be chosen." We know this given the fact that we can identify multiple options as choice-worthy, even if we cannot choose them all. Semantic equivalence is not as common as your approach presupposes.)

I have to say, this sounds like a straw man

It wasn't meant to be a realistic depiction of their phenomenology. But you seem to just be using loose synonyms for good here, and having your anti-realist appeal to those. Why is a "healthy and harmonious" relationship preferable? If it is rationally known as a goal, it is for some reason. Why do they want to be "respectful" or "kind," etc.?

If it cannot be because "it is truly good," it has to bottom out somewhere else. Nowhere did I imply anti-realists are incapable of introspection. What they are incapable of is grounding their actions in a rational appetite. Hume, for his part, would say we prefer "harmonious and healthy" relationships and "kindness," etc. because of an innate, irrational prosocial sentiment. But of course, such a sentiment only justifies ethical behavior if you personally feel more strongly about the sentiment then about violating it.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

But you seem to just be using loose synonyms for good here, and having your anti-realist appeal to those. — Count Timothy von Icarus

In a way, that's right. From the point of view of moral realists like you and me, these terms are barely adequate, and don't go far enough to capture what seems vital to the moral uses of "good" and "right." But the anti-realist doesn't have to grant us that conceptual ontology. They don't see objective moral values as real. So "loose synonyms" from our point of view would be "what there is in the realm of moral discourse" for them. It's the best available, as they see it. And to be fair, we can hardly claim that every moral anti-realist must therefore make a botch of their ethical life. I've seen far too many examples to the contrary, and I'm sure you have too.

This highlights a really important point about the divide between realists and anti-realists. Neither side can simply legislate that the other is wrong about ontology. That would take us way outside of ethics. And I'd further claim that, this being so, each can maintain that their stance is reasonable/rational. The rationality -- or lack of it -- is not the problem.

So how do bedrock disputes about the ontology of values get settled, if not by rational argument? Well, as I was saying before . . . this calls for metanoia, not dialectics.

Bedtime here . . . be well!

But you seem to just be using loose synonyms for good here, and having your anti-realist appeal to those. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yep. It is swapping out "good" for "harmonious" and ignoring the fact that you have the exact same problem that you began with.

This is of course because "harmonious" connotes goodness. It's like saying, "Oh, I would never serve you peanuts. Here is a Thai noodle dish." "But this Thai noodle dish has peanuts in it!" "Well yes, but the name of the dish isn't 'peanuts', so it shouldn't affect your allergy."

Note that this is yet another case in which @J takes exception at the way in which some other group is being represented and then purports to be representing that group. But we have logically consistent moral anti-realists on the forum, such as Michael, and they wouldn't touch the words 'bad' and 'good' with a ten foot pole, nor would they claim that things like pain or harmony have any force in justifying practical syllogisms. They would not claim to have any rational justification for preventing animal suffering. So I don't see that @J's logically inconsistent portrayal is even an accurate representation of moral anti-realism.

So how do bedrock disputes about the ontology of values get settled, if not by rational argument? Well, as I was saying before . . . this calls for metanoia, not dialectics. — J

It is worth noting that this is your whole project: Pyrrhonian skepticism in the service of non-rational "metanoia" towards some end. You are saying, I think, "No moral position is any more rational than any other moral position, so let's all stop arguing and just work on ...metanoia." Supposing we stopped with the dialectics, how would we go about the metanoia?

(The curiosity here is that if you go tell a Greek speaker that metanoia has nothing to do with rational argument and dialogue, they would look at you like you're from Mars. I suspect you are anachronistically infusing Protestant fideism into a Greek term.)

Is slamming your own hand in a car door over and over until every bone in it is broken "rational?" What if you have a very strong desire to do it, and you explain: "why yes, I know it will hurt, and I know having a mangled hand will be inconvenient, and that physical therapy will be expensive. I have thought of all that through. I have balanced the variables. I am being rational. I still think the joy I would derive from slamming my hand in the door is such that it makes all this worth it."

Per your thoughts on smoking, this is "rationally" slamming your hand in a door until you cripple it. The only difference is that the desired action seems even less intuitively desirable. So long as the person seems to be making "informed consent" then it is "rational," by this standard, to pursue completely irrational desire, even up to the level of maiming oneself. On this view, the person with alien limb syndrome who has their own arm amputated isn't sick, they are just making a rational judgement based on strong desire. But they're desire to have a limb removed cannot be particularly irrational, since all desire is irrational.


I suppose the anti-realist can claim rationality in this extremely deflated sense. That doesn't make randomly crushing your hand rational in the classical sense, and it certainly doesn't make slavishly following "whatever desires I feel really strongly, but in a thoughtful way" self-determining freedom.

At any rate, you haven't responded to the argument at all. You've just said: "no 'rational' means this other, much more deflated thing." Ok, saying we accept that, the anti-realist is still quite incapable of the freedom the realist is pointing towards because they have no coherent way to order or transcend current desire. Nietzsche saw this, and it's why he makes everything simply a battle, the warring "congress of souls" vying for power in each soul.

This highlights a really important point about the divide between realists and anti-realists. Neither side can simply legislate that the other is wrong about ontology. That would take us way outside of ethics. And I'd further claim that, this being so, each can maintain that their stance is reasonable/rational. The rationality -- or lack of it -- is not the problem.

This just seems like: "you must default to the deflated "rationality" of "informed consent" or else you will be guilty of 'metaphysics' and not being polite." But any ethics worth its salt does tie to metaphysics. Chopping philosophy up into sui generis spaces and denying metaphysics its space as first philosophy is often just a way for nominalists, etc. to simply engage in question begging on metaphysics.

"Oh look, we'll start without presupposing anything about metaphysics, and that just so happens to mean doing all of ethics, philosophy of language, etc. as rigid nominalists to avoid presuppositions!" Neat how that works.

Is slamming your own hand in a car door over and over until every bone in it is broken "rational?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

Of course there are limit cases, examples of behavior that is so contrary to good judgment that we would call it irrational even if the person involved claimed to have good reasons for it. But to deny objective ethical values is not such an example -- if it is even a behavior at all. In what way is the moral anti-realist engaging in what we could only call crazy behavior, such as doing a horrible and unnecessary injury to oneself, over and over? This example is hopelessly tendentious, and makes the moral anti-realist out to be either stupid or insane. I know you don't really believe that, you have too much good sense yourself!

This just seems like: "you must default to the deflated "rationality" of "informed consent" or else you will be guilty of 'metaphysics' and not being polite. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Let me repeat a sentence from above:

Neither side can simply legislate that the other is wrong about ontology.

You seem to have taken this to mean that we can't argue about metaphysics, and must simply agree with any ontological position anyone takes. This isn't what I meant. I meant that I, as a realist about values, can't declare, without argument (legislate), to the anti-realist, "Your position doesn't hold up because you don't countenance objective values." Nor can the anti-realist say to me, "Your position doesn't hold up because you believe in items that don't exist," and expect me simply to accept it. For either of us to take such a stance, we'd just be claiming, without argument, that the other is working from false premises. And this may be true. But to show that it is true, we must (temporarily!) move away from ethical argument and talk metaphysics and ontology.

Indeed, that's what I would recommend in this conversation, should we pursue it. I think you're saying that the moral anti-realist has accepted mistaken premises about what is rational, and what sorts of items exist. Their metaphysics, in short, is faulty. I'm not sure about their version of rationality being wrong, thought it is certainly different from yours. And I quite agree that they fail to countenance entities -- more-or-less objective ethical values -- that I believe exist. So isn't this what we'd need to discuss with them? And in a manner that doesn't simply repeat, over and over, how wrong they are?

Why don't you explain what you think makes a choice "rational?" Apparently it's something like "informed consent and discursive reasoning + some level of 'good judgement.'" What is the criteria for the last part? "You know it when you see it?"

Barring early death, smoking will almost invariably cause lung disease to some degree and dental disease. I have never seen a lifetime smoker with good teeth (barring veneers). Maybe extreme outliers exist, but to "rationally choose to smoke," is pretty much to choose lung and dental disease on account of some good impulse. Why is destroying your hand in pursuit of irrational pleasure "irrational" and obvious "bad judgement," but destroying your lungs in pursuit of irrational pleasure fully "rational?"

Here is the thing, I think someone could rationally justify tobacco use. Soldiers often use smokeless tobacco to stay awake. Keeping awake on watch, or keeping focus as you pour over signals intelligence might very well be justifiable as "truly good," but then it isn't justified as: "I have this irrational sensible appetite and have thought long and hard about the costs of indulging it and decided to indulge it as irrational, to simply order some sensible appetites against others" Likewise, someone with alien limb syndrome might very well see amputation as truly better, because the irrational sensation of foreigness distracts them from truly choiceworthy ends. But this isn't the same as lopping off a limb in a judgement that ultimately bottoms out in impulse.

Second, I'd disagree that statements like:

"There is no fact of the matter as to whether or not it is good (or good for children) to torture and rape them. All we an say is "boo-hoo" and "hoorah: to such acts," are not contrary to "good judgement."

To deny that anything is truly better or worse than anything else is to deny that truth is truly preferable to falsify, good argument to bad argument, good faith to bad faith. It is to say that these are always only "good" as conditioned to some end, such that, depending on our impulses, they might not always be good. Sometimes falsity is better than truth, it just depends on what suits us at the moment.

This isn't "rationality" except by some extremely deflated definition. It's quite literally misology, the ruin of reason.

Why don't you explain what you think makes a choice "rational?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

Whew, you don't ask much, do you? :wink:

Let's say I could do this, cogently and succinctly, in a paragraph or two. (I don't think I could -- I doubt if there is a single answer -- but let's say I succeeded.) And let's say you then explained your own answer, perhaps derived from the Aristotelian tradition. We might find that the two explanations differed in some substantial ways.

What would you suggest we do then, given these differing explanations?

Here's a Beethoven CD and there's a Bach CD. I like Beethoven better than Bach.

This is a rational choice: I take the Beethoven CD.

That's an irrational choice: I take the Bach CD.

you can't imagine a scenario where it's rational to choose Bach when you like his music less? I can...

you can't imagine a scenario where it's rational to choose Bach when you like his music less? — flannel jesus

Yes, I can.

There can be countless factors that I may consider and take into account.

My point is, that every factor refers to what I like the most. I like good feelings and dislike bad feelings.

I like to help people, I dislike extreme egoism. I like to be alive and dislike dying. I like atheism better than theism. Like, like, like ... In the end it's always about liking A better than B.

All these factors can be set in a formula -- approximately. Not exactly, that would be utilitaristic. Feelings cannot be measured exactly, just approximately. I will give every comparison a "good-feeling" quotient:

Beethoven-music versus Bach-music -> 5 : 1 (I like all of Ludwig's symphonies)
Beethoven-CD-price-99$ versus Bach-CD-price-1$ -> 2 : 4 (I like to save money)
Beethoven-CD-on-Amazon versus Bach-CD-in-small-shop -> 0 : 5 (I dislike Bezos)
and so on ...

Summary so far: 7 : 10

So, in the end, choosing Bach will generate more joy. Therefore it's rational to take Bach.

Yes, I can.

There can be countless factors that I may consider and take into account.

My point is, that every factor refers to what I like the most. I like good feelings and dislike bad feelings. — Quk

Ah okay well that makes sense then, have a good day

every factor refers to what I like the most. I like good feelings and dislike bad feelings. — Quk

It's tough to make this work with examples of altruism and self-sacrifice. You'd have to stretch the meaning of "joy" awfully far. Jane throws herself on a grenade to save innocent others. Does this have to be irrational, given that "good feelings" hardly enter into the picture? And yet it's the sort of action we admire as an outcome of practical moral reasoning.

Agreed. Plus, it also tends to generate an inappropriate tautology where "whatever one does" is "what gives one the most positive sentiment/pleasure." This will tend to exclude the very apparent phenomena of "weakness of will," or "losing one's temper," etc. We cannot understand St. Paul in Romans 7 when he says: "I do the very thing that I hate," because it would seem that he must love what he does more than he hates it in virtue of the fact that he has chosen to do it. Part of the problem here stems from the collapse of the sensible and rational appetites, although there are some ways to fix it without invoking this distinction.

Agreed. Plus, it also tends to generate an inappropriate tautology where "whatever one does" is "what gives one the most positive sentiment/pleasure." This will tend to exclude the very apparent phenomena of "weakness of will," or "losing one's temper," etc. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think we could acknowledge that losing one's temper, and other semi-involuntary acts, are not covered by the thesis "we always choose what we like," on the grounds that they aren't really choices. This would just involve changing "whatever one does" to "whatever one does deliberately/thoughtfully/ voluntarily" et al. But it leaves unresolved the general problem you point out. It's very hard to get clear on whether the "what I choose = what I like" equivalence is supposed to be a discovery of empirical psychology, or a stipulation about how to use the words. @Quk's response, if they make one, to the question about altruism may help clarify how they mean that equation.

It's tough to make this work with examples of altruism and self-sacrifice. You'd have to stretch the meaning of "joy" awfully far. — J

I read the posts more as cost-benefit calculations (as in rational choice theory). It's not all that hard to account for altruism: even if there's no benefit to be had, there are still costs to minimise. It's just a matter of priorities. I though "joy" was just the word used in the context of Beethoven vs. Bach, while "good feelings" vs. "bad feelings" is the more general model. I'd like to append that in situations where there are no good feelings involved, it's likely "bad feelings" vs. "worse feelings". That said there might be some marginal good feelings in throwing yourself on a grenade: "I'll be remembered a hero!" As you say, it's the stuff we admire, and some people might enjoy the prospect of being admired.

Given how quickly granades explode, I wager there won't be much time for deliberation, though.

I thought "joy" was just the word used in the context of Beethoven vs. Bach, while "good feelings" vs. "bad feelings" is the more general model. I'd like to append that in situations where there are no good feelings involved, it's likely "bad feelings" vs. "worse feelings". — Dawnstorm

Yes, that's reasonable, otherwise you start thinking in terms of joyous martyrdom or some such. But even "bad" vs. "worse" is problematic. Should we imagine a self-sacrificing hero (with, as you say, a bit more time to cogitate than a grenade would allow) saying to herself, "I'll feel really bad if these innocent people die. I will feel nothing at all if I sacrifice myself to save them, since I'll be dead. So I'm choosing to feel nothing rather than feel really bad"? Maybe. But it would be a very subterranean level of cogitation, as it were; what usually goes through a hero's mind is thoughts of duty and compassion, I would imagine, not how rotten they'll feel if they funk it. I'm inclined to say that it's only plausible if, for independent reasons, we've already decided to rule out genuinely altruistic motives as incompatible with the "what I choose = what I like" equation. Then we can say, "She thinks she's acting from altruistic motives but here's what's really going on -- it's what she likes, even if she doesn't realize it."

One other point: "what I like" doesn't have to be construed as "what makes me happy" or "what feels good." It can also mean "what I value and stand for in my life, on grounds quite other than pleasant sensations." People do like doing the right thing, as they conceive it. On this construal, we can almost make sense of the situation above as being about "what she likes": She is so committed to living her life as a certain sort of person -- the sort who will make the heroic choice here -- that she would find that life literally unlivable if she fails to do so. So it's no longer a choice between "feeling really bad" and "not feeling anything." It's now between two sorts of unlivability -- death, and moral disgrace -- one of which at least will spare the innocents.

When we start to describe ethical actions with this sort of language, though, I think it's time to just drop the whole "what I like" idea, and go back to the usual discourse about values, right and wrong, etc.

I think the word "rational" comes from "ratio".

For example, "1/2", "1:2", "5/4", "5 versus 4", "A/B" are ratios.

When I try to make a rational decision, I compare and evaluate the ratio of A to B.

For instance, Beethoven/Bach, folk/jazz, folk/blues, Picasso/Rembrandt, islam/christianity, islam/buddhism, chistianity/hinduism, Tuesday/Monday, summer/winter, winter/spring, Harris/Trump, apple/orange, headache/cholera, airplane/bus, bus/ship, Florida/California, marxism/capitalism, anarchy/monarchy, Joe/Jack, female/male, Asia/Africa, Asia/Australia, thriller/comedy, altruism/egoism etc.

Whatever I choose, in the end I choose from two options. If there are multiple choices -- three, for instance -- I compare A with B, B with C, C with A. So each single step handles two options; not more, not less.

And whatever I choose in the end, I choose the one that I like better than the other.

I assume our mental system consists of two subsystems: The first includes qualities; these are qualia, emotions, feelings, senses, impressions. The second subsystem is a computer; it calculates the direction I need to go when I cross the street; it computes the number of days till Christmas. This computer contains no qualities, i.e. no emotions etc. This calculator is the assistant of the first subsystem, the emotional one. The evolution probably developed the emotional subsystem first and added the second subsystem later.

This calculator, this second subsystem, does the rational work.

The first subsystem contains the emotions.

If I were to make a rational decision just to reach another rational goal, I would be caught in an infinite regress. I would be trapped in a mathematical bubble without any feelings, impressions, emotions. I wouldn't be a living creature; I would be a robot.

Therefore this calculator only makes sense if its results are used outside its mathematical bubble, namely in the emotional subsystem.

What do I do in my life? What do I want to do? I do what I like. I don't like pain. So I try to avoid pain. I don't like to die, so I try to stay alive. I want to kiss Mary, so I ask her if I may. I don't like to kill Joe, so I won't do it. I like the story of religion A or ideology B, there I feel at home, so I support this instead of the other. There is no meta religion or meta ideology that determines which religion or ideology is the best for everyone or that tells which one is absolutely correct. There is no absolutism. Everything is relative. X in relation to Y. And if it's about life and not about math, the goal is not math but good quality, i.e. aim at joy, good feelings, happiness. It's that simple.

I can't describe what a good feeling is. It's just there. It's one of the qualia. Qualitative properties like red, sweet, loud, sad, joyous etc. cannot be described in words. They existed before language was invented. They are themselves.

Now, rational decisions can be linked with each other and the whole network may become very complex. For example:

What do I like better?
[Beethoven or Bach]
[[Beethoven] on Tuesday or Sunday]
[[[Beethoven] on Sunday] with red wine or white wine]
... and so on.

It may get so complex that a final rational decision is impossible within the next five minutes or weeks or years.

Intuitive decisions can help sometimes.

I guess intuition is a set of instructions stored in memory. If an instruction is successful, it gets stored for later quick reuse. Very efficient. Many of them are also stored in our genes probably. But all in all they too can be considered rational, I think, because the one instruction was just more successful than the other. So do it this way, as stored in memory, in the genes, in intuition.

Yes, that's reasonable, otherwise you start thinking in terms of joyous martyrdom or some such. But even "bad" vs. "worse" is problematic. Should we imagine a self-sacrificing hero (with, as you say, a bit more time to cogitate than a grenade would allow) saying to herself, "I'll feel really bad if these innocent people die. I will feel nothing at all if I sacrifice myself to save them, since I'll be dead. So I'm choosing to feel nothing rather than feel really bad"? Maybe. But it would be a very subterranean level of cogitation, as it were; what usually goes through a hero's mind is thoughts of duty and compassion, I would imagine, not how rotten they'll feel if they funk it. I'm inclined to say that it's only plausible if, for independent reasons, we've already decided to rule out genuinely altruistic motives as incompatible with the "what I choose = what I like" equation. Then we can say, "She thinks she's acting from altruistic motives but here's what's really going on -- it's what she likes, even if she doesn't realize it." — J

Well, there are two things going on. One is how we make decisions based on value (where rational choice comes in), and the other is where value comes from (e.g. "feelings" - rational choice theory doesn't demand that feelings be the source of values, just that you have values).

But what values does a "truly altruistic person" have? "I want others to be happy"? And in what terms would you describe the value? If you want to describe the value with respect to rationality, rational choice can probably achieve that, but they'd need recourse to other values. And there are pretty much only two options open I can see: some sort of structuralism - it's all circular, values feed into other values etc. Or values come from something other than rational thought (e.g. we are "social animals").

A rational choice theorist who decides values derive ultimately from feelings would likely describe "genuniely altruistic feelings" in terms of feeling - maing others feel good feels good. And I don't see how that would devalue altruism. Or differently put: if making other people feel good didn't make you feel good, would you be "genuinely altruistic"? Maybe. But "genuine altruism" is a loaded term here. You need to be aware that a rational choice theory might describe that differently from you.

Again, rational choice theory isn't something I read widely. At university I've written a paper about the sociology of suicide; one approach was rational choice - it was, I think, my least favourite approach. I don't remember the name of either the author or the book anymore, but that was my most in-depth reading of a rational-choice point of view. I went with summaries for the rest of my studies. All this to say, it's never been my expertise. So take what I say with a grain of salt.

It's now between two sorts of unlivability -- death, and moral disgrace -- one of which at least will spare the innocents. — J

Yes, as I said, "bad" vs. "worse". Where there's no gain, you minimise cost. Ultimately it's "feelings"; they needn't be pleasant. That's a misconception. You can rescue a modicum of pleasantness by, say, attaching it to the hero concept. Some people can feel at peace if they take a role with only lousy prospects, but it's socially valued. Identification is a powerful enabler.

Turn this around, the same person who might be touched by the heroism eulogy might berate her for being reckless while drunk in the bar and missing her. Where there's a tension field between feelings you can use rational thought to establish a legitimisation structure, so you can feel good about doing the right thing. "I was drunk; I didn't mean it." And then you put some emotional weight behind "objective morality" so you can feel good about yourself.

I think people are too messy to be rational when choosing. That said, rational thought does play its part; we just need to pin down "where".

If you want to describe the value with respect to rationality, rational choice can probably achieve that, but they'd need recourse to other values. And there are pretty much only two options open I can see: some sort of structuralism - it's all circular, values feed into other values etc. Or values come from something other than rational thought (e.g. we are "social animals"). — Dawnstorm

I'd have to think about whether these are indeed the only two options, but in any case I'm happy to go with the second: Values are discovered, not deduced. The idea, which is common among many philosophers, that values can be apodictically derived from first principles or definitions, doesn't seem plausible to me. The only thing that might come close would be the Kantian notion that the process of practical reason may be deduced from a metaphysics of autonomy, but that isn't quite the same thing. Also, the example of "we are social animals" is usually meant in a reductionist way (values aren't what we think they are, but rather reduce to . . . ), and I'm not speaking of that sort of discovery, if it is one, at all.

So take what I say with a grain of salt. — Dawnstorm

Take mine with pepper!

if making other people feel good didn't make you feel good, would you be "genuinely altruistic"? — Dawnstorm

That's an important question. It harks back to the distinction I was making between the various ways we can understand "what I like" or "feeling good." I might derive no pleasure whatsoever from doing something altruistic that I believe it's my responsibility to do. But in the wider, quality-of-my-life sense, trying to do this sort of thing is "what I like." Trouble is, I don't like it because of any specific feeling I expect to arise from it. I like it because I believe it's morally right. It accords with my values. That's where I think the whole "ultimately it's feelings" view breaks down. (Not to say that being kind never feels good. Of course it does!)

Let's say that's a description of "genuine altruism." Would your view entail that such a person couldn't actually exist -- or at best would be in denial about what they were feeling?