It seems like it's time to put forward our various ideas of utility. If you would like to criticise other posts, that is fine, but please don't forget to put forward a definition of utility and explain examples of what is valuable and what is not.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My view is that utility is to be found in conscious experience. We know that certain things are valuable because we can experience them. We then recognise that others can feel similarly and so we move from egoism to utilitarianism.

People often use the phrase 'preference satisfaction', but that's not my understanding of utilitarianism. For example, I don't see negative utility in sexual activity between two men on the basis that many people prefer it not to occur. If I had to use the phrase preference satisfaction, I'd say that this is an illegitimate preference because the actions of the homosexual couple actually have no impact on people who oppose it.

You hear plenty of utility words tossed around. As I see it, these words can be organised according to their connotation. Pleasure is understood to refer to lower level feelings (sex, food, painful sensation) Fulfillment is understood to refer to upper level feelings (achieving a promotion, being tormented by bullying, knowing that some other preference has been satisfied). So I try to carve a middle road. I use the words happiness and wellbeing because they seem not to exclude any of our feelings.

I'm not too bothered about the word we use. What's key to me is that we're referring to mental/emotional states, not a relationship between such states and events in the outside world.

Arepo wrote:I'm not too bothered about the word we use. What's key to me is that we're referring to mental/emotional states, not a relationship between such states and events in the outside world.

I am not too bothered either as long as it is a relationship between such states and the outside world!!!

This seems to be a key dividing line between us although I seem to be the only preference utilitarian here... which is surprising because it evolved in order to counteract criticisms of hedonism/eudaemonic utilities and is the dominant position taken amongst modern utilitarians.

The real question Arepo is why? Why is it important to be about mental/emotional states without relating to the outside world? This seems highly artificial and very odd. Why is it important to you guys that the outside world does not matter?

RyanCarey wrote:People often use the phrase 'preference satisfaction', but that's not my understanding of utilitarianism. For example, I don't see negative utility in sexual activity between two men on the basis that many people prefer it not to occur. If I had to use the phrase preference satisfaction, I'd say that this is an illegitimate preference because the actions of the homosexual couple actually have no impact on people who oppose it.

Oh, so do you see negative utility in sexual activity between two men on the basis that it makes many people unhappy if it occurs? Ah do you say it is illegitimate to be unhappy because the actions of the homosexual couple actually have no impact on people who oppose it?

AFAICS this is not an argument against preference satisfaction but a vague criticism of any utility.

Is this your only argument against preference satisfaction?

faithlessgod wrote:I am not too bothered either as long as it is a relationship between such states and the outside world!!!

The real question Arepo is why? Why is it important to be about mental/emotional states without relating to the outside world? This seems highly artificial and very odd. Why is it important to you guys that the outside world does not matter?

Interesting question. In a way it's quite encouraging to specify a fundamental point we disagree on, since it should hopefully make it easier to find the source of (and hopefully resolution to) the disagreement. But I'll have to wimp out now, and come back to this later - getting ready to go to Iceland on Friday.

faithlessgod wrote:The real question Arepo is why? Why is it important to be about mental/emotional states without relating to the outside world? This seems highly artificial and very odd. Why is it important to you guys that the outside world does not matter?

The real question, faithlessgod, is why? Why is it important to be about mental/emotional states with relation to the outside world? This seems highly artificial and very odd. Why is it important to you that the outside world matters?

faithlessgod wrote:

RyanCarey wrote:People often use the phrase 'preference satisfaction', but that's not my understanding of utilitarianism. For example, I don't see negative utility in sexual activity between two men on the basis that many people prefer it not to occur. If I had to use the phrase preference satisfaction, I'd say that this is an illegitimate preference because the actions of the homosexual couple actually have no impact on people who oppose it.

Oh, so do you see negative utility in sexual activity between two men on the basis that it makes many people unhappy if it occurs? Ah do you say it is illegitimate to be unhappy because the actions of the homosexual couple actually have no impact on people who oppose it?

AFAICS this is not an argument against preference satisfaction but a vague criticism of any utility.

Is this your only argument against preference satisfaction?

Hi Faithlessgod
I'm not trying to gang up on the non-classical utilitarian; but I should put forward a simple argument.

I think that we should draw our ethics from firm evidence. And there is nothing that we can observe more directly than our feelings. That is, when we feel good, we can tell that this is good. When we feel bad, we can feel that this is bad, etc.

Now my example of the homosexual couple wasn't an attempt at refuting preference utilitarianism. I just want to encourage you to follow preference (or desire) utilitarianism to its logical conclusion. The question is of private homosexual intercourse. For classical utilitarians, this is acceptable since it has no emotional consequence. However, for a preference utilitarian, there is negative utility. I figure it's similar for a desire utilitarian. There is negative utility for a preference or desire utilitarian because homosexual sex thwarts preferences/desires of conservative people. However, since this intercourse is private, it does not affect conservative people emotionally. Therefore, as a desire utilitarian, homosexual sex is definitely a bad thing.

Do you agree with this interpretation?

edit: more correctly, I mean to say that homosexual sex has negative utility.

DanielLC wrote:

faithlessgod wrote:The real question Arepo is why? Why is it important to be about mental/emotional states without relating to the outside world? This seems highly artificial and very odd. Why is it important to you guys that the outside world does not matter?

The real question, faithlessgod, is why? Why is it important to be about mental/emotional states with relation to the outside world? This seems highly artificial and very odd. Why is it important to you that the outside world matters?

Well if you don't think it matters why are you bothering to reply to me? How can you do that without presupposing the outside world matters. Please respond further without making that presupposition... otherwise surely your position is self-defeating?

Arepo wrote:Interesting question. In a way it's quite encouraging to specify a fundamental point we disagree on, since it should hopefully make it easier to find the source of (and hopefully resolution to) the disagreement. But I'll have to wimp out now, and come back to this later - getting ready to go to Iceland on Friday.

Yes still I am happy (sic) to change my utility in the light of evidence heck even give up U if I can be shown something better, I am an empiricist after all.

However I get a sense that others here are ideologically attached a certain utility come what may. This I find surprising or maybe I shouldn't?

RyanCarey wrote:

faithlessgod wrote:

RyanCarey wrote:People often use the phrase 'preference satisfaction', but that's not my understanding of utilitarianism. For example, I don't see negative utility in sexual activity between two men on the basis that many people prefer it not to occur. If I had to use the phrase preference satisfaction, I'd say that this is an illegitimate preference because the actions of the homosexual couple actually have no impact on people who oppose it.

Oh, so do you see negative utility in sexual activity between two men on the basis that it makes many people unhappy if it occurs? Ah do you say it is illegitimate to be unhappy because the actions of the homosexual couple actually have no impact on people who oppose it?

AFAICS this is not an argument against preference satisfaction but a vague criticism of any utility.

Is this your only argument against preference satisfaction?

Hi Faithlessgod
I'm not trying to gang up on the non-classical utilitarian; but I should put forward a simple argument.

Don't worry, shoot away

RyanCarey wrote:I think that we should draw our ethics from firm evidence.

Agreed

RyanCarey wrote: And there is nothing that we can observe more directly than our feelings. That is, when we feel good, we can tell that this is good. When we feel bad, we can feel that this is bad, etc.

Our observed feelings can be mistaken and this is not empirical evidence until it can be independently verified. That is one reason why I prefer (ahem) Desire Fulfilment over internal happiness utilities. Of course I am looking for an objective approach, if you are not bothered by that fine, that is what I seek.

RyanCarey wrote:Now my example of the homosexual couple wasn't an attempt at refuting preference utilitarianism. I just want to encourage you to follow preference (or desire) utilitarianism to its logical conclusion. The question is of private homosexual intercourse. For classical utilitarians, this is acceptable since it has no emotional consequence.

I already gave you answer. This conclusion does not follow, where is your evidence? Look at Proposition 8 in California, its passing made a lot of people happy at the cost of another group being harmed.

RyanCarey wrote: However, for a preference utilitarian, there is negative utility.

Well I do not know what you mean by preference satisfaction, how about you explain this example properly because as I already showed it looks more like a strawman argument against any utilitarianism, I fail to see how you can single out PU without at the same time condemning happiness as well. Lets see the reasoning

RyanCarey wrote: I figure it's similar for a desire utilitarian. There is negative utility for a preference or desire utilitarian because homosexual sex thwarts preferences/desires of conservative people. However, since this intercourse is private, it does not affect conservative people emotionally.

OK now I see your argument but am unconvinced. Where is your evidence that conservative people do not have an emotional reaction to homosexual acts. Normally when something is thwarted there is an accompanying inner response of frustration or worse, so surely them thinkting theri desires are thwarted would lead to unhappiness responses?

Anyway you are misrepresenting DU. Since the conservatives' desire to prevent homosexual marriage ec. is a desire that tends to thwart other desires- to harm others and make them suffer - it is a desire to be condemned.

However if there more unhappy conservatives than homosexuals surely the right act is to ban homosexuality or worse - to maximise happiness?

RyanCarey wrote: Therefore, as a desire utilitarian, homosexual sex is definitely a bad thing.

False

RyanCarey wrote:Do you agree with this interpretation?

Sorry but no as the above should indicate.

Anyway I think you have just given a bad example and I think it pointless to go back and forth showing how each other's util is for or against homosexuality or equivalent. IMHO this is a poor argument, there are better ones against PU why not use them?

Ok, I acknowledge that you find I misrepresent DU. Well let's return to preference utilitarianism:
When two individuals have private homosexual sex, this doesn't makeconservatives unhappy. You've asked for my evidence of this. Well it's because the conservatives don't find out about it! You can't suffer from a private homosexual act because it has no impact outside of that person's home. There is no negative utility.

However, preference utility gives the opposite conclusion.

I'm not trying to disprove preference utilitarianism. I'm just pointing out the consequences of the rivalling ethical systems. For a more obvious example, suppose a boy checks out a girl on public transport. The girl did not notice. However, she prefers not to be ogled in this way. She did not suffer from the experience, but a her preference to be respected was thwarted.

So, to put it bluntly, classical utilitarianism says it doesn't matter if they dont' find out. Preference utilitarianism says it does. I hope you now understand my point.

Hi Ryan

I am sure this debate will run and run, hopefuly we can learn from each other. Note I certainly do not want to scare anyone off this forum given my position. Anyway I am in a minority here but you wont scare me off either! (I note this given that Rob who, in spite of our differences, was IMHO far closer to my position than anyone else so far, seems to have left the building )

A basic preliminary point here is my objection to HU is not that I deny that many if not all of us have a desire for happiness and an aversion to pain. Just that this is not the only or the single ultimate motivator. This our real the point of difference. Now lets look at your post.

RyanCarey wrote:Ok, I acknowledge that you find I misrepresent DU. Well let's return to preference utilitarianism:

Bear in mind that I support DU as it solves IMHO many of the flaws of PS by which I mean Preference Satisfaction Rule Utilitarianism. Anyway I think PS can be defended here but I will leave you to come up with objections which only IMHO point towards DU as the best candidate solution.

RyanCarey wrote:When two individuals have private homosexual sex, this doesn't makeconservatives unhappy. You've asked for my evidence of this. Well it's because the conservatives don't find out about it! You can't suffer from a private homosexual act because it has no impact outside of that person's home. There is no negative utility.

OK I see this now "private" maybe I missed this before or maybe you are only now changing this (no time to check previous posts), either way no problem.

However the particular challenge of morality I look at is the problematic interactions between people, direct and indirect. Here we are looking at indirect interactions. However if you are going to use ignorance (of these private acts) as a defence of HU here then surely the same goes for PS. In both scenarios if the conservative found out they would be unhappy and have their preferences dissatisfied. (My version of PS, DU specifically DF does have a different take on this which I provided in my previous post - conservatives interfering with the private consenting acts of others, including encouraging each other to be unhappy about this, is to be condemned).

RyanCarey wrote:However, preference utility gives the opposite conclusion.

If it is in secret then I do not see this with the DF caveat above.

RyanCarey wrote:I'm not trying to disprove preference utilitarianism. I'm just pointing out the consequences of the rivalling ethical systems.

For sure

RyanCarey wrote: For a more obvious example, suppose a boy checks out a girl on public transport. The girl did not notice. However, she prefers not to be ogled in this way. She did not suffer from the experience, but a her preference to be respected was thwarted.

My initial response is that you agree with "ignorance is bliss"? Now this is a trivial example - it is unreasonable for her to expect no-one to ogle here and she will inevitably be unhappy in having that preference. Note that we do not look at a specific case but at the general implications of having a rule. So will sooner or later she will experience find her personal rule broken. However PS would not recommend that every woman - attractive or not - follows the rule to prefer not to be ogled. That is a rule destined to be dissatisfied on numerous occasions. (PS does recommend a rule not to rape etc. which is quite a different matter - apart from anything else ignorance is not an option)

RyanCarey wrote:So, to put it bluntly, classical utilitarianism says it doesn't matter if they dont' find out. Preference utilitarianism says it does. I hope you now understand my point.

I do see. However this brings to mind the "painlessly killing the villagers in a remote village" though experiment in another thread - as long as no-one finds out that is morally OK then according to CU but is morally wrong according to PS/DU.

RyanCarey wrote:Therefore, as a desire utilitarian, homosexual sex is definitely a bad thing.

Just to nitpick, I think what you mean is that homosexual sex has negative utility (as well as positive) - calling it 'definitely a bad thing' seems to imply that the negative outweighs the positive.

faithlessgod wrote:However I get a sense that others here are ideologically attached a certain utility come what may. This I find surprising or maybe I shouldn't?

We all have some amount of status quo bias, especially for our most fundamental views. I like to think (as most here probably do) that I'd change my ethics faced with a sound argument against them - but none of us have actually done so since joining this forum. So our view that we might change our mind lacks evidence

Look at Proposition 8 in California, its passing made a lot of people happy at the cost of another group being harmed.

Let's stay focused here - Proposition 8 is a law about whether homosexuals can marry (IIRC). It's not a (private) act of homosexual sex. Since it's a public issue with numerous supporters, pretty much any utilitarian will have to accept that it has some positive utility - we just tend to believe that the negative utility outweighs it.

Normally when something is thwarted there is an accompanying inner response of frustration or worse, so surely them thinkting theri desires are thwarted would lead to unhappiness responses?

To add to Ryan's reply, the point we're making here is that thwarted desires have no such response unless the desirer is aware they've been thwarted. So to an HU, utility and disutility require observation. To a PU they don't (as Ryan says, this is a matter of definition rather than an argument for or against either). I'm not entirely sure yet whether they do for a DU - but if not, then I don't think it's helpful to call DU a subset of PU.

Actually this is quite an interesting question Ryan so let me expand upon my answer.
We know in advance that anti-homosexuals (I think conservative is the wrong category) are unhappy about homosexual acts and have a preference for them not to occur. As a result these behaviours (and relationships) become hidden and secretive and what you are saying is that HU supports that solution? PS/DU would instead condemn such anti-homosexuals as these attitudes and the acts that can follow from them cause harm and suffering to innocent people.

faithlessgod wrote:As a result these behaviours (and relationships) become hidden and secretive and what you are saying is that HU supports that solution? PS/DU would instead condemn such anti-homosexuals as these attitudes and the acts that can follow from them cause harm and suffering to innocent people.

I think we should be careful to avoid saying that any version of util 'supports' any real world decision, simply because we can't be sure of the consequences of any action. Util requires evidence (and an epistemology through which to filter that evidence) before it can offer any direction...

Arepo wrote:We all have some amount of status quo bias, especially for our most fundamental views. I like to think (as most here probably do) that I'd change my ethics faced with a sound argument against them - but none of us have actually done so since joining this forum. So our view that we might change our mind lacks evidence

For sure early days yet. Interesting in another forum (CFI) and as incidental evidence for myself, both myself and an opponent have convinced each other to change our positions - we agree to agree (I no longer think free will is an illusion, it is an inferential mistake and he no longer thinks that blameworthy and praiseworthy require a libertarian free will). Now we don't know what to talk about!

Arepo wrote:Let's stay focused here - Proposition 8 is a law about whether homosexuals can marry (IIRC). It's not a (private) act of homosexual sex. Since it's a public issue with numerous supporters, pretty much any utilitarian will have to accept that it has some positive utility - we just tend to believe that the negative utility outweighs it.

Granted this is a different question, now I understand Ryan's point about private and secret acts answered in other responses in this thread. However here, DU does not see support for Prop 8 as having any positive utility - since this requires a desire that tends to thwart other desires. Why I brought this up was because I do not examine specific acts on a case by case basis (CU) but look at the overall effects of different rule (PS) or different desires (DU) across cases. This reflects an orthogonal issue and stance to debates over utility but one equally important in achieving communication. There is a two dimensional difference between CU and Modern Utilitarianism (inclusive of PS and DU). Dimension 1: Utility Dimension (satisfaction versus fulfilment) 2: Evaluation focus (acts versus rules or desires).

Arepo wrote:To add to Ryan's reply, the point we're making here is that thwarted desires have no such response unless the desirer is aware they've been thwarted. So to an HU, utility and disutility require observation. To a PU they don't (as Ryan says, this is a matter of definition rather than an argument for or against either). I'm not entirely sure yet whether they do for a DU - but if not, then I don't think it's helpful to call DU a subset of PU.

Yes this is the knowledge condition and yes it does apply to DU. However the mistake is thinking about actual desire fulfilment - whether ones knows about it or not. This relates to an act-consequentialist view of things. DU is a form of motive-consequentialism and this is very important. The consequences are the desires themselves. It is true we may not know whether all our desires are actually fulfilled or thwarted, but we certainly do know that some are or will be. The question is, is the knowledge condition critical to personal well-being? If so, this puts a constraint on other-regarding desires, that we should not desire something for someone else unless we will know whether that desire is fulfilled or not. So we should not wish anyone well if we will never meet them again? I don't know about you but I find something suspect in this line of reasoning. Then again one can bring in the Experience Machine as if you enter it that you will never know that your desires have not been fulfilled but be happy nonetheless. So if you want to insist upon a knowledge requirement then you should not enter the experience machine! These are just musings on this, maybe this deserves its own thread?

Arepo wrote:

faithlessgod wrote:As a result these behaviours (and relationships) become hidden and secretive and what you are saying is that HU supports that solution? PS/DU would instead condemn such anti-homosexuals as these attitudes and the acts that can follow from them cause harm and suffering to innocent people.

I think we should be careful to avoid saying that any version of util 'supports' any real world decision, simply because we can't be sure of the consequences of any action. Util requires evidence (and an epistemology through which to filter that evidence) before it can offer any direction...

Well you have not answered the question
Of course we cant be sure of the all specific consequences of any actions, but we can be quite clear about the likely consequences on the real world and that is all that is required (again case simpliciter versus overall affects across cases - the difference between CU and MU). Hence we recommend desires that tend to fulfil other desires - we do not need know what those other desires are and which ones are actually fulfilled but we can know as to whether a desire is likely to hinder or help in the fulfilment of those other desires. DU is really a system for reducing friction in interpersonal interactions and we can identify what increases and decreases friction and utilize means to decrease friction (social forces).

Now whilst you did not answer my question I will attempt to specially answer yours.

Arepo wrote:I think we should be careful to avoid saying that any version of util 'supports' any real world decision, simply because we can't be sure of the consequences of any action. Util requires evidence (and an epistemology through which to filter that evidence) before it can offer any direction...

The evidence in DU is as to whether desires are fulfilled or thwarted. This is a matter of empirical inquiry. We look at the material and physical effects of the fulfilling the desire under evaluation on all other relevant desires. Is this difficult in practice, well it varies sometimes we can only guess and other times we can be far more detailed. Anyone carrying out such a DU analysis is open to an internal critique (assuming the validity DU itself) challenging as to whether, say, all relevant desires have been identified and what the likely effects are.

With respect to proposition 8 there are quite clear empirical legal and financial harms that affect innocent people as the result of its passing. There is clear evidence that Proposition 8 is a desire thwarting proposition.

A while ago I came up with a Pavlovian idea of classic utility. Essentially, if someone does what they're doing more, they're happy. If they do what they're doing less, they're unhappy. Example: every time Pavlov's dog poops inside, punish him. He poops inside less. Therefore, he dislikes the punishment. One practical result is that any animal that can't learn can't have utility, negative or positive. Thus, you don't have to worry about animal cruelty with those animals. Go ahead and kill the insects in your house. It also creates a simple way to test if something causes an animal pain. Can you train a lobster not to do something by dumping it in hot water every time it does so? If not, go ahead and boil them alive. It doesn't hurt. I figure without something like that it makes just as much sense to say lobsters like being boiled alive as it does that they hate it.

Hey Daniel looks like its just you and me on this forum at the mo. Hope others wake up. And interesting idea the Pavlovian test we could call it. I will chew on that.

Anyway my point in the other thread is pertinent here. I do not think utility is determinate - either fungible or commensurate. In DU it would be desire fulfilment except that is certainly pluralistic - given a large range of types of desire even if a few are very popular such as a desire for happiness and an aversion to pain - they are not the only ones nor specifically are others reducible to them (without defining the meaning out of terms such as happiness). DU is not desire fulfilment act utilitarianism (DFAU) and so does not seek to maximize this utility which DFAU would but I do not endorse DFAU, partly for the reasons just stated.

Hi guys,
I'll pick you up, Faithlessgod, on your point "Dimension 1: Utility Dimension (satisfaction versus fulfilment) 2: Evaluation focus (acts versus rules or desires)."
I think that's a really helpful way of breaking down the dispute. So let's discuss this utility dimension. I believe in satisfaction (the feeling) whereas you believe in fulfilment (the event). So I'll just give some examples

Bill hopes that there are aliens on Mars. Suppose that there are aliens on Mars. Is this good? Suppose Bill then finds out that there are aliens on Mars. Is this good? Is the important part that Bill's wish is true or that Bill knows that his wish is true?
Now let's focus on these two options as ends. That the aliens might invade Earth or that Bill might appear on daytime TV is beside the point. Let's do the same for my other examples too.

Chris's pet fish died. That this fish died makes him very sad. Is the problem that the fish died or that he is sad? Suppose his fish jumped out of its tank and died but then a new fish hopped in its place. His fish has still died, but Chris is happy. What do we make of that?

Dean mentally undresses Eva. Eva does not want to be treated in this way but she is unaware of it. Is this wrong?

Fred hates the Australian Cricket team. He becomes stuck on a desert island. The Australian cricket team then wins lots of matches. Is it bad that the Australian cricket team has defied Fred's wishes even though he did not find out?

Hopefully that's enough examples to get the idea across.

PS DanielC, your idea of feelings as 'what makes us change' is something that I find tremendously interesting. I feel like most nights I go to sleep I'm going to wonder about consciousness until someone comes up with a sensible solution. I'd be hugely interested in hearing what if anything else you have to say on the subject.

Heya Ryan happ[y New year to you (and everyone else here)

RyanCarey wrote:Hi guys,
I'll pick you up, Faithlessgod, on your point "Dimension 1: Utility Dimension (satisfaction versus fulfilment) 2: Evaluation focus (acts versus rules or desires)."
I think that's a really helpful way of breaking down the dispute. So let's discuss this utility dimension. I believe in satisfaction (the feeling) whereas you believe in fulfilment (the event). So I'll just give some examples

Great. However but I am not sure your examples are to the point. Do many people very often have a desire for satisfaction- for the inner experiential feeling when a desire is fulfilled? Of course, I do not deny this. I only hold that this is not the only or single ultimate desire or desire-as-end. The focus on (outer) fulfilment over (inner) satisfaction is multiple. First it is only this that can effect others. Second this is amenable to direct empirical investigation and inquiry. Thirdly we can get feedback from the use of social forces to mould malleable desires by what changes in terms of what desires people then seek to fulfil or not. And none of this requires having some utility to maximize with all the measurement problems and indeterminism behind that.

Anyway lets look at your examples

RyanCarey wrote:Bill hopes that there are aliens on Mars. Suppose that there are aliens on Mars. Is this good?

If Bill desires that P and P is true then Bill's desire is fulfilled. Bill can optionally call this good.
If P="there are aliens on Mars" (1) and P is true then this is good.

RyanCarey wrote: Suppose Bill then finds out that there are aliens on Mars. Is this good?

This is different.
Bill desires that "he knows that there are aliens on Mars" (2). (This is an agent-relative desire, the above was an agent-neutral desire? This is no longer solely an other-regarding desire but both an other-regarding and self-regarding desire)
There are two conditions of fulfilment of (2): a) that (1) is true and b) that he knows that (1) is true

RyanCarey wrote:Is the important part that Bill's wish is true or that Bill knows that his wish is true?

Depends on whether we are talking about desire (1) or desire (2). Looks like this is a form of equivocation although I am sure a quite innocent one. You are making me work and helping me get clearer in my thinking.

RyanCarey wrote:Now let's focus on these two options as ends. That the aliens might invade Earth or that Bill might appear on daytime TV is beside the point. Let's do the same for my other examples too.

Huh? Really do not know what you mean here but then you have asked no further questions.

RyanCarey wrote:Chris's pet fish died. That this fish died makes him very sad. Is the problem that the fish died or that he is sad?

It depends. What is the problem exactly?

RyanCarey wrote:Suppose his fish jumped out of its tank and died but then a new fish hopped in its place. His fish has still died, but Chris is happy. What do we make of that?

If Chris's desire is that his specific fish is alive and it is not, then his desire is thwarted.

This is easier understood using deception. Deception is about fooling people into thinking a desire has been fulfilled (or not thwarted) when that is not the case. (This is clearer in a less miraculous version of your example where a friend accidentally killed Chris's fish and replaced it)

RyanCarey wrote:Dean mentally undresses Eva. Eva does not want to be treated in this way but she is unaware of it. Is this wrong?

Yes Eva's desire has been thwarted, and this is bad (not wrong directly). She does not know this. To expand
Eva does not want to be treated this and she is prefers not to know about it. In this case this is not bad (the "and" is conjunction).
Eva does not want to be treated this and she prefers know about it if it occurs. In this case this is bad because both conditions have been thwarted.
(remember using terms such as good, bad and wrong are redundant or at least optional) However this is pretty illogical desire to have.

The issue here is that the knowledge condition is an additional condition of fulfilment of a desire and it is up to the creator of the desire the specify this as a condition or not (whether they do this consciously or unwittingly). ( Remember a desire can be specified in terms of its conditions of fulfilment - that is this is another way of stating the desire)

RyanCarey wrote:Fred hates the Australian Cricket team. He becomes stuck on a desert island. The Australian cricket team then wins lots of matches. Is it bad that the Australian cricket team has defied Fred's wishes even though he did not find out?

This is vagueish. Fred has an aversion to the Australian Cricket Team succeeding and feels good when he knows this aversion is fulfilled and feels bad when he knows this aversion is thwarted? So the full specification of the conditions of fulfilment of this aversion are a) the ACT fails b) (a) is true makes Fred feel good c) (a) is false makes Fred feel bad d) Fred needs to know whether (a) is true of false.

ACT defying Fred's wishes is nothing to do with ACT, only to do with Fred. I really can't make much sense of your challenge here.

RyanCarey wrote:
Hopefully that's enough examples to get the idea across.

Well this hope is thwarted, I really am not sure what point you are now trying to make.

Welcome back FG

I'll tag in quickly for Ryan on a couple of points:

RyanCarey wrote:Huh? Really do not know what you mean here but then you have asked no further questions.

I think that was just a facetious way of saying 'let's focus on the immediate event, as though it were the only event/consequence in the universe.'

faithlessgod wrote:

RyanCarey wrote:Bill hopes that there are aliens on Mars. Suppose that there are aliens on Mars. Is this good?

If Bill desires that P and P is true then Bill's desire is fulfilled. Bill can optionally call this good.
If P="there are aliens on Mars" (1) and P is true then this is good.

RyanCarey wrote: Suppose Bill then finds out that there are aliens on Mars. Is this good?

This is different.
Bill desires that "he knows that there are aliens on Mars" (2). (This is an agent-relative desire, the above was an agent-neutral desire? This is no longer solely an other-regarding desire but both an other-regarding and self-regarding desire)
There are two conditions of fulfilment of (2): a) that (1) is true and b) that he knows that (1) is true

This feels like a loophole. Let's redefine Ryan's example to close it. Bill consciously desires that there are aliens on Mars. He is consciously ambivalent about the proposition that he knows there are aliens on Mars. Is it then good when he discovers they are? I think this is a trivial question, though if DU is a subset of PU as you say - by definition, DU will say 'yes' (and CU will say 'no').

Let's make it a bit more extreme, though. I prefer the desert island example, since it's easier to imagine it in isolation. So say I offer you two (and only these two) possible worlds:

1) Fred is stuck on a desert island. He hates the Australian cricket team, so (to clarify) his greatest desire is for them to lose lots of matches. A scrap of newspaper washes up on shore with a graph showing that Australia has won the cricket league this year, after winning all its matches. In actual fact, this newspaper had a lazy subeditor, who'd accidentally mixed up the word 'Australia' with the word 'Winnerstan', which is the name of the country marked as having come last on the graph. So Fred falsely believes that Australia has done extremely well - whereas it's actually done extremely poorly. This false belief causes him great anguish, since he has nothing else to engage him in his lonely existence. But his desire is completely satisfied.

2) Fred is stuck on a desert island. He hates the Australian cricket team, so his greatest desire is for them to lose lots of matches. A scrap of newspaper washes up on shore with a graph showing that Loserstan has won the cricket league this year, after winning all its matches. In actual fact, this newspaper had a lazy subeditor, who'd accidentally mixed up the word 'Loserstan' with the word 'Australia', which is the name of the country marked as having come last on the graph. So Fred falsely believes that Australia has done extremely poorly - whereas it's actually done extremely well. This false belief causes him great joy, since he has nothing else to engage him in his lonely existence. But his desire is completely thwarted.

To Ryan and me, 2 is obviously the far better world, and I think few people would disagree*. I think I have an idea how you'll respond, but I won't try to pre-empt you...




* It's basically irrelevant to me whether people disagree or agree since I reject intuition as a source of ethics, but some people consider it an important one. I can't remember now if you're such a person...

Happy New year Arepo.

Arepo wrote:

faithlessgod wrote:Huh? Really do not know what you mean here but then you have asked no further questions.

I think that was just a facetious way of saying 'let's focus on the immediate event, as though it were the only event/consequence in the universe.'

Really? This too makes no sense. If you think Ryan asked a question in what I quoted or that made any sense then please explain, rather than jump to cynical and unjustified conclusions. This only makes me dubious of your intentions.

Anyway there is something amiss in all that follows so just a recap. Happiness satisfaction excludes fulfilment, whereas desire fulfilment includes satisfaction - as knowledge and satisfaction conditions in a desire's conditions of fulfilment. Still note that in terms of evaluating a desire's affect on states of affairs only the external conditions need and can be taken into account. A side point is that none of what follows is to do with reasoning on moral issues. Further it does not matter how many times it is shown that a particular desire has a knowledge/satisfaction condition as part of it's conditions of fulfilment, the burden is still to show that this is necessarily and always the case. Smart's and Nozick's experience machine thought experiments have already refuted that - that this all this can be reduced down to satisfaction.

Arepo wrote:This feels like a loophole. Let's redefine Ryan's example to close it. Bill consciously desires that there are aliens on Mars. He is consciously ambivalent about the proposition that he knows there are aliens on Mars. Is it then good when he discovers they are? I think this is a trivial question, though if DU is a subset of PU as you say - by definition, DU will say 'yes' (and CU will say 'no').

Remember good is a subjective term and is redundant in any analysis. Anyway discovering that a desire one has is actually fulfilled is by definition good so yes this is trivial. Interesting about the point over CU - which you support? - that it would say no. This is a version of the Happenstance Problem - usually an argument against DF although I have an easy answer to it but you have provided part of it already. So what you are saying is if you did not desire it ('s satisfaction) then it has no value? Odd.

Arepo wrote:Let's make it a bit more extreme, though. I prefer the desert island example, since it's easier to imagine it in isolation. So say I offer you two (and only these two) possible worlds:

1) Fred is stuck on a desert island. He hates the Australian cricket team, so (to clarify) his greatest desire is for them to lose lots of matches. A scrap of newspaper washes up on shore with a graph showing that Australia has won the cricket league this year, after winning all its matches. In actual fact, this newspaper had a lazy subeditor, who'd accidentally mixed up the word 'Australia' with the word 'Winnerstan', which is the name of the country marked as having come last on the graph. So Fred falsely believes that Australia has done extremely well - whereas it's actually done extremely poorly. This false belief causes him great anguish, since he has nothing else to engage him in his lonely existence. But his desire is completely satisfied.

Exactly

Arepo wrote:2) Fred is stuck on a desert island. He hates the Australian cricket team, so his greatest desire is for them to lose lots of matches. A scrap of newspaper washes up on shore with a graph showing that Loserstan has won the cricket league this year, after winning all its matches. In actual fact, this newspaper had a lazy subeditor, who'd accidentally mixed up the word 'Loserstan' with the word 'Australia', which is the name of the country marked as having come last on the graph. So Fred falsely believes that Australia has done extremely poorly - whereas it's actually done extremely well. This false belief causes him great joy, since he has nothing else to engage him in his lonely existence. But his desire is completely thwarted.

Fine too. Both examples of where deception can make satisfaction and fulfilment diverge.

Arepo wrote:
To Ryan and me, 2 is obviously the far better world, and I think few people would disagree*. I think I have an idea how you'll respond, but I won't try to pre-empt you...

Both are problematic. To restate this one line:is it better that a desire is satisfied but thwarted or frustrated but fulfilled? However both rely on false beliefs, still I would say the latter as the world has turned out as I desired even if I have been misinformed whereas I would not like to live in a deluded world which I think is great but the world is not as I desired. This is just repeating the Experience Machine AFAICS. I agree that intuition is a poor guide so that is not an issue. But anyway so what none of this deals wit the core issue I discussed in the preamble above.

Happy New year Arepo.

Arepo wrote:

faithlessgod wrote:Huh? Really do not know what you mean here but then you have asked no further questions.

I think that was just a facetious way of saying 'let's focus on the immediate event, as though it were the only event/consequence in the universe.'

Really? This too makes no sense. If you think Ryan asked a question in what I quoted or that made any sense then please explain, rather than jump to cynical and unjustified conclusions. This only makes me dubious of your intentions but I am pleased to note that this is disconfirmed in what follows.

Anyway there is something amiss in all that follows so just a recap. Happiness satisfaction excludes fulfilment, whereas desire fulfilment includes satisfaction - as knowledge and satisfaction conditions in a desire's conditions of fulfilment. Still note that in terms of evaluating a desire's affect on states of affairs only the external conditions need and can be taken into account. A side point is that none of what follows is to do with reasoning on moral issues. Further it does not matter how many times it is shown that a particular desire has a knowledge/satisfaction condition as part of it's conditions of fulfilment, the burden is still to show that this is necessarily and always the case. Smart's and Nozick's experience machine thought experiments have already refuted that - that this all this can be reduced down to satisfaction.

Arepo wrote:This feels like a loophole. Let's redefine Ryan's example to close it. Bill consciously desires that there are aliens on Mars. He is consciously ambivalent about the proposition that he knows there are aliens on Mars. Is it then good when he discovers they are? I think this is a trivial question, though if DU is a subset of PU as you say - by definition, DU will say 'yes' (and CU will say 'no').

Remember good is a subjective term and is redundant in any analysis. Anyway discovering that a desire one has is actually fulfilled is by definition good so yes this is trivial. Interesting about the point over CU - which you support? - that it would say no. This is a version of the Happenstance Problem - usually an argument against DF although I have an easy answer to it but you have provided part of it already. So what you are saying is if you did not desire it ('s satisfaction) then it has no value? Odd.

Arepo wrote:Let's make it a bit more extreme, though. I prefer the desert island example, since it's easier to imagine it in isolation. So say I offer you two (and only these two) possible worlds:

1) Fred is stuck on a desert island. He hates the Australian cricket team, so (to clarify) his greatest desire is for them to lose lots of matches. A scrap of newspaper washes up on shore with a graph showing that Australia has won the cricket league this year, after winning all its matches. In actual fact, this newspaper had a lazy subeditor, who'd accidentally mixed up the word 'Australia' with the word 'Winnerstan', which is the name of the country marked as having come last on the graph. So Fred falsely believes that Australia has done extremely well - whereas it's actually done extremely poorly. This false belief causes him great anguish, since he has nothing else to engage him in his lonely existence. But his desire is completely satisfied.

Exactly

Arepo wrote:2) Fred is stuck on a desert island. He hates the Australian cricket team, so his greatest desire is for them to lose lots of matches. A scrap of newspaper washes up on shore with a graph showing that Loserstan has won the cricket league this year, after winning all its matches. In actual fact, this newspaper had a lazy subeditor, who'd accidentally mixed up the word 'Loserstan' with the word 'Australia', which is the name of the country marked as having come last on the graph. So Fred falsely believes that Australia has done extremely poorly - whereas it's actually done extremely well. This false belief causes him great joy, since he has nothing else to engage him in his lonely existence. But his desire is completely thwarted.

Fine too. Both examples of where deception can make satisfaction and fulfilment diverge.

Arepo wrote:
To Ryan and me, 2 is obviously the far better world, and I think few people would disagree*. I think I have an idea how you'll respond, but I won't try to pre-empt you...

Both are problematic. To restate this one line:is it better that a desire is satisfied but thwarted or frustrated but fulfilled? However both rely on false beliefs, still I would say the latter as the world has turned out as I desired even if I have been misinformed whereas I would not like to live in a deluded world which I think is great but the world is not as I desired. This is just repeating the Experience Machine AFAICS. I agree that intuition is a poor guide so that is not an issue. But anyway so what none of this deals wit the core issue I discussed in the preamble above.

People tend to make models of reality in their mind. It's necessary to function. It is, however, totally distinct from reality. My idea of Mars is no more Mars than the word "Mars" is. This raises the question: Does Bill desire that there be life on Mars, or does he desire that of his mental model? He cannot possibly comprehend either life or Mars in their entirety. He can only make a vague model of them. Every action he takes is based on the real world only in that his mental model is based on it. Granted, he edits his model to reflect reality, but this is a very basic instinct that only exist because his ancestors with similar instincts survived. He doesn't try to do it, though he does try to get more detailed and consistent models, it's just what he does.

RyanCarey wrote:DanielC, your idea of feelings as 'what makes us change' is something that I find tremendously interesting. I feel like most nights I go to sleep I'm going to wonder about consciousness until someone comes up with a sensible solution. I'd be hugely interested in hearing what if anything else you have to say on the subject.

That doesn't really help with consciousness. It only defines happiness in terms of desire. You still have to define desire in terms of consciousness. It doesn't work very well with a simplistic version of desire. Watch:

Imagine a black box consciousness. It can do one of two things, which I will call 0 and 1. At some point in time, it starts doing 1 far more frequently than 0. Was it happy or sad? The way to tell would be to find out if it was doing 1 when it decided to start doing 1 more and 0 less. A simplistic idea of desire would be how much it does whatever it's desiring. So, did it start doing 1s on a 1 or a 0? It's impossible to tell. Even if it went to doing all 1s, you can't tell if it started on the 0 before the first 1, or on the first 1, or on the second 1, etc.

DanielLC wrote:People tend to make models of reality in their mind. It's necessary to function.

Yup but you can use paper mache too.

DanielLC wrote:It is, however, totally distinct from reality.

Yes and no. Such models are part of reality still they are mostly distinct from the reality they refer to (unless they are self-referential)

DanielLC wrote:My idea of Mars is no more Mars than the word "Mars" is.

Yup except you would not have a model if Mars did not exist, once could say that models are relations between beliefs and states of affairs.

DanielLC wrote: This raises the question: Does Bill desire that there be life on Mars, or does he desire that of his mental model?

Surely we have been talking about the former, the latter just exhibits the problem with satisfaction based approaches.

DanielLC wrote: He cannot possibly comprehend either life or Mars in their entirety.

That is not required to have such beliefs and desires. Do you need to know how your computer works to use it?

DanielLC wrote: He can only make a vague model of them. Every action he takes is based on the real world only in that his mental model is based on it.

And difference between models and reality provide feedback to update the model. I think you are using "model" as you wanted to use "superdesire"? To me your model is more or less the same as someone's set of beliefs.

DanielLC wrote: Granted, he edits his model to reflect reality, but this is a very basic instinct that only exist because his ancestors with similar instincts survived.

Yes we evolved to have beliefs (and desires) that could track and operate upon reality. This is not that basic many if not most species do not have the capacity for beliefs and desires.

DanielLC wrote: He doesn't try to do it, though he does try to get more detailed and consistent models, it's just what he does.

OK

DanielLC wrote:That doesn't really help with consciousness. It only defines happiness in terms of desire. You still have to define desire in terms of consciousness.

Why? We often operate on desires we are not conscious of. When we are asleep do all our desires disappear? Have we become an agent with no interests making it acceptable to do to us when we are asleep what is unacceptable when we are awake (because we are now agents with interests)? We already have intelligent agents and robots with rudimentary beliefs and desires but they are not conscious.

DanielLC wrote:It doesn't work very well with a simplistic version of desire. Watch:
Imagine a black box consciousness. It can do one of two things, which I will call 0 and 1. At some point in time, it starts doing 1 far more frequently than 0. Was it happy or sad? The way to tell would be to find out if it was doing 1 when it decided to start doing 1 more and 0 less. A simplistic idea of desire would be how much it does whatever it's desiring. So, did it start doing 1s on a 1 or a 0? It's impossible to tell. Even if it went to doing all 1s, you can't tell if it started on the 0 before the first 1, or on the first 1, or on the second 1, etc.

Even rereading the above I am sorry I really have no idea what this thought experiment is trying to argue for.

I guess I am just talking about beliefs.

There is already no reason to say that people desire something as opposed to people desiring to believe something. What I'm trying to say is that what people believe is only vaguely related to what is actually true, and what people desire is only related to that latter in that it's related to the former.

People evolved to believe things that led them to do what they needed to do. We have some instincts to send us in the right direction, but anything we do to try to make our beliefs more accurate is really just trying to fix contradictions, for example: if someone believes that heavier objects fall faster, and they believe that two objects of different weights were just dropped and hit the ground at the same time, they are likely to abandon the former belief. It being inaccurate has nothing to do with it. Also, beliefs only tend to include what is useful, with huge amounts of information simply missing. Your belief is really only a metaphor for what's going on. It's subject to metaphor shear (as Neal Stephenson calls it. My point here is that the relation between belief and reality should not be treated as something fundamental. It doesn't really make sense to say that a belief is "true". It certainly doesn't make enough sense to say that, although someone's actions are dictated by their beliefs, what they're really desire is something that's real.

As for the second, unrelated part of my comment:

faithlessgod wrote:

DanielLC wrote:That doesn't really help with consciousness. It only defines happiness in terms of desire. You still have to define desire in terms of consciousness.

Why? We often operate on desires we are not conscious of. When we are asleep do all our desires disappear? Have we become an agent with no interests making it acceptable to do to us when we are asleep what is unacceptable when we are awake (because we are now agents with interests)? We already have intelligent agents and robots with rudimentary beliefs and desires but they are not conscious.

Desire in terms of sentience? My point is that I'm far from being able to look at a system and give any idea on how happy it is.

Sometimes I wonder if, when I'm asleep, I'm still conscious on a deeper lever. In other words, maybe my "subconscious" is also, separately, conscious.

How do you know the robots aren't conscious? I'm willing say that a robot that does not use a genetic algorithm can't feel happiness or sadness, but that's it.

faithlessgod wrote:

DanielLC wrote:It doesn't work very well with a simplistic version of desire. Watch:
Imagine a black box consciousness. It can do one of two things, which I will call 0 and 1. At some point in time, it starts doing 1 far more frequently than 0. Was it happy or sad? The way to tell would be to find out if it was doing 1 when it decided to start doing 1 more and 0 less. A simplistic idea of desire would be how much it does whatever it's desiring. So, did it start doing 1s on a 1 or a 0? It's impossible to tell. Even if it went to doing all 1s, you can't tell if it started on the 0 before the first 1, or on the first 1, or on the second 1, etc.

Even rereading the above I am sorry I really have no idea what this thought experiment is trying to argue for.

I was just showing using that definition of happiness, along with an equally simple definition of desire, will be totally useless. In short, I don't have anything useful for RyanCarey.

DanielLC wrote:There is already no reason to say that people desire something as opposed to people desiring to believe something.

I have not said the latter but there is a desire to believe - that is a definition of faith?

DanielLC wrote: What I'm trying to say is that what people believe is only vaguely related to what is actually true, and what people desire is only related to that latter in that it's related to the former.

A belief has a brain to world direction of fit. If the belief does not fit the world change the belief. If the belief fits the world then it is true. However a belief by definition is attitude over a proposition held to be true, whether it actually is or is not. And indidivudals act to fulfil their desires, given their beliefs. What is the issue with that?

DanielLC wrote:People evolved to believe things that led them to do what they needed to do. We have some instincts to send us in the right direction, but anything we do to try to make our beliefs more accurate is really just trying to fix contradictions, for example: if someone believes that heavier objects fall faster, and they believe that two objects of different weights were just dropped and hit the ground at the same time, they are likely to abandon the former belief.

We have evolved the capacity to believe in order to better track and predict the world , especially changing at a faster pace than can be handled by evolution directly. Species who did that out reproduced those who did not, we are the descendants of such successful species - within our niches of course.

DanielLC wrote: It being inaccurate has nothing to do with it.

Huh? It is abandoned becuase it was found to be inaccurate!

DanielLC wrote: Also, beliefs only tend to include what is useful, with huge amounts of information simply missing.

Of course, who says otherwise? If we had to wait to ensure we had sufficient information to really know a predator was about to attack us we might not survive very long. We often respond with insufficient information and are sometimes wrong (false positives) but that is preferable to the cost of false negatives.

DanielLC wrote: Your belief is really only a metaphor for what's going on.

A metaphor for what? You don't believe in beliefs? You have no beliefs? You do not try to predict the reactions of friends and colleagues based on what you think their beliefs are?

DanielLC wrote: My point here is that the relation between belief and reality should not be treated as something fundamental. It doesn't really make sense to say that a belief is "true".

What is this to do with what we have been discussing? A belief is an attitude that something is true what else is it?

DanielLC wrote:It certainly doesn't make enough sense to say that, although someone's actions are dictated by their beliefs, what they're really desire is something that's real.

Huh? Actions are not dictated by beliefs but by desires. Desires are our motivations, without being motivated we would not (intentionally) act. What does not make sense in what I have been saying? Sorry but I cannot quite see clearly what your issue is. I am basing my argument on standard philosophical psychology. If you have something better then present it.

DanielLC wrote:Desire in terms of sentience? My point is that I'm far from being able to look at a system and give any idea on how happy it is.

My point exactly.

DanielLC wrote:How do you know the robots aren't conscious? I'm willing say that a robot that does not use a genetic algorithm can't feel happiness or sadness, but that's it.

I used to program a lot of those in the past cant see what they can possibly have to do with consciousness. Discussing consciousness is IMV a separate subject to ethics (although there are parallels). Again I assume the most standard understanding of that and go from there. The mind is what brain does and so on.

faithlessgod wrote:

DanielLC wrote:There is already no reason to say that people desire something as opposed to people desiring to believe something.

I have not said the latter but there is a desire to believe - that is a definition of faith?

By the latter, I mean they only desire to believe.

faithlessgod wrote:A belief has a brain to world direction of fit.

????

faithlessgod wrote:If the belief does not fit the world change the belief. If the belief fits the world then it is true. However a belief by definition is attitude over a proposition held to be true, whether it actually is or is not. And indidivudals act to fulfil their desires, given their beliefs. What is the issue with that?

The issue is the idea that a belief being "true" is something simple. Beliefs are what are necessary for predictions. Are you asking if the prediction is accurate? If I believe that force is equal to acceleration, and I believe that heavier objects fall proportionally faster, this will lead to an accurate idea of how much impulse it will take to stop a falling object. This is why a lot of people belief that. Does that make it true? How about the idea of an "object", rather than a collection of interacting particles? If not, then I'm afraid to tell you, you are completely and utterly wrong about anything and everything that you believe. Unless you're thinking about it, you won't imagine objects being made of atoms, and even if you do, you'll get the scale all wrong. If it's right, they all be in the wrong places.

faithlessgod wrote:

DanielLC wrote: It being inaccurate has nothing to do with it.

Huh? It is abandoned becuase it was found to be inaccurate!

No. It was abandoned because it was contradictory. You have no way of knowing if your beliefs are inaccurate.

faithlessgod wrote:

DanielLC wrote:Your belief is really only a metaphor for what's going on.

A metaphor for what? You don't believe in beliefs? You have no beliefs? You do not try to predict the reactions of friends and colleagues based on what you think their beliefs are?

A metaphor for reality. Something entirely different that is similar in useful ways, so I can sort of understand what might happen in reality by the analogous scenario in my beliefs. If you don't understand this, ignore it. I'm mostly just saying the same thing in different ways in hopes that one of my explanations will be understandable. That is to say, I'm being redundant to be more clear. In other words, I'm repeating myself.

faithlessgod wrote:

DanielLC wrote:It certainly doesn't make enough sense to say that, although someone's actions are dictated by their beliefs, what they're really desire is something that's real.

Huh? Actions are not dictated by beliefs but by desires. Desires are our motivations, without being motivated we would not (intentionally) act. What does not make sense in what I have been saying? Sorry but I cannot quite see clearly what your issue is. I am basing my argument on standard philosophical psychology. If you have something better then present it.

I mean our beliefs as opposed to what's real. I find it hard to believe that there's a such thing as "standard" philosophical psychology, or a standard for any kind of philosophy. What makes it philosophy is that nobody can agree, or even figure out what the heck the other guy is talking about. I haven't seen my philosophy of epistemology anywhere, but the same went for my philosophy of ethics until I read an article about it on Wikipedia.

faithlessgod wrote:

DanielLC wrote:Desire in terms of sentience? My point is that I'm far from being able to look at a system and give any idea on how happy it is.

My point exactly.

We agree on this. Now let's ignore it.

faithlessgod wrote:

DanielLC wrote:How do you know the robots aren't conscious? I'm willing say that a robot that does not use a genetic algorithm can't feel happiness or sadness, but that's it.

I used to program a lot of those in the past cant see what they can possibly have to do with consciousness. Discussing consciousness is IMV a separate subject to ethics (although there are parallels). Again I assume the most standard understanding of that and go from there. The mind is what brain does and so on.

From earlier on, we might not be using the same definition of consciousness. What I mean is that anything other than genetic programming can't feel happiness or sadness. This is from my Pavlovian idea I mentioned earlier. If a genetic program does well, it will try to do that more. If it does badly, it will try to do that less. Hence, it might like doing well.

I'm beginning to wonder if we should just start a thread on "Discussion between DanielLC and faithlessgod". Maybe even a whole sub-forum. It would probably get more discussion than any other, at least at the rate we're going now.

Seriously, though, do you other people get what we're talking about? Is it interesting? If not, we should probably just abandon our discussions after a few posts.

Hi Daniel

I suggest you look up the philosophy of practical reason or practical action or theory of action or Belief-Desire-Intention psychology or philosophical psychology. They will be more technical than my definitions but otherwise the same. Of course different philosophers have different theories of actions and arguments and have disputes over the relations between desire and belief including their foundations (or not). However when I meant these as standard as in they would all know what they in in a similar way and that when other philosophers in other domains of philosophy need to refer to belief and desires they will usually the concepts as I have - unless they specifically need a less accepted version in order to make the case they need to make in that other domain and they would have to additionally justify that choice. And that is something I try as little as possible. That is all I mean by standard. Now as far as many of those internal arguments of practical reasoning are concerned AFAICS only two could make a possible substantive difference to DU and no-one has come close to asking such questions here.

Daniel

You are quite entitled to query the concepts of belief and desire, this is an external critique of DU. However DU is designed to work with robust conceptions of belief and desires, being compatible with a wide variety of theories in that domain. However AFAICS if you want to properly critique this you need to either provide an alternative whose implication leads to something other than DU or show how these conceptions are insufficient for DU.

The alternative would be that people only desire to believe things, in which case utility is people believing that their desires are fulfilled.

Desire to believe's exemplar is faith. We cannot rely on on it all of the time, even those of faith. You could not cross the road safely.

As for utility, believing their desires are fulfilled is called "satisfaction". However your argument is another way of showing the problems with that. Thanks must remember this.

[EDIT]Plus this is not an alternative since your argument here assumed belief-desire psychology[/EDIT]

I'm saying that desire to believe is the only kind of desire. Faith would be the desire to believe to believe, as you'd want what you imagine you believing would be. I also mentioned utility being the belief that your desires are fulfilled, which is sort of equivalent, but those two don't make any sense together.

Are you saying my argument is another way of showing problems with the idea that satisfaction is what matters, or the idea that desire fulfillment is what matters?

faithlessgod wrote:I suggest you look up the philosophy of practical reason or practical action or theory of action or Belief-Desire-Intention psychology or philosophical psychology.

I didn't notice that comment until just now. Is that a bunch of different names for the same things or a long list of different things? A quick look at Belief-Desire-Intention psychology on Wikipedia included mention that it's fundamentally reliant on folk psychology. What I was trying to say was that beliefs and desires are not as simply related to (the rest of) the real world as it seems. In other words, desire-fulfillment only makes much sense if you believe folk psychology.

faithlessgod wrote:...However when I meant these as standard...

I see what you mean now.

faithlessgod wrote:...only two could make a possible substantive difference to DU and no-one has come close to asking such questions here.

The idea that it's reliant on (inaccurate) folk psychology isn't one of them?

I'm not saying that there's no such thing as beliefs or desires. I'm saying that it would be incredibly complex and vague to say whether they're fulfilled or not, unless you believe folk psychology. Tell me, how many of the psychological philosophers are also psychologists?

Hi faithlessgod (and Arepo and DanielC).
Thanks for responding to each of my examples. Now I’ll respond to your main points:

Faithlessgod wrote:The issue here is that the knowledge condition is an additional condition of fulfilment of a desire and it is up to the creator of the desire the specify this as a condition or not.

Faithlessgod wrote:It does not matter how many times it is shown that a particular desire has a knowledge/satisfaction condition as part of it's conditions of fulfilment, the burden is still to show that this is necessarily and always the case.

What I want to show is not that all desires are a desire to believe. That would, of course, be impossible. Because that desire would be a desire to believe to believe. It would go on infinitely*!

I want to show you that this idea of satisfaction of a desire being significant is incoherent. Kind of like the ideas of human rights and human dignity, it’s a heartfelt attempt - a fair approximation – but unable to stand up to close examination.

Let’s look at your treatment of my examples**. Firstly, your treatment of Bill’s aliens was inadequate.

Faithlessgod wrote:

RyanCarey wrote:Bill hopes that there are aliens on Mars. Suppose that there are aliens on Mars. Is this good?

If Bill desires that P and P is true then Bill's desire is fulfilled. Bill can optionally call this good.
If P="there are aliens on Mars" (1) and P is true then this is good.

RyanCarey wrote:Suppose Bill then finds out that there are aliens on Mars. Is this good?

This is different.
Bill desires that "he knows that there are aliens on Mars"

1. I’m not interested in whether Bill calls this good. I’m interested in whether this actually is good***.
2. this is inadequate because I never said that Bill wanted to know that there were aliens on Mars. If not, you must admit that it was a good thing when Bill began to deeply wish for aliens to be.

Secondly, let’s discuss Fred’s island. The question is “Is it better for Fred’s wish to be true but believed to be false or false but believed to be true?”. Well, what is important is what is in Fred’s mental model. Because when Fred wished that the ACT lose, he was wishing about the ACT in his mental model. His understanding of the act is the ACT in his mental model. The idea that Fred could wish about the parts of the computer that are not within his mental model is absurd. How can you wish what you don’t understand?

Faithlessgod wrote:The focus on (outer) fulfilment over (inner) satisfaction is multiple. First it is only this that can affect others. Second this is amenable to direct empirical investigation and inquiry. Thirdly we can get feedback from the use of social forces to mould malleable desires by what changes in terms of what desires people then seek to fulfil or not.

1. It is satisfaction that affects a person. Take Fred’s island. Fred’s behaviour, his demeanour and anything else you care to think of depends on the satisfaction of his desire. The fulfilment of a desire has no effect at all. The events themselves have effects, but the fact that Fred desired these things adds nothing at all. Fulfilment, as a theory, adds nothing. It predicts nothing. Fulfilment is just the language of our brains. It’s not a thing in the world.
2. It is satisfaction that is directly observable.
3. Yes, we seek to fulfil desires. This is how we function.


* DanielC, your attempt to debate faithlessgod within his belief framework is noble. While you say things like “I'm saying that desire to believe is the only kind of desire.”, I think we’re using different words to say the same thing.

** You’re right that they’re examples of divergence of satisfaction and fulfilment, just like the experience machine.

***please stop telling me that the terms good, bad, right and wrong are optional. In my opinion, the most urgent thing that an ethicist can do to change the world is to use simple language.

Hey Ryan

I will only answer those points that are likely addressed to me,

RyanCary wrote:What I want to show is not that all desires are a desire to believe. That would, of course, be impossible. Because that desire would be a desire to believe to believe. It would go on infinitely*!

Obviousy not addressed to me but I will answer anyway. The first sentence is true and the second makes no sense. A desire to believe has as its state of affairs the beliefs of the agent having this desire. There are different desires that require different types of state of affairs for fulfilment, so there are more types of desire than just a desire to believe. Simple.

Not sure what your points over Bill are.

RyanCary wrote:1. I’m not interested in whether Bill calls this good. I’m interested in whether this actually is good***.

We agree!

2. this is inadequate because I never said that Bill wanted to know that there were aliens on Mars. If not, you must admit that it was a good thing when Bill began to deeply wish for aliens to be.[/quote]
What is the evidence that wish fulfilment works. None AFAIK?

RyanCary wrote:Secondly, let’s discuss Fred’s island. The question is “Is it better for Fred’s wish to be true but believed to be false or false but believed to be true?”. Well, what is important is what is in Fred’s mental model. Because when Fred wished that the ACT lose, he was wishing about the ACT in his mental model. His understanding of the act is the ACT in his mental model. The idea that Fred could wish about the parts of the computer that are not within his mental model is absurd. How can you wish what you don’t understand?

This is the argument of a subjectivist, which I think you claim you are not. So why make such a argument? When I wanted Lewis Hamiltion to win the World Drivers Championship, I wanted to him actually win, which he did in the last minute. If I had wanted Felipe Mass to win, which he, in fact ,did not, people would say I was deluded to say that Massa had won, just because I was only talking about my mental model. Absurd. Facts matter.

Faithlessgod wrote:The focus on (outer) fulfilment over (inner) satisfaction is multiple. First it is only this that can affect others. Second this is amenable to direct empirical investigation and inquiry. Thirdly we can get feedback from the use of social forces to mould malleable desires by what changes in terms of what desires people then seek to fulfil or not.

1. It is satisfaction that affects a person. Take Fred’s island. Fred’s behaviour, his demeanour and anything else you care to think of depends on the satisfaction of his desire. The fulfilment of a desire has no effect at all.[/quote]
Not so. In order for Fred to be mislead, there must be something he was mislead by and we agree on that. What happens if Fred is rescued and finds out the truth either way? He will probably pissed off either way. How could that be if facts do not matter as you argue here?

RyanCary wrote:
The events themselves have effects, but the fact that Fred desired these things adds nothing at all.

So everyone's desires have no effects. This is incoherent. Why have desires? Are you saying desires do not exist? Then certainly satisfaction does not exist.

RyanCary wrote: Fulfilment, as a theory, adds nothing. It predicts nothing. Fulfilment is just the language of our brains. It’s not a thing in the world.

Huh? You have it upside down. Satisfaction is part of the "language" of our brains or if satisfaction is out htere, where is it? Can I see it, taste it, smell it? What is this strange "satisfaction"? Desire is of course a brain state as are beliefs. Fulfilment of desires pertains to the states of affairs to which the desires relate. Fred gains satisfaction or frustration due to false beliefs about the world, false beliefs that he holds to be true, that he holds to be about the world - that his desire has been fulfilled or thwarted, not his brain or mental model.

Anyway the Fred scenarios are nothing but Fyfe's version of the Experience Machine and the fact that you might take on option and I , Fyfe and numerous others would take the other is sufficient to refute that satisfaction is the only final end.

RyanCary wrote:2. It is satisfaction that is directly observable.

How? I have provided an argument over fulfilment, if you want to argue in favour of satisfaction - that is directly observable - then provide an argument, rather than make an assertion without argument.

RyanCary wrote:3. Yes, we seek to fulfil desires. This is how we function.

Good, a point we agree upon.

RyanCary wrote:***please stop telling me that the terms good, bad, right and wrong are optional. In my opinion, the most urgent thing that an ethicist can do to change the world is to use simple language.

Is this an argument? Does not look like one to me. What is your argument, if you are as I think you would claim an objective utilitarian, that "good" is not optional, since you must insist that it can be reduced to some relation over promoting utility, if you deny that then you are not a utilitarian.

To faithlessgod's last point: I do believe that you can understand ethics without the word good. It's just that "good" is a really small, meaningful word. And what ethics desperately needs is clear thinking and straight talking. I think we should do so because it's more enjoyable for all involved and it eases communication.

Faithlessgod wrote:Satisfaction is part of the "language" of our brains or if satisfaction is out there, where is it? Can I see it, taste it, smell it? What is this strange "satisfaction"? Desire is of course a brain state as are beliefs. Fulfilment of desires pertains to the states of affairs to which the desires relate.

You can't see satisfaction or taste satisfaction, no. But what you can do is be happy, or sad. You can feelsatisfaction. When your mental model tells you that you have achieved your goals, or, in DanielC's language, when you know that your desire has come true, you feel good.

You can't see a feeling, feel a sound or hear a sight*. But these feelings (events of consciousness) are all undeniable. And they are the only things in the world that are absolutely certainly true.

Certain feelings are nice, therefore we should pursue these feelings. To say that we can observe feelings is understating the point. All of our understanding of the world comes from our feelings. Without feelings, understanding wouldn't exist. To say that our mental models are our window into the world is understating this point. Your mental model is your known world. This is why classical utilitarianism is true and no other system of ethics is.

re: Fred's desert island, Fred has been decieved in both instances. So we're actually asking a different question from Nozick's Experience Machine: is it better for Fred to be happy or sad? Suppose an experience machine is created. Is it better if this machine generates happiness or suffering, with no deception involved?

*Unless you have some kind of synesthesia

Just a short thing, that Ryan's post made me realise. Sorry if someone's already mentioned this - I've only had time for skim reading recently.

If not, you must admit that it was a good thing when Bill began to deeply wish for aliens to be.

I hadn't thought of it this way - but it seems that you can extend this principle to create a DU version of the experience machine that's every bit as counter-intuitive as Nozick's.

CU machine:
Adjusts the world to the kind of experiences an individual enjoys.

DU machine:
Adjusts the kind of experiences an individual enjoys to the world. So it would make them strongly desire the sort of relatively modest life they're likely to lead. You should probably tweak it further and make them strongly desire an extremely drab life, on the grounds that they could then give away all the money they'd need for luxuries to causes that would promote the goals of DU.

In other words, it's very hard to claim that [if CU is correct then one should plug into the CU machine] and not also claim that [if DU is correct then one should plug into the DU machine].

RyanCarey wrote:To faithlessgod's last point: I do believe that you can understand ethics without the word good. It's just that "good" is a really small, meaningful word. And what ethics desperately needs is clear thinking and straight talking. I think we should do so because it's more enjoyable for all involved and it eases communication.

I quite agree. However there has been so much debate over "good" that sometims it is best to avoid it, especially when using it to discuss moral theory. In application I will use for the same reasons as you provide but will always try to qualify it - to give it a meaning to avoid confusion. e.g. 'a good desire is one we have reason to promote'.

RyanCarey wrote:

Faithlessgod wrote:Satisfaction is part of the "language" of our brains or if satisfaction is out there, where is it? Can I see it, taste it, smell it? What is this strange "satisfaction"? Desire is of course a brain state as are beliefs. Fulfilment of desires pertains to the states of affairs to which the desires relate.

You can't see satisfaction or taste satisfaction, no. But what you can do is be happy, or sad. You can feelsatisfaction. When your mental model tells you that you have achieved your goals, or, in DanielC's language, when you know that your desire has come true, you feel good.

This is all trivially true but beside the point. I do not and have never denied that one feels good, and satisfaction is the usual cause of this (arguably recreational drugs short circuits the normal process but you can end up just desiring the high as well ). I also have never denied that if you think your desire has been fulfilled this can generate satisfaction (but not always of course)

RyanCarey wrote:You can't see a feeling, feel a sound or hear a sight*. But these feelings (events of consciousness) are all undeniable. And they are the only things in the world that are absolutely certainly true.

This is the problem Ryan. In your last post you used the phrase "directly observable" but you can only directly observe your feelings, you can only infer the feeling of others. However you can observe the outcome of desires - whether they are fulfilled or not and it is this that makes the difference that affects others and this is what the domain of morality addresses, how can each others actions make each others lives go better. Well we can control our intentional actions and the most significant cause of intentional action that can be affected are belief (over means) and desire (over ends). What you are not offering is a an alternate socio-psychological model to support how your approach is meant to work in reality. This is what DU provides but that is not to say it is the only way but unless you provide a suitable plausible psychological alternative you have not really started a debate.

RyanCarey wrote:Certain feelings are nice, therefore we should pursue these feelings. To say that we can observe feelings is understating the point. All of our understanding of the world comes from our feelings. Without feelings, understanding wouldn't exist. To say that our mental models are our window into the world is understating this point. Your mental model is your known world. This is why classical utilitarianism is true and no other system of ethics is.

Your conclusion is a non sequitur. In addition your points here and recently are more supportive of subjective hedonistic egoism rather than objective utilitarianism. Maybe you could explain why they are not (subjective hedonistic egoism).

RyanCarey wrote:re: Fred's desert island, Fred has been decieved in both instances. So we're actually asking a different question from Nozick's Experience Machine: is it better for Fred to be happy or sad? Suppose an experience machine is created. Is it better if this machine generates happiness or suffering, with no deception involved?

Yes this is Fyfe's Experience Machine. A mad scientist could put you in an experiemce machine where you will think that a loved you will never see again will either
a) suffer imprisonment, torture, starvation etc. but you will believe their desires are being fulfilled and be happy
or
b) their desires are being fulfilled and they are happy but you will believe they suffer imprisonment, torture, starvation
Which would you chose?

Hi Arepo

Arepo wrote:Just a short thing, that Ryan's post made me realise. Sorry if someone's already mentioned this - I've only had time for skim reading recently.

If not, you must admit that it was a good thing when Bill began to deeply wish for aliens to be.

I hadn't thought of it this way - but it seems that you can extend this principle to create a DU version of the experience machine that's every bit as counter-intuitive as Nozick's.

I still don't get that point just looks like wishful thinking to me. I will revisit the original post when I have time. Anyway you ask an interesting question here can one create a DU experience machine?

Arepo wrote:CU machine:
Adjusts the world to the kind of experiences an individual enjoys.

This I presume is the standard (actually Smart I believe came up with it first but Nozick is known for it) Experience Machine. However read literally this is not the experience machine. So not sure. And this is not CU but subjective hedonistic egoism ( if this is the experience machine), I am surprised you guys don't realize that yet?

Arepo wrote:DU machine:
Adjusts the kind of experiences an individual enjoys to the world. So it would make them strongly desire the sort of relatively modest life they're likely to lead. You should probably tweak it further and make them strongly desire an extremely drab life, on the grounds that they could then give away all the money they'd need for luxuries to causes that would promote the goals of DU.

This is not DU. This is either epicurianism or altruism and DU is different.

Arepo wrote:In other words, it's very hard to claim that [if CU is correct then one should plug into the CU machine] and not also claim that [if DU is correct then one should plug into the DU machine].

The problem is a) there cannot be a DU machine since it relies on actual states of affairs of the world. Du is about using social forces to influence each other, because this is what already happens albeit in an uncoordinated, partly incoherent and inconsistent fashion. It is built on what we know occurs rather than speculation on what might work. It is social forces that affect each other's desires as does the economics, environment and other factors. Your proposal here could be evaluated using the DU framework as could anything else. However this is not DU. There is much more to say on this and I will write a blog post on this idea, in the meantime please push this further?

I must say that you and Daniel are coming with interesting and to my knowledge original challenges to DU. Keep it up!

What do you mean DU is "about using social forces to influence each other". It's consequentialist, isn't it? If so, it shouldn't matter how people are influenced, just the result of the influence.

DanielLC wrote:What do you mean DU is "about using social forces to influence each other". It's consequentialist, isn't it? If so, it shouldn't matter how people are influenced, just the result of the influence.

Morality is about these social forces - without praiseworthy and blameworthy behaviour what is there to be moral about? DU explains how these forces do and should work (based on consequentialism).

faithlessgod wrote: [quote="RyanCarey" :re: Fred's desert island, Fred has been decieved in both instances. So we're actually asking a different question from Nozick's Experience Machine: is it better for Fred to be happy or sad? Suppose an experience machine is created. Is it better if this machine generates happiness or suffering, with no deception involved?


Yes this is Fyfe's Experience Machine. A mad scientist could put you in an experiemce machine where you will think that a loved you will never see again will either
a) suffer imprisonment, torture, starvation etc. but you will believe their desires are being fulfilled and be happy
or
b) their desires are being fulfilled and they are happy but you will believe they suffer imprisonment, torture, starvation
Which would you chose?

Well clearly that's not what we're saying. We're proposing two situations which are equal outside the experience machine. We're proposing a situation in which one team loses inevitably. So either you believe the Australian cricket team won or you believe it lost. Either way, your belief is false and either way, either the ACT or its opponents lost.

I think it's about time I summed up my position: I don't think its trivial that certain events feel good. Suppose we begin our quest for ethics with Nietzsche's position: god is dead so all is permitted. Well if all is permitted, I'll do what makes me feel good. When we consider that others are just as capable of feeling and consciousness as I am, I must do what makes others feel good too. What should be done is what makes everyone's conscious experiences enjoyable.

I don't think it's my role to put forward a social or psychological model. I think that's a question of discovering the way the world is. Or, specifically, it's a question of the way we are. And I think the wonderful people of sociology, psychology, neurology, linguistics, anthropology and history (of course, I've left others out) are slowly converging on this answer.

RyanCarey wrote: :re: Fred's desert island, Fred has been decieved in both instances. So we're actually asking a different question from Nozick's Experience Machine: is it better for Fred to be happy or sad? Suppose an experience machine is created. Is it better if this machine generates happiness or suffering, with no deception involved?

faithlessgod wrote:
Yes this is Fyfe's Experience Machine. A mad scientist could put you in an experiemce machine where you will think that a loved you will never see again will either
a) suffer imprisonment, torture, starvation etc. but you will believe their desires are being fulfilled and be happy
or
b) their desires are being fulfilled and they are happy but you will believe they suffer imprisonment, torture, starvation
Which would you chose?

Well clearly that's not what we're saying. We're proposing two situations which are equal outside the experience machine.

Well if through our debate we have come up with a new thought experiment that is very interesting. However I am not sure.

In both experiments the alternatives are either 'frustrated but fulfilled' versus 'satisfied but thwarted' and both are based on deceptions - inversions of the truth in reality. The question is which one would you chose? Now you have not answered the Fyfe version - is that because your answer would be different there? Why speculate? I answered your question you could at least answer mine.

You say the situations are equal outside the island/newspaper (experience machine) but this relies upon some negligent editor creating the illusion. That does not appear to be a substantive difference from a mad scientist affecting circumstances outside the experience machine. These thought experiments share the same structure but there is a substantive difference nonetheless. This is that the mad scientist scenario involves morality whereas Fred/ACT does not. The former is about intentional action - your decision affects the world not only oneself, whereas the latter there is and could not have been any intentional action.

Now, of course, there are plenty of desires we have about the world, where we cannot in any realistic way act to effect bring about the desired state of affairs. Still we would like the world to go the way of our desires rather than against.Now supporting a sports team is one - although, in these types, one can buy tickets, attend games, buy pay-per-view, watch advertised games, buy merchandising and so and this can benefit the team and contribute to increasing its chances for success. Of course all this is ruled out if Fred is on an island plus this is over Fred hating a certain team but I think the scenario could be revised and equivalent with him supporting a team and frustrated if they lose whereas in fact they won etc.

Still the use of sports leaves me quite unmoved. I like my driver to win but it really has no substantive affect on my life one way or another, because it is outside my control and it would be silly to let my well-being depend on trivial states of affairs outside my control. I accept that others might think differently and know quite a few who are absurdly IMHO affected by sports results, that, as usual, is their choice.

One of my self-quotes is "do not sacrifice truth on the altar of comfort". Ethically this leads to quite a few problems in this world and surely it is better to discourage rather encourage it. Faith is a vice not a virtue. This is why I took the other option to you. And this is the only way I can see its relevancy to ethics. However you are arguing for comfort over truth with this thought experiment and it is only a matter of degree from that to preferring comforting faith over uncomfortable truths.

RyanCarey wrote:I think it's about time I summed up my position: I don't think its trivial that certain events feel good.

My point exactly. There can be a cost to feeling good over the affects on others, is this ethically justifiable? A subjective hedonistic egoist would say yes and everything you are arguing for seems to be for that rather than utilitarianism. Sorry but your position looks inconsistent - you claim you are one thing but then argue this other.

RyanCarey wrote: Suppose we begin our quest for ethics with Nietzsche's position: god is dead so all is permitted.

I baulk at such suppositions. I think Dostoevsky got it completely upside down (as is the case in many religious claims). With god, anything is permitted. Anyway this supposition is not relevant. It is more parsimonious to drop all such types of suppositions one way or another and see how far we can get with them. I think we can get very far, indeed further than with any such type of supposition.

RyanCarey wrote: Well if all is permitted, I'll do what makes me feel good. When we consider that others are just as capable of feeling and consciousness as I am, I must do what makes others feel good too. What should be done is what makes everyone's conscious experiences enjoyable.

My point is that your answers to these various experience machine tough experiments contradict your claims here. Maybe you could make an argument as to show me that they are , indeed, consistent?

RyanCarey wrote:I don't think it's my role to put forward a social or psychological model. I think that's a question of discovering the way the world is. Or, specifically, it's a question of the way we are. And I think the wonderful people of sociology, psychology, neurology, linguistics, anthropology and history (of course, I've left others out) are slowly converging on this answer.

[/quote]
Exactly. I use the best of practice concepts and results from these and other disciplines and DU is the result. Now you have asserted you do the same, I asked and am still asking for evidence to support your claim. With all due respect, unless you can show how these deliver your IMHO peculiar form of utilitarianism - in addition to you showing how your position is consistent with objective utilitarianism of any form - I nor anyone else has any justified reason to consider accepting such claims of yours.

Faithlessgod, I'll first answer your thought experiment:
Is it better for a loved one to be raped or for me to suffer as though she was raped? Well I believe she would suffer more from the rape than I would suffer from knowledge of it. So the worse event is the rape itself, not the transmission of the message to me. So it's better that she is not raped, even if I must believe that she was.

I don't, however, really think that you've answered our thought experiments. So I'll give them a rewrite:

Suppose you might either be able to be placed in an experience machine in which you feel happy (morphine?) or in an experience machine in which the opposite is true (depressants?). Which would you choose?

And also, what do you answer to the desire machine? i.e. would you rather be placed in a machine in which you are made to desire a series of things that are true or false? That is, would you rather be put into a machine where you wish for Obama to be president and for Israel to invade Gaza or would you rather be put into a machine where you wish for the opposite to be true?

Re: a social model. I don't think I made myself clear. I don't think social models are relevant to foundational ethics. I think that a social model might help us to apply ethics, but I don't see how it could possibly help us to formulate an ethical system.

RyanCarey wrote:Faithlessgod, I'll first answer your thought experiment:
Is it better for a loved one to be raped or for me to suffer as though she was raped? Well I believe she would suffer more from the rape than I would suffer from knowledge of it. So the worse event is the rape itself, not the transmission of the message to me. So it's better that she is not raped, even if I must believe that she was.

Hmmm. So the logic here is that if you suffered more than the recipient of the rape, then you would recommend the rape?

RyanCarey wrote:I don't, however, really think that you've answered our thought experiments. So I'll give them a rewrite:

I have answered a number of times the same way. The following below is a different experiment not a rewrite and so my answer here can be quite consistent with my previous answers, in that I prefer truth over comfort.

RyanCarey wrote:Suppose you might either be able to be placed in an experience machine in which you feel happy (morphine?) or in an experience machine in which the opposite is true (depressants?). Which would you choose?

This is what Mackie calls an X-rather-than-Y scenario. This is not the same as Fred on the Island I repeat since this is not an experience machine at all, it is a question over which state of affairs I prefer given a choice of either being happy or unhappy - these are the states of affairs in this case - of course I would chose happy as most would - unless your an emo or depressed already I guess.

RyanCarey wrote:And also, what do you answer to the desire machine? i.e. would you rather be placed in a machine in which you are made to desire a series of things that are true or false? That is, would you rather be put into a machine where you wish for Obama to be president and for Israel to invade Gaza or would you rather be put into a machine where you wish for the opposite to be true?

This is again different to the DU machine you described previously and that and this do not make sense to be called DU machines. Regardless this does not make any sense anyway. Being made to desire actual states of affairs or their opposite? What is this to do with intentional actions to bring about states of affairs? What is this to do with my choice versus other's choices? Again given this X-rather-than-Y scenario, would I prefer to desire what is fulfillable or fulfilled or desires what thwarted or thwartable? I suppose the former but so what, they are no longer my desires (even if I think they are) I am just a puppet having emotions manipulated. What does this show?

RyanCarey wrote:Re: a social model. I don't think I made myself clear. I don't think social models are relevant to foundational ethics. I think that a social model might help us to apply ethics, but I don't see how it could possibly help us to formulate an ethical system.

I do not think there is such a distinct topic as foundational ethics, this is the deep mistake both objectivists and subjectivists make. An "ethical system" is just part of social system and constrained by biology, psychology, economics, history, sociology and so on. So what is relevant to "foundational ethics" - whatever that means - maybe you could explain that too?

I am finding this thread interesting and stimulating, I hope you are too.

faithlessgod wrote:

RyanCarey wrote:Faithlessgod, I'll first answer your thought experiment:
Is it better for a loved one to be raped or for me to suffer as though she was raped? Well I believe she would suffer more from the rape than I would suffer from knowledge of it. So the worse event is the rape itself, not the transmission of the message to me. So it's better that she is not raped, even if I must believe that she was.

Hmmm. So the logic here is that if you suffered more than the recipient of the rape, then you would recommend the rape?

It is, yeah. But the fact is that rape victims normally (seem to - I don't want to make categorical claims that I can't back up) suffer more than their loved ones. If they didn't (seem to) then overruling their experiences probably wouldn't seem so callous.

I have answered a number of times the same way. The following below is a different experiment not a rewrite and so my answer here can be quite consistent with my previous answers, in that I prefer truth over comfort.

That seems like a clear enough answer to me. So next question is, do you put a price on that preference? Ie is there any amount of comfort (positive or negative) that you think could overwhelm any amount of truth? I won't give any thought experiments yet - hopefully it's a clear question.

I suppose the former but so what, they are no longer my desires (even if I think they are) I am just a puppet having emotions manipulated. What does this show?

Are you an advocate of free will (I normally hate this question because it's so ill-defined, but if you say 'aye', maybe specify exactly what properties you believe free will entails)? If not, surely you're a puppet having emotions manipulated in any case?

I do not think there is such a distinct topic as foundational ethics, this is the deep mistake both objectivists and subjectivists make. An "ethical system" is just part of social system and constrained by biology, psychology, economics, history, sociology and so on. So what is relevant to "foundational ethics" - whatever that means - maybe you could explain that too?

Hm, again can you specify exactly what you're claiming the lack of foundational ethics implies? Eg what, in your view, would the world be like if foundational ethics were a distinct topic?

Arepo wrote:It is, yeah. But the fact is that rape victims normally (seem to - I don't want to make categorical claims that I can't back up) suffer more than their loved ones. If they didn't (seem to) then overruling their experiences probably wouldn't seem so callous.

This is my point exactly, states of affairs matter in deciding over these alternatives.

Arepo wrote:That seems like a clear enough answer to me. So next question is, do you put a price on that preference? Ie is there any amount of comfort (positive or negative) that you think could overwhelm any amount of truth? I won't give any thought experiments yet - hopefully it's a clear question.

Not so sure about every preference having a "price", rather they can outweigh each other We act on the more and stronger of our desires. The desire for truth is very often outweighed for example by the desire for comfort. What any individual does is whatever they do, the issue is on the overall structure on how these work for everyone.

Arepo wrote:Are you an advocate of free will (I normally hate this question because it's so ill-defined, but if you say 'aye', maybe specify exactly what properties you believe free will entails)? If not, surely you're a puppet having emotions manipulated in any case?

There is no free will, no illusion of free will and no puppeteer.

Arepo wrote:

I do not think there is such a distinct topic as foundational ethics, this is the deep mistake both objectivists and subjectivists make. An "ethical system" is just part of social system and constrained by biology, psychology, economics, history, sociology and so on. So what is relevant to "foundational ethics" - whatever that means - maybe you could explain that too?

Hm, again can you specify exactly what you're claiming the lack of foundational ethics implies? Eg what, in your view, would the world be like if foundational ethics were a distinct topic?

This was a response to Ryan and I was awaiting his reply. Not sure what you are on about here. As for foundational ethics as a distinct field rather than just topic, well people asserting this leads to the quagmire of morality we have today. I am not a foundationalist. The lack of foundationalist ethics implies we can use any relevant empirical knowledge in attempting to solve the interpersonal topic of cooperation, competition and conflict and that is all I am arguing for here.

faithlessgod wrote:This is my point exactly, states of affairs matter in deciding over these alternatives.

No-one's disputing that... whether someone feels better or worse is just as much a state of affair as whether the rest of the universe aligns with their desire. What seems to be at issue is which states of affairs matter.

Not so sure about every preference having a "price", rather they can outweigh each other

I think we're just using 'price' and 'weight' to mean the same thing - a quantitative value. But I'm not asking whether preferences can outweigh one another - I take that as read. I'm asking whether the value of comfort can ever outweigh the value of truth. Say for eg if Bert's only preference is that x (so he doesn't have an additional preference that he believes x, nor does he have a desire for comfort). Bert believes that x is true and derives comfort from this, but as it happens it's false. According to pure PU, if you attribute no value to comfort for its own sake, this is bad, no matter how comforted Bert feels, or how mild his preference.

I just want to know if you agree with the pure interpretation here, or if, by adjusting nothing in the scenario except 1) the strength of Bert's sole preference and 2) the comfort Bert derives from his false believe, you think that it's possible to create a scenario where the value of 1) is low enough (but still positive) and the value of 2) is high enough (but still finite) where you think the scenario is better than a value-neutral one.

There is no free will, no illusion of free will and no puppeteer.

If you accept determinism, there certainly is a puppeteer - it's the laws of physics. Is it only sentient puppeteers you object to? And if so on what grounds?

Also, why is changing someone's mental state via a 'machine' better than changing it via interactions with other people? I can't see what grounds DU can give for objecting to either while still remaining DU.

This was a response to Ryan and I was awaiting his reply. Not sure what you are on about here. As for foundational ethics as a distinct field rather than just topic, well people asserting this leads to the quagmire of morality we have today. I am not a foundationalist. The lack of foundationalist ethics implies we can use any relevant empirical knowledge in attempting to solve the interpersonal topic of cooperation, competition and conflict and that is all I am arguing for here.

I'm just trying to see whether we disagree on anything here. I'm still not really sure... I think you're arguing against the idea that there are specific actions (eg murder) which we must or must not perform, regardless of context. Am I right?

Arepo wrote:

faithlessgod wrote:Hmmm. So the logic here is that if you suffered more than the recipient of the rape, then you would recommend the rape?

It is, yeah. But the fact is that rape victims normally (seem to - I don't want to make categorical claims that I can't back up) suffer more than their loved ones. If they didn't (seem to) then overruling their experiences probably wouldn't seem so callous.

So it is ok to rape someone in a coma - and her family won't find out - because you will suffer less because of it, it is quite moral to do so?

Arepo wrote:

faithlessgod wrote:This is my point exactly, states of affairs matter in deciding over these alternatives.

No-one's disputing that... whether someone feels better or worse is just as much a state of affair as whether the rest of the universe aligns with their desire. What seems to be at issue is which states of affairs matter.

Really? It is up to each individual to decide which states of affairs matter to them, indeed that is what everyone does already. You are trying to impose on everyone that only certain states of affairs matter, regardless of what they think or want. It looks to me that you think that certain states of affairs - satisfaction/frustration have intrinsic value and that satisfaction should be maximised. But you have failed to demonstrate the tacit claim that these states of affairs are intrinsically valuable and the experience machine specifically refutes that claim. That is granted that there is such a thing as intrinsic value, your argument fails. (Of course, we know anyway that intrinsic values in general do not exist - the argument from queerness etc.)

In addition you have presented the egoist not utilitarian argument by choosing to enter the experience machine, a utilitarian hedonist would not enter the experience machine, as they know that their actions there would not bring about the increase of satisfaction in the world - whether regarded as intrinsically valuable or not,

Arepo wrote:I think we're just using 'price' and 'weight' to mean the same thing - a quantitative value. But I'm not asking whether preferences can outweigh one another - I take that as read. I'm asking whether the value of comfort can ever outweigh the value of truth. Say for eg if Bert's only preference is that x (so he doesn't have an additional preference that he believes x, nor does he have a desire for comfort). Bert believes that x is true and derives comfort from this, but as it happens it's false. According to pure PU, if you attribute no value to comfort for its own sake, this is bad, no matter how comforted Bert feels, or how mild his preference.

I asked this before so what? Everyone will have a different dynamic threshold for comfort versus truth as everyone seeks to substitute a more fulfilling state of affairs over a less fulfilling one. None of this is to do with ethical or moral value until and unless the actions brought about by realising such desired state of affairs affects others, then we can ask is this a desirable desire or not?

Arepo wrote:
I just want to know if you agree with the pure interpretation here, or if, by adjusting nothing in the scenario except 1) the strength of Bert's sole preference and 2) the comfort Bert derives from his false believe, you think that it's possible to create a scenario where the value of 1) is low enough (but still positive) and the value of 2) is high enough (but still finite) where you think the scenario is better than a value-neutral one.

What do you mean by a value-neutral here? What type of values are you talking about?

Arepo wrote:

faithlessgod wrote:There is no free will, no illusion of free will and no puppeteer.

If you accept determinism, there certainly is a puppeteer - it's the laws of physics. Is it only sentient puppeteers you object to? And if so on what grounds?

The "laws of physics" is not a non-sentient puppeteer. The laws of physics are descriptive not prescriptive (indeed there are no prescriptive laws of nature - they are a fiction). There are (most likely) no puppeteers since there is no evidence that they exist. For our purposes here I do accept determinism we are all a constitutive part of the deterministic process of the universe.

Arepo wrote:Also, why is changing someone's mental state via a 'machine' better than changing it via interactions with other people? I can't see what grounds DU can give for objecting to either while still remaining DU.

I never said it was "better" and do not see how it could be. It is on one level outside the bounds of morality which is to do with the use of social forces to mould each other's desires. On another the level use of machines to manipulate brain states is an ethical question and can be considered as just as ethically comparable to methods such as drugs, force, power, rhetoric, sophistry and so on.

Arepo wrote:I'm just trying to see whether we disagree on anything here. I'm still not really sure... I think you're arguing against the idea that there are specific actions (eg murder) which we must or must not perform, regardless of context. Am I right?

People have many and strong reasons to encourage an aversion to deliberate killing apart from self defence. There are rare situations where this may not be the case but that only would be when (a) these many and strong reason would not apply and (b) would not affect the encouragement of such aversions. Sadly such situations are far, far rarer than the common occurrence of murder (immoral not just illegal) in this world.

faithlessgod wrote:Really? It is up to each individual to decide which states of affairs matter to them, indeed that is what everyone does already. You are trying to impose on everyone that only certain states of affairs matter, regardless of what they think or want.

We're all doing that. We're just 'imposing' different things...

It looks to me that you think that certain states of affairs - satisfaction/frustration have intrinsic value and that satisfaction should be maximised.

I don't think that at all! You put it well yourself:

That is granted that there is such a thing as intrinsic value, your argument fails.

Agree.

(Of course, we know anyway that intrinsic values in general do not exist - the argument from queerness etc.)

And I agree again - so my argument doesn't necessarily fail.

The point is, we both use a tautology of sorts - you say that what makes having our desires fulfilled a 'good' (extrinsically valuable, if you like) outcome is that it's what we desire. I say that what makes the mental state of pleasure a 'good' outcome is that it's pleasing. In this sense, at least, our views are symmetrical.

In addition you have presented the egoist not utilitarian argument by choosing to enter the experience machine, a utilitarian hedonist would not enter the experience machine, as they know that their actions there would not bring about the increase of satisfaction in the world - whether regarded as intrinsically valuable or not,

I don't see why you think the experience machine is relevant to anything. If entering it created more total happiness than misery then a perfect CU would do so (for eg if their pleasure outweighed the harm and lost good they did to the world by entering it, which seems unlikely for most people). Since no-one is a perfect utilitarian, some people who accepted CU might still enter it for selfish reasons. Other people who thought the felicific sums meant they should enter it might not do so because they found the idea abhorrent.

Either way, it can't show anything about the accuracy of CU, only that CU might sometimes conflict with our intuitions - and we knew that anyway.

I asked this before so what? Everyone will have a different dynamic threshold for comfort versus truth as everyone seeks to substitute a more fulfilling state of affairs over a less fulfilling one. None of this is to do with ethical or moral value until and unless the actions brought about by realising such desired state of affairs affects others, then we can ask is this a desirable desire or not?

I'm not sure I understood this paragraph, but (via an admittedly tortuous thought experiment) I think I can make my question more relevant to what you're calling ethics:

Bert has a preference that x, and it is his only preference. Bert believes that x is true and derives great pleasure from this, but as it happens it's false.

John has access to a big red button, whose only function is to teleport next to Bert a sheet of paper containing (true) information that John knows will change Bert's preference to y. According to all the evidence Bert has, y is false, and so desiring it will cause him no pleasure, and possible cause him to suffer - but as it happens, y is true.

Since this is a thought experiment, let's just stipulate that John lives across the universe from Bert, and cannot interact with him in any way but by pressing the button/not pressing it. So John can choose for Bert one of two basic scenarios:

1) Bert desires and falsely believes x and is very happy because of it.
2) Bert desires y and falsely believes ~y and is not as happy (or even is unhappy) because of it.

Per my understanding of DU, a DU exponent can either say a) John should always choose scenario 2 for Bert, or b) which scenario John should choose depends on the strength of Bert's desires and the extent of his happiness or misery in each scenario.

In other words, a DU either believes a) that desire fulfilment is infinitely better than happiness, or that b) happiness has value comparable to desire fulfilment's, but at a discounted rate.

faithlessgod wrote:

Arepo wrote: I just want to know if you agree with the pure interpretation here, or if, by adjusting nothing in the scenario except 1) the strength of Bert's sole preference and 2) the comfort Bert derives from his false believe, you think that it's possible to create a scenario where the value of 1) is low enough (but still positive) and the value of 2) is high enough (but still finite) where you think the scenario is better than a value-neutral one.

What do you mean by a value-neutral here? What type of values are you talking about?

That’s what I’m asking you! Utilitarianism entails comparison (and, at least in a loose sense, measurement) of some quantity or quantities. The sum of that quantity can be positive, negative, or zero (which is what I mean by ‘value-neutral’).

On the ‘pure’ interpretation of DU, you seem to have two separate quantities – pleasure P (assuming you do consider pleasure to be good at all, which you’ve said you do) and desire fulfilment F. In this interpretation, 1P is better than 0P and so on, but 1F is better than any finite amount (real number) of P.

On the discounting interpretation of DU, you have one quantity, which isn’t strictly F, since it incorporates pleasure at a discounted rate – call it S. Here 1F amounts to a greater amount of S than 1P does, but it’s possible to solve the sum nP=1F such that n is a real number.

So I want to know which interpretation you prefer and, if the latter, what you think the value of n is.

faithlessgod wrote:The "laws of physics" is not a non-sentient puppeteer. The laws of physics are descriptive not prescriptive (indeed there are no prescriptive laws of nature - they are a fiction). There are (most likely) no puppeteers since there is no evidence that they exist. For our purposes here I do accept determinism we are all a constitutive part of the deterministic process of the universe.

I don’t want to argue terminology. If you want to call the laws of physics descriptive, fine (though there’s at least a loose sense in which what you’re describing is different to, say, facts about the past, right? – the fact that Ben Jonson's Volpone was first performed in 1606 doesn’t funnel our actions in the same way as gravity does – so I can see why people might want to describe them either way). What I want to isolate is what you think is fundamentally different in a deterministic universe about a nonsentient forcing affecting someone’s thoughts and a sentient force doing so.

To me there’s no difference – I would object to someone going around trying to toy with people’s brains in the real world (even for benevolent purposes) on the instrumental grounds that they’re likely to do a lot of damage and cause a lot of anxiety by doing so. But I don’t object to such things in principle, because I can’t see a categorical difference between them and either a) nonsentient events changing people’s brains or b) sentient people changing people’s brains via discussion, praise or censure.

The upshot of this, if I’m right about the lack of categorical difference, is that you’re already in a machine, which is the laws of biology (and ultimately physics). The issue is whether you’d be willing to swap into another one, which is the laws of some programmer (but still ultimately physics). If there’s no category difference between what each machine does to you, the only difference is that the second one gives more fulfilled desires than the first.

I think we’re still focusing too much on disputes over terminology that often seem to imply that we have differences of opinion when we don’t. Rather than saying something is x not y, we should be describing the properties we think that something has in all the detail we think might be relevant. It’ll take longer in the short term, but gives us much more hope for progress. The laws of physics are a good eg - we don’t seem to disagree on any of their actual properties, yet somehow we’ve ended up disputing which descriptive word to apply to them. I feel like there’s no point in having an argument until we’re sure we’ve isolated our actual disagreements (and eliminated those issues that masquerade as disagreements).

Arepo wrote:

faithlessgod wrote:You are trying to impose on everyone that only certain states of affairs matter, regardless of what they think or want.

We're all doing that. We're just 'imposing' different things...

What do you mean? I am not imposing on everyone that moral value is about only pleasurable inner states, you are.

Arepo wrote:

faithlessgod wrote:It looks to me that you think that certain states of affairs - satisfaction/frustration have intrinsic value and that satisfaction should be maximised...That is granted that there is such a thing as intrinsic value, your argument fails...(Of course, we know anyway that intrinsic values in general do not exist - the argument from queerness etc.)

And I agree again - so my argument doesn't necessarily fail.

Huh? Then your position makes no sense. So you do not argue morality is about the maximisation of that satisfaction for everyone? When did you change your mind? Clearly there is some confusion here. What is your argument then?

Arepo wrote:The point is, we both use a tautology of sorts - you say that what makes having our desires fulfilled a 'good' (extrinsically valuable, if you like) outcome is that it's what we desire. I say that what makes the mental state of pleasure a 'good' outcome is that it's pleasing. In this sense, at least, our views are symmetrical.

Our positions are not symmetrical. First I do not say "that what makes having our desires fulfilled a 'good' (extrinsically valuable, if you like) outcome is that it's what we desire". I do say that value is the relation between desires and states of affairs - that is not a tautology, it is just a defeasible description of what it is. Now you offer just a species of this value, where the states of affairs are pleasurable psychological states - lets call this hedonistic value? Well there are other states of affairs that are the targets of desires -on what basis do you deny their validity? Why cannot anyone fulfil those desires? This was the imposition complaint you have not yet resolved.

Arepo wrote:I don't see why you think the experience machine is relevant to anything.

It is only relevant to your claim that the hedonistic value is the only basis of morality. The experience machine refutes this. It does not matter what anyone who subscribes to CU would or would not do - rationally or otherwise -what it shows is that others have other values than pleasure and that is why it is relevant to your position.

Arepo wrote:

faithlessgod wrote:I asked this before so what? Everyone will have a different dynamic threshold for comfort versus truth as everyone seeks to substitute a more fulfilling state of affairs over a less fulfilling one. None of this is to do with ethical or moral value until and unless the actions brought about by realising such desired state of affairs affects others, then we can ask is this a desirable desire or not?

I'm not sure I understood this paragraph

Presumably this must be the second sentence as surely the first sentence is straightforward. As for the second sentence well this is the key to DU. In order to know what is blameworthy or praiseworthy we need to know whether a desire is desireable. This is what Mills was unable to deal with. DU explains how to do this. If you cannot answer this then you do not have a basis to morally evaluate anything!

Here we go again:-

Arepo wrote:Bert has a preference that x, and it is his only preference. Bert believes that x is true and derives great pleasure from this, but as it happens it's false.
John has access to a big red button, whose only function is to teleport next to Bert a sheet of paper containing (true) information that John knows will change Bert's preference to y. According to all the evidence Bert has, y is false, and so desiring it will cause him no pleasure, and possible cause him to suffer - but as it happens, y is true.
Since this is a thought experiment, let's just stipulate that John lives across the universe from Bert, and cannot interact with him in any way but by pressing the button/not pressing it. So John can choose for Bert one of two basic scenarios:
1) Bert desires and falsely believes x and is very happy because of it.
2) Bert desires y and falsely believes ~y and is not as happy (or even is unhappy) because of it.

First of all you stipulated that Bert in your experiment Bert only desire that X. He does not desire that he is happy, that would be a second desire or preference so the above is unclear - it looks like you have a tacit second preference here ...

Arepo wrote:Per my understanding of DU, a DU exponent can either say a) John should always choose scenario 2 for Bert

Can John by pressing the red button help Bert in fulfilling X - no. Can John by pressing the button help in fulfilling any of Bert's desires - no. Why would John want to press the red button? Certainly not a DU exponent.

Arepo wrote:or b) which scenario John should choose depends on the strength of Bert's desires and the extent of his happiness or misery in each scenario.

You stipulated that Bert had only one preference and now it looks like you have introduced a second one (the desire to be happy). If John was a good person, he would chose the scenario in which, as far as he can tell beyond a reasonable doubt, he could increase Bert's desire fulfilment . If he cannot tell beyond a reasonable doubt (or at all), then he should not interfere.

Arepo wrote:In other words, a DU either believes a) that desire fulfilment is infinitely better than happiness, or that b) happiness has value comparable to desire fulfilment's, but at a discounted rate.

Neither, this is a category error, they are not comparable. Happiness is a species of desire fulfilment.

Arepo wrote:That’s what I’m asking you! Utilitarianism entails comparison (and, at least in a loose sense, measurement) of some quantity or quantities. The sum of that quantity can be positive, negative, or zero (which is what I mean by ‘value-neutral’).

But you just agreed that intrinsic value does not exist! You appear to be contradicting your self here. Utility is indeterminate there is no way we know how to maximise such a thing. DU is a pluralistic theory - given that is based on the desire fulfilment theory of value - values are determined by the agent, it focuses on how to reduce the friction of interactions between agents to increase the possibility of them realising their desired states of affairs.

Arepo wrote:On the ‘pure’ interpretation of DU, you seem to have two separate quantities – pleasure P (assuming you do consider pleasure to be good at all, which you’ve said you do) and desire fulfilment F. In this interpretation, 1P is better than 0P and so on, but 1F is better than any finite amount (real number) of P.

There are no such quantities. It is not a question of whether I think that pleasure is good at all, but whether the agent desires states of affairs in which they obtain pleasure - directly or indirectly - as a result of their intentional actions succeeding. It is up to them and certainly not you to impose this on them. And again this is a category error as already noted.

Arepo wrote:On the discounting interpretation of DU, you have one quantity, which isn’t strictly F, since it incorporates pleasure at a discounted rate – call it S. Here 1F amounts to a greater amount of S than 1P does, but it’s possible to solve the sum nP=1F such that n is a real number.

There is no direct quantity 'utility', there are relations. How many states of affairs are there in the world? As many as agents desire. This is indeterminate.

Trying a simple physics metaphor here. One can "quantify" over relations but this "F" is really a 1st order derivative a rate of change of (indeterminate) fulfilled and thwarted states of affairs. More fulfilment is equivalent to a higher velocity, more desire thwarting is equivalent to lower or a negative velocity. Pleasure is not a relation, it is a state of affairs so S cannot be incorporated into F - they are qualitatively different. You cannot add S to F. Can you add distance to a velocity? No, the dimensions do not match. You can add a distance to a distance and here S is equivalent to a distance but F is not. And DU - not F - is about friction/acceleration - it is a 2nd order derivative, it is about the rate of change of F. DU is about increasing the rate of change of relations to increase F - velocity so to speak. I don't know if this metaphor helps, we shall see.

Arepo wrote:So I want to know which interpretation you prefer and, if the latter, what you think the value of n is.

N= NAN - it s a calculation error.

That is enough for now. What follows is not relevant until, with all due respect, you understand what DU is.

I think I'm getting a better idea of the key points we disagree on now... I’m also starting to think that part of the reason it’s been difficult is that some of the disagreements are more pronounced than we imagined.

I really want better understanding between us before we talk about whether these are right or wrong, so I’ll give the things I think you believe (that I don’t) along with the comments that made me think you believe them (so that if I’ve misunderstood you can see exactly what I’ve misunderstood, and in what way), and not worry about arguing over them until later.

I may just be paraphrasing what you’ve already said here - but that’s the point at the moment. We can’t get further until we’ve confirmed we’re talking about the same things.

1) That happiness entails desire - (ie the former is simply one of many possible constituents of the latter):

Happiness is a species of desire fulfilment.

Also

[in response to me saying Bert has only one preference, and that something that isn’t fulfilment of that preference will make him happier]
it looks like you have a tacit second preference here ...

1.1) That happiness specifically entails the desire to be happy:

You stipulated that Bert had only one preference and now it looks like you have introduced a second one (the desire to be happy).

2) That there is something important in the relationship between anything recognisable as goal-seeking activity and the goal sought. I can’t remember now which thread we discussed this in, and I might be getting you mixed up with Rob. But I’m thinking of the robots on Mars who seemed to be trying to create a garden... though the more I think of it, the more I’m starting to think it was Rob who thought thwarting them was bad.

3) That utility, whatever it is, isn't quantifiable even in theory:

There is no direct quantity 'utility', there are relations. How many states of affairs are there in the world? As many as agents desire. This is indeterminate.

4) That the experience machine proves that people can benefit from other things than happiness:

It is only relevant to your claim that the hedonistic value is the only basis of morality. The experience machine refutes this. It does not matter what anyone who subscribes to CU would or would not do - rationally or otherwise -what it shows is that others have other values than pleasure and that is why it is relevant to your position.

5) That it's impossible to quantify abstract concepts:

Utility is indeterminate there is no way we know how to maximise such a thing.

Also, in response to me denying a belief in intrinsic value,

Huh? Then your position makes no sense. So you do not argue morality is about the maximisation of that satisfaction for everyone?

(I might have misunderstood here - I can see two ways to interpret your complaint. One is that is that you think ‘there’s no intrinsic value’ and ‘we should maximise happiness’ contradict each other - ie that you believe I’m committing the naturalistic fallacy. But the same criticism would apply to anything that calls itself morality - DU included - so I tentatively think that’s not what you mean.

The second way is if you think that happiness being an abstract concept means that it makes no sense to speak of maximising it.)

6) That ‘desire’ is a label for some identifiable physical confluence/event in a way that ‘happiness’ isn’t - ie that happiness is abstract and desire isn’t. I can’t find a quote to show you think this, but it’s an impression I gained overall... I may well be mistaken.

6.1) That this confluence/event is anything recognisable as goal-seeking activity (see point 2, with the same caveats as there).

7) What constitutes a 'simple' metaphor

Trying a simple physics metaphor here. One can "quantify" over relations but this "F" is really a 1st order derivative a rate of change of (indeterminate) fulfilled and thwarted states of affairs. More fulfilment is equivalent to a higher velocity, more desire thwarting is equivalent to lower or a negative velocity. Pleasure is not a relation, it is a state of affairs so S cannot be incorporated into F - they are qualitatively different. You cannot add S to F. Can you add distance to a velocity? No, the dimensions do not match. You can add a distance to a distance and here S is equivalent to a distance but F is not. And DU - not F - is about friction/acceleration - it is a 2nd order derivative, it is about the rate of change of F. DU is about increasing the rate of change of relations to increase F - velocity so to speak. I don't know if this metaphor helps, we shall see.

I think you’re still using too much jargon - ‘first order derivative’ means little to me. I tried looking it up on Google, but though I found a few similar phrases, I couldn’t find an exact match on any page that also explained it. I don’t particularly object to you using such terminology, but it won’t get us far unless you explain it when you do.

I think the metaphor is getting in the way, tbh - I’m finding it hard to tell where it ends. For eg, you call F a velocity, but then seem to deny that it’s a state of affairs by contrasting it to pleasure. But I’m not yet clear what you mean by ‘state of affairs’ - I also don’t know what you mean by ‘relationship' here. Could you give a clear definition of both?

In any case, if you could go through my points and say which of them are accurate paraphrases of what you think and, where they're inaccurate, clarify what you meant in the passages I quoted (or just deny them if I didn't quote any)?

a very good analysis. google is mangling me replying on my mobile. and I have lost my stylus! Will give a proper reply when on a PC but very busy at the moment.

No prob, it will be a while before I can think about this again, too.

First of all a caveat I have been getting confused between response from you and Ryan. I am treating you as one, not deliberately but simply following this as a back and forth conversation. So please do not think I am putting words in your mouth if so I probably mean Ryan (and vice verse). Anyway lets proceed:

Arepo wrote:1) That happiness entails desire - (ie the former is simply one of many possible constituents of the latter):

Happiness is a species of desire fulfilment.

[in response to me saying Bert has only one preference, and that something that isn’t fulfilment of that preference will make him happier] it looks like you have a tacit second preference here ...

Close but not quite because I was being brief before. Desire fulfilment is a descriptive model of value - that all values that exist are relations between desires and states of affairs. Happiness is a state of affairs, the (relational) value is in desiring such a state of affairs (either directly or indirectly).

Arepo wrote:1.1) That happiness specifically entails the desire to be happy:

You stipulated that Bert had only one preference and now it looks like you have introduced a second one (the desire to be happy).

Not necessarily. Happenstance means one can discover being happy without having desired to be so and the same with any other states of affairs in which one can discover value in that type or in an (unexpected) instance of that type.

Now, in your thought experiment, this was specifically but tacitly implied. It makes a difference if there is a desire (or preference ) for happiness or not. Hence the question over Bert having only one preference.

Arepo wrote:2) That there is something important in the relationship between anything recognisable as goal-seeking activity and the goal sought. I can’t remember now which thread we discussed this in, and I might be getting you mixed up with Rob. But I’m thinking of the robots on Mars who seemed to be trying to create a garden... though the more I think of it, the more I’m starting to think it was Rob who thought thwarting them was bad.

There is not (just) "something important" rather that any such relationship just is the (extrinsic) value. If one is discussing value one cannot avoid discussing such relationships - whether one realizes or acknowledges this or not. Any goal-seeking activity necessarily entails such a relationship. Anything described using goal-seeking metaphors, analogies or derivations also implies such (metaphorical, analogical or derived) relationships (whether they exist in reality or not).

Arepo wrote:3) That utility, whatever it is, isn't quantifiable even in theory:

There is no direct quantity 'utility', there are relations. How many states of affairs are there in the world? As many as agents desire. This is indeterminate.

There are no intrinsic values - they are fictions. Now there are can still be physical, material features of the world which are at least in theory measurable and quantifiable such as certain brain states correlating to "happiness" for example. One could subjectively assign such features as utility and argue how to maximise this measure. However then utility becomes subjective since there is no objective basis to determine why utility is assigned to such states.

Objectively it simply is impossible to know how many states of affairs there are to be fulfilled. How earth is one able to tell? One could create some sort of collectivist totalitarian world which dictates to everyone what the states of affairs are to be fulfilled and not permit anyone to chose their own. This could be maximised but then this would not be promoting human flourishing or what truly matters for every individual or meaning or whatever you think is the relevant term, instead this would be preventing much human flourishing.

Arepo wrote:4) That the experience machine proves that people can benefit from other things than happiness:

It is only relevant to your claim that the hedonistic value is the only basis of morality. The experience machine refutes this. It does not matter what anyone who subscribes to CU would or would not do - rationally or otherwise -what it shows is that others have other values than pleasure and that is why it is relevant to your position.

Sort of curious about your use of "benefit from other things than happiness". Do you really think that people only benefit from happiness and not food, shelter, clothing, mates, predator avoidance, money or whatever? I re-emphasized my point which is different in the quote above.

Arepo wrote:5) That it's impossible to quantify abstract concepts:

Utility is indeterminate there is no way we know how to maximise such a thing.

Also, in response to me denying a belief in intrinsic value,

Huh? Then your position makes no sense. So you do not argue morality is about the maximisation of that satisfaction for everyone?

The danger of quantifying some abstract concepts is reifying them as if there is something to quantify when there is not. Abstractions are very useful tools as long as one understands their limitations. Some abstractions are simplifications of clearly measurable quantities e.g. the mass of an object. So no, it is not impossible rather it depends on what the abstraction is as to whether quantification can be done in principle or in reality or not.

With respect to utility the problem is not that it cannot be done in principle but it is certainly well nigh impossible in practice. The problem is that happiness or satisfaction either becomes so abstracted - over-generalised - that it can no longer correspond to some set of measurable brain states (even in theory), or you could constrain the meaning of happiness so that it does, but then this fails to function as a sufficient measure of utility (subjectively defined or not) in CU. This was the dilemma that I had issue with Rob over (or whoever I was arguing with about robots on Mars).

Arepo wrote:I might have misunderstood here - I can see two ways to interpret your complaint. One is that is that you think ‘there’s no intrinsic value’ and ‘we should maximise happiness’ contradict each other - ie that you believe I’m committing the naturalistic fallacy. But the same criticism would apply to anything that calls itself morality - DU included - so I tentatively think that’s not what you mean.

Yes that is what I meant and no DU does not commit this and this is not "naturalistic fallacy". Moore argued that there was intrinsic value and that (moral) intuition was the (only) means to detect it, the naturalistic fallacy was to reduce this supposed intrinsic value to something else so that something other than intuition could measure it. Intrinsic value is primarily denied by Mackie's the argument from queerness. DU works by taking into account the fictional status of intrinsic value. Until you answer what the value of happiness is it looks like you are either ascribing intrinsic value to happiness or this is a (equally problematical) subjective assignment. Hence I asked what you meant.

Arepo wrote:The second way is if you think that happiness being an abstract concept means that it makes no sense to speak of maximising it.)

That is not what I meant here.

Arepo wrote:6) That ‘desire’ is a label for some identifiable physical confluence/event in a way that ‘happiness’ isn’t - ie that happiness is abstract and desire isn’t. I can’t find a quote to show you think this, but it’s an impression I gained overall... I may well be mistaken.

DU (by DF) is based on belief-desire psychology and takes the standard robust and defeasible scientific view on this. Desires are a type of brain state. Happiness is either some (set of ) specific brain states or an abstraction too far. Charitably taking the former we are looking at two sets of brain states. With respect to desires there are only one other type of brain state - beliefs. All other "attitudes" can be reduced to one or the other or a combination. With respect to happiness there are many other types of brain states - for example see any list of "emotions". Now on the one hand both these sets of brain states are both states of affairs. On the other hand they are qualitatively different since only desires (and beliefs) are brain states that <i>relate</i> to other states of affairs (including possibly brain states such as happiness). (And comparing belief and desires, only desires motivate). So in this latter sense yes desire is "a label for some identifiable physical confluence/event in a way that ‘happiness’ isn’t". It defines a relation which is the topic under consideration. A desire is an origin of a relation but it is not the relation itself. Desire fulfilment is such a relation.

Arepo wrote:6.1) That this confluence/event is anything recognisable as goal-seeking activity (see point 2, with the same caveats as there).

Sort of but bear in mind beliefs also relate to states of affairs but lack goal-seeking activity.

Arepo wrote:7) What constitutes a 'simple' metaphor

Trying a simple physics metaphor here. One can "quantify" over relations but this "F" is really a 1st order derivative a rate of change of (indeterminate) fulfilled and thwarted states of affairs. More fulfilment is equivalent to a higher velocity, more desire thwarting is equivalent to lower or a negative velocity. Pleasure is not a relation, it is a state of affairs so S cannot be incorporated into F - they are qualitatively different. You cannot add S to F. Can you add distance to a velocity? No, the dimensions do not match. You can add a distance to a distance and here S is equivalent to a distance but F is not. And DU - not F - is about friction/acceleration - it is a 2nd order derivative, it is about the rate of change of F. DU is about increasing the rate of change of relations to increase F - velocity so to speak. I don't know if this metaphor helps, we shall see.

I think you’re still using too much jargon - ‘first order derivative’ means little to me. I tried looking it up on Google, but though I found a few similar phrases, I couldn’t find an exact match on any page that also explained it. I don’t particularly object to you using such terminology, but it won’t get us far unless you explain it when you do.

Sorry I was just trying to explain this with the most basic school physics model that everyone is taught in school, granted that you had introduced discounting factors prior to this and I (mistakenly?) thought at this is simpler (as well being more accurate - I am not mistaken about that). Lets repeat this without the standard calculus terminology - which I admit is not taught at this level in school.

Fulfilment "F" is a measure of the rate of change of relations - fulfilment or thwarting - of states of affairs, where F is equivalent to velocity (speed and direction) and states of affairs are equivalent to locations. More fulfilment is equivalent to a higher velocity, more desire thwarting is equivalent to lower or a negative velocity.

Pleasure (S) is not a relation, it is a state of affairs so S cannot be discounted into F - they are qualitatively different. Can you add distance to a velocity? No, the dimensions do not match. You can add a distance to a distance but here S is equivalent to a distance but F is not. So you cannot add S to F nor "discount" one into the other.

And DU - not F - is about friction (deceleration)/acceleration -it is about the rate of change of F. That is DU is about altering the direction and rate of change of relations - acceleration - typically by reducing friction (or deceleration) to increase F.

DU is partly a compass and could tell everyone which direction to steer, when to press the throttle or brake and when to blow the horn, when to let other users pass by and when to assert right of way, when windscreen wipers or look in the wing mirrors to best robustly negotiate the landscape and to minimize accidents and breakdowns.

However there is no well defined landscape in this metaphor since everyone determines their own landscape and DU is a guide to mastering this. To drive in a world which every sees differently everyone seeks their own means to flourish.

Arepo wrote:I think the metaphor is getting in the way, tbh - I’m finding it hard to tell where it ends. For eg, you call F a velocity, but then seem to deny that it’s a state of affairs by contrasting it to pleasure.

Quite correct. It is a relation not a state of affairs.

Arepo wrote: But I’m not yet clear what you mean by ‘state of affairs’ - I also don’t know what you mean by ‘relationship' here. Could you give a clear definition of both?

I am surprised I have been through this numerous times, this is absolutely basic to everything being argued for here and surely anyone interested in this field would be familiar with this (unless crippled by religious teaching). Well the metaphor has helped if this has made your puzzlement explicit. Anyway read this then re-read the above I suppose.

Belief-Desire Psychology:
A desire is an attitude to something - to make or keep something true.
A belief is an attitude to something - that it is true.
In either case, whatever that something is, is a state of affairs.
Both beliefs and desires are about something that is the relation.
If you believe it is raining and it is in fact raining then the relation's status is true.
If you believe it is raining and it is in fact not raining, then the relation' s status is false.
If you desire for it to rain tomorrow and it does rain tomorrow then the relation's status is fulfilled.
If you desire for it to rain tomorrow and it does not rain tomorrow then the relation's status is thwarted.
A belief's relations to states of affairs can be true, false or undecided (or unknown).
A desire's relations to states of affairs can be fulfilled, thwarted or unfulfilled (or unthwarted).

Of course, there are many desires that require one to act - intentional actions - to bring about the desired states of affairs and these are the topic of interpersonal interactions - the question of morality that I address.