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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   26353 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 8, 2024

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That it doesn't have majority representation in philosophical/academic journals is a pretty facile reason for discarding it, IMO. Central to Fyfe's thesis is the notion that beliefs plus desires result in intentional action, therein implying that desires are the only reasons for intentional action that exist. My totally unqualified and layman's understanding of neuroscience and more specifically some of the findings in moral psychology thus far, seem to lend support and credence to something like Fyfe's ultimate conclusion. I've seen no good evidence to the contrary. If you're aware of any substantial critiques of Fyfe or Desirism in particular, I'd love to see them. To me, this isn't it however.

I think you missed most of my comment.

Fyfe's attempt pretty much grabbed Marks' descriptive theory, but then pretty inexplicably tried just grafting utilitarianism onto it, and it basically doesn't make any sense. He swears that desires are the only reasons for action, because he thinks he has to have this strong rule to keep any sort of god from floating back into the picture... but then immediately introduces a "Golden Rule" (I don't want to look up his exact wording, but the 'do things that tend to fulfill desires' rule). This "Golden Rule" just comes from magic; moreover, it immediately breaks the idea that the only reasons for action are desires. For if no agent in the system desires the "Golden Rule", where does it come from? He can't take the Marks exit (which is not a "Golden Rule" at all, but instead positioned as simply a piece of practical advice for how one can vet their own desires and then go about achieving them). There really is just nothing to save it; it's self-contradictory, pretty quickly.

No, I did read it. I was hoping for something a bit less conjectural and more technically given.

That's not conjectural at all. It's a specific claim that his specific formulation is self-contradictory. Easy question you can ask yourself: Is the "Golden Rule of Desirism" a desire? If no, then it is not a reason for action, by definition. If so, then simply consider a world where no entity holds that desire, and the entire force of the rule disappears.

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