The journal Philosophia recently accepted a paper by TSZ commenter walto, entitled CHOICE: An Objective, Voluntaristic Theory of Prudential Value. Congratulations to walto.
Our discussion of walto’s previous paper was cut short due to censorship by the moderators. Let’s hope they have the sense to stay out of the way and allow open discussion to proceed this time.
Prudential values are a good topic for TSZ, and a nice change of pace from our usual discussions of objective moral values and whether they exist. Hence this thread.
You can download walto’s paper here.
I’ll save my remarks for the comment thread.
walto:
The Kafka quote they included with my existentialist gumballs:
This is good. I’ll have to be clearer about this. Thanks.
walto,
In the first section of the paper, you write concerning subjective moral values:
To label a mass killing as “a matter of personal taste” will understandably elicit outrage, but I think the outrage will stem more from the implication that the deaths are trivial, and not so much from the assertion that there is no objective answer to the question of whether the deaths can be justified as a way of achieving a greater good.
In that same section, you write:
This gets to the heart of one of my disagreements with Neil, who thinks that truth is merely conventional.
The truth of “London is in England” depends on at least two things: 1) the linguistic conventions connecting “London” to a particular city and “England” to a particular geographic region; and 2) whether the designated city is contained within the designated geographic region.
#1 is a matter of linguistic convention, but #2 is not. That is, the statement “London is in England” could be rendered false if “London” referred to a different city and “England” referred to a different geographic region, but the fact that the particular city we happen to call “London” is located in the particular region we happen to call “England” is not a mere matter of convention. The latter is independent of our naming conventions.
keiths,
Right. I agree.
keiths,
I would like those who think that prudential values are trumped by moral considerations to at least always acknowledge publicly that they are advocating for something that will make a person or society worse off. If they still want to take there position, so be it: at least they’ll be upfront about the fact that their proposal may not benefit anybody’s welfare.
walto,
Not if their moral system is consequentialist. And even if their system is based on deontology or virtue ethics, it won’t necessarily make a person or society worse off.
Also note that if you think it is right to follow a scheme like CHOICE and wrong to reject it, then CHOICE ends up being a moral system as well as a theory of prudential value.
No, not necessarily. Possibly.
It doesn’t matter if they’re consequentialist or not . The point is that their moral claims might be inconsistent with people being better off. I think they need to acknowledge that.
If you mean “morally right” by “right” then I’d have to be appealing to some moral proposition–whether CHOICE based or not. If you mean correct, then I don’t need to be appealing to either a CHOICE-based or other moral theory.
walto,
Fair enough, as long as you acknowledge that CHOICE may lead to choices that are immoral (by various standards of morality).
It’s also important to note that CHOICE (societal version) may at times be inconsistent with particular individuals being better off, and that even CHOICE (individual version) may make people worse off in cases where more choice isn’t better, as in the retirement plan study.
keiths:
walto:
I gathered from your comment that you would (morally) disapprove of anyone arguing against CHOICE for moral reasons, since they would thereby, in your opinion, be advocating for something that could make people worse off.
From the paper:
This is close to my own view. Values, as the name implies, require valuers. We can speak of values that no one has ever held, but then we’re really talking about potential, not actual, values.
The endurance question is trickier. Values, like archaic word meanings, endure in one sense if they are remembered, even if no one still values or means them, but one could also argue that they are no longer values or meanings since they are no longer valued or meant.
Yes. Whether “I like grapes” is true or false is an objective question, though “grapes are good” is a subjective statement.
Incidentally, I made a batch of carbonated grapes the other day. They’re (subjectively) delicious!
ETA: I’m going to try carbonated pomegranate arils later today.
walto,
In the paper, you write:
Suppose S believes that “people exist”. It would be “passing strange” if S were wrong, but do you really think that “people exist” is a subjective judgment?
P.S. The carbonated pomegranate arils were good, but they went flat quickly ’cause they’re so small.
Oooh, that’s a really good counterexample. I’m going to have to add something. Got any ideas?
walto,
How does this do to handle it:
The idea is that (at least if “people” is construed as “sentient beings” i.e., the only things that can make judgements) if there were no people, S could not judge that P.
What do you think?
walto,
Well, as you know from our past discussions, our ideas regarding ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ don’t exactly line up.
For instance, you mention a person who regards sewing machines as evil, writing
I gather that you do think she might be wrong about that, and that her judgment is therefore objective. To me, by contrast, “sewing machines are evil” is the epitome of a subjective judgment, because it is a matter of personal opinion that cannot be resolved objectively without making further assumptions. It fits the following dictionary definition of “subjective”:
I’m trying to set that aside and think about how I would approach this if I were in your shoes, but I keep running into issues.
For instance, you write:
Yet you also write:
I know you’re not advocating the latter approach, but it actually makes the most sense to me. That’s why I wrote:
walto,
I don’t think (ii) helps, because humans are fallible, J could be right or wrong, and the occurrence of J is therefore always consistent with both the truth and falsity of P.
There are indeed several disconnects between us here. But probably not quite as many as it seems. One or two are only apparent; they’ve just resulted from unclarity on my part.
But there are basic differences too. You make ‘grapes are good’ subjective, and yet entirely reducible to ‘I like grapes’ which you take to be objective. That doesn’t work, I don’t think.
I also think one is reducible to the other, but I make both of them subjective: very likely true if and only if one thinks so.
On the other matter, the idea is that if there are no sentient entities, there could be nobody to judge anything–fallibly or not.
walto,
Depending on the intent of the speaker, ‘grapes are good’ isn’t necessarily reducible to ‘I like grapes’. He or she might be asserting that grapes are intrinsically good, independent of anyone’s tastes. That’s what I was getting at with my comment.
Somewhat ironically, “I like grapes” is actually an objective statement about my subjective tastes, and “grapes are good” (in the sense described above) is a subjective statement about a purportedly objective fact.
Elaborating on that theme, I think that “more choice is always good” is an example of the latter: a subjective statement about a purportedly objective fact, faced with counterexamples of the sort mentioned by Schwartz.
The selling point of your paper is objectivity. For it to succeed, you’d need to show that those counterexamples are illusory and that it really is better, always, to have more choices.
I’m afraid that neither of your last two posts make much sense to me, so I guess this is a good place to quit.
walto,
I can elaborate.
I wrote:
This also works for your sewing machine example. Your (odd) person saying ‘sewing machines are evil’ might be claiming that sewing machines are objectively evil, independent of personal opinion, or she might simply mean that she subjectively considers them to be evil.
keiths:
Likewise “according to my subjective standards, sewing machines are evil” is actually an objective statement about my subjective standards — it’s true if and only if sewing machines are evil according to those same subjective standards.
In other words, the judgment regarding sewing machines is subjective, while the statement regarding the judgment is objective and independently verifiable.
By contrast, “sewing machines are objectively evil” is actually a subjective statement. It’s not independently verifiable.
That would mean, presumably, that she doesn’t like them. That’s the main reason I’d say that “subjectively considering something to be evil” is the same thing as making a subjective judgement.
The way to look at this, I think, is to consider first the truth-conditions of the assertions. Take “This is good.” If goodness is subjective, then if S believes that this is good, that statement (when uttered by S) is true. If goodness is objective, then, believing that this is good is consistent with the statement being false as well as true. The key here is not confusing truth with objectivity.
Now consider “I like this.” This is true if it is believed. I take most things that are true if they are believed to be subjective. As I said in the bit you quoted in the paper, one may take them to be objective, if one likes, but they’re unlike most empirical statements in being true whenever they’re believed.
When you say that someone might THINK that something is objectively evil–if we suppose that evil is not objective, then that statement (which is an objective matter of philosophy) is false–whether the person likes this thing or not. If this person is correct that evil is an objective property that this thing has, then what she says is true, regardless of what she (or anybody thinks about it).
keiths:
walto:
It would presumably mean more than that since you can dislike something without considering it to be evil.
I agree. The distinction I’m drawing is between the subjective judgment itself and a statement about that subjective judgment. “I subjectively consider sewing machines to be evil” is actually a statement of an objective truth about the speaker’s judgment (assuming she isn’t lying).
It depends on what S means. If he means “This is objectively good”, then his statement is false. If he means “I subjectively consider this to be good”, then his statement is true.
That’s one of our biggest differences. I consider truth and independent verifiability to be essential aspects of objective judgments.
I think the example I used in an earlier discussion was “Barack Obama has eight legs.” To you, that’s an objective judgment. To me, it’s hopelessly subjective. It purports to be objective, but it’s false and it isn’t independently verifiable.
Under normal circumstances, yes. But there’s still some logical distance between the liking and the belief. The liking is the truthmaker for “I like this.” The belief is not.
Agreed.
From the paper:
What if one regards the satisfaction of well-justified desires as more valuable than the satisfaction of poorly justified ones? Couldn’t that explain the increment?
keiths,
I would say that to that extent one has discarded voluntarism for something else that involves idealization (here, via justification).
Okay. Then how about someone whose desire becomes stronger when it is well-justified? That still sounds like voluntarism to me, because it is an increment in desire that creates the increment in value.
keiths,
Yes, you make ‘objective’ a subset of ‘true’. I don’t use it that way.
walto,
Do you really feel comfortable saying that “Barack Obama has eight legs” is an objective judgment?
keiths,
If it’s made more valuable as a result of the stronger desire (a position I don’t hold, as you know) it would still be voluntaristic. If it’s made more valuable by the additional justification, it seems to me not to be.
walto,
Right, and that’s why I question this paragraph from the paper:
I believe I’ve supplied an argument that can be used to defend that claim.
keiths,
I would say that o that extent one has discarded voluntarism for something else that involves realization (via justification).
Absolutely. Objective, but false.
walto:
How so, when the incremental value is due to incremental desire? How does that fail to qualify as voluntaristic?
keiths:
walto:
If Buford claims that Obama has eight legs, is he being objective?
I
As indicated, it’s not the additional info, it’s the additional intensity of the desire that makes the value change for the voluntarism. The info here acts only causally, as taking a long drive in a car might do for someone else. Perhaps it always serves to heighten his desires. We wouldn’t put cars in the definition to handle such people.
Dunno what you mean by “being objective.” If you mean judging without bias, I’d have to know more about Buford to answer that. Propositions can be objective but people could in that sense be “unobjective about them.” Maybe Buford thinks 20,000,000 – 750 = something less than 18,000,000 largely because if it did, he’d owe less in tax. That wouldn”t make mathematical propositions unobjective.
Incidentally, I see that while I’m talking about “objective propositions” here, I define “objective judgments” in the paper. And since the latter don’t seem consistent with judger bias, that looks like another addendum I’ll have to make to the definition.
Crimity! 😣
keiths:
walto:
Right, but the additional information is part of the causal chain:
additional info -> additional desire -> greater value
The additional info is necessary, but the voluntarism is intact.
keiths:
walto:
keiths:
walto:
Whatever you mean by it. I’m trying to figure out if you’re using “objective” consistently. If “Obama has eight legs” is truly an objective judgment, then it seems to me that Buford is being objective in making that judgment.
I would balk at saying that Buford is being objective, however. What about you?
The causal chain is irrelevant to the analysis.
I’ve already answered that. If he’s biased, he’s not objective, if not, there’s no reason for thinking he isn’t. He’s just wrong. I think I mean by “objective” roughly what you mean by “unbiased and either empirically verifiable or metaphysically necessary.” I don’t think “objective truth” is redundant. We’ve been over this ground before, no?
walto,
How so? Your paper talks about “an increase in value resulting from additional information”. “Resulting from” sounds pretty causal to me.
walto,
Yet you told us without qualification that “Obama has eight legs” is an objective judgment.
And really, do you think anyone could objectively conclude, without bias, that Obama has eight legs?
I think you’re inadvertently shifting between two definitions of “objective”.
In the paper, you write:
Nothing about an absence of bias there.
keiths,
Right. I was thinking about the proposition rather than the judgment. I do think I should mention that objective judgments cannot be biased. I don’t see why a judgment that Obama has 8 legs must be biased. You need to read or watch more science fiction.
keiths,
The increase in value doesn’t result from the information, the increased desire could though. Suppose the absence of the info and keep the additional desire and you’ll see what the added value ‘results from.’
walto,
You’re ruling out indirect causes, but I don’t see why. Indirect causes conform to your description:
The additional value results from the additional information via its effect on desire:
additional information -> additional desire -> additional value
no additional information -> no additional desire -> no additional value
walto,
What evidence does anyone actually have that could justify “Obama has eight legs” as an unbiased, objective judgment?
keiths,
Nobody actually has any as far as I know. As I’m sure you know, that doesn’t matter. If it’s biased it’s not objective.
On the other post, lots of things can cause increases in intensity of emotions. As I said, maybe car trips do it for some people. It doesn’t matter.
I won’t answer either of these a fourth time.
walto,
That’s right. It doesn’t matter. It’s still voluntarism if increased desire leads to increased value, whether the increase in desire is due to additional information, car trips, or anything else.
walto,
Amending your definition of ‘objective’ to include ‘unbiased’ is a step in the right direction, but it also creates a new problem for you.
Under your new definition, a biased judgment that Obama has eight legs is no longer objective. But it isn’t subjective, either, because you restrict ‘subjective’ to those things it would be ‘passing strange’ for us to be wrong about. It isn’t ‘passing strange’ for someone to be wrong about Obama’s eight-leggedness, after all.
So a biased judgment that Obama has eight legs ends up being neither objective nor subjective in your scheme.
Right. I’m already on that. Also had to take care of your clever counter-example.