tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154495438763509967.post892064131839170032..comments2024-01-28T06:24:50.005+00:00Comments on No Double Standards: 900 RacistsMartin Freedmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16952072422175870627noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154495438763509967.post-84805550228634543272010-07-11T04:33:57.919+01:002010-07-11T04:33:57.919+01:00Hiya Faithless,
I don't know if you follow ol...Hiya Faithless,<br /><br />I don't know if you follow old threads, but I'm curious about what you mean when you say that it is a prescriptive theory. In what sense?<br /><br />1. We have a rational duty to fulfill the most and strongest of our desires.<br />2. We should not fulfill the most and strongest of our desires, instead we should follow the prescription of 'turn the knobs'.<br /><br />If you go with (1) then the 900 racists counter-example stands. If you go with (2) then you have to answer "why be moral?" And since a desire is a reason for action, you also have to give a coherent account of how someone would act on the weaker of their desires.Justinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16072356181773206484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154495438763509967.post-86074511874349738432009-09-21T20:09:25.886+01:002009-09-21T20:09:25.886+01:00"The 900 racists will profit through their op..."The 900 racists will profit through their oppression."<br />Wow that is an amazing insight! This is meant to be an objection??? If oppressors did not gain some benefit (sometimes just perceived, sometimes real) they would not bother!<br /><br />"Desirism is a descriptive theory of ethics."<br />No it is a prescriptive theory. So the rest of your argument does not follow. Anyway you have already conceded your argument in a previous comment. You appear to be clutching at straws. The 900 racists remains refuted.Martin Freedmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16952072422175870627noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154495438763509967.post-43483436271870144532009-09-21T15:57:43.226+01:002009-09-21T15:57:43.226+01:00It would be irrational for a moral person to bring...<i>It would be irrational for a moral person to bring about evil ends, such as racism, since these would not be such a person's (or a societies) ends.</i><br /><br />The 900 racists will profit through their oppression. I've given several self-regarding reasons for them to do so (1) plunder, (2) evolutionary success. Even Alonzo Fyfe himself concedes the point. He wrote "This does not say, "all acts of oppression leave the oppressor worse off." That would be false. Some acts leave the oppressor better off" in <a href="http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2007/10/insignificance-of-morality.html" rel="nofollow">this</a> thread.<br /><br /><i>A racist society is an immoral society, regardless of how rational they are and however they can apply subjective and relative pseudo-moral" justifications such as they are fulfilling the desires of god in so acting.</i><br /><br />Desirism is a descriptive theory of ethics. The only basis on which you can say that the racist society is immoral is on the grounds of taking the "turn the desires up" technique as normative. Descriptive theories of ethics cannot do this. You have failed to provide a rational reason for the 900 racists to do this. Thus the case of the 900 racists stands unrefuted.Justinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16072356181773206484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154495438763509967.post-17563046211457306992009-09-16T20:44:58.289+01:002009-09-16T20:44:58.289+01:00Me:"There is no rational basis to the moralit...Me:"There is no rational basis to the morality that the racists are asserting.<br /><br />Justin:"Sure there is."<br /><br />The spoils of conquest and repro-fitness are not moral values as the way the go bring them about, via racism, has already been shown to be immoral.<br /><br />"Evolution is a zero-sum game, after all."<br />This is a red herring. We are talking about morality and rationalism not evolution.<br /><br />It may be quite rational for a racist to bring about the means to realise his ends, however means-end rationality says nothing about the value of those ends. <br /><br />It would be irrational for a moral person to bring about evil ends, such as racism, since these would not be such a person's (or a societies) ends.<br /><br />A racist society is an immoral society, regardless of how rational they are and however they can apply subjective and relative pseudo-moral" justifications such as they are fulfilling the desires of god in so acting.<br /><br />This is all so simple but you seem bizarrely confused.<br /><br />It would be irrational for a racist to be moral. <br />It would irrational for a moral person to be a racist. <br />It would be rational for a racist to be immoral.<br />It would be rational for a racist to <i>claim</i> they are being moral.<br />It would be irrational for a moral person to accept such a claim from a racist.<br />And so on.Martin Freedmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16952072422175870627noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154495438763509967.post-36829129557358805762009-09-15T10:42:53.964+01:002009-09-15T10:42:53.964+01:00"On desirism, it would be irrational for the ..."On desirism, it would be irrational for the 900 racists to act morally."<br />You have this completely upside down and inside out! <br /><br />If the 900 racists provide any moral justification for their racism, such as god says it is okay (or any other basis), then they are being irrational. <br /><br />There is no rational basis to the morality that the racists are asserting. This is what desirism shows. Their morality is defective.Martin Freedmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16952072422175870627noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154495438763509967.post-61992808170013879732009-09-14T15:08:55.560+01:002009-09-14T15:08:55.560+01:00The normativity comes from what people generally h...<i>The normativity comes from what people generally have reason to promote and inhibit, which as I emphasize here and elsewhere cannot be dependent upon the current mix and strengths of desires of any group, otherwise a vicious circularity follows and one cannot derive an "ought" from such an "is"</i><br /><br />Therein lies the rub. The 900 racists was chosen because it is a very specific case in which people do not have a rational reason to apply the "turn the knobs" technique. On desirism, it would be irrational for the 900 racists to act morally.Justinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16072356181773206484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154495438763509967.post-31396121414604921712009-09-14T12:35:21.264+01:002009-09-14T12:35:21.264+01:00I already answered your question in this post!
No...I already answered your question in this post!<br /><br />Note that "Turning the knobs" is just an explanatory metaphor. <br /><br />The normativity comes from what people generally have reason to promote and inhibit, which as I emphasize here and elsewhere cannot be dependent upon the current mix and strengths of desires of any group, otherwise a vicious circularity follows and one cannot derive an "ought" from such an "is".<br /><br /><br />These are the empirical grounds upon which subjective moral terms can have objective referents and unless one can propose other real-world entities, it remains that this best captures the pragmatic sense of such optional terms as "ought" etc.<br /><br />There are no "rational" reasons if by this one means <i> conventioanl theoretical reasons</i> - reasons to believe. Such reasons are motivationally inert (e.g deontology) when is comes to desires-as-ends. It is the failings of other theories such as your theistic natural rights morality that desirism addresses, by providing a ratio-empirical basis to evaluate desires (which is a combination of theoretical and practical reasoning).<br /><br />Finally of course if you read Alonzo's <a href="http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2007/05/1000-sadists-problem.html" rel="nofollow">1000 sadists</a> and <a href="http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2006/12/hateful-craig-problem.html" rel="nofollow"> Hateful Craig</a> posts <i>charitably</i> then you would realise you are understanding the problem space and creating a straw man.Martin Freedmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16952072422175870627noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154495438763509967.post-44648349064550921972009-09-10T15:18:05.294+01:002009-09-10T15:18:05.294+01:00Thanks for the response!
It appears you take Fyfe...Thanks for the response!<br /><br />It appears you take Fyfe's procedure of "turning the knobs" as normative. That's fine. Then desirism does not justify genocide. I freely concede that. Plenty of atheistic theories of ethics refute genocide, such as Rawls' theory of Justice. But then they walk into another problem: what rational reason is there that the racists should alter their desires such to allow the oppressed minority group to fulfill more of theirs?Justinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16072356181773206484noreply@blogger.com