E.G.: More on consequentialism and the desire for wrong.

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More on consequentialism and the desire for wrong.

[This post may change significantly over time.]

Define "ODS Consequentialism" as follows:

ODS Consequentialism: One ought always act in such a way as to maximize value. Only satisfaction of desire has value -- and the stronger a desire, the more value is produced by its satisfaction.

I have previously argued that something like ODS consequentialism has a problem when it comes to a case such as the following one:

Young Augustine strongly desires to do something wrong. (He does not care what, as long as it is wrong.) There is a pear tree whose owner would be only slightly bothered if the pears were stolen. Augustine decides to steal the pears because he believes it would be wrong to do so.

The problem I've seen for ODS consequentialism is as follows:

(a) If Augustine ought to steal the pears, then doing so would, of course, not be wrong. In that case, Augustine's desire to do something wrong would not be satisfied by stealing the pears. But then, given ODS consequentialism, Augustine ought not steal the pears, because stealing the pears would frustrate the owner's (very slight) desire to keep his pears, without satisfying Augustine's desires.

(b) On the other hand, if Augustine ought not steal the pears, then doing so would be wrong. In that case, Augustine's desire to do something wrong would be satisfied by stealing the pears. But then, given ODS consequentialism, Augustine ought to steal the pears, because Augustine's strong desire to do something wrong would outweigh the owner's weak desire to keep his pears.

Thus, it seems that, given ODS consequentialism, if Augustine ought to steal the pears, then Augustine ought not steal the pears, while if Augustine ought not steal the pears, then Augustine ought to steal the pears.

At his blog, Richard has discussed this problem and several related problems. I take Richard to think that Augustine's desire would be somehow meaningless or impossible. I'm not sure Richard is still as concerned with the problem for ODS consequentialism as I (still) am; I think Richard may be concerned with a slightly wider class of problems. However, I think we can make use of some of Richard's thoughts for our purposes here, even if Richard has by now moved on to somewhat greener pastures.

Consider this paragraph of Richard's from this recent post:

Imagine a sheet of paper headed with the sentence: "Most statements on this page are false." But suppose the rest of the page contains an equal number of true and false statements. The original statement would now be true iff it is false. In other words, the context converts it into the liar sentence. Contradictions are impossible. Since it's impossible to have a statement truly asserting a contradiction, we must conclude that the apparent sentence is in fact meaningless (it refers to no proposition) in this context.

I will say something in a moment about what this case has to do with the case of young Augustine, but let's first consider this case on its own. Richard is right to say that, in the given context, "Most statements on this page are false" is true if and only if it is false. But does this make it meaningless?

Let's flesh out the example. Imagine a page on which three statements are written:

(a) Most statements on this page are false.
(b) Paris is the capital of France.
(c) 2+2=5.

Suppose the person who writes up this page mistakenly believes that Paris is the capital of Italy, not France. This person believes that (b) and (c) are false, and therefore that (a) is true. Since this person has good reason to believe (a) is true, she also has good reason to believe that (a) has meaning. Of course, this does not show that (a) does have meaning. We can be mistaken about whether our utterances have meaning, just as we can be mistaken about whether our utterances are true.

Under what circumstances is a proposition meaningless? Perhaps some people think that

(i) P is meaningless when: P is true if and only if P is false.

We can subdivide the condition in (i):

(i.i) Necessarily, P is true if and only if it is false.
(i.ii) Contingently, P is true if and only if it is false.

"This sentence is false" is an example of a proposition meeting condition (i.i); in every imaginable scenario, "This sentence is false" is true if and only if it is false. "Most statements on this page are false" is an example of a proposition meeting condition (i.ii): We can imagine scenarios in which the truth of "Most statements on this page are false" does not imply its falsity (nor vice-versa); it just so happens that in the scenario which actually obtains, its truth does imply its falsity (and vice-versa).

I think that propositions meeting condition (i.i) are always meaningless, but propositions meeting condition (i.ii) are sometimes meaningful. But I am not that concerned about whether this can be shown or not. I suppose a lot will depend on what is meant by "meaningful," and it's all right if others disagree with me about what that word means. But I think it's worth pointing out some important differences between propositions meeting condition (i.i), and propositions meeting condition (i.ii).

One can't really believe propositions meeting condition (i.i). Consider the proposition "This sentence is false." I might mistakenly believe I believe this proposition, but there is no proposition there to believe; the sentence is a mere combination of words. But one easily could believe propositions meeting condition (i.ii). For instance, in the above example, I can believe "Most sentences on this page are false" as long as I believe that Paris is not the capital of France. Indeed, I can believe "Most sentences on this page are false" even if Paris really is the capital of France, so long as I am ignorant of this fact. Put another way: I can believe "Most sentences on this page are false" regardless of context, even though I may need to be mistaken about the context in order to believe "Most sentences are false."

So: If we say that propositions meeting conditions (i.i) and (i.ii) are all "meaningless," we should remember that they are each meaningless in "different ways." Propositions meeting condition (i.i) are not rationally believable; I must have some wires crossed in order to believe they are true (or to believe they are false). Propositions meeting condition (i.ii) do not all have this property. I may sometimes need to be mistaken in order to believe such propositions, but such propositions can usually be coherently incorporated into a possible body of beliefs.

What does any of this have to do with anything? Return to the case of young Augustine. I have claimed that given ODS consequentialism, if Augustine ought to steal the pears, then Augustine ought not steal the pears, while if Augustine ought not steal the pears, then Augustine ought to steal the pears. The proposition "Augustine ought to steal the pears" thus appears to be true if and only if it is false, given ODS consequentialism. But "Augustine ought to steal the pears" meets condition (i.ii), not condition (i.i). For if Augustine wanted to steal the pears because he is extremely hungry, and not because he wants to do something wrong, then "Augustine ought to steal the pears" would not be true if and only if it is false, even given ODS consequentialism. So "Augustine ought to steal the pears" is, it appears, rationally believable for the ODS consequentialist. Its truth implies its falsehood, and its falsehood implies its truth, but only in the context where Augustine really does desire to do something wrong.

This may seem like good news for the ODS consequentialist. After all, the ODS consequentialist should want to be able to say whether Augustine ought to steal the pears. This shows that the ODS consequentialist can do this, at least in certain contexts. In a context such as the one in which Augustine finds himself, of course, the ODS consequentialist cannot do this. But this is only problematic if the context such as the one in which Augustine finds himself can actually obtain. Perhaps it cannot.

We can size up the situation for the ODS consequentialist by once again considering the proposition "Most statements on this page are false." As we've seen, in the example considered above, either "Most statements on this page are false" is true iff it is false, or Paris is not the capital of France. A similar situation obtains for the ODS consequentialist. For the ODS consequentialist, either "Augustine ought to steal the pears" is true iff it is false, or Augustine does not desire to do something wrong. (This is an "exclusive-or"; one, but not both, of the disjuncts has to be true.) The ODS consequentialist should want to deny the left disjunct, and therefore to affirm the right disjunct. The ODS consequentialist is certainly free to deny the left disjunct. However, it seems to me that the ODS consequentialist cannot deny the left disjunct just because the left disjunct would make problems for ODS consequentialism.

As things turn out, Paris is the capital of France. But Paris is the capital of France for reasons entirely independent of whether I have written "Most sentences on this page are false" on a page. To know what makes Paris the capital of France, I guess you have to look away from the page and consider some historical facts. Perhaps a similar thing is true of young Augustine. Young Augustine claims he desires to do something wrong. Perhaps this claim is false; perhaps what he really desires is to look cool in front of his friends -- a desire he could conceivably satisfy without doing anything wrong. But, it seems to me, whatever would make this claim of Augustine's true or false should be kept separate from the problem we are facing here. "What does Augustine really desire to do?" This is a psychological question, I think. I do not think we can answer it by considering the incompatibility of ODS consequentialism with a desire to do wrong.

Augustine claims that he desired to do something wrong. Many other people seem to desire the same thing (e.g. Nazis, maybe). It is possible -- perhaps probable -- that all these people do not really desire what they seem to desire. But I do not think we can say that a person could not hold such a desire simply because holding such a desire would cause the problem with which we have been concerned here.

03/02/2005 | Permalink

Comments

"As things turn out, Paris is the capital of France. But Paris is the capital of France for reasons entirely independent of whether I have written "Most sentences on this page are false" on a page. To know what makes Paris the capital of France, I guess you have to look away from the page and consider some historical facts. Perhaps a similar thing is true of young Augustine."

So the truth or falsity of the claim that "Paris is the capital of France" is what determines whether the first claim is meaningless or not. Doesn't this suggest that the truth of the claim that "ODS is true" is what determines whether Augustine's desire is meaningless or not: If ODS is true, then Augustine's apparent belief is meaningless, but if ODS is false then it's not?

That doesn't seem to me to pose a problem for ODS, which will be true or false for reasons entirely independent of whether Augustine thinks he has this desire or not. To know whether ODS is true or not, I guess you have to look away from Augustine and consider other arguments.

Posted by: Conchis | 03/02/2005 at 04:04 PM

ODS is a function of desires; it says desires ought to be maximally satisfied (or something to that effect). Desires are not a function of ODS; desires are psychological and obtain in virtue of psychological facts. So I think it makes sense to say that Augustine's desires should obtain independently of ODS without saying something analogous about ODS.

Posted by: david | 03/02/2005 at 04:57 PM

But Augustine's desire IS a function of the truth of ODS, because the content of his desire depends on what is morally wrong, which is what ODS purports to tell us. (Indeed, it's this mutual dependence that leads to the supposed contradiction to begin with.)

A slightly different take on what I think might be the problem with this argument...

To resolve the apparent paradox, I do think we need to reject either the desire, or ODS, but I'm not sure that "rejecting the desire" in this case involves denying that Augustine's desire exists. Focusing on whether he really has this desire or not seems to me rather like focusing on whether or not someone really wrote "Most statements on this page are false" on a piece of paper. Sure, that's an empirical matter, but it's one that's neither here nor there when it comes to the question of whether the claim means anything.

Similarly, whether Augustine has any particular desire is an empirical matter that doesn't depend on the truth of ODS. But it's one that says nothing about whether the desire is a meaningful one. I would think that I am perfectly capable of having meaningless desires - I might truly desire that none of my desires be fulfilled, for example - but my desiring this does not disprove the laws of logic that make it nonsensical.

Posted by: Conchis | 03/03/2005 at 10:22 AM

Another way of thinking about this:

Add to the definition of ODS consequentialism a tighter specification of what counts as a desire.

MDS Consequentialism: One ought always act in such a way as to maximize value. Only satisfaction of meaningful* desire has value -- and the stronger a meaningful desire, the more value is produced by its satisfaction.

At best, the existence of Augustine's desire can disprove ODS Consequentialism (and I'm not even really convinced of that); it cannot disprove MDS Consequentialism. I would think you could run this sort of modification for any sort of consequentialism without causing too many headaches for consequentialists.

* Where meaningful is defined basically as above, to exclude self-defeating desires.

Posted by: Conchis | 03/03/2005 at 10:42 AM

Conchis--
Thanks for these comments -- you make a lot of good points. I agree with much of what you say. For one thing, I agree with you that we will not be able to raise similar problems for many non-ODS versions of consequentialism. This isn't a problem for consequentialism as such; if it's a problem at all, it's a problem specifically for ODS consequentialism.

I think that your MDS consequentialism will not be as defensible as ODS consequentialism is often taken to be. Generally, I suspect that you are going to have to significantly depart from ODS (and not just make a slight modification to it) if you want to arrive at a consequentialism which is both plausible and which escapes the objection I've raised here. I'll try to defend this claim in a future post.

Posted by: david | 03/03/2005 at 12:40 PM

What makes Augustine's claim to having the desire true or false is pertinent if one is an internalist.

Let's say that moral judgment is definitely linked to motivation. One could take a strong position and say that it's impossible for Augustine to actually desire to do wrong simply because it's wrong. In that case, Augustine's claim to the existence of that desire is necessarily false while not being incoherent (maybe he does just want to look cool), and ODS lives to fight another day.

Posted by: Hugo de Groot | 03/09/2005 at 12:45 PM

I forgot to mention, I wrote up a response to this a month or so back:

http://pixnaps.blogspot.com/2005/05/believing-paradoxical.html

Posted by: Richard | 06/28/2005 at 12:13 AM

Posted by: 40inchplus | 06/19/2007 at 11:47 AM

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E.G.

"Me! Hear! My foreign ear—the sounds of welcome near!"

More on consequentialism and the desire for wrong.

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