Many people reading my postings on desirism do so under the assumption that it must start with a set of fundamental moral commandments. With this in mind, they then search for an interpretation that is consistent with this assumption. They find their commandment, then set about to criticize it.
However, their fundamental assumption is wrong, which means that their interpretation is incorrect. Consequently, the theory the criticize is not the theory that I wrote.
This posting came a few days after I had a go at Desirism, because it appears to validate any moral code from the fanaticism of suicide bombers to the saintliness of Mother Teresa, and I can’t help feeling that it was aimed at me, seeing as I was the only one saying anything critical at the time. The trouble with the above is that it exactly misses my critique of Desirism: my problem with it is that it has absolutely no moral ‘commandments’ in it.
Now, I’m not a stupid person, and neither is Alonzo. We’re both very smart individuals, and yet we have come to loggerheads over the basic nature of Desirism. How did this happen? I think the root cause is that we have very different conceptions of what Desirism stands for.
My impression, upon finding Alonzo’s podcast and blog, was that he was building up to presenting a moral code. His blog is called Atheist Ethicist: A view of right and wrong, good and evil, in a universe without gods. The subtitle was right up my street, and I expected him to say something about right and wrong, and good and evil. In other words, about morality. Unfortunately, over the months Desirism has turned out to be about something else: the mechanisms of human negotiations.
To me, morality as a subject should be discussing what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil. In other words, morality is not about how people do behave, but about how people should behave. What Alonzo is doing has nothing to do with right and wrong, or good and evil, so to me it has nothing to do with morality. It’s about basic human cognitive and communicative mechanisms whereby people determine what they want and get their way in the real world. It’s about peer pressure.
Desirism is to Morality what the car is to driving.
Desirism is about desires, beliefs, and actions, i.e. the mechanisms by which human behavior is implemented. Morality is about right and wrong, good and evil. It’s about rules for people getting by with each other; unjustified killing is evil, keeping promises is good, lying is bad, etc.
Cars are about wheels, engines, clutches and brakes, i.e. the mechanisms that implement a car. Driving is about how to govern road traffic so that accidents are avoided. Driving is about right and wrong, and good and bad. Some traffic rules are arbitrary - thou shalt drive on the left side of the road. Others are based on possible bad consequences, e.g. collisions at junctions if there isn’t a system for prioritizing traffic.
The car/driving analogy explains why I am disappointed with Desirism. It’s as if I had turned up for a course on advanced driving skills, only to receive a lecture on automobile engineering.
Alonzo doesn’t get what my problem is, and sadly, the vast majority of his commenters don’t get the distinction, either. His descriptions of how moral agents think and interact are all logically coherent, and Desirism is defined in a ‘predicate’ style that is bound to impress those who haven’t actually done any predicate calculus. I suspect that the real reason they don't understand my problem with it is that they’re all tacitly assuming that Desirism entails the standard, American Christian moral code.
I’ve driven in the US, the UK and all over Europe. The cars were pretty much the same apart from the arbitrary left- vs. right-hand drive thing. But India… OMG, that place is insane. The cars are just the same, but the rules for driving are bewildering. Coincidentally, I saw a phenomenal number of people with lower limb deformities while I was there. My hypothesis: Bangalore's anarchic driving code results in a lot of pedestrians and scooterists being hit in the legs by cars. But, is it cause or correlation? I’m not sure, but one thing is certain - I wouldn’t attempt to drive myself over there. Making a car go and making it though the Bangalore traffic are two completely different subject matters.
And so are Desirism and Morality.
No comments:
Post a Comment