Christian Ryan Lee

Hurka (2001) offers us the following:

(LG) If x is intrinsically good, then loving x (desiring, pursuing, or taking pleasure in x) for itself is also intrinsically good.

Suppose x is an episode of pleasure. If so, then desiring this episode is intrinsically good. Since episodes of pleasure are good candidates for having basic intrinsic value (intrinsic value not because of their relation to something else with intrinsic value), then loving x has nonbasic intrinsic value because it has a proper part that has basic intrinsic value. But (LG) specifies a virtue, and so having a virtue if it generates intrinsic value, generates nonbasic intrinsic value. If this is so, then adding virtue to the world does not add value to the world, assuming that the only way to add value to the world is to add basic intrinsic value to the world. That’s interesting.

According to one dictionary: compassion =df. a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.

We can simplify this definition and say compassion is aversion to another’s suffering and a desire that that suffering cease. Compassion is a virtue and someone’s having a particular virtue is intrinsically good (so says Moore, Ross, and Me). I say all virtues have a certain structure, namely, someone’s taking, or being disposed to take a kind of fitting attitude towards an intentional object. So it is with compassion. The fitting response to another’s suffering is aversion, and so, we have a virtue and a good. This is really plausible.

But there is a problem. Just take aversion toward’s one’s own suffering. This is no virtue, it’s just plain normal. We call such a state of affairs being in pain in English. This is not a good at all, though it involves having a fitting attitude towards an object in the same way that having compassion does. So what makes compassion, a trait that is both a clear virtue and an intrinsic good, relevantly different from aversion towards one’s own suffering, which is no virtue at all and clearly bad? It can’t simply be that the pain is “over there” rather than “over here.” The virtuous are impartial. So what’s the right response? Well, I think it’s not clear.

Does anyone in the literature commit to this claim in print? References?

Observed correlations between contingent events call out for explanation. The idea behind this claim is that the probability of observing correlations between distinct events on the hypothesis that there are no laws which entail them is extremely low, but not nearly as low on the hypothesis that there is some law which entails them. The observations of regularities thus probabilistically supports the presence of a law and, in turn, the presence of the law returns the favor by explaining the regularity.

I’m interested in how this fact might bear on analysis. In a paper I argue that the past and the future are both analyzable. This view entails that X is past iff X is earlier than now, and X is future iff X is later than now. I take ‘now’ to express an irreducibly tensed feature, while also serving to designate the time simultaneous with its tokening.

I motivate this view by analogy with laws of nature. Just as contingent regularities cry out for an explanation, so does the regularity that holds between past events and events that are earlier than now. The explanation won’t, I think, be causal, but it will instead be analytic. What it is to be past is to be earlier than now. If we denied this, we would be faced with an alternative hypothesis that there is no explanation for the correlation between these features.

Sound right?

The following is one plausible conception of intrinsic value: A state of affairs is intrinsically good, if and only if, it involves a subject, an attitude, and an intentional object, such that the attitude born by the subject fits the object to which it is directed. This leaves open what fit consists in. On an internal conception of fit, whether an attitude fits its object is wholly determined by the intrinsic properties of the subject, attitude, and the object. On an external conception, this is not so.

On my view, an external conception is right, which has the consequence that the intrinsic value of a state of affair can depend upon facts external to it. Thus, intrinsic properties need not be shared between duplicates (under certain ways of cashing out a duplicate), and intrinsic properties cannot fully be explained by appealing to facts about, say, fundamental features, parts, and their arrangements. Towards defending an external conception of fit, and towards making plausible the idea that intrinsic properties can depend upon external facts, I rely on an analogy with causal laws. Whether a thing exists can depend upon causal laws (say, conservation laws), and so, whether something has some intrinsic property P can depend upon the presence of causal laws in the world in which that thing exists. Likewise, whether an attitude is fitting can depend on governing normative laws.

One normative law says something like this: For all X, if X is bad, one ought not desire X as such.

So when someone does desire something bad, for example, the desire does not fit it’s object because a law governing whether an attitude is fitting has been violated.

Another law says something like this: For all S, X, if S is pleased by X, then S’s being pleased by X is intrinsically good only if S deserves to be pleased.

The next step involves generating the relevant laws, perhaps by forming a ramsey-sentence with their statements, and then defining ‘fit’ as the, hopefully, unique relation that is satisfied by these laws. Any thoughts, or worries about this general strategy?

In a paper I suggest that an event E exists now, if and only if, E is simultaneous with the token of ‘now’ and E has the property of being present. I hypothesize a semantic claim too, namely, that ‘now’ is indexical while also being descriptive. When one says that it is now the case that P, what one says is true, if and only if, the time referred to by ‘now’ has the property of being present. Can you think of any counterexamples?

There are three competing accounts of well-being. The Objective List theory entails that there are a variety of different sorts of fundamental intrinsic goods that make a life go better. Hedonism entails that it is pleasure (perhaps also the absence of pain) that makes a life go better. Last, Desire-Satisfaction Theory (DST) entails that it is getting what we want that makes a life go better.

Chris Heathwood gave a talk a few days ago here in Boulder. He advocates DST. Roughly, the view entails that a subject is made better off, if and only if, (a) the subject desires that p, (b) p is true, and (c) the subject believes that p is true. As far as I can tell, Chris is on the fence about whether (b) is a necessary condition.

Anyway, here is a simple counterexample: Smith points to a candy bar and says “I want to eat that.” Jones then hands Smith an indistinguishable, but different candy bar. Smith believes “I am getting what I wanted by eating this candy bar.” I say Smith is better off and any adequate version of DST should entail that Smith is better off. However, DST as stated cannot accommodate this simple case.

Note that the content of the desire, fixed by a demonstration, is different from the content of the belief, also fixed by a demonstration. We have a case in which the subject is unaware that content of his desire and his belief are distinct, and precisely because the content of both is fixed by facts that the subject cannot distinguish between.

I’m unsure how to repair the theory. Here’s an attempt: say that a subject is made better off, if and only if, (a) the subject desires that p, (b) p is true, and (c) the subject believes that her desire is satisfied.

The following cases is adapted from Boonin (forthcoming). Suppose that Smith and Jesus are members of a society in which most people are white while the rest are Mexican.  They are each considering whether it would be permissible for their society to accept a certain form of slavery, that is, whether their society should adopt a practice where white people are permitted to enslave their fellow mexicans, and not vice versa. From a self-interested perspective, and given that Smith is white, he would prefer that slavery be permitted.  On the other hand, given that he is mexican, Jesus would instead prefer that slavery be forbidden. Were their society to attempt to reach some consensus about which policy to adopt by having everyone simply vote on the basis of what they think would be best from a self-interested perspective, this society would either reach an impasse or the minority will be compelled to accept the will of the majority. The will of the majority, that is, would lead to the adoption of an unjust policy.

The veil of ignorance aims to prevent such problems by having Smith and Jesus cast their hypothetical votes in the absence of knowledge of morally irrelevant facts. Would Smith prefer to permit the practice of slavery or forbid it, were he to cast his vote prior to discovering whether he was going to turn out to be mexican rather than white?

Reasoning from such a perspective would take the following form: if I (Smith) turn out to be white, I will be better off if slavery is permitted than if it is forbidden, but if I turn out to be mexican, then I will be much worse off if slavery is permitted than if it is forbidden.  Because I (Smith) don’t know which ethnicity I will be, the rational thing for me to do from behind the veil of ignorance is to select an alternative with the best worse-case outcome for me.  As a result, I (Smith) should cast my hypothetical vote against permitting slavery. The same reasoning holds for Jesus. What results is that the practice of slavery would not be adopted, and this is the correct result.

What is crucial in the above reasoning? Smith reasons that were he to exist in the imagined society, that it is just as likely that he would be white rather than mexican, and also mexican rather than white. From behind the veil of ignorance, that is, each is requested to appeal to the principle of indifference when casting their hypothetical vote. According to this principle, whenever we have no reason to believe one alternative is more likely than another, we should assign to these alternatives equi-probabilities. Thus, since from behind the veil of ignorance Smith has no reason to believe that he is more likely to be mexican rather than white, when casting his vote he should assign an equal chance to the claim that he would be white as he does to the claim that he would be mexican.

I mention this for one reason: the principle of indifference is subject to purported counterexamples, for example, Betrand’s Paradox. If the principle is refuted by these purported counterexamples, then it is completely unclear whether reasoning from behind the veil of ignorance can yield these results, that is, the principles of justice that Rawls intended. It seems to me that we need to investigate the merits of the principle of indifference for yet another reason, in addition to its application to the argument from evil.

FA account of intrinsic value = X is intrinsically good, if and only if, it is fitting to respond to X with favor as such.

FA accounts are popular. I think they are wrong. It is fitting to favor many things as such and even things lacking in intrinsic value.

It is fitting to favor as such a pleasant sensation, innocently generated, and even though sensations lack intrinsic value as such.

It is fitting to favor as such one book to another, and even though books lack intrinsic value.

The lesson: Some constituents of states of affairs to which a fitting attitude is directed can lack intrinsic value, and even if the state of affairs that incorporates such objects, together with an fitting attitude directed at them, possess intrinsic value. FA accounts are mistaken, but not terribly mistaken.

Descartes walks into a bar. The bartender asks Descartes “Can I get you a drink?” Descartes responds “I think not!” and then he disappears.