Rethinking What I Desire

There is the obvious short term meaning of the word desire. I want to eat chocolate, I want to play Overwatch and I want to sleep all day. Then there are longer term desires, to have a prestigious reputation, to be successful in every sense of the word and to be of great import. But these desires conflict, maybe not in every case but undoubtedly in most.

Short term desire, on reflection, invokes something like the terror Dr Jekyll feels when he looks upon his alter ego of Mr Hyde. I have searched through several books to best find this feeling and I find Korsgaard is most apt. She says:

"For it follows from Hume's account of sympathy that the sentiment of others is contagious to us. And their sentiments about ourselves, in particular, have a tendency to get under our skins. So the fact that other people will disapprove and dislike the sensible knave will be sufficient to provide him with feelings of disapproval and dislike of himself"

and later saying:

"For the same reason, the sense that you are detestable in the eyes of others makes you detestable in your own. And morality provides these feelings whether you think that morality is justified or not. This fact enables Hume to add the familiar claim that virtue is its own reward to his list of ways in which virtue promotes self-interest without any circularity at all." Christine Korsgaard, Sources of Normativity, page 59, 1996.

To provide context Hume argued that morality was a synthesis of sentiments and reason, that we have sentiments such as murder is bad and that we reason such that we say things like 1. John killed Jim for no good reason 2. Murder is killing someone for no good reason therefore 3. John murdered Jim leads us to John did something bad. Once again note that the you need to think murder is bad to conclude what John did was bad, in Hume's word you need to possess that sentiment otherwise the reasoning does not get you anywhere. All you can say is that John murdered Jim and nothing more.

So lets further mark out the landscape here. Note that Korsgaard says that the feeling exists independent of whether they are justified or not. I personally think masculinity is kind of stupid, I make no income so the masculine notion of paying for meals for other people is hard to justify from a financial perspective. However, the pressure is still there, it is still detestable to say lets split the bill. Masculinity really is the clearest example of this but I am sure we can all think of examples where we feel the pressure to do the right thing even though we do not think it is the right thing. Pointing to my essay about the demandingness objection to utilitarianism I would point out the opposite is true as well, things that seem to be right but are not considered right so no one feels the pressure to do the right thing.

So what? Is the abandonment of pursuing short term pleasure to go to trying to please societal standards? I think this over simplification misrepresents virtue. It is true that what is considered the virtuous thing to do sometimes seems silly however you are still rewarded for it by the pride of the action. Even though being masculine is cringe, playing the role seems to make people like you and gives you that reward of liking yourself. Again this is restating Hume’s:

"This constant habit of surveying ourselves as it were, in reflection, keeps alive all the sentiments of right and wrong, and begets, in noble natures, a certain reverence for themselves as well as others, which is the surest guardian of every virtue." David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, page 276, 1751.

We are socially rewarded for conducting ourselves in a virtuous manner.

I can hear an objection, in my mind it takes on a more mature aspect. It’s that its a sign of insecurity to care so deeply how others see you. This is just an argument why insecure people should be virtuous. Here I am happy to just disagree. Every person who possesses this "I don’t care what others think of me" attitude never mean it, they will make small talk and do what they can to earn favor with those who have power in their lives. Maybe you don't care what strangers on the street think of you but

you care if your family likes you or if your friends want to be around you. No human is a truly solitary being.

So lets compare this view to other views, something virtue ethics fails miserably at is considering scenarios from an impersonal perspectives. Should Australia bomb Iran? The analysis becomes not of what is positive for Australians or Iranians or world peace but is Albo acting out an excess of a certain character trait or is he behaving in a moderate manner. Virtue ethics is entirely concerned with the behavior of individuals so it falls short of being as comprehensive as deontological or utilitarian views. I don't think I can adequately emphasize just how much of normal ethical debate virtue ethics struggles to comment on.

Why do I like a view then that seems to be so severely deficient. I am deeply enamored by the import of the individual. That history is driven by the few and shapes the world for the many. An alternative is the view:

"But meanwhile, it's so simple: in one day, in one hour - everything could be arranged straight away! The main thing is to love others as yourself, that’s the main thing, and that’s all. Absolutely nothing else is necessary. .... If only everyone would want it, it could all be arranged." Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, page 30-31, 1877.

is also alluring to me. That all the evil in the world is simply the sum of individual moral failings. Here virtue ethics is the cure, what more could be asked for. It is also the path to being who you want to be. The most impressive character in all of literature, Alyosha of The Brothers Karamazov, to acquire such a character a precise observation of virtuous behavior would be needed in oneself.

So what are the takeaways, morality, like meaning, are not things that need to be evaluated. They impose themselves. That what I ought to desire is not a question to be solved in a dark room by considering syllogism but by noticing how you evaluate the world while living in it. I do not choose to feel a revulsion at myself for eating a whole block of chocolate but yet the feeling is there. I do not choose to be proud of producing a positive impact, I just am. A saying in finance is worry about the cents and the dollars will look after themselves. I will appropriate that to say something like, worry about what is virtuous and your interests will look after themselves. The mature self-interested view is concerned with how he evaluates his conduct as well as the conduct itself. So I will leave you with the complete Hume quote from above.

"By continual and earnest pursuit of character, a name, a reputation in the world, we bring our own deportment and conduct frequently in review, and consider how they appear in the view of those who approach and regard us. This constant habit of surveying ourselves as it were, in reflection, keeps alive all the sentiments of right and wrong, and begets, in noble natures, a certain reverence for themselves as well as others, which is the surest guardian of every virtue." David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, page 276, 1751.