[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.
E.G. 
Leave a reply to 40inchplus Cancel reply