The first principle uses the word "should" but the last uses the word "would". I'm going to assume you mean "would" in both cases, since presumably what any observer *should* want is identical to what an ideal observer *would* want.
That said, we need to define what we mean by "ideal" or "perfectly moral" observer. There are two plausible definitions that I can think of. However, both definitions imply that one of the premises in the argument is a trivial, analytic truth and the other other premise is question-begging.
On one definition, an ideal observer is just an observer who wants everyone to perform right actions. In that case, premise 2 is a trivial, analytic truth whereas premise 1 is question-begging against deontology. The premise "Between any two events, ideal observers should prefer that the one that makes the world better occur" would be equivalent to "Between any two events, [observers who want everyone to perform right actions] would prefer that the one that makes the world better occur". But this alone is sufficient to imply consequentialism. Why would this premise be compelling to someone who didn't already accept consequentialism?
On another definition, an ideal observer is just an observer who wants the world to go best. In that case, premise 1 is a trivial, analytic truth whereas premise 2 is question-begging against deontology. The premise "If an ideal observer would prefer one take some action, they ought to take that action" would be equivalent to "if [an observer who wants the world to go best] would prefer one to take some action, they ought to take that action". But this alone is sufficient to imply consequentialism. Why would this premise be compelling to someone who didn't already accept consequentialism?
You point to some reasons for the premises in the later paragraphs, but they are unintelligible without defining what an "ideal" or "perfectly moral" observer mean.
Hey, man, check out this conversation I recently had. I didn't get too into the weeds of philosophy, and the more technical stuff was (wisely) edited out, but you might appreciate it if you've been as annoyed as I have by the Alex O'Connor situation and the ignorant comments against consequentialism.
Thanks, man. During the three-hour conversation, I mentioned you and Richard (and your stickied "May the Factory Farms Burn"), as well as talking about Huemer for a while. She understandably cut that stuff, given the main goal of establishing that we're real ethical vegans and that Cosmic Skeptic is a piss poor representative of utilitarianism.
Neither of these things are what I mean by ideal observer. An ideal observer is one who has fitting desires. If one prefers, all things considered, for a tornado to kill people, they have wrong desires. Once we have this notion--which seems like a perfectly common-sense notion--it's a substantive question what they would want; it can't be settled by mere definition. But it's totally obvious based on our intuitions that an ideal observer would want things to go as well as possible and also would rather people act rightly rather than wrongly.
But what do you mean by "fitting"? What does it mean for a given attitude to be "fitting"? I don't typically hear people talk about desires being "fitting" or "wrong" in ordinary discourse. In fact, I don't think I've ever heard someone call a desire "fitting" in my life. I've heard people say a desire is "wrong", but they typically just mean that it is the kind of desire that it would be wrong to satisfy (e.g., this is what I think people mean when they say that it is wrong to desire to have sex with children), but you've already rejected this. However, while I don't think that there's a clear meaning of "fitting desires" that can be captured by discourse of English speakers, we do often adopt various evaluative attitudes towards the attitudes (including desires) of others. And calling a desire (or any other attitude) "fitting" sounds like one way to express or report such evaluative attitudes (note: I count beliefs as attitudes, so this isn't ruling out a cognitivist account of "fitting"). So I can imagine some possible senses in which a desire can be "fitting" based on how we typically evaluate the desires of others. Here are a few such senses:
(1) To say that a desire is "fitting" is just to say that having the desire is good, i.e. having the desire makes the world better. This would be similar to the way in which it can be beneficial to have other kinds of psychological traits. For example, it may be beneficial or "fitting" to have certain personality traits (e.g., conscientiousness, emotional stability, etc.) as having such traits is typically beneficial, not only to the individual but to society more broadly (e.g., it promotes utility). Similarly, it is beneficial or "fitting" to have certain desires (e.g., realistic desires, desires that one has more control over, desires that are consistent with other desires, etc.) because having such desires leads to more satisfaction, less anxiety, less frustration, etc. If this is what you mean by "fitting", then it is certainly not obvious that it is fitting for people to desire the best outcomes or that it is fitting for people to desire that others act rightly or wrongly. Whether these desires are fitting will ultimately be an empirical question, and presumably there are at least some cases where it is more fitting (more beneficial) for people to have other desires.
(2) To say that it is "fitting" to have an attitude A directed toward object X is to say that A represents X accurately. This makes sense for certain attitudes that seem to inherently involve some kind of representation of their objects. For example, one might say that to fear a thing involves portraying the thing as dangerous. Thus, one might say that it is fitting to fear X if and only if X is dangerous. As another example, one might say that to believe a proposition involves portraying the proposition as true. Thus, one might say that it is fitting to believe P if and only if P is true. These attitudes (fear and belief) by their very nature are aiming at various properties (danger and fear), and so we can say that the attitudes are fitting just in case they are directed towards objects that possess those properties. How to determine whether an attitude aims at a particular property is subject to debate, but it is not totally obvious that desires - by their nature - aim at any properties in particular. And it is especially not totally obvious that desires - by their very nature - aim at outcomes that involve the best state of affairs or outcomes that involve people acting rightly. For example, consider animals. Animals have desires, but it seems crazy to say that their desires are aiming (in any sense) at outcomes that are best or outcomes that involve people acting rightly.
(3) To say that an attitude is "fitting" is just to say that it coheres with some other set of attitudes. For example, you might say that if a given agent believes P and believes P -> Q, then this makes it prima-facie "fitting" for the agent to believe Q, because belief in Q would "cohere" with the belief in P and belief in P -> Q. Similarly, you might say that if an agent ultimately desires X above all else and the agent believes that M is a necessary means to achieving M, then it is "fitting" for the agent to desire M, because the desire that M would "cohere" with the desire that X and the belief that M is necessary for X. What is required for an attitude to "cohere" with other attitudes is subject to debate, but it seems totally obvious that an agent could have a coherent set of attitudes while nevertheless desiring that people at least sometimes act wrongly or make the world worse.
(4) A "fitting" desire is just a desire which, if satisfied, would make the world go best or would result in everyone acting rightly. This is how I would interpret "fitting" in your tornado example. I might say that it is not "fitting" to desire that tornadoes kill people, and all I would mean by this is that the satisfaction of that desire would be bad. This is also how I would interpret someone who said that it is not "fitting" to desire to have sex with children. But this cannot be what you mean by "fitting", because that implies one of my original definitions of ideal observer which you have already rejected.
These are all of the possible senses of "fitting" that I can plausibly infer based on how English speakers tend to evaluate the desires of others. Perhaps there are more possible senses. Regardless, given that there is definitely more than one sense in which a desire can be "fitting" (given that there are many different kinds of pro-attitudes we can hold towards a desire), you need to disambiguate which sense you are using when you say "fitting". Lastly, of the senses that I have mentioned (except the last one, which you've already rejected), it is certainly not totally obvious from our intuitions that it is "fitting" to desire that things go best or that people act rightly.
A fitting attitude is an attitude that one should have. So, we would say that you shouldn't want babies to be tortured to death. It is improper to hope for that. People might say "you should rather have freedom and flourishing than torture and death."
This doesn't help to disambiguate what you mean. Depending on the context, people mean different things when they say that one "should" have a certain attitude. My previous post gives a bunch of different examples (just replace "attitude A is fitting" with "one should have attitude A"). Thus, there are different senses in which one "should" have a certain attitude.
For example, beliefs are attitudes (propositional attitudes). If I said that you "should" believe P, there are many different things that I could mean. I might just mean that believing P would produce good consequences, I might mean that believing P is justified by the available evidence, I might mean that a belief in P accurately represents reality (e.g., because P is true), etc.
It is clear that just saying that a given attitude is "fitting" or that one "should" hold a given attitude is too ambiguous to be intelligible without further elaboration.
It's not that you should have a specific attitude. It's that you should want something to happen. This seems primitive, like the notion that you should do something. I mean what people mean when they say "if you want your brother to die, you should not."
> It's not that you should have a specific attitude. It's that you should want something to happen.
A desire is an attitude. So to say that one should want something to happen is to say that one should have a specific attitude.
> This seems primitive, like the notion that you should do something.
Appealing to primitivity doesn't help disambiguate your meaning. I gave a number of possible interpretations of "fitting" and "should" based on how terms might be used by English speakers. I'm sure all of them can be reduced down to some primitive notion at some point. Therefore, the fact that your notion is primitive still leaves a number of possible interpretations.
> I mean what people mean when they say "if you want your brother to die, you should not."
I agree with this. "Ideal observer" seems as useless a construct in adjudicating consequentialism vs deontology as "the gods" is in the Euthypho dialogue. The two sides inevitably either disagree over what the ideal observer believes, or over whether it's actually ideal.
For sure. The 5^99 Trolley Tree thought experiment is pretty damning against deontology. I just don't know what "ideal observer" accomplishes beyond what moral intuitionism accomplishes.
You don't need an ideal observer. The point is that consequentialism is the only view that has even remotely plausible things to say about what third parties should want. As Richard's paradox shows, third parties should want things to go best.
The first principle uses the word "should" but the last uses the word "would". I'm going to assume you mean "would" in both cases, since presumably what any observer *should* want is identical to what an ideal observer *would* want.
That said, we need to define what we mean by "ideal" or "perfectly moral" observer. There are two plausible definitions that I can think of. However, both definitions imply that one of the premises in the argument is a trivial, analytic truth and the other other premise is question-begging.
On one definition, an ideal observer is just an observer who wants everyone to perform right actions. In that case, premise 2 is a trivial, analytic truth whereas premise 1 is question-begging against deontology. The premise "Between any two events, ideal observers should prefer that the one that makes the world better occur" would be equivalent to "Between any two events, [observers who want everyone to perform right actions] would prefer that the one that makes the world better occur". But this alone is sufficient to imply consequentialism. Why would this premise be compelling to someone who didn't already accept consequentialism?
On another definition, an ideal observer is just an observer who wants the world to go best. In that case, premise 1 is a trivial, analytic truth whereas premise 2 is question-begging against deontology. The premise "If an ideal observer would prefer one take some action, they ought to take that action" would be equivalent to "if [an observer who wants the world to go best] would prefer one to take some action, they ought to take that action". But this alone is sufficient to imply consequentialism. Why would this premise be compelling to someone who didn't already accept consequentialism?
You point to some reasons for the premises in the later paragraphs, but they are unintelligible without defining what an "ideal" or "perfectly moral" observer mean.
Hey, man, check out this conversation I recently had. I didn't get too into the weeds of philosophy, and the more technical stuff was (wisely) edited out, but you might appreciate it if you've been as annoyed as I have by the Alex O'Connor situation and the ignorant comments against consequentialism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9wXx-MWspU
Good conversation! It's nice to now know the face behind one of my most prolific commentators.
Thanks, man. During the three-hour conversation, I mentioned you and Richard (and your stickied "May the Factory Farms Burn"), as well as talking about Huemer for a while. She understandably cut that stuff, given the main goal of establishing that we're real ethical vegans and that Cosmic Skeptic is a piss poor representative of utilitarianism.
Yes--use should and would synonymously.
Neither of these things are what I mean by ideal observer. An ideal observer is one who has fitting desires. If one prefers, all things considered, for a tornado to kill people, they have wrong desires. Once we have this notion--which seems like a perfectly common-sense notion--it's a substantive question what they would want; it can't be settled by mere definition. But it's totally obvious based on our intuitions that an ideal observer would want things to go as well as possible and also would rather people act rightly rather than wrongly.
But what do you mean by "fitting"? What does it mean for a given attitude to be "fitting"? I don't typically hear people talk about desires being "fitting" or "wrong" in ordinary discourse. In fact, I don't think I've ever heard someone call a desire "fitting" in my life. I've heard people say a desire is "wrong", but they typically just mean that it is the kind of desire that it would be wrong to satisfy (e.g., this is what I think people mean when they say that it is wrong to desire to have sex with children), but you've already rejected this. However, while I don't think that there's a clear meaning of "fitting desires" that can be captured by discourse of English speakers, we do often adopt various evaluative attitudes towards the attitudes (including desires) of others. And calling a desire (or any other attitude) "fitting" sounds like one way to express or report such evaluative attitudes (note: I count beliefs as attitudes, so this isn't ruling out a cognitivist account of "fitting"). So I can imagine some possible senses in which a desire can be "fitting" based on how we typically evaluate the desires of others. Here are a few such senses:
(1) To say that a desire is "fitting" is just to say that having the desire is good, i.e. having the desire makes the world better. This would be similar to the way in which it can be beneficial to have other kinds of psychological traits. For example, it may be beneficial or "fitting" to have certain personality traits (e.g., conscientiousness, emotional stability, etc.) as having such traits is typically beneficial, not only to the individual but to society more broadly (e.g., it promotes utility). Similarly, it is beneficial or "fitting" to have certain desires (e.g., realistic desires, desires that one has more control over, desires that are consistent with other desires, etc.) because having such desires leads to more satisfaction, less anxiety, less frustration, etc. If this is what you mean by "fitting", then it is certainly not obvious that it is fitting for people to desire the best outcomes or that it is fitting for people to desire that others act rightly or wrongly. Whether these desires are fitting will ultimately be an empirical question, and presumably there are at least some cases where it is more fitting (more beneficial) for people to have other desires.
(2) To say that it is "fitting" to have an attitude A directed toward object X is to say that A represents X accurately. This makes sense for certain attitudes that seem to inherently involve some kind of representation of their objects. For example, one might say that to fear a thing involves portraying the thing as dangerous. Thus, one might say that it is fitting to fear X if and only if X is dangerous. As another example, one might say that to believe a proposition involves portraying the proposition as true. Thus, one might say that it is fitting to believe P if and only if P is true. These attitudes (fear and belief) by their very nature are aiming at various properties (danger and fear), and so we can say that the attitudes are fitting just in case they are directed towards objects that possess those properties. How to determine whether an attitude aims at a particular property is subject to debate, but it is not totally obvious that desires - by their nature - aim at any properties in particular. And it is especially not totally obvious that desires - by their very nature - aim at outcomes that involve the best state of affairs or outcomes that involve people acting rightly. For example, consider animals. Animals have desires, but it seems crazy to say that their desires are aiming (in any sense) at outcomes that are best or outcomes that involve people acting rightly.
(3) To say that an attitude is "fitting" is just to say that it coheres with some other set of attitudes. For example, you might say that if a given agent believes P and believes P -> Q, then this makes it prima-facie "fitting" for the agent to believe Q, because belief in Q would "cohere" with the belief in P and belief in P -> Q. Similarly, you might say that if an agent ultimately desires X above all else and the agent believes that M is a necessary means to achieving M, then it is "fitting" for the agent to desire M, because the desire that M would "cohere" with the desire that X and the belief that M is necessary for X. What is required for an attitude to "cohere" with other attitudes is subject to debate, but it seems totally obvious that an agent could have a coherent set of attitudes while nevertheless desiring that people at least sometimes act wrongly or make the world worse.
(4) A "fitting" desire is just a desire which, if satisfied, would make the world go best or would result in everyone acting rightly. This is how I would interpret "fitting" in your tornado example. I might say that it is not "fitting" to desire that tornadoes kill people, and all I would mean by this is that the satisfaction of that desire would be bad. This is also how I would interpret someone who said that it is not "fitting" to desire to have sex with children. But this cannot be what you mean by "fitting", because that implies one of my original definitions of ideal observer which you have already rejected.
These are all of the possible senses of "fitting" that I can plausibly infer based on how English speakers tend to evaluate the desires of others. Perhaps there are more possible senses. Regardless, given that there is definitely more than one sense in which a desire can be "fitting" (given that there are many different kinds of pro-attitudes we can hold towards a desire), you need to disambiguate which sense you are using when you say "fitting". Lastly, of the senses that I have mentioned (except the last one, which you've already rejected), it is certainly not totally obvious from our intuitions that it is "fitting" to desire that things go best or that people act rightly.
A fitting attitude is an attitude that one should have. So, we would say that you shouldn't want babies to be tortured to death. It is improper to hope for that. People might say "you should rather have freedom and flourishing than torture and death."
This doesn't help to disambiguate what you mean. Depending on the context, people mean different things when they say that one "should" have a certain attitude. My previous post gives a bunch of different examples (just replace "attitude A is fitting" with "one should have attitude A"). Thus, there are different senses in which one "should" have a certain attitude.
For example, beliefs are attitudes (propositional attitudes). If I said that you "should" believe P, there are many different things that I could mean. I might just mean that believing P would produce good consequences, I might mean that believing P is justified by the available evidence, I might mean that a belief in P accurately represents reality (e.g., because P is true), etc.
It is clear that just saying that a given attitude is "fitting" or that one "should" hold a given attitude is too ambiguous to be intelligible without further elaboration.
It's not that you should have a specific attitude. It's that you should want something to happen. This seems primitive, like the notion that you should do something. I mean what people mean when they say "if you want your brother to die, you should not."
> It's not that you should have a specific attitude. It's that you should want something to happen.
A desire is an attitude. So to say that one should want something to happen is to say that one should have a specific attitude.
> This seems primitive, like the notion that you should do something.
Appealing to primitivity doesn't help disambiguate your meaning. I gave a number of possible interpretations of "fitting" and "should" based on how terms might be used by English speakers. I'm sure all of them can be reduced down to some primitive notion at some point. Therefore, the fact that your notion is primitive still leaves a number of possible interpretations.
> I mean what people mean when they say "if you want your brother to die, you should not."
This is also ambiguous, for all the same reasons.
I agree with this. "Ideal observer" seems as useless a construct in adjudicating consequentialism vs deontology as "the gods" is in the Euthypho dialogue. The two sides inevitably either disagree over what the ideal observer believes, or over whether it's actually ideal.
But we can show--as Richard has--that the thing that a third party would hope for would not always be what deontologists say you should do.
For sure. The 5^99 Trolley Tree thought experiment is pretty damning against deontology. I just don't know what "ideal observer" accomplishes beyond what moral intuitionism accomplishes.
You don't need an ideal observer. The point is that consequentialism is the only view that has even remotely plausible things to say about what third parties should want. As Richard's paradox shows, third parties should want things to go best.