Strawson's about second-order desires

Strawson is a compatibilist. I am not; nevertheless, I believe that he has the most marvelous thesis about [what in his opinion merely "seem" to be] choices. It is based upon the distinction between first order and second order desires. First order are what I would call non-reflective: e.g., chocolate: yum! Second order are reflective: e.g., "I wish I didn't like chocolate so much." Free choice is, for Strawson, being able to try to act according to your second order desires. What seems to be freedom is at most the sucessful carrying out of the desires that you desire to have.

Strawson sees these so-called choices as being at best the unfolding of our character.

I propose the following:

Let's assume, provisionally, that he is correct.

I propose first of all that we have the kind of 2nd order desires mentioned by Strawson only because we have a more global desire for happiness or fulfillment. This desire involves not just the satisfaction of one privileged desire, but the integration of all desires with that which is most important to my fulfillment.

Let's call the desire for happiness a third order desire. There is no desire beyond it.

[Maybe "third-order" isn't the right box to put happiness in... gotta work this one out]

It may be that compatibilism is plausible because each of us has a natural set of desires so that, when we perceive something as more likely to satisfy that desire, we naturally prefer it to other, less desirable ones.

Initially, we may have different desires and naturally tend to act differently. But once we communicate with others who share the desire for the same good, we tend to review our actions and those of others with them. We identify the fulfillment of the greatest desire with a good life. We include in our community of friends and cohorts those who live a life consistent with our esteem for that way of life. We praise and blame, include and exclude, based upon a shared conception of the good life.

And the commonality of this conception is inseparable from its being considered good. That is either because the simple of enjoyment of it is something only had by being shared (communication, for example), or because communication about it is inseparable from our rejoicing in its possession.

We might discover how to really achieve this good only by communicating. We might review our own actions in the "privacy" of our own conscience. We might form a judgment after such consultation that we could better have achieved the desired fulfillment by having acted differently. As a result, when confronted with the very same situation, we will judge differently. We will, in such a case, be freer to achieve our fulfillment.

Freedom through interpretation through discourse.

This freedom is not incompatible with compatibilism.... not yet, at least.

But what if the desire for happiness were not this or that activity but the fulfillment of our nature via many kinds of activities? What if happiness were something like the contemplation of goodness itself?

Both of these proposals could endanger compatibilism, but in different ways. But let me generalize for the moment. In both cases, our orientation toward our fulfillment would not be specified in a manner that could be determined beforehand by abstract reasoning. The first proposal, therefore, would undercut any attempt to generate a calculus regarding how we would or should act. But that would be merely epistemic indeterminism. We still might be predetermined by the complex of accidental circumstances that at each moment cause us to choose as we do.

The second proposal would tend to undercut ontological determinism. For inasmuch as our ultimate motivation would not be specified, no specific way to achieve that ultimate goal would be necessitated. Inasmuch as we judge any proximate goal in the light of our ultimate, the proximate appears not to have necessity. Inasmuch as our opinion about how we are to achieve a goal is the cause of how we a act and the former cannot be necessitated by any mere means toward the ultimate good, so too is our judgment about the types of goals/second order desires recognized by Strawson not necessitated either (WHEN compared with the ultimate goal). But not just our judgment about which second order is preferable, but also the preference we have for one of the desirables over the others. Neither is a matter of natural compulsion.

Dembski's "specified compexity" semiotics and teleology (both ad intra and ad extra)

Integral to Dembski's idea of specified complexity (SC) is the notion that something extrinsic to evolution is the source of the specification in how it develops. He compares SC to the message sent by space aliens in the movie "Contact." In that movie, earthbound scientists determine that radio waves originating in from somewhere in our galaxy are actually a signal being sent by space aliens. The scientists determine that these waves are a signal is the fact that they indicate prime numbers in a way that a random occurrence would not. What is interesting to me is the fact that Dembski relies upon an analogy with a sign rather than a machine. Like a machine, signs are produced by an intelligent being for the sake of something beyond themselves. Machines, if you will, have a meaning. Signs, if you will, produce knowledge. But the meaning/knowledge is in both cases something other than the machine/sign itself. Both signs and machines are purposeful or teleological

continuing the discussion with Tim in a new post

Hi Tim, I am posting my reply here, because the great blogmeister won't let me put it all in a comment. Me thinks I get your point: is it that we can name and chimps can't, so therefore we are of greater value than chimps? Naming is something above and beyond what a chimp can do, right? In other words, you are illustrating the point I am making (if I catch your drift). My argument is only a sketch, but I think adding the ability to name names, as it were, is still not enough to make the argument seem cogent. For one can still ask why we prefer being able to name over other skills had by animals but not by humans. The objector would demand a more convincing reason. The answer I have in mind is, to put it briefly, that there is something infinite about human beings in comparison with the subhuman. That "something" has to do with our ability to think of the meaning of the cosmos. Whereas one might say"He's got the whole world in His han

particular/universal event/rule

While listening to a recorded lecture on Quine's Two Dogmas of Empiricism, it occurred to me that every rule is in a way, a fact about the world. Think about baseball: from the p.o.v. of an individual player, a baseball rule is not a thing but a guide for acting and interpreting the actions of others. But this rule, like the action it guides, is part of a concrete individual --i.e., part of an institution that has come into existence at a particular place and time, has endured and may eventually go out of existence. The baseball rule, as a feature of that individual, is likewise individual. The term "baseball rule," on the one hand, links us to a unique cultural event; it can, on the other hand, name a certain type of being. In this way, it transgresses the boundary between proper and common noun. If there were no such overlap, then we might be tempted to divide our ontology between a bunch of facts "out there" and a bunch of common nouns "in here.&qu

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