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.

P F Strawson's Freedom and Resentment: the argument laid out

Here is a summary and comments on the essay Freedom and Resentment by PF Strawson. He makes some great points, and when he is wrong, it is in such a way as to clarify things a great deal. My non-deterministic position is much better thanks to having read this. I’ll summarize it in this post and respond in a later one. In a nutshell: PFS first argues that personal resentment that we may feel toward another for having failed to show goodwill toward us would have no problem coexisting with the conviction that determinism is true. Moral disapprobation, as an analog to resentment, is likewise capable of coexisting with deterministic convictions. In fact, it would seem nearly impossible for a normally-constituted person (i.e., a non-sociopath) to leave behind the web of moral convictions, even if that person is a determinist. In this way, by arguing that moral and determinist convictions can coexist in the same person, PFS undermines the libertarian argument ...

response to friend who suggested that the self is a democracy of neural parts

This is a nice way to try to avoid being cornered re the irreality of the self if you're a reductionist, for you can assert that a pattern obtains at the microscopic level that is not all that unlike the pattern found at the societal level. No need for the one self that does it all: instead, you have many sub-selfs that compete for dominance or take turns guiding the whole. The problem with this is, however, that the voters/officials are all zombies. None of them thinks about the whole as such. And perhaps none of them thinks even about themselves (unless one is a panzoist). None of them makes a comparison of alternatives. The more this proposed democracy seems like a zombocracy, the more consciousness will be seem to be epiphenomenal. Furthermore, if the oneness of the self is less real than the multiplicity of explanatory neural parts, then why can't each of these neural parts be conceived of as democracy as well? And why not parts of these parts, et...

interesting article by Jimmy Akin on death before the Fall

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/did-animals-die-before-the-fall/ Akin below: Aquinas.... writes: In the opinion of some, those animals which now are fierce and kill others, would, in that state, have been tame, not only in regard to man, but also in regard to other animals. But this is quite unreasonable. For the nature of animals was not changed by man's sin, as if those whose nature now it is to devour the flesh of others, would then have lived on herbs, as the lion and falcon. Nor does Bede's gloss on Genesis 1:30, say that trees and herbs were given as food to all animals and birds, but to some. Thus there would have been a natural antipathy between some animals [ Summa Theologiae I:96:1 ad 2 ]. Aquinas thus holds that it was not all death that entered the world through man's sin, but human death.

The Human Question

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