tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3983293735571319877.post3010086620812016960..comments2022-03-24T15:14:12.561+00:00Comments on Inter Kant: Parfit's "Agony Argument"Gary Banhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08518731833160149460noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3983293735571319877.post-25504758936993985912012-02-21T17:23:16.364+00:002012-02-21T17:23:16.364+00:00Thanks Anonymous for your response: if you are rig...Thanks Anonymous for your response: if you are right in your account of Parfit's "agony argument" then I don't have a reason to disagree with it. I do agree with the "weighty" claim you refer to that reasons can exist separately from (empirical) desires: it is an essential Kantian point put the right way. However, if the "subjective" theorists who Parfit is attacking do have the claims you give them then I am unsure who they are. Smith agrees with my point here which is why he refers to Kantian universality.Gary Banhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08518731833160149460noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3983293735571319877.post-34629215005390427202012-02-21T06:20:10.516+00:002012-02-21T06:20:10.516+00:00The subjectivism Parfit attacks asserts we are onl...The subjectivism Parfit attacks asserts we are only motivated by “subjective” desires—if you have no desire to perform an action, you have no reason to perform it. I think he's right that this is a view that's widely held. The phenomenology of agony counts as an objective reason for Parfit—it's bad even if we have no desire to avoid it. Rawls's “primary good” and the ability to make autonomous choices also count as objective reasons for Parfit; again, they're good whether we want them or not. Desire-based subjective theories must be “biased towards the near” because if agents do not have the relevant desire as they make their choices, they have no reason to make that choice. Respect for a future desire we do not have yet would once again count as an objective reason. Parfit thinks we have reasons even if no desire is present, because reasons can be objective and independent of desire. This is a weighty and important claim.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3983293735571319877.post-25203825642302921792011-12-05T10:58:48.694+00:002011-12-05T10:58:48.694+00:00Thanks for your comment Chris: gratefully received...Thanks for your comment Chris: gratefully received! It was good to see that I am not the only one puzzled by the case and the basic argument Parfit tries to give here. Like you, I enjoy reading Parfit but also disagree with an awful lot. Your depressive counter-example is a very clear indication of what is wrong with this argument.<br /><br />Still climbing that mountain: perhaps we can pause every so often for chats on the way?Gary Banhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08518731833160149460noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3983293735571319877.post-72628635874074016582011-12-01T14:51:56.106+00:002011-12-01T14:51:56.106+00:00Like you, I found Parfit's argument here most ...Like you, I found Parfit's argument here most strange. He seems to want us to buy the following set of claims: (1) I can come up with an absurd hypothetical compatible in principle with subjective theories of reasons (2) My objective theory of reasons is not vulnerable to this hypothetical, ergo (3) my theory is better than yours.<br /><br />It's particularly odd, because there's no shortage of hypotheticals which will make an objective theory of reasons seem bizarre, although who would bother to mount such an argument is harder to gauge.<br /><br />I enjoy Parfit's philosophy, although I rarely agree with him, and on this case I can't really see the point of arguing for either subjective or objective theories of reasons when they are intended to be all encompassing. I believe there are objective reasons of the kind that Parfit describes - but certainly not that all reasons must be of this kind, as Parfit seems to want. Why no middle ground? <br /><br />It's all so torturous on this point... A plausible way of mounting the Agony Argument that Parfit mentions is the highly depressed person, who doesn't care about future agony because of their state of depression. He wants to say this can be used to break subjective theories of reasons since 'clearly' such a person still has a reason to avoid future agony. Well, only if 'reason' is taken in Parfit's objective sense. In the subjective sense, the depressive doesn't have this reason. This is unfortunate for the depressive, but not really a problem for any theory of reasons as far as I can tell. *shrugs*<br /><br />Well, I still have a lot of this mountain to climb... *waves*Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com