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    Desire-satisfaction alone is not a sufficient basis for r... — Carmelics
    Home/Virtue Ethics
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Desire-satisfaction alone is not a sufficient basis for regarding an action as good.

    Consequentialism
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.A bulimic person might desire to eat cake, and eating the cake would satisfy that desire.
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    • 2.Yet eating cake would not thereby be regarded as genuinely good for a bulimic person.
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    • 3.Therefore, mere desire-satisfaction is not sufficient to make an action good.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Preference satisfaction theories, as developed by Hare and Brandt, distinguish between actual desires and idealized informed preferences under conditions of full rationality.
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    • 2.The bulimic's desire fails not because desire-satisfaction is insufficient, but because it does not survive the idealization process that constitutes genuine preference.
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    • 3.A refined desire-satisfaction account that corrects for misinformation, compulsion, and irrationality can accommodate the bulimia case without abandoning desire as the normative foundation.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Mill's distinction between higher and lower pleasures demonstrates that a sophisticated hedonist-consequentialist can rank satisfactions by quality without departing from a desire-based framework.
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    • 2.The bulimia counterexample conflates the satisfaction of a surface desire with the satisfaction of deeper, more reflectively endorsed desires about one's own wellbeing.
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    • 3.Once the hierarchy of desires is properly accounted for, as in Frankfurt's theory of second-order volitions, desire-satisfaction remains a sufficient basis for goodness.
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    Topics

    Virtue EthicsConsequentialism

    Connections

    1 topic

    Bioethics2 linked

    Related

    A bulimic person might desire to eat cake, and eating the cake would satisfy tha...A refined desire-satisfaction account that corrects for misinformation, compulsi...Mill's distinction between higher and lower pleasures demonstrates that a sophis...Once the hierarchy of desires is properly accounted for, as in Frankfurt's theor...
    +5 moreShow less
    Preference satisfaction theories, as developed by Hare and Brandt, distinguish b...The bulimia counterexample conflates the satisfaction of a surface desire with t...The bulimic's desire fails not because desire-satisfaction is insufficient, but ...Therefore, mere desire-satisfaction is not sufficient to make an action good.Yet eating cake would not thereby be regarded as genuinely good for a bulimic pe...

    Similar

    Therefore, mere desire-satisfaction is not sufficient to make an actio...90%Desire-satisfaction is not a good-making property85%An action can only be regarded as good if it has intrinsic value, sati...85%An action can be regarded as good because it benefits the agent or sat...83%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: transcendental-arguments
    View source passageHide passage
    Consider this example. To rationally choose to eat this piece of chocolate cake, I must think that eating the cake is good in some way. How can I regard it as good? It seems implausible to say that eating the cake is good in itself, of intrinsic value. It also seems implausible to say that it is good just because it satisfies a desire as such: for even if I was bulimic it might do that, but still not be regarded as good. A third suggestion, then, is that it can be seen as good because it is good
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit