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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Mill's assimilation of virtue into happiness conflates the psychological fact of what people desire with the normative question of what is intrinsically desirable.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Mill explicitly distinguishes higher and lower pleasures, suggesting he doesn't reduce all desired things to equally valuable.
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    • 2.Grounding normativity in human desires isn't a fallacy—it explains why morality matters to beings with psychological natures like us.
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    • 3.The is-ought gap doesn't eliminate the possibility that what humans desire, when properly understood, reveals what is intrinsically good.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Psychological desires are empirically observable; normative claims about intrinsic value lack objective verification criteria.
      ?

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    • 2.Mill conflates 'people desire X' with 'X is desirable' without justifying why actual desires determine what ought to be desired.
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    • 3.People desire many things (revenge, status) that Mill wouldn't accept as intrinsically good, exposing his argument's circularity.
      ?

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