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    Necessary desires should be satisfied. — Carmelics
    Home/Virtue Ethics
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Necessary desires should be satisfied.

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

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Necessary desires bring relief from unavoidable pain.
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    • 2.Failing to satisfy a necessary desire (e.g., drinking when thirsty) results in escalating pain.
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    • 3.Escalating pain is contrary to the aim of the blessed life.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Stoic askesis demonstrates that trained agents can reframe apparent necessities as indifferents through disciplined rational judgment.
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    • 2.If perceived necessity is itself subject to rational revision, the category of 'necessary desire' lacks a stable, desire-independent foundation.
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    • 3.A desire whose necessity can be dissolved by philosophical practice does not generate an unconditional normative obligation to satisfy it.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Kant's duty ethics holds that inclinations—including painful bodily urges—carry no intrinsic moral weight in determining obligatory action.
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    • 2.The relief of escalating pain from unsatisfied desire is a merely empirical benefit, incapable of grounding a categorical normative 'should'.
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    • 3.Grounding 'should' in the avoidance of pain commits the supporting argument to a consequentialist premise that eudaimonists cannot assume without circularity.
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    Topics

    Virtue EthicsConsequentialism

    Related

    A desire whose necessity can be dissolved by philosophical practice does not gen...Escalating pain is contrary to the aim of the blessed life.Failing to satisfy a necessary desire (e.g., drinking when thirsty) results in e...Grounding 'should' in the avoidance of pain commits the supporting argument to a...
    +5 moreShow less
    If perceived necessity is itself subject to rational revision, the category of '...Kant's duty ethics holds that inclinations—including painful bodily urges—carry ...Necessary desires bring relief from unavoidable pain.Stoic askesis demonstrates that trained agents can reframe apparent necessities ...The relief of escalating pain from unsatisfied desire is a merely empirical bene...

    Similar

    Neither desire, nor its satisfaction, nor sensing or believing that sa...86%Only desires whose frustration causes pain need to be satisfied to ach...84%Therefore, mere desire-satisfaction is not sufficient to make an actio...83%Defining pleasure as the believed or sensed satisfaction of current de...82%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: ethics-ancient
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    In the Letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus begins by making a distinction among desires. Some desires are empty or groundless and others are natural; the natural are further subdivided into the merely natural and the necessary. Finally, the necessary are those necessary for happiness, those necessary for the body’s freedom from distress, and those necessary for life itself (Letter to Menoeceus 127). A helpful scholiast (cf. Principal Doctrines XXIX) gives us some examples; necessary desires are ones t
    Extraction notes

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

    Details

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