Skip to content
Carmelics
TopicsThinkersChangesContributorsLoading account…

    Carmelics

    A reasoning platform. Break down any belief into clear reasons, explore both sides, and weigh the evidence honestly.

    Navigate

    • Topics
    • Search
    • Recent Changes
    • Contribute
    • How It Works
    • Glossary
    • Thinkers
    • Contributors
    • About
    • Statistics
    • Terms
    • Privacy

    Database

    Statements
    —
    Perspectives
    —
    Topics
    —

    Press ? for keyboard shortcuts

    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Psychological egoism, as advanced by Hobbes, is a thesis about the necessary form of desire—that all desires are self-referential by definition.

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

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Parents risk their lives for children without conscious desire for self-satisfaction, showing desires can be genuinely other-directed.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.Distinguishing 'wanting X' from 'wanting the satisfaction of wanting X' is logically coherent; confusing them commits an equivocation fallacy.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 3.If all desires reduce to self-satisfaction, the thesis becomes unfalsifiable and thus empirically vacuous rather than philosophically substantive.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.All intentional action requires the agent to desire its performance, making self-satisfaction a necessary component of any desire.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.When we claim to desire another's good altruistically, we actually desire the satisfaction of believing we helped them.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 3.Desires are mental states of individual agents; they cannot transcend the psychological boundaries of the desirer by definition.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Next step

    Based on where you are in your exploration

    Strongest counterpoint
    Explore the most compelling reason on the other side.
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42