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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
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    The fact that people desire things other than happiness d... — Carmelics
    Home/Consequentialism
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    The fact that people desire things other than happiness does not refute the claim that happiness is exhaustive of the desirable

    Consequentialism
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.People do desire things besides happiness
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    • 2.Things desired merely as means to happiness are not ultimately desirable independently
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    • 3.Things desired for their own sake, such as virtue, are desired as such only because they have become incorporated into the person's happiness
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.G.E. Moore's 'open question argument' shows that 'desired' and 'desirable' are categorically distinct predicates that cannot be bridged by psychological facts alone.
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    • 2.Mill's inference from 'X is desired' to 'X is desirable' commits the naturalistic fallacy by deriving normative conclusions from descriptive psychological premises.
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    • 3.If the move from 'desired' to 'desirable' is fallacious at the first step, the entire incorporation maneuver inherits that fallacy regardless of how desires are structured.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.W.D. Ross's intuitionist framework establishes that people possess irreducible prima facie duties—like promise-keeping and justice—that bind agents independently of any contribution to happiness.
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    • 2.If an agent sincerely desires to fulfill a promise even when doing so produces net misery, this desire cannot be explained as happiness incorporated, but only as recognition of a non-hedonic obligation.
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    • 3.The 'incorporation' thesis therefore functions as an unfalsifiable redescription that absorbs all counterexamples rather than genuinely explaining the phenomenology of moral motivation.
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    Topics

    Consequentialism

    Connections

    1 topic

    Virtue Ethics2 linked

    Related

    G.E. Moore's 'open question argument' shows that 'desired' and 'desirable' are c...If an agent sincerely desires to fulfill a promise even when doing so produces n...If the move from 'desired' to 'desirable' is fallacious at the first step, the e...Mill's inference from 'X is desired' to 'X is desirable' commits the naturalisti...
    +5 moreShow less
    People do desire things besides happinessThe 'incorporation' thesis therefore functions as an unfalsifiable redescription...Things desired for their own sake, such as virtue, are desired as such only beca...Things desired merely as means to happiness are not ultimately desirable indepen...W.D. Ross's intuitionist framework establishes that people possess irreducible p...

    Similar

    Apparent counterexamples such as desiring virtue for its own sake do n...83%Some things are desired merely as means to happiness, and means are no...82%People do desire things besides happiness82%Therefore, all desired things are either means to happiness or constit...81%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: mill
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    Human beings, of course, desire many things besides happiness—Mill acknowledges this fact as “palpable” (Utilitarianism, X: 234). Insofar as what we desire is taken as evidence of what is desirable, this might seem incompatible with Mill’s second subclaim—that happiness is exhaustive of the desirable. Mill’s strategy for establishing that happiness is the only desirable thing is to show that although there are other things which are desired by human beings, such things are desired only because o
    Extraction notes

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

    Details

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