I wanted to respond to this post by Joshs in this thread a bit more fully without derailing it:

Is this control over desire or just being at the mercy of one desire over another? Since you mentioned Nietzsche, I thought I’d quote him on the issue of will and desire:

[The fact] that one desires to combat the vehemence of a drive at all, however, does not stand within our own power; nor does the choice of any particular method; nor does the success or failure of this method. What is clearly the case is that in this entire procedure our intellect is only the blind instrument of another drive which is a rival of the drive whose vehemence is tormenting us . . . While “we” believe we are complaining about the vehemence of a drive, at bottom it is one drive which is complaining about the other; that is to say: for us to become aware that we are suffering from the vehemence [or violence] of a drive presupposes the existence of another equally vehement or even more vehement drive, and that a struggle is in prospect in which our intellect is going to have to take sides.

There is no struggle of reason against the drives; what we call “reason” is nothing more than a certain “system of relations between various passions,” a certain ordering of the drives.

This is certainly a popular position. It seems to be somewhat Sam Harris' position in The Moral Landscape when he argues that morality and values can be objectively understood and grounded in science rather than relying solely on religious or subjective beliefs. The core idea being that "human well-being (desires)" should be the benchmark for evaluating moral principles, and that scientific inquiry can help identify objective moral truths. Skinner has a similar position.

In this, all three also seem close to Hume, who argued that, “reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them [by figuring out how to get what our appetites want.]"

I like parts of Harris' position. I think wellbeing can be objectively measured, even if instrumentalizing it is difficult. At the same time, I think these views miss something important. I think this Plato quote sums up what is missing quite nicely.

Nobody is satisfied to acquire things that are merely believed to be good . . . but everyone wants the things that really are good and disdains mere belief here.

Plato, Republic 505d

That is, we want what is really good, what is really true, not mere incorrect belief that makes us happy. And it seems to me that Harris would have to accept such a position because his entire argument against religion and philosophy is based on a similar argument. "Religion and philosophy do not give us the real truth, and thus they do not achieve the real good. So, we should not use them as a guiding light, but use science instead." That is, Harris does not seem to suggest that "we should follow religion and superstition if we think doing so will maximize our well-being," there is rather a "truth of the matter," that settles the matter. Further, his position re openness to reformulations of "the good" based on the findings of science suggests that we should always strive for the "truth of the matter" and that this determines what is best for us.

Likewise, Nietzsche's whole revaluation of all values collapses into petty hedonism if we know or suspect some sort of higher good -- a good we ourselves recognize or fear we fail to recognize -- but then continue on in our current mode of being "because it's easier" or "good enough." This is exactly the sort of behavior Nietzsche spends a lot of time attacking.

Nietzche's overman becomes somewhat pathetic if Nietzsche is wrong about some of his key claims. But then it seems that reason might overturn all desire, making it somewhat different from desire, and no mere "slave."

Re Plato's quote, we might consider Nozick's "Experience Machine."

Suppose there were an Experience Machine that would give you any experience you desired. Superduper neuropsychologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. All the time you would be floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to your brain.

While you were hooked into the machine you wouldn't know the experiences you believed you were having weren't real, you'd think they were all actually occurring.

Just think, you could pre-programme the machine so you would end up really thinking you looked like a Hollywood star, had won the Nobel Prize for physics, enjoyed a fulfilling marriage, scored the victorious goal in the World Cup final and lived in a penthouse overlooking the sea. Would you plug into such a machine?

Would we plug into the machine?

Tough question. A common concern I've heard here is that, if you plug into the machine, all the people you know and care for miss out on you. Thus, choosing the machine is precluded because of what it does to others. This could be fixed by supposing that, per your choice, everyone goes into the machine.

But still, we might have our doubts. Do we really think these neurologists can actually give us the highest good? Is it possible that the nature of the machine itself reveals that it does not lead to the highest good? What if the highest good necessarily comes from doing things out in the world? What if the highest good comes from addressing spiritual issues that require pain and suffering? Perhaps the highest good is being, in important ways, free from desire and instinct, and the Machine merely enthralls us to them all the more?

People can certainly deny that there is any such higher good, and that, on the evidence, it makes sense to plug in. However, it seems impossible to "prove" that plugging in would be the greatest good. We always appear to have ample room to question this. For example, we can question if a life plugged into the machine might deny us the opportunity to exercise meaningful freedom and to develop in such a way that we are free (there are many other objections).It might be that it is not the "being in the machine part" that is the problem, but the "being in a world designed to satisfy your desires" part that makes us question it. Or it might be that we don't want to be in the machine because it would bar us from ever discovering a higher good if one exists.

Plato's point is simply this:if we thought the good was not the sort of thing the Experience Machine could achieve or maximize, then we wouldn't want to choose the machine no matter how much we agreed that it might make us happier. This doesn't preclude that we might choose the machine. The point is that, if we think the machine doesn't reach the "true good," perhaps because it does not allow us to be "self-determining," or "free," (the reason doesn't really matter), we will at the very least have a second order desire "not to want to choose the machine." We will hope that we don't choose it because we want the higher good.


Is Plato simply begging the question here? Of course we choose the thing we think is "better" over the thing we think is worse, right?

I'm not sure if this is turns out to be straightforward question begging. Many a drunkard sees living sober as better, but does not choose sobriety. Many an adulterer agrees that not cheating would be better. Many a man who is shamed by cowardice wishes they chose courage. The point is about higher order desire, and a drive towards truth. Thus, it seems to me that Plato is getting at something important here. We want to know the truth of the good because we will prefer it because it is the truth. However, we may not always be free to choose that good.

And this brings me back to the ol' role of knowledge and freedom in morality. To do the right thing, we have to know how to causally effect the world such that our actions bring about the states of affairs we desire. Complex questions of policy, medical treatment, etc. all require knowledge and discernment. At the same time, we can only do the good if we are free to do it. And so freedom is also inately tied to moral action (e.g., we might know something is wrong, but do it anyway because we are slaves to our desires).

Reason is obviously crucial to promoting both knowledge and freedom. And, because we can always question more, always go beyond our initial beliefs and desires, it doesn't seem to me that reason can be merely another desire. Doubt is not a desire. Further, reason is able to apprehend the abstract ideal of "the best" and search for it. In this, it seeks to transcend what it currently is and become more in an outwards search. This is, in important ways, an overcoming of desire, not simply a form of it. It is true that it is a desire for truth, but it's a desire grounded in what is beyond us, in a way other desires are not.