I was surprised to hear that you doubt that there are ever conflicts in desires.
Re-read what I said. That’s not what I said.
Right. You said:
In reality, I’m not sure there ever are precise conflicts of true foundational desires.
Do you have an objective set of criteria for differentiating between true foundational desires and other types of desires? If not, I wonder if it is really useful to respond to an objection arising from the rather obvious fact that people often have conflicting desires by stating that you doubt that true foundational desires are ever in precise conflict.
First get straight: good literally objectively does mean desirable.
As CCC has already pointed out, no, it is not apparent that (morally) good and desirable are the same thing. I won’t spend more time on this point since CCC addressed it well.
Your question about conflict can’t change that (thus it’s a red herring).
The issue that we are discussing is objective morals. Your equating goodness and desirability leads (in my example of the sadist) A to believe that hurting B is good, and B to believe that hurting B is not good. But moral realism holds that moral valuations are statements that are objectively true or false. So, conflicting desires is not a red herring, since conflicting desires leads (using your criterion) to subjective moral evaluations regarding the goodness of hurting B. Game theory on the other hand does appear to be a red herring – no application of game theory can change the fact that A and B differ regarding the desirability of hurting B.
One additional problem with equating moral goodness with desirability is that it leads to moral outcomes that are in conflict with most people’s moral intuitions. For example, in my example of the sadist A desires to hurt B, but most people’s moral intuition would say that A hurting B just because A wants to hurt B would be immoral. Similarly, rape, murder, theft, etc., could be considered morally good by your criterion if any of those things satisfied a desire. While conflicting with moral intuition does not prove that your definition is wrong, it seems to me that it should at a minimum raise a red flag. And, I think that the burden is on you to explain why anyone should reject his/her moral intuition in favor of a moral criterion that would adjudge theft, rape and murder to be morally good if they satisfy a true desire.
Right. You said:
Do you have an objective set of criteria for differentiating between true foundational desires and other types of desires? If not, I wonder if it is really useful to respond to an objection arising from the rather obvious fact that people often have conflicting desires by stating that you doubt that true foundational desires are ever in precise conflict.
As CCC has already pointed out, no, it is not apparent that (morally) good and desirable are the same thing. I won’t spend more time on this point since CCC addressed it well.
The issue that we are discussing is objective morals. Your equating goodness and desirability leads (in my example of the sadist) A to believe that hurting B is good, and B to believe that hurting B is not good. But moral realism holds that moral valuations are statements that are objectively true or false. So, conflicting desires is not a red herring, since conflicting desires leads (using your criterion) to subjective moral evaluations regarding the goodness of hurting B. Game theory on the other hand does appear to be a red herring – no application of game theory can change the fact that A and B differ regarding the desirability of hurting B.
One additional problem with equating moral goodness with desirability is that it leads to moral outcomes that are in conflict with most people’s moral intuitions. For example, in my example of the sadist A desires to hurt B, but most people’s moral intuition would say that A hurting B just because A wants to hurt B would be immoral. Similarly, rape, murder, theft, etc., could be considered morally good by your criterion if any of those things satisfied a desire. While conflicting with moral intuition does not prove that your definition is wrong, it seems to me that it should at a minimum raise a red flag. And, I think that the burden is on you to explain why anyone should reject his/her moral intuition in favor of a moral criterion that would adjudge theft, rape and murder to be morally good if they satisfy a true desire.