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Moore's Paradox in Belief and Desire

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Abstract

Is there a Moore’s paradox in desire? I give a normative explanation of the epistemic irrationality, and hence absurdity, of Moorean belief that builds on Green and Williams’ normative account of absurdity. This explains why Moorean beliefs are normally irrational and thus absurd, while some Moorean beliefs are absurd without being irrational. Then I defend constructing a Moorean desire as the syntactic counterpart of a Moorean belief and distinguish it from a ‘Frankfurt’ conjunction of desires. Next I discuss putative examples of rational and irrational desires, suggesting that there are norms of rational desire. Then I examine David Wall’s groundbreaking argument that Moorean desires are always unreasonable. Next I show against this that there are rational as well as irrational Moorean desires. Those that are irrational are also absurd, although there seem to be absurd desires that are not irrational. I conclude that certain norms of rational desire should be rejected.

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Notes

  1. Formalizing Moore’s own example ‘I went to the pictures last Tuesday but I don’t believe that I did’ as ‘p & I don’t believe that p’ turns his second example ‘I believe that he has gone out, but he has not’ into ‘I believe that p & not-p’. This is equivalent to ‘not-p & I believe that p’, that may be represented as ‘p & I believe that not-p’. Sorensen (1988, 16) coins the useful terms ‘omissive’ and ‘commissive’.

  2. There is some discussion in Williams (2006, §11).

  3. Pruss (2011) is a lone voice against belief-distribution. He gives three arguments against it. The first is that it is not possible to believe that p while believing that not-p. But it is it possible to believe that p & q while believing that not-p so it is possible to believe that p & q while not believing that p. In support of the second premise, you believe not-p, and someone you trust tells you that p & q. So you believe that p & q but it takes a moment until you see that this conflicts with not-p, and until then you keep on believing that both p & q as well as not-p.

    But the first premise is implausible and in any case it is plausible that if the second premise is true then the first is false.

    His second argument is as follows. Belief does not transfer over unobvious inferences. But the inference from p & (q & r) to r is unobvious because it requires two individually obvious steps. Therefore, belief does not transfer from p & (q & r) to r. If belief distributes over conjunction, it transfers from p & (q & r) to r (by two applications of belief-distribution). So belief doesn't distribute over conjunction. One may stipulate ‘unobvious inference’ as requiring an arbitrary number of obvious steps and recast this argument accordingly.

    But if the inference from p & (q & r) to r is not obvious to me, then I don’t understand what ‘p & (q & r)’ means, and so I can’t believe that p & (q & r). If I can’t see that if it is raining and also both cold and windy, then it is windy, then I cannot grasp the proposition that it is raining and also both cold and windy, in which case I cannot believe it.

    His third argument starts with Tversky and Kahneman’s (1983) experimental result that some people think that a conjunction is more likely to be true than one of its conjuncts. Subjects were told that Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations. 85 % of the subjects said that it is more likely that Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement than it is that she is a bank teller. But if it is possible to assign a higher probability to the proposition that p & q than to the proposition that p, then it is possible to believe that p & q while not believing that p, because the conjunction's probability may be just above the cut-off line for belief while its first conjunct’s probability is just below it. So it is possible to believe the conjunction without believing its first conjunct.

    But Gigerenzer (2005) gives evidence that the subjects don’t really think that it is more likely that Linda is a bank teller and is a feminist than it is that she is a bank teller, but rather misunderstand the question ‘Which is more probable?’ Perhaps they think that they have been asked whether it is more likely that Linda is a bank teller and a feminist than it is that she is a bank teller and not a feminist, since the information given seems irrelevant to the question of whether she is a bank teller. Second, judging that one thing is more likely than another does not mean that one believes either. I might know that it is more likely that Linda is an alien than that she is an alien and a bank teller while neither believing that she is an alien nor believing that she is an alien and a bank teller. Moreover I might know that it is just more likely than not that p without having any beliefs about whether p. It could be claimed that one always believes that p if one believes that it is highly likely that p. But there is no reason to think that this is true of subjects who are irrational enough to assign inconsistent probabilities. Besides, there is no evidence that the subjects thought that it is highly likely that Linda is a bank teller and is a feminist while also thinking that it is highly unlikely that she is a bank teller. In any case the lottery paradox appears to falsify the claim even for rational agents. Knowing only that my ticket is one of a million in a fair lottery, it is unquestionably rational for me to believe that it is highly likely that my ticket is a loser and yet not unquestionably rational for me to believe that my ticket is a loser.

  4. 1. Bp & B~Bp Suppose

    2. Bp 1, &-elimination

    3. B~Bp 1, &-elimination

    4. ~Bp 3, supposing II-1

    5. Bp & ~Bp 2, 4, &-introduction. Flat contradiction

  5. 1. Bp & BB~p Suppose

    2. Bp 1, &-elimination

    3. BB~p 1, &-elimination

    4. B~p 3, supposing II-2

    5. Bp & B~p 2, 4, &-introduction. Contradictory beliefs

  6. Adapted from Sorensen (1988, 28).

  7. Of course it is possible that I was never born but that some other male child was, but then that person could not be my mother’s nieceless brother’s only nephew.

  8. For the sake of simplicity of exposition, I assume that the existence of God is logically possible. To avoid this assumption we could say instead that the content of the belief is possibly true by the believers’ lights.

  9. The reference to specific beliefs avoids the objection that rationality does not require all one’s beliefs to be true. For example, some claim the preface paradox to be a case in which rationality demands that one has inconsistent beliefs. It might be objected that it is too easy to comply with this norm. Just form no beliefs! But another norm is surely ‘Form beliefs’, a welcome norm, not only for any apprentice of practical wisdom but for anyone who accepts the overarching norm ‘Seek truth’. Both norms aim at epistemic and practical benefit.

  10. This way of speaking of a norm as a goal is similar to Littlejohn (2010, 88) who talks of norms as aims.

  11. Some pressure for revision of the norm of avoiding specific recognizably false beliefs comes from dialethists like Graham Priest who argue that some propositions—dialethias—are true as well as false. Making a case for excluding Priest from the community of epistemically rational believers looks difficult indeed, yet he would argue that although he may be reasonably expected to see that his belief in a dialethia is false, that is no reason to stop believing it, since it is also true. I will ignore this complication in what follows.

  12. Just as the norm of avoiding specific recognizably self-falsifying beliefs presupposes the norm of avoiding recognizably false beliefs, so the norm of avoiding recognizably false beliefs presupposes the norm of truth:

    Form only beliefs that are true.

    I follow David (2005) in conceiving of truth as a goal of belief. In so doing I remain neutral on the question of whether the primary goal of belief is something else, such as knowledge. Surely in aiming at knowledge one is also aiming at least at true belief (David 2005, 297).

  13. This allows the possibility that the belief is epistemically irrational for other reasons. I might have no evidence at all for it, or I might have trustworthy testimony that my mother’s nieceless brother’s only nephew is a theist.

  14. I intend to make this point in terms of de dicto belief, but it seems to hold even if my belief is de re. Suppose that Hesperus (or if you like, Phosphorous) is such that it is believed by me to be shining and also such that it is believed by me to be not shining. If this is so because I need empirical investigation to discover that Hesperus is Phosphorous then this still does not make me absurd.

  15. 1. B(p & B~p) & (p & B~p) Suppose true commissive belief

    2. B(p & B~p) 1, &-elimination

    3. Bp 2, BD

    4. p & B~p 1, &-elimination

    5. B~p 4, &-elimination

    6. Bp & B~p 3, 5, &-introduction. Contradictory beliefs.

  16. This falsifies Smith’s claim that ‘desires … have only one direction of fit’ (1994, 118). Knowing that there is no drink to hand or that my recovery from alcoholism is fragile, I might sensibly switch my attention from the urge to drink to something else, in the reasonable expectation that the urge will disappear.

  17. See Williams (2007, fn 15, 150) for a defence of Searle’s point. His point explains why it is as difficult for us to characterize the desires of animals and infants as it is to characterize their beliefs, since we may only use concepts available to us in characterizing their abilities of thought.

  18. In presenting a draft of this paper I encountered the objection that the desire for specific lack of desire is a case in which I want to be able to drink lager while not changing my resolution to stop drinking it. But this interpretation does violence to the example, which is not a case in which abilities or resolutions figure in the content of desire.

  19. Dp & D~Dp plus DC yields D(p & ~Dp). Dp & DD~p plus DC yields D(p & D~p).

  20. D(p & ~Dp) plus DD yields Dp & D~Dp. D(p & D~p) plus DD yields Dp & DD~p.

  21. Wall attempts a counterexample as follows. ‘Consider an elderly man’s desire that he retire and spends more time with his wife. We can imagine that if his wife were to die suddenly, or if they were to separate, then he might not want to retire despite maintaining his original desire that he retire and spends more time with his wife’ (2012, fn 26, 91). Presumably the thought is that the man wants to retire because he wants to spend more time with his wife. In that case the death or estrangement of his wife might extinguish his desire to retire. But if so we are not thinking of a case in which he still wants to retire because he wants to spend more time with his wife, but rather a case in which he wishes that he were not estranged by death, or in life, from his wife so that he could retire to spend more time with her.

  22. Wall mostly talks of desires as being reasonable or unreasonable and sometimes as being rational or irrational. I take it that for my purposes, nothing hangs on any difference.

  23. I agree that my uttering ‘Please close the window, but I don’t want you to close it’ (Shoemaker 1988, 204) has an air of Moore-paradoxicality. Such an utterance is different, because it is not just a request but a request-cum-report of desire. Since desire is the sincerity condition of requests, my request-cum-report is sincere only if I desire that you close the window, yet truthful only if I do not desire that you close it. As a rational interlocutor, you are in a position to see that I cannot be a sincere truth-teller. I have necessarily violated either a norm of requests (that they be sincere) or a norm of assertion (that they be true). This explanation of the absurdity is consistent with my main position that some Moorean desires as well as their expression are neither irrational nor absurd.

  24. 1. D(p & D~p) & (p & D~p) Suppose satisfied desire for specific frustration of desire

    2. D(p & D~p) 1, &-elimination

    3. Dp 2, supposing DD

    4. p & D~p 1, &-elimination

    5. D~p 4, &-elimination

    6. Dp & D ~p 3, 5, &-introduction. Contradictory desires.

  25. 1. D(p & ~Dp) & (p & ~Dp) Suppose satisfied desire for specific lack of desire for what obtains

    2. D(p & ~Dp) 1, &-elimination

    3. Dp 2, supposing DD

    4. p & ~Dp 1, &-elimination

    5. ~Dp 4, &-elimination

    6. Dp & ~Dp 3, 5, &-introduction. Flat contradiction.

  26. The Digha Nikaya (Nanamoli and Bohhi 1995, 2. 157) appears to conceive of nirvāņa in this way in describing the Buddha’s enlightenment as follows: ‘No longer with in-breath nor out-breath, so is him (Gotama) who is steadfast in mind inherently quelled from all desires the mighty sage has passed beyond’ (my italics).

  27. Roughly that God was made Man so that Man could be made God, espoused especially by the Eastern Fathers, notably St. Athanasius.

  28. As Augustine puts it, ‘Thou hast prompted him, that he should delight to praise thee, for thou hast made us for thyself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in thee.’ (Outler 2000, I, 1).

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Acknowledgments

I am extremely grateful to Claudio de Almeida for insightful and sharp comments. These helped me clarify the paper substantially. It is part of project 07-C208-SMU-013 funded by the School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University.

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Williams, J.N. Moore's Paradox in Belief and Desire. Acta Anal 29, 1–23 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-013-0189-1

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