Master Philosophy
Master Thesis
Towards a Desire Liberation
Theory of Prudential Value
by
Joseph Parker
11314931
August 2017
18 Credits
Supervisor:
Second Supervisor:
dr. M.M. Leezenberg
dr. G. van Donselaar
Contents
1.1 Introduction of preliminary definitions and distinctions 3
1.2 Note on methodology 8
2.1 Example of a mental state theory in hedonism 10
2.2 Expansion of types of mental state target 12
2.3 Mental content implications for differing mental states 13
2.4 The experience machine counter example 16
2.5 Pain versus suffering 16
3.1 Desire satisfaction theories – simple versus knowledge modified 18
3.2 Dead Sea apples counter examples 20
4.1 Combined worries 23
4.2 The problem with maximising theories of prudential value 25
5.1 Connections to Indian philosophy 29
5.2 Towards an alternative intrinsic value in mokṣa 32 5.3 Why the desire liberation theory is a theory 37
6 Evaluation 41
7 Karma, or what makes an afterlife go best 46
8 The possibility of a philosophy of spirituality 50
9 Conclusion 52
1.1 Introduction of preliminary definitions and distinctions
What does a fulfilling life consist of? What is it that we can do to make our lives more fulfilling? Do we have control over how fulfilling our lives are, when we reflect back on what has happened? To what extent is how fulfilling this life is dependent on our orientation towards things outside of this life?
To ask these sorts of questions is to ask questions pertaining to prudential value. First I will attempt to clarify the concept of value to the highest generality possible and then begin the exploration into what prudence is and could be defined as.
Values come in many types. We may speak of ethical values, aesthetic values, economic values, ideological values, medicinal values, epistemic values, comedic values and so on. I cannot provide a watertight definition of value as it is too fundamental and too broad, but I believe the best way to think of it in other terms, and thus guide one's intuitions if they are lead astray, is that valuable things are, in some way or another, important. Ethical values for instance are those things that are important when reasoning over how we should act. There is nothing mysterious in this. Take for example dignity. Being in a dignified state is precious, and it seems reasonable to say that it is a virtue a perfect moral agent would possess. Because of this it becomes important as an attainable height in life. Some values can trump other values. For example, it seems obvious that in times where survival is at stake it is completely permissible to act in an undignified manner.
Although ethically valuable acts will certainly constitute part of a fulfilled life, as it is after all what we should do, I want to make headway with questions of prudential value. Feldman (2002, pp. 609) gives a useful example when thinking about the distinction between ethical and prudential value. If we imagine a martyr who, in a highly ethically valuable act and hence the height of moral righteousness, gives their life so as to improve the lives of others, what is it that the martyr improves for the others? The martyr does not necessarily make the others any more ethically valuable, but improves their prudential value. What this means is that the martyr has improved the other people's lives for themselves. The martyr clearly has not made her own life better but in the ethical act of improving another's life, that life is made better from the perspective of that individual. If an action is prudentially valuable it improves the life of the person who is living that life, but in the case of the martyr this is not always what we
should do. Therefore there is a difference between the moral value of what we should do with our lives and the prudential value of the fulfilment of our own lives. Whereas ethics most often concerns our obligations towards others or things outside of ourselves, prudence concerns our obligations towards ourselves, and making the best lives we can for ourselves. In the case of the martyr, ethical value has trumped or outweighed prudential value although no normative ethical theory would come to the conclusion that we should all become martyrs. There is then this interplay between ethical and prudential value. Ethically valuable acts, in a lot of circumstances, tend to improve the prudential value of others but this is very generalised. For example if there is ethical value in telling the truth then our morality may dictate revealing the location of fugitives to corrupt authorities, thus lowering the fugitives prudential value. Consequentialist theories of normativity are generally defined so that what morality consists in is increasing the prudential value of all people (as well as animals and other beings for some theories) in various ways.
From examples of different values trumping one another there exists an equilibrium between ethical value and prudential value. On the one hand, giving oneself away to others at the detriment of one's own life satisfaction can't always be viewed as worthwhile, and it is under no circumstances right for everyone to do this. On the other, the person who goes about seeking only their own satisfaction regardless of how this affects others would be seen as uncaring, cold, cruel, narcissistic and simply immoral. Finding ways that a possible definition of prudential value leads to ethically unwanted circumstances will be a useful way of criticising these theories. Furthermore paying respect to the balance of value will be necessary in creating a new theory.1
There are some values which gain their value from being instrumental to other values. These instrumental values could lead the way to other instrumental values or to intrinsic values. Intrinsic values are valuable for their own sake. They are important outright, not depending on other values for their own value. A value can be intrinsic and instrumental at the same time. Here I will be searching for intrinsic prudential value. It is controversial whether this even
1 It is entirely possible that an equilibrium exists between values other than those concerning the prudential and ethical, but questions of this nature will not receive any treatment here, because it seems as if the
possibility of these other values trumping prudence occurs much less frequently than with ethical values. That is to say that if a value hierarchy existed, ethical values would be placed near to the top.
exists and hence whether we should be searching for it.2 In this paper I will generally assume
intrinsic prudential value exists and leave it up to the reader to decide whether intrinsic prudential value is possible at all. That is to say I will not be discussing the position of scepticism in this respect.
A good place to start looking for solutions is Derek Parfit's (1984) book Reasons and Persons where he gives an overview of theories that could explain what intrinsic prudential value might consist in by asking the question “what makes a life go best?”
The theories provided can be categorised into subjectivist theories and objectivist theories. The simplest way of understanding the distinction is that objectivists would hold that it is changes in an agent's environment that correspond to changes in their prudential value, and that some environmental conditions bring prudential value for any possible agent. Subjectivists deny this, although it is entirely possible that what causes changes in prudential value comes from outside of the agent, these valuable conditions are only valuable in so far as they come into alignment with a specific internal experience within the agent. That is, what is of value intrinsically does not supervene on objective states of affairs, but on subjectively experienced states of being. The different possible combinations of experience and conditions form the list of possible subjectivist theories.
Objectivist theories tend to maintain that it is the receiving of good things by whatever means which makes a life fulfilled, but they all face the issue of having to define specifically what these good things are. If they are good things because they create happiness or fulfilled desires then objectivist theories are not truly objective and hence do not explain why receiving things that are deemed good for you constitute a value increase, as we are searching for what is of intrinsic value in the case of prudence. I will not devote much time at all to objective list theories. They all suffer a difficult problem in the form of who has the authority to define what these good
2 See Kagan (1998) for an argument to the effect that the notion of intrinsic value presupposes that you believe that these intrinsic values depend solely on the intrinsic properties of any valuable object. By arguing against this, he opens the possibility that the intrinsic value may partially depend on the instrumental value. The conclusion appears entirely plausible, but the argument I find deeply troublesome. However, a vigorous treatment of the failings of this article demand more space than I have left here. But for one example consider, "it is not an intrinsic property of an object that it is valued by some creature," (Kagan, pp.281). Surely this entirely depends upon the boundaries you draw around the creature! Hypothetically speaking there could be mental states or actions worthy of being valued. Are the properties of such states related to the creature or
part of the creature (and hence intrinsic)? Unless you determine the mereology beforehand, the axiology
things are against the intuitive value of enjoyment and fulfilling one's desires. Can those good things be formed into a finite list? Can the intricacy, variation and unforeseeableness of things that improve a life be completely defined in pre-established words on the list? Currently I feel these worries are completely insurmountable. Interestingly though, objectivist considerations make a return towards the end of the discussion but in a highly adapted way and from a completely new direction.
First I will discuss the proposition of mental state-ism (or the MS theory): most often found in the literature on values through the theory of hedonism or the view that what makes a life go best is having more pleasurable experiences, though the exact way of understanding pleasure and maximising it varies wildly. In its broadest sense what is of prudential value lies in the fulfilment of certain mental states, or of having more of some mental states than others. Parfit explains a counterargument to hedonism, which can very easily be adapted to deal with any form of MS theory.
Desire Satisfaction (or DS) theories claim that what makes a life go best is the fulfilment of an agent's desires, or getting what you want out of life, whether this leads to a particular mental state or not. This counts as a subjectivist theory because it is not the external states of affairs that hold the value – what is of value is the fulfilled state of the person experiencing their satisfied desires. Following Murphy (1999) DS theories come in at least two varieties: simple and knowledge modified. The simple theory contends that what is important is the agent's actual desires, while the knowledge modified view claims that what is valuable are the desires the agent would have in some hypothetical idealised situation. Lauinger (2011) claims that both forms of theory fail to certain Dead Sea apples cases. Dead Sea apples look incredibly delicious but when bitten into dissolve into ashes, and likewise there are some things we desire that when we get them we wish we had never desired them in the first place.
However, there appear to exist difficulties endemic to the type of theory that has so far been constructed. The most obvious being that as the theories all demand that what is valuable is the increase of something or some experience, and hence are all essentially unsatisfiable while at the same time demanding increase without end. If left unchecked this could lead to a boundless explosion of value and so it seems wise to posit a negative value to bring valuation
back into equilibrium in a sense.3 Of course having an absolute quantity of value can also be
seen as a limit depending on your perspective and having no limit might seem like a positive aspect of a theory. But this consumerist outlook on valuation is problematic as I will go on to explain. Secondly they all seem psychologically naïve, being happy and getting what you want sound as great to a child as they do to an adult, yet there appears to be a greater richness to adult life in our reflective capacity. As life continues wisdom increases, and later in life we have a better idea of how we think we should have lived our lives. This is how wisdom is passed down through generations but this process is not, at present, duplicated in our understanding of what it is to lead a fulfilling life. There is also a problem that we are searching for what is intrinsically valuable for an individual, but this is never true – humans do not exist alone, and one person's fulfilment can sometimes come at the cost of another's.
I reject both classes of theories but from the critique a new theory can begin to be developed. The new theory depends deeply on the MS and DS theories as a starting point towards a subjectivist theory of prudential value and as such will first come under fire from the same type of criticisms.
The Desire Liberation (DL) account takes the DS theory but posits there is only one desire of intrinsic importance. This is the second order desire to not desire. As such it will need to survive the problems faced by the DS account because it prescribes a form of desiring, but also those problems with the MS theory as it leads to asking whether the state reached after the fulfilment of DL is a mental state at all. If it fulfils the criterion for being a type of mental state it will not survive the criticisms aimed at the MS theory. If it does not, then it asks the question of whether all conscious states are mental states, and if not what does the distinction consist of.
After a comparison of the alternative theories and their ability to survive classic objects, there will follow two short excursions into questions pertaining to the possibility of DL fulfilment in the event of reincarnation governed by karma exists, and in the possibility of a need in philosophy to take more spiritually inclined questions seriously.
3 That is to say we are not looking for some type of negative consequentialism whereby bad events are minimised. We are not trying to minimise a quality appearing in the future – we want to minimise a type of valued event in the present.
1.2 Note on methodology
Intuitions will play a large part in the discussion. This is necessary as the concept of value does not admit to easy definition. Luckily other concepts are related to it weakly or strongly, and cluster around it so, connotatively. I might in this case be taking some leaps to generality of certain widely held beliefs, but these only exist as a starting points and never an end. Many value theorists (Arneson, 1999; Feldman, 2002; Murphy, 1999; Parfit, 1984) claim to be searching for a definition of value which captures our intuitive notion of valuation while at the same time resists the counter-examples offered by critics. As Rawls (1971) wanted to show, there exists a reflective equilibrium between our intuitions and the theorising philosophers take part in to solve apparent problems in our everyday notions. When our intuitions are proven to be inconsistent and hence inherently problematic – this demands the altering of our beliefs in order to fit this new evidence. It will be shown that the intuitions of many on the subject of prudential value may have to change because of considerations stemming from inherent problems with the concept of maximisation. My task is actually quite a difficult one. Although I believe the theory is strong against objections to maximising theories of value, it is true that the eventual theory will not appear to be as intuitively palatable as more naïve theories, like getting what one wants or experiencing pleasure. It will then be in my interests to explain why it is we have ended up having the intuitions we generally have on the subject, and explain why they are mistaken, if anyone is to be convinced by my new theory.
The work, although developing from and hopefully arriving at an analytic style theory of value, will take its inspiration and methodology from a more expansive web of belief including the translated Sanskrit works of ancient India and what little has so far been written within a discourse that could be called the philosophy of spirituality. Strictly speaking this is not an exercise in comparative philosophy - instead one doctrine (particularly surrounding the Upaniṣads) gives inspiration for an answer, and I think it can be made philosophically workable within the discourse of prudential value. So although we will no doubt face difficulties in translation I will not want to pay too much attention to accuracy but more so to making a consistent final theory. If an idea begins to show a glimmer of a meaning that I am reaching for, I will argue that it should be taken that way for present purposes. At points the formulation of the alternative theory will diverge from the orthodox interpretation of the
ancient texts or will use interpretations gathered from opposing schools of thought, although the texts in their entirety are often accused of inconsistency so developing one consistent set of propositions from the texts must be necessary for the DL theory to be in any way convincing. In fact my methodology is quite similar to that of Kaufman's (2005, pp.16-19) paper in that I do not wish to carry out, “doctrinal exegesis or historical comparative anthropology,” but to explain that certain philosophical concerns drove the thinking of this period in the same way as for our discipline now. When contemplating the possible solutions to value theoretic problems that could be seen as appearing in these ancient texts, it looks perfectly possible to transfer these thoughts into something palatable for our own culture and times, while keeping something of the appeal the original discussions had so as to have made them as long lasting in their popularity as they have been.
2.1 Example of Mental State Theory in hedonism
Let us take a look at a strong version of hedonism as an example of a Mental State theory. There are very many varieties of hedonism but the form advocated by Feldman (2002) is easily understood and, in his view, strong against many classical objections.
The name of this variety of hedonism is Double Desert Adjusted Intrinsic Attitudinal Hedonism (or DDAIAH). Allow me to explain where all of these terms come from. This form of hedonism is attitudinal as opposed to what Feldman calls sensory hedonism. Sensory hedonists propose that a feeling of pleasure is what should be maximised, whereas attitudinal hedonists want to maximise an attitude of enjoyment. An attitude is a belief (Feldman 2002, pp. 606). Therefore enjoyment is always directed towards some object. This is because all beliefs must have content to be beliefs – in other words to believe is always to believe in something. In this case, it is to believe that something is enjoyable.
DDAIAH only takes into account intrinsic (dis)enjoyment attitudes. This is to avoid the double counting of attitudes with the same object. In effect, we should only take into account the ends of causal chains of actions. That is, the final reason why they are taking place. Also all propositional attitudes containing logical connectives should be broken down into their atomic parts before being evaluated.
“Double Desert Adjusted” simply means that the object of attitudinal enjoyment deserves to be enjoyed (discounting cases of immoral pleasures for example) and that the subject deserves to be experiencing attitudinal enjoyment in that object (discounting cases of “bad things happening to good people”).
But what really is attitudinal enjoyment? We know it is a belief so what is it a belief about? It could be the case that being in a state of attitudinal enjoyment is simply believing that what you are experiencing is valuable, even if the object of directed attitudinal enjoyment is not valuable. But if we started out by asking the question of what valuable things exist, and not the psychological question of what it is that we value, we come to the conclusion that attitudinal hedonism is begging the question of it's own success. This may be able to account for the reason why DDAIAH needs so many conditions to be intuitively plausible – if attitudinal enjoyment is believing your experiences are valuable then all we need to do is move from
believing a fulfilled life consists in believing one's experiences are valuable to believing that one has a fulfilled life. Intuitively there is a difference between believing one has a fulfilled life and living a fulfilled life. Although believing you have a fulfilling life could well increase one's prudential value, it also invites the possibility of psychologically damaging self-deception.4
Returning to Parfit's summary, he speaks of narrow hedonism which is quickly dismissed, defined as having the most pleasure, where pleasure and pain are, “two distinctive kinds of experience,” (Parfit, pp.494). This he rejects, instead defining, "one of two experiences is more pleasant if it is preferred." This is different to attitudinal hedonism. I can enjoy something without preferring it. For example I have a child by accident but actually find I really enjoy being a father. I can also prefer something without enjoying it. For example eating carrots even though I don't like them but believe they are good for me. Clearly attitudes and preferences are distinct psychological phenomena.
But what is it to have a preference? Is a particular experience preferred because it is desired? I cannot see how it could be otherwise. If I prefer dancing to singing, then it presumes that I actually want to dance at some point given the opportunity. It could be that the opportunity never arises and then the preference is only a hypothetical desire, but a desire nonetheless that if I did have to make this decision I would choose dancing over singing. It also does not take into account where our preferences come from as we tend to prefer things we think we know are good because of past experiences with good things. Although it is not necessary for preference hedonism to explain this to be successful, it should certainly accord with it. But this doesn't seem to be the case. It's very easy to prefer doing things that you know in full conscience are not good for your prudential value.
If this is true then really Preference hedonism is a hybrid theory - hedonism until conflict is reached and then the DS theory is used to resolve this conflict. This is highly unappealing, inheriting problems with both theories at the same time. It seems to me that the reason preference hedonism is proposed is because it isn't really hedonism in the usual sense of maximising pleasure but maximising something else. Citing Griffin in the example of Freud who preferred to have a clear mind than alter his mind by taking pain reducing drugs, Parfit
4 Self-deception is damaging because it creates conflict between societal expectation and whoever you find yourself to be in this word (Watts, pp.9). This is a claim few, I believe, would reject.
claims this is the action of a preference hedonist because having a clear mind was preferred by Freud (Parfit, pp.494).5 But this simply multiplies the number of mental state targets and so
should be considered separately.
2.2 Expansion of types of mental state target
To simplify the case it makes sense to jettison Parfit's two varieties of hedonism (one possibly a straw man and the other possibly not a pure theory) and attempt to formulate the more general theory of Mental State-ism (or MS theory). This is the theory that it is not necessarily the maximisation of pleasure or enjoyment which makes a life go best but the maximisation of some type of mental state. The mental state-ism of Freud was the maximisation of his cognitive processes rather than an experience of pleasure. For the time being we can say that on this theory each individual person might have their own version of an MS theory which would lead to the most fulfilled life for them. The threat of collapse into a DS theory remains, because subjects inevitably choose mental states which they desire to experience, and I do not believe it possible to block this objection without choosing an arbitrary particular mental state, as is the case in the hedonistic theory with pleasure. This move to a more generalised way of looking at the production of theories aiming at arbitrary mental states will allow the critique to be more widespread and so allow the way for a new theory to become clear.
As Feldman summarises Kagan's definition, “if two lives are alike with respect to mental states, they must also be alike with respect to value,” and since beliefs, and hence attitudes, are mental states, DDAIAH is a variant of this type of theory (Feldman, pp. 614). Crisp (2006, pp.621) is happy to accept all forms of hedonism as instantiations of mental-statism. Feldman is not so sure whether his theory can be admitted into the camp because it not only speaks of which mental states have value but of a certain specific type of truth in the form of desert. For desert to be a useful notion it must obviously be that this desert is true, and not mistaken, and that seems to entail knowing something of the objective world. That is to say it is implicit in Feldman's argument that this desert is objectively true desert, not simply what an arbitrary agent believes they are deserving of, or what objects they believe deserve being enjoyed. But again this raises the problem of whether such a criterion for objectively true desert could
actually exist.
Theories which posit the maximised frequency of occurrence of any mental state are all vulnerable to the experience machine thought experiment.
2.3 The experience machine counter example
Nozick's often referenced experience machine thought experiment can be simply summarised and reproduced in such a way as to be effective in criticising the MS theory (Nozick, pp.43) . Suppose a machine is built such that when a person is connected to it or “plugged in” they can have whatever experience they so choose. A hedonist, believing that what will make their life go best is the one where they are either experiencing pleasurable sensations or experiencing the attitude of enjoyment to the greatest possible extent, would undoubtedly plug in all else assumed. But this doesn't sit easy – most intuitively feel there exists an unvoiced reason as to why plugging in does not benefit the plugged in person's own sake, disregarding interference from outside.
Feldman provides two interlinked options for the hedonist against accusation of mental statism, and thus that their theories cannot survive the experience machine argument. First he points out that the only reason we believe being plugged in isn't valuable is because we are not already in it, and that if this information was revealed to us inside we would still have the same intuitions (Feldman, pp.615). The problem with this is that when plugged in, these truth-makers would appear exactly the same to the subject, and so there is just as much reason for someone inside the machine to believe they are plugged in as there is for someone who isn't plugged in to believe they are – a revelation of this type is hard to believe via testimony.
The second option is to adapt hedonism so as to only allow increases of pleasure from true states of affairs. What does this mean? I think the idea is that what counts as true here is when the subject is not deceived. In the example he gives the subject is deceived by the people around him but for Parfit the deceiving is done by the experience machine. Knowledge of the deception leads us back to the first option for the hedonist. A third option for deception is self-deception, which I will consider later.
Bramble (2016) rightly asks us to bear in mind that we should not be asking ourselves this question directly but ourselves as taken objectively. That is we should be taken as an anonymous hypothetical individual. This is both obvious and opaque at the same time. Act as if you take yourself as you would take anybody else is a very plausible moral maxim, and often the effectiveness of prudential theories can be partly evaluated by their ethical suitability.
One criticism brought against the experience machine argument would be to question the reasons behind the intuition. One suggestion is that there exists a “status quo bias” or simply that people generally dislike change especially when it is a particularly radical one (Bramble, pp.139). Assuming that part of the set-up is that when we plug in we immediately forget everything about our lives, we can then assume that we are already plugged in and that reality we know is the one created by the experience machine and it turns out that all the pain and sorrow that is felt is a necessary part of the most valuable life. Now when asked whether you would like to leave the machine's creation and return to the real world, intuitively the answer would be no for most. I find this a very persuasive suggestion, fear of the unknown has been a continual source of inspiration for psychologists. Essentially, this could be read as saying that plugging in constitutes a type of ego-death resulting in a reincarnated individual consciousness.
Hewitt (2010) also rejects the conclusion reached by the experience machine argument, believing that hedonism in some form can accommodate our intuition that we should not plug in and also that there exist reasons why we should not take too much from what we intuitively feel about the nature of value. To do this she logically extends the thought experiment and appeals to ethical considerations. The argument for this conclusion is weak.
First Hewitt states that one way we can desire things other than that which is intrinsically valuable (in this case pleasure) is that goodness is part of the phenomenology of pleasure and we know goodness is closer to pleasure than other desirable things (Hewitt, pp.333). This contradicts the drive to show that pleasure is, “intrinsically valuable independently of anyone's judgements, attitudes, desires, or dispositions,” (Hewitt, pp.344). In other words, there doesn't seem to be any reason to say that goodness is a defining property of pleasure as there is to say that pleasure is a defining property of goodness. And precisely because pleasure can be something we feel, it is more of a prime candidate for the defining property of an abstract
quality such as goodness.
Her argument when pushed eventually comes down to “the paradox of hedonism” in that although pleasure is what is intrinsically valuable, the only way to bring it about is not to think of pleasure as being intrinsically valuable (Hewitt, pp. 347). In other words, one should not believe pleasure to be intrinsically valuable to satisfy hedonism. This does not exactly contrast Feldman's view of hedonism because this is a practical point about attaining pleasurable states, not a definition for what prudential value could be And even so, attitudinal enjoyment and pleasurable sensations do not always supervene (Feldman, 1988). For example, we should not seek out pleasure but seek out friends as an instrumental way of attaining pleasure and to do this the best way is to pretend, it seems, to value friendship intrinsically. Not only does this appear underhanded in the first sense, but even self-deceptive as well as turning something like pleasure which we presume is easily known into something elusive. It also begs the question of inherent motivation and why we should go after instrumental values with no knowledge of how long it will be before we find the intrinsically valuable. Later I will use this as an example to show how the new value theory can better explain why friendship is perceived as valuable, although an adapted paradox of hedonism could still remain.
Hewitt often appeals to cases involving friendship partly because if we are utilitarians then the best actions are ones in which the pleasure of others is increased as well as my own. Remember that consequentialist normative theories demand the maximisation or aggregation of the prudential value of individuals - utilitarianism is just one such theory.6 And there exists
an equilibrium between ethical value and prudential value which needs to be kept in balance. Telling us that we are benefited by our ability to feel "shame, embarrassment and discomfort at the disapproval of others" (Hewiit, pp. 336). I sharply disagree to the extent that if there were not those who did not choose to act against feelings stemming from societal disapproval there would be no moral progress or innovation at all. It is not necessary to feel pain – the pain is instrumental to the gaining of a new belief that the action was morally wrong and should not be repeated. However the lesson contained within painful events is not the only thing at stake here, there is also the deeper worry of how, what I have seen as, suffering is dealt with, and its relation to self-deception. But first I would like to quickly spell another possible response to the experience machine which will become relevant later.
2.4 Mental content implications for differing mental states theories
Crisp (2006, pp. 636) highlights the fact that hedonists defending against the experience machine cannot appeal to considerations in the debate over wide versus narrow mental content. But this only applies to attitudinal enjoyment and not other, “good-making properties other than those of enjoyment.” The reason he gives for this is that completing an enjoyable action in the machine and completing the same action outside the machine both produce the same qualitatively enjoyable state and so it makes no difference as to how valuable each action is. Therefore considering the mental content of the mental states different subjectivist theories aim for determines which mental states survive the experience machine thought experiment and thus become possible candidates for mental state theories of value.
This raises the important point that whatever mental state could be valuable must depend solely on an internal state that could not be effected by external developments. This will then have to be a feature of the DL theory.
2.5 Pain versus Suffering
It is essential to clarify the meaning of pain likewise as we did with pleasure. It seems highly remarkable that this is not widely done in the literature of hedonism. In Feldman we saw the splitting of sensational pleasure and attitudinal enjoyment. Similarly we can create a split between sensational pain and attitudinal disenjoyment (Feldman, pp.608). But this doesn't seem strong enough to describe what we sometimes feel in life – sometimes we are experiencing something much more strongly than mere dislike and this in turn can create sensational pain.
It is often said that pain is a communication, in the sense that when you touch something very hot you feel pain as a burning sensation. This tells you to remove your hand, and so there is value to this – lacking it would amount to the continued breakage of the body, limiting how fulfilled a life one could lead in this body. Accepting this, what is suffering? Suffering is the
mental overlay of pain. For example I stub my toe, causing an experience of pain. Suppose that at the time of the incident happening I was in an agitated mood and I call myself a fool for it and it does further damage to how I am feeling. This self-insult further increases the disenjoyment of the event, and I suffer for it. I would be very surprised if any hedonist rejected this second level of disenjoyment. On the other hand upon the feeling of pain I could tell myself, “Amazing! I absolutely love stubbing my toe, this pain feels great! I should do it more often,” and this seems to be the kind of internal world attitudinal hedonists are striving for. Indeed Feldman tries to remedy this by adding the condition that the object of attitudinal enjoyment must be a deserving object but concedes that the notion of desert is nowhere near being rigorously and completely defined.
Does suffering have prudential value sometimes, similarly with pain? No doubt suffering is also a communication, but it doesn't seem like the kind of communication that could ever block physical injury. What about psychological pain? The problem with attempting to block psychological pain is that without it there can be no personal growth – there would never exist the opportunity to transcend seeing some emotions as negative. This aspect will then also be included in the DL theory.
To briefly summarise - the MS theory appears weak but understanding this reveals what a successful theory must do. Whatever specifically prescribed mental states that are of value in a successful theory cannot depend on external states of affairs as these can be reproduced within the machine. Some painful experiences should be included because of their intrinsic value in creating a fulfilling life via teaching, while at the same time discrediting anxious suffering and hypocritical inner talk. But first we turn to another subjectivist theory and its limitations and consequences – the desire satisfaction theory – in order to gather more ingredients for our new theory of prudence.
3.1 Desire satisfaction theories – simple versus knowledge modified
One way of thinking about the difference between mental state-ism and DS theories is that whatever mental state is valuable, it is only valuable in as much as it is experienced presently. DS theories are not like this. Although the satisfaction of the desire will happen at a moment in the present if it is to ever occur, the cultivation of the desire to begin with must have happened before its satisfaction, in which case desires are always future orientated. Very generally, this is the source of the most damaging problems with DS theories, and one that can be modified in the DL theory with a return to the moment of valuation happening in the present.
The DS theory (also sometimes called the desire fulfilment theory) appears in at least two forms. The most common I will call knowledge modified DS theories, following Murphy (1999). Murphy defines these views as either those that hold that some actually satisfied desires are not valuable because if the agent had more information about the situation and the event's consequences then they would not have this specific desire to start with, or those that hold that there are desires which the agent does not actually have but if they had access to more information they would desire such things (Murphy, pp. 249).
Murphy sites three example theorists, which I will illustrate in order to give a feeling of the ways this idea can come to fruition, but also because I will be reusing some of these ideas later in explaining the effectiveness of the DL theory. First Sidgewick, as possibly the most pure form of a knowledge modified account, in that the satisfaction of desires that the agent would have if they had a “perfect intellectual and emotional forecast” of relevant facts, as it relies solely on the concept of perfection.7
Secondly Bandt, who views that those desires that will contribute to well-being are those that would survive cognitive psychotherapy (Murphy, pp.248). The endorsement of this account could be downright dangerous, for the reason that what is perceived as psychologically normal is determined by society and the times one is living in.8 However, it is the only theory that
goes slightly deeper into the reasons why we have the desires we do. Overall though the main
7 The role of the concept of perfection has a strong history in value theory but I will not speak directly of it here. For further reading consult Hurka (1993).
8 For example see Foucault (2006) for a treatment of how madness was thought of in an incredibly different way in past societies. There is also a wealth of evidence in social anthropology of the relativity of socially
reason for adopting this psychotherapeutic condition is that Brandt believes it will count desires that “can confront, or will even be produced by, awareness of the truth”
Thirdly Railton, who views that those desires that are what the agent would desire themselves to desire from a highly informed position (Murphy, pp. 248). It is not necessary to go into any sort of depth right now on the exact nature of the highly informed hypothetical standpoint as the counterargument will be equally (un)effective against any such possible outlook. The most evident problem for Railton is to explain why the desiring of certain desires produces what is valuable rather than the desiring to have the desire to have certain desires, and the desiring to have the desire to have the desire to have certain desires, ad infinitum. In other words, what gives second order desires authority as opposed to any higher order desires, as it is always possible to hypothetically adjust which desires can be desired.
In opposition to the knowledge modified DS theories, Murphy posits a “simple” DL theory: the simple thesis that only, and all of, the actually fulfilled basic desires of an agent are valuable (Murphy, pp. 249). He then goes on to argue that the simple DS theory is better than the knowledge modified account by showing its effectiveness against cases usually called against the knowledge modified theorists. One simple reason for this added strength is that the simple account does not depend on its success in any way on what the agent believes (Murphy, pp. 251). What Murphy means by basic desires are desires that are not instruments to other desires or specific instances of a more general desire being satisfied. For example, if I desire food and I desire cooking in order to fulfil my desire for food, then, by Murphy, I do not desire cooking. Or else, I desire ice-cream because I desire food, then I do not desire ice-cream. A knowledge modified account has been traditionally ascribed as performing better in cases of either the agent having desires generated by false beliefs or lacks desires that are valuable because of a lack of true beliefs. The question comes down to the value of the truth. Murphy is happy to believe that all actually fulfilled desires are as valuable as desires one would have in hypothetically knowledge modified situations.
If Murphy is correct in this, this could lead to a highly parsimonious DS theory which does not require complex additional criteria to be realised. However, whether Murphy's argument is successful or not, both varieties of DS theory can be criticised with relatively simply counter examples.
3.2 Dead Sea apples counter examples
All DS theories come under fire from, as Sidgwick called, “Dead Sea apple cases,” where a Dead Sea apple is supposedly an apple which looks really good to eat, but transforms to ashes upon eating (Lauinger, pp.325). Quite simply, there are many things we desire which upon their fulfilment turn out to be things we we would not have desired if we knew that they weren't what we thought they were. A life filled with Dead Sea apples would then, on the DS account, be a completely fulfilling life, yet at the same time one that no one would want contra the theory.
According to Lauinger, there are three possible ways a proponent of the simple DS theory could respond.9 The first is to argue that the agent didn't really desire the Dead Sea apple, but a
more subtle or elusive part of it that was not fully mentalised. This is problematic because if the DS theory is true the part of the apple that is what we really wanted is valuable because that's what we desired. But it isn't, we desired the apple in its entirety when we first experienced the desire, and that made satisfying this desire valuable. So the DS theorist is left in a position where only part of what is desirable is valuable, contra the theory.
A second possible response from the simple DS theorist would be to add the condition that desirable events can only be satisfied when the desired event occurs and while it is still desired (Lauinger pp. 335). In this case when the apple dissolves to ashes I no longer desire it and hence there is no way for the event to increase my prudential value. But this is clearly unsatisfactory because the fulfilment of my original desire simply would not have increased my prudential value, and this is what the DS theory is trying to say.
The DS theorist could add a notion of proximity so that events we desire are closer to being good for us than events we do not desire, or they could not. According to the simple DS account, satisfying a desire I formed in the past increases my prudential value in the present. Attaining the apple is closer to being good for me when I formed the desire but we know that upon satisfaction it is not. But if we do this, how can the DS theorist demarcate between things we desire and things we do not desire but do affect our prudential value? Desired events, even if they are not in the process of being presently satisfied, should be treated as valuable according to the simple DS theory compared with events that are not desired. But if
we add this concurrence condition to the DS theory, we cannot differentiate events we desire from events we do not desire in terms of their respective value. This comes about by asking the question of how the passing of an event which I did not desire in the past effects my prudential value. With these conditions there can be no answer, and it was obviously the case that the theory did this to begin with and therefore the condition destroys the good work already done by the original theory.
It is interesting that Lauinger at this stage applies to, “our pragmatic need,” seeing as all arguments against the simple DS account relied on highly theoretical cases (Lauinger, pp.329). Specifically it is the need we have to form desires that are relatively simple and that do not allow us to get lost in too much detail. I think it would have maybe been a better tactic to argue against the probability of effects resembling prior effects based on current knowledge. That is, what we believe (and remember this is always what is being changed in the knowledge modified account) will be the outcome of the satisfaction of our desires is based on at worst inductive and at best scientific extension of the particulars of the situation we find ourselves in now. For example, to the best of our knowledge, even if I have desires about what I want the positions of the smallest particles of matter to be in the future the range of causes which could provide this arrangement is completely indeterministic.
Instead Lauinger constructs a distinction between “fine-grained” and “course grained” desires, going on to say that the modified DS theory needs desires that are so fine grained humans cannot digest them. However this relates to a larger worry which I would like to spell out against DS theories simpliciter; that these hypothetical scenarios do not capture what is even logically permissible in real life, that our understanding of progress through life does not have to be dependent on mentalisations, and that being imprisoned in having to choose between which desires will make our lives go best actually does more harm than good.
To briefly summarise – both forms of the DS theory appear weak against Dead Sea apples cases. However, the investigation has revealed some more ingredients that a successful subjective theory of prudence might have – that it operates in the present, that a psychotherapeutic condition could be useful in creating a fulfilling life (intuitively), and if there were higher order desires as part of it they would need justification as to why they are valuable as opposed to an even higher order desire. The constant worry of Dead Sea apples also leads
one to wonder whether desires may not have intrinsic value but intrinsic disvalue! But before we begin constructing a new theory there appears to me to be further worries over the maximising aspect of the MS and DS theories which give us even more reason for abandoning them against their intuitive appeal.
4.1 Combined worries
If we learn and understand more greatly as our life progresses then it is the utmost irony that we expect to understand the most the closer we are to death. All of the supposedly good work we have done, when it reaches a maximum, is lost. It seems strange then to view the value of our lives from perspectives demanding the aggregation of certain experiences, when we take for granted that they do little to transcend our brief time here.10 It seems even stranger that
getting what you want, and being happy all the time are as much what a child finds valuable as these philosophers.
The problem I have with hedonism is that it seems psychologically naïve. Of course we are searching for the idealised conditions of what would make someone's life go best. But what this entails would have to be in the realm of possibility. When we speak of someone, I assume we are speaking about a hypothetical person in full concreteness. As such, cases of people living completely happy lives enjoying every moment (even inside the experience machine) appear impossible. I do not wish to suggest that enjoyment has no intrinsic value. But the so called roller-coaster of life is undeniable. After a certain period of enjoyable experiences, things go awry. It is almost as if humans have a special kind of built in boredom that after a certain period living in paradise it comes time to leave. And I put to any reader to find a time that an enjoyable period of life was not eventually succeeded by a passionless phase. This trope is common in the tradition of Indian philosophy where the pleasure of satisfied desires is desired again, leading to greed, frustrated desires, and ultimately sorrow (Tähtinen, pp. 53).
To be entirely rigorous, what I am questioning is the logical possibility of the case. This might seem farfetched, after all there is nothing logically impossible about jumping to the moon, but I wish to say there may be something logically impossible about a human life being entirely filled with enjoyable experiences. For the theory of hedonism to answer what makes a life go best at all, it must apply to humans and I cannot imagine a human mind capable of only experiencing enjoyment so much as a human body walking away from its own legs.
The DS theories fare no better at producing an outcome that could be accepted as equally by a child as by a senior. If the older we get, the wiser we become, this cannot be said to be an
10 See the chapter Why Care About the Future? in Partridge (1981) for an argument to the effect that all humans have a basic need to find self-transcendence.
attractive feature of a theory. Often we desire things that do not contribute to improving our lives. This is well known to DS theorists and leads to the adding of the various conditions we have seen although if we believe Murphy's conclusion that none of these modifications strengthens the theory then the problem of valueless desires stands even more resolutely. There is absolutely no guarantee in the conditions added by Brandt or Railton that the desires we would consequently have would actually improve our lives.
Sidgwick's argument relies on the effectiveness of human foresight. If I knew exactly what was going to happen and exactly how I would feel about this range of events, then I would have desires that would necessarily increase my well-being. Similar to my objection to hedonism, it doesn't seem possible that we could choose a specific best path. There could be multiple paths that would all lead to a maximum of permissible fulfilled desires. And again, no human mind could house all of this possible information. If I want to know where someone will be next week, I would ask them. I would not analyse their body in terms of constituent molecules, cells or parts and use physical laws to calculate the likely position of these parts in a week's duration – this would be far off. Using a theory of mind to guess the position of the body after a week would come closer, but it is not just the position of the body but the interactions with everything going on in the world. No possible human mind could comprehend this.11
Even if a MS theory or a DS theory can successfully explain what makes a life go best, how is it that a constantly maximising value can be made to be consistent with the maximising prudential value of others? In other words when the individuals of a population seek to increase their attitudinal enjoyment or fulfilled desires, there is bound to occur instances where individuals goals interfere with each other and block another's increase of prudential value. Because of this both theories require additional theories of aggregation, which usually become incredibly complex in order to balance individual value with group, or ethical, value. As an example take utilitarianism (which usually takes some variety of hedonism as one of its precepts) and the cases it faces in situations like the doctor who has the choice whether she should kill one to save several. We can either bite the bullet and accept that the conditions for group maximisation of prudential value will be very complicated and even then might admit to some individuals having to lead unfulfilling lives at the expense of others, or we can jettison
11 For further reading on interpreting intentional systems consult Dennett (1987), and especially chapter 2, True
seeking to maximise the prudential value of everyone.
4.2 The Problem with Maximising Theories of Prudential Value
The most earnest problem I see with existing theories is that they can all generally be classified under theories of maximisation. Whether we are evaluating the theories on a moment to moment basis or reflecting from our hypothetical deathbed on how fulfilling a life we have lived, there is no getting away from the fact that they advise more rather than less.
The DS theories clearly admit to this – for them more is more (so long as they are the right type of desires in the hypothetically adjusted cases). In hedonism we do see times of more not necessarily being better and a turn to what could better be described as optimisation, for example when asked to judge a theory by reflecting back on a hypothetical life from our deathbeds. Even taking a strong theory like DDAIAH we get an intuitively very appealing theory as to what prudential value consists in, but are still left with a sense of more is better. Most agree that pain has instrumental value, but is there no intrinsic value to pain?
Is there intrinsic value in suffering? There exists a worry that without thoughts or anxiety or self-directed inward speech, there would not be enough motivation to do the things we need to do. Speaking on the most basic level we could talk of the motivation for survival – does this come from anxious inner speech? It is often cited that there exists a reptilian brain which kicks in and produces the “fight or flight” mechanism in dangerous circumstances, which evolved to exist before the forward thinking fore-brain found in humans. It has been hypothesized that early humans living in near desert regions used to fill ostrich eggs with water and hide them in the sand to be used during long journeys where it could be used during times of drought. This technique is still used today but it is sometimes said that it was the human ability to think ahead and perform such acts that lead us to survive where other animals would die. Do we need inner talk for this? For most humans I would say yes, and especially humans who have never done this before. When it was first discovered probably not, but it could be communicated far faster and more efficiently using language. Even so, there is no reason for this inner talk to create anxious suffering in this, and possibly more, cases of survival. But we seem to have made this move from not just needing survival, but a fulfilled life.
intuition that displeasure, or pain, teaches us valuable lessons for example in the case of the child burning themselves on a kitchen stove, and knowing from then on not to burn themselves.
It could be objected that the reason we believe these lessons are valuable is because what they teach are ways in which pleasure can be increased in the future. That way displeasure has instrumental value, while pleasure has intrinsic value. But we could equally imagine a case of a life that suffers greatly and is then tragically cut short before the pleasurable effects of these instruments are realised.
Compare with temperature – there exists an absolute low temperature but there is no upper bound to temperature. By analogy I feel that we have been looking at prudential value the wrong way round – that heat energy does not exist but cold energy does. It seems almost paradoxical that we propose theories that have no possible satisfaction but when theories that postulate that a state of absolute intrinsic value could exist they are seen to have no credence yet.
There is a fine line between optimization and excess, and looking at the all encompassing consumerism of the globalised world, we should perhaps be more wary of this. In what ways does this effect prudential value? It is often repeated wisdom that the less you have the happier you are, or more rigorously the hypothesis that the less economic value the greater prudential value.
Gold is valuable because of its aesthetic quality and versatility but most importantly because of its rarity. When everything is maximised rarity is lost, and if gold was abundant nobody would want it. You may think I am conflating economic value with prudential value. It is almost tautological that the things that make the most difference to the course of our lives and how we feel about them are usually individual choices. The events which create the conditions for these choices happen at particular moments. If our lives were filled with moments that would drastically change the course of our lives (which is probably true) we would cease to value them. This is exactly what has happened and a remedy is sorely needed.
moderation, in humanity's struggle against possible catastrophic anthropogenic climate change. This is a pretty obvious answer and yet without rigour and deeper understanding as to why we have ended up in this mindset, motivation to change will not come easy.
It seems easy to see the intuitive appeal of the DS theory – getting what you want is often highly pleasurable and feels satisfying. But perhaps we are even mistaken in our assumptions about this. What if our intuitions about maximising theories of value are heavily conditioned by cultural, societal and ideological pressures to consume? Pascal for example disagreed that we truly wanted our desires to be satisfied at all (Bauman, pp.10). And as I have said, if you are wise you will know that the brief moment of pleasure found in a fulfilled desire is followed by emptiness. What happens when, as I feel many of us are, one desires not the satisfaction of desires but to have more desires. On reflection it is often not the fulfilment of the desire that makes our life go best, but having something to hope for, strive for, fight for. In actuality, we do not desire desire fulfilment, but constant unfulfilled desire.
Why is this so? One answer is that it distracts us from thoughts concerning the brevity of life (Bauman, pp.10).
In Bauman's paper, we see an argument to the effect that a consumer society (or a society where the consumption of resources is no longer proportional to the needs of its people) doesn't just depend on the people desiring more than what they need, but the, “liberation of wishful fantasies,” (Bauman, pp. 14). In the endless search for distractions from the fear of mortality, our ancestors have created a world such that all manner of niceties are available everywhere, while the economic system depends for its survival on our seeing these niceties as a valuable part of life. In essence, some people have the option to buy their way into what the experience machine promises. Not only in the case of artefacts we may believe we desire, but when we think we would want to be a certain type of person. Dead Sea apples abound. But the danger extends far beyond not getting what we think we want. Even when what we do want is achieved, there is something else we want or some fantasy that could still be materialised. Our true nature? Once distraction has formed into a habit, and thinking only of the new into an addiction, there can be no long term planning of one's future biography against social structures that have become so short lived because of the hunger for new commodities born out of newly developed, highly artificial fears (Bauman, pp.27). The first humans, in their
preparation for drought, are a far cry from what this modernity reduced human can accomplish.
The danger in maximising values? Biologically a forgetting of whatever true nature we may have, psychologically an imprisoning in a mind that can only think of distractions out of fear for what reality could hold for us, politically a society with structures impossible to believe in, and ecologically a planetary home in jeopardy.
5.1 Connections to Indian Philosophy
Thus the problems with maximisation run deep and cannot easily be solved. Yet it occurred to me that the Indian tradition of philosophy may already have some form of answer to these problems – the hint of a theory by which unbridled maximisation would no longer be a problem. Before I get to the determination of this new theory, I would like to outline how Indian philosophy has dealt with the concepts of value, desire, and pleasure in order to trace the development of a minimising value from the terms it originally sprung from. This should reveal the reflection of the argument against maximisation I have just developed but in a different cultural context. That is to say a similar argument appeared implicitly a long time ago, but because of the different language, lifestyle and whatever else creates meaningful philosophy, the argument will – although clearly moving in the same direction – will never be the same. Later this will make clear how the new value will fit into the value theoretic discourse I have been speaking in so far. Bear in mind that I do not wish to provide an exegesis of even one particular strand of Indian philosophy, but to operationalize concepts from this discourse that are not taken into consideration in the present discussion of values, and to attempt to create a viable philosophical position from them.
When I speak of the Indian tradition of philosophy I will mean, unless indicated otherwise, the predominantly Hindu literature beginning with the Vedas and their subsequent commentaries. Of course there are other Indian philosophical traditions dealing with axiological questions for example in Buddhist and Jain literature, but these are beyond the exegetical scope of this paper. Even this confinement is not entirely uncontroversial, as the Vedas comprise a vast body of literature and although mostly seen as revelation parts can be rejected from accusations of inauthenticity, and other reasons, by certain schools. I will continue with the “Indian” label rather than “Hindu” because the texts I will mostly be referring to are so ancient as to form the beginnings of traditions not self-identified as Hindu.12
Firstly Indian philosophy does not have an exact equivalent to the English word “value”. Besides this, it is the view of Tähtinen (1968) and Sharma (1999) that Indian philosophy is essentially concerned with valuation. Flood (1996, pp.249) disagrees, instead giving what he sees as philosophy in this literature the spin of a primary concern with language and ontology.
12 For further reading consult Flood (1996). It is also usual to speak of the philosophical tradition of a nation or language, but the philosophical tradition of a religion sounds as if it presupposes certain unquestionable elements of faith. For discussion on the religious/spiritual distinction see section 8.
Further Bhushan (2011) prefers to highlight the relationship between freedom and self-knowledge as the defining characteristic of an Indian tradition of philosophy. The variety of positions make it necessary to make sure that whatever can be highlighted from Indian philosophy must be made workable in our terms so as to avoid getting lost in translation.
If we are going to pursue Indian philosophy as a philosophy of value, in what way could value appear in the texts? We cannot simply translate the word "value" into Sanskrit as best we can - whatever word we find would have found its usage in an entirely different web of meaning, and may have had very different concepts cluster around it connotatively. Because of this the term would be incommensurable with the language I am using. However there are terms that show some kind of resemblance. The most obvious term is puruṣārtha because it has a similar level of generality to value in common speech but is general in a different way as it includes more terms than what we would usually assign as values (Tähtinen, pp.15). Another possibility is prayojana (literally, “fruit”) as it makes apparent a sense of growth and consequence (Tähtinen, pp. 17). It also highlights that in Indian thinking desire is generally held to explain what is valuable, rather than the other way round as was done by the DS theories. That is to say that what is desired in a certain correct way, is valuable. It is this certain correct way of desiring which we must now understand.
The kāmasutra defines kāma as sensory pleasure, “assisted by the mind (manas) together with the soul (ātman),” (Tähtinen, pp. 51).13 Kāma is clearly related to the theory of sensory
hedonism and will admit to some arguments surrounding it. But does this additional mind and soul condition bring us any closer to attitudinal enjoyment? Yes and no. In one sense I have suggested, an attitude is a belief, and we are in a state of believing that something is valuable to us. By this understanding an argument could be made that the mind can help us produce pleasure by believing in the value of the current state of affairs. Another supporting reason is that animals are both within the set of things capable of experiencing both kāma and attitudinal enjoyment (Tähtinen, pp.51; Feldman, pp.607). Sharma (1999, pp.226-227) first summarises kāma to “passion” relating it more strongly to mental state-ism, before returning to the usual use of “pleasure” as a roundabout way of approaching the concept.
13 This is slightly misleading. Ātman should not be understood as soul but as higher Self or individuated consciousness. See section 5.2.
Tähtinen tells us that artha is economic value, the desire for material objects (Tähtinen, pp. 63). There is a clear similarity to the DS theory except that DS theories are not so narrow as to only include material objects as targets of desires. However, as I have said this is necessary in the Indian system espoused by Tähtinen because value is encompassed within desire. Therefore, desired internal states are categorised into either kāma, dharma, or mokṣa. Tähtinen quotes Hemacandra when he makes a Dead Sea apples case against kāma (which we can take as desired pleasures on the broad reading of desire): “like poisoned food, beautiful in appearance but painful in the end,” (Tähtinen, pp. 81).
The value of dharma appears in a very broad context, and so my exposition of it here will have to be minimal for the time being. The way Tähtinen explains the inclusion of what appears to be something more like duty or virtue within a framework of values, is the general pragmatic approach of these philosophers.14 Kāma and artha, along with dharma form the trivarga, or
three value framework (Tähtinen, pp.38; White 1960, pp.150, Sharma, pp.230). The very existence of the trivarga categorisation gives credence to this view. That is, dharma was always included along with kāma and artha in discussions resembling what we are referring to as values. Some duty or virtue is only valuable in so far as the effects it brings about, to the agent and to the world. In saying this dharma also does not commit to the problem Kant raised against consequentialist ethics with the accusation that it gives no thought to the evaluation of intentions behind acts. Acting in accordance with the dharma does include the notion of right intention (Tähtinen, pp.20). Dharma can also be understood as that which separates human pursuits from those of animals in our conscious aims borne out of a sense of knowing (Sharma, pp.225). Some schools of Indian philosophy advocate dharma as the highest value, while most see it as that which limits the other values, for example kāma should only be experienced to such an extent that it does not act against one's dharma (Tähtinen, pp.71). This is another version of the equilibrium between values that must exist and I have spoken of earlier.
The kāmastura's definition of kāma can also be made sense of as kāma only counts as a value under the confines of dharma, and as instrumental to eventual mokṣa, the mind then contains the knowledge to dictate which acts are permissible and ātman needed for any experience to happen at all.
14 For example in the words karma and puruṣārtha their meaning is not equivalent to some action but also related to result or goal (Sharma, pp.225).
We have seen parallels to terms that form the basis of discussion surrounding what we call values in the Indian language family and tradition of commentary following the appearance of the Vedas. These were kāma, artha and dharma. However there is one more puruṣārtha which gets the most written about in what could be seen as value theoretic philosophy, and which provides an answer to the problems a life only indebted to kāma, artha, and dharma might encounter. This further value, which appears to develop out of the trivarga, is symmetric to the way the DL theory will spring from maximising values.
5.2 Towards an alternative in mokṣa
So far we have seen that the main subjective theories of value under discussion face serious problems. In short, if we wish to maximise the occurrence of a specific mental state, the means to achieve this might make it so that other values (for instance moral values) which seem to be worth keeping can either not be satisfied or even negated. Similarly if we wish to maximise the satisfaction of our desires we will never know whether this will do us any good without further knowledge of what the outcome of the actions we take to realise our desires will be. What we really need is a theory that explains the appearance of value in the present (unlike DS theories) while at the same time does not cause large amounts of interference with the balance of other values (unlike MS theories which demand plugging into the experience machine).
Following the appearance of the Upaniṣads (or the later, more philosophical Vedas) a fourth value, mokṣa, was added as the only intrinsic value, with the trivarga being instrumental to mokṣa (Tähtinen, pp. 38). Firstly this allows us to understand dharma as a value much better. Dharma can be instrumental, like kāma and artha, to mokṣa and thus the personal transformative aspect of including right intention as a part of dharma is explained because if dharma was an end in itself there would be no need for intentional directing towards some other thing. This “intention” is intentionally ambiguous – in the sense of directed consciousness and in the sense of what one intends to do. This also explains why dharma is not without fault. Against Tähtinen (1968, pp. 74) I believe the fault is not a moral fault but a spiritual one as although, “the highest dharma is the realization of ātman,” if we do not see
