Comments Elsewhere

heretyk:

… for what other reason but good results to we desire something?

Come on, this is an easy one. There are things that are desirable in themselves, and things that are not desirable in themselves but are desirable for their results, and things that are desirable both in themselves and for their results.

If you do not have some account of the things that are desirable in themselves, then you correspondingly have no account of the things that are desirable for their results, since you don’t have any account of which results should be counted as the desirable ones and which should be counted as the undesirable ones. (Suppose you found that one result is more pleasant and the other more painful. Well, why do you desire pleasure, or the absence of pain? For their results?) If, on the other hand, you actively maintain that there aren’t things that are desirable in themselves, then your position is simply incoherent, since you’ve cut out the possibility of distinguishing desirable from undesirable results, even in principle.

So what reason do you give for thinking that one set of results is better than another?