Desiring Good with Free Will

[Maximus88]

Desiring Good

Morality only has to do with intention, or desire. Desiring good makes us good. Desiring bad makes us bad. Outcomes can be preferable or not. They can be painful or pleasurable, but they say nothing of intention and so say nothing of morality.

Levels of Desire

Compulsive - These are probably not subject to a discussion of morality. We all have base compulsive desires. Merely having them wouldn't make one bad or good. It would have more to do with how we satisfy or resist these desires and what harms are caused in the process.

Reflective - These are desires that when we contemplate we see a vision of what we think we ought to be. We can feel the value of being honest and of good character. Of resisting compulsive desires when they are harmful.
In this way we can desire to be more like a model person who displays these attributes in abundance. Reflective desires are aware of consequence.

So there is a choice to be made. We can be ruled by our compulsive desires or by our reflective desires. Which I believe is the basis for free will and the third level of desire. This one is harder to explain, or to prove for that matter, but there is the desire of the self. The self chooses to either battle the compulsive desires and
be a slave to the reflective ones, or to be a slave to the compulsive desires and ignore the reflective.

Desiring good requires one to be a slave of the reflective desires. You have to reflect on who you want to be, what legacy of yourself you will leave behind. If you are willing to hurt others in the process of becoming whatever it is you will become. Or if you will chose to help others. What you will do with abundance if you have it.

With our free will, we can choose to be a slave to one or the other. Which one we desire to be a slave to, that is who and what we are. So lets be clear. Living entirely for pleasures for yourself is compulsive. Living in indifference is
compulsive. Inaction against wrong doing is compulsive. Not making a choice is choosing to be compulsive, so no one is truly on the fence here.

Being reflective is a choice that has to be made. It has to be made daily. We will always be prey to our compulsive desires where ever we let our guard down. It is the act of keeping your guard up that makes you good. It is the self deciding
what the body will be. I agree we are a product of our environment but the self can chose the environment. Maybe not when we are born, but responsibility can not be pushed off forever.

These thoughts are brand new to me after wanting to respond to arguments made by Sam Harris (and many others) on morality and free will. I wanted to take him seriously and find a way out of his line of thinking. I don't think misery and well being define morality. I don't think free will is entirely an illusion.

Any thoughts on where I may have gone wrong here?

[Renee]

Desiring Good

Morality only has to do with intention, or desire. Desiring good makes us good. Desiring bad makes us bad. Outcomes can be preferable or not. They can be painful or pleasurable, but they say nothing of intention and so say nothing of morality.


Any thoughts on where I may have gone wrong here?

I think I see something there. You attribute your desire to be good to free will.

But everyone wants to be good. Nobody wants to be bad, or even be called bad. The worse leaders in history retaliated with horrible punishment to those who called them bad. These horrific strongmen and strongwomen thought of themselves as good, and expected everyone else to do so too.

So your basic premise is shaky, I think. That desiring to be good is depends on free will. Sure we feel like we will to be good; but that's not an action of a will that's free, because there is no deviation. A freedom means without a particular bound. If we are all bound to will to be good, that will is not free.

This is one mistake which I can see: willing to be good is not up to a choice. We are powerless in our will (which is not free) to be wishing to be good.

[Maximus88]

Hmm, I I'm not so sure. I I think we may all have a desire to be good as well as a desire to do many other things. But the will to put the desire to do good above all else, which would show itself in the form of a constant battle, and is a little different. Part of that is to battle against becoming delusional about good. Namely by being honest about our real motives or intent. If we suppress our intuitions with some ludicrous belief of accomplishing the greater good we have chosen to be dishonest to ourselves.

[Renee]

Outcomes can be preferable or not. They can be painful or pleasurable, but they say nothing of intention and so say nothing of morality.

Hmm, I I'm not so sure. I I think we may all have a desire to be good as well as a desire to do many other things. But the will to put the desire to do good above all else, which would show itself in the form of a constant battle, and is a little different. Part of that is to battle against becoming delusional about good. Namely by being honest about our real motives or intent. If we suppress our intuitions with some ludicrous belief of accomplishing the greater good we have chosen to be dishonest to ourselves.

I don't think I am mistaken if I say the two above quotes by you are in direct contradiction with each other.

I went by your first quote in my first posted opinion, because that's all that was extant to me of your proposition. Now you say its opposite is also true.

As you were, soldier. Keep on battling using those logical backpedallings, and moving the goal posts and changing the rules of the game, while rotating the field around the X axis 270 degrees.