For instance, if someone is a moral philosopher, and he correctly states “naturally everyone wants to do x” but some or most people wrongly desire y, then does the philosopher know those latter person’s preferences better than they do?
Edit: Someone posted using my account. Sorry 
Edit: Someone posted using my account. Sorry
It’s not possible.
But it is possible to infer a basic preference, e.g.. that someone does not want to die in the immediate future, and that the person is unaware, due to some sort of ignorance, that their present course of action is likely to bring about such an eventuality. i.e. A parent can stop a small child running across a busy road on this basis - it’s not that the child wants to gets squished (probably)… They just don’t adequately realise what running into the road could entail.
No. We can’t absolutely know a person’s preferences until they demonstrate them through action.
If you know someone well, you might have a better idea than they do of whether or not they are going to change their mind later and regret their earlier preference, but the most you could ever hope to do is equal their knowledge of their own preference. In this extremely unlikely case, you would simply be guessing what they were going to do with 100% accuracy. Possible, I suppose, but not likely to happen.
true but sometimes, ignorance is caused by a false argument and not just lack of knowledge of a fact.
What if the child thought that the word “squished” meant “hugged”? If that were the case then someone more knowledgeable knows better and corrects him. That to me, seems to imply that the better person had a more accurate view of what someone else wanted.
Or take the case of someone in self-denial. Often they don’t know that they are in self-denial and yet someon can convince them that they are, so that it seems that even the mind and therefore all its thoughts, are more open to others who are not the thinker himself.
They’d still need to be mistaken about what would actually happen if they ran across the road, or they wouldn’t do it, or they would actually want to be “squished” according to the conventional understanding.
They might say that they want to be squished if they think it means to be hugged, but they wouldn’t be demonstrating a preference by just saying something, other than their preference to say what they said, which we happen to know is predicated on their particular subjective understanding of the word “squish”, which differs from convention for some reason.
Yes, and it is entirely possible to deliberate with one’s self and change one’s mind, and furthermore it is possible to regret one’s own actions. There is great conflict within a single mind, and it is only those actions which are taken which indicate demonstrated preference… If actions are regretted, it’s because one has come to believe that despite the fact that it seemed like a good idea at the time, the effects of one’s own past actions have been detrimental to one’s current preferences. Nevertheless, those actions still demonstrate one’s preferences at the time they were taken.
When you force someone contrary to their will at the time, you are demonstrating your own preferences over theirs… You have no way of knowing what someone else’s preferences truly are, except by how they are freely demonstrated.
Do we know how we are both using the word “preference”?
I suppose the only austrian use of the word means demonstrated preference that is, observed purposeful action.
But if we assume a human nature, and that all things act according to its nature, then we can assume that human actions are in accord with some norm or nature. But preferring is an action. So clearly preferences are in accord with human nature such that a student of human nature knows more about what people prefer than those who are ignorant of the science of man.
So do we understand each other?
Yeah, humans have a nature, as does everything else. As with anything else, you discern something’s nature by observing what it does without interfering. For example, you observe that it is in the nature of a fish to swim in water, because that’s where you tend to find them naturally.
You don’t take a fish out of the water and then claim that it is in the nature of fish not to swim in water. That would obviously be your preference that you have imposed onto the fish.
Likewise, when you find a lungfish chilling out in a mud puddle, you don’t freak out and force it back into the water, claiming that this crazy fish has clearly forgotten its nature because you’re a fish expert who has studied fish for years without encountering such a thing, and you therefore have some sort of prerogitive to enforce nature’s proper code in order to prevent reality from refuting itself. No, if you’re honest, you accept that you did not have a complete understanding of ‘fish nature’ before, that you cannot possibly tell this fish that it is being unfishlike, and you will have to admit that you’ve found a type of fish that doesn’t spend all its time swimming in water.
Now, “fish” has a particular conventional definition which does not actually require the object to swim in water for the description to suffice… It’s just very common amongst them. Likewise, “human” has a particular conventional definition which does not actually require the object being described to desire anything in particular, or anything at all. It’s just very common, like swimming is with fish. An actor is something which desires by definition, because its desire is the reason for its action - it acts, because something about its reality is imperfect, and the action is gauged to remediate the situation - to satiate the desire.
You can’t possibly have the same desires as someone else, because if you did, you would have exactly the same discomforts they do. You would, in fact, be the same person. You can’t know better than anyone else what they should want, because you cannot possibly feel their discomforts in precisely the same way they do without literally being them.
Well it is circular and it isn’t circular. I implicitly allow the possibility of the philosopher being wrong (or else the quesiton wouldn’t be) which isn’t question begging, although I allowed the possibility for the same to be right which is question begging.
Win
something can be both true and false from different points of view.
Clearly from an “argument” POV it was circular. From a question POV it wasn’t since no question necessarily takes a side in a contradiction.
So the question still stands since I implicitly allow the possibility that the philosopher is not right (as stated in my earlier post).
(1) I’m not sure what the criticism is getting at.
(2) let me beg the question one more time: clearly its evident that things can be T or F from different POV; the rock is small and big depending on its comparison with other things plus, the words true and false are words with different senses.
To say that something is “big” or “small” without comparing it to something else is meaningless. What does one’s point of view have to do with the fact that the Sun is bigger than the Earth?
Now, “fish” has a particular conventional definition which does not actually require the object to swim in water for the description to suffice… It’s just very common amongst them. Likewise, “human” has a particular conventional definition which does not actually require the object being described to desire anything in particular, or anything at all. It’s just very common, like swimming is with fish.
What does this have to do with the conversation?
You can’t possibly have the same desires as someone else, because if you did, you would have exactly the same discomforts they do. You would, in fact, be the same person. You can’t know better than anyone else what they should want, because you cannot possibly feel their discomforts in precisely the same way they do without literally being them.
Well maybe you can’t have the actual “at-the-moment” and “for-that-person” preference but you can have the same potential preference (that is, general appetites) or else why say that “everyone wants wealth”? Plus praxeology itself shows that every person wants more things for less cost.
But even between individuals, we see that some evaluate things pretty closely e.g. if people all want to eat dinner at the same time.
“To say that something is “big” or “small” without comparing it to something else is meaningless. What does one’s point of view have to do with the fact that the Sun is bigger than the Earth?”
That’s the point: some ideas essentially depend on POV/comparison and every comparison is a POV and vice versa.
So if it was somehow illicit to claim such, then big and small would be illicit ideas.
It is also possible to claim that the earth is bigger than the sun and smaller depending on POV altering and equivocating the senses: the earth is bigger in man’s affections than the sun & additionally it seems that the earth is bigger than the solar disk above us, since we are so far from it. But in mass the sun is bigger than the earth.
You can see something happen a million times and not know whether it’s a rule or a trend, I guess. All you have seen humans do (i.e. ‘human nature’) does not describe everything they could do.
But to say that they will always act to ease their discomfort does describe everything they could do, even if they weren’t strictly “human” anymore.
Not everyone wants wealth. What about people like Diogenes of Sinope, in his barrel? What about nuns and monks, who would rather be rich in ‘spirit’?
I don’t think praxeology tells you that. If you find someone doing that, praxeology tells you that ultimately they must be acting to ease their discomfort, but it doesn’t mean that everyone always feels the same way… That they always need to be as frugal and financially sensible as possible.
What about the pervasive trend of expensive status symbols? Sometimes, some people buy things because they ARE expensive, and will be noticed as such, or because they’re having a “mid-life crisis” and want to give death the finger. Who knows.
But no matter what they do, they act to ease their discomfort at the time… Whatever that might be, and whether or not it will be to the detriment of future preferences they may have. That’s all that praxeology tells you.
Yeah, and we happen to speak the same language. Just common trends for mutual convenience.
You can change your meaning with your equivocation - not the size of the Sun or the Earth. Language is an imperfect tool for describing the truth, our senses are imperfect tools for perceiving it, and our intellects are imperfect tools for comprehending it… But it’s there, or we wouldn’t be.