[ExI] The Post-Schopenhauer World

[Lee Corbin]

                         Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.
                         (Man can do what he wants but he cannot want what he wants.)
                         ---Arther Schopenhauer, 1839

Stathis writes (in the thread Real & Virtual worlds)

 > Lee wrote
 >
>> The answer is no! "Intrinsic worth" unqualified, like beauty,
>> lies strictly in the eye of the beholder!
>>
>> What is paramount in this discussion is that we will be able
>> to soon alter our own will, alter our own preferences according
>> to *any* set of criteria we choose. Call it the post-Schopenhauer
>> era, if you will. :-)
> 
> If the intrinsic worth of each activity *to you* were directly
> proportional to how motivated you were to do it then you would spend
> exactly as much time on each activity as you felt it deserved, and
> therefore you would never wish to deviate from this perfect system by
> introducing an artificial preference distortion.

With you so far. Well, I am a bit worried about your use of the
concept "artificial preference distortion"---as though that had
negative connotations.

> However, people frequently wish that they had less motivation
 > to do something or more motivation to do something else.

Right, but you don't here them *planning* on just exactly
what they would do---with its attendant dangers---had they
the power to act. Your following example is à propos.

> Why do they wish this? As well as giving each activity a score
 > for motivation, based on negative as well as positive feelings,
 > they also give it a score for intrinsic worth.

Intrinsic worth, *to them*, of course.

> The intrinsic worth score affects the motivation score, but not always
> to the extent that people would like. Sitting around all day eating
> chocolate may have a high motivation score (first order desire) but a
> low intrinsic worth score (second order desire: a desire about what I
> would like to desire). If I could modify my mind at will, I would
> therefore arrange it so that I found it less enjoyable to sit around
> eating chocolate and more enjoyable to go out and exercise, for
> example.

Very good.

> On the other hand, I might see that this belief about what is
> worthwhile and what is not is due to the way I have been manipulated
> by society, and modify myself so that I can be content in my
> chocolate-eating idleness (third order desire: a desire about what I
> would like to desire to desire).

You may see your chocolate-gorging behavior as, yes

    (i) how you were "manipulated" by society
   (ii) how the recipe originated by your genes played out
  (iii) how your genes responded in the culture you grew
        up in (this time, contra Judith Rich Harris)
        where eating preferences at a young age came
        to generate life long preferences
   (iv) something else "you" never deliberately chose

So? You are still faced, later from now, with the post-Schopenhauer
meta-choice. By what principles or current preferences are you doing
to dictate your future 1st order preferences?

Lee

P.S. If you are serious about calling them 1st order, 2nd order,
and 3rd order, would you please offer characterizations of each?
(i.e. a bit short of definitions to be taken entirely literally).
For I, along with Arthur S., see just two levels.