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> He would come home drained and tired, and wouldn't be available during the week to do something like watch a TV show together. Have you ever sincerely asked

> He would come home drained and tired, and wouldn't be available during the week to do something like watch a TV show together. Have you ever sincerely asked him if he did it because he had to or because it was his genuinely wanted to? Some people may find the latter to be absurd, but I'm usually the same way during the weekdays.

klodolph 9y ago
> Have you ever sincerely asked him if he did it because he had to or because it was his genuinely wanted to? The line between "had to" and "wanted to" is hard to see, because we internalize extrinsic motivation. However, I don't think the distinction between "had to" and "wanted to", or the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, is a useful distinction in and of itself. Rather, I would like to understand the reasons people have for their decisions, whether they had foreknowledge of the consequences, whether they had false beliefs that contributed to the decision, and for what reasons they think they made the right or wrong decision. Perhaps that's just my perspective, but if I think he made the wrong decision, the fact that he wanted to make the wrong decision doesn't change that. And my judgment that a decision is right or wrong is based on decades of experience and earnest conversations that we still have to this day. And underneath all that is my own system of values, which in my experience outlasts all my wants or desires. Rather than understanding whether I want to pour a bunch of energy into my work, I would rather understand how I judge the value of work compared to other things in life, because that judgment will stick with me longer than a fleeting desire. And to further clarify things, I don't think it's wrong to make a decision on the basis of your own desires, but just that desires are an inferior basis for decisions. I'm sure I haven't answered your question, but I hope this is a satisfactory explanation.
- metaphor 9y ago
  > ...just that desires are an inferior basis for decisions. Inferior in what sense? I don't see that there's any other sensible basis for the decisions we make, regardless of outcome. Adhering to a reasoned system of values sounds fundamentally like a driving desire in itself; some desires are simply less tangible than others.
  - saiya-jin 9y ago
    Inferior to purely rational decisions not based on emotions? For me for example, it was switching countries for which I had no emotional desire, I knew it would be hard, I will lose bunch of friends, but in the long run, it will help me in many ways. I can hardly name this decision as desire to move. Looking back, I was more than 100% correct since it was probably best decision of my life despite all the drawbacks. But if I would listen only/mainly to my emotions, I would stay where I was before. The thing is, I can do many/most decisions in my life on purely rational level (or so I like to think). I don't see this behavior around me much, in fact it's pretty rare. Same goes for opinions and attitudes - emotions change, cold hard facts remain the same (I must sound very unemotional, which is not true at all - I just can separate the pleasure of enjoying emotions from them taking control and making me do stupid/irrational decisions... don't know how to describe it better).
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - klodolph 9y ago
    I think what we have here is a semantic disagreement over the definition of "desire". It sounds like your position might be similar to Frankfurt's? So when I say that "desires are an inferior basis for decisions", maybe that could translate as, "desires not based on value systems are an inferior basis for decisions". And when you say that desires are the only sensible basis for decisions, it doesn't mean that any desire is a correct basis for a decision (that would be absurd), so the question of whether he "genuinely wanted to" becomes a question of what his "genuine" desires are. It's nigh impossible for me to figure out what my own genuine desires are, so I can't conceive that I'd be able to figure out what my father's genuine desires are, and I wouldn't take his explanation of his own desires at face value. When we absorb cultural values we internalize extrinsic motivation, so the fact that a particular desire is intrinsic rather than extrinsic is meaningless if we are trying to figure out if it is genuine.

klodolph 9y ago

> Have you ever sincerely asked him if he did it because he had to or because it was his genuinely wanted to? The line between "had to" and "wanted to" is hard to see, because we internalize extrinsic motivation. However, I don't think the distinction between "had to" and "wanted to", or the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, is a useful distinction in and of itself. Rather, I would like to understand the reasons people have for their decisions, whether they had foreknowledge of the consequences, whether they had false beliefs that contributed to the decision, and for what reasons they think they made the right or wrong decision. Perhaps that's just my perspective, but if I think he made the wrong decision, the fact that he wanted to make the wrong decision doesn't change that. And my judgment that a decision is right or wrong is based on decades of experience and earnest conversations that we still have to this day. And underneath all that is my own system of values, which in my experience outlasts all my wants or desires. Rather than understanding whether I want to pour a bunch of energy into my work, I would rather understand how I judge the value of work compared to other things in life, because that judgment will stick with me longer than a fleeting desire. And to further clarify things, I don't think it's wrong to make a decision on the basis of your own desires, but just that desires are an inferior basis for decisions. I'm sure I haven't answered your question, but I hope this is a satisfactory explanation.

metaphor 9y ago
> ...just that desires are an inferior basis for decisions. Inferior in what sense? I don't see that there's any other sensible basis for the decisions we make, regardless of outcome. Adhering to a reasoned system of values sounds fundamentally like a driving desire in itself; some desires are simply less tangible than others.
- saiya-jin 9y ago
  Inferior to purely rational decisions not based on emotions? For me for example, it was switching countries for which I had no emotional desire, I knew it would be hard, I will lose bunch of friends, but in the long run, it will help me in many ways. I can hardly name this decision as desire to move. Looking back, I was more than 100% correct since it was probably best decision of my life despite all the drawbacks. But if I would listen only/mainly to my emotions, I would stay where I was before. The thing is, I can do many/most decisions in my life on purely rational level (or so I like to think). I don't see this behavior around me much, in fact it's pretty rare. Same goes for opinions and attitudes - emotions change, cold hard facts remain the same (I must sound very unemotional, which is not true at all - I just can separate the pleasure of enjoying emotions from them taking control and making me do stupid/irrational decisions... don't know how to describe it better).
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- klodolph 9y ago
  I think what we have here is a semantic disagreement over the definition of "desire". It sounds like your position might be similar to Frankfurt's? So when I say that "desires are an inferior basis for decisions", maybe that could translate as, "desires not based on value systems are an inferior basis for decisions". And when you say that desires are the only sensible basis for decisions, it doesn't mean that any desire is a correct basis for a decision (that would be absurd), so the question of whether he "genuinely wanted to" becomes a question of what his "genuine" desires are. It's nigh impossible for me to figure out what my own genuine desires are, so I can't conceive that I'd be able to figure out what my father's genuine desires are, and I wouldn't take his explanation of his own desires at face value. When we absorb cultural values we internalize extrinsic motivation, so the fact that a particular desire is intrinsic rather than extrinsic is meaningless if we are trying to figure out if it is genuine.