One Tibetan lama encouraged me against thinking in terms of “should” or “ought”s, and that, instead, a better psychological framing for my day-to-day actions is “would like”
This is common advice:
In Nonviolent communication, they say that there is no right and wrong and that it’s better to reframe everything as needs.
In Radical Honesty, we do exercises to stop being led by “shoulds”. Instead of “shoulds”, we simply talk about our sensations in the body, what we feel, and what we want.
In CBT, they see “shoulds”, “musts”, “oughts” as cognitive distortions. They think that these rigid, absolutist self-demands lead to feelings of guilt and frustration and encourage reframing such statements to be more flexible.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) encourages values-driven actions rather than actions taken out of obligation or avoidance of guilt[1]
I still understand what Peter Singer is getting at because I used to think in the same way, but that way doesn’t make sense to me anymore. I just don’t see what in the real world he is pointing at. E.g., I noticed that when I read Peter saying “If we cannot simply appeal to nature, how do we reach the judgment that we endorse compassion for those beings who are suffering, but we refuse to endorse hatred of outsiders?”, I was confused and had to reframe it into “Peter wants everyone to want to reduce suffering.” I think that means that I’m an anti-realist in meta-ethics, while Peter Singer is probably a realist.
Interesting! Makes sense that this is common advise. I’ve heard similar stuff from CBT therapists, as you mention.
That point was fairly anecdotal, and I don’t think contributes too much to the argument in this section. I place more weight on the Stanford article/Chao-Hwei responses.
I don’t think that the quote you mention is exactly what Singer believes. He’s setting up the problem for Chao-Hwei to respond to. His own view is that the view “suffering is bad” is a self-evident perception. Perhaps this is subtly different from Singer disliking suffering, or wanting others to alleviate it. Perhaps self-evident in the same way colour is. I think moral realists lean on this analogy sometimes.
This is common advice:
In Nonviolent communication, they say that there is no right and wrong and that it’s better to reframe everything as needs.
In Radical Honesty, we do exercises to stop being led by “shoulds”. Instead of “shoulds”, we simply talk about our sensations in the body, what we feel, and what we want.
In CBT, they see “shoulds”, “musts”, “oughts” as cognitive distortions. They think that these rigid, absolutist self-demands lead to feelings of guilt and frustration and encourage reframing such statements to be more flexible.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) encourages values-driven actions rather than actions taken out of obligation or avoidance of guilt[1]
The Replacing Guilt series also talks about replacing shoulds
I still understand what Peter Singer is getting at because I used to think in the same way, but that way doesn’t make sense to me anymore. I just don’t see what in the real world he is pointing at. E.g., I noticed that when I read Peter saying “If we cannot simply appeal to nature, how do we reach the judgment that we endorse compassion for those beings who are suffering, but we refuse to endorse hatred of outsiders?”, I was confused and had to reframe it into “Peter wants everyone to want to reduce suffering.” I think that means that I’m an anti-realist in meta-ethics, while Peter Singer is probably a realist.
I don’t have much experience with CBT and no knowledge of ACT. I took these descriptions from GPT-4.
Interesting! Makes sense that this is common advise. I’ve heard similar stuff from CBT therapists, as you mention.
That point was fairly anecdotal, and I don’t think contributes too much to the argument in this section. I place more weight on the Stanford article/Chao-Hwei responses.
I don’t think that the quote you mention is exactly what Singer believes. He’s setting up the problem for Chao-Hwei to respond to. His own view is that the view “suffering is bad” is a self-evident perception. Perhaps this is subtly different from Singer disliking suffering, or wanting others to alleviate it. Perhaps self-evident in the same way colour is. I think moral realists lean on this analogy sometimes.