I am not permitted to engage in morality for exactly the same reason an alcoholic is not permitted to have a drink—I can never stop at just one.
By coincidence, when I try as solemnly as possible to figure out what I genuinely want to do, one of the things I want to do is to be St. Basil the Great. Of course, I want to do very many unrealistic and mutually contradictory things: in addition to being St. Basil the Great, I also want to go to Disneyland about once a month, cook three delicious meals for myself every day from scratch, read my son every board book in existence, and date every pretty person I come across. But for me my desire to go to Disneyland interfering with my desire to be St. Basil the Great is not actually any different from my desire to go to Disneyland interfering with my desire to cook all my meals from scratch. So I try to fulfill as many of my desires as best I can.
Also, I keep doing things I don’t want to do instead of things I want to do.
When I adopted this policy I was concerned that not wanting to be good would mean I would end up doing some things I would feel upset about doing, but it turns out that the whole reason I feel upset about those things is that I don’t upon reflection want to do them (although I might have impulses to do them at the time). Otherwise, it would be like “if you stop caring about being good then you might have gay sex!” Yes, and in fact that is a selling point of not caring about being good.
I am not permitted to engage in morality for exactly the same reason an alcoholic is not permitted to have a drink—I can never stop at just one.
By coincidence, when I try as solemnly as possible to figure out what I genuinely want to do, one of the things I want to do is to be St. Basil the Great. Of course, I want to do very many unrealistic and mutually contradictory things: in addition to being St. Basil the Great, I also want to go to Disneyland about once a month, cook three delicious meals for myself every day from scratch, read my son every board book in existence, and date every pretty person I come across. But for me my desire to go to Disneyland interfering with my desire to be St. Basil the Great is not actually any different from my desire to go to Disneyland interfering with my desire to cook all my meals from scratch. So I try to fulfill as many of my desires as best I can.
Also, I keep doing things I don’t want to do instead of things I want to do.
When I adopted this policy I was concerned that not wanting to be good would mean I would end up doing some things I would feel upset about doing, but it turns out that the whole reason I feel upset about those things is that I don’t upon reflection want to do them (although I might have impulses to do them at the time). Otherwise, it would be like “if you stop caring about being good then you might have gay sex!” Yes, and in fact that is a selling point of not caring about being good.