Hedonism and the Experience Machine

**This is from guest blogger, Eric B.**

Hello all,

I wrote this blog post as a preliminary sketch of an argument I may use within my second paper. I am focusing on Mill, Hedonism and possibly how the doctrine of Hedonism may influence any decisions we may make regarding Robert Nozik’s Experience Machine. I would love any comments about the effectiveness of this argument, and especially how it may interact with the Experience Machine.

Hedonism, as defined by Mill, follows the principle that happiness is the only intrinsically good value (unhappiness as the only intrinsically bad value). Hedonism helps us decide what we ought to do, and what we ought not to do, based on creating the greatest possible aggregate happiness. Thus, it seems like a very practical theory in individual or group decision making scenarios. Mill address the question regarding the need to choose between different types of happiness:

“On a question, which is the best worth having of two pleasures, or which of two modes of existence is the most grateful to the feelings, apart from its moral attributes and its consequences, the judgment of those who are qualified by knowledge of both, or, if they differ, that of the majority among them, must be admitted as final”. (287)

Mill argues that based on experience and knowledge of happiness outcome, we make certain decisions. If we are unable to use experience, then we accept the majority opinion in cases of moral conflict. To illustrate this, lets take a basic example of ditching class. Let’s say I have an experience of what it is like to skip class and drink beer all day. I also have an experience of the pain I get from failing my exam. I choose to study and not drink beer due to the experiences I have had, and my knowledge of the pleasure outcomes.

This is all good and fun, but what can we say about actions that we have no previous experience of? Lets use another well studied thought experiment: we must choose between saving 4 children who are going to get hit by a train, or to kill the conductor and save the children. Surely very few people can draw on previous experiences in order to make a decision that would maximize happiness. How can we determine what is most pleasurable when we have no experience of the other side? In addition, Mill states that we would follow majority opinion to know the right decision. This suggestion fails because it would be incredibly difficult to know the stance of the majority population, and the decision that the hypothetical majority may come to may not in fact maximize aggregate happiness. Thus, I am arguing that Mill’s notion of how we (the methods we use) to make these difficult decisions is unpersuasive. 

Mill and Hedonism

**This is from guest blogger, Talia.**

John Stuart Mill promotes the idea that the rightness of actions depends on their ability to promote happiness, i.e. pleasure, and that all desirable things are sought out as a means to some pleasurable ends. He distinguished between two types of pleasures in order to support his view against possible objectors: pleasures of the body and pleasures of the mind. The former are those which even animals are capable of acquiring, i.e. satisfaction from food, sexual pleasures, while the later are those experienced by human beings, i.e. intellectual stimulation, use of the imagination. Mill prioritizes mental pleasures over bodily pleasures due to their "circumstantial advantages", i.e. permanence, safety, affordability, and tendency to be preferred by those who have adequate experience with both types of pleasures.

After reading through the article, a few questions/concerns came to mind: first, in our quest for happiness, must we necessarily seek pleasure? I'd be curious to hear other's opinions about possible alternative definitions for happiness. Additionally, is Mill promoting short or long term pleasure? There are cases in which we accept pain over pleasure in order to produce the best long-term outcome, i.e. breaking up with a boyfriend/girlfriend before college because it will be too hard to maintain the relationship. Some actions might initially bring about pleasure or pain, with the other sensation on the horizon. How do we prioritize which pleasure - short vs long term - to prioritize? And relatedly, how do we quantify both of these feelings? I find it difficult to personally measure the relative happiness or pleasure/pain a certain action will bring, let alone do so for all actions across all individuals. Finally, Mill's general categorization of mental pleasure being more desirable/valuable than bodily pleasures applies on a larger scale, but what about in individual cases? Yes, for the most part, everyone would agree on the pleasure brought about by most actions, but it seems that Mill is completely disregarding individual preferences. What if someone finds pleasure through something that causes most other people pain? Thoughts?

Is Beauty Intrinsically Valuable?

**This is from guest blogger, Nathan T.**

Yesterday in class, we considered John Stuart Mill’s hedonism, in which he maintains that pleasure is the only intrinsic good. I proposed that beauty (as well as truth) might also be an intrinsic good, and I wanted to flesh out some of my thoughts on that subject.

Intuitively, I consider some things to be beautiful and not pleasurable. For instance, when I read “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” or nearly any Russian author, I am really uncomfortable and on edge, inevitably leaving the book or play with the feeling that the world is terrible. And yet, there’s something still terribly beautiful about the way these authors portray the world.

I think there are two ways of explaining this idea. One simply reads this situation into the context of Mill’s philosophy, that in some strange sense, I actually enjoy feeling terrible, like a masochist. Perhaps this fascination is similar to horror movies, in which we, for some bizarre reason, enjoy being scared and uncomfortable. However, this still seems to misrepresent the situation somewhat, in that I frequently finish one of these works of literature and say, “I hated that, I never want to read it again, and yet it was good.” Maybe I just have weird sensibilities, but it seems like the aesthetic experience I have of these works are different than most other pleasures I have. I think a good Millian response is to take a position like Michael’s which defines pleasure more broadly as “positive mental states,” which include states like mental peace and meditation, which are not inherently “pleasurable.” Maybe aesthetic experience is like this.

I don’t think it is. (As we've seen, it’s dangerous to rely on intuitions, but here I stand!) I have a particular notion of beauty in that art (something that has beauty) expresses a truth about the human experience in a manner that the viewer/perceiver discovers that truth for themselves. It is the perception of this truth that makes it a good (or valuable) experience. When I experience conviction or the broader realization that the world is not a good place, I feel really crappy but am also satisfied that I now know the world better; it seems bizarre, though, to say that it is good because it gives me this small degree of satisfaction (compared to feeling terrible for the rest of the day).

Those are my thoughts- what do you think?

Mill, Hedonism, and so-called Higher Pleasures

**This is from guest blogger, Nathan V.**

In "Utiliarianism," Mill argues that some pleasures are more valuable than others. He says this relationship can be determined by people who are "equally capable of appreciating and enjoying both." He further argues that pleasures that make use of one's higher faculties are more valuable than those that make use of one's more base faculties. Mill says that someone who makes use of their higher faculties is in a better position than someone who doesn't to make qualitative judgments about various pleasures. This is because he is able to experience higher pleasures as well as more base pleasures whereas someone who doesn't make use of their higher faculties is only able to experience base pleasures and is therefore not in a position to make such judgments.

One issue with his view seems to be that only those who subscribe to the idea that pleasures obtained through the use of one's higher faculties are better and more worth pursuing than those obtained through the use of one's more base faculties are said to be capable of making such judgments. What is to be made of those who after tasting the higher pleasures choose instead to pursue the more base pleasures? An example of this that I thought of while reading Mill is the episode of the Simpsons where Homer gets the crayon that has been lodged in his brain since childhood removed. After the crayon is removed Homer becomes a genius, but by the end of the episode he has it placed back into his brain as he has decided that he was happier when he was stupid. In this case, it seems that the pleasure Homer experiences from not accessing his higher faculties is more valuable than the pleasure he experienced when he was accessing them. While Mills would first seem to directly oppose this idea saying, "no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool," he later says that if someone did consent to be a fool, it would occur "only in cases of unhappiness so extreme that, to escape from it, they would exchange their lot for almost any other, however undesirable in their own eyes." In this case, the choice to be a fool would seem to lead more pleasure and therefore be more valuable than remaining intelligent.

Mill’s way out of this seeming contradiction is to define a being of higher faculties as someone who could never lower themselves to a more base existence out of a sense of dignity. Mill says, somewhat circularly, that dignity is an essential part of happiness to people who have a strong sense of dignity. While he then goes on to describe ways in which a being of higher faculties may pursue more base pleasures to the exclusion of higher pleasures due to things like temptation, habit, and "infirmity of character," he rejects the idea that these should be considered valid judgments of what type of pleasure is more valuable. Mill seems to believe that the only people capable of judging the qualitative value of various pleasures are those who judge the pleasures that result from one's higher faculties as being better than those that result from one's more base faculties.argues that some pleasures are more valuable than others. He says this relationship can be determined by people who are "equally capable of appreciating and enjoying both." He further argues that pleasures that make use of one's higher faculties are more valuable than those that make use of one's more base faculties. Mill says that someone who makes use of their higher faculties is in a better position than someone who doesn't to make qualitative judgments about various pleasures. This is because he is able to experience higher pleasures as well as more base pleasures whereas someone who doesn't make use of their higher faculties is only able to experience base pleasures and is therefore not in a position to make such judgments.