Posted by alexandra_k on March 18, 2005, at 4:45:44
In reply to Re: The Greatest Happiness Machine, posted by Susan47 on March 17, 2005, at 23:57:10
> I'd plug into the happiness machine only if everybody else did it too, and I can tell you that my wish would be that everybody WOULD plug into the happiness machine.
Sounds like you might quite like hedonistic utilitarianism. That means that you think people should do that which results in the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.
That has been proposed as a universal moral law...
Other people have the intuition that it wouldn't be acceptable to plug in for reasons such as these:
1) Autonomy. You can't make choices in the greatest happiness machine - you just have the illusion of choice.
2) Agency. You aren't acting as an agent. You aren't acting at all - you just have the illusion of agency.
2) Reality. You aren't living in reality at all. You are living in a massive illusion.The points are related really.
Another way to say it is:
Would you rather be Socrates dissatisfied than a satisfied fool?
The point being that Socrates searched for wisdom and knowledge (etc) and doing that brought him much dissatisfaction and unhappiness... The fool, on the other hand is happy in their illusion that they know it all and are wise (even though they are not).
I think it is nice to want everyone to be happy :-)
Hedonistic Utilitarianism captures that quite nicely. But maybe sometimes we prefer other things than happiness, and maybe this form of utilitarianism would be better:Preference Utilitarianism: We should do that act that results in the greatest preference satisfaction.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:471916
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20050316/msgs/472372.html