I agree with this, with one exception. I think that it is, in fact, possible to argue people out of the 'pleasure isn't good, but pain is bad position.' Among other things, even worse than implying utopia is worse than a barren rock, it implies it would be morally neutral to press a button that would make no future people ever happy ag…
I agree with this, with one exception. I think that it is, in fact, possible to argue people out of the 'pleasure isn't good, but pain is bad position.' Among other things, even worse than implying utopia is worse than a barren rock, it implies it would be morally neutral to press a button that would make no future people ever happy again--and that utopia is no better than everyone just living slightly worthwhile lives with no suffering. That a life filled with love, good food, and general joy is no better than musak and potatoes.
This argument works against a crude statement like "pain bad, pleasure neutral," but fails against the following formulations:
(1) All conscious existence has negative value. What we call "pleasure" can make it less negative, and sufficient quantities of "love, good food, and general joy" can help the value of a life asymptotically approach the zero level, but they can't make existence better than nonexistence.
(2) Lexical negative utilitarianism and related axiologies. (e.g. Pleasure is good, but not good enough to offset even trivial amounts of pain.)
> (1) All conscious existence has negative value. What we call "pleasure" can make it less negative, and sufficient quantities of "love, good food, and general joy" can help the value of a life asymptotically approach the zero level, but they can't make existence better than nonexistence.
This seems like an extreme formulation to me, but I admit that something a little like it has at last some intuitive appeal to me; I often feel that I'm attracted to a sort of "palliative" version of utilitarianism: an ethics that tries to offer comfort and ease of suffering. Whereas more "positive" formulations of utilitarianism leave me cold; they often leave me feeling like we are doing a "make line go up" for the sake of the *Universe* rather than for the sake of the people living within it--it feels much more right to me to say, "while we're here, we have a duty to make the world more pleasant and livable" than to say "we have a duty to remain here, and make the universe a certain way, even if no one wants it that way"...but I think what this discussion makes me realize is that it might be very hard or even impossible to formulate a logically consistent version of my view without resort to an extreme position like the position (1) that you articulate above.
>"very hard or even impossible to formulate a logically consistent version without resort to an extreme position like the position (1)"
For what it's worth, my own view is that trying to develop a logically consistent ethical system is a fundamentally misguided project, and that the ever-present temptation to borrow metaphors from mathematics (even basic ones like "good ~ positive" and "bad ~ negative") is especially likely to lead astray.
I agree with this, with one exception. I think that it is, in fact, possible to argue people out of the 'pleasure isn't good, but pain is bad position.' Among other things, even worse than implying utopia is worse than a barren rock, it implies it would be morally neutral to press a button that would make no future people ever happy again--and that utopia is no better than everyone just living slightly worthwhile lives with no suffering. That a life filled with love, good food, and general joy is no better than musak and potatoes.
This argument works against a crude statement like "pain bad, pleasure neutral," but fails against the following formulations:
(1) All conscious existence has negative value. What we call "pleasure" can make it less negative, and sufficient quantities of "love, good food, and general joy" can help the value of a life asymptotically approach the zero level, but they can't make existence better than nonexistence.
(2) Lexical negative utilitarianism and related axiologies. (e.g. Pleasure is good, but not good enough to offset even trivial amounts of pain.)
> (1) All conscious existence has negative value. What we call "pleasure" can make it less negative, and sufficient quantities of "love, good food, and general joy" can help the value of a life asymptotically approach the zero level, but they can't make existence better than nonexistence.
This seems like an extreme formulation to me, but I admit that something a little like it has at last some intuitive appeal to me; I often feel that I'm attracted to a sort of "palliative" version of utilitarianism: an ethics that tries to offer comfort and ease of suffering. Whereas more "positive" formulations of utilitarianism leave me cold; they often leave me feeling like we are doing a "make line go up" for the sake of the *Universe* rather than for the sake of the people living within it--it feels much more right to me to say, "while we're here, we have a duty to make the world more pleasant and livable" than to say "we have a duty to remain here, and make the universe a certain way, even if no one wants it that way"...but I think what this discussion makes me realize is that it might be very hard or even impossible to formulate a logically consistent version of my view without resort to an extreme position like the position (1) that you articulate above.
>"very hard or even impossible to formulate a logically consistent version without resort to an extreme position like the position (1)"
For what it's worth, my own view is that trying to develop a logically consistent ethical system is a fundamentally misguided project, and that the ever-present temptation to borrow metaphors from mathematics (even basic ones like "good ~ positive" and "bad ~ negative") is especially likely to lead astray.