Right, I've never understood the appeal of hedonism; its basic problem (which I think the experience machine highlights nicely) is that most of us *clearly* value more than just pleasure, and it seems unmotivated to claim that our ordinary forms of self-concern are in such drastic error as hedonism entails. As I put it on my old blog, he…
Right, I've never understood the appeal of hedonism; its basic problem (which I think the experience machine highlights nicely) is that most of us *clearly* value more than just pleasure, and it seems unmotivated to claim that our ordinary forms of self-concern are in such drastic error as hedonism entails. As I put it on my old blog, hedonism (like egoism) places an *implausible restriction* on what we can reasonably value: https://www.philosophyetc.net/2020/11/hedonism-egoism-and-implausible.html
On the other hand, there are some genuine puzzles about how to best combine hedonic and non-hedonic values, esp. if we think that subjective happiness is *necessary* for an overall good life. I discuss the problem (and a possible, though imperfect, solution) here: https://rychappell.substack.com/p/a-multiplicative-model-of-value-pluralism
Right, I've never understood the appeal of hedonism; its basic problem (which I think the experience machine highlights nicely) is that most of us *clearly* value more than just pleasure, and it seems unmotivated to claim that our ordinary forms of self-concern are in such drastic error as hedonism entails. As I put it on my old blog, hedonism (like egoism) places an *implausible restriction* on what we can reasonably value: https://www.philosophyetc.net/2020/11/hedonism-egoism-and-implausible.html
On the other hand, there are some genuine puzzles about how to best combine hedonic and non-hedonic values, esp. if we think that subjective happiness is *necessary* for an overall good life. I discuss the problem (and a possible, though imperfect, solution) here: https://rychappell.substack.com/p/a-multiplicative-model-of-value-pluralism
So that problem makes me slightly less staunchly anti-hedonistic than I used to be. But I still lean pretty strongly against the view (preferring some form of objective list theory instead): https://www.utilitarianism.net/theories-of-wellbeing/#objective-list-theories