Couldn’t the “too few subjects” objection be raised against hedonism, too? Chalmers talks about beings who are conscious and make reflective judgements but don’t experience pleasure or suffering, calling them Vulcans (although Vulcans in Star Trek do experience pleasure and suffering). See
My recommendation would be to recognize multiple kinds of global desires, both hedonistic ones like pleasure and suffering, and reflective conscious ones, like life satisfaction. Some theories of pleasure and suffering consider them to be just “felt evaluations”, and at any rate, they seem to at least be felt evaluations.
I still think automaximization is a problem, and I’m not sure how to best deal with it. Involuntary preference manipulation is another, and I’d recommend “preference-affecting” views (e.g. any person-affecting view, but treating individual preferences like whole persons) as solutions.
Couldn’t the “too few subjects” objection be raised against hedonism, too? Chalmers talks about beings who are conscious and make reflective judgements but don’t experience pleasure or suffering, calling them Vulcans (although Vulcans in Star Trek do experience pleasure and suffering). See
https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/david-chalmers-nature-ethics-consciousness/
https://vimeo.com/481777313
My recommendation would be to recognize multiple kinds of global desires, both hedonistic ones like pleasure and suffering, and reflective conscious ones, like life satisfaction. Some theories of pleasure and suffering consider them to be just “felt evaluations”, and at any rate, they seem to at least be felt evaluations.
I still think automaximization is a problem, and I’m not sure how to best deal with it. Involuntary preference manipulation is another, and I’d recommend “preference-affecting” views (e.g. any person-affecting view, but treating individual preferences like whole persons) as solutions.