I’m interested in arguments surrounding energy-efficiency (and maximum intensity, if they’re not the same thing) of pain and pleasure. I’m looking for any considerations or links regarding (1) the suitability of “H=D” (equal efficiency and possibly intensity) as a prior; (2) whether, given this prior, we have good a posteriori reasons to expect a skew in either the positive or negative direction; and (3) the conceivability of modifying human minds’ faculties to experience “super-bliss” commensurate with the badness of the worst-possible outcome, such that the possible intensities of human experience hinge on these considerations.
Picturing extreme torture—or even reading accounts of much less extreme suffering—pushes me towards suffering-focused ethics. But I don’t hold a particularly strong normative intuition here and I feel that it stems primarily from the differences in perceived intensities, which of course I have to be careful with.
I’m interested in arguments surrounding energy-efficiency (and maximum intensity, if they’re not the same thing) of pain and pleasure. I’m looking for any considerations or links regarding (1) the suitability of “H=D” (equal efficiency and possibly intensity) as a prior; (2) whether, given this prior, we have good a posteriori reasons to expect a skew in either the positive or negative direction; and (3) the conceivability of modifying human minds’ faculties to experience “super-bliss” commensurate with the badness of the worst-possible outcome, such that the possible intensities of human experience hinge on these considerations.
Picturing extreme torture—or even reading accounts of much less extreme suffering—pushes me towards suffering-focused ethics. But I don’t hold a particularly strong normative intuition here and I feel that it stems primarily from the differences in perceived intensities, which of course I have to be careful with.
Stuff I’ve read so far:
Are pain and pleasure equally energy-efficient?
Simon Knutsson’s reply
Hedonic Asymmetries