I would say they work as counterexamples to egoistic hedonism, but not to altruistic hedonism (the one I support). In each pair of situations you described, my mental states (and therefore personal hedonic utility) would be the same, but the experiences of others around me would be quite different (and so would total hedonic utility):
Pretending to love should feel quite different from loving, and being fake generally leads to worse outcomes.
One is better positioned to improve the mental states of others if one knows what is true.
Actually achieving something means actually improving the mental states of others (to the extent one is altruistic), rather than only believing one did so.
For these reasons, rejecting wireheading is also compatible with hedonism. A priori, it does not seem like the best way to help others. One can specify in thought experiments that “everyone else[’s hedonic utility] is taken care of”, but I think it is quite hard to conditional human answers on that, given that lots of our experiences go against the idea that having delusional experiences is both optimal for us and others.
Thanks for the examples, Michael!
I would say they work as counterexamples to egoistic hedonism, but not to altruistic hedonism (the one I support). In each pair of situations you described, my mental states (and therefore personal hedonic utility) would be the same, but the experiences of others around me would be quite different (and so would total hedonic utility):
Pretending to love should feel quite different from loving, and being fake generally leads to worse outcomes.
One is better positioned to improve the mental states of others if one knows what is true.
Actually achieving something means actually improving the mental states of others (to the extent one is altruistic), rather than only believing one did so.
For these reasons, rejecting wireheading is also compatible with hedonism. A priori, it does not seem like the best way to help others. One can specify in thought experiments that “everyone else[’s hedonic utility] is taken care of”, but I think it is quite hard to conditional human answers on that, given that lots of our experiences go against the idea that having delusional experiences is both optimal for us and others.