Appreciate your pushing this forward, Leonard. I guess I’m still not seeing why this is a problem for the main line of argument. I‘m thinking of goods and bads as being straightforwardly additive. So it’s true that, if an objective list theory is true, Sarah may have sufficient reason not to enter the machine even if it would max her out hedonically, but it doesn’t follow from that that hedonic goods have a lot less weight than non-hedonic goods in determining overall wellbeing. Suppose that Sarah‘s hedonic scale goes from −100 to 100, as you suggested, and her total wellbeing scale goes from −300 to 300, as I’ve suggested (3x). Then, she’s potentially leaving a lot of value on the table if she goes into the machine, as she’d get all that hedonic value (100) but none of the non-hedonic value (which represents an additional 200 possible welfare units). In such circumstances, it’s prudential rational for her to take a lower hedonic level (say, 25) to get even half the possible non-hedonic benefits (100), as that makes her better off overall (125 vs. 100).
Your way of further fleshing out the example is helpful. Suppose we think that Sarah has some, but below average non-hedonic benefits in her live (and expects this for the future) and that she should nonetheless not enter the machine. The question would then come down to: In relative terms (on a linear scale), how close is Sarah to getting all the possible non-hedonic value (i.e., does she get 50% of it, or only 10%, or even less)? The farer she is away from getting all possible non-hedonic value, the more non-hedonic value contributes to welfare ranges. However, at this point, it is hard to know what the most plausible answer to this question is.
Appreciate your pushing this forward, Leonard. I guess I’m still not seeing why this is a problem for the main line of argument. I‘m thinking of goods and bads as being straightforwardly additive. So it’s true that, if an objective list theory is true, Sarah may have sufficient reason not to enter the machine even if it would max her out hedonically, but it doesn’t follow from that that hedonic goods have a lot less weight than non-hedonic goods in determining overall wellbeing. Suppose that Sarah‘s hedonic scale goes from −100 to 100, as you suggested, and her total wellbeing scale goes from −300 to 300, as I’ve suggested (3x). Then, she’s potentially leaving a lot of value on the table if she goes into the machine, as she’d get all that hedonic value (100) but none of the non-hedonic value (which represents an additional 200 possible welfare units). In such circumstances, it’s prudential rational for her to take a lower hedonic level (say, 25) to get even half the possible non-hedonic benefits (100), as that makes her better off overall (125 vs. 100).
Your way of further fleshing out the example is helpful. Suppose we think that Sarah has some, but below average non-hedonic benefits in her live (and expects this for the future) and that she should nonetheless not enter the machine. The question would then come down to: In relative terms (on a linear scale), how close is Sarah to getting all the possible non-hedonic value (i.e., does she get 50% of it, or only 10%, or even less)? The farer she is away from getting all possible non-hedonic value, the more non-hedonic value contributes to welfare ranges. However, at this point, it is hard to know what the most plausible answer to this question is.