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I want to push back on the practical upshot (ii).

Getting rid of extreme suffering (and maybe eradicating suffering altogether) seems like a huge cultural achievement. I think it’d be hard to deny that, even for someone who treats any personal pursuit of trivial comforts as an ultimate distraction. For example, the eradication of smallpox is in the same reference class and is clearly on the list of the peak human achievements of the 20th century. It required worldwide cooperation and logistic, advances in medical science and technology, and probably much more.

I do think there is a there there in Nietzsche that threatens the EA enterprise at its core.

I’m not too worried about the Nietzschean critique of the utilitarian “shopkeeper” anglo-saxon mentality. You can easily imagine a more demanding standard whereby happiness is defined as fulfillment, and fulfillment involves higher feelings such as awe, transcendence, or the idea of the sublime.

Rather, what makes Nietzsche most dangerous for utilitarian ways of thinking is the insight that suffering may be necessary for fulfillment (an idea he shares, weirdly, with Christianity, even as he insists that his thought represents the polar opposite). Utilitarians have no good answer to this, should it turn out to be true.

My favoured rebuttal to this tends to involve refuting the premise.

Basically:
- post-traumatic rationalizations are just that. Not having trauma in the first place > overcoming trauma > rationalizing trauma
- meaningful suffering is valuable because it is meaningful, not because it is suffering
- for every experience of awe derived from suffering, there probably exists an equal or superior experience that does not involve such suffering
- masochists do exist in the world but I question whether they are living their best lives. And even if they are, there is an argument to be made that “pleasure in suffering” is a net pleasure in utilitarian terms.

One way of conceptualizing this is to think of what you might want for your children. All things equal, you’d prefer them to have a meaningful life, not just a house, a dog and Netflix. But you’d also prefer for them not to suffer in that pursuit if they can avoid it.

Does this fully work? I’m not sure. Is it more inspiring than romantic systems for coping with pain and suffering? Probably.

Thanks for writing this.

Some quick comments:

(1) I’m glad you chose Andrew Huddlestone’s reading of Nietzsche’s perfectionism. I think it’s better than most.

(2) Many people in the EA community believe that barely anyone takes Nietzsche seriously. This is wrong. For example...

(2a) The first words of Reasons & Persons are a quote from Nietzsche, and there are Nietzsche quotes at several key moments. Parfit thinks of Nietzsche as an epistemic peer, a moral philosopher on par with Kant. In On What Matters Book II, Parfit writes:

Nietzsche was a brilliant thinker, who made many claims that are original, important, and true. We should ask whether our disagreements with Nietzsche give us reasons to doubt our own views.

Parfit was in regular conversation with Bernard Williams for several decades. Williams shares many views with Nietzsche and Parfit was deeply troubled by their disagreement.

(2b) Nick Bostrom is a big fan. His recent paper, Basecamp for Mount Ethics (PDF, audio), sketches view of metaethics that Nietzsche would broadly endorse.

(3) Stephen West (Philosophise This!) has a fantastic 20 minute lecture on Nietzsche’s vision of a meaningful life.

(4) Some great Nietzsche episodes on Philosophy Bites: Christopher Janaway, Aaron Ridley and Brian Leiter. All of these are available on The Valmy.

(5) My two favourite books on Nietzsche’s metaethics, metaphilosophy and normative ethics are Nietzsche, Psychology & First Philosophy by Robert Pippin and Nietzsche’s Values by John Richardson. You could also try Nietzsche’s Morality by Brian Leiter or “Nietzsche: Perfectionist” by Thomas Hurka.

(6) Elsewhere, Andrew Huddlestone persuasively trashes Derek Parfit’s attempt to read Nietzsche in a way that fits with Parfit’s attempt to sketch a vision of normative convergence.

Wow, I found this post really thought provoking.

Two thought experiments that made me realize I care more about grand aesthetics than I gave credit to:

1. If two beings were equally happy, but one is wireheaded and one is living at a pinnacle of cultural excellence, which do I value more?

   1. I’m pulled towards the latter, and I don’t find a “well that’s just your aesthetic preferences bro” rebuttal convincing grounds to entirely dismiss this preference.

2. Would I want my children to live a life of intense happiness afforded by extreme comfort or a slightly less happy life afforded by a pursuit of deep, lasting meaning?

   1. I think the latter; I’m willing to trade some utility for grandeur.

I could still reconcile these views with total utilitarianism if I say that grandeur and excellence are important elements of total utility (or at least the total utility I care about). But I’m weary of this move since (1) you could always just redefine total utility to dismiss any critique of total utility and (2) it would make my definition of total utility different than many other people’s definition of total utility, which seems OK with experience-machine-style /​ extreme comfort utility.

Also, a point on word choice: I’m weary of “cultural excellence” as the thing to be caring about under this critique. I’m worried “culture” invites critiques of specific-culture elitism (e.g., western elitism) and is too transient across the grand time-scales we might care about. I’m more drawn to “civilization excellence” or “enduring meaning” as phrases that capture something about the world I intrinsically care about beyond just total utility.

In my opinion, the philosophy that you have outlined should not be simply dismissed since it contains several important points. Many people in EA, including me, want to avoid the repugnant conclusion and do not think that wireheading is a valueable thing. Moreover, more holistic ethical theories may also lead to important insights. Sometimes an entity has emergent properties that are not shared by its parts.

I agree that it is hard to reconcile animal suffering with a Nietzschian world view. Whats even worse is that it may lead to opinions like “It does not matter if there is a global catastrophe as long as the elite survives”.

It could be possible to develop a more balanced philosophy with help of moral uncertainty or if you simple state that avoiding suffering and excellence are both important values. Finally, you could point out that it is not plausible that humankind is able to flourish although many humans suffer. After all, you cannot be healthy if most of your organs are sick.

English-language novels are the best counter-example, I agree. A large part of that is the product of writers of Indian/​sub-continental extraction. A Fine Balance, for example, is extremely good, Midnight’s Children too (and of course there are many). I think I over-stated my case on that one—thank you. But, given the number of people involved nowadays—the whole literate population of India + the Commonwealth + the US, we surely have to accept that per capita output, even for novels, is way down on what it was.

In a plausibly morally anti-realist universe, the conclusion of Nietzsche is quite dangerous, as there are no guarantees that moral realism actually is correct.

What truly gives our lives dignity and meaning is to contribute, whether directly or indirectly, to cultural excellence.

This seems a reasonable path that one might choose to tread, but it doesn’t seem to qualify as a universal truth binding upon all of us etc.

One answer he’s (Singer) drawn towards invokes the common wisdom that our lives are more meaningful insofar as we contribute to something larger than ourselves.

Bonding with something larger than ourselves does seem essential, contributing less so. All this contributing business seems built upon the assumption that people are what matter most. People are one thing we can bond with, not the only thing.

That which is larger than ourselves the most is the entire universe, and perhaps way beyond that too. What is it that we self absorbed tiny creatures think we are going to contribute to that? Humility might suggest we content ourselves with experiencing it.

Key to this interpretation is Huddleston’s observation that our objective “best interests” may come apart from both what we want and from what we believe to be in our interests.

A counter argument might be that what’s in our best interest is to somehow transcend, however temporarily, the tiny prison cell of “me and my situation”, “me and my situation”, “me and my situation”, or “I Me Mine” as George Harrison put it.

Jesus advised, “Die and be reborn”. While I have no idea what he meant when he said those words, to me they mean, let go of abstractions like “me”, and embrace the vast real world beyond the little symbols which point to it.

I wouldn’t want anyone to come away from this post with the sense that maybe suffering doesn’t matter after all. That would be nuts!

I wouldn’t want to be flippant or dismissive about human suffering, addressing it is certainly a worthy project.

But from a more detached perspective suffering might be seen as a necessary part of a holistic system. As just one example...

There is currently no evidence that we will ever liberate ourselves from the nuclear threat through a process of reason alone. What is needed to make this threat real to us, real enough so that we will act, is suffering. Pain.

Our bodies are built around pain mechanisms which provide essential information regarding what to do and not do.

I truly don’t know, but suffering may not matter that much. It depends on how one sees the big picture. If I live on Earth for a hundred years, and in heaven for a billion, then that would put my human suffering in a quite different context. (PS: I’m not religious, just philosophical.)