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.
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.