Thanks for the reply. With regard to drugs I think it depends on the situation. Many people drink alcohol even if they are in a good mood already to get even more excited (while being fully aware that they might experience at least some kind of suffering the next day and possibly long term). In this case I think one couldn’t say they do it to avoid suffering (unless you declare everything below the best possible experience suffering). There are obviously other cases were people just want to stop thinking about their problems, stop feeling a physical pain etc.
I don’t think that if someone rejects the rationality of trading off neutrality for a combination of happiness and suffering, they need to explain every case of this. (Analogously, the fact that people often do things for reasons other than maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain isn’t an argument against ethical hedonism, just psychological hedonism.) Some trades might just be frankly irrational or mistaken, and one can point to biases that lead to such behavior.
Thanks for the reply. With regard to drugs I think it depends on the situation. Many people drink alcohol even if they are in a good mood already to get even more excited (while being fully aware that they might experience at least some kind of suffering the next day and possibly long term). In this case I think one couldn’t say they do it to avoid suffering (unless you declare everything below the best possible experience suffering). There are obviously other cases were people just want to stop thinking about their problems, stop feeling a physical pain etc.
I don’t think that if someone rejects the rationality of trading off neutrality for a combination of happiness and suffering, they need to explain every case of this. (Analogously, the fact that people often do things for reasons other than maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain isn’t an argument against ethical hedonism, just psychological hedonism.) Some trades might just be frankly irrational or mistaken, and one can point to biases that lead to such behavior.