I am a bit unenlightened when it comes to moral philosophy so I would appreciate if you can help me understand this viewpoint better. Does it change if you replace ‘subjective well-being’ with ‘life satisfaction’ (in the sense of SWB being experiential and satisfaction being reflective/prospective)? i.e. are there conceptions of ‘life satisfaction’ that sort of take into account what this person wants for themselves?
For example, I wonder if people who have preferences that are hard to satisfy might actually want to take such a life-satisfaction pill, if it meant their new preferences were easier to satisfy. (Is this, in some sense, what a lot of Buddhist reframing around desire is doing?)
Life satisfaction is typically considered to be a kind of (or measure of) subjective well-being, and the argument would be the same for that as a special case. Just make the number go up enough after taking the pill, while replacing what they care about. (And I’m using subjective well-being even more broadly than I think normally used.)
For example, I wonder if people who have preferences that are hard to satisfy might actually want to take such a life-satisfaction pill, if it meant their new preferences were easier to satisfy.
In my view, it only makes sense to do if they already have or were going to otherwise have preferences/attitudes that would be more satisfied by taking the pill. If they would suffer less by taking the pill, then it could make sense. If they prefer to have greater life satisfaction per se, then it can make sense to take the pill.
Hmm. I’m imagining a monogamous bisexual person who prefers het relationships, but settles for a gay one because they really love their partner and reasonably believe they wouldn’t be able to find a better het relationship if they were back on the market (such that they are not avoiding suffering and also maximising utility by being in this relationship). This person would opt to take the pill that makes them exclusively gay in order to feel more life satisfaction (or even SWB), even though it destroys their preferences.
I assume this person is in your latter bucket of preferring greater life satisfaction per se? If so, I don’t think this situation is as uncommon as you imply—lots of people have hard to satisfy or unsatisfiable preferences that they would rather be rid of in favour of greater life satisfaction; in some sense, this is what it means to be human (Buddhism again).
Ya, I agree that many or even most people would get rid of some of their preferences if they could to be happier or more satisfied or whatever. Many people also have fears, anxieties or insecurities they’d rather not have, and those are kinds of “preferences” or “attitudes”, the way I’m using those terms.
I am a bit unenlightened when it comes to moral philosophy so I would appreciate if you can help me understand this viewpoint better. Does it change if you replace ‘subjective well-being’ with ‘life satisfaction’ (in the sense of SWB being experiential and satisfaction being reflective/prospective)? i.e. are there conceptions of ‘life satisfaction’ that sort of take into account what this person wants for themselves?
For example, I wonder if people who have preferences that are hard to satisfy might actually want to take such a life-satisfaction pill, if it meant their new preferences were easier to satisfy. (Is this, in some sense, what a lot of Buddhist reframing around desire is doing?)
Life satisfaction is typically considered to be a kind of (or measure of) subjective well-being, and the argument would be the same for that as a special case. Just make the number go up enough after taking the pill, while replacing what they care about. (And I’m using subjective well-being even more broadly than I think normally used.)
In my view, it only makes sense to do if they already have or were going to otherwise have preferences/attitudes that would be more satisfied by taking the pill. If they would suffer less by taking the pill, then it could make sense. If they prefer to have greater life satisfaction per se, then it can make sense to take the pill.
Hmm. I’m imagining a monogamous bisexual person who prefers het relationships, but settles for a gay one because they really love their partner and reasonably believe they wouldn’t be able to find a better het relationship if they were back on the market (such that they are not avoiding suffering and also maximising utility by being in this relationship). This person would opt to take the pill that makes them exclusively gay in order to feel more life satisfaction (or even SWB), even though it destroys their preferences.
I assume this person is in your latter bucket of preferring greater life satisfaction per se? If so, I don’t think this situation is as uncommon as you imply—lots of people have hard to satisfy or unsatisfiable preferences that they would rather be rid of in favour of greater life satisfaction; in some sense, this is what it means to be human (Buddhism again).
Ya, I agree that many or even most people would get rid of some of their preferences if they could to be happier or more satisfied or whatever. Many people also have fears, anxieties or insecurities they’d rather not have, and those are kinds of “preferences” or “attitudes”, the way I’m using those terms.