What’s more, stipulating preferences can/​must be laundered is also borderline inconsistent with subjectivism: if you tell me that some of my preferences doesn’t count towards my well-being because they ‘irrational’ you don’t seem to be respecting the view that my well-being consists in whatever I say it does.
I don’t think this need be the case, since we can have preferences that are mutually exclusive in their satisfaction, and having such preferences means we can’t be maximally satisfied. So, if the mathematician’s preference upon reflection is to not count blades of grass (and do something else) but they have the urge to do so, at least one of these two preferences will go unsatisfied, which detracts from their wellbeing.
However, this on its own wouldn’t tell us the mathematician is better off not counting blades of grass, and if we did always prioritize rational preferences over irrational ones, or preferences about preferences over the preferences to which they refer, then it would be as if the irrational/​lower preferences count for nothing, as you suggest.
On the experience machine, this only helps preference satisfactionists, not life satisfactionist: I could plug you into the experience machine such that you judged yourself to be maximally satisfied with your life. If well-being just consists in judging one’s life is going well, it doesn’t matter how you come to that judgement.
I agree, although it also doesn’t help preference satisfactionists who only count preference satisfaction/​frustration when it’s experienced consciously, and it might also not help them if we’re allowed to change your preferences, since having easier preferences to satisfy might outweigh the preference frustration that would result from having your old preferences replaced by and ignored for the new preferences.
I think the involuntary experience machine and wireheading are problems for all the consequentialist theories with which I’m familiar (at least under the assumption of something like closed individualism, which I actually find to be unlikely).
I don’t think this need be the case, since we can have preferences that are mutually exclusive in their satisfaction, and having such preferences means we can’t be maximally satisfied. So, if the mathematician’s preference upon reflection is to not count blades of grass (and do something else) but they have the urge to do so, at least one of these two preferences will go unsatisfied, which detracts from their wellbeing.
However, this on its own wouldn’t tell us the mathematician is better off not counting blades of grass, and if we did always prioritize rational preferences over irrational ones, or preferences about preferences over the preferences to which they refer, then it would be as if the irrational/​lower preferences count for nothing, as you suggest.
I agree, although it also doesn’t help preference satisfactionists who only count preference satisfaction/​frustration when it’s experienced consciously, and it might also not help them if we’re allowed to change your preferences, since having easier preferences to satisfy might outweigh the preference frustration that would result from having your old preferences replaced by and ignored for the new preferences.
I think the involuntary experience machine and wireheading are problems for all the consequentialist theories with which I’m familiar (at least under the assumption of something like closed individualism, which I actually find to be unlikely).