I’m not understanding the distinction you’re making between the “experience” and the “response.” In my example, there is a needle poking someone’s arm. Someone can experience that in different ways (including feeling more or less pain depending on one’s mindset). That experience is not distinct from a response, it just is a response.
And again, assuming the experience of pain is inescapable, why does it follow that it is necessarily bad? It can’t just be because the experience is inescapable. My example of paying attention to my fingers snapping was meant to show that merely being inescapable doesn’t make something good or bad.
I agree that many of the goals that people pursue implicitly suggest that they believe pleasure and the avoidance of pain are “value-laden”. However, in the links I included in my previous comment, I suggested there are people who explicitly reject the view that this is all that matters (a view known as hedonism in philosophy, not to be confused with the colloquial definition that prioritizes short-term pleasures). And you’ve asserted that hedonism is true, but I’m not sure what the argument for it has been.
So just to clarify, I see you as making two points:
If something causes pain/suffering, then it is necessarily (intrinsically) bad.
If something is bad, then it is only because it causes pain/suffering.
I’m not understanding the distinction you’re making between the “experience” and the “response.” In my example, there is a needle poking someone’s arm. Someone can experience that in different ways (including feeling more or less pain depending on one’s mindset). That experience is not distinct from a response, it just is a response.
Now you appear to be using a definition of “response” that is synonymous with “experience”. Before you were using “experience” to describe “freaking out” which I would see as a “response” to an “experience” (an action you take after having experienced something). If this is a semantic issue, I don’t need you to subscribe to my definitions, just know these are the definitions I’m using, and hopefully my meaning is clear.
However, in the links I included in my previous comment, I suggested there are people who explicitly reject the view that this is all that matters
I find these explicit rejections unconvincing. People often self-report inaccurately. The tendency to value beauty, for instance, is quite easily reducible to pleasure-seeking. We have biologically induced feelings of pleasure that are associated with beauty, that correlate with evolutionary advantages.
I have challenged you to genuinely try this with a moral tenet you and I would agree on. If you are genuinely interested in trying to understand my point, I think this is the best way for you to understand it.
And again, assuming the experience of pain is inescapable, why does it follow that it is necessarily bad?
The inescapable nature of the experience is not what makes it good or bad, otherwise I would have called it “Inescapable experience” and not stipulated “value-laden”. A neutral value like the click of a finger is still inescapably value-laden, it’s just the value is neutral (zero), and therefore not really relevant when extending into a moral discussion.
I believe I have already provided arguments to support the two questions you’ve asked, but in short:
It is definitionally bad—if pain and suffering was a good experience we would call it pleasure. I think your confusion might be to do with a sense that a “moral” good is necessarily something that is imposed on a person or action, I disagree with this directionality. My point is that “moral” goods are emergent extrapolations derived from inherently good or bad experiences.
This is the foundational claim of the theory, it cannot be proved, but it can be falsified. I’m saying this is a worthwhile framework of understanding that I believe is consistent with reality, and as such might actually be real. But like with any theory, this can only be provisionally verified by numerous examples of where it is consistent, and if it is inconsistent it should be able to be showed to be so.
I’m not asking you to falsify it, you are welcome to try if you want. I would prefer you took the challenge I’ve provided, as this will actually help you understand the proposition. I am offering an explanation and a framework that I think has high utility. Whether you adopt it or not is up to you. You don’t have to falsify it to reject it.
I’m not understanding the distinction you’re making between the “experience” and the “response.” In my example, there is a needle poking someone’s arm. Someone can experience that in different ways (including feeling more or less pain depending on one’s mindset). That experience is not distinct from a response, it just is a response.
And again, assuming the experience of pain is inescapable, why does it follow that it is necessarily bad? It can’t just be because the experience is inescapable. My example of paying attention to my fingers snapping was meant to show that merely being inescapable doesn’t make something good or bad.
I agree that many of the goals that people pursue implicitly suggest that they believe pleasure and the avoidance of pain are “value-laden”. However, in the links I included in my previous comment, I suggested there are people who explicitly reject the view that this is all that matters (a view known as hedonism in philosophy, not to be confused with the colloquial definition that prioritizes short-term pleasures). And you’ve asserted that hedonism is true, but I’m not sure what the argument for it has been.
So just to clarify, I see you as making two points:
If something causes pain/suffering, then it is necessarily (intrinsically) bad.
If something is bad, then it is only because it causes pain/suffering.
I’m looking for arguments for these two points.
Now you appear to be using a definition of “response” that is synonymous with “experience”. Before you were using “experience” to describe “freaking out” which I would see as a “response” to an “experience” (an action you take after having experienced something). If this is a semantic issue, I don’t need you to subscribe to my definitions, just know these are the definitions I’m using, and hopefully my meaning is clear.
I find these explicit rejections unconvincing. People often self-report inaccurately. The tendency to value beauty, for instance, is quite easily reducible to pleasure-seeking. We have biologically induced feelings of pleasure that are associated with beauty, that correlate with evolutionary advantages.
I have challenged you to genuinely try this with a moral tenet you and I would agree on. If you are genuinely interested in trying to understand my point, I think this is the best way for you to understand it.
The inescapable nature of the experience is not what makes it good or bad, otherwise I would have called it “Inescapable experience” and not stipulated “value-laden”. A neutral value like the click of a finger is still inescapably value-laden, it’s just the value is neutral (zero), and therefore not really relevant when extending into a moral discussion.
I believe I have already provided arguments to support the two questions you’ve asked, but in short:
It is definitionally bad—if pain and suffering was a good experience we would call it pleasure. I think your confusion might be to do with a sense that a “moral” good is necessarily something that is imposed on a person or action, I disagree with this directionality. My point is that “moral” goods are emergent extrapolations derived from inherently good or bad experiences.
This is the foundational claim of the theory, it cannot be proved, but it can be falsified. I’m saying this is a worthwhile framework of understanding that I believe is consistent with reality, and as such might actually be real. But like with any theory, this can only be provisionally verified by numerous examples of where it is consistent, and if it is inconsistent it should be able to be showed to be so.
I’m not asking you to falsify it, you are welcome to try if you want. I would prefer you took the challenge I’ve provided, as this will actually help you understand the proposition. I am offering an explanation and a framework that I think has high utility. Whether you adopt it or not is up to you. You don’t have to falsify it to reject it.