When I say that some people may not want to enter the experience machine because they see their life’s meaning primarily in their closest interpersonal relationships, the claim is not that everyone should value relationships that way.
Sure, but I am expressing skepticism that such people really value authenticity or contact with reality intrinsically, or at least that they would endorse doing so if they engaged with the debunking argument. Which is that outside of Thought Experiment Land, there are obvious and strong hedonic disadvantages to “fakeness.” It feels really bad to realize someone never really loved you, for example, and was just using you for their own purposes. It feels bad to think of yourself as replaceable to your loved ones. And so on. Ditto for having contact with reality — and to the extent that delusions are blissful for the delusional person in the moment, almost always they are malign eventually to themselves or to others.
There’s a strong correlation between beliefs in authenticity and happiness in the real world with evolved brains, and that correlation breaks in the experience machine thought experiment. (I don’t think every moral intuition people have can really be cashed out in terms of hedonism, to be clear — some of them I would explain as being naturally selected on a basis that has ~nothing to do with what people would care about pursuing upon reflection. Others I don’t have a good explanation for at the moment, but to me the intuitions in favor of (suffering-focused) hedonism are more compelling.)
I don’t think it matters if the machine per se is judged as especially bad here, or if the “real” relationships and such are judged as especially good. My debunking argument applies just as well either way, since it’s the relative evaluation that matters.
If you’re in a point in life where you don’t care about any of your ongoing relationships particularly much, then the experience machine becomes a lot more attractive!
While you do later say, “I’m not saying that hedonists necessarily care less about the people they’re in relationships with,” I think this quote is not accurately representing the hedonist position. I do care about my relationships plenty—the point is that I care about them instrumentally. Not just for my own hedonics but for others’. Clearly when I spend time with loved ones, I don’t frame it as something ultimately instrumental to hedonics, but that’s not in tension with hedonism because the framing itself is hedonically unproductive in that context. (Well, it’s clearly unproductive if it’s framed as just about my hedonic good, but I’m not so sure about the framing as something that is mutually hedonically beneficial. I find the idea of making my loved ones’ lives less painful while they do the same for me actually pretty inspiring.)
Sure, but I am expressing skepticism that such people really value authenticity or contact with reality intrinsically, or at least that they would endorse doing so if they engaged with the debunking argument. Which is that outside of Thought Experiment Land, there are obvious and strong hedonic disadvantages to “fakeness.” It feels really bad to realize someone never really loved you, for example, and was just using you for their own purposes. It feels bad to think of yourself as replaceable to your loved ones. And so on. Ditto for having contact with reality — and to the extent that delusions are blissful for the delusional person in the moment, almost always they are malign eventually to themselves or to others.
There’s a strong correlation between beliefs in authenticity and happiness in the real world with evolved brains, and that correlation breaks in the experience machine thought experiment. (I don’t think every moral intuition people have can really be cashed out in terms of hedonism, to be clear — some of them I would explain as being naturally selected on a basis that has ~nothing to do with what people would care about pursuing upon reflection. Others I don’t have a good explanation for at the moment, but to me the intuitions in favor of (suffering-focused) hedonism are more compelling.)
I don’t think it matters if the machine per se is judged as especially bad here, or if the “real” relationships and such are judged as especially good. My debunking argument applies just as well either way, since it’s the relative evaluation that matters.
While you do later say, “I’m not saying that hedonists necessarily care less about the people they’re in relationships with,” I think this quote is not accurately representing the hedonist position. I do care about my relationships plenty—the point is that I care about them instrumentally. Not just for my own hedonics but for others’. Clearly when I spend time with loved ones, I don’t frame it as something ultimately instrumental to hedonics, but that’s not in tension with hedonism because the framing itself is hedonically unproductive in that context. (Well, it’s clearly unproductive if it’s framed as just about my hedonic good, but I’m not so sure about the framing as something that is mutually hedonically beneficial. I find the idea of making my loved ones’ lives less painful while they do the same for me actually pretty inspiring.)