You’ve made some really good points here and I agree with most of it! And we’re on the same page in terms of “hedonistic utilitarianism, with a moral circle that includes basically all sentient beings, across any point in time”.
I guess my main motivation for wanting to see a historical study of well-being is because I feel that, to fully understand what makes humans happy, it is valuable to consider a wide range of possible human life experiences. Studying history does this: we can consider a wide range of societies, lifestyles, circumstances etc, and ask which humans were happy and which were suffering. And comparing this to standard “progress” measures such as violence and life expectancy can help us understand whether interventions to improve such measures are the best we can do. Then this can help us design and implement future strategies to improve well-being moving forward.
You’ve made some really good points here and I agree with most of it! And we’re on the same page in terms of “hedonistic utilitarianism, with a moral circle that includes basically all sentient beings, across any point in time”.
I guess my main motivation for wanting to see a historical study of well-being is because I feel that, to fully understand what makes humans happy, it is valuable to consider a wide range of possible human life experiences. Studying history does this: we can consider a wide range of societies, lifestyles, circumstances etc, and ask which humans were happy and which were suffering. And comparing this to standard “progress” measures such as violence and life expectancy can help us understand whether interventions to improve such measures are the best we can do. Then this can help us design and implement future strategies to improve well-being moving forward.