Cornell University Philosophy Questions

Cornell University Philosophy Questions

Week 4: Quality of Life or “Happiness” Video 4.0 What is it for a person’s life to go better rather than worse? Main answers Objective goods theories (Plato and Aristotle) Experientialism (including hedonism) Desire fulfillment theories Further questions (which we’ll come back to) What is “the good life,” the best life for a person? (Plato and Aristotle) How, if at all, is there meaning in life? Ancient views — and the trend toward “subjectivism” Plato and Aristotle: eudaimonea (“human flourishing”) consists in life’s having certain objective goods Health, moral virtue, proper pleasure, success in one’s projects (even post-mortem, for Aristotle) Objective value: goods are good for a person aside from his or her preferences and quality of subjective experience Circumstances matter: sensitive to skill and effort, but also luck and fortune 1 Once happy, it is “one’s own and hard to take away.” Can still be taken away by “big and numerous misfortunes.” (Aristotle) Hedonism (Callicles in Plato’s Gorgias, Epicurus): happiness consists in pleasure and the absence of pain. The Stoics (Zeno, Epictetus, Seneca, the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius): happiness consists in virtuous attitude management. Big influence on modern ethics … Epictetus (born a slave, after being set free, became a leader in the stoic school of late antiquity; The Manual of Virtue) Eudaimonea not subject to luck in circumstances Depends only on virtue, which is an internal condition over which you have direct control. Your attitudes are subject to your judgment. How you interpret “appearances” is always under your control. Accept what is not in your control. Desire only what is to be attained. “Tranquility” or “equanimity” is possible regardless of what happens. “the virtuous are invincible” Even as a slave or P.O.W.? Death of a relative or child? Mere coping? Human flourishing? Modern views – influenced by the Ancient “subjectivism” Immanuel Kant (next week): broke the ancient tie between moral virtue and happiness. Happiness is not relevant to duty and morality. Too “subjective” or “indeterminate.” Not founded upon reason. 2 Still influenced by the Stoics: “moral worth” of an action solely a matter of your intentions, which is up to you; does not depend on its consequences, which are beyond your control. The utilitarians of the late 18th-19th century (Jeremey Bentham, J.S. Mill) Utilitarianism: the morally right or just action or policy, among the options available, is that which promotes the greatest overall happiness for all affected. Hedonism, like the Epicureans: happiness consists in pleasure and the avoidance of pain. Bentham: any pleasures. “Pushpin [a kids game] is as good as poetry” Mill: “higher” pleasures (e.g. of poetry, intellectual contemplation) count for more than “lower” pleasures (of food, warmth, sex, etc.). “better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied” Contemporary views of happiness: tend to be “subjectivist” Video 4.1 “Subjectivism” today Bentham and Mill had a major influence on economics and social science, which lasts to this day “utility” or “welfare”: Pleasure? Preference-satisfaction? Social science is often unclear. 20th century positive psychology: neo-Stoicism Viktor Frankl, a neo-Stoic, Man’s Search for Meaning 3 Psychologist Csikszentmihali (CHEEK-sent-me-hi): happiness as a “flow state” of “optimal experience” Csikszentmihali “optimal experience”: “unified flowing from one moment to the next, in which we feel in control of our actions, and in which there is little distinction between self and environment; between stimulus and response; or being past, present, and future.” Induced by self-control, internal discipline: “happiness … is not the result of good fortune or random chance. It is not something that money can buy or power command. It does not depend on outside events, but, rather, on how we interpret them. Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person. People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.” Achieved through effort “not the passive, receptive, relaxing times … The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen.” My book chapter, “Flow”: Why not contentment, instead of constant striving (Plato’s man with full jars)? Or steady practice without “flow chasing”? What’s so bad about idle lazing? Basis for creativity. Ebb and flow. The virtue of patience. 4 Isn’t fortune essential? How “in control” are we? The value of being “attuned” to what lies beyond our attitudes Experientialism, neo-hedonism: The quality of a person’s life is a function of what it is like to lead that life, of the quality of the person’s experiences. Hedonism is one version. We don’t have pleasure or pain that we don’t experience. But experiences can be valuable aside from whether they induce a separate state of “pleasure.” (Parfit: no common quality to all “pleasures”) Robert Nozick’s experience machine (42) Think only of your own good. Are you indifferent between having the life you now live and having a life on an “experience machine” in which you life is qualitatively indistinguishable from your own point of view? What if you can program the machine? Reasons to care about reality beyond experience (43): Do things, and not just having the experience of doing them Be a certain sort of person—witty or kind, say. This (presumably) isn’t possible if one merely subsists on a machine Autonomy: a machine would live our lives for us. We’re better off when we are the ones who lead our own lives, something we and a machine can’t both do. Contact with reality, e.g., in self-transcendence 5 The Matrix: can good enough experience outweigh the fact that one’s genuinely lived would be awful? A matter of relative value, not whether reality has value at all. My chapter: Virtual surfing/living is not as valuable as non-virtual surfing/living, other things being equal. Not the exercise of skill in surfing, and so not valuable as surfing is valuable (“adaptive attunement”) Know how requires actual engagement with changing circumstances, constant adaptation (Ryle). Compare: passive viewing, or even “video game” surfing or flight training Still … The virtual is real, real as virtual. Has value. May be better to live on the Matrix, on balance. Realty/quality trade off: the value and cost of life absorbed in the digital world Video 4.2 Desire fulfillment or preference-satisfaction views (Derek Parfit’s appendix) A person’s life goes better rather than worse when his or her desires are satisfied Unlike experientialism and hedonism, desire-satisfaction views care about what happens in the world, not simply one’s mental states. But which desires matter? 6 “Preference-Hedonism”: any preference concerning your mental states. A sensation counts as pleasurable, and good for one, if and only one prefers it. A sensation wouldn’t be painful if you didn’t mind it. Parfit: plausible for the case of pain; drug users report having the same sensation, but not disliking it (501) Unrestricted Desire-Fulfillment theory: any desire fulfilled makes your life go better “satisfaction”: logical versus experiential Trivial desires (number of planets in the solar system) Parfit’s stranger on the train Success Theory: any desire about your own life Explains planets case. Can still have strange desires about your life (counting blades of grass) Which desires concern your life? Unbeknownst to one, one’s child dies in an avalanche. Vs. one’s child becomes a petty thief Reflects failure as a parent (494-5) Should satisfactions be summed? Local preferences: addict case Global version: preferences for whole life Hypothetical, not actual, preferences Desires one would have if informed of all of the (non-evaluative) facts and deciding in a cool hour 7 Can’t hypothetical preferences be irrational? Preference to count blades of grass, or to inflict pain on others Two versions: No limits on what one might prefer What one would judge is best for one were one to reason excellently about the matter in ideal conditions for excellent reasoning Isn’t this ultimately an objective list theory?