Nozick Experience Machine Analysis

Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill are known for their theories about utilitarianism. Both of them agree that the ethical right thing to do would be to maximize utility in any given situation. Yet, both of them disagree when it came to defninig pleasure. Bentham’s theory generalizes pleasure as just the same type of emotion felt by anyone and in any situation. Mill’s theory on the other hand stated that there are two different types of pleasure: the higher intellectual pleasure and the lower physical pleasure

Nozick briefly discusses the nature of pleasure, as it is clearly an important element of happiness. There are pleasures of the body and mind, as well as pleasures of the emotion. They are all valued for their felt quality that what they have in common That is what a pleasure is, and is different from something like Equality, which is not valued for good feelings , but pleasure is something valued for its felt qualities.

As humans we are constantly in search of understanding the balance between what feels good and what is right. Humans try to take full advantage of experiencing pleasure to its fullest potential. Hedonism claims that pleasure is the highest and only source of essential significance. If the notion of hedonism is truthful, happiness is directly correlated with pleasure. Robert Nozick presented the philosophical world with his though experiment, “The Experience Machine” in order to dispute the existence and validity of hedonism. Nozick’s thought experiment poses the question of whether or not humans would plug into a machine which produces any desired experience. Nozick weakens the notion of hedonism through his thought experiment, claiming

An action is morally required in utilitarianism if it maximizes happiness for the greatest amount of people. Morality is based on the presence of pleasure, and the absence of pain. However, Mill categorizes pleasures into lower animal pleasures and higher human pleasures. Only humans can experience higher human pleasures uniquely but they can also experience lower animal pleasures as well. Mill argues that higher human pleasures significantly contribute

In this essay I shall discuss how the film, 'The Matrix' (1999), engages in a form of cinematic philosophy. Specifically, I will discuss how the film can be seen as making an objection to the position held by Sidgwick (1907), who asserts that, positive states of consciousness, or, pleasure, is ultimately the only thing inherently valuable, which in turn becomes the basis of his utilitarian ethics. In doing so, I consider The Matrix to be a cinematic adaptation of Robert Nozick's (1974) 'experience machine' thought experiment, which the film-makers bring to life, developing it into a narrative that pulls heavily on our moral emotions. However, although the film-makers skilfully elicit the appropriate emotional responses from viewers, ensuring

I support this idea of achieving absolute pleasure from the removal of all pain due to a series of corresponding reasons. The first factor addressed in support of this claim is the tendency of human nature to focus on the negative. This observation will lead to the second supporting idea that these distresses which culminate towards the feeling of pain often block out the feeling of the pleasure desired. This secondary notion results in a comparison between the subsequent uplifting experiences from the removal of pain as opposed to the effect of a simple everyday pleasure on the mind. I

Mill says that ethical decisions should be based on pleasure. Therefore when he states that pleasure is the sole requirement for happiness, it is questionable because pain indirectly affects happiness. Pain is an indirect factor because it is not the object of one’s happiness but it is an obstacle, which you have to overcome. If you were to avoid all pain, then how would you truly ever know what pleasure feels like? Real pleasure comes only after experiencing pain. If a person always wins the tic tac toe game then the pleasure they feel turns into an expectation. Thus it is not true pleasure. If the loser of the tic tac toe game after 20 years finally wins he can feel the desired pleasure that he was seeking.

In addition, Kupperman evaluates the value of pleasure through the Buddhist Argument as well as Csikszentmihalyi’s “flow” argument. Although it may seem that since we want more pleasure in life, that value of pleasure may depend on how much

“The greatest good for the greatest number”; that is how the British philosopher John Stuart Mill famously summarized utilitarianism (Shafer-Landau, 2012b, p. 120). He is not only one of the greatest utilitarians, he is also a hedonist. Hence, he believed that this greatest good can be achieved by focussing all action on attaining the greatest amount of happiness. Mill describes utility as holding ‘that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness’ ((Shafer-Landau, 2012a, p. 17). He defines happiness as pleasure and the absence of pain, and unhappiness as pain and the privation of pleasure. Hence, Mill argues that only pleasure is intrinsically desirable and only misery intrinsically bad (Shafer-Landau, 2012a, p. 120). All other desirable things are only desirable as means to promote pleasure or prevent pain (Shafer-Landau, 2012a, p. 18). Therefore, in order to refute Mill’s utilitarianism, one would have to show that there is something other than pleasure or the freedom from pain that is intrinsically desirable. First, Robert Nozick’s attempt to disprove utilitarianism and hedonism in the shape of his ‘experience machine’ will be explained. Next, Mill’s arguments in favour of utilitarianism and hedonism will be recapitulated in an attempt to answer the central research question: why does Nozick’s experience

Nagel provides a complete a thorough argument against the hedonist position by explaining that one can be harmed without suffering, one can suffer post-mortem, and it is not the bad nor the good momentary conscious experiences that judge our lives but our projects, goals, ambitions, history, and possibility.

Robert Nozick is a philosopher who seeks to disprove the utilitarian notion of hedonism through a thought experiment that he has entitles “The Experience Machine” (Nozick 646). I will first explain the concept of utilitarianism and hedonism, then the experience machine before I give a reply about the inclusion of a third category of pleasure which I have called “meta-pleasure”. Finally, I will show how technology may be disproving the entire experience machine thought experiment altogether.

Another important thing to examine carefully are moral choices. If moral choices are not examined, people will choose only what benefits them in the short term and not follow hedonism. Hedonism is a doctrine that states that pleasure is the only intrinsic good in humans and it is our moral obligation to strive to reduce pain and increase pleasure in themselves and others. 3 A student who slacks off on their homework may benefit in the short term by having free time to do as they please, but are putting their long term interests at risk. The student has not thought about how their lack of effort will affect their grades and whether or not they will have enough marks to get into a university or college.

In fact, however, the pleasures differ quite a lot, in human beings at any rate. For some things delight some people, and cause pain to others; and while some find them painful and hateful, others find them pleasant and lovable…But in all such cases it seems that what is really so is what appears so to the excellent person. If this is right, as it seems to be, and virtue, i.e., the good person insofar as he is good, is the measure of each thing, then what appear pleasures to him will also really be pleasures…and if what he finds objectionable appears pleasant to someone, that is not at all surprising: for human beings suffer many sorts of corruption and damage. It is not pleasant, however, except to those people in these conditions.

When first asked about whether or not I would get in the experience machine, I was confused and torn between the two choices. On one hand, I could plug into the machine and go through whatever experience I wanted and simply live it out in the machine. This is extremely tempting due to the absence of responsibility – what person wouldn’t want to go at least 2 years without having to worry about any job, school, or other duties to stress them out? It is also tempting because of the opportunity to be able to experience many things that probably would not be possible in the real world for the common person (like me). Imagine being able to experience and have the memory of an exciting and adventurous activity such as climbing Mt. Everest, without having to be in any actual danger or pay for any of the expensive costs that are associated with such an adventure.

Ergo, Mill distinguishes between higher and lower pleasures in order to respond to The Philosophy of Swine Objection. However, the distinction between quality and quantity is not new. Mill himself asserts that »utilitarian writers in general have placed the superiority of mental over bodily pleasures.«7 What is new in Mill’s theory is that he rejects to measure pleasure in any kind of numerical scale. His scale is an ordinal scale, in which pleasures are ordered in terms of preference, i.e. pleasure A is greater than pleasure B and so on. The problem with that measurement is that it is not transitive, which means that if pleasure A is greater than pleasure B and pleasure B is greater than pleasure C, it does not follow that pleasure A is greater than pleasure C, simply because we are not talking about quantity but quality. For example, I may prefer banana ice cream to chocolate ice cream, and I may prefer chocolate ice cream to strawberry ice cream, but I may also prefer strawberry ice cream to