Why is reality important?
Juan Camilo Espejo-Serna
Universidad de la Sabana
Plan
- Film overview
- Utilitarianism
- Nozick and the experience machine
- Why is reality important?
Write in the Channel for Week 04, before the live session, a one-line summary of the plot of THE TRUMAN SHOW.
(A good one :P).
The film considers several questions with philosophical interest. One is about reality and knowledge of it. Another about why it matters.
The film makes use of a skeptical scenario in order to make a point about choice.
Much like Quaid and Neo, Truman faces a choice. Is Truman's choice a good one?
The film makes use of a skeptical scenario in order to make a point about the good choice.
What determines the good choice?
Today we are gong to discuss one philosophical way to answer the question about what is a good choice: Utilitarianism
I don't think that Utilitarianism is correct, but I believe it to be interestingly wrong.
What is the view?
The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.
By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure.
To give a clear view of the moral standard set up by the theory, much more requires to be said; in particular, what things it includes in the ideas of pain and pleasure; and to what extent this is left an open question.
But these supplementary explanations do not affect the theory of life on which this theory of morality is grounded- namely, that pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends; and that all desirable things (which are as numerous in the utilitarian as in any other scheme) are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.
Does Utilitarianism recommend that we live a life of excessive indulgence in sex, alcohol, and drugs and other forms of debauchery?
NO
When thus attacked, the Utilitarians have always answered, that it is not they, but their accusers, who represent human nature in a degrading light; since the accusation supposes human beings to be capable of no pleasures except those of which swine are capable.
If the sources of pleasure were precisely the same to human beings and to swine, the rule of life which is good enough for the one would be good enough for the other. (And that is a big IF)
The comparison of the Utilitarian life to that of beasts is felt as degrading, precisely because a beast's pleasures do not satisfy a human being's conceptions of happiness.
Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification.
But there is no known Utilitarian theory of life which does not assign to the pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments, a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation. (Though utilitarian writers in general have placed the superiority of mental over bodily pleasures chiefly in the greater permanency, safety, uncostliness, etc.,)
It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognise the fact, that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. It would be absurd that while, in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on quantity alone.
"Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness."
This seems like a good way of cashing out many ways of conceiving what good acts are, intuitive and religious.
Are the actions of producer and creator of the Truman Show good?
Would you put yourself in Truman's shoes?
Nozick's experience machine
"Suppose there were an experience machine that would give you any experience that you desired. Superduper neuropsychologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. All the time you would be floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to your brain. Should you plug into this machine for life, preprogramming your life's experiences?"
"If you are worried about missing out on desirable experiences, we can suppose that business enterprises have researched thoroughly the lives of many others. You can pick and choose from their large library or smorgasbord of such experiences, selecting your life's experiences for, say, the next two years. After two years have passed, you will have ten minutes or ten hours out of the tank, to select the experiences of your next two years.
Of course, while in the tank you won't know that you're there; you'll think it's all actually happening. Others can also plug in to have the experiences they want, so there's no need to stay unplugged to serve them. (Ignore problems such as who will service the machines if everyone plugs in.) Would you plug in?"
"What else can matter to us, other than how our lives feel from the inside? Nor should you refrain because of the few moments of distress between the moment you've decided and the moment you're plugged. What's a few moments of distress compared to a lifetime of bliss (if that's what you choose), and why feel any distress at all if your decision is the best one?
What does matter to us in addition to our experiences?"
Suppose you endorse Utilitarianism. Would you plug into the experience machine for life, preprogramming all of your experiences?
Why is reality important?
In the following, we will consider three questions that aim at thinking about why reality (real pleassure, real memories, real life) matters.
Would you do what Cypher did and surrender yourself back into the matrix? Why?
Would you go get any memory modified like Hauser?Why?
Would you stay and be the star of such a TV show? Why?
Before FRIDAY 7AM you should upload in FLIPGRID two 6-10 minute videos answering these questions.
- From the perspective of utilitarianism.
- From your own perspective
In each case you must make explicit references to the films, the readings, the podcasts and the slides for the class. Repeated use of the same item does not count.