The Pleasure Machine and Utilitarian Ethics

[Dilb]

Similarly, if you're hooked up to a deceptive happiness machine, you WILL be happy about it.

True, but that doesn't mean you can't be unhappy about the idea before being hooked up.

You can suppose that it's possible to immediately hook everyone up to a happiness machine, even the people who would object to being hooked up. I think that would be much harder than building a reliable happiness machine, maybe even effectively impossible.

 

[drkitten]

True, but that doesn't mean you can't be unhappy about the idea before being hooked up.

You can suppose that it's possible to immediately hook everyone up to a happiness machine, even the people who would object to being hooked up.

That's Niven's "tasp"; happiness via wireless induction. Given that we've had functional transcranial magnetic stimulation for at least a decade, it doesn't seem that far-fetched an idea to me.

 

[blutoski]

Similarly, if you're hooked up to a deceptive happiness machine, you WILL be happy about it.

Basically.

The isolation of consequentialism is the main objection to utilitarianism, and scenarios revolving around disclosure and informed choice are the examples that make people think utilitarianism has deficiencies.

The classic example being the peeping tom who photographs a woman showering and sells the pictures. Utilitarianism says this may be ethical if it increases overall happiness (of the consumers of the photos), and that telling the victim about it would be unethical (because it would make her upset, increasing suffering).

 

[Soapy Sam]

Sorry- I saw "Pleasure machine" and assumed the thread was about me...

 

[Garrette]

To overcome the logistical difficulties (eventual breakdown through 2nd Law and all that), what if the Pleasure Machines didn't provide pleasure to a passive participant but instead provided it to Person X for accomplishing Task X and to Person Y for accomplishing Task Y? Not as a carrot-stick environment, but in actually making Person X happy to do Task X.

In this way, assuming all the necessary tasks could be mapped and then correlated to the proper persons, the logistics get taken care of and everyone is happy.

No?

 

[Dilb]

That's Niven's "tasp"; happiness via wireless induction. Given that we've had functional transcranial magnetic stimulation for at least a decade, it doesn't seem that far-fetched an idea to me.

Even to do it to everyone ever, against their will? Currently it relies on using the non-radiating field of magnets right next to the head, and using a field directed at specific parts of the brain. It also causes seizures with some regularity, which I'm pretty sure aren't good for happiness.

I don't want to get bogged down in a discussion of what TMS can do, but it's important to keep in mind that ethical systems should really only apply to the real world. You can easily construct any sort of pathological society if you ignore the way the world actually works. Speculating about the ethics of happiness machines really doesn't mean much if the happiness machine is impossible.

And Niven is so well known for using things that could exist in his writing.