Ethical Hedonism and the Experience Machine

In Voltaire’s Story of the Good Brahmin (1761), the Brahmin has everything one could wish for — material wealth, great learning, a happy family life — but finds himself miserable. One day, he encounters his elderly neighbour outside his house; she is poor and ignorant — but happy. Yet given the choice of being ignorant and happy like the woman, the Brahmin exclaims ‘it is a happiness which I do not desire.’ 1 Ethical Hedonists , who believe that pleasure is the highest good, would side with the old woman. For them, simple pleasures, such as falling in love, moments of connection with friends, or feeling the warmth of the sun against one’s skin, are the only things that matter. The philosopher Robert Nozick (1938–2002) rejected this view. In Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974) he imagines an experience machine capable of providing participants with the same pleasurable experience as, say, climbing Mount Everest or falling in love. However, the experience is permanent: one would remain hooked up to the machine until death. While the machine could ensure a blissful existence, most intelligent people, including the Brahmin, would be unwilling to choose the machine over living life. This is because humans actually want to climb Mount Everest, fall in love, and make connections with friends, rather than merely benefit from the artificial bliss induced by the experience machine. The thought experiment shows that pleasure is not the highest good, as claimed by the hedonists. There are things that humans value more highly than pleasure. That is the reason why the Brahmin would not trade places with his neighbour; it would leave him lacking something important: understanding.

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