I’m not saying that I have given you convincing reasons to believe this. I think I could give quite convincing reasons (not that I am totally convinced myself) but it would take at least a few thousand words. I’ll probably wait until you next swing past Oxford and talk to you a bit about what the last couple of thousands of years of ethical thought can offer the FAI program (short answer: not much for 2,500 years, but more than you may think).
For the moment, I’m just pointing out that it is currently nil all in the argument regarding happiness as an ultimate value. You have given reasons to believe it is not what we aim at (but this is not very related) and have said that you have strong intuitions that the answer is ‘no’. I have used my comments pointing out that this does not provide any argument against the position, but have not made any real positive arguments. For what its worth, my intuition is ‘yes’ it is all that matters. Barring the tiny force of our one bit statements of our intuitions, I think the real question hasn’t begun to be debated as far as this weblog is concerned. The upshot of this is that the most prominent reductive answer to the question of what is of ultimate value (which has been developed for centuries by those whose profession is to study this question) is still a very live option, contrary to what your post claims.
Eliezer,
I’m not saying that I have given you convincing reasons to believe this. I think I could give quite convincing reasons (not that I am totally convinced myself) but it would take at least a few thousand words. I’ll probably wait until you next swing past Oxford and talk to you a bit about what the last couple of thousands of years of ethical thought can offer the FAI program (short answer: not much for 2,500 years, but more than you may think).
For the moment, I’m just pointing out that it is currently nil all in the argument regarding happiness as an ultimate value. You have given reasons to believe it is not what we aim at (but this is not very related) and have said that you have strong intuitions that the answer is ‘no’. I have used my comments pointing out that this does not provide any argument against the position, but have not made any real positive arguments. For what its worth, my intuition is ‘yes’ it is all that matters. Barring the tiny force of our one bit statements of our intuitions, I think the real question hasn’t begun to be debated as far as this weblog is concerned. The upshot of this is that the most prominent reductive answer to the question of what is of ultimate value (which has been developed for centuries by those whose profession is to study this question) is still a very live option, contrary to what your post claims.