Some states are really objectively better than other states. The trick is, “better” originates from your own preference
Is there a sense in which you did not just say “The trick is to pretend that your subjective preference is really a statement about objective values”? If by “objectively better” you don’t mean “better according to a metric that doesn’t depend on subjective preferences”, then I think you may be talking past the problem.
By “objectively better” I mean that given an ordering called “better”, it is an objective fact that one state is “better” than another state. The ordering “better” is constructed from your own decision-making algorithm, you could say from subjective preference. This ordering however is not a matter of personal choice: you can’t decide what it is, you only decide given what it already happens to be. It is only “subjective” in the sense that different agents have different preference.
Is there a sense in which you did not just say “The trick is to pretend that your subjective preference is really a statement about objective values”? If by “objectively better” you don’t mean “better according to a metric that doesn’t depend on subjective preferences”, then I think you may be talking past the problem.
By “objectively better” I mean that given an ordering called “better”, it is an objective fact that one state is “better” than another state. The ordering “better” is constructed from your own decision-making algorithm, you could say from subjective preference. This ordering however is not a matter of personal choice: you can’t decide what it is, you only decide given what it already happens to be. It is only “subjective” in the sense that different agents have different preference.