There seem to be times that I prefer to wallow in self-pity rather than feel happiness.
I’ve been there too, but I will try to show below that that is just having an (extremely) high time preference. Don’t you get some tiny instantaneous satisfaction from choosing at any given moment to continue wallowing in self-pity? I do. It’s similar to the guilty pleasure of horking down a tub of Ben&Jerry’s, but on an even shorter timescale.
Here are my assumptions:
If humans had no foresight, they would simply choose what gave them immediate pleasure or relief from pain. The fact that we have instincts doesn’t complicate this, because an instinct is simply an urge, which is just another way of saying, “going against it is more painful than going with it.”
But we do have foresight, and our minds are (almost) constantly hounding us to consider the effects of present decisions on future expected pleasure. This is of course vital to our continued survival. However, we can push those future-oriented thoughts out of our minds to some extent (some people excel at this). Certain states—anger probably foremost among them—can effectively shut off or decrease the hounding about the future as well. Probably no one has a time preference of “IMMEDIATELY” all the time, and having a low (long) time preference is usually associated with good mental health and self-actualization.
(Note that this “emotional time preference” is relative: perhaps we weight the pleasure experienced in the next second very highly versus the coming year, or perhaps the reverse; or perhaps it’s the next hour versus the next few days, etc.)
So what we call values are generally things we are willing to defer to our brain’s “future hounding” about.
Example: A man chances upon some ice cream, but he is lactose intolerant. Let’s say he believes the pain of the forthcoming upset stomach will exceed the pleasure of the eating experience. If his mind is hounding him hard enough about the pain of an upset stomach (which will occur hours later), it will override the prospects of a few minutes pleasure starting now. If he is able to push those thoughts out of his mind, he can enjoy the ice cream now, against his “better judgment” (this is akrasia in a nutshell).
Now I think we have the groundwork to explain in an elucidating way why the question you posed can be answered in terms of pleasure/pain only.
1) I wirehead you, and destroy the rest of the world
I’m going to make the decision right now, and I contend that I am going to make that decision purely based on pleasure vs. pain felt right now. Factors include: empathy, guilt, and future prospects of happiness (let’s just assume being wireheaded really is purely pleasurable/happy).
If I reject (1), it will be because
I believe I would immediately feel very sorry for the people (because of “future hounding”), and/or
I believe I would immediately feel very guilty for my decision, and/or
I relatively discount the future prospects of pleasure.
If I accept (1), it will be because of a different weighting of the above factors, but that weighting is happening right now, not at some future time. Now let me repeat what I wrote above: The fact that we have instincts (empathy, guilt, even the instinct to create and adhere to “values”) doesn’t complicate this, because an instinct is simply an urge, which is just another way of saying, “going against it is more painful than going with it.”
I’ve been there too, but I will try to show below that that is just having an (extremely) high time preference. Don’t you get some tiny instantaneous satisfaction from choosing at any given moment to continue wallowing in self-pity? I do. It’s similar to the guilty pleasure of horking down a tub of Ben&Jerry’s, but on an even shorter timescale.
Here are my assumptions:
If humans had no foresight, they would simply choose what gave them immediate pleasure or relief from pain. The fact that we have instincts doesn’t complicate this, because an instinct is simply an urge, which is just another way of saying, “going against it is more painful than going with it.”
But we do have foresight, and our minds are (almost) constantly hounding us to consider the effects of present decisions on future expected pleasure. This is of course vital to our continued survival. However, we can push those future-oriented thoughts out of our minds to some extent (some people excel at this). Certain states—anger probably foremost among them—can effectively shut off or decrease the hounding about the future as well. Probably no one has a time preference of “IMMEDIATELY” all the time, and having a low (long) time preference is usually associated with good mental health and self-actualization.
(Note that this “emotional time preference” is relative: perhaps we weight the pleasure experienced in the next second very highly versus the coming year, or perhaps the reverse; or perhaps it’s the next hour versus the next few days, etc.)
So what we call values are generally things we are willing to defer to our brain’s “future hounding” about.
Example: A man chances upon some ice cream, but he is lactose intolerant. Let’s say he believes the pain of the forthcoming upset stomach will exceed the pleasure of the eating experience. If his mind is hounding him hard enough about the pain of an upset stomach (which will occur hours later), it will override the prospects of a few minutes pleasure starting now. If he is able to push those thoughts out of his mind, he can enjoy the ice cream now, against his “better judgment” (this is akrasia in a nutshell).
Now I think we have the groundwork to explain in an elucidating way why the question you posed can be answered in terms of pleasure/pain only.
I’m going to make the decision right now, and I contend that I am going to make that decision purely based on pleasure vs. pain felt right now. Factors include: empathy, guilt, and future prospects of happiness (let’s just assume being wireheaded really is purely pleasurable/happy).
If I reject (1), it will be because
I believe I would immediately feel very sorry for the people (because of “future hounding”), and/or
I believe I would immediately feel very guilty for my decision, and/or
I relatively discount the future prospects of pleasure.
If I accept (1), it will be because of a different weighting of the above factors, but that weighting is happening right now, not at some future time. Now let me repeat what I wrote above: The fact that we have instincts (empathy, guilt, even the instinct to create and adhere to “values”) doesn’t complicate this, because an instinct is simply an urge, which is just another way of saying, “going against it is more painful than going with it.”
EDIT: typos and clarification