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Question Let us assume that it is moral for people to act selfishly, and by this I don't mean in the empty sense that whatever you do is that which you have chosen to do. It seems right that long-run happiness is better (more selfish) than simply taking a lot of drugs, sleeping with random people, and just feeling a lot of pleasure rather than actually feeling satisfied by accomplishing goals. Yet for the life of me, I cannot logically justify why. Is there good reason to live a life of long-term planning rather than empty sensation? Thank you, Adam

Accepted:
May 1, 2006

Comments

There are really three questions here, worth distinguishing clearly.

Question 1 is whether pleasure and the avoidance of pain are the sole ends of human life or whether we rather have reason to value and seek other ends (as well). Here you may think about whether the value of pleasures is unaffected by the fact that they rest on false beliefs (e.g., the belief that you are loved and admired when in fact you are despised, etc.). An extreme case of this is Nozick's experience machine which, attached to your brain, stimulates in you the most wonderful experiences. Also, think about the burden of proof here. Why should it be somehow obvious that pleasure is worth pursuing while other ends (knowledge, wisdom, love, artistic excellence) stand in need of justification? It seems more plausible to start with a very general notion of well-being and then to examine with an open mind what one's well-being might consist in.

Questions 2 and 3 were perhaps most interestingly (though not flawlessly) discussed by Derek Parfit in Part 2 of his Reasons and Persons. Question 2 is what good reason there might be to give weight, in deciding how to act, to one's well-being in the future. Here one possible answer is this: If each time-slice of me (one hour, say) attends only to its own well-being, then nearly every one of these time-slices would fare worse in terms of well-being than it would fare if these time-slices cooperated through intelligent planning. For example, if each time-slice cares only about itself, then nearly all of them are likely to be broke (none will want to leave cash to its successor). In this way, such narrow care is (or comes close to being) directly collectively self-defeating (Parfit's expression).

Question 3 is what good reason there might be to give weight to how one has conceived one's well-being in the past and to how one will conceive one's well-being in the future. Suppose you have reason to believe that you will conceive of your well-being quite differently in 20 years from how you conceive of it now. Should you promote that future self's well-being as you conceive it (leave him many frequent flier miles to tempt him away from the sedentary life which he will like and which you despise)? Should you promote that future self's well-being as he conceives it (buy a piece of land near a dull village to ensure that he will be able to build a cottage there even if real estate prices go through the roof)? Insofar as you see some merit in the latter answer, you come around to what your question explicitly assumed at the outset: that it is moral for people to act selfishly. When your future self conceives his well-being quite differently from how you conceive it, then your reasons for promoting his well-being as he conceives it are similar to your moral reasons for promoting any other person's well-being as s/he conceives it.