Value

Is feeling good the only thing that has value in itself?

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This doctrine is sometimes known as ethical hedonism and itlies at the heart of some very grand traditions in ethics, inparticular, utilitarian ethics, first forcefully and extensivelyarticulated by Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century. Feeling good, orperhaps the net balance of pleasure over pain, was deemed to bevaluable in itself and furthermore the only thing that has value initself. That it is the only thing of value seems quite wrong at firstblush: lots of things that don't feel good, for instance education, aredeemed by many to be valuable. But utilitarians (for instance, JohnStuart Mill in his Utilitarianism) argued that this wasillusory. Other things are deemed to be of value because they lead tohappiness, or because they've become so associated with happiness thatthey've come to viewed as part of happiness. Neither Bentham nor Millthought they could prove that happiness itself was of value -- that wassimply too basic a proposition to admit of proof. Mill argued that youcould only show something to be of value by showing that it leads tosomething you antecedently take to be of value; so showing thathappiness was of value in itself is not in the cards. But utilitariansthink that its correctness is shown by the fact that it organizes andmakes sense of many if not most of our ethical judgments.

Ofcourse, it remains a controversial claim. Many people insist that theywould not particularly value, or choose to lead, a life in which theyfelt good, if that life did not have other things going for it.Philosophers often wonder whether to enter The Experience Machine (asouped up version of Woody Allen's Orgasmatron, from Sleeper,for those of you with long memories, first presented by the Harvardphilosopher Robert Nozick). This is a machine you enter which providesyou with just the kind of mental life that leads to your feeling good-- and of course makes you unaware of the fact that you ever got intothe machine, etc. Would you enter the machine? Opinions are divided.And opinions are divided about what the division of opinion means forthe thesis that happiness is, in itself, something of value. (For somediscussion of this in connection with The Matrix, see here.)

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