“Drinking poison” is an action with clear and unambiguous consequences. “Happiness” is a personal emotional state. I don’t feel the analogy works well.
Consider someone looking at his newborn daughter and feeling great happiness that she is the best, prettiest, most awesome child in the world. Oh, hey, that’s technically a mistaken belief, the happiness is not valuable!
Consider a medieval European society where life is nasty, brutal, and short, not to mention muddy and itchy. But on Sundays you go to the cathedral, a beautiful building with awe-inspiring stained glass windows and open your heart to unconditional love, forgiveness, and promise of eternal happiness. It makes life worth living—but, sorry, that’s not valuable, your beliefs are wrong even though you don’t really have a choice about them (remember, medieval Europe).
I think ultimately what ticked me off was the readiness to judge the value of other people’s subjective emotional experiences. I am not a fan of such approaches.
“Drinking poison” is an action with clear and unambiguous consequences. “Happiness” is a personal emotional state. I don’t feel the analogy works well.
Consider someone looking at his newborn daughter and feeling great happiness that she is the best, prettiest, most awesome child in the world. Oh, hey, that’s technically a mistaken belief, the happiness is not valuable!
Consider a medieval European society where life is nasty, brutal, and short, not to mention muddy and itchy. But on Sundays you go to the cathedral, a beautiful building with awe-inspiring stained glass windows and open your heart to unconditional love, forgiveness, and promise of eternal happiness. It makes life worth living—but, sorry, that’s not valuable, your beliefs are wrong even though you don’t really have a choice about them (remember, medieval Europe).
I think ultimately what ticked me off was the readiness to judge the value of other people’s subjective emotional experiences. I am not a fan of such approaches.
OK, I think I now understand your position. Thanks for clarifying.