I read your entire discussion the TheOtherDave and everyone else before replying. He said pretty much everything I would have said in thesereplies.
Reading further through the discussion I found this statement by you:
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).
Remember that here I argued that, while happiness based on false beliefs isn’t valuable, it isn’t necessarily as bad as other negative things. For instance, I pointed out that if a mad scientist offered me a choice between decades of torture, or pressing a button that would alter my memory to make me hold a false belief, I would pick the button. Similarly, if the act of worship prevents someone’s life from being utterly miserable (or from being tortured by the Inquisition), it may be the lesser of two evils.
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!
I’m pretty sure most people don’t literally believe that their child is the best child ever by some objective measure. I think that those are phatic statements, they are meant to express emotions rather than convey factual information. In this case the emotion being expressed is “I really love my daughter.”
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
I certainly understand the tremendous moral hazard that comes with attempting to judge how much other people value things. But I don’t think I’m out of line in stating that people generally don’t place value on happiness that comes from falsehoods. Pretty much all people hate being lied to.
Just to make sure I understand your position… consider two hypothetical instances of happiness, H1 and H2:
H1is my happiness at believing my relationship with my husband is a loving, honest, open one in which we don’t deceive one another, which it in fact is.
H2 is my happiness at believing my relationship with my husband is a loving, honest, open one in which we don’t deceive one another, which it in fact isn’t.
The following seems clear, given that context:
H1 is happiness that comes from truth.
H2 is happiness that comes from falsehood.
Neither H1 nor H2 is happiness that I believe comes from falsehoods… in both cases, my happiness comes from believing the proposition “my relationship with my husband is a loving, honest, open one in which we don’t deceive one another” to be truth.
Would you disagree with any of the above? If so, we can stop here and address the disagreement. If not, continuing...
Suppose hypothetically that I don’t value happiness that comes from falsehood, but I otherwise value happiness. In this case, it follows that I value H1 but don’t value H2. For example, in this case if after ten years I discovered he’d been lying to me all along, I might feel cheated… I’ve spent ten years enjoying this happiness that I thought was valuable, when it turns out it wasn’t valuable at all, since it came from falsehood. At that point, I’d regret those ten years, and wish I’d known how valueless my happiness was so I could make informed choices about it. Yes? (Again, if you disagree, we can stop here and address it.)
Conversely, suppose hypothetically I don’t value happiness that I believe comes from falsehood, but I otherwise value happiness. In this case, it follows that I value both H1 and H2. For example, in this case if after ten years I discovered he’d been lying to me all along, I might feel relieved that I hadn’t discovered that sooner, because that would have ruined ten years of perfectly valuable happiness. Yes? (Again, if you disagree, we can stop here and address it.)
So, to put that differently:
If I don’t value happiness that I believe comes from falsehood, I should prefer to remain deceived, since that way I can keep getting valuable happiness.
If I don’t value happiness that comes from falsehoods, I should prefer to know the truth, since that way I can correctly evaluate whether the happiness I’m getting is valuable.
...and your position is that the former, but not the latter, is generally true of people. Yes?
I read your entire discussion the TheOtherDave and everyone else before replying. He said pretty much everything I would have said in these replies.
Reading further through the discussion I found this statement by you:
Remember that here I argued that, while happiness based on false beliefs isn’t valuable, it isn’t necessarily as bad as other negative things. For instance, I pointed out that if a mad scientist offered me a choice between decades of torture, or pressing a button that would alter my memory to make me hold a false belief, I would pick the button. Similarly, if the act of worship prevents someone’s life from being utterly miserable (or from being tortured by the Inquisition), it may be the lesser of two evils.
I’m pretty sure most people don’t literally believe that their child is the best child ever by some objective measure. I think that those are phatic statements, they are meant to express emotions rather than convey factual information. In this case the emotion being expressed is “I really love my daughter.”
I certainly understand the tremendous moral hazard that comes with attempting to judge how much other people value things. But I don’t think I’m out of line in stating that people generally don’t place value on happiness that comes from falsehoods. Pretty much all people hate being lied to.
People generally don’t place value on happiness that they believe comes from falsehoods.
Just to make sure I understand your position… consider two hypothetical instances of happiness, H1 and H2:
H1is my happiness at believing my relationship with my husband is a loving, honest, open one in which we don’t deceive one another, which it in fact is.
H2 is my happiness at believing my relationship with my husband is a loving, honest, open one in which we don’t deceive one another, which it in fact isn’t.
The following seems clear, given that context:
H1 is happiness that comes from truth.
H2 is happiness that comes from falsehood.
Neither H1 nor H2 is happiness that I believe comes from falsehoods… in both cases, my happiness comes from believing the proposition “my relationship with my husband is a loving, honest, open one in which we don’t deceive one another” to be truth.
Would you disagree with any of the above?
If so, we can stop here and address the disagreement.
If not, continuing...
Suppose hypothetically that I don’t value happiness that comes from falsehood, but I otherwise value happiness.
In this case, it follows that I value H1 but don’t value H2.
For example, in this case if after ten years I discovered he’d been lying to me all along, I might feel cheated… I’ve spent ten years enjoying this happiness that I thought was valuable, when it turns out it wasn’t valuable at all, since it came from falsehood. At that point, I’d regret those ten years, and wish I’d known how valueless my happiness was so I could make informed choices about it.
Yes? (Again, if you disagree, we can stop here and address it.)
Conversely, suppose hypothetically I don’t value happiness that I believe comes from falsehood, but I otherwise value happiness.
In this case, it follows that I value both H1 and H2.
For example, in this case if after ten years I discovered he’d been lying to me all along, I might feel relieved that I hadn’t discovered that sooner, because that would have ruined ten years of perfectly valuable happiness.
Yes? (Again, if you disagree, we can stop here and address it.)
So, to put that differently:
If I don’t value happiness that I believe comes from falsehood, I should prefer to remain deceived, since that way I can keep getting valuable happiness.
If I don’t value happiness that comes from falsehoods, I should prefer to know the truth, since that way I can correctly evaluate whether the happiness I’m getting is valuable.
...and your position is that the former, but not the latter, is generally true of people.
Yes?