After writing about my ethics yesterday, there was some discussion about the axioms that I think are most needed to derive the rest of my ethics.
pleasure is good
nobody argues against this.
suffering is bad
Someone did argue that this is potentially untrue, that there exists “voluntary suffering”. I think this is one case where language is a bit inadequate.
I think it is very possible for “suffering” to be good. There are two cases for this:
“suffering” in which states are described as negative, but which are still positive valence. One example of this is the burn one feels from spicy food. This still feels good and is pleasurable, despite nominally having aspects which are described as bad. Some similar things are when crying feels cathartic. Or people who gain direct pleasure from painful stimuli. Often there is a limit to how far one can go before the direct pain stops feeling directly pleasurable, but there is a lot of variation in the human mind, and some people gain mental pleasure from being able to withstand levels of pain that are considered unbearable. This can be due to to things like feelings of pride, or servitude, or novelty.
“suffering” in which one was actually in pain/suffering at the time of the even, but which leads one to better mental states after the fact. Perhaps it leads one to grow and fix one’s other problems. Perhaps it is a memorable experience one finds valuable.
I have experienced both. Suffering can be a way to describe this, if the experience is also either positive-valence, or leading to longer-term pleasure, then I’m not sure it counts.
I think there are some forms of suffering that are near universally felt as bad. This can be chronic pain one gets from illness, or the suffering one can feel when feverish, scenarios of starvation or hunger, or through effective torture. And I guess with “suffering is bad” I am trying to point more-so at this.
death is bad
I guess I’m unsure. There are some more thought experiments that drive this intuition.
If one had the universe suddenly end and everyone died, would that be bad? Oleander argued not in a previous comment, but I think so. Partially this would be because you would be depriving people of more pleasure (as was argued by Measure).
What if everyone was in a state of very mild net-suffering overall? Hmm I guess I’m not as sure. I think this is just a bad state of the world. I would say death is bad but by some bounded amount that is out-weighed by the continued suffering.
What if everyone was replaced by beings that are similarly happy plus a tiny bit more? I guess I feel pretty uncomfortable about this one. In theory this should be an obvious trade, if the increase in happiness is sufficiently high, even with my framework. And that is probably true. But my values conflict here and I don’t like it.
I guess to some extent this is where my slightly more person-affecting views come it.
One slight intuition is something like “a universe which has the same pleasurable state repeated over and over again is less valuable than one which has more variation“. But I don’t think this is sufficient to explain it.
One could also consider the Epicurean challenge: “”So death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist“. But i don’t really buy it. I care about states of the world outside of when I am alive.
To be honest, it probably comes down to something like “I value my own continued existence, and thus end up drawing ethics in a way where this is justified”. So I am probably just being biased here. I am unsure how much I should update here though.
Thanks for reading Cute Suspicions! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
After writing about my ethics yesterday, there was some discussion about the axioms that I think are most needed to derive the rest of my ethics.
pleasure is good
nobody argues against this.
suffering is bad
Someone did argue that this is potentially untrue, that there exists “voluntary suffering”. I think this is one case where language is a bit inadequate.
I think it is very possible for “suffering” to be good. There are two cases for this:
“suffering” in which states are described as negative, but which are still positive valence. One example of this is the burn one feels from spicy food. This still feels good and is pleasurable, despite nominally having aspects which are described as bad. Some similar things are when crying feels cathartic. Or people who gain direct pleasure from painful stimuli. Often there is a limit to how far one can go before the direct pain stops feeling directly pleasurable, but there is a lot of variation in the human mind, and some people gain mental pleasure from being able to withstand levels of pain that are considered unbearable. This can be due to to things like feelings of pride, or servitude, or novelty.
“suffering” in which one was actually in pain/suffering at the time of the even, but which leads one to better mental states after the fact. Perhaps it leads one to grow and fix one’s other problems. Perhaps it is a memorable experience one finds valuable.
I have experienced both. Suffering can be a way to describe this, if the experience is also either positive-valence, or leading to longer-term pleasure, then I’m not sure it counts.
I think there are some forms of suffering that are near universally felt as bad. This can be chronic pain one gets from illness, or the suffering one can feel when feverish, scenarios of starvation or hunger, or through effective torture. And I guess with “suffering is bad” I am trying to point more-so at this.
death is bad
I guess I’m unsure. There are some more thought experiments that drive this intuition.
If one had the universe suddenly end and everyone died, would that be bad? Oleander argued not in a previous comment, but I think so. Partially this would be because you would be depriving people of more pleasure (as was argued by Measure).
What if everyone was in a state of very mild net-suffering overall? Hmm I guess I’m not as sure. I think this is just a bad state of the world. I would say death is bad but by some bounded amount that is out-weighed by the continued suffering.
What if everyone was replaced by beings that are similarly happy plus a tiny bit more? I guess I feel pretty uncomfortable about this one. In theory this should be an obvious trade, if the increase in happiness is sufficiently high, even with my framework. And that is probably true. But my values conflict here and I don’t like it.
I guess to some extent this is where my slightly more person-affecting views come it.
One slight intuition is something like “a universe which has the same pleasurable state repeated over and over again is less valuable than one which has more variation“. But I don’t think this is sufficient to explain it.
One could also consider the Epicurean challenge: “”So death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist“. But i don’t really buy it. I care about states of the world outside of when I am alive.
To be honest, it probably comes down to something like “I value my own continued existence, and thus end up drawing ethics in a way where this is justified”. So I am probably just being biased here. I am unsure how much I should update here though.
Oh, that’s not true at all. The statement “pleasure is good” has the exact same problem that “suffering is bad” has. It confuses the map for the territory. “The map says good” is only good if reality is good.
Heroin? Pleasurable, but problem.
Antisocial sadism, of the sort experienced by people like Ted Bundy? Problem. Not good.
It’s way more than that. First, let’s get clear on our terms.
Pain is the signal that we’re getting damaged. Suffering is the internal tension that this can create.
When you stub your toe and flinch away exclaiming “FUCK!”, gritting your teeth, you’re trying to get away from the sensation. Or when a loved one dies and you’re still saying “No! It can’t be!”. You’re fighting against it, and it’s tearing you apart. That’s suffering.
When you stop pushing back and just feel the pain, it’s different. You stub your toe, and don’t tense up in response. It’s just like.. “Wow. This really hurts”. Or when grieving it’s just sadness. There’s a purity to the sadness, and it will look very different on your face. That’s what it feels like to face reality and allow yourself to update on the new and unfortunate evidence. I don’t understand the physiology well enough to say if it’s necessarily going to follow this pattern, but I have noticed that when eating hot peppers my heart rate will go down if I don’t fight against the pain, and up if I do.
The purpose of suffering is that it means we get to fight back. We get to jerk our hands off of the hot stove, instead of sitting there thinking “Ooh, interesting. This is bad”. It means giving CPR for longer even when things are “hopeless”, which may on occasion actually work.
It’s not always clear how to disentangle things such that we will choose to stop fighting the battles that are counterproductive, so you can’t just tell people “Suffering is a choice, stop suffering”, in general. But it is a choice, and if you can understand why they’re choosing to fight reality well enough that you can make visible to them that it’s not the right choice (and not just that they “should conclude” that it’s not the right choice), that actually does resolve suffering even in extreme cases where someone has been in debilitating pain for a year because their nerves are fried. Once you can’t be motivated to fight it, there’s no fight. Pain, and damage, but no suffering.
The question isn’t “Suffering is bad, how to not suffer”, or “Does my map say this suffering is good” which is a question floating untethered from ground level reality.
The question that matters is “Which suffering is worth it”. Or, on the flipside, is this heroin really giving me what I want in life?
Well, yeah. You have to actively seek continued existence, or you will cease to exist shortly. You have to eat, drink, thermoregulate, and otherwise resist entropy. Friston extends this to literally every thing, including drops of oil. And if you predictably act to ensure your existence, that’s what “valuing your existence” is.
But that’s not “bias”, that’s the fundamental physics that grounds our values. Any conception of values that doesn’t pass this basic test won’t be taken seriously for long.