Let’s say I offered you a magic pill. I assure you it’ll improve your life, but I don’t tell you how, other than to say some other people were happy they took it. It would be rational to be fearful and uncertain, and refuse to take the pill. It would not, however, be rational to assert that taking the magic pill would be against your values. You don’t know that in advance, because you don’t know what the pill does.
You probably do know, on the other hand, what a syringe of heroin does, roughly speaking. You understand pleasure, and can imagine having more of it at the expense of other things you value would be bad. But whatever the magic pill does, would that be worth having more of at the expense of other things you value? Hard to say, if you’ve never felt its effects. By comparing the magic pill to heroin, you’re implicitly suggesting that companionate love is somehow more like raw pleasure (cheap, hedonic, not valuable), and less like the satisfaction you get from achieving your ambitions (virtuous, fulfilling, important). In reality, if you don’t know what the experience of companionate love is, then I don’t think you can know whether or not that experience is inside the circle of “your values” or not. (It still may be rational not to take the magic pill, simply out of uncertainty.)
As for your two points about Oxytocin (that its contribution to values is especially strong, and that companionate love is easy to achieve), I think there are plenty of values with a higher contribution to a person’s overall values than love (see anything lower on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs), most of which are also easier to fulfill. I’d be interested in knowing, if it were possible, if you’d take a drug to suppress the satisfaction you get from eating food, or blunt your sex drive, to give you more drive to accomplish loftier goals. Or if not, why not?
A final thought: Would a virgin male who had their first orgasm at age 40 be changing their values to include orgasm and sexual relief, or simply realizing their existing values had gone unmet for 40 years?
Let’s say I offered you a magic pill. I assure you it’ll improve your life, but I don’t tell you how, other than to say some other people were happy they took it. It would be rational to be fearful and uncertain, and refuse to take the pill. It would not, however, be rational to assert that taking the magic pill would be against your values. You don’t know that in advance, because you don’t know what the pill does.
You probably do know, on the other hand, what a syringe of heroin does, roughly speaking. You understand pleasure, and can imagine having more of it at the expense of other things you value would be bad. But whatever the magic pill does, would that be worth having more of at the expense of other things you value? Hard to say, if you’ve never felt its effects. By comparing the magic pill to heroin, you’re implicitly suggesting that companionate love is somehow more like raw pleasure (cheap, hedonic, not valuable), and less like the satisfaction you get from achieving your ambitions (virtuous, fulfilling, important). In reality, if you don’t know what the experience of companionate love is, then I don’t think you can know whether or not that experience is inside the circle of “your values” or not. (It still may be rational not to take the magic pill, simply out of uncertainty.)
As for your two points about Oxytocin (that its contribution to values is especially strong, and that companionate love is easy to achieve), I think there are plenty of values with a higher contribution to a person’s overall values than love (see anything lower on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs), most of which are also easier to fulfill. I’d be interested in knowing, if it were possible, if you’d take a drug to suppress the satisfaction you get from eating food, or blunt your sex drive, to give you more drive to accomplish loftier goals. Or if not, why not?
A final thought: Would a virgin male who had their first orgasm at age 40 be changing their values to include orgasm and sexual relief, or simply realizing their existing values had gone unmet for 40 years?