What are you trying to say? Preference-satisfaction is exactly as absolute and objective a value as complexity; it’s just one that happens to explicitly depend on the contents of people’s minds.
Now I don’t know what you are trying to say. Saying that preferences are values is tautological—“preferences” and “values” are synonyms in this kind of discussion.
One of the things that currently frustrates me most about this site is the confusion that seems to surround the use of words like value, preference, happiness, and utility. Unfortunately, these words do not have settled, consistent meanings, even within literatures that utilize them extensively (economics is a great example of this; philosophy tends to be better, though still not perfect). Nor does it seem likely that we will be able to collectively settle on consistent usages across the community. (Indeed, some flexibility may even be useful.)
Given that, can we please stop insisting that others’ statements are wrong/nonsensical/tautological etc. simply on the basis that they aren’t using our own preferred definitions. If something seems not to make sense to you, consider extending some interpretative charity by (a) considering whether it might make sense given alternative definitions; and/or (b) asking for clarification, before engaging in potentially misguided criticisms.
EDIT: By way of example here, many people would claim that things can be valuable, independently of whether anyone has a preference for them. You may not think such a view is defensible, but it’s not obviously gibberish, and if you want to argue against it, you’ll need more than a definitional fiat.
Whoa! Hold your horses! I started out by saying: “I don’t know what you are trying to say.” Clarify definitions away—if that is the problem—which seems rather unlikely.
Read what I said: “preference-satisfaction is… a value”, not “preferences are values”. The point is that the extent to which people’s preferences are satisfied is just as objective a property of a situation as the amount of complexity present.
The point is that the extent to which people’s preferences are satisfied is just as objective a property of a situation as the amount of complexity present.
The preferences can be anything. If I claim that complexity should be one of the preferences, for me and for everyone, that’s an objective claim—“objective” in the sense “claiming an objective value valid for all observers, rather than a subjective value that they can choose arbitrarily”. It’s practically religious. It’s radically different from saying “people satisfy their preferences”.
“The extent to which people’s preferences are satisfied” is an objective property of a situation. But that has nothing to do with what I said; it’s using a different meaning of the word “objective”.
Trying for a sympathetic interpretation—I /think/ you must be talking about the preferences of a particular individual, or an average human—or something like that.
In general, preference-satisfaction is not specific—in the way that maximising complexity is (for some defined metric of complexity) - because the preferences could be any agent’s preferences—and different agents can have wildly different preferences.
Preference-satisfaction in this context is usually considered as an aggregate (usually a sum or an average) of the degree to which all individuals’ preferences are satisfied (for some defined metric of satisfaction).
What are you trying to say? Preference-satisfaction is exactly as absolute and objective a value as complexity; it’s just one that happens to explicitly depend on the contents of people’s minds.
Now I don’t know what you are trying to say. Saying that preferences are values is tautological—“preferences” and “values” are synonyms in this kind of discussion.
One of the things that currently frustrates me most about this site is the confusion that seems to surround the use of words like value, preference, happiness, and utility. Unfortunately, these words do not have settled, consistent meanings, even within literatures that utilize them extensively (economics is a great example of this; philosophy tends to be better, though still not perfect). Nor does it seem likely that we will be able to collectively settle on consistent usages across the community. (Indeed, some flexibility may even be useful.)
Given that, can we please stop insisting that others’ statements are wrong/nonsensical/tautological etc. simply on the basis that they aren’t using our own preferred definitions. If something seems not to make sense to you, consider extending some interpretative charity by (a) considering whether it might make sense given alternative definitions; and/or (b) asking for clarification, before engaging in potentially misguided criticisms.
EDIT: By way of example here, many people would claim that things can be valuable, independently of whether anyone has a preference for them. You may not think such a view is defensible, but it’s not obviously gibberish, and if you want to argue against it, you’ll need more than a definitional fiat.
Whoa! Hold your horses! I started out by saying: “I don’t know what you are trying to say.” Clarify definitions away—if that is the problem—which seems rather unlikely.
seemed more like an assertion than an attempt to seek clarification, but I apologize if I misinterpreted your intention.
The EDIT was supposed to be an attempt to clarify. Does the claim I made there make sense to you?
FWIW, to my way of thinking, we can talk about hypothetical preferences just about as easily as hypothetical values.
I’m afraid that I don’t understand the relevance of this to the discussion. Could you expand?
Read what I said: “preference-satisfaction is… a value”, not “preferences are values”. The point is that the extent to which people’s preferences are satisfied is just as objective a property of a situation as the amount of complexity present.
The preferences can be anything. If I claim that complexity should be one of the preferences, for me and for everyone, that’s an objective claim—“objective” in the sense “claiming an objective value valid for all observers, rather than a subjective value that they can choose arbitrarily”. It’s practically religious. It’s radically different from saying “people satisfy their preferences”.
“The extent to which people’s preferences are satisfied” is an objective property of a situation. But that has nothing to do with what I said; it’s using a different meaning of the word “objective”.
Trying for a sympathetic interpretation—I /think/ you must be talking about the preferences of a particular individual, or an average human—or something like that.
In general, preference-satisfaction is not specific—in the way that maximising complexity is (for some defined metric of complexity) - because the preferences could be any agent’s preferences—and different agents can have wildly different preferences.
Preference-satisfaction in this context is usually considered as an aggregate (usually a sum or an average) of the degree to which all individuals’ preferences are satisfied (for some defined metric of satisfaction).
The preferences of the people in the situation being evaluated.