However, Alice is very bright, and is the type of person who can adapt herself to many situations and learn skills quickly. If Alice were to spend the first six months of college deeply immersing herself in studying business, she would probably start developing a passion for business. If she purposefully exposed herself to certain pro-business memeplexes (e.g. watched a movie glamorizing the life of Wall Street bankers), then she could speed up this process even further. After a few years of taking business classes, she would probably begin to forget what about English literature was so appealing to her, and be extremely grateful that she made the decision she did. Therefore she would gain the same 2 mu from having a job she is passionate about, along with an additional 1 mu from being rich, meaning that the 3 mu choice of business wins out over the 2 mu choice of English.
Isn’t it better to find ways to be happy given one’s current characteristics than to change those characteristics? Maybe Alice should get a business degree and make enough money to spend time studying English literature for 3 + 2 = 5 mu, or even in the worst case 3+epsilon mu if she absolutely hates business and never appreciates it enough to gain more than epsilon utility from having the degree other than the 1 mu from the better job with which to fund an English degree.
Maybe I’m misreading your post and you didn’t intend to suggest that Alice completely gives up something which has genuine utility in favor of altering herself to acquire utility from something that previously didn’t yield any.
Isn’t it better to find ways to be happy given one’s current characteristics than to change those characteristics? Maybe Alice should get a business degree and make enough money to spend time studying English literature for 3 + 2 = 5 mu, or even in the worst case 3+epsilon mu if she absolutely hates business and never appreciates it enough to gain more than epsilon utility from having the degree other than the 1 mu from the better job with which to fund an English degree.
Maybe I’m misreading your post and you didn’t intend to suggest that Alice completely gives up something which has genuine utility in favor of altering herself to acquire utility from something that previously didn’t yield any.