They would really believe that all Jews are dead if successfully lied to, so their stress would decrease just as much as as if they all were indeed dead.
If this is the case then the Nazis do not really want to kill the Jews. What they really want to do is decrease their stress, killing Jews is just an instrumental goal to achieve that end. My understanding of the original thought experiment was that killing Jews was a terminal value for the Nazis, something they valued for its own sake regardless of whether it helped them achieve any other goals. In other words, even if you were able to modify the Nazi brains so they didn’t feel stress at the knowledge that Jews existed, they would still desire to kill them.
Does this sound right?
Yes, that’s exactly the point I was trying to make, although I prefer the term “personal satisfaction” rather than “personal happiness” to reflect the possibility that there are other values then happiness.
If this is the case then the Nazis do not really want to kill the Jews. What they really want to do is decrease their stress, killing Jews is just an instrumental goal to achieve that end. My understanding of the original thought experiment was that killing Jews was a terminal value for the Nazis, something they valued for its own sake regardless of whether it helped them achieve any other goals. In other words, even if you were able to modify the Nazi brains so they didn’t feel stress at the knowledge that Jews existed, they would still desire to kill them.
Yes, that’s exactly the point I was trying to make, although I prefer the term “personal satisfaction” rather than “personal happiness” to reflect the possibility that there are other values then happiness.