It seems to me that the view that a happy life is just about pleasant
experiences is a fantasy. I’m not saying that it is not desirable
to have a life full of pleasant experiences, just that a happy life involves
more than that.
In his famous thought experiment, Robert Nozick asked readers
to imagine an experience machine that would give them any experience they
desired. They would be able to select experiences from a large library and the
machine would be pre-programmed to give them those experiences while they spent
the rest of their lives floating in a tank (‘Anarchy, State and Utopia’, 1971,
pp 42-44).
Would you choose to spend the rest of your life hooked up to
such a machine?
Nozick suggests that we learn that something matters to us
other than experiences by imagining the experience machine and then realizing
that we would not use it. He suggests three reasons why you probably wouldn’t
use it. You want to do things, not just have the experience of doing them. You
would not want to be a person floating in a tank – that is not consistent with how
you see yourself. And the machine would limit you to man-made reality – ‘to a
world no deeper or more important than that which people can construct’.
It might be reasonable to argue that people plugged into the
experience machine would be happy – in the sense that their overall emotional
condition would be positive. They might have peace of mind, confidence, inner
freedom, and feelings of vitality, flow, joy and cheerfulness (to use terms in Dan
Haybron’s definition of happiness, discussed on this blog some time ago). I see
some merit in that definition of happiness, but it isn’t the definition of
happiness that I have in mind when I assert that it is a fantasy that a happy
life is all about experiences.
What I have in mind when I refer to a ‘happy life’ is ‘human
flourishing’. I don’t have a huge problem with the idea that positive feelings
are all about experiences. (Perhaps it might be better to talk in terms of
perceptions of experiences - the meaning we attach to experiences must also come
into the equation.) But I don’t see how anyone could argue that human
flourishing is all about experiences. It seems obvious that a person who spent
a life-time hooked up to an experience machine would not be flourishing.
What about motivation? Are those who define happiness as a
positive emotional condition able to claim that happiness is the only motivator
of human behaviour? One person who seems close to holding that position is the
psychologist, Dan Gilbert. He certainly adopts the definition of happiness as a
positive feeling and almost claims that it is the only motivator:
‘Everyone who has observed human behaviour for more than
thirty continuous seconds seems to have noticed that people are strongly,
perhaps even primarily, perhaps even single-mindedly, motivated to feel happy’
(‘Stumbling on Happiness’, 2006, p 36).
As an economist, I don’t have any difficulty in accepting
that just about all human action is motivated by desires of some kind. But if
people are strongly motivated by a desire to experience positive feelings, would
they not view a life hooked up to the hypothetical experience machine - where
positive feelings can be guaranteed - as desirable? Martin Seligman, the
founder of positive psychology, says that most of the people to whom he has
offered the hypothetical choice refuse it. His explanation:
‘It is not just
positive feelings we want, we want to be entitled
to our positive feelings’ (‘Authentic Happiness’, 2002, p 8).
The main power of the experience machine metaphor seems to
come from the life-time commitment involved. The nature of humans is such that
few of us would view a life-time of virtual reality as a meaningful life.
However, it seems to me that the thought experiment can also
help to clarify some issues if we relax the condition of life-time connection.
The practical question can be raised of how much time we might be prepared to
spend hooked up to a virtual reality machine as a form of entertainment. As
virtual experiences become less easy to distinguish from real experiences,
people may be tempted to spend more time enjoying virtual reality at the
expense of other forms of entertainment, or even work. While many of us would
see an hour or two of virtual reality now and then as harmless escapism, we
would probably want to draw a line somewhere to ensure that we live meaningful
lives. The issues involved are similar to those many of us have had to deal with in
learning how to switch off the TV.
My point is that when we make such choices we take into
account factors other than the positive feelings generated by different
experiences. It is natural for us to think also about the objectives we have
for our lives – the kinds of persons we want to become - and the extent to
which different experiences might contribute to those goals.
Some people could suggest that it doesn’t make much difference in
practice whether or not people believe the fantasy that a happy life is all
about pleasant experiences. I think it might matter a great deal. For example,
people who believe that fantasy might give less thought to what they could do
to make their own lives meaningful. They might also be more inclined to neglect
to help their children to develop the skills in self-direction that they need
to have happy lives.
No I don't think so, If we build a positive attitude in us then we fell happiness and can experience a pleasant happy life.
ReplyDeleteSo, you would choose to live your life in an experience machine if that option was available?
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ReplyDelete