2 Comments

Seems like the "wrong kind of reason". While true enough that there's a sense in which you should (for instrumental reasons) value mud if the demon incentivized it, that's *not* the sense in which most of us think we should non-instrumentally value our friends. Rather, we think that's the correct/fitting/warranted response, not *just* the most useful/fortunate response.

Expand full comment
author

I agree that there will nonetheless be substantive differences between hedonism and objective list theory about both what one should value and why one should value it. However, I think that there's substantial overlap. I also think that, in the mud case, while it may be structurally the same situation, there's a huge difference. Take something that's not on the objective list but that you think could be on it, maybe achievements or knowledge. While you may only want those for hedonic reasons, it seems to debase them somewhat to say that you want them for the same reason that a person values mud who'd be tortured by a demon if they didn't. The types of robust forms of happiness that are made possible by relationships when people care deeply about each other are very different from demonic ultimatums.

Expand full comment