The Agony Challenge For Objective List Theory

Objective list theorists may have to hold that those who are unfathomably miserable can be arbitrarily well off

Here, I shall argue that only hedonism can account for someone in extreme agony not being well off. These considerations were heavily inspired by Pummer’s considerations here.

Richard Yetter-Chappell has suggested that objective list goods multiply the value of pleasure. However, in order to avoid a puzzling asymmetry between pleasure and pain, he holds the following

Symmetry: Objective list goods multiply the value of pain diminishment.

Thus, if having a powerful bonding experience with your loved one made your pain reduced, that would produce extra value.

But this gets a really implausible result, namely, that horrific agony is sometimes good. Suppose you’re in extreme agony, but it’s been reduced an unfathomable amount by a loved one. You really don’t seem well off — but this version of objective list theory holds that you are. If you have a cluster headache that would have been as bad as three cluster headaches if not for objective list based values, you really don’t seem well off.

One could reject symmetry and hold

Net Value Multiplication: Objective list goods multiply the value of hedonic experiences iff¹ the experiences are overall hedonically positive. However, this leads to the following conclusion that is unintuitive if we accept objective list theory.

Good and pain: Suppose I experience 1,000 units of suffering, while deriving 999 units of the most objective list-based valuable pleasure possible. I am well off.

It seems like the objective list theorist would want to accept Good and pain. However, this account must deny it.

To reject good and pain, the objective list theorist could accept the following

Multiplicative pleasure: Objective list goods multiply the value of pleasure, independently of the amount of pain experienced.

However, this requires accepting

Strange asymmetry: If a person is currently in pain, it is better to increase their pleasure by N in ways that satisfy objective list goods, rather than decrease their pain by N in ways that satisfy objective list goods.

This is really implausible.

This also requires accepting

Simultaneous ecstasy and misery: A person who is currently experiencing unfathomable pleasure, but far greater pain, is well off if their pleasure derives from an objective list source.

This is incredibly implausible — a person whose net hedonic state is more negative than the holocaust does not seem well off.

However, there’s a second reason the objective list theorist is committed to this. If they accept the type of view laid out by Chappell, which says that appreciating the good is especially valuable, presumably they accept

Momentary non-overlapping ecstasy and misery: If you have a series of seconds where for half of them you’re in extreme pleasure and for half of them you’re in extreme pain, where the pain is significantly greater than the pleasure, you can be well off overall if the pleasure derives from an objective list source.

This is itself a wildly implausible view, that seems to render objective list theory out as a plausible candidate theory. A person who experiences unfathomable misery before getting half as much pleasure isn’t well off. But this can combine with

Momentary agony irrelevance: The moment when the agony is experienced doesn’t matter, all else equal.

This is very plausible. However, these combine to commit the objective list theorist to Simultaneous ecstasy and misery², which is wildly implausible.

1. This means if and only if

2. Remember, this is “A person who is currently experiencing unfathomable pleasure, but far greater pain, is well off if their pleasure derives from an objective list source.”