I'm here again to distract you from your actual debate partner
Let's go through this:
"Utilitarians would agree that those are your best moments because they produced a better world."
Not the argument that's being made, if I'm understanding it correctly. The point here is that what was "good for them" was *not* to increase their own happiness but to do the right thing, even if it didn't make them happier.
"I’d just reject the intuition here."
As you can see, Utilitarianism is pro-Stalin!!!
"While people might not want to take the pill, hat would be an error on their part."
Utilitarians brag about 'expanding the moral circle' yet assert as forcefully as possible that they alone have the right to make decisions for others. Really makes you think.
"then it would be morally neutral to press a button that would make people who have taken the pill only gain half as much happiness from it."
If they consented to taking the pill, then presumably the act of interfering with their choices would itself be bad.
"This is a very difficult pill to swallow."
This is a Pill I would swallow. If you're making an experience machine, the least you can do is make it an actually good wireheader.
"(aside from issues of consent)."
This is sweeping aside literally everything lol.
"In what sense is pleasure gained by eating good food authentic"
The food actually exists. Though getting pleasure out of it is certainly minimal and possibly qualitatively lesser then other good things.
"Why does heaven give authentic pleasure?"
I'm an atheist, but if I were not...
Heaven (and God by extension) and more powerful then both logic or metaphysics, so the point is moot. In any event, Heaven could be Authentic because you are at minimum interacting with real people and things there that have objective existence.
"If a person didn’t want authentic pleasure and would take the pill would they be irrational"
I don't know what that last word means.
"If you new your current life was the result of you having taken a pill that made you happy"
If everyone in my current life was fake or an illusion, then I would probably go back to whatever life I had before. However, if I was told that I *willingly* took such a pill I would have to give the matter significantly more thought.
However, I do want to say that the concept of "you" taking a pill that somehow erased all your memories and your entire life sounds suspiciously closer to simply dying then being the "same person".
Moving on...
"Their actual self is replaced by a robot version of themself, which acts exactly like they would"
Presumably the existence of this robot would prove that free will is fake news. If that's true, then all of ethics is moot because we're just floating consciousnesses along for the ride. also, I have a strong intuition that the scenario you describe is in fact perfectly identical to normal life, as one is getting real time communication from a real person, and everything they say is being communicated in real time back to that real person.
"in the actual world their wife is relatively physically unattractive"
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder Mr. Bulldog.
"the brain waves in the body that I feel like I’m part of that both generate my thoughts and the actions that the body takes."
Again, mooting free will takes ethics down with it. Also, I'm not exactly sure how someone can simultaneously be the product of brainwaves in a body and also be millions of miles away from those very brainwaves. There are a lot more problems like this in our hypothetical, I can't understand what's going on here in all honesty.
> So what is the alternative? The alternative is a Divine law.
>.< bruh moment. Nvm Mr. bulldog. please destroy this clown.
I'm here again to distract you from your actual debate partner
Let's go through this:
"Utilitarians would agree that those are your best moments because they produced a better world."
Not the argument that's being made, if I'm understanding it correctly. The point here is that what was "good for them" was *not* to increase their own happiness but to do the right thing, even if it didn't make them happier.
"I’d just reject the intuition here."
As you can see, Utilitarianism is pro-Stalin!!!
"While people might not want to take the pill, hat would be an error on their part."
Utilitarians brag about 'expanding the moral circle' yet assert as forcefully as possible that they alone have the right to make decisions for others. Really makes you think.
"then it would be morally neutral to press a button that would make people who have taken the pill only gain half as much happiness from it."
If they consented to taking the pill, then presumably the act of interfering with their choices would itself be bad.
"This is a very difficult pill to swallow."
This is a Pill I would swallow. If you're making an experience machine, the least you can do is make it an actually good wireheader.
"(aside from issues of consent)."
This is sweeping aside literally everything lol.
"In what sense is pleasure gained by eating good food authentic"
The food actually exists. Though getting pleasure out of it is certainly minimal and possibly qualitatively lesser then other good things.
"Why does heaven give authentic pleasure?"
I'm an atheist, but if I were not...
Heaven (and God by extension) and more powerful then both logic or metaphysics, so the point is moot. In any event, Heaven could be Authentic because you are at minimum interacting with real people and things there that have objective existence.
"If a person didn’t want authentic pleasure and would take the pill would they be irrational"
I don't know what that last word means.
"If you new your current life was the result of you having taken a pill that made you happy"
If everyone in my current life was fake or an illusion, then I would probably go back to whatever life I had before. However, if I was told that I *willingly* took such a pill I would have to give the matter significantly more thought.
However, I do want to say that the concept of "you" taking a pill that somehow erased all your memories and your entire life sounds suspiciously closer to simply dying then being the "same person".
Moving on...
"Their actual self is replaced by a robot version of themself, which acts exactly like they would"
Presumably the existence of this robot would prove that free will is fake news. If that's true, then all of ethics is moot because we're just floating consciousnesses along for the ride. also, I have a strong intuition that the scenario you describe is in fact perfectly identical to normal life, as one is getting real time communication from a real person, and everything they say is being communicated in real time back to that real person.
"in the actual world their wife is relatively physically unattractive"
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder Mr. Bulldog.
"the brain waves in the body that I feel like I’m part of that both generate my thoughts and the actions that the body takes."
Again, mooting free will takes ethics down with it. Also, I'm not exactly sure how someone can simultaneously be the product of brainwaves in a body and also be millions of miles away from those very brainwaves. There are a lot more problems like this in our hypothetical, I can't understand what's going on here in all honesty.
> So what is the alternative? The alternative is a Divine law.
>.< bruh moment. Nvm Mr. bulldog. please destroy this clown.