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snarles comments on Utilons vs. Hedons - Less Wrong
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That's why my argument focuses on arguments surrounding legalization rather than on the law itself. There are many potential reasons why drugs remain illegal, from your argument to well-intentioned utilitarianism to big pharma. However, when you look at arguments for legalization, you seldom hear a public figure say, "But people really like getting high!" Similarly, if you're hearing an argument for, say, abstinence-only sex ed, you never hear someone say, "But teenagers really like having sex!" Even with more "neutral" topics like a junk food tax, arguments like "I don't want the government telling me what to eat" seem far more common than "But some people really like deep fried lard!" Though that example I am less sure of, and it is certainly less consistent than the other two. In general though, you don't see people arguing that hedons should be a meaningful factor in any policy, and I think this strongly indicates that our society does not assign a high value to the attaining of of hedons, in the way it assigns value to say, being thin or being wealthy.
" Even with more "neutral" topics like a junk food tax, arguments like "I don't want the government telling me what to eat" seem far more common than "But some people really like deep fried lard!"
I think this is mostly rationalization:
In a practical sense, we have a very strong drive to pleasure and enjoyment, but our Judeo-Christian tradition (like most other religions as well, but let's keep it simple) makes a sport of downplaying pleasure as a factor in human happiness, even making it into something dirty or at least suspicious.
Fortunately, when the time of enlightenment came, it did not reestablish pleasure as a desirable goal, but opened a great back door for rationalization: the very concept of freedom. The long ascetic tradition going back several thousand years put a very strong barrier to publicly admitting this significant part of our driving force. Freedom was promoted instead. Of course "freedom" is a very fuzzy word. It can refer to several more or less disconnected fuzzy concepts like independence of foreign power, free practice of religion, personal liberties, etc.
Still "Freedom" is also a wildcard for saying: "Don't mess with my hedons!".
Of course, I won't admit that I am softie and care about all those nice convenient or exciting stuff, but don't dare to dispute my freedom to do whatever I want! (Unless it harms anyone else.)
So the concept of freedom is an ideal invention for our anyways irrational and hypocritical society: it allows public discussion to covertly recognize the value of individual pleasures by referring to this established, noble, abstract concept that fortunately made it into the set of few keywords that command immediate respect and unquestioned reverence.
I know I've read a number of economists doing utilitarian analyses of drug legalization that take into account the enjoyment people get from drugs. Jacob Sullum's "Saying Yes" is basically a defense of drug use.
I argue in favor of keeping your damn dirty hands off my fatty food on the basis of my enjoyment of it. I also enjoy rock'n'roll, but don't care much about sex'n'drugs (though I think those should be legal too).
How can you enjoy one without the others?
This is a good objection. I can see another reason why this is a poor example.
Our morals evolved in a society that (to begin with) has no Omegas. If you have an opportunity to hurt a lot of people and profit from it, it's a very safe bet that someone will find out one day that you did it, and you will be punished proportionally. So our instincts (morals, whatever) tell us very strongly not to do this. The proposed secrecy is an added hint (to our subconscious thinking) that this action is not accepted by society, so it's very dangerous.
Rejecting the proposal is unnecessary, excessive caution. If people were more rational, and more serious about maximizing hedons (rather than, say, concentrating on minimizing risk once a suitable lifelong level of hedons has been reached), then more people would accept Omega's proposal!