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Toggle comments on Open thread, July 21-27, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: polymathwannabe 21 July 2014 01:15PM

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Comment author: NancyLebovitz 21 July 2014 03:48:17PM 2 points [-]

Fear of happiness

Some major cultures and some individuals mistrust happiness (see article for reasons)-- if happiness is not a major value, how does this affect ethics/utilitarianism?

Comment author: Toggle 21 July 2014 07:49:37PM *  2 points [-]

Arguably, many consequentialists already fall in to this category. If you are unsettled by the image of a universe composed entirely of undifferentiated orgasmium, then it's a fair bet that happiness is not your (only) terminal value. To return to a common sentiment, "I don't want to maximize my happiness, I want to maximize my awesomeness."

That said, happiness is usually of some value to students of ethics. A system in which it had zero value could conceivably still be pretty happy for instrumental reasons, since happiness makes humans more efficient in the pursuit of most things that we can expect to be valued. Once you start creating non-human entities from the ground up, you would expect happiness to become rare, although not necessarily to be replaced with misery. (The paperclipper is such a force.)