Epicurus and the Experience Machine May 14, 2008
Posted by Cole in Epicurus, Pleasure.trackback
While I’m at it, I might as well post this other thought I had a while ago. I know imposing modern thought experiments on ancient philosophers may not work, but I wanted to sound other people out on this idea. I assume people are somewhat familiar with the idea behind Robert Nozick’s experience machine. People can get plugged into it and experience the best life they can dream of, presumably for an Epicurean it would be one of ataraxia. The bottom line of this thought experiment is that most people would choose not to go into the experience machine and live their current lives. My question is, is this faulty reasoning from an Epicurean point of view? I know the Epicurean philosophy is about adapting to this life and making it as untroubled as possible, and that this idea might not make sense to an ancient Greek. However, it seems that if confronted with the possibility of experiencing a life of pleasure and ataraxia without any disturbance were presented, shouldn’t the principles of Epicurean philosophy mandate that one take advantage of that possibility?
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Seems right to me. But Epicurus’ ethical theory is designed for people with a certain way of life–particular living conditions. Such a device does not exist. If it did, though, I suppose the Epicurean ought to plug in.
The experience machine seems to raise a counterexample to our intuition that an authentic life is better than an inauthentic one. It is not clear that Epicurus has any commitments to authenticity, but he does have a commitment to self-sufficiency. Of course, the whole point of the machine is that it simulates things like the satisfaction of self-sufficiency.
Epicurus thinks self-sufficiency is valuable, but is there any evidence that he thinks it is intrinsically valuable? Or is it only valuable insofar as it contributes to a kind of (intrinsically valuable) mental state? Don’t Epicureans think that everything — with the exception of pleasure — that is valuable (such as virtue, knowledge, and friendship) is only instrumentally valuable? If self-sufficiency is only instrumentally valuable, then not being self-sufficient would not count against plugging in.
A self-sufficient agent can be read as one who stands in a certain relation to her desires. She is one for whom the objects of her desires are not difficult to attain and the desires themselves not difficult to satisfy. On this reading the experience machine is just a machine that makes one self-sufficient. Of course, this is only true if one takes the experience of satisfaction (which is what the machine gives you) to be the goal. If the goal is actually having, say, a barley cake and some water, then the experience machine doesn’t help. But it seems like a account of katastematic pleasure might be given in which the experience of continued satisfaction is what counts. For example, Epicurus holds a materialist theory of mind and experience, so the machine must be able to manipulate the atoms of one’s soul in a way that simulates the manipulation that occurs when sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste effluences affect one’s soul.
That’s an interesting point.
On many desire-satisfaction views, at least part of what it means to have a desire that P satisfied is that P be true. So my desire that I drink water would not be satisfied by giving me the mental experience of drinking water (or the belief that I am drinking water); I must also actually drink water. (Note: such an account need not say that a desire that P is satisfied if P is true; but that only if P is true could the desire that P be satisfied — perhaps belief that P is true is also required for the desire to be satisfied).
At any rate, it is unclear how actually drinking the water (and not just the experience of drinking it) could be construed as part of the goal for Epicurus. After all, in Letter to Menoeceus (124), he writes:
“…all good and bad consists in sense-experience…”
Consider the state of the gods. They are completely untroubled and unconcerned with the world. This is an ideal state, something we can only aspire to. And it sounds a bit like being plugged into one of your machines. So, I think Epicurus would feel committed to endorse such a machine.
If Epicurus were to resist this conclusion, I have a hunch that it might be on the basis of friendship. We can’t really engage in camraderie with simulated people. It might even be a psychological fact that we can’t experience the pleasure of friendship if we know that we are only engaged with a simulated person. Perhaps this is way in which such a machine necessarily fails to simulate the best life imaginable (assuming that we know we’re in such a machine).