AJHHHHH Flashcards
What topics did landau cover?
- A framework for thinking about the meaning of life in terms of goodness and value
- was a pluralist about goodness; argued that many things are good
- never told us which things are valuable/ good
What kind of questions does Hurka answer?
Practical questions about what we ought to do
Hurka argues that the effect our decisions have on ___ is extremely relevant
ourselves + others
what does Hurka claim about practical decisions? What implication does this have?
correct practical decisions are good decisions. This implies that in order to figure out what is correct, we must find out what is good and bad
Hurka’s four intrinsic goods:
virtue, knowledge, achievement, pleasure
What did Thomas Hobbes think about the best life you can live?
The best life you can live is where you get the most of what you want.
physical/simple pleasure
pleasure that is the result of stimuli
intellectual pleasure
pleasure that is about something
the case of the masochist
masochists are in a physical sense of pain, but they are experiencing intellectual pleasure about the fact that they are in pain
What are Hurka’s opinion on Hobbes view on what the best life is?
- even if his view on happiness is true, it doesn’t make finding the answers to practical questions any easier. ( what gives you the most of what you want??)
- sometimes getting everything that we want doesn’t translate to living your best life.
practical questions
what we should/ought to do
intrinsically good
good in and of themselves
instrumentally good
a good that is a means to get something that is instrumentally good
what does Hurka think about value?
Hurka is a pluralist about value, meaning he thinks that many things are intrinsically good
How does Hurka think we should find the answers to practical questions?
figure out what is intrinsically good
pleasure and pain are
feelings/ phenomenal experiences
What does Hurka think about pleasure and pain?
you cannot have knowledge of pleasure or pain by testimony
phenomenal experiences
you must experience it to know what it is
How does Hurka distinguish between intellectual and physical pleasures?
1) they feel different
2) masochism
short pleasure + 2 examples
experienced for a limited duration of time; sex (physical), pleasure that your favorite sports team won (intellectual)
long pleasure + 2 examples
experienced for a long duration of time; pleasant mood (physical), life satisfaction (intellectual)
ethical hedonists
think goodness is just pleasure
phycological hedonism
people are purely motivated by pleasure
why does Hurka disagree with ethical hedonism?
many people accept ethical hedonism because they believe in psychological hedonism, which he thinks is false.
The cart before the horse argument against psychological hedonism
p1: if PH is true, then all our desires come from a need for pleasure
p2: not all our desires come from pleasure
p3: PH is not true
ex: say you want to help a homeless man and then experience pleasure, it seems like you wanted to help the homeless man first and then experienced pleasure as a result.
Argument for psychological hedonism from evolution
p1: given that simpler creatures have been evolutionarily selected for; we must accept the simplest view on humans
p2:humans are simpler on psychological hedonism than not
p3: psychological hedonism is true
Hurka argues that P2 is false, it isn’t necessarily true that people are simpler on PH
What is Hurka’s view on the simple view of pleasure?
He is sympathetic to this view, because complex views (the idea that some pleasures are better than others) are hard to deffend
What is the simple view on pleasure
all four types of pleasure are worth pursuing equally
What is Hurka’s view on the simple view of pleasure?
He is sympathetic to this view, because complex views (the idea that some pleasures are better than others) are hard to defend
what are the four ways of making yourself feel good?
give yourself physical pleasures, put yourself in a good mood, make yourself get intellectual pleasures from getting what you want, make yourself enjoy things
What does Hurka think about giving yourself physical pleasures?
they are short lived, have diminishing and often inverse returns.
What does Hurka think about physical pleasure in contrast to other philosophers?
Plato thinks that “physical pleasure” is simply the absence of an unpleasant feeling. Hurka disagrees, he thinks pleasure is a feeling
What does Hurka think about putting yourself in a good mood?
Our moods are generally out of our control, as in studies it has been shown that our moods are largely genetic
What does Hurka think about getting pleasure by getting what you want? (three reasons why)
He thinks getting pleasure by getting what you want isn’t effective
1) The more we get what we want, what we want means less to us
EX: money, money means a lot when it lifts you out of poverty but after that it doesn’t offer much in terms of happiness. This is partly because we care about how much we have in relation to others
- [Harvard study] People would rather make 50k when everyone else makes 25k, then make 100k when everyone else makes 200k
2) Hedonic treadmill. Say you get more money, eventually, you are likely to adapt to your new lifestyle and yearn for more, and the cycle repeats