The Wayward Axolotl

Our culture assumes that freedom is generally good, and that people should be free to pursue their own desires, unless that pursuit conflicts with the freedom of others. This view is so pervasive that most people would struggle to understand a critique of it. However, it is based on dubious assumptions. One of those assumptions is that people know what is good for them. This assumption is linked to hedonism. If pleasure and pain are the ultimate good and bad, then you have direct awareness of what is good and bad for you. You could be mistaken about the consequences of your actions, but not about what is intrinsically good or bad. Hedonism is taken for granted by our culture, even though the word “hedonism” is somewhat pejorative. When people use “hedonism” pejoratively, they often mean the short-sighted pursuit of pleasure with little regard for long-term consequences or effects on other people. They still assume that pleasure and pain are the ultimate source of value. B

Apparently, the following is an argument made by Sam Harris on twitter, in a series of tweets. Unfortunately, the original tweets have been deleted, so I relied on a secondary source . Let’s assume that there are no ought’s or should’s in this universe. There is only what *is*—the totality of actual (and possible) facts. Among the myriad things that exist are conscious minds, susceptible to a vast range of actual (and possible) experiences. Unfortunately, many experiences suck. And they don’t just suck as a matter of cultural convention or personal bias—they really and truly suck. (If you doubt this, place your hand on a hot stove and report back.) Conscious minds are natural phenomena. Consequently, if we were to learn everything there is to know about physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, economics, etc., we would know everything there is to know about making our corner of the universe suck less. If we *should* do anything in thi

Essay from the book Lucifer’s Question . Hedonic utilitarianism is the tacit moral theory of the modern West. It is rarely stated explicitly, but it is implicit in most moral discourse. Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill proposed hedonic utilitarianism as a philosophical theory of value. See Classical Utilitarianism in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Hedonic utilitarianism has two core assumptions: Hedonism: Pain is intrinsically bad for the experiencer, pleasure is intrinsically good for the experiencer, and nothing else is intrinsically bad or good. Altruism: We have a moral obligation to act for the good of others, not just for our own good. Altruism depends on the definition of a moral circle: the others to whom we should be altruistic. The moral circle could be all human beings or all sentient beings. In this essay, I will assume the latter. Given the hedonism assumption, it is the least arbitrary choice. The hedonic utilitarian believes that

This is a response to a video and blog post by Conundrum. I will insert blocks of text from his blog post and respond to them. He opens with: A response to videos by BlitheringGenius, where he to argues that reproduction is the only source of value and that those who do not reproduce are losers. I show major cracks in the foundation of his argument, which make it crumble to dust. Sounds exciting. Let’s see if it lives up to the hype. He is responding to the videos: Reproduction | Masturbation The Zen of Being an Entropy Tube I have offered a voice discussion/debate to Conundrum, but he has rejected it. Yes, I claim that reproduction is the biological purpose of life, and the ultimate source of value. Psychology is downstream from biology. Psychological desires get their normativity from emotions, and emotions are an evolved mechanism, which was selected to generate adaptive behavior. We can trace back all values to biology. Wi