What in the world is intrinsically good — good in itself even if it has no other effects? Over the millennia, people have offered many answers: joy, justice, equality, accomplishment, loving god, wisdom, and plenty more.

The question is a classic that makes for great dorm-room philosophy discussion. But it’s hardly just of academic interest. The issue of what (if anything) is intrinsically valuable bears on every action we take, whether we’re looking to improve our own lives, or to help others. The wrong answer might lead us to the wrong project and render our efforts to improve the world entirely ineffective.

Today’s guest, Sharon Hewitt Rawlette — philosopher and author of The Feeling of Value: Moral Realism Grounded in Phenomenal Consciousness — wants to resuscitate an answer to this question that is as old as philosophy itself.

Rebroadcast: this episode was originally released in September 2022.

Links to learn more, highlights, and full transcript.

That idea, in a nutshell, is that there is only one thing of true intrinsic value: positive feelings and sensations. And similarly, there is only one thing that is intrinsically of negative value: suffering, pain, and other unpleasant sensations.

Lots of other things are valuable too: friendship, fairness, loyalty, integrity, wealth, patience, houses, and so on. But they are only instrumentally valuable — that is to say, they’re valuable as means to the end of ensuring that all conscious beings experience more pleasure and other positive sensations, and less suffering.

As Sharon notes, from Athens in 400 BC to Britain in 1850, the idea that only subjective experiences can be good or bad in themselves — a position known as ‘philosophical hedonism’ — has been one of the most enduringly popular ideas in ethics.

And few will be taken aback by the notion that, all else equal, more pleasure is good and less suffering is bad. But can they really be the only intrinsically valuable things?

Over the 20th century, philosophical hedonism became increasingly controversial in the face of some seemingly very counterintuitive implications. For this reason the famous philosopher of mind Thomas Nagel called The Feeling of Value “a radical and important philosophical contribution.”

So what convinces Sharon that philosophical hedonism deserves another go? In today’s interview with host Rob Wiblin, Sharon explains the case for a theory of value grounded in subjective experiences, and why she believes these counterarguments are misguided. A philosophical hedonist shouldn’t get in an experience machine, nor override an individual’s autonomy, except in situations so different from the classic thought experiments that it no longer seems strange they would do so.

Chapters:

Cold open (00:00:00)
Rob’s intro (00:00:41)
The interview begins (00:04:27)
Metaethics (00:05:58)
Anti-realism (00:12:21)
Sharon's theory of moral realism (00:17:59)
The history of hedonism (00:24:53)
Intrinsic value vs instrumental value (00:30:31)
Egoistic hedonism (00:38:12)
Single axis of value (00:44:01)
Key objections to Sharon’s brand of hedonism (00:58:00)
The experience machine (01:07:50)
Robot spouses (01:24:11)
Most common misunderstanding of Sharon’s view (01:28:52)
How might a hedonist actually live (01:39:28)
The organ transplant case (01:55:16)
Counterintuitive implications of hedonistic utilitarianism (02:05:22)
How could we discover moral facts? (02:19:47)
Rob’s outro (02:24:44)

Producer: Keiran Harris
Audio mastering: Ryan Kessler
Transcriptions: Katy Moore

#138 Classic episode – Sharon Hewitt Rawlette on why pleasure and pain are the only things that intrinsically matter

80,000 Hours Podcast

#138 Classic episode – Sharon Hewitt Rawlette on why pleasure and pain are the only things that intrinsically matter