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Non-zero-sum James1
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I'm not understanding the distinction you're making between the "experience" and the "response." In my example, there is a needle poking someone's arm. Someone can experience that in different ways (including feeling more or less pain depending on one's mindset). That experience is not distinct from a response, it just is a response.

Now you appear to be using a definition of "response" that is synonymous with "experience". Before you were using "experience" to describe "freaking out" which I would see as a "response" to an "experience" (an action you take after having experienced something). If this is a semantic issue, I don't need you to subscribe to my definitions, just know these are the definitions I'm using, and hopefully my meaning is clear.

However, in the links I included in my previous comment, I suggested there are people who explicitly reject the view that this is all that matters

I find these explicit rejections unconvincing. People often self-report inaccurately. The tendency to value beauty, for instance, is quite easily reducible to pleasure-seeking. We have biologically induced feelings of pleasure that are associated with beauty, that correlate with evolutionary advantages.

I have challenged you to genuinely try this with a moral tenet you and I would agree on. If you are genuinely interested in trying to understand my point, I think this is the best way for you to understand it.

And again, assuming the experience of pain is inescapable, why does it follow that it is necessarily bad?

The inescapable nature of the experience is not what makes it good or bad, otherwise I would have called it "Inescapable experience" and not stipulated "value-laden". A neutral value like the click of a finger is still inescapably value-laden, it's just the value is neutral (zero), and therefore not really relevant when extending into a moral discussion.

I believe I have already provided arguments to support the two questions you've asked, but in short:

  1. It is definitionally bad—if pain and suffering was a good experience we would call it pleasure. I think your confusion might be to do with a sense that a "moral" good is necessarily something that is imposed on a person or action, I disagree with this directionality. My point is that "moral" goods are emergent extrapolations derived from inherently good or bad experiences.
  2. This is the foundational claim of the theory, it cannot be proved, but it can be falsified. I'm saying this is a worthwhile framework of understanding that I believe is consistent with reality, and as such might actually be real. But like with any theory, this can only be provisionally verified by numerous examples of where it is consistent, and if it is inconsistent it should be able to be showed to be so.

I'm not asking you to falsify it, you are welcome to try if you want. I would prefer you took the challenge I've provided, as this will actually help you understand the proposition. I am offering an explanation and a framework that I think has high utility. Whether you adopt it or not is up to you. You don't have to falsify it to reject it.

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by Non-zero-sum James
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PhilosophyConsciousness researchEpistemologyMoral philosophyMoral uncertaintyNormative ethicsOpinion
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This is a linkpost for https://nonzerosum.games/inescapablyvalueladenexperience.html
A hedgehog trying to mentally change their preferences

A short one, just to clarify a term (I invented) that gets thrown around here a bit. It concerns the question of how people with different moral views can find common ground underpinning all moral positions, without referring to a shared supernatural belief system, so that understanding can be reached.

“… when we think about what matters, what matters is consciousness and its contents. Consciousness is everything.” — Sam Harris

The Unit of Value

When dealing with matters of morality, we are dealing with the realm of subjective experience, whether you want to call it consciousness, or sentience, it is the unit of value we are measuring in any moral calculus. Many take this to mean that moral value is an invention of humanity, that we make it up, so to speak, which gives the impression that it is ultimately arbitrary.

“… let us see that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceived by reason.” — David Hume

However, I would argue that this is not the case, and that we can draw objective conclusions concerning the inter-subjective relationships between moral agents. This is because evolution has produced, in us, subjective facts which are bound to our biology (physical reality).

Pleasure & Pain

Our evolutionary hardwiring is not easily untangled, it is embedded in myriad mechanisms, drivers, inhibitors and behaviour modifiers. But at the core is sensation and its poles pleasure and pain. Pain tells us to avoid the behaviour, pleasure to seek it. Pain is inherently “bad” and pleasure inherently “good” — moral properties. These experiences are inescapably value-laden. They are nature’s way of creating a “should” from a fact of biology — overcoming Hume’s Guillotine of “No ‘ought’ from ‘is’”. They are the intersection of the dimensions of physical and moral. I would posit that all our values are derived from the spectrum of these inescapably value-laden experiences.

A hedgehog consolidating the 10 Commandments into a shorter list

Inter-Subjectivity & Objectivity

Given that experiences are inescapably value-laden, it is therefore possible to objectively deduce principles for inter-subjective relations (moral principles) that reliably serve the interests of moral agents who want to avoid suffering.

Some Objections (and one-line replies)

  1. Some forms of pain are pleasurable: In this case they no longer qualify as suffering.
  2. Sometimes inflicting pain is warranted, like when a personal trainer pushes their client: This is merely a trade-off as part of a more complicated pursuit of pleasure (the pleasure of future achievement).
  3. Because morality concerns subjectivity, we cannot, by definition, make objective statements about it: This is mistaking the content of the deductive process for the deductive process itself; it is possible to make objective conclusions about subjective content.
  4. There is no dictate that says well-being is the desired outcome of morality: This is merely a question of definitions, essentially a semantic argument or word-game.
  5. We have no responsibility to adhere to such rules: This is correct, no one is forced to act morally. But committing to acting morally gives us access to all the non-zero-sum benefits of cooperation.

So…

This inescapable relationship between the quality of experience and the moral values of good and bad, make morality rationalisable, and mean that we can argue meaningfully towards objectively better moral frameworks. I expand on this idea in It’s Subjective.

This post has generated a large discussion over at the blog, I invite you to have your say.

Notes

  • Out of curiosity I asked ChatGPT what this term would be, were it one of those long German terms that combines a bunch of words for the sake of creating an esoteric philosophical vocabulary (à la Heidegger), it came up with 'Unentrinnbarewertbeladeneerfahrung' which I think is about right.
  • Hume's Guillotine comes from a passage where he's actually criticising the religious origins of ethics, claiming that religious moral positions are assumed rather than derived from anything real. His objection appears to be that this is not acknowledged. The account I have given here is to attempt to derive morality from facts about our biology, and not assume them based something arbitrary.

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Executive summary: The concept of "inescapably value-laden experience" posits that morality can be rationalized and derived from the objective interplay between subjective experiences of pleasure and pain, creating a basis for inter-subjective moral principles without relying on supernatural belief systems.

Key points:

  1. Unit of value: Consciousness and its subjective experiences (pleasure and pain) are fundamental to morality, serving as the core measure in moral calculus.
  2. Pleasure and pain as moral properties: Evolutionary biology hardwires sensations of pleasure and pain as inherently "good" and "bad," forming the foundation of moral values and bridging the gap between facts and moral "oughts."
  3. Inter-subjectivity enabling objectivity: The value-laden nature of experiences allows for the objective deduction of moral principles that benefit moral agents aiming to reduce suffering.
  4. Addressing objections: Common counterarguments (e.g., morality’s subjective nature or cases of warranted pain) are addressed, showing that objective reasoning can still apply to subjective experiences.
  5. Practical benefits: Acting morally provides access to cooperation's non-zero-sum advantages, making moral adherence rational and pragmatically beneficial.
  6. Conclusion: Morality's rationalization enables meaningful arguments toward objectively better moral frameworks, grounded in biological facts and shared human experiences.

 


This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.

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nathan98000-1
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Why think that pain is inherently bad? (Are you using “bad” as synonymous with “dispreferred”?) And why think that pleasure and pain are the only things that are value-laden? 

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Non-zero-sum James1
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Why think that pain is inherently bad?


I'm asserting that if "bad" means anything, it means something in reference to an experience of suffering. We can of course play semantic games and use "bad" to mean "cool" or "rotten", I'm talking about the sort of value that makes an animal (without particular training) generally avoid that experience."Dispreferred" frames the issue in terms of preference, which seems to emphasise uniqueness of individual experience, where as my meaning would lean more on the commonalities of experience, but that's more an emphasis thing.

The foundational claim of inescapably value-laden experiences is that we do not get to choose how something feels to us, we may be able to choose to respond in one way or another, but we cannot escape the experience, it has the effect it has.

For instance, we don't get to choose whether putting our hand in a flame, or stepping on a nail hurts, we can choose to bear it with tears, bravery, anger or humour but we don't get to choose the value of the experience, that's laden in the experience itself.

why think that pleasure and pain are the only things that are value-laden?

I'm primarily speaking about moral value here, as in whether something is good or bad, obviously numbers are value-laden too, but that's beside the point. I believe that we (implicitly) assume that anything with moral value is derived from pleasure and suffering, I'm simply asserting the relationship explicitly—I challenge you to think about values we would agree are moral and see if you can derive them from pleasure and suffering, it's an interesting, and enlightening experience.

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nathan980001
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The foundational claim of inescapably value-laden experiences is that we do not get to choose how something feels to us

Well... this isn't quite right. A stimulus can elicit different experiences in a person depending on their mindset. Someone might experience a vaccine with equanimity or they might freak out about the needle.

But regardless, even if some particular experience is inescapable, I don't see how it would follow that it's inherently value-laden. Like, if I snap my fingers in front of someone's face, maybe they'll inescapably pay attention to me for a second. It doesn't follow that the experience of paying attention to me is inherently good or bad.

I challenge you to think about values we would agree are moral and see if you can derive them from pleasure and suffering

Some people explicitly reject the hedonism that you're describing. For example, they'd say that experiencing reality, the environment, or beauty are valuable for their own sake, not because of their effect on pleasure and suffering. I don't think you've given a reason to discard these views.

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Non-zero-sum James1
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Hi Nathan,

Thanks for your comment. I think you're conflating "experience" with "response", I'm speaking specifically about the experience. My daughter, for instance, gets immunotherapy every month, 3 injections, her response to her experience of these injections is pretty chill, and no doubt her actual pain tolerance has increased in a more mechanical way than just her learned behaviour, but she still experiences pain, she is always a little nervous how much each will hurt—she doesn't get to choose in advance the goodness or badness of the experience, it's a matter of luck (she can of course choose, or train herself not to react in a way that makes the experience worse, by not tensing her muscle or flinching).

On the other hand, paying attention to a click of the fingers involves no inescapable pain or pleasure, so your sense that it has no inherent moral quality is consistent with my position. The only moral value I can see is if that you've potentially stopped the person doing what they would have preferred to continue doing (perhaps concentrating on book or a video game, or sleeping) which might inescapably bring them some small amount of suffering—their reaction is in part up to them (in part automatic) and is only morally relevant in that it might indicate whether you caused them suffering or not.

The same conflation between "experience" and "response" might apply your claim about hedonism. I also see hedonism as a response to the world, a behaviour connoting the short-term, selfish, simplistic pursuit of pleasure. For instance, given this conversation and our previous conversations, a pursuit of pleasure might lead me to avoid this conversation (jk), but actually that would be entirely unsatisfying and feel like an unfinished project. I also think in the long run, I believe that nailing down a moral foundation that is transferrable between humans of different backgrounds is worthwhile pursuit, which, if successful, will help spread greater well-being (in terms derivable from IVLEs). Addressing questions about my position helps me understand it better and equips me for conversations in the future, making the time spent on this response valuable to me. I happen to be a person with plenty of pleasure and happiness in my life, I get greater pleasure now by helping others and thinking about ways to help understand and spread understanding about human nature (that's why I'm an EA and on this forum). I might, had I not seen the connection to long term pleasure, say I was simply seeking "truth" or "kindness" or "harmony" but my moral values that drive me to these "higher" goods are all derivable from my understanding of my own inescapably value-laden experiences and those of others. And btw, I don't see their reducibility as diminishing in any way, in fact I see this as strengthening, in the same way that scientifically reducing a phenomenon makes it more understandable, more real, rather than stealing the magic away.

The reason I challenged you to look at a moral value you and I might agree on (you can assume I hold pretty standard moral views, I don't need to provide a list) and see if you can derive this from IVLEs, is because I see people, invariably taking moral positions that appear to implicitly assume my foundational position. I'm suggesting that making this implicit assumption explicit would make communication and agreement about moral issues clearer and more tractable, which could have profound implications for our ability to cooperate and live in peace. I believe if you try this challenge, you'll find yourself quite capable of deriving moral values from IVLEs.

Thanks again for your comment, I appreciate your input. By challenging you I'm not meaning to be a pain. In my experience, people can often only fully get a view once they've genuinely tried it on. You might still disagree, and that's fine, I'm just asking you to try it on.

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nathan98000*1
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I'm not understanding the distinction you're making between the "experience" and the "response." In my example, there is a needle poking someone's arm. Someone can experience that in different ways (including feeling more or less pain depending on one's mindset). That experience is not distinct from a response, it just is a response.

And again, assuming the experience of pain is inescapable, why does it follow that it is necessarily bad? It can't just be because the experience is inescapable. My example of paying attention to my fingers snapping was meant to show that merely being inescapable doesn't make something good or bad.

I agree that many of the goals that people pursue implicitly suggest that they believe pleasure and the avoidance of pain are "value-laden". However, in the links I included in my previous comment, I suggested there are people who explicitly reject the view that this is all that matters (a view known as hedonism in philosophy, not to be confused with the colloquial definition that prioritizes short-term pleasures). And you've asserted that hedonism is true, but I'm not sure what the argument for it has been.

So just to clarify, I see you as making two points:

  1. If something causes pain/suffering, then it is necessarily (intrinsically) bad.
  2. If something is bad, then it is only because it causes pain/suffering.

I'm looking for arguments for these two points.

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Non-zero-sum James1
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I'm not understanding the distinction you're making between the "experience" and the "response." In my example, there is a needle poking someone's arm. Someone can experience that in different ways (including feeling more or less pain depending on one's mindset). That experience is not distinct from a response, it just is a response.

Now you appear to be using a definition of "response" that is synonymous with "experience". Before you were using "experience" to describe "freaking out" which I would see as a "response" to an "experience" (an action you take after having experienced something). If this is a semantic issue, I don't need you to subscribe to my definitions, just know these are the definitions I'm using, and hopefully my meaning is clear.

However, in the links I included in my previous comment, I suggested there are people who explicitly reject the view that this is all that matters

I find these explicit rejections unconvincing. People often self-report inaccurately. The tendency to value beauty, for instance, is quite easily reducible to pleasure-seeking. We have biologically induced feelings of pleasure that are associated with beauty, that correlate with evolutionary advantages.

I have challenged you to genuinely try this with a moral tenet you and I would agree on. If you are genuinely interested in trying to understand my point, I think this is the best way for you to understand it.

And again, assuming the experience of pain is inescapable, why does it follow that it is necessarily bad?

The inescapable nature of the experience is not what makes it good or bad, otherwise I would have called it "Inescapable experience" and not stipulated "value-laden". A neutral value like the click of a finger is still inescapably value-laden, it's just the value is neutral (zero), and therefore not really relevant when extending into a moral discussion.

I believe I have already provided arguments to support the two questions you've asked, but in short:

  1. It is definitionally bad—if pain and suffering was a good experience we would call it pleasure. I think your confusion might be to do with a sense that a "moral" good is necessarily something that is imposed on a person or action, I disagree with this directionality. My point is that "moral" goods are emergent extrapolations derived from inherently good or bad experiences.
  2. This is the foundational claim of the theory, it cannot be proved, but it can be falsified. I'm saying this is a worthwhile framework of understanding that I believe is consistent with reality, and as such might actually be real. But like with any theory, this can only be provisionally verified by numerous examples of where it is consistent, and if it is inconsistent it should be able to be showed to be so.

I'm not asking you to falsify it, you are welcome to try if you want. I would prefer you took the challenge I've provided, as this will actually help you understand the proposition. I am offering an explanation and a framework that I think has high utility. Whether you adopt it or not is up to you. You don't have to falsify it to reject it.

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