Why is it obvious/taken for granted in the automaximisation argument that people can choose their global desires? You say in another comment thread that "it's clear we don't get to decide on many of our desires," so why wouldn't global desires be in that category?
My assumption is that it is unlikely that people have much control over their global desires, and therefore I don't believe you when you write that you "have decided to judge that [your] life is going maximally well." I don't doubt your ability to choose to tell me this, but I do doubt your ability to choose to actually believe it. (The fact that someone can lie on a survey question is an issue for empirical life satisfaction research, but it is equally an issue for all research that depends on reports of mental state, including research on happiness.)
This objection doesn't remove the possibility of wireheading global desires; even if the part of your brain that decides on global desires isn't in your conscious control, it would still be possible to physically/biologically alter it to achieve maximum life satisfaction with any life circumstance. However, this issue exists in hedonism as well, so I don't see it as a comparative advantage for hedonism. (Objective list theories don't have this problem, but they do have many others and I find them implausible.)
Why is it obvious/taken for granted in the automaximisation argument that people can choose their global desires? You say in another comment thread that "it's clear we don't get to decide on many of our desires," so why wouldn't global desires be in that category?
My assumption is that it is unlikely that people have much control over their global desires, and therefore I don't believe you when you write that you "have decided to judge that [your] life is going maximally well." I don't doubt your ability to choose to tell me this, but I do doubt your ability to choose to actually believe it. (The fact that someone can lie on a survey question is an issue for empirical life satisfaction research, but it is equally an issue for all research that depends on reports of mental state, including research on happiness.)
This objection doesn't remove the possibility of wireheading global desires; even if the part of your brain that decides on global desires isn't in your conscious control, it would still be possible to physically/biologically alter it to achieve maximum life satisfaction with any life circumstance. However, this issue exists in hedonism as well, so I don't see it as a comparative advantage for hedonism. (Objective list theories don't have this problem, but they do have many others and I find them implausible.)