Abstract
Suppose there were an experience machine that would give you any experience you desired. Superduper neuro-psychologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. All the time you would be floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to your brain. Should you plug into this machine for life, pre-programming your life’s desires? […] Of course, while in the tank you won’t know that you’re there; you’ll think it’s all actually happening…Would you plug in? What else can matter to us, other than how our lives feel from the inside?
This section of Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974, p. 42) introduces the Experience Machine, a famous thought experiment that Nozick used in an attempt to refute mental state theories of well-being. Nozick conceived the Experience Machine to put forward an argument along the following lines: in spite of the fact that we will experience more pleasure if we plug into the Experience Machine than if we do not, we have good reasons not to plug in. This suggests that experiencing as much pleasure as we can is not all that matters to us. According to Nozick, there are three reasons why we should not plug into the Experience Machine.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Benatar, D. (2006): Better Never to Have Been. The Harm of Coming Into Existence. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Bibring, E. (1953): The mechanisms of depression. In: Greenacre, P. (ed.) Affective Disorders. New York: International Universities Press, pp. 13–48.
Bolt, L. L. E. (2007): True to oneself? Broad and narrow ideas on authenticity in the enhancement debate. In: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, 28(4), pp. 285–300.
Bostrom, N. and Savulescu, J. (eds.) (2009): Human Enhancement. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brickman, P. (1987): Commitment, Conflict and Caring. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Carver, C. S. and Scheier, M. F. (1990): Origins and functions of positive and negative affect: A control-process view. In: Psychological Review, 97(1), pp. 19–35.
Conrad, P. (2007): The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Elliott, C. (1999): A Philosophical Disease: Bioethics, Culture and Identity. New York: Routledge.
Elliott, C. (2007): Against happiness. In: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 10(2), pp. 167–171.
Elliott, R., Sahakian, B. J., Matthews, K., Bannerjea, A., Rimmer, J. and Robbins, T. W. (1997): Effects of methylphenidate on spatial working memory and planning in healthy young adults. In: Psychopharmacology, 131(2), pp. 196–206.
Harris, J. (1985): The Value of Life: An Introduction to Medical Ethics. London: Routledge.
Harris, J. (1992): Wonderwoman and Superman: Ethics of Human Biotechnology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Klinger, E. (1975): Consequences of commitment to and disengagement from incentives. In: Psychological Review, 8(2), pp. 1–25.
Kramer, P. (1993): Listening to Prozac. New York: Viking.
Levy, N. (2007): Neuroethics. Challenges for the 21st Century. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Nesse, R. M. (1991): What good is feeling bad? The evolutionary benefits of psychic pain. In: The Sciences, 30, pp. 30–37.
Nesse, R. M. (1998): Emotional disorders in evolutionary perspective. In: British Journal of Medical Psychology, 71(4), pp. 397–415.
Nesse, R. M. and Williams, G. C. (1995): Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine. New York: Times Books.
Nozick, R. (1974): Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books.
Shaw, I. and Wordward, L. (2004): The medicalisation of unhappiness? The management of mental distress in primary care. In: Kauppinen, K. and Shaw, I. (eds.) Constructions of Health and Illness: European Perspectives. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Taylor, S. H. (1989): Positive Illusions: Creative Self-Deception and the Healthy Mind. New York: Basic Books.
Weinstein, N. D. (1980): Unrealistic optimism about future life events. In: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39(5), pp. 806–820.
Weinstein, N. D. (1984): Why it won’t happen to me: Perceptions of risk factors and susceptibility. In: Health Psychology, 3(5), pp. 431–457.
Whitaker, R. (2010): Anatomy of an Epidemic. New York: Broadway Paperbacks.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2014 Lisa Forsberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Forsberg, L. (2014). Mood Enhancement and the Authenticity of Experience: Ethical Considerations. In: Eilers, M., Grüber, K., Rehmann-Sutter, C. (eds) The Human Enhancement Debate and Disability. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137405531_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137405531_8
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-48775-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-40553-1
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social Sciences CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)