How do you structure an argument against a theory? (E.g. Utilitarianism)
- Identify and explain what theory you are arguing against:
Hedonistic Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism, which makes two assumptions: that pleasure and the absence of pain are the only intrinsic goods, its theory of value; and that the maximization of these criteria is always the moral action, its standard of rightness.
2.Identify and explain the argument you will use to argue against the above, specifically highlighting what part of the argument challenges the former argument:
Robert Nozick posits the concept of the Experience Machine in order to contest Hedonistic Utilitarianism’s Theory of Value. Nozick postulates three counterexamples: that we wish to do something, rather than merely having the experience of doing something; that we wish to be certain kinds of people, which we cannot achieve if we are confined to experience machines; and that we do not wish to live in an artificially constructed reality. These concerns can be treated as individual aspects of a greater concern with the Authenticity of Experience. The experience machine asks us to imagine the following: assuming there were a machine which could simulate your perfect existence, with the stipulation that, once inside, it would be everlasting, and appear to have always been the reality in which you had lived, would you enter the machine? Nozick answers in the negative, contending that such would be a, if not the, common response. He cites this as evidence for a factor unaccounted-for by Utilitarianism: the value of authenticity. If Utilitarianism holds the claim that the only pleasure and the absence of pain are intrinsic goods, then there is no way to account for this common-sense intuition. As this is the foundation on which the theory is based, if this is true, it can no longer claim to be a viable ethical standpoint.
- Identify strengths and weaknesses of the argument:
Nozick's argument seems to offer a compelling reason not to accept utilitarianism, by showing that is it inconsistent with our common-sense intuitions. The theory does not, however, offer an argument against the relative value of utilitarianism, that is, that, all other things being equal, utilitarianism still has value as an ethical theory. Furthermore, the theory seems to itself rely on a form of utilitarianism: each of Nozick's counterexamples (that we wish to do something, rather than merely having the experience of doing something; that we wish to be certain kinds of people, which we cannot achieve if we are confined to experience machines; and that we do not wish to live in an artificially constructed reality) seem to suggests that what is reliable is the satisfaction of our desires. Given that desire satisfaction is usually accompanied by pleasure, and the absence of desire satisfaction by pain, it is unclear to what extent Nozick's theory is a departure from the theory it seems to refute.
