[extropy-chat] Pleasure as ultimate measure of morality [Was: Pleasing Oneself]

[Ricardo Barreira]

On 2/28/07, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2/28/07, Ricardo Barreira <rbarreira at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > I think pleasure and suffering can weigh each other
> > > out. If and only if there is more pleasure than
> > > suffering in a person's life, that life is
> > > intrinsically worth living (all other things equal).
> >
> > So would you like to live a life in which you spend 50 years in heaven
> > and then 49 years in hell?
>
> These things don't add algebraically. Some would say yes while others might
> pass up on it even if they were offered a minute of hell against 50 years of
> heaven, and a depressive or a masochist might even prefer an option with
> more hell than heaven.
>
> Stathis Papaioannou

That's partly my point, that there's no easy and objective way of
weighing suffering and pleasure.