[javert]

Subjective things can only truly matter if they bring pleasure or cause pain. So my point is still correct. (We need a definition of subjective, though, so this probably isn't clear.)

It's true that someone could subjectively think, mistakenly, that something matters, which doesn't. So someone could be wrong about what matters. e.g. Someone could think that God's approval matters, when in reality, only pleasure and pain matter for their own sake.

[matt_kantor]

I think the point was that "pleasure == good" is not any more obvious/provably correct/well-defined than something like "duty == good".

[javert]

I haven't missed the point.

I'm not saying that pleasure is obviously the only ultimate good; I'm saying that it is the only ultimate good.

And I would challenge someone to make an argument that duty is good, or, in fact, anything other than pleasure. It is pretty obvious that none of those arguments work.

[matt_kantor]

Could you make the argument that pleasure is good?

[javert]

Sure, gladly. But it's not so much an argument as a simple observation, plus refuting or ruling out out a bunch of false notions of the good that people have gotten used to. And since it's an observation you see across all living organisms, there isn't any one piece of evidence or one specific argument. It's just part of the nature of life. So I think what is warranted is not an argument, but an example.

Think about a simple organism. Something without complex reasoning about higher values. Say, a frog.

What is good for the frog? What is bad for the frog? Well, the only thing that can matter to you, if you have the consciousness of a frog, is getting pleasure and avoiding pain. When you eat a fly, you are doing it for that reason. When you drink water, you are doing it for that reason. And so on. I mean, frogs probably can't reason at that level---but if they could, that is how they would have to reason about it. Pleasure is inherently valued because of the way organisms are, biologically. It is the thing that evolution uses to reward the behavior that is "wanted" (i.e. that "wins" in a natural selection sense).

In other words, natural selection only works if organisms have a reason to act. For extremely simple things (e.g. single-celled organisms), there is no "mind" or "consciousness" in the organism that regulates behavior in any way. But for complex organisms, there needs to be a mind. And the pleasure/pain mechanism is the way that natural selection has for regulating behavior in the minds of conscious organisms.

Pleasure and pain just are inherently valuable---they are the only things that are inherently valuable. Because of the way biology works.

It's no different for humans, really. Besides physical sensations, humans also have emotions of pleasure and pain. They have moral value systems. When your moral values are satisfied, you get pleasure; when they aren't, you get pain. That is not to say, any moral system is equally valid. It isn't. The best moral system is the one that leads to the most pleasure. That is the one that is in harmony with biology and reality, not religion, social conformity, environmentalism, or anything else, but proving this statement is too much for a comment, so I'm just putting it here so you get the gist of where I am headed.

To get back to my main point--one way to see that pleasure is the only inherent value is to try to think of some reason for acting other than that. Ultimately, there never could be one---not a valid one. But pleasure always can be a good reason for acting.

Keep in mind I mean pleasure in the broadest sense---humans are long-range creatures, so I mean joy, rapture, happiness, contentment, fulfillment, and so on, plus all kinds of physical sensations (good food, sex, etc.). So I am not advocating range-of-the-moment hedonism, like, coke and hookers. I mean, yes, if that's a way to maximize your pleasure---but it isn't for any human being I know of.

[nl]

Consider a fictional drug which stimulates the pleasure receptors in a frog's brain, but also reduced its fertility.

Consuming it is intensely pleasurable for the frog, but harmful to it both in an evolutionary sense, and for the frog species as a whole.

I can't see anyway to consider that "good".

Now consider the wide range of what humans consider pleasurable. A community of sadist may derive great pleasure from tormenting an animal. In your argument, that makes it "good" (Quote: "The best moral system is the one that leads to the most pleasure.")

I don't understand this sentence: I am not advocating range-of-the-moment hedonism, like, coke and hookers. I mean, yes, if that's a way to maximize your pleasure---but it isn't for any human being I know of.

Is your argument ignoring people who derive pleasure from harmful things because *you don't know anyone like that"? That seems a bit of a hole in your point of view.

[javert]

> I can't see anyway to consider that "good".

Of course it's good. If the frog could engage in abstract reasoning, he would have no reason to care about evolution or reproductive success.

If you just substitute "human" for "frog", you can see it's true for us, too (and we can reason). You'd be badly mistaken to define good and bad by "repdroductive success." That would be committing the naturalistic fallacy.

The reason taking some kind of pleasure-drug goes against people's normal moral sentiments is because it's too much of a false hypothetical. A true pleasure drug would be very dangerous, so we wouldn't take it.

> Now consider the wide range of what humans consider pleasurable. A community of sadist may derive great pleasure from tormenting an animal. In your argument, that makes it "good"

That is not actaually an implication of my argument, because sadism is not going to lead to long-term, fulfilling happiness. There is no deductive argument I can offer for that; you just have to look at and observe human nature honestly to see it.

> Is your argument ignoring people who derive pleasure from harmful things because you don't know anyone like that"? That seems a bit of a hole in your point of view.

No, it's a turn of phrase. But I am making the point that the way I know what I know is by observing human beings. It is empirical.

Anyway, I didn't write my long comment (above) for you---I wrote it for someone who was asking a genuine question. Somebody who is instead just trying to defeat my argument can always go one step more fundamental until we cover all of ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics. I'm not going to do that on hacker news. You can go to philosophy books for that. People can certainly learn things from some of my comments, if they want to learn, but my comments are not very useful for debating/winning arguments, which is not what I am into. That said, I am happy to chat.

To put it more simply, yes, there are holes in my argument---because I am not going to wrie a philosophical treatise on here. You can fill the holes in yourself by thinking; it's left as an exercise for the reader. (However, there are not holes in the sense of fallacies or contradictions; that is not what I mean by "holes" here.)