Q & A
a. agree
b. disagree
According to Shafer-Landau, what is the hedonist’s best response to the Argument from Evil Pleasures?
a. reject premise 1
b. reject premise 2
Suppose that all of Tom’s coworkers, while perfectly pleasant to his face, secretly tease him behind his back. You are confident that, in the few months that Tom has left before he moves on to another job, he will not find out—unless you tell him. And if you tell him, he will be quite upset. Supposing that your only concern is Tom’s welfare, what would the hedonist advise you to do?
a. tell Tom about the teasing
b. say nothing
Answer 1:
Imagine two women who have both been fully taken care of without any concern for bills or stressful responsibility. One of these women has sufficient funds and investments that can afford her the comfort and luxuries that she experiences; meanwhile the other woman has no idea that her husband has been gambling away their savings and income which is going to lead to them losing everything they have.
In this scenario, I would say that the person whose beliefs are falsely based may experience the same genuine happiness as the person whose beliefs are based on truth, however the one who is living a lie is definitely having or on her way to having a much worse life because the life she lives is ultimately an illusion that is on its way to disappearing. If she knew the truth, she would not be as happy.
Answer 2:
Shafer-Landau suggests that unhappiness is oftentimes a, "symptom of harm" (38-40), meaning that unhappiness in one’s life often occurs because of a negative event in life that produced a type of harm, whether it be physical or emotional. This idea would be a problem for hedonism because it insinuates that one cannot simply chase happiness because external factors exist that may interfere with one’s present condition of happiness that could result in unhappiness.
