Interview
Why pleasure & pain are the only things that intrinsically matter | Sharon Hewitt Rawlette (2022)
- Interest in hedonism is currently resurging after a prolonged period of declining fashion, driven in part by new literature from Peter Singer and De Lazari-Roddick.
- Future academic and philosophical developments in hedonism are anticipated to involve increased participation in explaining, developing, and critiquing the aforementioned book over the coming years.
- Belief in objective morality is predicted to strongly correlate with an inclination to overcome perspectival biases regarding the welfare of others, whereas disbelief in objective moral facts suggests a lack of such inclination.
- Neuroscientific research is projected to potentially provide physiological evidence linking physical and emotional pain to support the theory of a shared phenomenal experiential connection.
- Experimental data by Michel Cabanac suggests humans can rate pleasures and pains on a unified scale, with choices reflecting an algebraic sum of those ratings.
- While considered a desirable strategy, the feasibility of altering human psychology to induce bliss from non-harmful acts and mere diminished pleasure from harmful acts remains uncertain.
- A follow-on book is planned for the near future, funded by a grant from the Future Fund and the Effective Altruist Organization, focusing on integrating meta-ethics with current philosophy of mind regarding qualia, their distribution, and their relationship to causality and motivation.
- The podcast team intends to significantly increase content output across the 80,000 Hours podcast and the "80k After Hours" series, utilizing unprepared interview formats for the latter.
- To achieve content expansion goals, a part-time remote audio editor position is available requiring at least one year of relevant experience to handle mastering, silence removal, filler word elimination, and speaker enhancement alongside lead audio engineer Ben Cordell.
- Listeners are directed to the 80,000 Hours website for full transcripts and extensive resource links.