4. The Self-Torturer Michael Huemer

4. The Self-Torturer Michael Huemer1
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4.1 The Paradox
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You have been fitted with an unobtrusive torture device, which will be attached to you for the rest of your life.
Note:UN CCILICIO COM 1000 TACCHE...PASSARE DA ZERO A 1000 TI UCCIDE MA ALZARE DI UNA TACCA NN TI FA NULLA

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At setting 1, the device applies a very slight electric current to the pain center in your brain.
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At setting 2, it applies a very slightly higher electric current. And so
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However, by the time you get up to setting 1,000, you are in severe pain.
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If you turn it up by one, you will be given $10,000. You can never turn the dial down
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Should you turn the dial up on day one?
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“If I turn the dial up just one setting, I won’t even notice the difference. However, I will have an additional $10,000, which is a significant and very noticeable benefit.
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the same reasoning applies every day.
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at the end of 1,000 days, you have made $10 million, and you are condemned to spend the rest of your life in agony.
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How is it possible that by making the correct choice at every stage,
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This case might also be taken to illustrate how the “better than” relation can be intransitive.
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for each n, it is better to go to setting n+1
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You like potato chips, but you do not want to become overweight. You pick up chip #1 and consider whether to eat it. If you eat it, you will experience a noticeable pleasure attributable to that particular chip.
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it would be nice to have a solution that explains why this scenario does not truly exhibit intransitivity of betterness
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4.2 Quinn’s Solution
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Warren Quinn proposes that the self-torturer should try focusing his attention on some proper subset of all the settings of the device –
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Preference Consistency: If one has a choice between A and B, and one rationally prefers A to B, it is rational to choose A.
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Strategy Consistency:
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Quinn holds that we should reject Preference Consistency because, in the case of the self-torturer on day 201, Preference Consistency conflicts with Strategy Consistency.
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I think Preference Consistency is a self-evident principle
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4.3 An Orthodox Solution
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4.3.1 In Defense of Undetectable Changes
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it is possible for there to be changes in a person’s conscious experience too small to be introspectively detected.
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there could be two pains so similar to each other that
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Something analogous is certainly true of observable physical properties.
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nevertheless, one might in fact be larger,
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one might claim, if two pain sensations feel to us the same, then ipso facto they are exactly the same.
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This argument cannot be correct;
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self-torturer scenario just entails that there can be undetectable but real differences in one’s experiences.
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Note that we are not here positing unconscious pains.
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4.3.2 Indeterminacy
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“But the measure of the self-torturer’s discomfort,” says Quinn , “is indeterminate.
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He is proposing that there are pains that fail to have any specific intensity.
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His view would have to be that pains have intensity, but they do not have any specific intensity.
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I think he is saying that for any given pain, there are certain intensities such that it is neither true nor false that the pain has them.
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This is a contradiction. To say that x neither has nor fails to have q, where q is some property,
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Similarly, to say that it is neither true nor false that x has q is to say that “x has q” isn’t true and “x has q” isn’t false.
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4.3.3 In Defense of an Optimal Setting
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for each n, the self-torturer should assume that turning up the dial from n to n+1 is one thousandth as bad (in terms of pain) as turning the dial from 0 to 1000.
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Unlike pleasure and pain, money has diminishing marginal value .
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Optimal stopping point for the self-torturer
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4.3.4 Detectable and Undetectable Values
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I am not at all convinced that the benefit of $10,000 remains significant or even noticeable as one’s wealth expands up to $10 million.
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4.3.5 Advantages of This Solution
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My treatment, though faithful to the factual (non-evaluative) stipulations of the scenario, does not involve any intransitivity, either of the better-than relation, or of rational preferences.
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My treatment of the case does not violate classical logic.
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My treatment of the case maintains standard principles of decision theory, including the axiom that, when given a choice between two options, one of which is rationally preferred to the other, one ought to take the preferred option.
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there can be unnoticeable facts about the qualitative character of conscious mental states.
L UNICO NCONVENIENTE