WOULD YOU EXCHANGE YOUR LIFE FOR A HAPPIER ONE?

WOULD YOU EXCHANGE YOUR LIFE FOR A HAPPIER ONE? Shortly after reading Samuel Brittan’s statement that he had a “sneaking sympathy” for the happy pig, I came across this essay in the New Republic (June 8, 2012) by Deirdre McCloskey on “the creepy new economics of pleasure”. She has many interesting insights. Notably, she takes on directly the issues raised by the happy pig. That is, would you change places with the happy pig? McCloskey poses a thought experiment derived from Robert Nozick: “Here’s the mental experiment, first proposed by the philosopher Robert Nozick under the name of the ‘experience machine’: Suppose you could experience any life you wanted, … with happy endings sprinkled all around…. Would you do it?” Then she adds another condition. What if, as part of the experiment, the actual you dies?