Are happiness and well-being the only things that people value?

June 5, 2024

The most common kind of critiques I get of my theory of human intrinsic values are: 1) "But I only care about well-being (in the sense of happiness, pleasure, or lack of suffering) - that's my ONLY intrinsic value." 2) "People may THINK they value other things, but everything that matters bottoms out in well-being." Here's my response: First of all, I want to say that I really appreciate thoughtful criticism of my work. It helps me see the truth more clearly and improve my ideas...

Valuism and X: how Valuism sheds light on other domains – Part 5 of the sequence on Valuism

July 19, 2023

By Spencer Greenberg and Amber Dawn Ace Image created using the A.I. DALL•E 2 This is the fifth and final part in my sequence of essays about my life philosophy, Valuism - here are the first, second, third, and fourth parts. In previous posts, I've described Valuism - my life philosophy. I've also discussed how it could serve as a life philosophy for others. In this post, I discuss how a Valuist lens can help shed light on various fields and areas of inquiry. Valuism and ...

Life, death, and a squirrel

November 16, 2022

Cropped version of a photo by Rhododendrites ( Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Squirrel_in_CP_%2840494%29.jpg

One time when I was walking in Central Park, a branch fell from a really tall tree, perhaps a 50- to 60-foot drop. A squirrel was on that branch when it fell, and the branch hit the cement path with a loud thud. The squirrel lay there on its back, quivering. I knew it was totally screwed. Its back was probably broken, but it was clearly still alive. "Fuck," I thought to myself. "Look at how much it's suffering. Should I kill it to put it out of its misery?" I stood there pondering t...

The Poison-Cactus-Vampire-Ward Problem

August 6, 2017

The Poison-Cactus-Vampire-Ward Problem, an ethics and "fairness" thought experiment I wrote for you in which your moral intuitions are represented as a number between 0 and 100: Suppose there are two villages, "Parvitas" and "Amplus," which are a 5-minute walk apart. Once per month, when the full moon is out, all men, women, children, and wizards of the two villages must meet to conduct the vampire ward ritual. The ritual requires all people from BOTH villages to be chanting at the same time...