Motivational Tranquility: A Theory of Value and Welfare
Alexander R. Velichkov (student number: 10525475) MA Philosophy Thesis
Supervisor: Dr. Beate Roessler Second Reader: Dr. Thomas Nys
Table of Contents
Introduction 4
Chapter 1: Valuing 7
1.1 Intrinsic and extrinsic values 7
1.2 Values as preferences 8
1.3 Valued and valuable objects 10
1.4 The mind dependency of values 12
Chapter 2: The TTT and TTTV 15
2.1 The Tranquility and Turmoil Theory (TTT) 15
2.2 The meaning of motivational tranquility 18
2.3 How tranquility determines choice 21
2.4 Tranquilitism and hedonism 22
2.5 The Tranquility and Turmoil Theory of Value (TTTV) 25
Chapter 3: The TTTW 28
3.1 Welfare as quality of subjective experience 28
3.2 The Tranquility and Turmoil Theory of Welfare (TTTW) 30
3.2 Against desire satisfactionism 32
3.3 Welfare and the good life 34
Chapter 4: Objections 36
4.1 The static life 36
4.2 False pleasures 38
4.3 Worthless and offensive pleasures 40
4.4 The experience machine 41
Conclusion 45
Appendix A: The Paradox of Hedonism 46
Motivational Tranquility: A Theory of Value and Welfare
Introduction
When a person looks back at the good moments in her life, what would she see? Perhaps she would recall moments of calm appreciation, such as when she marveled at the world from a mountaintop or when she saw her newborn baby for the first time. Or she would think of all the moments when she was performing at her best, such as when she scored the winning goal in that football match during her years in college. Maybe among her memories would pop up all the times when she celebrated her birthday with her family and friends, or when she had her first kiss, or when she fulfilled her dream of visiting the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. These perfect moments are different in many ways; they include physical exertion and serenity, and
encompass a wide range of emotions, such as love, meaningfulness, achievement, awe, and inspiration. Yet, despite their differences, the good moments in one’s life somehow seem to share something that makes them good. But what could this feature (or features) be? Philosophy has seen various attempts at answering this question, with two of the most well-known ethical theories about the good life from a subjective point of view being desire satisfactionism and hedonism. The former claims that a life is good to the extent that one’s desires are satisfied (Carson, 2000; Heathwood, 2017), while the latter claims that a life is good to the extent that it contains a positive balance of pleasure over pain (Bentham, 1789; Feldman, 2004; Mill, 1863/2001; Sidgwick, 1907/1982). Neither theory is decisive. Both contain truth, but both have their problems, too.
In this thesis, I will try to further the study of the good life by departing from the metrics of desire satisfaction and pleasure. I will ask the question “How can the quality of subjective
experience be measured?” and will propose that, for a given subject, the goodness of a moment is inversely proportional to the subject’s need to escape it. Thus, the quality of a conscious experience can be graded on what I shall call the tranquility scale: the more one feels a need to escape the present moment, the more one is in motivational turmoil; the more one is content with it, the more one is in motivational tranquility. This scale allows to group together all the various phenomenological feelings of human life based on whether they increase or decrease one’s need to change the present moment.
Having a metric of good experience can also be applied on a topic that is related to, yet distinct from welfare: the study of values. Value ethics can be approached in different ways. One is to ask “Which objects have value?” Besides being theories of welfare, desire satisfactionism and hedonism can be used to answer this question, too. While hedonism is a monist theory, arguing that there is only one thing of value – pleasure – desire satisfactionism argues that there are many things of value, but they are such in virtue of their ability to satisfy one’s desires. Besides
desire satisfactionism, there are also other pluralist theories of value that try to list various objective or subjective values, such as knowledge, justice, or human flourishing (Kraut, 2009; Parfit, 1984; Ross, 1930).
A different question one could ask has to do with the ontological status of values: “Can judgments about value be true, or are they simple expressions of emotion?” This has sparked the cognitivist/non-cognitivist debate in philosophy. Cognitivists argue that the claim “A is good” can be a true fact (Moore, 1903, Shafer-Landau, 2003; Smith, 1991), while
non-cognitivists deny it, for example by trying to show that this statement is just an expression of emotion or attitude (Ayer, 1952; Blackburn, 1993; Harman, 1977), or that such a statement can never be true (Mackie, 1977).
I will apply the tranquility scale to explicate the nature of values by asking a somewhat different question: “What does it mean for a subject to value an object?” This line of enquiry is not unconnected to the previous two ones, but its focus is on the subjective experience of valuing, rather than on the objects of value or on statements about value. Using the tranquility scale and a couple of useful distinctions, I will show what happens in mental life when a subject values an object. I will argue that the currency of one’s set of values is tranquility.
In sum, the products of this thesis are: 1) a conceptual tool, the tranquility scale, which I will use for 2) an inquiry into the nature of valuing, and 3) an inquiry into the nature of welfare. I will thus be treating welfare and value as separate topics, but will also try to show how they relate to each other.
In chapter 1, I will prepare the ground by outlining a framework for discussing the values. Here I will argue that valuing an object necessarily expresses a commitment to choose this object. Next, in chapter 2, I will introduce the tranquility scale through the Tranquility and Turmoil Theory (TTT) and will show how it relates to hedonism. I will then apply the TTT on the question of values by constructing the Tranquility and Turmoil Theory of Value (TTTV), which describes what happens in mental life when preferring an object. If the idea of an object brings with it more tranquil feelings than its absence, then this object is preferable, and can therefore qualify for a valued object.
In chapter 3, I go into the other area in which the TTT can be of explanatory value, namely the ethics of welfare. Here I develop the Tranquility and Turmoil Theory of Welfare (TTTW), which states that a good conscious experience is one of tranquility, i.e. one that the subject does not want to escape. Because the TTT allows to grade conscious experiences in detail, as it looks at them moment per moment, I will show how the TTT has an advantage over desire satisfactionist theories of welfare.
In chapter 4, I test the TTT, TTTV, and TTTW with a few well-known thought experiments from the literature on mental state theories of value and welfare. This has a triple purpose: first, to check the plausibility of the theories proposed in this thesis; second, to show how value and welfare interrelate; and third, to provide new points of view on mental state theories of value and welfare as a whole.
Finally, in Appendix A, I make a suggestion for how the TTT can be used to approach the
paradox of hedonism, a well-known problem in the study of pleasure.
Because this is a work in philosophy, I utilize many of the methods contained in The
Philosopher’s Toolkit (Baggini & Fosi, 2010). I primarily rely on conceptual analysis in order to
identify necessary conditions for certain key concepts. The tranquility scale is constructed as a result of such conceptual analysis, as it recognizes that phenomenological feels contain in them varying degrees of the motivation to escape them. The conceptual analyses are based in turn on the intuitive meaning of words in ordinary language.
One of my main tasks in this work is to reach more detailed accounts of value and welfare. An important method for this purpose is to resolve ambiguities through drawing conceptual
distinctions. Throughout the course of this work, I distinguish between motivational tranquility
and other types of tranquility; the strength of motives and their success in resulting in action;
valued and valuable objects; actual and total welfare; the life of welfare and the valued life.
Among other things, I use these distinctions to offer ways for reconciling subjectivist and
objectivist theories of value and welfare. I cannot avoid facing the objective/subjective divide in ethics, and I do my best to be as precise as possible by doing justice to both sides.
Finally, I put my findings to the test by analyzing a couple of thought experiments. I offer different interpretations of these thought experiments in order to cover as much ground as possible and leave no important possibilities unchecked.
This thesis is intended as a study in metaethics, as its purpose is to clarify the meaning of ethical concepts, rather than using them to argue for what ought to be done. The tranquilitist theories I offer are thus primarily a descriptive endeavor: I conceptually categorize conscious experiences based on motivation, which I then use to describe the act of valuing and to suggest a measure of welfare. My main focus is not on normativity – I do not go into detail on moral rightness and moral responsibility, for example – but normative considerations cannot be completely avoided. The theory of good conscious experience I offer is at least implicitly normative, as it suggests what kind of life ought to be promoted if we are concerned about people’s welfare.
Furthermore, the theories I will develop in this work are not intended to serve as the exclusive way of approaching the topics of value and welfare, but as a conceptual lens that provides new points of view and avenues of interpretation. For example, I believe one of the main
contributions of this work is its opening up of new possibilities for deepening the study of hedonism and helping to face its challenges, such as the hedonic tone problem or what is known as the paradox of hedonism. Most importantly, the tranquility scale aims at clarifying one of the oldest and biggest questions in philosophy: “What is a good life?” by breaking it up into smaller questions, the main one of which is “What is a good conscious moment?”
Chapter 1: Valuing
Before going into the main theories of this work, I must set the foundations for talking about the complex issue of values. I will first present the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic values, and will then suggest that valuing an object necessarily expresses a commitment to a
preference. Finally, I will clarify the metaphysical assumptions behind my discussion on values. 1.1 Intrinsic and extrinsic values
In axiology, a usual line of division is between intrinsic and extrinsic values (Shafer-Landau, 2014). Extrinsic values derive their worth from being a means to some further end, while
intrinsic values contain their worth in themselves. Consider this example: for Sarah, the library is valuable because it allows her to read books, and she values books because they allow her to learn. Why does she want to learn? Well, there is no further reason in sight; she likes learning just because it engages her. On this line of thought, libraries and books are means to some further end. If all books were uploaded on the Internet and made freely available, the library Sarah goes to would lose a lot of its value. Similarly, if Sarah came to prefer instructional videos to books because the former do a better job at conveying information, then books would lose a lot of their appeal as well. Sarah values libraries and books extrinsically, as links in the chain that leads to learning. If she found a better alternative method of learning, she would have chosen it instead.
It appears, then, that there is a property that all extrinsically valuable things share. If something can be replaced, its value lies outside it. If textbooks can be replaced with e-books, videos, or lectures, then they are a means to an end. In the words of Immanuel Kant (1785/2002), extrinsic values have a price:
In the realm of ends everything has either a price or a dignity. What has a price is such that something else can also be put in its place as its equivalent; by contrast, that which is elevated above all price, and admits of no equivalent, has a dignity. (p. 52, emphasis in original)
While it seems fairly obvious that means to some end indeed have a price and can be
substituted by other means if they still bring about that end, matters get more intricate when it comes to intrinsic values. Do they have this inability to be traded off, this dignity which Kant mentions, or can they also be substituted? Can Sarah find another activity that can take the place of learning – say, creating art? The answer depends on the answers of still further questions. Is learning the thing that she values intrinsically or is it the enjoyment that learning brings her? Are there even such things as intrinsically valuable things, and if so, are there different types or dimensions of value? This and the following chapter will be devoted to addressing these questions.
1.2 Values as preferences
A good place to begin is to analyze what is meant when somebody says that they value an object. In this section I will suggest that a necessary condition for something to be a valued object is that it entails a commitment to a certain preference. This is most obviously the case when I state that I value A more than B. From this follows that given a choice between A and B, I would choose A. If I say that I value reading books more than watching films, then given the option to do either, I would go with reading a book. Of course, if I am tired, or if I am with friends who insist on watching films together, that would weigh in favor of B. These scenarios, however, introduce various other values – spending time with friends, getting enough rest – that distort the scales. This is why it would be appropriate to say that if the only conflict of values is between A and B (and not between A and B and D and C), and I value A more than B, I would choose A. Furthermore, the moment of choosing must happen in normal circumstances: if I am, for example, drugged, confused, or in a panic, that would also weigh in on the scales. Put in another way, valuing A more than B entails a commitment to choose A over B if the moment of choosing happens in normal circumstances1.
What about a claim such as “I value A"? Saying that Stephie values spending time playing the guitar does not at first glance seem to express a relation between different values. However, a person saying that A is valuable for her is expressing, though implicitly, some kind of relation of preference between objects. To make this explicit, one can ask Stephie “How much do you value spending time playing the guitar? Do you value it more than spending time cooking? Or more than spending time with your brother?” Questions like these show that Stephie is logically committed to making explicit some kind of hierarchy of preferences. She may value playing the guitar more than cooking, but not more than spending time with her brother. There is, then, no
1 For simplicity’s sake, I will not go into detail about what counts as normal circumstances. I will just assume that when a person says that they value A over B, they mean that they would choose A under some set of reasonable conditions. Another way of looking at the issue is to say that valuing expresses second-order desires (Frankfurt, 1971): that is, if I value A over B, I want to be able to choose A over B, even if, for example, my desire for a certain drug C overrides my ability to choose A.
such thing as valuing simpliciter. Valuing A always presupposes some kind of relation between objects. At the very least, valuing A implies valuing A more than not-A, because It would be a contradiction to say that I value both A and the absence of A. I cannot value both freedom and the absence of freedom any more than I can value the existence of Bach music and the
nonexistence of Bach music.
A possible objection to this view on values is that some objects are so valuable that they are beyond preference. Going back to the Kantian terminology from the previous section, certain things, such as humanity, have dignity (Kant, 1785/2002, p. 53). For example, one could believe that if A and B are human beings, it would be impossible to choose saving the life of one over the life of another based on considerations of value. Yet, the existence of dignified objects does not weaken the idea that values entail commitments to preferences, because it is not a problem to say that if I value A and B as dignified objects, i.e., they are not susceptible to substitution, then when I am faced with a choice, I would not be able to make a decision. Many problems in value ethics arise when objects are of more or less equal value, or of incommensurable value, or beyond any value. In such cases, this simply translates into not being able to choose one object over the other in any reasonable way. The main proposition still stands. if I value A more than B, then I am committed to choosing A over B, with this special case added: If I cannot compare A and B in terms of value, then I cannot commit to preferring one way or the other.
It is important to emphasize that I propose that expressing commitments to preferences is a necessary – and not sufficient – component of what it is to be a valued object. Maybe not all objects of preference are being valued, and if that is the case, there also need to be other features of objects of value which make them such. Alternatively, maybe the difference between valued objects and preferred objects is simply a matter of degree. If I always choose salad over soup, does that mean I value salad? Maybe yes, I value salad in the same way I value world piece, but to a substantially lesser degree; or maybe not, because there is some respect, or care, or emotional import, or some long-term commitment that is lacking. Either way, the point of this section is not to explicate the essential nature of values, but to find a method for identifying objects of value. Adding the link between preferences and values to the toolbox, it is now possible to look at values as part of a hierarchy.
There are two features of commitments to preferences that need to be mentioned in order to explain more extraordinary cases. First, a commitment to a preference can have as its object something which the subject will never encounter directly or influence in any way. I could value media transparency in Central Asia, even though I would never have the chance to do anything about it. Still, in saying this, I express a certain readiness to choose in favor of media
transparency in Central Asia. If the opportunity arises, however unlikely, to help or support the cause in any way, I would choose to do so. Put in more general terms, preferring to choose A over B does not necessarily have to mean that an opportunity to choose will ever arise.
Second, it is possible to be mistaken about how much some objects are preferable. Imagine that Walter has been to the opera once years ago. He says he values it more than, say, watching football, and he is committed to choosing it over football as a means of recreation. One day he decides to go to the opera and by the end of the show, he has reevaluated it. Walter realizes that on closer inspection, opera is not what he thought it was, and that he actually wouldn’t choose opera over football next time he is wondering what to do Saturday night. Indeed, the rethinking or discovery of what is of value is a driving force behind many (if not most)
contemporary narrative arcs which follow the growth of a character – a popular example is the film Titanic (Cameron, 1997), in which the highborn Rose discovers that she values genuine love more than her socially accepted engagement to a wealthy aristocrat. It is this possibility of mistake, the potential discrepancy between what a person values and what is actually valuable, that sparks many debates over the metaphysical status of values – is value a property of the objects of the world, or is it something that people construct subjectively?
1.3 Valued and valuable objects
Before moving on, I should make explicit the metaethical foundation of the present study. There are various positions one can take in respect to the reality of values, and traditionally, the debates have revolved around the question of whether values exist independently of the human mind or not. Being mind-dependent is a vague and ambiguous property, and so are labels such as “realist” and “cognitivist”, and for this reason, instead of naming the position I will adopt, I will describe in some detail the sense in which I understand values to be
mind-dependent. I will defend the view that values always refer to a relationship between a subject and an object. An object of value V always presupposes the mind of some subject S who values it and in reference to whom V is valuable.
Let us first discuss the subject S. S is a being capable of valuing. I will not take up a position on which the beings capable of valuing are, since it partly depends on how one chooses to interpret the concept of value. If one says that valuing is a commitment to certain preferences, as I did in the previous section, and adds that this is a sufficient condition for valuing, then every being that has the capacity to commit to some choice in the future would qualify for having values. On this interpretation, it would be justified to say that dogs value their freedom. However, if one insists that valuing necessarily involves not only choosing, but also a capacity for self-reflection and rationality in order to put one’s values to scrutiny, then only rational beings would have values, and dogs’ values would be nothing but a metaphor. I believe that it is at least partly a matter of linguistic preference to go one way or the other, so I will not defend either side. What seems obvious is that at the very least, possessing a mind is a necessary condition for being able to value.
The other component of valuing, the object V, is being valued because it possesses properties that have a certain positive impact on S. What these properties are and how exactly they affect the subject will be discussed in chapter 2. For now, it is enough to define a valued object as one that possesses properties that are valued by some S. Some objects are valued by single
individuals – think of sentimental souvenirs – and some are valued by whole societies, such as liberal democracy.
However, in order to bring some structure to the discussion, a distinction should be made between an object’s being valued and an object’s being valuable. If some object V is being valued, it means that there is at least one subject S that values it at this point in time. In
contrast, if V is valuable, it means that it gives real2 reasons for its being valued by at least one S, while in actuality, there may be no S that values it3. This distinction can best be understood through the following examples. Consider a painting by Jackson Pollock. The painting possesses some properties – having certain forms and colors – that make it valuable, i.e. make it possible for it to be valued by lovers of abstract expressionism. As it turns out, it is indeed being valued, since it is on display in a museum and many people see and marvel at it every day. It would be correct to say that this painting, call it painting A, is both valuable and being valued.
Now think of a painting B which is also painted by Pollock and possesses properties similar to those of painting A. Right after painting it, however, Pollock hid it somewhere. It was not only never discovered, but imagine that it remains hidden and unseen forever. Painting B, therefore, could never be valued by anyone, since there would never be anyone who could know about it. Could we say, nevertheless, that the painting is valuable? It seems so. Painting B has properties which make it a beautiful work of art despite the fact that there is no one around to witness it, thereby giving reasons for fans of Pollock to value it. We can conclude that painting B, in contrast to painting A, is valuable, but will never be valued.
2
What are “real reasons”? This is one of the million-dollar questions in ethics. Counterfactuals are notorious for their limited epistemological access: if I do not value V, how do we know that V has value? I will not try to provide a method for resolving this conflict, but will rely on the fact that, at least sometimes, it is intuitively clear that an object is valuable even if it is not being valued – see the Jackson Pollock example below. It is generally accepted by philosophers that people can be mistaken about the empirical facts behind objects they value (Ayer, 1952; Smith, 1991).
3
Thomas M. Scanlon (1998) also makes a distinction between valuable and valued objects, but treats it slightly differently:
To claim that something is valuable (or that it is ‘of value’) is to claim that others also have reason to value it, as you do. . . So, for example, it is natural to say, and would be odd to deny, that I value my children; but it would be odd for me to put this by saying that they are valuable (except in the sense that everyone is). (p. 95, emphasis in original)
I want to emphasize a different contrast between valued and valuable objects, namely that valued objects imply that their value is recognized by some subject, while valuable objects do not necessarily do so. To escape the oddity of saying that my children are valuable, I specify the subject: my children are valuable for me; the Algerian national flag is valuable for Algerians, etc.
Notice that in both cases, the paintings are not valuable for absolutely everyone. It seems perfectly alright to say that I am not a lover of Jackson Pollock paintings, and although I can see why other people value it, I do not do so personally. Both painting A and B are valuable
primarily for fans of expressionism (even though painting B would never have the chance to be valued). This relativity of values is most clear in cases where an object V is valuable for only one particular subject S. For instance, I have a certain seashell which I have kept from my wedding day and hold dear for sentimental reasons. It would be true to say that at this point in time, the seashell is valued, even if it is valued by just one person. It is also true that it is valuable for me, since it has the property of being a seashell from my wedding day. However, if I leave it on the beach, it would be just as valuable for passers-by as any other seashell, i.e. more or less worthless.
Being social creatures, human beings are naturally disposed to recognizing that some objects are valued by other people. My friends and family would know that the seashell from my wedding day is important for me even if it has no particular value for them. Moreover, in virtue of its being valuable for me, the seashell also becomes valuable for my close ones; if they are good close ones, they would find the shell more important than other shells and rank it higher in their hierarchy of values. Similarly, I can value a Pollock painting in virtue of the fact that it is valued by so many other people even if I don’t personally find it aesthetically pleasing. Our ability to reflect on what is valuable for us and for others makes it possible to inhabit what Kant (1785/2002) calls a “realm of ends” (p. 51): a society where people recognize each other’s ends as valuable.
1.4 The mind dependency of values
Hopefully, these examples capture the ordinary meaning of something’s being valued and/or valuable. If the analysis is correct, then it can safely be concluded that valuing involves two components: a subject S and an object V which is valued by S. If V is valuable for S, this means that V has properties which make it possible to be valued by S, even if only potentially. The mind dependency of values, then, refers to the fact that the value of objects is set by a subject S. In other words, if there is no S for whom an object is valuable, then this object has no value. A valuable object is always valuable for someone.
This claim needs further defense. A big source of confusion about the mind dependency of values comes from the fact that many times, the subjects for whom a particular V is valuable remain unspecified. If a time-traveller going back to ancient Greece tells the average citizen slave owner that universal human rights are valuable, the ancient Greek would probably disagree. To this the time-traveller might reply: “Human rights are valuable regardless of what anyone thinks about it!” Since this statement holds some intuitive appeal, one might conclude that there are values which are independent of any subjects whatsoever. Even if there was no
one on earth at the time of ancient Greece who found value in universal human rights, they would still be valuable (Moore, 1903; Ross, 1930; Shafer-Landau, 2003; Smith, 1991). Notice that this mirrors the example of Pollock’s painting B. An object V is valuable even though it is not being valued. Surely, it is an empirical fact that the ancient Greek does not value human rights, and yet to say that they are valuable means that they have properties, perhaps certain types of nobility, universality, and sublimity, which make it possible for at least someone to value them.
Then who is this someone who can value universal human rights if it is not the citizens of ancient Greece? It needs to be some specific type of S, perhaps a human being who can feel respect for humanity or at least is not brought up to consider slavery natural. It is an S who is well informed about the world and knows enough about human rights to be able to respect and value them (Smith, 1991) – presumably, the time-traveller is such a person. What he seems to be saying is that if the ancient Greeks were like him and had the correct internal disposition, if they were the right kind of S, they would have been able to see the wrongness of slavery. There is something inhibiting the slave owners, some kind of internal lack, analogous to the
expressionism enthusiasts who cannot value Pollock’s painting B because they are inhibited by the fact that they do not know it exists. This line of reasoning might well be true, but it is not an argument against the idea that values are fixed by subjects. Whether there is anyone that actually values human rights or not is beside the point; what is at stake is whether its properties are made valuable in reference to some subject S. The properties of human rights – for
example, expressing universal respect – can only be valued by someone who can care about them. Believing otherwise would imply that human rights are also valuable for cats, rocks, and spiders, and the burden of proof would then lie on the one holding this uncommon belief. This is, then, the specific sense in which I understand values to be mind-dependent: though objects exist independently in the world, their properties are made valuable only in respect to some subject S (even if there are objects which are valuable for all S). Valuable objects are always valuable for somebody.
Nonetheless, the time-traveller is probably making another implicit assertion. It is not only that the right sort of subject S can see the value of human rights and that the ancient Greeks
themselves have the potential to be this right kind of S, but also that the idea of human rights – unlike sentimental seashells – has the potential to be valued widely, maybe even by every human being across space and time (Strawson, 1961). It is claimed to be universally valuable, something that can be valued by absolutely everyone, given the right external circumstances and internal disposition. Is it true that there are such universal values (Harman, 1975; Gensler, 1998)? Maybe yes, but I think that the answer to this question lies more in evolutionary biology and psychology than in philosophy. Similarly, it is an open question whether there are objects
that are not only universally valuable, but also universally valued, such as personal autonomy or absence of pain.
These considerations still do not exhaust the full force behind the time-traveller’s assertion, as another layer of implicit meaning that his claim could have is an imperative one. It is not only the case that everyone has the potential to value human rights, but also that everyone ought to value them (Shafer-Landau, 2003; Stevenson, 1937). This direction in normativity, however, is beyond the scope of this thesis, and I will stay mostly on the descriptive side of things by not discussing the complexities that arise from “ought” statements. Normative considerations nevertheless point to another important distinction that should be made clear at this point: valuable things do not necessarily mean good things, and the question of what is good is not always the same as what is valuable. This is because there is a teleological sense of the word “good”, according to which something’s being good means something’s being good at fulfilling some kind of function (Thomson, 2008, p. 19-ff). Consider the object X which is extremely good at being absolutely worthless for everyone. X can be a speck of dust or a mosquito, and
although the existence of X is a bit sad, it must be concluded that there could be objects that are good in some way, though not valuable for anyone.
On a side note, it is also worth mentioning exactly what kinds of facts judgments about value express according to the present view. The fact that I want to express when I say that V is
valuable for S is that V has properties which give S a reason to value it4. Both the subject and the object are real entities, and valuing is a type of mental process that is as real as any other, such as desire or fear. There is nothing mysterious about this, and there is no reason to believe that it is incompatible with the scientific method. Maybe science is not advanced enough to be able to predict which objects would elicit a certain response in a certain brain, but this does not mean that valuing is not a real process that happens in the real, physical world or that judgments about it cannot be true or false.
Hopefully, in this section I was able to clarify my metaethical stance. Values have an objective and a subjective side. They are objective insofar as an object can be valuable without being valued, i.e., an object can exist and possess properties that make it valuable without anyone at present actually valuing it; and values are subjective in the sense that they are mind dependent, as what makes the properties of objects valuable is the internal disposition of some subject. Probably not everyone will agree with this view and most certainly there are more objections that need addressing, but this is the most general description of the foundation on which I will be philosophizing in the following chapters. Fortunately, accepting the entirety of this view on values is not necessary for accepting many of the arguments that will come in the following chapters.
4 The existence of such facts is accepted by cognitivists (Shafer-Landau, 2003), and not denied by at least some non-cognitivists (Ayer, 1952; Harman, 1977; Mackie, 1977).
There still remain the big questions about values, and in the next chapter, I will try to address them by looking at the currency of value, the standard according to which something is deemed more worthy and preferable than another.
Chapter 2: The TTT and TTTV
In this chapter, I will develop a theory about the currency of value. I will start out by defining and refining the concept of tranquility: a conative aspect of conscious experience which determines choice. Using tranquility, I will end up with two theories: The Tranquility and Turmoil Theory (TTT), which is a stepping stone towards the Tranquility and Turmoil Theory of Value (TTTV).
2.1 The Tranquility and Turmoil Theory (TTT)
I concluded the last chapter by stating that it is a necessary condition for a value to express a commitment to a certain preference. Now I am turning to the question: What makes one object more preferable than another?
To answer this, I need to define a few new concepts, as to my knowledge there is nothing specifically like them. The link between values and motivation is at least as old as David Hume (1737/2003), who maintained that moral judgments are intrinsically motivating. There have been many attempts at explaining exactly what the right connection between value and motivation is, but it is generally agreed that moral values are supposed to be intrinsically motivating (Ayer, 1952; Harman, 1977; Mackie, 1977; Nagel, 1985; Shafer-Landau, 2003; Stevenson, 1937).
Here is my own line of thought regarding the relationship between value and motivation. Any conscious human experience can be evaluated based on how strongly the subject feels a motive to change her circumstances. When I suffer a skiing accident and break my leg, I feel an intense need to change my circumstances so as to remove the pain and fear. I wish that the present moment changes. I unrealistically wish to bring about a world in which I have not broken my leg. Or, more realistically, I want to call someone who would help me get to a hospital.
When I am anxious about the big test tomorrow, I want to change my circumstances in a way that removes the anxiety. I review the study material, I try to convince myself that I am well prepared, and I am glad when my close ones comfort me.
When I am sitting at home on a Sunday afternoon feeling bored, I want to change my
When I am sunbathing at the beach, however, I feel no noticeable need to change my
circumstances. In the present moment, I feel perfectly fine right where I am. I am not anxious, bored, or in pain. Similarly, I feel no noticeable need to change my circumstances when I watch an exciting film, write poetry, go jogging at the end of the day, or work in the garden. For sure, there are small tingles of motivation which make me put one foot in front of the other when running and search my mind for rhymes when writing poetry, but these are a lot weaker than, for instance, the intensity of pain. The difference between horrible and pleasant moments can be viewed as a matter of degree in respect to the motivation to change my circumstances. These examples aim to show that moments in our lives with very different phenomenological feels can be grouped based on how much we are motivated to escape them. In the words of Christine Korsgaard (1996), pain is a sensation “which we are inclined to fight” (p. 147). However, there is a myriad of feelings besides pain that also contain a reason to escape them, such as fear, anxiety, boredom, regret, guilt, craving, jealousy, itches, and vertigo. I shall call the motivation to escape a given moment that these feelings give rise to the need for change. The concept of the need for change, however, is so broad that it is not useful until it is refined. In what follows, I will list the features of the need for change and show how it differs from other mental phenomena.
The most important feature of the need for change is that it admits to degrees. The intense pain of a broken leg involves a lot more need for change than putting one foot in front of the other when jogging for fun. The intensity of the need for change could be measured on a scale, and I shall stipulatively call the lower pole of this scale, the one where need for change is minimum, the pole of motivational tranquility; the opposite pole I shall stipulatively call the pole of
motivational turmoil; for the purposes of conciseness, I will use simply tranquility and turmoil.
Relaxing the need for change brings tranquility and increasing it brings turmoil. Henceforth, I shall refer to the scale of the need for change as the tranquility scale:
Tranquility and Turmoil Theory (TTT): Any conscious human experience can be graded on the tranquility scale. The tranquility scale shows how much a subject feels the need for change.
The tranquility scale provides a way of talking about states of relative tranquility and states of relative turmoil. A state of turmoil is one in which there is a very intense need for change, such as bodily pain. A tranquil state is one in which there is only a weak need for change, such as listening to one’s favorite band5.
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“Tranquility” and “turmoil” are terms which I have chosen in order to emphasize the motivational aspect of states in which the need for change is respectively weak or strong. However, if we assume that one would always
intrinsically desire mental states which involve less need for change, then the reader can also think of “tranquility” and “turmoil” as respectively “desirable” and “undesirable” mental states.
At this point, there could be an objection about my terminology. Why not just use “desire” instead of “need for change” and “desire intensity” instead of “tranquility scale”? Although these terms are indeed similar, desire and desire intensity can be interpreted in more than one way, and some interpretations do not capture what I have in mind. First, it is not always natural to say that one has a desire when one feels a need for change. I can imagine circumstances I want to escape but in which I do not have a concrete desire, for example when being in a bad mood for an unknown reason (Schroeder, 2004). Waking up one morning, I feel I do not want to be in my present conscious state, but I do not know why. That is, there is no particular object in my mind that I seem to desire; I just want to be somewhere else or feel in a different way. If there is such objectless motivation, instead of saying that I desire to change but have no
particular object of desire in mind, it is more straightforward to say that I experience a need for change.
Second, desire intensity can have many dimensions, only one of which corresponds to the tranquility scale. Wanting to see one’s beloved can be a desire that is intense in emotion, intense in bodily sensation, intense in the force of attraction, etc. Yet, on the tranquility scale, experiencing such a desire is a comparatively tranquil experience. Desiring to see one’s beloved seems like a state that involves less need to escape it than a state of desiring to alleviate one’s hunger. One can daydream about one’s beloved for hours, precisely because it is intense in ways not measured by the tranquility scale. These examples show that there are ambiguities in the concept of desire that can be circumvented if I use “need for change” instead. Plus, the “need for change” emphasizes the specific motivational feel which I think is relevant for this study on values and welfare.
Going back to the tranquility scale, another of its essential properties is that it measures the
overall feeling of the need for change at any given moment. That is, at a given point in time, the
tranquility and turmoil from various sources balance each other out and get combined into a
tranquility bundle. This tranquility bundle represents the overall score of a conscious experience
on the tranquility scale. Imagine a mountain trekker who feels a bit tired, which makes him want to change his circumstances in a way that he can rest. An even stronger desire he has is to satisfy his intense thirst, which combines with his slight tiredness to make him want to change his circumstances even more. The trekker’s tranquility bundle includes two items: thirst and tiredness, both of which increase his turmoil. He feels higher turmoil when he is both thirsty and tired than he would have felt if he were simply thirsty or simply tired.
This, however, is not the whole story, as turmoil can be counterbalanced. One way to relax the need for change is to satisfy one’s desires. Drinking water would decrease the need for change of the trekker and his level of tranquility would thereby become higher. Similarly, sitting down would satisfy his desire for rest and increase his tranquility even more. But satisfying the desires
unexpectedly stumbles upon a majestic vista. He breathes in the pristine mountain air and suddenly realizes that he is less inclined to change his present circumstances, even though he is still as thirsty and as tired as before. Or, after ten hours of walking, the trekker becomes inured to the difficulties of climbing; he starts caring less and less about his aching limbs and dry throat, even though they are as aching and as dry as before. The trekker’s tranquility increases, despite his not drinking water or sitting down, thereby satisfying the desires that are the source of his turmoil. His tranquility bundle now is the sum of his tiredness, thirst, aesthetic impressions, and adaptation to turmoil. This is yet another reason that the need for change is to be distinguished from desire – the intensity of one’s need for change can fluctuate without satisfying a particular desire.
2.2 The meaning of motivational tranquility
Although the tranquility scale is quite a broad concept, it is important to draw its limits. From the exposition so far, it should become apparent that motivational6 tranquility in the present context is to be distinguished from other types of tranquility. The distinction can be made clearer by looking at cases where a person is tranquil exclusively in the sense of motivational intensity. Think of a person dancing at her favorite festival. She has been waiting for it the whole year and is in ecstatic bliss. Her body is allowed, not forced, to move with vigor and her senses are overwhelmed by the music, costumes, and movements of other people. Her body is not in stasis; neither are her emotions. Her mind is also not devoid of content, as ideas and
impressions storm around her mind in rapid succession. At the same time, though, she feels no noticeable need to change anything. She is right where she wants to be and nothing motivates her strongly to escape her present state. How one achieves motivational tranquility changes based on the desires and needs one has, and it does not presuppose a complete halt of bodily,
emotional, or mental life. Sitting on top of a mountain would not alleviate many people’s
boredom, loneliness, and need for movement.
Furthermore, the tranquility scale measures only a certain aspect of motivation. First, it does not measure whether one has motives in general. Conscious life would be impossible without any volition, because then there would not be any movement of body or mind at all. The
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I use motivation in the present study rather loosely. The need for change is supposed to encompasses all the feelings that give one a reason to change her circumstances. This might or might not include all of human motivation, but I leave the verdict to the philosophers of mind.Perhaps some theorists would not agree that the need for change is a type of motivation at all. Consider this case discussed by Timothy Schroeder (2004):
Think, for example, of an ancient Greek mathematician who is uncertain about the value of π but who desires that it not be expressible as a fraction of two natural numbers. What motivational complex could possibly correspond to this desire? There is nothing our mathematician can do, and nothing he believes he can do, to affect the value of π. (p. 16) According to Schroeder, the Greek mathematician desires – i.e. feels a need to change something in the world, namely the value of π – without feeling motivation. I suppose that this is a matter of definitions. Schroeder seems to think that a mental state that does not lead to a bodily act is not motivation. To me this seems an overly strict definition of motivation, because many times one appears to be motivated not to act bodily, but to act mentally. The Greek mathematician’s desire is a motivation to think in certain ways, such as visualizing how great mathematics would be if π was a fraction of two natural numbers.
tranquility scale assumes that there is (almost) always a naturally created need for change in everyone during conscious life.
The tranquility scale also does not measure whether one succeeds in acting on one’s motives. Let us take as an example the same act – say, running twenty kilometers – motivated by two different motives. When my child needs medical attention while on a mountain hike, the fear for her safety would motivate me to get help even if it means running twenty kilometers. Another motive for running the same distance could be a simple desire to be healthy. It might be a habit of mine that every Saturday, I go out running half a marathon as part of my fitness routine. The two motives can succeed or fail in resulting in action, but this is not what the tranquility scale measures.
Instead, the tranquility scale measures only the strength of one’s motivation to change one’s
circumstances. Fear for a close one’s safety motivates with great force; I must, necessarily, at all
costs, change the world until the source of the fear is gone. In contrast, a desire to be fit is weaker. It does not matter too much if I skip my training this Saturday, and yet I still succeed in doing it every Saturday. Thus, given the right circumstances, relative motivational tranquility is
sufficient to motivate lively acts in all their diversity. There are always motives in one’s
consciousness, and they do not need to involve great turmoil in order to give rise to action. Tranquil feelings, such as love, are sufficient for performing all sorts of great and difficult acts. When I play football, a game that I love, the strong need to change my circumstances is not necessary for running at top speed till exhaustion. Physical movement happens naturally and easily, without any noticeable turmoil. I can similarly act on my motives to dance, play, write, compose, work, and act in various other ways without greatly wanting to change my
circumstances. The strong motivation given by pain does not seem necessary for performing the acts of a happy human life.
Since this is primarily a study on ethics, I will not go further into the philosophy of mind behind the TTT. The need for change is a complex mental process, and it is true that an investigation into it from the point of view of the philosophy of action can help describe it in even further detail. For example, the need for change can be broken down into its constituent stages, and it could be shown how exactly it relates to concepts such as intention, desire, and action.
However, such a detailed description is not necessary for the main task of this thesis, which is to suggest a particular way of using motivation – in the broadest sense – to approach metaethical questions. It is possible to group together experiences based on the need to escape them without having a complete picture of how motivation works.
Thus, for the purposes of studying values and welfare, it suffices to find a method for
processes. The best method I can think of is the subject’s asking himself honestly “Do I feel a need to change anything in the present moment?”
There are three possible responses to this question. The first one is “yes”. This is probably the response that will be given almost all the time by most people. In any moment of conscious life there is almost always at least a little turmoil brought about by various sources, from trivial everyday desires to the need to bring about the political system of one’s choice. A person can even feel a need for change because of unrealizable desires. During episodes of guilt and regret, for example, a person wishes for the impossible opportunity to go back in time and act
differently.
The important thing in this category of experiences is the severity of turmoil: “How much do I feel the need to change in the present moment?” The difference between good and bad lives lies in this, as happiness does not require a complete lack of turmoil, but simply sufficiently high levels of tranquility. If while sunbathing at the beach the only unsatisfied desire is the thirst for lemonade, then this is an enviably high level of tranquility. Being bored brings one further down the tranquility scale and cases of bodily pain are already cases of violent turmoil.
A second possible response is “no”. This is absolute tranquility7. One’s needs are so minor that there is nothing noticeable to be changed in the present perfect moment; there is nothing left to achieve and no urgent desires to be satisfied. Absolute tranquility seems to be captured by phrases such as “I am so happy I could die”. It is found in fictions of complete bliss, for example heaven, nirvana, or the idea of utopia. The real life achievement of absolute tranquility can be found in ecstatic experiences of all kinds: aesthetic perception of the beautiful and sublime, religious ecstasy, near-death experiences, instances of collective joy, and perhaps even in the brief moments of heartfelt laughter. Such states are possible, but apparently relatively rare. There could, nonetheless, also be a third response: “I don’t know”. This can come about in two ways. The first is when at a given moment the individual is on the verge between “yes” and “no”. Experiencing in rapid succession both the desire for lemonade and the beauty of the sun, the waves, and the sky, there is confusion about whether the moment really is perfect or just not entirely so. Since tranquility is a matter of degree, it is entirely conceivable that there are many such cases. These would still be ranked relatively high by the subject in terms of happiness and value, because being on the verge of a perfect moment is already a lot better than most of ordinary everyday experience. There is, though, another possibility that I will leave open, and that is that there could be a complete lack of awareness of one’s motivation. I can imagine that in deep concentration – for example during meditation – the subject could lose touch with how much he wants to change, just like during dreamless sleep. If there indeed are such states of
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It is more correct to say “close to absolute tranquility”, because it is probably impossible to utterly halt the need to change one’s circumstances during conscious life. In what follows, by “absolute tranquility” I will mean a state in which the subject feels only very minor, though still existent, bursts of motivation.
mind, they would be exceptions to the TTT, and in contrast to the indecisiveness case, they would be considered entirely beyond the scope of the tranquility scale.
There is one important drawback to the method I have just outlined. Asking oneself “Do I feel a need to change anything in the present moment?” already changes the present moment. Since most people perceive that there is always something that could be improved in the universe, thinking about what could be changed can bring about thoughts of environmental crises, famine and war. These are thoughts that are latent somewhere in the back of one’s mind and are only sometimes brought to awareness. So, the assessment of one’s tranquility is supposed to be targeted at the moment that is prior to asking the question. It should be about one’s feeling of a need for change in the present moment, and not about whether one in general thinks that there is something in the world that needs to be changed. Most of us believe that the world in its present state is in need of change, but moments of happiness would never be possible if that was the only thing we were thinking about.
2.3 How tranquility determines choice
Let us recap. At any given moment in time, various aspects of experience influence a subject’s need for change. Some feelings relax this need and some increase it. The sum total of these influences at a given point in time yields a tranquility bundle: an overall score on the tranquility scale.
Now we can look at the process of making a conscious choice8 in more detail. Different courses of action are assessed based on how much the idea of them brings the subject tranquility or turmoil. Should I order cake or ice-cream for dessert? I hate cake. It is too sweet, and the idea of it makes me nauseous. I want to escape the thought of cake. In contrast, the idea of ice-cream relaxes my need to change the present moment, as I love ice-cream. Since I want to escape the course of action that would result in cake a lot more than the one that would result in ice-cream, I cannot fail to choose ice-cream.
When assessing choices, it is of crucial importance to recall that tranquility and turmoil get combined into an overall score on the tranquility scale, because this explains why it is rational for people to commit to such acts as childbearing or fighting in wars. Demanding and difficult acts do induce turmoil, but this can be overridden by tranquilizing aspects of these acts. Feelings of pride, honor, love, beauty, or meaningfulness9 can more than counterbalance the need for change generated by physical and mental pain, fatigue, stress, or fear.
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I say conscious choice to contrast it with species of choice and motivation that seem to bypass conscious mental life, such as acting out of habit or reflex. In what follows, I will take “choice” to mean “conscious choice”. 9
Here is a sketch of how a more complex choice is made. I have signed up for a marathon and am now having second thoughts. I have two choices. Choice number one is to participate: the idea of running forty kilometers makes me want to escape it and give up, but, simultaneously, considering the pride I would feel at the end of the marathon relaxes me; it makes running seem more bearable. So, in total, this course of action makes me feel only a mediocre need to escape it. Choice number two is to give up. This promises a bit of tranquility, because I will not have to exert myself; but it also makes me feel the turmoil of intense shame, which I cannot bear. In total, I feel a very intense need to escape from giving up on the marathon. By definition, I cannot consciously fail to choose to participate in the marathon. Because I have defined the tranquility scale to reflect how much one is motivated to escape a situation, it is a tautology to say that one will always choose more tranquility over less.
It is worth noting that there is nothing in the TTT which entails that people necessarily make an egoistic choice. Voluntary self-sacrifice provides an illuminating example to prove this. Think of a soldier during wartime who has the opportunity to sacrifice herself in order to save the lives of a few of her comrades. She has the following options: 1) let her comrades die and continue living with a reasonable chance that she would return home and lead a satisfactory life for decades; or 2) save her comrades and die herself, eliminating any opportunity for leading a good life in the future. In this particular instance, she chooses 2), because the fear and sorrow that come with the idea that her comrades would die is a source of great turmoil. It is so great that it overrides her instinct for self-preservation. Her choice shows that the most preferable tranquility bundle is not necessarily the one that will maximize one’s own future welfare. Notice that the need for change is a concept that is broad enough to weigh in the tranquility and turmoil of feelings regardless of whether these feelings are moral, egoistic, aesthetic, etc. All feelings of conscious life can be assessed based on how much one wants to escape them. A person who feverishly wants to fulfill her duty is in turmoil, just as a person who experiences a dire lack of food, entertainment, or social contact. All types of consciously made choices can be described using the concepts outlined so far. Masochists would choose tranquility bundles involving more physical pain, dutiful vendors would choose bundles involving being honest to customers, and good parents would choose bundles involving sacrifices for their children. 2.4 Tranquilitism and hedonism
The attentive reader would have noticed that in the previous sections, I talk of happy or pleasant states as tranquil states. This is because I believe that it is quite possible that pleasant states are if not coextensive with, then at least a subspecies of tranquil ones. Similarly, pain seems straightforwardly a case of turmoil. Indulging in one’s favorite hobby is hardly an experience one wants to escape, while burning one’s finger on the stove is. Because of this overlap, in this section I will briefly digress from the main train of thought to show how the TTT
relates to the concepts of hedonism and how the former can be useful for furthering the discussion on the latter.
In ordinary language, pleasure and pain appear to have a narrower connotation than what I define tranquility and turmoil to mean. Unpleasant experiences such as itches and nausea are not often referred to as painful (Sumner, 2003, p. 103), although they are instances of turmoil. Similarly, fulfilling one’s duty is usually contrasted with pleasure, while under my definition fulfilling one’s duty is a prime example of a tranquil state. Tranquility and turmoil, therefore, include a wider variety of experiences than, respectively, pleasure and pain.
However, philosophers who have held a hedonistic theory of value and the good life seem to depart from ordinary language when defining pleasure and pain, and might have intended to describe something close to the tranquilitism of this thesis. Consider one of the founding fathers of hedonism, Epicurus, who says:
When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice, or willful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and trouble in the soul. (Epicurus, 2015, p. 14)
Absence of pain and trouble in the soul seem remarkably close to the definition of tranquility in the TTT. Or take James Mill’s (1839) definitions of pleasure and pain:
I have one sensation, and then another, and then another. The first is of such a kind, that I care not whether it is long or short; the second is of such a kind, that I would put an end to it instantly if I could; the third is of such a kind, that I like it prolonged. To distinguish those feelings, I give them names. I call the first Indifferent; the second, Painful; the third, Pleasurable; very often, for shortness, I call the second, Pain, the third, Pleasure. (p. 144)
For James Mill, pain might have meant something quite close to turmoil, and “I like it
prolonged”, though a bit vague, is a phrase suggesting that pleasure is seen as something similar to tranquility. I include these passages not because I am convinced that hedonists of the past were necessarily tranquilitists, but because I believe a benefit of the TTT is that it can open up new avenues for studying and interpreting the hedonistic theorists of the past. It is conceivable that they were trying to define the good in terms of motivation, what I call tranquility, but that their ideas were clouded by the ordinary language use of pleasure and pain.
The tranquilitist route also explains why hedonists have relied on such a simple dichotomy between pleasure and pain for their theories of value. For John Stuart Mill (1863/2001), “pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things that are desirable as ends” (p. 10), while Jeremy Bentham (1789) famously begins his book An Introduction to the Principles of Morals
and Legislation with the sentence “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two
sovereign masters, pain, and pleasure” (p. 1, emphasis in original). The tranquility scale can make sense of why it feels natural to suppose that feelings can be categorized into just two types: they either increase or decrease our need to change our circumstances.
Hedonism has often been charged with being unable to justify this categorization, as pleasure and pain have been found to illegitimately group together experiences so different in kind that they could hardly be called comparable. What phenomenological feel does the pleasure of reading a good book late in the evening have in common with the pleasure of skydiving? In other words, what is the phenomenological “hedonic tone” that all pleasures are supposed to share (Alston, 1967)? Recently, an attempt to answer this problem of hedonism has been to suggest that pleasures share not one, but many hedonic tones (Labukt, 2012), but this still leaves the question open: what is it that all pleasures, or all hedonic tones, have in common? One well-known attempt to unify all experiences of pleasure and enjoyment has been offered and rejected by J. C. B. Gosling (1969): “a person who is enjoying something thereby wants, i.e. wants to continue the experience he is enjoying” (p. 64). But this definition of pleasure cannot work, as Gosling himself points out:
I may enjoy breaking a certain piece of good news to someone; but it is hard to believe that because I enjoy it I must want to go on breaking it. After all, I know as well as
anyone else that I cannot go on breaking the same piece of news to the same person. (p. 65).
I believe that the mistake in the definition offered by Gosling is that it does not get the relationship between motivation and pleasure right: pleasure does not involve wanting to prolong an experience, but instead not wanting to change the experience. There is an important difference, as wanting to prolong an experience only contingently accompanies enjoyment and might equally well be a case of fear and unpleasantness. Imagine indulging in a delicious ice-cream cake. With each bite, one feels less need to change anything, as one can just let go and cherish the moment. But once the cake starts running out, there is a sudden feeling of wanting to prolong, to hold on to the fleeting experience; one wants to find more cake or somehow make the last bites last longer. One wants to prolong the taste of ice-cream cake as much as possible, and the more intense this desire is, the more it becomes a feeling of fearful craving. Instead, tranquilitism classifies a feeling as pleasurable if one does not want to escape it. While breaking the piece of good news, I do not want to escape the moment. After I am done, the moment is gone and if I want to go on breaking the news, that would be a wish to change my circumstances and hence already depart from being a pleasant experience. The tranquility scale thus provides a starting point for grouping experiences in a way that resolves the hedonic tone problem.
It is a matter of interpretation to see whether hedonists such as Epicurus or James Mill meant something like tranquility when they were talking of pleasure, but whatever their views were, I will treat pleasure and pain as respectively cases of tranquility and turmoil. The motivational aspect of pleasure and pain is generally agreed upon by theorists10, and at least in most general terms, one does not want to escape pleasures, but wants to escape pains.
2.5 The Tranquility and Turmoil Theory of Value (TTTV)
The TTT provides a conceptual tool for ranking human experiences based on the subjective feeling of the need for change, but it is not yet clear how this is relevant for the question of the currency of values. Here I will bring together the arguments provided so far in order to construct the Tranquility and Turmoil Theory of Value (TTTV).
First, which objects are valued as opposed to valuable? I showed in Chapter 1 that when a subject values an object, this necessarily expresses a commitment to a certain preference. Valuing A more than B means that, external influences disregarded, S would choose A over B, given the opportunity. In section 2.3, I defined the motivation that leads to making a choice as the need for change, and proposed that a subject chooses between an object A and an object B based on the tranquility that the idea of each object brings him. The idea of living in a world in which philosophy is part of the academic programmes of universities brings me feelings of happiness and contentment. The idea of a world in which philosophy is not a respected part of university curricula brings me revulsion and sadness. I want to escape the latter feelings a lot more than the former ones, and this in turn means that I would choose to live in the former world rather than in the latter. Because I am committed to this choice, it could be said that I value the study of philosophy in universities.
If my line of thinking so far is accepted as sound, then we can conclude that the currency of subjectively valuing something is tranquility. This by itself is hardly a spectacular philosophical point: it simply means that we value objects if we want to escape their absence more than their presence.
What about the more complex issue of which objects are valuable for a given subject? Recall that in section 1.3 I defined a valuable object as one that provides real reasons for being valued by a subject S, although she might fail to do so. In the language of the TTT, this means that an object V is valuable for a subject S if it can provide reasons to be chosen by the subject based on the currency of tranquility.
There are, therefore, four possible types of relationship between a subject and an object in terms of valuing: 1) valuing something that is valuable; 2) not valuing something that is not
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valuable; 3) valuing something that is not valuable; and 4) not valuing something that is valuable.
The first two possibilities are quite straightforward. I value the study of philosophy in
universities because it gives me a real reason to value it, namely the feelings of contentment that come with it. Conversely, I do not value the existence of famine, as revulsion and fear would make me not choose to live in a world of famine. In both cases, I am well informed about the topics and know their real consequences.
However, it is possible that there is a mismatch between what I find valuable and what is valuable for me. For example, we can imagine an ancient people who value the cult to their goddess because they believe that she would guarantee a good harvest. Although the cult to this goddess may fulfill all sorts of societal functions, it would not guarantee a good harvest. The cult does not offer a real reason for being valued in the way that it is. It is being valued, but is not valuable – or at least not valuable in the way that is imagined by the worshippers. They might not choose to continue their worship once they find out that this would not help their crops grow.
Finally, one could fail to value something that is valuable. For hundreds of thousands of years people all over the planet did not know the role the Amazon forest plays in supplying oxygen for all living things on Earth. People did not value the existence of the rainforest, even though it was immensely valuable for them. It is only recently that we have discovered the crucially important function of the Amazon and are beginning to value it.
Thus it is a completely truth-evaluable claim to say that V is valuable for S. For this statement to be true, V needs to possess reasons for it to be chosen by S. Conversely, saying that V is valuable for S even though S does not have any reason to choose it is false. Claiming that going through public education is valuable for S cannot be true if S does not care one bit about public
education and it would only scar him mentally and emotionally, without offering much benefit in return. S’s going through education might be valuable for society, that is, for other people who would need S to acquire certain social and practical skills, but not for him.
Having established the currency of valuing, it is possible to approach the question of intrinsic value again. If the test for knowing whether something of intrinsic value is to check whether it is possible to be replaced – as I outlined in section 1.1 – then it is quite plausible to suppose that in the real world there are objects which are essential for a person’s tranquility and cannot be replaced by anything else. Freedom of movement might be something without which I would not feel tranquil, no matter what. There could be individual intrinsic values – my heirloom of sentimental value, for example, is indispensable – and there might be universal ones, such as freedom of movement or autonomy.
