Weighing Pleasure and Pain
What is more important, creating happiness or eliminating pain?
Theoretically, at the direct expense of one person suffering level 5 (moderately uncomfortable) thermal pain for 1 hour worth 10 people happily playing (random example) volleyball at an average level 5 of "happiness" (possibly, laughter, mild euphoria from exercise etc) for 1 hour?
Kant states that it is immoral to use another person merely as a means to an end, and that people must, under all circumstances, be treated as ends in themselves. This essentially means that we should not ever devalue a human ontologically in order to help more humans attain happiness.
This seems pretty cut and dry. Don't use people in any method ever. People are not tools, they are not to be used. Makes sense.
Utilitarianism says, "yeah sure, why not?" It's simple math, if happiness = 1, and pain = 1 then this scenario is 10 to 1 in favor of happiness. LET'S PLAY VOLLEYBALL!!
Or no?
Personally, my intuition and instinct would not allow this. I cannot back this empirically, but I think we are inclined to help people in pain. Being inhumane can never be justified I do not think.
Issues with Excessive Happiness
Happiness is an ambiguous concept as well. Happiness could be broken down into pleasure, satiety, satisfaction, contentness, relief etc. So what is it really we all strive for?
My issues with pure Utilitarian principles are that if we are allowed to sacrifice people for a greater happiness, what if we create a TON of happiness? E.g a large portion of the population is SUPER happy, while some people suffer. That's kind of what we have now right? Why is that okay?
Could this excessive happiness lead into the...
Hangover Effect
Can excessive happiness turn into pain as an after effect?
I assume most of us have had a great night raging and partying etc, and then the next day you're pretty sure you went to a fight club, not a night club. You're hung over, and it sucks.
Another example.
Bipolar disorder, which is chronic episodes of mania with subsequent depression. The brain releases massive amounts of dopamine, which causes mania and euphoria for a few days, and then there is a crash, like a hang over which almost always lasts longer than the euphoria. Psychiatrists then prescribe dopamine antagonists which block dopamine from being received by dopamine receptors in the brain which ultimately prevents the euphoria. Patients say this treatment sucks, because they like the euphoria and the productivity associated with the manic state of Bipolar disorder. But the treatment stabilizes mood eliminates MORE pain by eliminating the hangover effect caused by the excessive dopamine flow.
Should we look at society similarly to a person with Bipolar disorder and focus on eliminating pain and not focus so much on creating so much pleasure?
You bring up a very interesting point, should we focus more on eliminating pain and not on creating happiness? Surely we should examine the story of the Omelas. These people were all living a good life at the expense of one person's misery. Eventually, as we all know, the people walked away, they simply could not handle the guilt that was felt at the expense of that one individual. Obviously, we are never going to get rid of pain in this world. There will always be pain, pain is certainly a part of our everyday lives. Without pain, our lives would be meaningless. However, this is not to say that we should not strive towards a less painful society. But I think that ridding people of pain is creating happiness. Pain is something that comes with happiness, the two coincide with each other. There cannot be happiness without pain, otherwise we would not know what it meant to be truly happy. I believe that by focusing on eliminating pain, we are in fact creating happiness.
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