Thread: Is Experience the Stuff of Moral Value?

Originally Posted by DuB

The other way to approach the question is as a prescriptive one: ought one to use the device? I'm not sure that this is how you intended the question, but given the introduction to the thread I don't think I can rule out that interpretation.

This is how I meant it. We're assuming the 'stuff of moral value' exists, and we're investigating if one should use the device, with reference to the idea that experience is the thing that morals are chiefly concerned with.

Second, I think it should be clarified whether you are referring to one's own enjoyable experience as the stuff of moral value, or the totality of enjoyable experience as the stuff of moral value. That is, ought I to be motivated to increase your enjoyable experience, or only my own? This is an important distinction.

I think the golden rule falls out as a corollary from the axiom. If experience is the stuff of moral value, then giving people bad experiences is negatively affecting moral value.