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Robert Nozick's The Experience Machine

1789 Words8 Pages

There are many people that believe pleasure is the basis of life. The novel by Robert Nozick, “The Experience machine” made people deliberate about the good life by explaining if pleasures can be attained without having to experience any consequences in life. Epicurus, a philosopher during the ages of 341-270BC talks about how one can acquire than less pain. Throughout his lifetime, he tried to figure out what the good life meant for him. Philosopher, Jean Kazez talks about the basic necessities of life. Lastly, philosopher, Chris Heathwood talks about how there is three basic characteristics that people need to face. Epicurus believed that pleasure is the basis of life. Throughout his theory, he talks about how people need to avoid the …show more content…

I strongly believe that we should have these basic necessities to live our lives because they are something worthwhile that we need in order to maintain pleasure. It is in our potential to allow these necessities to play an important role in our lives. Having knowledge is important in the good life because Kazez interprets that we have a subjective goodness. What this means is that we have to have the knowledge of making our own decisions, and use our subjective mind to find out the answers. The second type of good is instrumental good. Jean Kazez talks about this good because people forget about having good health. Having good health is important in life because we need the strength and good abilities to function properly in an everyday basis, whether it is in our jobs, school or at home. Having good health also allows us to be pleased in life because if we were to not be healthy, we would be sad and miserable most of the …show more content…

John Stuart has a statement when he talks about please. He states if we would rather be a satisfy fool? Or a dissatisfy Socrates? Stuart believe that we have to be either one or the other and that will define the purpose of pleasure. I agree with Jean Kazez theory because people need to have multiple feelings such as knowledge, love, freedom and happiness so they could live the good life and have pleasure, there is no such thing as having a limit amount of things. Another important philosopher that believes that pleasure is the base of life is Robert Nozick. What his theory talks about is picturing yourself in a sophisticated machine that simulates experiences we find valuable. He argues that this cannot be the best life style because it fails to allow us to make a connect with reality. I agree with Nozick’s theory because we need to be able to have the pleasure of experiencing our downfalls that will eventually lead us to our

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