Experience Machine

The Philosophy Archive Dialogues · Oct 16, 2026 · 32m

Imagine a world where every pleasure is within reach, where happiness is the only currency that counts. Would you trust that world—or would you suspect something vital is missing?The psychology of pleasure is older than philosophy itself, but in the early nineteen seventies, it became the front line of a new moral debate. By then, the English-speaking world was confident in one thing: happiness mattered. Utilitarian philosophers, following thinkers like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, had long treated pleasure and pain as the ultimate measures of value. By the twentieth century, this…