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Analytical Response to Part (topic) I – It would not make an ethical decision to choose to be plugged into Robert Nozick’s ‘experience machine’ for the experience it promotes is not real in the first place and in the absence of reality, one can never ascertain whether there exists ‘good’ or ‘evil’ in truth. The mere fact that the virtual world consists of pure illusion, any sort of perpetual happiness it assumes to have may not hence be claimed to guarantee good. We have all lived in a world of real circumstances heretofore and though human beings naturally possess the capacity to imagine, it is rather irrational to live life in a manner that is void of sense perception for the real.

In the ‘experience machine’ proposed by Nozick, we may be brought to ask – how can one be infinitely happy in a setting where no knowledge or feeling of pain is evident? How is it ever possible in a virtual sphere of living to attain true happiness if in this world we have no way of distinguishing pain from pleasure since pleasure is all there is? Apart from any form of suffering or unpleasant experience, it would be difficult to figure out what being truly happy is like for our basic concept of happiness is normally derived from the notion of its opposite.

Moreover, Nozick’s virtual machine, as it is by nature, would bear no potential of subjecting us to the challenges which form the essence of life as we have been significantly aware of through our regular encounter of reality. Dwelling in an ‘experience machine’ occurs to be an equivalent of living in a place where no one can be expected to pay regard for the value of ethics. All that matters herein is pleasure in its ultimate level or concentration so that each individual finds no required commitment to care or even think of someone else’s welfare.

Apparently, such person may go through the typical course of virtual life in which one solely lives for oneself, a rather selfish endeavor to ponder about. To assure there could be eternal bliss in a place that mechanically generates object of happiness and takes full control of our senses to be conditioned towards the state of mirth alone and with no trace of low-spiritedness is impossible. As human beings who have initially become acquainted and accustomed to the several truths found in reality, we see our external differences from each other and know primarily that our distinct character traits from the rest of our kind exhibit the fact that each one of us is unique.

Because of this, the meaning of happiness may be established as one and the same or uniform for all, for the uniqueness of man would necessarily reflect an image of happiness under discrete individual contexts or definitions. Based on this, thus, I should see that my personal interests are most likely different from the inclinations others are pleased by and on this ground, I can further account for the possibility that while I feel good and certain about my reasons for happiness, they may affect others in a totally different way and cause bitter grief instead.

Consequently, I find no convincing point in proceeding to enter Nozick’s experience machine. Our experience of the real world has taught us philosophy from which to learn between what is ethically sound and what is unscrupulous, then act accordingly, and in this same world of real living, we have had struggles which enable us to seek paths that lead to happiness. Opting for virtual approach would then indicate our susceptibility to cast off moral standards and take the worth of painstakingly earned wisdom for granted upon submission to a bulk of pleasures.

These pleasures must be all indulgences which men have constantly toiled for and sought after in the presence of real hardships. Where no amount of ethics counts and a degree of pain to achieve the beauty of intellect, as in the machine Nozick summons us to imagine, I do not think I would obtain perpetual reserves of happiness or the measure of fulfillment desired thereof. ReferencesShafer-Landau, R. (2012). The Fundamentals of Ethics (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

Shafer-Landau, R. (2012). The Ethical Life: Fundamental Readings in Ethics and Moral Problems (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.