Nozick's Critique of Hedonism: The Experience Machine

If you were given the opportunity to plan out your life in a way that would maximize the amount of pleasure in it, would you take it? This question is key to Robert Nozick’s thought experiment which attempts to show that humans are not hedonists. A hedonist is a person who lives and behaves in a way such that they can experience the most pleasure out of life as possible, according to the belief that the pursuit of pleasure it the most important thing in life. Nozick’s thought experiment attempts to refute hedonism through a hypothetical question involving what Nozick likes to call the “experience machine”. This imaginary machine would have the ability to simulate all sorts of experiences on a subject, from the greatest pleasures to the worst pains. The subject of the experiment would be given the ability to pre-program any series of experiences into the machine to fit their own desires or will. Once plugged into the machine, the subject would have no knowledge of their prior experiences and would believe the simulated experiences to be reality. Nozick’s question asks whether you would plug into the “experiment machine”. Nozick makes the claim that if we, humans, were hedonists we would plug into the machine. However, he makes

His thought experiment is addressed in such a way where it skews the response of people into appearing that they are refuting pleasure when in reality they are refuting the artificialness of all the experiences they would get with the “experiment machine”. After analyzing the decisions that someone would choose to use or not use the machine, it was distinguished that each decision would be based on what a person perceived to be more pleasurable. Therefore, proving that humans are in fact hedonists. Humans will always have the tendency to seek pleasure. As long as their pursuit of pleasure has no cost, the opportunity to experience greater pleasure will always be