Argumentative essay on Robert Nozicks “time machine”.
Topics(1.)Recall Robert Nozick’s “Experience Machine” set of example scenarios from your reading—not just the first case, but the whole series of machine-examples, including the “result machine.”Describe if/explain how Nozick’s examples count against various views of the good or well-being(especially those we discussed). What sort of views of well-being or what’s good, if any, might escape the worries his examples generate? Explain. Is there a type of consequentialism that might satisfy Nozick’s misgivings as expressed by his “Experience Machine” examples? If so, what sort and how so? (You may wish to bring Susan Wolf’s paper, “Happiness and Meaning: Two Aspects of the Good Life” into your discussion here, but you do not have to.)Potential ways of proceeding and questions you might consider along the way: What might Nozick mean by “[p]erhaps what we desire is to live (an active verb) ourselves, in contact with reality”? Is he right that “this, machines cannot do for us”—why? How so? What kinds of views of the good, if any, seem unassailable by intuitions about “experience machines”? Why? If you do not think Nozick’s machine-example worries could not, in principle, be adequately addressed by a consequentialist theory, explain why you think this, providing an argument that touches upon consequentialist views and views of the good that we have discussed in this course (perhaps among others). If you do think a consequentialism can be formulated that steers clear of Nozick’s objections, explain why you think this:what view of well-being or good/bad consequences would be involved? What does this consequentialism say should be done with regard to this understanding of the good—viz. should it be maximized, evenly distributed, etc., or something more complex? How does such a view differ, if at all, from the classical utilitarianisms of Mill and Bentham? Provide an argument that this form of consequentialism can quell the misgivings that Nozick articulates by means of his “Experience Machine” examples
