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The Experience Machine | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

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The experience machine is a thought experiment first devised by Robert Nozick in the 1970s. In the last decades of the 20th century, an argument based on this thought experiment has been considered a knock-down objection to hedonism about well-being, the thesis that our well-being—that is, the goodness or badness of our lives for us—is entirely determined by our pains and pleasures. The consensus about the strength of this argument was so vigorous that, in manuals about ethics, it had become canonical to present hedonism as a surely false view because of the experience machine thought experiment. However, in the second decade of the 21st century, an experimental literature emerged that successfully questioned whether this thought experiment is compelling. This suggests that the experience machine thought experiment, in addition to being central to the debate on hedonism about well-being, touches other topical debates, such as the desirability of an experimental method in philosophy and

The Experience Machine The experience machine is a thought experiment first devised by Robert Nozick in the 1970s. In the last decades of the 20 th century, an argument based on this thought experiment has been considered a knock-down objection to hedonism about well-being , the thesis that our well-being—that is, the goodness or badness of our lives for us —is entirely determined by our pains and pleasures. The consensus about the strength of this argument was so vigorous that, in manuals about ethics, it had become canonical to present hedonism as a surely false view because of the experienc

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