ABSTRACT
The contrast is between theories that specify an internally complex prudential good and theories that specify a plurality of separate prudential goods. Hedonism ascribes equal prudential value to each pleasure and holds that nothing else determines their well-being. Whilst Flora experiences pleasure, her pleasure is not based on a desire-fulfilment but, rather, on the misleading experience of its being satisfied. The judgement typically elicited by the experience machine example is that Flora and Trudy do not necessarily have equal levels of well-being and therefore hedonism is false Hedonism is vulnerable to the experience machine example in being forced to hold that Flora and Trudy have equal levels of well-being. The objection alleges that these theories ascribe prudential value to problematic things. Applied to hedonism the objection targets the claim that all pleasures have prudential value. The corresponding objection for desire-fulfilment theory targets the claim that all desire-fulfilments have prudential value.
