Reference no: EM133715022
Question: You will find exactly the same quantity of happiness in Langstra as you will find in Glyndale -- and the same goes for pain -- across their populations (ignore, for the sake of the thought experiment, all of the issues related to quantifying happiness and unhappiness).
Langstra's population comprises empathetic, peaceful, generous, cooperative, honest, fair people, and the happiness of the town is the happiness of such people living together in harmony. However, the environmental conditions of Langstra are extraordinarily inhospitable, with its extreme weather conditions, scarcity of resources, and the countless deadly beasts prowling the surrounding countryside. Consequently, securing the basic necessities for the community is dangerous, involving frequent harms and regular deaths, which accounts for the quantity of unhappiness among its residents.
Glyndale's population, by contrast, enjoys comparatively hospitable, resource-abundant, and beast-free environmental conditions. The happiness of its population is partly that of people who do not have to struggle very much at all to secure the basic necessities of life. However, community memebers are typically sadistic (i.e., derive pleasure from the pain of others), combative, seflish, uncooperative, dishonest, and unfair. These typical character traits result in frequent harms and regular deaths, which accounts for the quantity of unhappiness among the residents of Glyndale.
Given the above, come up with your response to your companion's fireside question.
(Things to reflect upon as you craft your answer: How would a utilitarian, for whom happiness is the highest intrinsic value, answer your companion's question? If happiness is the highest intrinsic value, and there are equal amounts of it in the two worlds, then how could one of the world be better than the other, from the standpont of utilitarianism? Furthermore, If your answer is different from a utilitarian's answer, explain the difference as clearly as you can. How is your understanding of good different from a utilitarian's understand of it?)