Relational Experientialism

Abstract

Experientialism is a family of philosophical theories of well-being that tie well-being to experiencing certain positively charged experiences. Experientialism has fallen out of favor today because of Robert Nozick’s experience machine objection. According to this objection, experientialism must allow that there is no difference between living well in reality and living well in a plausible computer simulation, because the experiences would be identical in both cases. This article proposes a theory that avoids this objection: relational experientialism. According to this position, well-being is experiencing certain positively charged experiences, but only when those experiences are caused by the realization of some genuine objective good. This version of experientialism avoids the experience machine objection and also has a number of explanatory advantages over the dominant theory of well-being today: naturalistic perfectionism. In particular, relational experientialism does a better job of explaining the nature of the motivation to pursue objective goods, as well as the asymmetry between conscious and unconscious entities. It also does a better job of addressing the challenge of the “flourishing anhedone” – a person who realizes genuine goods in their life but has no positive experiences at all. Such a person’s life, despite the presence of objective goods, is hardly a happy one, but only relational experientialism can explain why this is so. In addition, relational experientialism is most consistent with relationism about phenomenal consciousness. This is the view that the phenomenal character of experience is constituted by the relational properties of external objects, and that the experience of real perceptions is therefore phenomenally distinct from the experience of illusions and hallucinations. All of these considerations suggest that relational experientialism is, at least as a first approximation, a plausible theory of well-being.