Scholars' Award: Human Motives - Egoism, hedonism, and the science of affect

动机享乐主义是一种观点，认为人类所有的行为都是为了追求快乐或避免不快乐。(快乐和不快乐在这里被广义地理解为包括所有积极和消极的情感状态，不仅包括感官上的快乐和痛苦，还包括喜悦的情感、幸福、自豪和享受，以及内疚、恐惧、悲伤和无聊。)它有着悠久而杰出的历史，但最近随着情感科学和神经科学工作的爆炸性增长，它又经历了一次复兴。该领域的许多人认为，人们做出决定是通过预测他们未来可能经历的积极和消极情绪，并选择最大限度地平衡积极情绪和负面情绪。结果是一种形式的利己主义：所有的决定最终都是为了自己的利益，为了创造好的感觉，避免自己的坏感觉。即使有人把肾捐给陌生人，也只是为了表示对自己的好感。这一结果在道德和社会上都是破坏性的。这个项目旨在证明科学发现被曲解了，从而为真正的利他主义赢得了一席之地。该项目的目标是提出一个广泛的论点，反对激励性享乐主义，但这个论点是基于情感科学的。快乐和不快乐(更专业地说是正价和负价)是所有决策的共同货币的观点将不会受到挑战，而是得到认可。然而，该项目将对价是什么进行不同的解释--例如，它是否是我们寻求最大化的(享乐主义)与我们的体验联系在一起的一种感觉属性，或者更确切地说，它是否是我们赋予经历的对象和事件本身的价值的代表(这将确保利他主义)。该项目将部分通过整合和解释情感科学和神经科学的广泛结果，部分通过仔细分析认知科学中代表性的性质来进行。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Motivational hedonism is the view that all human actions are undertaken in pursuit of pleasure or avoidance of displeasure. (Pleasure and displeasure are here understood broadly to cover all positive and negative affective states, including not just sensory pleasures and pains, but emotions of joy, happiness, pride, and enjoyment, as well as those of guilt, fear, sadness, and boredom.) It has a long and distinguished history, but has undergone a resurgence recently with the current explosion of work in affective science and neuroscience. Many in the field think that people make decisions by anticipating the positive and negative emotions they are likely to experience in the future, and by choosing to maximize the balance of positive over negative feelings. The upshot is a form of egoism: all decisions are ultimately taken to benefit oneself, to create good and avoid bad feelings in oneself. Even someone donating a kidney to a stranger is really just acting to feel good for having done so. This result is morally and socially destructive. The present project aims to show that the scientific findings have been misinterpreted, thereby securing a place for genuine altruism.The goal of the project is to develop an extended argument against motivational hedonism, but one that is grounded in affective science. The view that pleasure and displeasure (more technically described as positive and negative valence) are the common currency of all decision making will not be challenged, but endorsed. However, the project will examine different accounts of what valence is—for example, whether it is a felt property attaching to our experiences that we seek to maximize (hedonism), or rather whether it is a representation of the value we assign to the experienced objects and events themselves (which would secure altruism). The project will proceed in part by integrating and explaining a wide range of results from affective science and neuroscience, and in part through careful analysis of the nature of representation in cognitive science generally.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.