dreary after dark: "robert nozick was the greatest virtue ethicist to put pen to paper"

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robert nozick was the greatest virtue ethicist to put pen to paper

dreary after darkApr 19, 2026

robert nozick, anarchy, state, and utopia. experience machine section, pg 43

...do the activities rather than merely experience them?) A second reason for not plugging in is that we want to be a certain way, to be a certain sort of person. Someone floating in a tank is an indeterminate blob. There is no answer to the question of what a person is like who has long been in the tank. Is he courageous, kind, intelligent, witty, loving? It's not merely that it's difficult to tell; there's no way he is. Plugging into the machine is a kind of suicide. It will seem to some, trapped by a picture, that nothing about what we are like can matter except as it gets reflected in our experiences. But should it be surprising that what we are is important to us? Why should we be concerned only with how our time is filled, but not with what we are?

April 19, 2026 at 8:25 AM