The vast world that surrounds us doesn't really need us. But what about us, do we need the world? Of course, we all need the world even just to survive, and for many other things. But that's compatible with seeing the entire external world as only mattering instrumentally, as far as our own good is concerned. On what I call Prudential Solipsism, the world is in principle redundant in this way—at least in theory, we could live the best possible lives whether or not there actually is a world out there. Prudential Solipsism is obviously entailed by hedonism. But I will show that most current approaches to well-being are unfortunately at least compatible with it. Yet many people, and at least some philosophers—these include Murdoch, Nozick and perhaps Hurka—think that there is special value to connecting with external reality. In this talk, I will develop and defend the idea that we need the (or a) world in this stronger sense—that the world plays an essential role in our personal good—that the self is not enough for itself. In Nozick and Hurka's work, this idea is closely associated with the famous Experience Machine thought experiment. But the Experience Machine is actually a poor basis for rejecting Prudential Solipsism. Luckily, there is a better way to defend the value of connection. Now the world offers very many things that cannot be found within. But I will argue that these advantages are largely contingent. What we ultimately need is externality itself—or as Murdoch puts it, engaging with "something other than oneself". If this is true, then most current approaches to well-being are either false, or incomplete.
Guy Kahane is a Senior Research Fellow at the Uehiro Oxford Institute. He is also a Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Pembroke College, Oxford, and Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford. Kahane has published over 100 articles, many of which have appeared in leading peer-reviewed journals in philosophy and science, such as Nous, Ethics, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Nature, PNAS, Psychological Review and Cognition. His research interests include practical ethics, metaethics, moral psychology and philosophy of religion/atheism. Kahane is also actively engaged in interdisciplinary empirical research into the neural and psychological processes that underlie moral decision-making.