Outline the problem Nozick's experience machine poses to hedonistic utilitarianism [5 MARKS]

Nozick asks us to imagine being placed into a virtual reality machine, this machine will replicate a life of extreme pleasure and happiness, with various pleasures and minimum pain. If we plug in we will not know we are in the experience machine we will believe that the machine is reality and we are plugged in for life. A hedonistic utilitarian would encourage us to enter the machine as the machine will increase our pleasurable experiences. However, Nozick argues that most of us would not plug in, we value being in contact with reality more than experiencing ultimate pleasure for an eternity, reality is better even if it means pain and less happiness. We cannot understand being in touch with reality in terms of pleasure as utilitarianism would ask us to because we do not want to be openly given the pleasure/achievement but rather it seems we value earning the pleasure/achievement. This poses a problem to hedonistic utilitarianism as a hedonist would expect us to enter the machine to increase the pleasure in our life but our intuition is to not enter the machine.