Ethical hedonism and psychological hedonism are two of the more studied versions of hedonism. These two theories are similar at their foundations (soon to be discussed) but when defined in terms of values, one is descriptive and the other is normative. Neither ethical nor psychological hedonism is perfect, I believe, though each has important strengths which offer the basis for discussion. Additionally, some arguments and ideas presented by Robert Nozick in his essay “The Experience Machine” prove relevant to the discussion of hedonism, where Nozick concludes by disagreeing with the hedonist’s ideas. I will start by defining the two versions of hedonism so far presented and follow this up by exploring my own personal views of two branches, paying attention to what they each say about values and pursuing pleasures. To conclude, Nozick’s essay will be considered for its value to our discussion. In considering what separates ethical and psychological hedonism, I agree with Nozick that we value more than the strict experiences of pleasure, meaning hedonism does not offer me enough to be persuaded, though I disagree with him that an experience machine would go unused.
The terminology in question must be defined in order to be properly critiqued. Ethical hedonism is the belief that humans ought to be able to pursue pleasure as their own highest good. More than that, ethical hedonism states that to gain the most personal pleasure, a person is within their right to make their pleasure a priority. Thus, each individual ought to put all his efforts into ensuring his pleasure and minimizing his pain. There are multiple ways to extrapolate this definition, including branching into questioning what ought to be a person’s ultimate end. The que...
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...lso believe, though, that no hedonism is perfect. Like Nozick, I think that there are more values than strictly experiencing pleasure. Perhaps pleasure is one overall result but not the only thing valuable to people. I disagree with his overall conclusion that an experience machine would go unused, though I do agree with Nozick that hedonism is not sufficient on its own.
Works Cited
Epicurus. “Letter to Menoeceus.” Ethics: History, Theory, and Contemporary Issues. Eds.
Steven M. Cahn and Peter Markie. New York: Oxford UP, 200. 178-180. Print.
Feinberg, Joel. “Psychological Egoism.” Ethics: History, Theory, and Contemporary Issues. Eds.
Steven M. Cahn and Peter Markie. New York: Oxford UP, 2009. 548-555. Print.
Frankena, William K. Ethics. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973. Print.
Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic, 1974. Print.
In chapter 2, Shafer-Landau proceeds to list the theories that attempt to disprove hedonism by highlight the shortcomings in its logic and hedonism's replies to these objections. The Argument from Autonomy, is one of strongest objections to hedonism listed. Shafer-Landau states that for a theory to pose a serious threat to hedonism, it needs to challenge the idea that happiness is the only thing of intrinsic value (34). Chapter 2 discuses four strong objections that have the potential and support to disprove hedonism. The Argument from Autonomy provides an abundance of strong information to support its claims.
The theory of hedonism is the view that pleasure is the only thing that is intrinsically valuable, thus making it so that our lives are only truly good to the extent that we are happy. The Argument from False Happiness challenges the view of the hedonist: the hedonist believes that a life is good so long as there is happiness, regardless of where the happiness comes from, whereas critics of hedonism argue that a life filled with false beliefs is worse, despite the fact that the person may still be as equally happy as someone with true beliefs. In this essay, I will show how hedonism is drastically discredited by the following argument as it is clear to see how false happiness makes a life significantly worse for the person living it: If hedonism
One such opponent to the theory is Philippa Foot a contemporary philosopher. She presents the argument that sustained happiness is not the end all to a good life. Foot reached this conclusion after attending a talk by a doctor who described how “perfectly happy” his patient was after a lobotomy. Foot argued that if unfettered happiness was at the crux of a good life, then a lobotomy should be an excellent option for all human beings. To be more precise in regard to her argument she proposed parents want what’s best for their children, a statement few people would argue with. If Hedonism is true, then parents want sustained happiness for their children. Yet, it would be absurd to think of a parent seeking a lobotomy for a mentally well-adjusted
If we experience discomfort at the idea of entering the experience machine, then some things in life must have value other than pleasure, and some things in life must have disvalue, other than pain. Clearly not being in contact with reality in some way detracts from the value of our experiences. In fact, it only takes one person to not want to plug in and to value something else under these circumstances for Nozick to have proved hedonism false. Clearly Nozick himself does not want to plug in, and so that is enough.
As humans we are constantly in search of understanding the balance between what feels good and what is right. Humans try to take full advantage of experiencing pleasure to its fullest potential. Hedonism claims that pleasure is the highest and only source of essential significance. If the notion of hedonism is truthful, happiness is directly correlated with pleasure. Robert Nozick presented the philosophical world with his though experiment, “The Experience Machine” in order to dispute the existence and validity of hedonism. Nozick’s thought experiment poses the question of whether or not humans would plug into a machine which produces any desired experience. Nozick weakens the notion of hedonism through his thought experiment, claiming humans need more than just pleasure in their lives. Nozick discovers that humans would not hook up to this machine because they would not fully develop as a person and consider it a form of suicide.
There are two basic kinds of ethical judgments. The first have to do with duty and obligation. For example: "Thou shalt not kill, lie, or steal." "You just keep your promises." These judgments often uphold minimal standards of onduct and (partly for that reason) assert or imply a moral ‘ought.’ The second kind of judgment focuses on human excellence and the nature of the good life. These judgments employ as their most general terms "happiness," "excellence," and perhaps "flourishing" (in addition to "the good life"). For example: "Happiness requires activity and not mere passive consumption." "The good life includes pleasure, friendship, intellectual development and physical health." I take these to be the two general types of ethical judgment, and all particular ethical judgments to be examples of these. The main contention of this paper is that we must carefully distinguish these two types of judgments, and not try to understand the one as a special case of the other.
Epicurus was admittedly a Hedonist, and this philosophy has had a huge influence on his work. Especially so on his death argument. Hedonism is, “the doctrine that pleasure is the only thing that is good in itself for a person, pain the only thing that is bad in itself for a person.”
With any form of hedonism, one is committed to the concept that pleasure is the chief good. In an extremely generic form of hedonism, it seems as though the quality of sensual pleasure should be given no more weight than the quality of emotional pleasure and vice versa. Additionally, this sort of hedonism would hold that the acquisition of kinetic pleasures would increase overall pleasure to seemingly no end, a concept which Epicurus’ doctrine would reject. Even if we understand death to be a genuine ceasing to exist, we must conjecture that it is bad for a person to die in the sense that it terminates even the possibility to acquire more pleasure. Under this concept of hedonism, we must agree that a person who lives a pleasurable life for ...
Hedonism is a way of life that is rooted in a person’s experiences or states of consciousness that can be pleasant or unpleasant. The ethical egoist would state that a person should maximize his or her pleasant states of consciousness in order to lead the best life. Act Utilitarian on the other hand would state that these enjoyable states of consciousness should be maximized by one’s actions for everyone in order to attain the most utility. On the surface, this appears to be a good way to live, however, as Nozick states through his example of the experience machine that living life as a hedonist can be detrimental. It is a hollow existence that will ultimately be unsatisfactory because of the lack of making real decisions and relationships which are important to living a fulfilling life.
Hedonism means to live only for pleasure. It means not thinking about the consequences of your actions as long as make you happy. It’s a total abandon of all responsibilities. This type of lifestyle often has negative results. I mean, look at the hippies, and how their hedonistic society turned out. They are all either in rehab centers or have kids running around with names like “Moonbeam” and “Starchild”. But enough hippie bashing - let’s look at how the Hedonistic way of life is integrated into The Great Gatsby. Let’s take the parties for example. Gatsby has a party just about every week, no matter what. He has tons of people come over, and they party all night. Gatsby has tons of booze at his parties, and no one thinks of consuming anything but alcohol.
Mill’s qualitative hedonism of pleasures faces problems because of its lack of clarity in its description of pleasures, mainly because it seems that his idea of pleasure seems to encompass such a wide range of mental states. He also loses credibility with his controversial competent judges, and especially the inconsistency with a more textbook view of hedonism.
The ethical theory of utilitarianism is associated with the philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Utilitarianism essentially is the theory that good is what causes a person pleasure and evil is what causes a person pain. Bentham’s utilitarianism is sometimes titled Act Utilitarianism because it focuses on individual actions A “right” action, according to Betham, is one that produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Where a “wrong” action is one that would cause more pain than pleasure. Before a person commits an action, they should look at the consequences that it can have on the individual and others. Hedonic Calculus is a method in determining how much pleasure or pain an action will elicit. Hedonic Calculus consists of seven criteria including intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity, fecundity, purity and extent. Each criteria can be given a score between -10 (worst pain) to +10 (highest pleasure). The action becomes ethical and moral if there is an overall net happiness for everyone that is affected. An acti...
When talking about pleasure there needs to be a distinction between the quality and the quantity. While having many different kinds of pleasures can be considered a good thing, one is more likely to favor quality over quantity. With this distinction in mind, one is more able to quantify their pleasures as higher or lesser pleasures by ascertaining the quality of them. This facilitates the ability to achieve the fundamental moral value that is happiness. In his book Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill offers a defining of utility as pleasure or the absence of pain in addition to the Utility Principle, where “Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (Mill 7). Through this principle, Mill emphasizes that it is not enough to show that happiness is an end in itself. Mill’s hedonistic view is one in support of the claim that every human action is motivated by or ought to be motivated by the pursuit of pleasure.
A moral theory should be one’s guide when deciding whether an action is either good or bad, wrong or right. There are many types of moral theories to choose from, but we will only focus on two: utilitarianism and ancient hedonism. These theories meet in their pursuit of something greater, for hedonism it’s personal pleasure while for utilitarianism it is happiness for the greater number of people. In this work, the differences and the similarities of utilitarianism and hedonism will be pointed out after explaining them separately.