HEDONISM
Definition and Characteristics
• The term “hedonism,” from the Greek word ἡδονή (hēdonē) for pleasure
• All hedonistic theories identify pleasure and pain as the only important
elements of whatever phenomena they are designed to describe
• Hedonism states that all and only pleasure is intrinsically valuable and all and
only pain is intrinsically not valuable
• “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you will die.”
History and Development
• Cārvāka
• One of the earliest written record of hedonism comes from the
Cārvāka, an Indian philosophical tradition based on the Barhaspatya
sutras (around 600 BC).
• The Cārvāka acknowledged that some pain often accompanied, or
was later caused by, sensual pleasure, but that pleasure was worth it.
• The right action is the one that brings the actor the most net
pleasure.
• Ancient Babylonian Civilization
• Epic of Gilgamesh
Siduri’s teaching: “Fill your belly. Day and night make merry. Let days be full of
joy. Dance and make music day and night..
These things alone are the concern of men.”
• Cyrenaics (Aristippus)
• They believed pleasure was the ultimate good and everyone should
pursue all immediate pleasures for themselves.
• Pleasure was the ultimate good and everyone should pursue all
immediate pleasures for themselves.
• All feeling is momentary and homogeneous; past and future pleasure
have no real existence for us, and that among present pleasures there
is no distinction of kind.
• Epicureanism (Epicurus)
• Happiness was the complete absence of bodily and especially mental
pains, including fear of the Gods and desires for anything other than
the bare necessities of life.
• The highest pleasure (tranquility and freedom from fear) was
obtained by knowledge, friendship and living a virtuous and
temperate life.
• By satisfying our minimum, natural wants (such as food and
companionship), we should train ourselves to avoid unnatural or
unnecessary desires (such as wealth, fame, or sexual pleasure).
• Jeremy Bentham
• Bentham believed that the value of a pleasure
could be quantitatively understood
• Bentham argued that happiness was the
ultimate good and that happiness was pleasure
and the absence of pain.
• Bentham’s greatest happiness principle states that actions are immoral if
they are not the action that appears to maximize the happiness of all the
people likely to be affected; only the action that appears to maximize the
happiness of all the people likely to be affected is the morally right action.
Types of Hedonism
Motivational (Psychological)
• The desires to encounter pleasure and to avoid pain guide all of our behavior.
• One of the most notable mentions of Motivational Hedonism is Plato’s Ring of Gyges
example in The Republic.
Normative (Value)
• Happiness should be pursued (that pleasure should be pursued and pain should be
avoided).
• Hedonistic Egoism
• hedonistic version of egoism, the theory that we should, morally speaking, do
whatever is most in our own interests
• one never has to ascribe any value whatsoever to the consequences for
anyone other than oneself
• Hedonistic Utilitarianism
• right action is the one that produces (or is most likely to produce) the greatest
net happiness for all concerned.
• the happiness of everyone involved (everyone who is affected or likely to be
affected) is taken into account and given equal weight.
Hedonistic/Felicific
Calculus
• Intensity
• Duration
• Certainty
• Propinquity
• Fecundity
• Purity
• Extent
