aiuto
None
- Jun 28, 2019
- 19
For anyone who doesn't know the definition of it this is copy-pasted from Wikipedia:
CynicalHopelessness
Messenger of Silence
- Jan 9, 2020
- 940
Hedonism gets a bad rep due to being conflated with narcissism and egoism, but if you take term "pleasure" broadly, so that it includes pleasure from learning a skill and pleasure from helping a person you like experience more pleasure, you can sign me up.
Nemeshisu
Experienced
- Dec 25, 2019
- 236
There are a lot of problems with Hedonism. First of all, how do we even define "pleasure"? Everyone perceives pleasure differently. Therefore "pleasure" is rather subjective experience not an universal one. So the whole idea of making world pleasureable place for everyone fails because "You can't make everyone happy". No matter what you do, there will probably be someone who will be unhappy. But for the sake of simplification let's say that for most people pleasure comes from satisfying certain needs such as hunger, sleep or some more complex needs like wanting to belong in society or wanting to be loved. But that brings a lot of others problems...
1) Sense of "pleasure" is cored in our reward system which is kind of tricky mechanism. Pleasure is only temporary, as soon as you satisfy your certain need, you would have another one. As soon as you start feeling content, your brain will find reason to make you feel discontent. Even early buddhist scholars noted that this cycle of pleasure-seeking is neverending. Human would be never fully satisfied. You can trick your brain into feeling content if you ignore some of your needs and find something to replace it, but it takes a lot of effort so that's not the road for everyone.
2) Finite resources can satisfy these needs only for certain finite amount of people. Finite resources will almost certainly run out if they are not replenished. So they will not be availaible for everyone. Not everyone might have their needs satisfied, so not everyone will be able to experience only pleasure.
3) Certain needs are always satisfied at the cost of suffering of other being. Take hunger for example. You want to not feel hungry? Well, you need to probably kill animal in painful way...oh you are vegetarian and don't eat animals? Well...Plants experience "pain" too (They release certain chemicals when they are hurt in some way. This very interesting topic was mentioned on other thread, if I find it, then maybe I will post link to it there). Even if we ignore other beings and only care about human pleasure then there are people that have to suffer to in order to bring that food to us. Farmers, factory workers etc. have to do hard work which is not very pleasurable so we could get our food. Maybe this process will be fully automatized someday but this is still not the case...
4) Certain pleasures can be only experienced at the cost of our own suffering. For example in order to feel satisfaction of learning new skill, you need to go throught not very pleasurable process of learning. In order to be strong and healthy, you would have to go throught process of training a lot. Heck, even to satisfy most basic needs you would have to go to work in order to gain money so you could buy most basic things. And we can say that work for most people is more an suffering than pleasure. So such message "Seel pleasure! Avoid Suffering" can be very confusing to some not very thoughtful people. They will seek only pleasure that easily satisfies their needs and will not seek these complex pleasures that require a lot of effort in order to feel long term satisfaction. Hedonism may even make them more lazy.
5) And finally, Life since birth to death is constant suffering. I think that pleasure is illusion that helps us ignore suffering. Suffering is impossible to run away from so you can do anything to reduce it or ignore it but you will never eliminate it entirely. And as long as there is any being that suffers, I won't feel any pleasure in living.
So in the end, I think that Hedonism is bad as universal philosophy for humanity because it can't be universal for everyone, has confusing message, has a lot of logical problems associated with it and has rather unrealistic goals. Atleast, it's not philosophy for me, as I have strong aversion to hedonism.
(Huh, I feel like my answer is greatest example of me overthinking and overanalyzing things. But maybe I just have too strong aversion to hedonism ingrained in my mind...)
1) Sense of "pleasure" is cored in our reward system which is kind of tricky mechanism. Pleasure is only temporary, as soon as you satisfy your certain need, you would have another one. As soon as you start feeling content, your brain will find reason to make you feel discontent. Even early buddhist scholars noted that this cycle of pleasure-seeking is neverending. Human would be never fully satisfied. You can trick your brain into feeling content if you ignore some of your needs and find something to replace it, but it takes a lot of effort so that's not the road for everyone.
2) Finite resources can satisfy these needs only for certain finite amount of people. Finite resources will almost certainly run out if they are not replenished. So they will not be availaible for everyone. Not everyone might have their needs satisfied, so not everyone will be able to experience only pleasure.
3) Certain needs are always satisfied at the cost of suffering of other being. Take hunger for example. You want to not feel hungry? Well, you need to probably kill animal in painful way...oh you are vegetarian and don't eat animals? Well...Plants experience "pain" too (They release certain chemicals when they are hurt in some way. This very interesting topic was mentioned on other thread, if I find it, then maybe I will post link to it there). Even if we ignore other beings and only care about human pleasure then there are people that have to suffer to in order to bring that food to us. Farmers, factory workers etc. have to do hard work which is not very pleasurable so we could get our food. Maybe this process will be fully automatized someday but this is still not the case...
4) Certain pleasures can be only experienced at the cost of our own suffering. For example in order to feel satisfaction of learning new skill, you need to go throught not very pleasurable process of learning. In order to be strong and healthy, you would have to go throught process of training a lot. Heck, even to satisfy most basic needs you would have to go to work in order to gain money so you could buy most basic things. And we can say that work for most people is more an suffering than pleasure. So such message "Seel pleasure! Avoid Suffering" can be very confusing to some not very thoughtful people. They will seek only pleasure that easily satisfies their needs and will not seek these complex pleasures that require a lot of effort in order to feel long term satisfaction. Hedonism may even make them more lazy.
5) And finally, Life since birth to death is constant suffering. I think that pleasure is illusion that helps us ignore suffering. Suffering is impossible to run away from so you can do anything to reduce it or ignore it but you will never eliminate it entirely. And as long as there is any being that suffers, I won't feel any pleasure in living.
So in the end, I think that Hedonism is bad as universal philosophy for humanity because it can't be universal for everyone, has confusing message, has a lot of logical problems associated with it and has rather unrealistic goals. Atleast, it's not philosophy for me, as I have strong aversion to hedonism.
(Huh, I feel like my answer is greatest example of me overthinking and overanalyzing things. But maybe I just have too strong aversion to hedonism ingrained in my mind...)
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TAW122
Emissary of the right to die.
- Aug 30, 2018
- 6,724
Personally, I'd be ok with hedonism that improve one's own life and doesn't negatively impact another person's life (by taking away from what they have) and also reducing suffering at the same time. For example, if someone is drinking to his/her own pleasure, but does not disrupt or damage others' peace or property, then that kind of hedonism is acceptable for me. There are many other examples, but that's just one of many I thought of.
If its doesn't hurt or make more suffering, then why not? also it improves the mentality and makes it less probable to be anhedonic by strengthening the brain reward system.
It's not a good idea to be a hedonist, if u are thinking long term happiness. I was pretty hedonistic when young and it cost me satisfaction and happiness in the second half of life. It might feel really great in your youth but there's a price to pay later. It's better to play it safe and go with established social norms if u can. There's a good reason it's set up that way. Many people when young don't think they will get old one day and your perspective will be dramatically different from your young days. You could ruin your future happiness if u chase the shallow pursuits. You just need to know it will not create longterm meaning and satisfaction in life.
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