I understand how hedonism could seem appealing. But when I consider my own life experiences, I find that the happiest people I know are all motivated by some "higher calling," although the callings in question vary widely, and may seem distasteful or simply trivial to a third party. By contrast, I don't know that I've ever met someone who pursued pleasure for pleasure's sake and felt truly satisfied with their life. Others may have different experiences, so take from that what you will.
While I agree that growth can happen trough struggle (which does not equate suffering!), I have a very hard time believing that most living things are actively looking for suffering or pain.
What living things do you know that go actively out of their way to experience pain and suffering? Such a behavior would be highly disadvantageous to any species and would run counter to the most basic instincts of all things living. We have pain receptors for a reason, that reason ain't that we just gotta learn to "enjoy the pain". As such I would argue that all living things live their lives on a rather hedonistic basis.
Equally, it could be argued that if "having a calling" makes you "suffer less", because you've found a purpose for your life while a lack of purpose can lead to suffering, then having a calling might just as well be considered a hedonistic lifestyle choice.
The notion that pain and suffering are something that needs to happen to "pull trough" is trough and trough a human invention among the same lines as proper "working virtues".
>What living things do you know that go actively out of their way to experience pain and suffering? Such a behavior would be highly disadvantageous to any species and would run counter to the most basic instincts of all things living. We have pain receptors for a reason, that reason ain't that we just gotta learn to "enjoy the pain". As such I would argue that all living things live their lives on a rather hedonistic basis.
What about extreme sports? Extreme meaning ultra-marathons here, not jumping off buildings and rocks.
I'd say if you live a too sheltered existence where you avoid all negative feelings, you will have a very bad time in a crisis. So choosing to experience suffering is an insurance of sorts, learning to manage it so that you can function when it's really needed.
Masochists are the outlier that pretty much always exists and are a rather bad example because humans are the only species with the luxury of possibly having such a, rather destructive, trait among their population.
Afaik there are no wild animals exhibiting behavior that's comparable to human masochism if animals with comparable traits existed they most likely went extinct because going out of your way to actively look for "pain and suffering" is a rather big disadvantage in the grand game of survival.
> Afaik there are no wild animals exhibiting behavior that's comparable to human masochism
The context of this whole discussion is hedonism, utilitarianism, ethical theory, and philosophy in general. These ideas don't exist (to our knowledge) amongst animals, so I don't find it convincing to use animals to support your argument.
>These ideas don't exist (to our knowledge) amongst animals, so I don't find it convincing to use animals to support your argument.
But aren't we humans just that, animals?
While the concept of ethical hedonism is of a rather philosophical nature, I still think the basic definition of hedonism translates very well into actual nature.
At least when hedonism is defined as "strive for pleasure and happiness" while evading "pain and suffering" there should be no issue applying this to other animals because we know for a fact that animals, besides humans, are able of these emotions and feelings.
What we don't know is if other animals actively reflect about these things. But that's a matter of motivation and not actual observed behavior, if we go by observed behavior than pretty much all living things are living a "hedonistic lifestyle".
I've heard an accent that has trouble pronouncing the English "th" sound, instead approximating it with more of a "t" sound that misses the tongue thrust. Maybe that is what's happening here?
Sorry about that, I'm not a native speaker so I sometimes confuse words that sound similar.
Grammarly is usually pretty good about pointing stuff like that out, sadly it failed me this time.
Most of us probably relate to the experiences of the people we are around the most. I've never met anyone who has told me they felt truly satisfied with their life, and I know I will never be. I thought that was one of life's virtues... What good is a cup running over if you never drink from it? And if you drink, is it still full? My point is, I need a glass of wine...
Hedonism like anything else can be done poorly. The first and most important step is to optimize for what you actually enjoy and not just use the greedy algorithm of what feels good this second. The goal is to align effort with actual reward and not maximize meaningless numbers like total income.
Do you enjoy taking a lazy morning with 30 minutes of quiet reflection each day? Great, but don't assume that means you would be happy maximizing that and living in a monistic life.
The cost benefit on drugs is really complex for example, but so is having a committed relationship, or any other major life choice. That does not mean you should ignore the actual complexity of life, rather you should actually consider the cost benefits of where you live, what you do etc etc.
I would call them alive. They might not be happy everyday. There is always time to be sad, and to be angry, and to just stare into the void and realize how screwed up life is sometimes, but I would say that if you have a higher calling, it's much easier to be happy in a less hedonistic way.
Actually: yeah, I just basically described contentedness. Though there is definitely a difference between contentedness and complacency.
Agreed. For me, I noticed that I am always seeking for an answer. A magical key that will unlock everything lol. I do not mean from a religious POV. I just mean things like..if I do X, Y will happen which will lead to Z, so on and so forth.
Related to this: Instead of Hendonism, I am getting into Stoicism; of course adapting it to 'modern day'.
Epicureanism and Stoicism start from very different principles, but they kind of get to the same place. As for me, apathy isn't all that appealing, and a philosophy based on seeking something seems better than one based on avoiding something.
Still sounds like you might be getting a bit mystical with both the old and the new. You might want to play around with extreme spiritual skepticism to get your grounding before launching off with any sort of practice with any expectations. But, you know, hey! YMMV.
there's no seeking for an answer in stoicism. the answer is already there, both within and in nature, revealed day by day through living a virtuous life. unrelated - you're using semicolons incorrectly.
>But when I consider my own life experiences, I find that the happiest people I know are all motivated by some "higher calling," although the callings in question vary widely,
That's true. Hedonism is a treadmill (no pun intended) like most other traps. Heroin users are also hedonists...
Not really. The same circular reasoning can be used to make altruism selfish, etc.
It makes far more sense to define those things by their external manifestations rather than by some final (and worse, sometimes even subconscious) motive.
Hedonism refers to pursuing pleasures such as money, sex, food, luxury. Unless you want to play fast and loose with terms, an achievement such as becoming a veterinarian or winning a tennis championship or breaking a videogame speedrun record doesn't qualify.
Some words are tricky to fully define outside any ambiguity. Love and Game are good examples.
Epicurus advocated learning as the best form of pleasure because you can't do it to excess very easily like you can with things like eating, drinking, etc.
The various helenistic schools of philosophy were all searching for what constituted virtue. They were quite explicitly after what was good about life and how to organize life around that. The fact you can understand every every human motivation in hedonistic terms is no coincidence; it's the justification for the philosophy, the reason there was a school of hedonism.
"Hedonic" and Hedonism should be defined differently. The semi-last paragraph gives a good point to what Hedonism is.
"That is why the real Epicurus – in contrast to the crude sybarite invented by his detractors – denounced the rapidly rotting fruits of dissipation and excess. The constant pursuit of intense pleasures will in fact backfire, according to Epicurus, because it leads to the psychological hell of enslavement to unsatisfiable appetites. The would-be hedonist must take care to ensure that the pain of overreaching desire does not ruin his peace of mind and thereby defeat his original aim of securing a balance of pleasure over pain."
I think it's possible to make mistakes in both directions. Certainly in my own life I used to be far too concerned about trying to do something for the ages; adopting the Epicurian attitude has made me a lot happier. (I still spend time helping others, because that's a satisfying thing to do in itself, but I've stopped trying to change the world).
You make a very good point. I think my observations are pretty similar to yours. My solution is to expand from the hedonistic goal of maximizing one's own pleasure, to the larger goal of maximizing the total amount of happiness in the world.
This Economist article's a bit chatty and superficial (surprise), but in an age of mass anxiety and digital distraction, I think the goal of the Epicureans is as important as ever: How does one go about producing a calm mind? It's not a simple task, and I think correctly has to analyze the mind in relation to everything else.
The atomic hypothesis of the Epicureans seems like a side quest into physics, but the fruit of the journey is that everything's just combinations of atoms and the mind must be made of atoms too, so let's think of it as a physical system with inputs and outputs, and forget about any grander god-narratives. With this perspective comes some very practical advice; Lucretius for instance has an extended passage on how to deal with a "crush". I'll paraphrase but he points out that your crush exists purely as an image in your head, and you really have no idea what the person behind the image is like, and if you finally get together the sex will probably be very awkward, so it's better to direct your mind and amorous intentions elsewhere. I believe the phrase he used was to find smaller pleasures that carry no penalty -- because seeking the larger rewards almost always leads to misery.
Lucretius is a good read and the Latham translation has some felicitous turns of phrase. It's fun imagining arguing with the ancient philosophers about their physical theories, which they support (as best they can) with the available evidence about what wind, liquids, lightning, thunder, earthquakes, smells, tastes, sights, etc. are made of. It's a shame philosophy got distracted with "higher things" for so long (i.e. 2,000 years) because here we are realizing again that everything is made of atoms, and it sure would be nice to have more advice on living life in the face of this fact.
Am I missing something about the title - because I've never seen Epicurus associated with hedonism until I read this article. In fact, I don't think anything about his philosophy or lifestyle can be associated with the term hedonism as it is commonly used.
He was a vegetarian, never married and never had any children. I don't see any evidence of him being a sex maniac or advocating free sex or anything like that.
He simply believed that the good life is the absence of suffering and that ethics means minimizing suffering for both oneself and society at large. There is nothing hedonistic about that.
I think there might be a little bit of clickbate going on in the title. The article itself doesn't really elaborate on why Epicurus was criticized by medieval christian philosophers or where their differences were. In fact I think it does more to misrepresent Epicurus than it does to actually edify about him. I think this is just a really bad article.
>He was a vegetarian, never married and never had any children. I don't see any evidence of him being a sex maniac or advocating free sex or anything like that.
What definition of hedonism are you using that necessarily involves marriage, eating meat or being a sex maniac?
The very basic definition of hedonism is this:
>He simply believed that the good life is the absence of suffering
Nothing more and nothing less because "suffering" and "good" can actually be quite subjective. A masochist might enjoy being degraded and hurt, it's his/her part of the definition of "good", while non-masochists would probably put many SM practices into the category of "I wouldn't want to suffer trough that".
If not eating meat makes you suffer less, on account of empathy for the animals that didn't need to be slaughtered for your nutritious needs, then that fits pretty perfectly into decreasing the suffering around you and for yourself.
Exactly and, as the article suggests, rival schools made all they could to give hedonism a bad name, equalling it to seeking raw pleasure over any other thing.
Enemies include two millenia of Christianism, so no wonder "hedonist" is not a compliment now.
Imho in that regard Hedonism is quite similar to Satanism: Both are often very misunderstood due to massive stigmatization and misrepresentation throughout history by "ideological rivals", like more fundamental schools of Christianity where "suffering" is often seen as something necessary for people.
Makes sense from the religious view: Tell people they need to suffer for growth, people keep on suffering looking for a reason behind the suffering, religion offers a reason while at the same time justifying it's own dogma.
Any animal in the wild, that actively goes out of it's way looking for pain and suffering, is an animal that most likely ain't around anymore, yet somehow exactly that behavior is often expected from humans to show their "virtues".
I heard that Satanism was kind of a conflation of biblic character with paganism, the beliefs of the dwellers of the pagos, the country, as opposed to the cities, where Christianism was striving with rulers' support.
At least in germany we also refer to Epicureanism as "negative hedonism", i.e. finding the good life by becoming content with less and less, and then not saying "no" to stuff which is nice without any negative long term effects
