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The Cyrenaics on the Good Life
c. 435-356 BCE
They said also that pleasure belonged to the body,
and constituted its chief good … the chief good is
a particular pleasure, but that happiness is a state
consisting of a number of particular pleasures,
among which, both those which are past, and
those which are future, are both enumerated.
Diogenes Laertius
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book II, Chapter 8
Allow the ear to hear anything that it likes to hear.
Allow the eye to see anything it likes to see. Allow
the nose to smell whatever it likes to
smell... [to] enjoy oneself until death, for a day, a
month, a year-this is what I call cultivating life.
Lieh-tzu, quoted in Fung Yu Lan,
A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, p.234
But see, there is joy and revelry,
slaughtering of cattle and killing of sheep,
eating of meat and drinking of wine!
“Let us eat and drink,” you say,
“for tomorrow we die!”
Isaiah 22:13
Hedonism: The good life consists in pleasure.
They say that prudence is a good, but is not
desirable for its own sake, but for the sake of
those things which result from it. That a friend is
desirable for the sake of the use which we can
make of him… [and] they applied themselves to
the study of logic, because of its utility.
Diogenes Laertius
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book II, Chapter 8
Something has instrumental value if it is
valuable, in part, because of what it can do for
you.
Something has intrinsic value if it is valuable
independently of what it can do for you.
Hedonism: The good life consists in pleasure.
Hedonism: The good life consists in pleasure.
(i.e., pleasure is the only thing that has intrinsic,
pragmatic value for human beings.)
Hedonism: The good life consists in pleasure.
(i.e., pleasure is the only thing that has intrinsic,
pragmatic value for human beings.)
And although pleasure is desirable for its own
sake, still they admit that some of the efficient
causes of it are often troublesome, and as such
opposite to pleasure…
Diogenes Laertius
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book II, Chapter 8
Hedonism: The good life consists in pleasure.
(i.e., pleasure is the only thing that has intrinsic,
pragmatic value for human beings.)
Hedonism: The good life consists in pleasure.
(i.e., pleasure is the only thing that has intrinsic,
pragmatic value for human beings
and the only thing that has such disvalue is pain.)
The proof that pleasure is the chief good is that
we are from our childhood attracted to it without
any deliberate choice of our own; and that when
we have obtained it, we do not seek anything
further, and also that there is nothing which we
avoid so much as we do its opposite, which is pain.
Diogenes Laertius
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book II, Chapter 8
The Newborn Argument
1) Newborns seek pleasure.
2) Newborns lack the mental capacity to seek
something as a means.
3) [So] Newborns seek pleasure as an end.
4) If (3), then pleasure is the end of life.
5) Pleasure is the end of life.
Hedonism: The good life consists in pleasure.
Psychological Hedonism: Every human action is
ultimately motivated by a desire for pleasure.
The Newborn Argument
1) Newborns seek pleasure.
2) Newborns lack the mental capacity to seek
something as a means.
3) [So] Newborns seek pleasure as an end.
4) If (3), then pleasure is the end of life.
5) Pleasure is the end of life.
Hedonism: The good life consists in pleasure.
(i.e., pleasure is the only thing that has intrinsic,
pragmatic value for human beings
and the only thing that has such disvalue is pain.)
Since activities differ in moral value, and some are
to be adopted, others to be avoided, and others
again are neutral, the same is true also of their
pleasures: for each activity has a pleasure of its
own. Thus the pleasure of a good activity is
morally good, that of a bad one morally bad.
Aristotle,
Nichomachean Ethics, Book 10, Chapter 3
Hedonism: The good life consists in pleasure.
(i.e., pleasure is the only thing that has intrinsic,
pragmatic value for human beings
and the only thing that has such disvalue is pain.)
Hedonistic Utilitarianism: The morally right
action is whatever produces the greatest amount
of pleasure minus pain.
Hedonism: The good life consists in pleasure.
(i.e., pleasure is the only thing that has intrinsic,
pragmatic value for human beings
and the only thing that has such disvalue is pain.)
Pleasure, if it is the highest good must be independent
of understanding… [Imagine] If a person
experienced only pleasure. He would not understand
if he were enjoying himself or not, being devoid of
intelligence. Lacking memory, he would not remember
that he enjoyed himself. Pleasure could not survive
from one moment to the next, since it would leave no
memory. You could not figure out any future pleasure
for yourself. You would not live a human life but the
life of a mollusk.
Plato, Philebus
It is quite compatible with the principle of utility
to recognise the fact, that some kinds of pleasure
are more desirable and more valuable than
others… quality is considered as well as quantity…
[That is why] utilitarian writers in general have
placed the superiority of mental over bodily
pleasures.
J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism, Chapter 2
They said also that pleasure belonged to the body,
and constituted its chief good… corporeal
pleasures were superior to mental ones, and
corporeal sufferings worse than mental ones.
Diogenes Laertius
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book II, Chapter 8
Hedonism: The good life consists in pleasure.
(i.e., pleasure is the only thing that has intrinsic,
pragmatic value for human beings
and the only thing that has such disvalue is pain.)