Hedonism: meaning and characteristics

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We will dedicate this lesson from a TEACHER to explaining the meaning and characteristics of hedonism. This moral doctrine constitutes a defense of pleasure as the supreme purpose of life, and at the same time, its foundation. Pleasure, for hedonism, is related to the good, being considered good, everything that produces pleasure and bad, the opposite. Because all living beings seek pleasure and escape pain. Pleasure is the only and highest good. If you want to know more about this ethical doctrine, continue reading this article by a PROFESSOR.

The word hedonism, comes from the Greek ἡδονή hēdonḗ, which means pleasure, plus -ism and refers to the philosophical doctrine that he considers as the only supreme good, pleasure, this being the beginning and the end of life.

The term pleasure is very broad and can be understood from the individual point of view, as Epicurus would defend, or collectively, as would the utilitarian current, which identified the good with the utility and the latter with what produces more benefit to the whole of society or to a greater number of people. Also, this pleasure can refer

The main representative of the eudaemonism it is Aristotle, who is committed to happiness, as the purpose of life, and who is going to identify with virtue. For its part, radical hedonism rejects any restriction of physical pleasures. The pursuit of pleasure cannot be limited.

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To better understand the meaning and characteristics of hedonism, we are now going to know the main schools who defend this doctrine:

Cyrenaic school

Aristippus of Cyrene, disciple of Socrates, he was the founder of this school and one of the highest representatives of hedonism. For this philosopher, the search for pleasure has no limits, the pleasures of the body being more important than the intellectual ones. In this happiness consists, which would be the sum of all pleasures, although the human being must be prudent, and not allow himself to be dominated by them.

The pleasure that Aristipo defends is more individual than collective. Only the satisfaction of personal and immediate desires matters, to such an extent that to achieve them, it is lawful to even pass over the rest of humans. Morality, in this context, has a very limited role.

Epicureanism

The founder of this school was Epicurus of Samos. This thinker affirms that all living beings seek pleasure and flee from pain. Happiness, therefore, would consist in the satisfaction of pleasures, especially basic desires.

Pleasure, for Epicurus, means absence of pain, Y it has nothing to do with physical pleasure, as in the case of the Cyrenaica school, and also, unlike this current, they bet on a less immediate, more long-term type of pleasure, bearing in mind the consequences of its Actions. Pleasure, from Epicurus's point of view, is associated with tranquility, the absence of passions, that is, ataraxia, self-control, even affirming that it is possible to be happy while subjected to the most horrible torture, and there is no point in worrying about things that are beyond your control human. There are things, like death, that are unavoidable, and therefore there is no point in suffering for this.

“Thus, death is not real neither for the living nor for the dead, since it is far from the former and, when it approaches the latter, they have already disappeared ”.

Pleasure, for Epicurus, is identified with the highest good, although it is true that for the Greek, pleasure is in moderation and in the contemplative and intellectual life.

“There is also a middle ground in moderation, and whoever does not find it is the victim of an error similar to that of someone who overdoes it through debauchery.

Happiness, for Epicurus, does not consist in the accumulation of wealth or in the satisfaction of bodily desire, because for the thinker, the one who has the most is not the happiest, but the one who needs to. Epicurus will differentiate between the natural desires (necessary and unnecessary) and unnatural ones (always unnecessary).

• The necessary natural desires are those that refer to basic needs: eat, drink, safety, health ...
• The unnecessary natural desires would be sex, friendship ...
• Unnecessary unnatural desires are fame, power, prestige ...

The former must be satisfied quickly. The latter, we must treat them in the least selfish way possible, trying to direct them to the satisfaction of the other's pleasure. And this is the order that must be followed, since the satisfaction of a natural and necessary desire, such as the security, by an unnecessary one, such as sex, much less by an unnatural one, such as power, otherwise the pain is insured.

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G. AND. Moore, in his work Ethical Principle(1903) makes a criticism of hedonism, which he accuses of falling into the "naturalistic fallacy”, For identifying pleasure with the good, since, really, it is the same, and therefore, it does not explain what pleasure is. That is, saying that pleasure is good, is a tautology that does not provide or add any type of knowledge, much less, an ethical foundation.