hedonismphilosophy
Main
Aspects of this topic are discussed in the following places at Britannica.
interpretation by
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Cārvāka school
( in Indian philosophy: The Cārvākas )
...as a product of the material structure of the body and characterizes the body itself—rather than a soul—and perishes with the body. In their ethics, the Cārvākas upheld a hedonistic theory according to which enjoyment of the maximum amount of sensual pleasure here in this life and avoidance of pain that is likely to accompany such enjoyment are the only two goals that...
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Epicureanism
( in Epicureanism )
...life that can be traced to the principles of his philosophy. In ancient polemics, as often since, the term was employed with an even more generic (and clearly erroneous) meaning as the equivalent of hedonism, the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the chief good. In popular parlance, Epicureanism thus means devotion to pleasure, comfort, and high living, with a certain nicety of style.
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Plato
( in Plato: The later dialogues )
The Philebus contains Plato’s ripest moral psychology. Its subject is strictly ethical—the question of whether the Good is to be identified with pleasure or with wisdom. Under the guidance of Socrates a mediating conclusion is reached: the best life contains both elements, but wisdom predominates.
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Utilitarianism
( in Utilitarianism: Basic concepts )
...to be good in itself, apart from further consequences, and all other values are believed to derive their worth from their relation to this intrinsic good as a means to an end. Bentham and Mill were hedonists; i.e., they analyzed happiness as a balance of pleasure over pain and believed that these feelings alone are of intrinsic value and disvalue. Utilitarians also assume that it is...
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interpretation by
-
Cārvāka school Indian philosophy
...as a product of the material structure of the body and characterizes the body itself—rather than a soul—and perishes with the body. In their ethics, the Cārvākas upheld a hedonistic theory according to which enjoyment of the maximum amount of sensual pleasure here in this life and avoidance of pain that is likely to accompany such enjoyment are the only two goals that...
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Epicureanism Epicureanism
...life that can be traced to the principles of his philosophy. In ancient polemics, as often since, the term was employed with an even more generic (and clearly erroneous) meaning as the equivalent of hedonism, the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the chief good. In popular parlance, Epicureanism thus means devotion to pleasure, comfort, and high living, with a certain nicety of style.
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Plato Plato
The Philebus contains Plato’s ripest moral psychology. Its subject is strictly ethical—the question of whether the Good is to be identified with pleasure or with wisdom. Under the guidance of Socrates a mediating conclusion is reached: the best life contains both elements, but wisdom predominates.
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Utilitarianism Utilitarianism
...to be good in itself, apart from further consequences, and all other values are believed to derive their worth from their relation to this intrinsic good as a means to an end. Bentham and Mill were hedonists; i.e., they analyzed happiness as a balance of pleasure over pain and believed that these feelings alone are of intrinsic value and disvalue. Utilitarians also assume that it...
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Epicureanism Epicureanism
...to pleasure reflects the only criterion to which he would entrust himself, the “evidence of those passions immediately present,” which give man the word of Nature. In the argument of psychological hedonism, here implied, the Epicurean holds that men as a matter of fact do take satisfaction in pleasure and decry pain, and he argues then to an egoistic ethical hedonism that...
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Hobbes ethics
Hobbes started with a severe view of human nature: all of man’s voluntary acts are aimed at pleasure or self-preservation. This position is known as psychological hedonism, because it asserts that the fundamental motivation of all human action is the desire for pleasure. Like later psychological hedonists, Hobbes was confronted with the objection that people often seem to act altruistically....
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legacy of Ko Hung Ko Hung
...relations and who severely criticizes the hedonism that characterized the Taoist individualists of his day. A partial English translation of Ko’s writings appeared in 1967 in James R. Ware’s Alchemy, Medicine, and Religion in China of A.D. 320, The Nei P’ien of Ko Hung.
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discussed in biography Butler, Joseph
...were encumbered with the same kind of uncertainties as revealed religion. The book, together with the Wesleyan revival, silenced the importance of Christian Deism in England. His Of the Nature of Virtue, appended to the Analogy, presented a refutation of hedonism and of the notion that self-interest is the ultimate principle of good conduct;...
in a strict sense, the philosophy taught by Epicurus (341–270 bc). In a broad sense, it is a system of ethics embracing every conception or form of life that can be traced to the principles of his philosophy. In ancient polemics, as often since, the term was employed with an even more generic (and clearly erroneous) meaning as the equivalent of hedonism, the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the chief good. In popular parlance, Epicureanism thus means devotion to pleasure, comfort, and high living, with a certain nicety of style.
Several fundamental concepts characterize the philosophy of Epicurus. In physics, these are atomism, a mechanical conception of causality, limited, however, by the idea of a spontaneous motion, or “swerve,” of the atoms, which interrupts the necessary effect of a cause; the infinity of the universe and the equilibrium of all forces that circularly enclose its phenomena; the existence of gods conceived as beatified and immortal natures completely extraneous to happenings in the world. In ethics, the basic concepts are the identification of good with pleasure and of the supreme good and ultimate end with the absence of pain from the body and the soul—a limit beyond which pleasure does not grow but changes; the reduction of every human relation to the principle of utility, which finds its highest expression in friendship, in which it is at the same time surmounted; and, in accordance with this end, the limitation of all desire and the practice of the virtues, from which pleasure is inseparable, and a withdrawn and quiet life.
In principle, Epicurus’ ethic of pleasure is the exact opposite of the Stoic’s ethic of duty. The consequences, however, are the same: in the end, the Epicurean is forced to live with the same temperance and justice as the Stoic. Of utmost importance, however,...
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