I have to take part in an in-class debate for a philosophy course next week...

I have to take part in an in-class debate for a philosophy course next week. The point we're arguing is that pleasure is the only thing with intrinsic value, and thus hedonism is true. I'm on the team opposing this point.

Redpill me on reasons hedonism is wrong, preferably ones that aren't cited as often.

Other urls found in this thread:

plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/#Rel
plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce-semiotics/
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Happiness isn't intrinsic. Happiness is obtained through work and success. Happiness comes from friendships and relationships that have to be earned. What really has value is work.

sorry m8, your side of the debate doesn't have any objective bases to move from.

literally all you can do is make some retard argument like "work and relationships have value because I said so lol my opinion is correct because feelings and subjective axioms"

Why pleasure?

Hedonism isn't true

Utilitarianism is

why? because muh feelings?

What the hell does it have to do with feelings, it has everything to do with logic

People want to be happy

More people happy = more good

non-sequitor. you haven't explained how "good" is derived from people being happy. you've just said that people want something so them having it is "good", because, why? muh feels?

The thing is that utilitarianism is like applied hedonism. Hedonism isn't trying to justify actions and the like, its focus is entirely axiological, arguing on what does and doesn't have intrinsic moral value.

Pleasure isn't really a well-defined concept. It depends on the subject what it entails. Saying pleasure has intrinsic value is therefore void before you give an interpretation of pleasure, you just have non-information of the form: what I find preferable for subjective reasons has intrinsic value. If one tries to restrict the notion of pleasure, it won't be hard to find a counterexample to that restriction. (For example sex use asexuals or rape victims or w/e.)

From a moral psychological point of view, it also has hardly any consistency. What prevents the existence of people who derive pleasure of not having pleasure, or people deriving pleasure from denying others pleasure. Then this means it does not have any practical value, as tou cannot derive any practical guidance from it.

>how to quantify happiness
>what is an utility monster

more like it's ultra-phenomenological hedonism. for some reason you make the jump that people outside of your perspective should be happy, because muh feels. at least hedonism has a first-person perception argument behind it. utilitarianism has nothing but opinions.

Also, you could argue that any form of pleasure is usually a derived notion. If they define it in the sense of feeling good or happiness or some bullshit like that, then the pleasure is basically derived from biological urges. But the point of the pleasure (biological reward) is the biological urge, so the pleasure is not an intrinsic but a derived value, following from evolution.

What about Feldman, how he focuses on a version of hedonism about attitudinal pleasure? He argues it's less about the sensations that give you pleasure, but more about how you feel about those sensations.

If you enjoy being happy, why wouldn't that apply to other people? Denying this is mental gymnastics.

you are also making an ultra-phenomenological argument.
>Saying pleasure has intrinsic value is therefore void before you give an interpretation of pleasure
why should interpretations beyond your own be of any consequence to your perspective?

because you only have one perspective on reality. why should the emotions other perspectives be of consequence to your decision making?

Because then the concept of intrinsic value becomes meaningless, as it will be tautological with your own values. Am trying to argue from contradiction here, and to have a meaningfull discussion you would have to exclude those two coinciding.

are you suggesting one cannot reason without the presence of another?

I am not familiar with that, but it seems that just leads to a solipsist view of the world, which I don't think is very meaningfull.

I am saying that of intrinsic values and your own values tautologically coincide, you have a meaningless philosophy on value. Then you are just saying A is good because I like A. It is basically disregarding the world around you, i.e. solipsistic. If you are fine with that point of view go ahead, because you can't argue against that.

>If you are fine with that point of view go ahead, because you can't argue against that.
isn't having a point that can't be argued against what we're trying to do here? why would I pick a point that has flaws?

also have to add:
>It is basically disregarding the world around you, i.e. solipsistic.
considering the perspectives of others in your decision making is not the same as deciding whether those perspectives feeling happiness has any intrinsic value.

Short term pleasure can lead to long term pain.
Foregoing pleasure can lead to greater pleasure in the long run.
Pleasure can become a vice, necessitating larger and larger doses, and causing pain if and when you are separated from it.
Resources are finite; maximizing the pleasure of a minority at the cost of the majority can lead to social disharmony and thus pain in the long run.
Things that are not intrinsically pleasurable are good for the individual and the society. Ex: a bitter medicine or a shot (individual). Punishment for crime (society).

Yeah well not really, because solipsism is just a philosophical dead-end.

Then explain people wanting to do things that don't make them happy without turning it into a tautology.

straw man, see: you are a madman raving of a solipsistic argument that doesn't exist.

I can't really make sense of this. Well I got to go, but thanks for the discussion in any case

>forcing people to argue something
Fucking anal autistics. hurr durr arguing is good u shud be free of bias because of enlightenment era memes

Drop out of the course, it's brainwashing you.
Logic is based upon feelings. Your conception of good is based upon feelings.

virtue

logic is based on principles that generate absolute consistency, not feelings. obviously someone who doesn't see the value in argumentation would have flaws in their perception, as their perceptions go untested.

Ever heard of Godels incompleteness theorems???

>meaingful
Nothing is meaningful.
Not defined. Fedora ethics originating largely from somebody whose conception of virtue was a thing doing 'good' by meetings its objective purpose.

Meaning baby that didn't die in infancy is virtuous. Wow the infant mortality rate is now insignificant in the first world, that means we are obviously already virtuous!
>consistency
You like consistency because of feelings.

Back to r/eddit please, nobody cares about your bad philosophy.

Argumentation is hellenophile nonsense. hurr le dialogue TEST UR CONCEPTIONS WIT OTHER PPL OR UR DUMB

Bugger off, dogmatist.

>Nothing is meaningful.
>Argumentation is hellenophile nonsense

yes, do you know what a theorem is and what separates it from theory?

>You like consistency because of feelings.
regardless of how I feel about consistency, it is something that exists. it is you who are trying to decide my emotions are relevant, and then targeting emotions in an attempt to punch a hole in the concept of logic. why you use something =/= the thing in itself. emotions are not relevant. if you had more experience in arguing, you might not make such juvenile mistakes as bringing up irrelevant nonsense.

You can argue for a separation of motivation from happiness. People driven to do things that make them unhappy, and thus logic made by these beings can be created that doesn't seek to maximize happiness.

Just quote them some Schoupenhauer.

I feel like that is the easy answer, and kinda misses the point. It is not an argument against short term pleasure but pleasure itself.

if someone presented me with this argument, I would argue that actions cannot be made consciously by humans outside of self-interest, which is difficult to argue against.

There is value in attempting to disprove hedonism.

>it is something that exists.
According to?
>emotions are not relevant. if you had more experience in arguing, you might not make such juvenile mistakes as bringing up irrelevant nonsense.
waaah u triggered me but emotions dont matter im perfect and non-partisan and logical

Emotions are absolutely relevant, because they are all you are. Don't you have a physics I midterm to study for?

>it is you who are trying to decide my emotions are relevant, and then targeting emotions in an attempt to punch a hole in the concept of logic. why you use something =/= the thing in itself. emotions are not relevant. if you had more experience in arguing, you might not make such juvenile mistakes as bringing up irrelevant nonsense.
Emotions are relevant. They're a starting point for ethics. We only decide that reducing human suffering is a central goal of ethics and philosophy because human suffering feels bad. You seem to be confused. Just because appeals to emotion are poor arguments doesn't mean emotion itself is irrelevant to philosophy.

There's no intrinsic value in life at all. All that can really be said about the subject is that you're born, you inhabit a brief fleeting period in time, and you die.
If you spend that time masturbating, stuffing your face, and smoking pot, or if you spend that time carving your name into the rocky face of history is up to you.
Externally the later is valued more, internally if argue it is too, but some people are lazy and comfortable so I won't judge them for that.

I'm feeling charitable so I will help you out.

First of all, you should be concerned with the truth and not "your side" of the argument, come into this with the intention of it being a dialect and make that clear to your opponents.
You need think and study up on what value is and come to a conclusion of your own instead of asking people to """"""redpill""""" you. So I will give you a run down of what I believe value to be and where to start to find the knowledge you seek. And it's not in a redpill, This redpill meme is the laziest least philosophical thing, if you wish to acquire knowledge find it yourself. Asking for a redpill is asking for shallow, pseudointellectual dogma.

You need to take a pragmatic approach to determine the semantic meaning of value.
From being qua being; what is value?

plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/#Rel

Point out that the hedonist and nihilist interpretations of value are both anthropocentric silliness that are concerned with the subjective interpretation of value and not the metaphysical reality of value.

From semiotics/biosemiotics; what value is.

That value is interpreted from a triadic semiotic relationship
plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce-semiotics/

that value is not intrinsic to evalulator but it is intrinsic to what the value is being interpreted from, and what allows the evalulator to interpret it, sign relations.
Find an intro to biosemiotics and you can argue that life is the only thing that holds intrinsic value, as life is the medium through which all value travels and emerges from.

Thank me later, you have a lot of work to do.

Please tell me what you think about this
And I want to also add that utilitarian value is also subjective, anthropocentric nonsense that has to do with what value is like, and not what value is

do you know the difference between logic and an argument?

If your problem with hedonism and nihilism is that they are 'anthropocentric' then I don't see how deferring to pragmatism is going to help.

Pleasure is not the only thing with intrinsic value, in fact, it doesn't have intrinsic value at all.
The reason why you shouldn't be a hedonist is that hedonism impedes the pursuit of virtue, which is what is good.

As for why that is, it's far too long to explain here in one sitting.
Anything in particular?

> I don't know what pragmatism is
>t. tender minded wiki-philosopher
my main problem with those disciplines is that they are concerned with the subjective interpretation of value and not what value actually is. And the fact that they are only concerned with the human interpretation of abstracted values, just points to how fundamentally flawed their approach to value is.

>poor arguments
all arguments are poor arguments.
>le science
>relevant
Bugger off
>the truth
Fuck off Platonist. Attention-whoring avatarfag.

DREAMS=====CRUSHED

>The point we're arguing is that pleasure is the only thing with intrinsic value
then wouldnt a debate be pointless

>pleasure is the only thing with intrinsic value, and thus hedonism is true

As a hedonist, I would say that pleasure isn't necessarily the ONLY thing with intrinsic value, so you're starting off on a poor assumption. Also, trying to declare a philosophical assumption as "true" or "false" is for autistic nerds. Your professor is shit. God I fucking hate philosophy.

if it makes you feel any better, i like your avatar. I think it adds personality to the board, like turk-chan.

>pragmatism
>rejection of platonic conception of truth in favor of one situated within the realm of human activity and effective inquiry(-as-action)
>Peirce follows Kant in the grounding postulation of an = x with the same caveat that this cannot be known given the particularity of our, again human, cognitive apparatus
>all inquiry begins from the subject position

Et fucking cetera

It doesn't, it makes the board stink of Reddit.

>kids these days unironically think and speak using slang like "redpill"

doomed generation imho

Someone's never read the Nichomachean Ethics.

Virtue ethics, either Aristotelian or Stoic are the best defense against Hedonism. Make sure you're prepared for the Epicurean defense of Hedonism by getting rid of excess pleasures in favor of living simply and pursuing friendship and philosophy. Epicureans stress removal from the polis as much as possible, so reminding them that Hedonism is incompatible with a well functioning state is a point you may want to bring up.

I did like every other pseud kid in high school, except one of us grew past that.

None of those ethics are relevant or even valid.

Maybe you should read more of Aristotle, and realize that his ethics only work if you accept his science. Oh wait, that would require actually reading philosophy instead of Wikipedia articles!

It's cute that you think that. You don't have any actual objections other than "I don't like it". Aristotle's virtue ethics may have been informed by his scientific understanding, but his teleology in no way is completely dependent on it.
And yes, babies that don't die have a better chance of achieving eudaimonia. That doesn't mean that person will be a more virtuous person.

pleasure is actually pain. all pleasure has the seed of suffering within it and is ultimately unsatisfactory (dukkha).

either we yearn for pleasure when we don't have it: that is suffering. or when it ends we are saddened because that is gone: that is sufering. or when we have it we don't want it anymore (we don't really want what we want says freud), or are bored by it, or are scared that it will pass: that is suffering.

so on all levels the pursuit of pleasure is the pursuit of suffering. there is no arguing against this, it is absolutely true if you are honest with your own experience.

t. buddha

No, they were not informed by his science, they were defined by it you arrogant high schooler. Go read on what his conception of 'virtue' actually is. If his science is not the justification, then there is no justification.

Pierce's semiotic theory is the foundation for pragmatism. Holding that human perception is based on sign relations With real world objects, and the interpretant, that is what is interpreted from semiosis, isn't representative of platonic truth, but is derived from it, and that is the truth used in pragmatism. In this case the interpretant is value.
Never did I claim that values are representative of platonic truth.
And yeah that taking of pragmatism can be viewed as anthropocentric, because it was articulated from an anthropocentric point of view, nothing about the pragmatic approach is inherently anthropocentric. What I have done is apply pragmatism to biosemiotics which is an interdisciplinary approach that studies sign relations as an inherent quality of all life, hence why it is not anthropocentric.
>>the truth
>Fuck off Platonist. Attention-whoring avatarfag.
'No'
I'm not a Platonist. You are just a silly willy plagued with Cartesian dogma. As explained above, I am not claiming truth I'm claiming that perception is derived from the truth, we smell shit but it's really just certain molecules in shit hitting our olfactory organs and eliciting a mental sensation. The same goes for value. Do you really not get that we perceive comes from reality?
>we're just brains in vats lmao
>How do I know real be true if my mind think it tho??
>(You)
#inspired #validated thanks to you I won't kill myself today

Maybe I should have clarified. His teleology is dependant on human nature/science/ whatever you want to call it, not HIS specific version of it. Aristotle could be justifying it incorrectly, but that doesn't mean the telos is incorrect.

I think you can have two approaches to argue against hedonism

the extreme: the buddhist or eastern tradition of denying desire all together. This entails that the real "happiness" is actually being content or satisfied. The best way to argue this is that when we seek to be happy through pleasure, what we are actually doing is looking for satisfaction where we accept reality for what it really is. In the case of pleasure seeking, we get a momentary sensation of pleasure, but the truth is that it is very momentary and should not be seeked after. Doing so is what causes suffering

The other, which can be seen as weaker, is to say that reason is what matters above all. To someone who grasps a concept of truth, it would not matter if they were to suffer eternally, for it they will strong enough, they would keep their beliefs forever despite suffering. The reason for this, is because denying their true beliefs would in fact be much worse than suffering this eternal torment. The grief would be too much, so in an indirect sense you still are placing a metric of "desire" to choose between the two choices.

You are claiming truth exists, that's Platonism.

There is no such thing as reality.
>we're just brains in vats lmao
Not at all, stop shitposting. There are a few things you could do instead: like chinese skydiving.
No you idiot, it absolutely is based upon HIS science. What don't you get about that? His conception of 'virtue' isn't what you think it is, a being is virtuous when it succeeds in meeting the ends of its telos. Aristotle just attaches a nonsense telos to humans, typical of Platonists, and says that's what a good human is.

He means a 'good human' in the sense of a 'good football' -- it serves its function as a football very well. Go re-read him once you're done high school.
Fucking Hellenophiles.

Baitmeme.gif
>truth doesn't exist
I would through feces at you if I could.
Truth does exist, it's just impossible to discern.

>Aristotle
>Platonist

You are an obnoxious dillweed. Please create a trip to go along with your avatar so you might more easily be blocked

>You are claiming truth exists, that's Platonism.
I believe that is called absolutism my friend. The concept is not confined with Plato

>He means a 'good human' in the sense of a 'good football' -- it serves its function as a football very well. Go re-read him once you're done high school.
Fucking Hellenophiles.

This is mostly true.

Whatever fag, block me and I'll just hack your mom instead.
Salty you got btfo, it's okay, I can't hurt you anymore.
And I might just reverse image search my avi so I can find more obscure Korean memeage, this dude has a reaction for everything

...

Hedonism will lead to debauchery, which is generally detrimental to the body and mind, and therefore a bad thing for Humans.

How would you counter the claims of hedonists like the Epicureans, though? They'd agree debauchery, drunkenness, profligacy are bad things since they lead to more pain than pleasure. They would point to taking pleasure in the simplicity of friendship, philosophy, and sufficient (but not extravagant) nourishment.

It's not absolutism and it's not Platonism.
I'm actually a non-absolutist and a radical externalist.
What is being signaled is an incomplete representation of the truth, and the interpretant is an incomplete deduction of the signal.
Both come from an external reality, and while an absolute does exist at a holistic level, it is impossible to be interpreted and has no place in cognition.
I don't see how you can argue against the assertion that the mind is interpreting external reality and emerges from external reality without being a dualist or a brain in a vat internalist

Categorical imperative.

If everyone pursued only pleasure, the conditions for a world in which pleasure can be pursued would be absent. You can't have heroin without the poppy farmed, no feast without a chef, etc.

I am and I think we are or were misunderstanding/talking past each other, as I am in mostly in agreement with this post.

and rather

i dont like you so im going to assault you!
Truth, in the ideological sense that everybody uses it, does not exist.
Have you never actually read Aristotle? Aristotle is most surely a Platonist, him disagreeing with his teacher on several points does not change that.
>I believe that is called absolutism my friend. The concept is not confined with Plato
This specific kind of absolutism -- ideological absolutism -- I like to refer to as Platonism.
t. undergrad that hasn't read much

>i dont like you so im going to assault you!
>Truth, in the ideological sense that everybody uses it, does not exist.
I'm going to throw shit at you because all you do is make baseless criticisms without contributing any worthwhile input. Leading me to believe that you are baiting or are a complete asshole, either way you're acting like a total dink and that makes me want you to go away.
Go ahead and tell me what truth is and why it doesn't exist why don't you.
>t. Undergrad that hasn't read much
^what I'm talking about

wow why aren't you doing science lol your just saying baseless things WHY ARENT YOU FITTING INTO MY MOLD OF HOW SOMEBODY SHOULD BEHAVE?

...

Yeah that other asshole is kinda derailing the conversation

Pleasure isn't infinite. What pleasures you can change or you may become desensitized to it.

Could also build an argument around extrinsic activities providing pleasure, eg a person winning money from gambling feels a different award compared to someone who is just given money. Therefore a person is biased by their own emotions to believe their pleasure is only intrinsic.

>As a hedonist, I would say that pleasure isn't necessarily the ONLY thing with intrinsic value
That's literally hedonism, nigger. It's value monism that places pleasure as the only thing that's intrinsically good. Saying anything else has intrinsic value isn't hedonism.

OP here, that's likely what'll be deployed in defense of hedonism the hardest. Nobody will seriously defend the debauchery-filled interpretation, but Epicurus is a different beast.

I really like these. Drawing from Indian and eastern tradition is something they probably won't even see coming. I'll note this stuff down and research it more to use it properly. Thanks Anons.

the essential point is that
-there is desire of something (desire alone does not exists)
-once you you cannot control[=make it appear, make it disappear, make it change] the desire, nor the object of the desire [=make it appear, make it disappear, make it change]

you have these levels of existence

>faith in hedonism+hedonism through the 5 senses and thoughts
anybody born on earth is like this
>faith in hedonism+hedonism through what people call meditation
a few people get good at mediation and those people still have faith in hedonism, they think that the deep states in mediation connect them some god, some devas, some universal love, some cosmic spirit
this state is the fantasy of liberals, who try to make people happy, by giving the means to people to fulfill their libido (like food, shelter, travel...) hoping that people will be nice to each other if they have the secure, assured means of the realization of their fantasy of '''primal'' libido (liberals love to talk about needs, instead of libido, so that it does not responsibilize them) and will be happy if they fulfill their higher desires (hedonists love to grade their desires). Liberals fundamentally misunderstand hedonism.
>no faith in hedonism+hedonism through the 5 senses and thoughts
this is the the sotapana level, you see that hedonism does not make you happy, but you still care about pleasures through the five senses, you still have fantasies about the five senses and you have pride about the success of what you care (= the five senses) even though you know there is no point in caring about this in order to be happy
>no faith in hedonism+hedonism through the meditation
this the anagami level, you no longer care about sensual pleasures, but you live through meditation (even though you know that it wont make you happy) like you lived through the sensual pleasure when you were a normal animal or a sotapana
>no faith in hedonism+no hedonism
this is the aharant

>>How would you counter the claims of hedonists like the Epicureans, though?
this is very easy: they do not offer a user manual on how to achieve their fantasy.
Religious people and other try hard to stop hedonism always resort to ''see a woman for what she is, a piece of muscles and some bones'', which is indeed a good start, but it is not destroy the faith in hedonism (even hedonism)

Once more, the way to stop having faith in ones hedonism is to see that
- what is experienced is not personal
-that whatever is experienced is either through the 5 senses or mental (mental does NOT mean the intellect like normies claim)
-everything through the five senses+mentality turns to shit, because
-- everything through the five senses+mentality does not last
-- and there is a caring about the five senses+mentality

it turns out that for most people, the meditation is required. Meditation is about phenomenology for normies claiming to be rational.
So you have without details

-the intellect, meaning the imagination for anybody who is empiricist (rationalists (any normie is rationalist) claim that he imagination is ''rationality'' which connects them to truth)

-the emotions

-the perceptions, the sensations, the contact, the pleasure, displeasure, neutral taste of ''bare experience'' and consciousness

the first step in meditation is ''to stop the thoughts'' like normies.

once you stop the thoughts, you deal with direct ''emotions'' and you get mental pleasure. this is the first jhanas

once you neutralize the emotions, what normies call ''equanimity'', you deal with the fourth jahana.

the fourth jhana gets you to the barest experience.

normies fundamentally misunderstand
-hedonism
-the source of hedonism
-the consciousness (normies claim that ''losing consciousness'' gets you in a coma or death

All your opponent has to do is fuck someone in front of you while you try to argue and you'll lose. Tough break.

So what, exactly, is value?

The correct answer is to drop your philosophy class. By all means read and discuss the classics but don't waste your time 'studying' it.

>Philosophers are rather tiresome people who make very simple things very complicated.

This is a good argument. If you sense that you are losing the debate you say, "I sense that I am losing this debate and it brings me displeasure. Hence, I see no point in continuing." (Perhaps say it a bit less autistic.)

Call them a bunch of fags for taking a philosophy course in the first place.

>intrinsic
>value
>true

tell your team that you do not engage in such spooks

the only caveat is that hedonism is not wrong perse (because being wrong/right per se [=morality] is a fantasy from the rationalists), but a failure to stop being unhappy.
there is nothing wrong with hedonism as long as you do not want to stop being unhappy. hedonism is wrong as a method to solve a problem (the problem of being sad by pure sadness or form losing non-sadness)

Not an argument.

I remember when I was a moral relativist, but then I stopped being an edgy 15 year old who thinks he has it all figured out.

Seeing that wouldn't give me pleasure. Therefore, hedonism isn't proven right by that act.

It's an easy class I can use to fill a requirement for my major.

the best part is that you think to be an empiricist and fail to see you are not

Pleasure itself isn't what's valuable, pleasure is what indicates value, it's a tool to make your organism reach further. Seeking pleasure itself is decadent behavior.

You feel good having a wife and children because that's a form of power. You feel good being rich because that's a form of power. You feel good learning a skill because that's a form of power. You feel good eating because a full stomach is a form of power. You feel good winning because victory is a form of power. You feel good having friends because that's a form of power. You feel good having sex because that's a form of power. And so on and so on. Attempting to manipulate your emotions as an end in itself is pointless.

What do people think of Feldman and his intrinsic attitudinal hedonism shit? It's arcane but pretty airtight stuff.

Double Desert Adjusted Intrinsic Attitudinal Hedonism ain't hedonism, kiddo. It attaches value to how much things deserve pleasure, not pleasure itself.