Hedonism

Happiness defined as pleasure is simply not the measure of the Good. Pleasure is neither necessary nor sufficient for the goodness of an action. Nor is pleasure a lowest common denominator to which all other values can be reduced, as hedonistic utilitarianism seems to require.

Even if we could calculate alternative states of happiness, it seems clear to most people that doing the right thing is not always a matter of maximizing happiness or pleasure. Imagine a state in which we could all hook ourselves up to machines that would sustain us all while providing us with enduring and fully maximized states of pleasure throughout our lives. Suppose we could even propagate ourselves, thereby ensuring that we continue to maximize pleasure by ensuring that the next generation is born. If this could be achieved only by giving up all external activities so that we merely sat in a comfortable chair and experienced this maximum pleasure for the rest of our lives, fully nourished and cared for by some cadre of machines, would this really be the exalted pinnacle of ethical achievement? It hardly seems to be a life worth living at all, yet it would be preferable, on utilitarian principles, to the lives we actually live.

Values such as trust, altruism, fidelity, civic-mindedness, courage, compassion, and so forth do not seem to translate directly into pleasure, and vice versa. They may sometimes lead to pleasure and sometimes to its opposite, but they cannot be reduced to, or measured by, pleasure states. This is called the incommensurability of ethical values. In other words, there is not a lowest common denominator (pleasure or anything else) by which all values and all states of affairs can be measured. Diverse values are apples and oranges with one another.

On the basis that our collective brains have empathy to the feel the pain of others and the axiom that pain is something you should avoid. So our collective intelligence tells us we should end the behavior to avoid it.

Metaphysics is a pseudoscience. There is only physics and mathematics.

>The first thing a philosophical hedonist does is proclaim that pleasure is the highest value, and pain the greatest ill, and proclaim that the first should be maximized [either for himself, or for society based on his disposition], and the latter minimized by the same metric.

This wrong. Calvinism, Stoicism, Protestantism, Islam, Catholicism, Neo-Nazism, none of these hold pleasure to the highest aim, in fact, they denigrate it based on what is fashionable at the time.

> by setting a number of limits on his hedonism, or clarifications

If you can limit it, I would welcome your limits.

>Eudaimonist

If you want to define that as advanced hedonism that's fine by me. Hedonism is scientific and science changes with new knowledge, therefore hedonism shouldn't be exempt. Relativity didn't "disprove" Newtonian physics, its just made it more accurate. You can still use both in context, only relativity will be more accurate.

>The hedonists starts with the very unpopular notion that one's own unfiltered happiness or pleasure is the highest good, then runs that through a number of limitations and clarifications until he ends up at a more developed philosophy.

Wrong. Even modern philosophy doesn't accept that. The hateful post-modernist will argue that Africans chopping women's clits off is OK because "its their culture there's objective morals 420 blaze it" and the neo-liberal will argue economy and money are the only things that matter. They are both wrong and should be hated.They aren't equivalent to hedonism.

People don't understand higher hedonics.

Hunger is the best spice. Pining for a fantasy is better than its' complete fulfillment.

Hedonism flounders when the ratio of pleasurable, neutral, and negative stimuli is out of balance. The brain organizes things on a relative level. An intense pleasure is magnitudes more memorable than an infinity of lesser moments. Doubly for an intense pain. In fact, pain creates an emotional abyss that makes the ascent all the more orgasmic.

The Lord is the lord of Behemoth and the lord of Leviathan. The Lord of Order also oversees entropy. We fall into abysses and climb to peaks.*

* - Note: It's far easier to fall and till the pathetic dried remains of fruit than to climb to the peak and bite into a ripe mango. So to speak.

>On the basis that our collective brains have empathy to the feel the pain of others and the axiom that pain is something you should avoid. So our collective intelligence tells us we should end the behavior to avoid it.
you and me may have empathy, but what about sociopaths who don't? what reason do they have not inflict pain on others purely for pleasure?

You really didn't understand my post in the least.

I'm not talking about every philosophy that is out there, I'm talking about philosophical hedonists such as yourself.

The entire point is that every philosophical form of hedonism, whether it be a Eudaimonism, or an Epicureanism, or a Utilitarian, or what have you, is really just "Hedonism, But!"

By the time you've run hedonism through all the filters it requires to make it a tenable ideology its effectively ceased to be hedonism.

The simple change from immediate gratification to delayed gratification invents all the virtues of moderation and temperance that usually mark one as a non-hedonist.

The concepts of reciprocity and mutual-benefit removes the 'selfish' aspect of hedonism.

By the time you reach concepts out of evolutionary psychology the battle is over. You begin valuing concepts of tribal loyalty and group-concept, and cease to be a hedonist except in perhaps the most abstract sense.

Hedonism is the serpent that constantly devours its own tail. Any attempt at refining it ultimately ends in an unhedonic philosophy.

With science. Its self-referential now, but when brain modelling comes along, we will able to see harm and pleasure objectively. Anyway, the "how do you quantify" arrangement can be levied at absolutely anything.

>Happiness defined as pleasure is simply not the measure of the Good.

Well what do you base that on? I base it on how many meaningful conjectures it forms that can produce the most pleasure in humanity. What do you base good on?

>Imagine a state in which we could all hook ourselves up to machines that would sustain us all....yet it would be preferable, on utilitarian principles, to the lives we actually live

Its a brilliant argument. But the best person to slay it is you...

> It hardly seems to be a life worth living at all, yet it would be preferable, on utilitarian principles, to the lives we actually live.

Exactly. Living in a constant, never changing state of ecstasy would be torture unless it engaged us on an intellectual level and allowed us freedom. That would be the worst state you could inflict on a person and through the ecstasy hatred and never ending pain would result. Even if I'm wrong, surely you can see the value of hedonism? Here we are discussing hypotheticals that could exist far in the future, while most ideologies can't get past the past or present. We can have a conversation rather than a shitflinging debate because we both know what pain and pleasure are, we're speaking a language we can understand. Christians and Muslims would never get this far. Hedonism is already useful.

.Values such as trust, altruism, fidelity, civic-mindedness, courage, compassion, and so forth do not seem to translate directly into pleasure

(cont)

>On the basis that our collective brains have empathy to the feel the pain of others and the axiom that pain is something you should avoid. So our collective intelligence tells us we should end the behavior to avoid it.

What does "collective intelligence" mean? Are we moral hiveminds?

Also why should pain inform our moral decisions? Some things that are bad are not necessarily painful, like lying or using drugs. Other things that are painful are actually good for us, like going to the dentist. In other words, why should I care about other peoples pain?

You think that because you think there is no God. Most atheists turn to hedonism, and destroy themselves.

I can't talk to you if you're going to greentext me and ignore half my post.

>Hunger is the best spice.
This

Hedonism doesn't work from a medical sense. All it ends up doing is leaving you dependent on dopamine highs which leaves your serotonin pathways withered and dulled. As a result, you lose the "content" feeling because you keep on going from desire to desire. You foolishly assume "pleasure" is the greatest good, but you fail to understand that human chemical interactions are much more complicated than pleasure and non pleasure and fail to acknowledge how too much of one throws you off balance and creates the chemical imbalances that lead to a number of medical issues.

(cont) I agree. 100%, and hedonism is the only ideology that includes all that. Aesthetics brings pleasure and so it is one of the biggest considerations of hedonism. Hedonism is the only ideology that spans from children opening their first DS on Christmas day to a man being brought to tear by natures beauty, to the pride one feels for their nation and its customs.

>but they cannot be reduced to, or measured by, pleasure states

Of course they can. We can say we can't prove immigrants are causing pain to people, the fact 70% of Britain wants immigration lowered across all demographics shows that, yes, we can make meaningful conjectures and decisions about pain.

>there is not a lowest common denominator (pleasure or anything else) by which all values and all states of affairs can be measured.

All humans do things because it brings them pleasure. That is the motivator for a brain to do something.

Dopamine is not the only neurotransmitter you retard.

>Well what do you base that on?

This is a perfect example of the problem with your style of greentexting and responding to people. You're probably just reading one sentence at a time while writing your reply so you completely miss the fact that this is addressed in the third paragraph.

Empathy also enables sadism in most people. It is our ability to imagine their pain and fear that makes us want to hurt them.

There's also the whole evolutionary aspect to hedonism. A man with money could have every need filled and still be depressed. The rule of man for most of its existence has been "Pleasures are few and difficult to catch, pain is in ample supply."

The pain of hunger. The pain of unfulfilled desire. The pain of unfulfilled lust. The pain of being alone. Etc.

Maybe we could engineer a being with no negative feedbacks to pleasurable stimuli. But what an ungrateful monster that would be! And a short lived monster at that! Imagine a toddler getting the same high from watching teletubbies every day. What other path, but a slow but steady death, will this child make in this world?

Why are women nowadays miserable? Because they want things beyond sensual pleasure. But they sabotage themselves by taking modern society and modern "equality" seriously. Every punching bag of a man is a 10/10 Powerlifting Champion & CEO of a corporation. Equality is enjoying his hedonistic feast. Not looking at the majority of men and understanding how rough it is to be an expendable unit of society.

>but what about sociopaths who don't?

With science it can be proven they don't.

>
The simple change from immediate gratification to delayed gratification invents all the virtues of moderation and temperance that usually mark one as a non-hedonist.

Well if you want to quantify that as something else, feel free to. The fundamental problem with every other philosophy is that they MUST always be right and they MUST never change. Science and Math change all the time, but the method doesn't, and so should any philosophy that calls itself honest and good natured.

>you reach concepts out of evolutionary psychology the battle is over

I don't agree with evolutionary psychology because it cannot be rigorously proven and is not useful to anyone who doesn't understand evolution. I find hedonism is useful to you, or me, or an African who has never heard of it. An alien who knew nothing about Earth could not start from an axiom and work backwards to get Christianity, Islam, or anything. They could pinch themselves and think "hey, these things will experience pain and will probably do their best to avoid it". And they'd be right.

>The concepts of reciprocity and mutual-benefit removes the 'selfish' aspect of hedonism.

Why does it have to be selfish?

>Hedonism is the serpent that constantly devours its own tail.

While most other philosophies don't even find their own backside, they just career ahead causing harm and destruction confident they're right.

>Any attempt at refining it ultimately ends in an unhedonic philosophy.

Does it? I don't think so.

>I don't agree with evolutionary psychology because it cannot be rigorously proven and is not useful to anyone who doesn't understand evolution.

For me, evolutionary psychology is simply a way to smuggle a bit of truth in a profession that has an identity crisis due to the proliferation of fields related to neurology.

It's more honest in a lot of ways by examining the behavior of men and women without moral judgement. Women do this because people who do this maximize their reproductive gain and men do this because people who do this...

The weird part is reconciling our prehistory with our "history of civilizations". In the past ten thousand years, the drivers of evolution have been warring tribes lead by a ruling class which reaps the rewards of the surplus of another society and the rewards of reproducing themselves with more women than any tribal warrior could imagine.

In other words, we've had accelerated evolution enabled by the greed and rapine of warlords.

OP and his walls of God damned text need to fuck right the fuck off.

CONT

"While most other philosophies don't even find their own backside, they just career ahead causing harm and destruction confident they're right."

Of course. As Mr. N said, "The philosopher had to hide in the image of the priest(some page in Ecce Homo)"

The priest is obsessed with certainty, perpetuity, and order. He, after all, developed with farming societies where everything was dependent on how well, or bad, crops grew in a year.

To separate the philosopher from that figure is a task still undergoing. Maybe it will be finished when individual minds can produce their necessities autonomously.

Hold on. Your rambling is going absolutely nowhere. You basically defined hedonism to be everything good and are now trying to prove that is everything good, but you're too high to realize that there's nothing more to say because you literally assumed what you are trying to show at the beginning and are now just rambling meaningless bullshit.

The point you missed is that the brain is not capable of handling massive amounts of "pleasure" (read: dopamine) without facing repercussions elsewhere. Not only is there such a thing as diminishing returns, but you're setting yourself up for what is medically termed as addiction. You end up "needing" these things. As a result you end up justifying your need however you can without realizing that there is a neurotransmitter called serotonin that allows you to be content without constant stimulus. As in, you stop wanting more and more.

>What does "collective intelligence" mean? Are we moral hiveminds?

Collective intelligence is related to culture, its the sum of all knowledge. You choose an area or people's and evaluate the knowledge they've pooled together. Some of it will be arbitrary, some f it will be useful, but I bet if you get a bunch of people from all around the world who aren't Islamic or African,, and make them watch a child being burned alive by a man they will emphasize and say the man is the wrong doer. Why? Because being burned alive is horrific. Why is it horrific? Because its mentally and physically painful.

>Some things that are bad are not necessarily painful, like lying or using drugs

They're bad because they're painful in the long term. Lying is a prime example, lying can be pleasurable if you're telling your wife she looks pretty in something. And Christians and other spiritualists accept this, Christians and Muslims often state lying is evil and liars are sinners this and that, but when it comes to aiding their own survival, they have no problem deploying spies, who are professional liars. And for drugs, long term harm can be evaluated. Its not hard, we can see how heroine binds to receptors in thee brain that allow basic functions and deprive them of oxygen.

.Other things that are painful are actually good for us, like going to the dentist.

But one can see that and evaluate that in long term, pain will be avoided. You go to the dentist because you identity pain in the first place and pre-emptively prevent it. That is an argument for hedonism, not against it.

>why should I care about other peoples pain?

Why should you care about science? Why not just g chiropractor or drink silver in water to solve your kidney problems? Because you think one works and can be used to create meaningful conjectures and the other is bullshit that doesn't help you, let alone others because its based on opinion, not fact.

Oh, I apologize for the misinterpretation. The (...) wasn't ignoring, my post was just far too long with your paragraph added to is, so I added a (...) to indicate I'm considering everything that came before the ellipses and after without overstretching my word count. I read your post, and anyone who follows my post should be able to read yours, I'm not ignoring you and you can see that. I'm also trying to respnd as fast as I can since many people are responding and I'm trying to answer them all in depth and satisfactory, so please bear with me.

I never mentioned dopamine.

Hedonism is hated by ideologues because it results in people doing what they enjoy instead of sacrificing themselves for ideology.

>This is a perfect example of the problem with your style of greentexting and responding to people

Its not my "style". Greentexting is taking something someone said an condensing it. I'm quoting, you know, the actual function the meme arrows?

I'm not reading one sentence at a time at all. If you read my third paragraph, I addressed yours, that "trust, altruism, fidelity, civic-mindedness, courage, compassion, and so forth do not seem to translate directly into pleasure" *do* factor into pleasure and hedonism is the only ideology that allows for all of them along with aesthetics.

I think I should "show my hand", so to speak.

I don't think most people in life even think in terms as "x component of my brain is out of wack". They interface with their emotions as they come, not try to anticipate the end results of complicated systems they have no hope of mastering.

But you can show most people scenarios that they can empathize with. I think the realization that "Hunger is the best spice" is one of the best metaphors for communicating the difficulty of everlasting happiness.

I'm not going to put the finger on a component of a system I don't understand (Can't understand with modern knowledge!) but I can point out that chasing after pleasure solely, like a Holy Grail, is a vicious game. I used women because they practice vicious hedonic games without any sort of self-awareness that a man could summon.

And as I said, I think mentioning serotonin and dopamine is a baby step to understanding how our brain filters and judges stimuli. IMO, just pointing out various scenarios is a more effective strategy for getting people to think about their own systems of pain and pleasure.

And this is only about an individual interacting with stimuli. We are a social species and our experience of hedonics is modulated by what and who we deal with everyday. Paradise is bland without the freedom to fail and fall and rise up again.

Now in relation to field with immense research (and immense bullshit courtesy of the Feds), you can point at how Leptin levels are modulated in various diets and see the pathology of obesity clearly: Person A eats really carby diet and gets fat. Carbs are broken down into sugars which block the activity of Leptin. A lot of people don't get the hunger signal but instead a "my stomach is full" signal. So even though fat people have higher levels of leptin, they're blocking its action via diet. You see how different it feels if you switch to a low carb diet. You get to a point where you can't eat anymore, without being bloated.

Dopamine is what pleasure is, though. You can quote one ancient philosopher after another, but don't pretend like the modern medical understanding doesn't prove you wrong. Hedonism revolves around pleasure. What is pleasure? A complex chemical reaction in which dopamine plays the main role.

who are you even quoting for most of this?

You are a rambling mess of a person.

IIRC, dopamine isn't "pleasure" and we're still at pre-Mendeleev in relation to neurology. (Metaphor)

Dopamine is more a "reinforcer". If you take stimulants for medicine, it's better to take them right before "productive work". Because now you reinforce that "work" = more reinforcement agent. You won't feel much "pleasure" but that vague wall of procrastination becomes a bit smaller.

Meh. It's the only thing we can do in the face of a system with a problem space that would take uncounted lifetimes of (biological) cognition to "understand". We grab pragmatic pieces and facts and try to assemble useful tools. For better or ill.

CONT.

For example, dopamine is released in bad and unsafe situations. If we survive the situation, whether through retreat or victory, the pressure would be to reinforce the actions that allowed us to survive said situation. In the event that we find ourselves in said or similar situations again.

I'm OP, sorry guys I'm too drunk to rationally reply to anything but a penis in my mouth. I've read all your comments and appreciate them fully, they were not in vain. Since my Nana's ISP blocks adult sites I probably won't able to respond until 9PM tomorrow. If the thread is till up I'll reply to your arguments. Night guys.

If "hedonism" is to you just the seeking of physical pleasure I disagree. The highest pleasure in life comes from perusing enlightenment and from living a simple, tranquil life with no illusions. Don't get me wrong you can enjoy sex and physical pleasure, but if you're constantly in pursuit of these LESSER pleasures you'll never know what true happiness and calm feels like. Plus these pleasures are fleeting compared to the pleasure one gains while pursuing the truth.

Read up on Epicureans user.

Find a girl who likes being slapped. It's fun.

So a guy should rape a girl if he can get away with it because it makes him "feel good"?
Fuck off, hedonism just leads to shitholes like the dog eating chinks in China have.

>So a guy should rape a girl if he can get away with it because it makes him "feel good"?
yes goy , better stick to your spook of consent

>implying Jews aren't the ones pushing hedonism

The problem with hedonism is that it disregards the fundamental importance of sacrifice in achieving goals. The greater your goal, the greater your sacrifice, and the greatest goals require sacrificing pleasure at some points in your life.

Nigga, that a bust of epictetus

Fugg you're right.

According to Google they're the same person I guess.

You have to be 18 to browse this site

Why should people care about the downfall societies or civilisations it leads to?

What if I want to suffer? What if the thought of having no pain depresses me?

Dopamine is one of the mechanisms of pleasure, but the chemical doesn't matter as much as what its doing. Its telling your brain which things are helpful and which things are bad. Pleasure is a reward system for doing helpful things, and it also results in happiness, whether its momentary or not. But dopamine isn't the end of it. Being confident, discovery, family life - all these things produce pleasure in ways we don't understand.

>The highest pleasure in life comes from perusing enlightenment and from living a simple, tranquil life with no illusions

But that is still pleasure. And no, I don't believe the only reason to live is to seek so called "lesser pleasures". I myself am studying astrophysics because I take pleasure in finding out more about the universe and I hope if I discover things they'll be used by someone to create things. The reason I'm even engaging in this debate is because I wanted to help form useful philosophies and conjecture people can use.

But that's fine. You can measure risk vs reward. We can draw up plans for a nuclear plant and say "OK, what's the pleasure and what is pain potential?" and come with scenarios and take steps to mitigate the bad. Just because you think drinking alcohol is OK doesn't mean you need to drink all day everyday.

Then you need your head checking. And pain isn't a bad thing. This is "good vs evil" or "god vs satan", pain is evil. Its a mechanism to help you survive. Awful things happen to people who can't feel pain. But just like like our dopamine receptors that give us pleasure can be fooled by things that are actually bad for us, our pain receptors can be fooled into making us do bad things or into giving us pain when we don't need it.

*This ISN'T "good vs evil" or "god vs satan", pain isn't evil.

That mistake changed the entire meaning of my sentence.

Hedonism is not really a realistic practical position for living, maybe you should try to check Epicure who has a much more interesting approach of pleasures.
His works on happiness and pleasures are not very difficult to read and could be of interest for you since you like this kind of philosophy.

Over what timeframe are you dealing with? Will this minutes pleasure bring about incredible suffering in 10 years?

>Nietzsche Nihilist

Oh Christ hahahahaha

Christianity is actually hedonistic, but in a calculated way.
You give up temporary pleasures in the present for longer lasting pleasure in the future. You also avoid the displeasure of being burned alive for an indeterminate amount of time.