Search

SUMMARY: This article examines notions of hedonism, altruism and conscience in relation to the activity of four neurotransmitter pathways: the dopamine reward, noradrenaline fight or flight, serotonin calming and glutamine learning pathways. Associated brain areas that modulate behaviour are highlighted: the prefrontal cortex (activity planning, risk mitigation), the hippocampus (memory retrieval) and the insular cortex (integration of information to decide on action). Putative epigenetic changes influencing adult behaviours after childhood privation are discussed. Pharmacological and psychological means of mitigating harmful behaviours are summarised, alongside the ethics of epigenetic screening to predict future addictive and violent tendencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the first two books of De finibus (= Fin.), Cicero deals with the Epicurean view of the final goal of life. This philosophical discussion, which is preceded by a rhetorical proem that stands on itself, is framed as a dialogue between Torquatus, who defends the Epicurean position, Cicero, who attacks it, and Triarius, who confines himself to a few critical interventions. If philosophy starts in wonder, according to the celebrated passage from Plato's Theaetetus (155d), the company meets this criterion admirably well, for the actual discussion starts with Torquatus' surprise about Cicero's aversion to the Epicurean view (Fin. 1.13). He even suggests that this aversion has nothing to do with a fundamental disapproval of Epicurus' doctrines but that it should rather be sought in stylistic concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In Book 9 of Plato's Republic we find three proofs for the claim that the just person is happier than the unjust person. Curiously, Socrates does not seem to consider these arguments to be coequal when he announces the third and final proof as 'the greatest and most decisive of the overthrows' (μέγιστόν τε καὶ κυριώτατον τῶν πτωμάτων) (583b7). This remark raises a couple of related questions for the interpreter. Whatever precise sense we give to μέγιστον and κυριώτατον in this passage, Socrates is clearly appealing to an argumentative standard of some kind, and claiming that his final argument alone meets (or comes closest to meeting) this standard. But what precise standard is Socrates invoking here? And given that the first two arguments of Book 9 fall short of this (as yet undetermined) standard, why does he not simply leap directly to the third, most decisive proof? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Darwin recorded his first eureka moment in a casual marginal doodle penned into an 1838 notebook: 'He who understands baboon would do more toward metaphysics than Locke'.3 This short phrase contains the two most revolutionary ideas in psychology. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex by Charles Darwin (1871) Darwin is the towering giant of psychology - the first theorist in its long history to discover the causal roots of human nature. On the Nature of Things by Lucretius (c. 50 bce) Lucretius is the greatest science writer of all time and his long poem I On the Nature of Things i ,1 summarising the speculations of the ancients, still rings remarkably true. "Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body". [Extracted from the article]

Over the last decades we have seen an increased interest in forensic rhetoric in Plato's dialogues, notably in relation to his Apology. However, little interest has been paid to this strain of rhetoric in relation to the Gorgias. In this article I focus on one notion, βοήθεια, as it was discussed in Plato's Gorgias. This notion had a wide currency in forensic rhetoric in classical Athens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some philosophers take the ascetic sage as a test case for the plausibility of theories of welfare. They maintain that attitudinal hedonism entails that the sage lives the good life, since he enjoys meditation, solitude, peace and quiet, and so on. Some of the longest-enduring traditions of asceticism, however, deny that the sage takes attitudinal pleasure in these kinds of things. A group of Upaniṣads aptly named the Saṃnyāsa, or Ascetic Upaniṣads, for example, explicitly states that the sage neither enjoys nor despairs in earthly states of affairs. The attitudinal hedonist might argue that the sage of the Saṃnyāsa Upaniṣads lives the good life nonetheless, since he takes immense and constant pleasure in the ātman – the eternal, immaterial self. The sage's immense and constant pleasure in the ātman , however, also commits the attitudinal hedonist to the stronger claim that the ascetic lives the best life possible. The sage's life seems less than optimal, however, because he enjoys only one thing to the exclusion of all other things. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many scholars have argued that well-being is the satisfaction of preferences, or of fully informed preferences, or of fully informed preferences about one's own life. But none of those theories can be true if it is possible to prefer, with full information, to decrease one's own well-being. And because it is possible to have such a preference, those theories cannot be true. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Singer has argued against the permissibility of killing people (and certain animals) on the grounds of the distinction between conscious and self-conscious animals. Unlike conscious animals, which can be replaced without a loss of overall welfare, there can be no substitution for self-conscious animals. In this article, I show that Singer's argument is untenable, in the cases both of the preference-based account of utilitarianism and of objective hedonism, to which he has recently turned. In the first case, Singer cannot theoretically exclude that a self-conscious being's stronger preferences may only be satisfied by killing another self-conscious being. In the second case, he fails to demonstrate that the rules of ordinary morality, demanding that killing be strictly forbidden, could not frequently be overruled by the principles of esoteric morality. In both cases, his theory cannot solve the classical utilitarian problem of prohibiting the killing of people in secret. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two recent critics of Mill's qualitative hedonism, Michael Hauskeller and Kristin Schaupp, argue that Mill's distinction between higher and lower pleasures was largely unsuccessful. They allege that Mill failed to demonstrate that some pleasures are lexically preferred to others, and indeed that this can be shown false by the fact that most people would not renounce supposedly lower pleasures, such as chocolate or sex, even for greater amounts of higher pleasures, such as reading or opera. I respond that many of these criticisms rest on uncharitable assumptions or interpretations of Mill's position. We need not suppose that Mill was even trying to do the things he supposedly failed to do. However, considering these objections may lead us to a more plausible interpretation of Mill's views, according to which the quality of pleasures, along with their quantity, contributes towards happiness. There is no need to suppose that ‘higher pleasures’ must be lexically preferred to lower ones, or even to be dogmatic about which pleasures are higher. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The author presents and explains that two concepts of value pluralism in contemporary axiology. Topics discussed include historical examples of weak intrinsic value pluralism, the view that there are many kinds of intrinsic goodness called strong intrinsic value pluralism, and the monistic views of classical hedonism and preferentism.

The author argues that the experience machine does not decisively rule out hedonism, but it provides some reason to reject it. Topics discussed include philosophers' dismissals of the experience machine, an explanation as to why the comparison intuition is incompatible with hedonism, and stories that debunk evaluative intutitions, including those that support hedonism.

A simple hedonistic theory allowing for interpersonal comparisons of happiness is taken for granted in this article. The hedonistic theory is used to compare utilitarianism, urging us to maximize the sum total of happiness, with prioritarianism, urging us to maximize a sum total of weighed happiness. It is argued with reference to a few thought experiments that utilitarianism is, intuitively speaking, more plausible than prioritarianism. The problem with prioritarianism surfaces when prudence and morality come apart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We provide systematic evidence for the range and importance of hedonic reversals as a major source of pleasure, and incorporate these findings into the theory of benign masochism. Twenty-nine different initially aversive activities are shown to produce pleasure (hedonic reversals) in substantial numbers of individuals from both college student and Mechanical Turk samples. Hedonic reversals group, by factor analysis, into sadness, oral irritation, fear, physical activity/exhaustion, pain, strong alcohol-related tastes, bitter tastes, and disgust. Liking for sad experiences (music, novels, movies, paintings) forms a coherent entity, and is related to enjoyment of crying in response to sad movies. For fear and oral irritation, individuals also enjoy the body's defensive reactions. Enjoyment of sadness is higher in females across domains. We explain these findings in terms of benign masochism, enjoyment of negative bodily reactions and feelings in the context of feeling safe, or pleasure at "mind over body". In accordance with benign masochism, for many people, the favored level of initially negative experiences is just below the level that cannot be tolerated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some philosophers have claimed that pleasures and pains are characterized by their particular ‘feel’ or ‘hedonic tone’. Most contemporary writers reject this view: they hold that hedonic states have nothing in common except being liked or disliked (alternatively: pursued or avoided) for their own sake. In this article, I argue that the hedonic tone view has been dismissed too quickly: there is no clear introspective or scientific evidence that pleasures do not share a phenomenal quality. I also argue that analysing hedonic states in terms of liking or wanting is implausible. If it is correct that pleasures and pains are not united by any particular hedonic tone, we should instead simply conclude that there are several different hedonic tones. This pluralistic understanding of the hedonic tone view has generally been overlooked in the literature, but appears to be fairly plausible as a philosophical account of pleasure and pain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue that Mill introduced the distinction between quality and quantity of pleasures in order to fend off the then common charge that utilitarianism is ‘a philosophy for swine’ and to accommodate the (still) widespread intuition that the life of a human is better, in the sense of being intrinsically more valuable, than the life of an animal. I argue that in this he fails because in order to do successfully he would have to show not only that the life of a human is preferable to that of an animal on hedonistic grounds, but also that it is in some sense nobler or more dignified to be a human, which he cannot do without tacitly presupposing non-hedonistic standards of what it means to lead a good life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

H. A. Prichard ascribed to Aristotle a form of closeted hedonism. Aristotle allegedly misunderstood his own task: while his avowed goal in Nicomachean Ethics is to give an account of the nature of happiness, his real goal must be to offer an account of the factors most efficiently generating happiness. The reason is that the nature of happiness is enjoyment, and this fact is supposed to have been recognised by Aristotle and his audience. While later writers judged Prichard's view obviously mistaken, I argue that the issue is more complex. In the process of reconstructing the logical skeleton of Prichard's argument I show that Aristotle may have had to endorse the identification of the subject's good with that subject's psychological satisfaction. But I also argue that, while making prior assumptions about the meaning of ‘eudaimonia’, Aristotle made no such assumptions about the nature of eudaimonia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The standard view holds that the degree to which an individual's preferences are satisfied is simply the degree to which the individual prefers the prospect that is realized to the other prospects in her preference domain. In this article, I reject the standard view by showing that it violates one fundamental intuition about degrees of preference satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a study of Greek historian Plutarch's criticisms of Epicurean hedonism based on Greek philosopher Plato's dialogue, "Republic." In his work "That it is impossible to live pleasantly following Epicurus (Non posse), " Plutarch interprets passages from "Republic" to support his anti-Epicurean views. The history of a debate and controversy between Platonism and Epicureanism is also explored.

In Better Never to Have Been, David Benatar argues that existence is always a harm (Benatar 2006: 18–59). His argument, in brief, is that this follows from a theory of personal good which we ought to accept because it best explains several ‘asymmetries’. I shall argue here (a) that Benatar's theory suffers from a defect which was already widely known to afflict similar theories, and (b) that the main asymmetry he discusses is better explained in a way which allows that existence is often not a harm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently two distinct forms of rule-utilitarianism have been introduced that differ on how to measure the consequences of rules. Brad Hooker advocates fixed-rate rule-utilitarianism (which measures the expected value of the rule's consequences at a 90 percent acceptance rate), while Michael Ridge advocates variable-rate rule-utilitarianism (which measures the average expected value of the rule's consequences for all different levels of social acceptance). I argue that both of these are inferior to a new proposal, optimum-rate rule-utilitarianism. According to optimum-rate rule-utilitarianism, an ideal code is the code whose optimum acceptance level is no lower than that of any alternative code. I then argue that all three forms of rule-utilitarianism fall prey to two fatal problems that leave us without any viable form of rule-utilitarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article defends the project of giving a single pleasure-based account of goodness against what may seem a powerful challenge. Aristotle, Peter Geach and Judith Thomson have argued that there is no such thing as simply being good; there is only (for example) being a good knife or a good painting (Geach), being serene or good to eat (Thomson), or being good in essence or in qualities (Aristotle). But I argue that these philosophers' evidence is friendly to the hedonist project. For, I argue, hedonistic accounts of goodness tend to imply that the unqualified term 'good' has little or no application to the things we talk about; while if we qualify hedonic goodness in certain ways, we generate usable predicates that match the varieties of goodness recognized by the three philosophers. And those qualifications happen to be natural interpretations of signals we do use alongside 'good', such as 'knife'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mill's most famous departure from Bentham is his distinction between higher and lower pleasures. This article argues that quality and quantity are independent and irreducible properties of pleasures that may be traded off against each other - as in the case of quality and quantity of wine. I argue that Mill is not committed to thinking that there are two distinct kinds of pleasure, or that 'higher pleasures' lexically dominate lower ones, and that the distinction is compatible with hedonism. I show how this interpretation not only makes sense of Mill but allows him to respond to famous problems, such as Crisp's Haydn and the oyster and Nozick's experience machine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is commonly assumed that the scientific study of emotions should focus on discrete categories such as fear, anger, sadness, joy, disgust, shame, guilt, and so on. This view has recently been questioned by the emergence of the "core affect movement," according to which discrete emotions are not natural kinds. Affective science, it is argued, should focus on core affect, a blend of hedonic and arousal values. Here, I argue that the empirical evidence does not support the thesis that core affect is a more "natural" category than discrete emotions. I conclude by recommending a splitting strategy in our search for natural affective kinds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

continue my argument that Millian qualitative superiorities are infinite superiorities: one pleasant feeling, or type of pleasant feeling, is qualitatively superior to another in Mill's sense if and only if even a bit of the superior is more pleasant (and thus more valuable) than any finite quantity of the inferior, however large. This gives rise to a hierarchy of higher and lower pleasures such that a reasonable hedonist always refuses to sacrifice a higher for a lower irrespective of the finite amounts of each. Some indication of why this absolute refusal may be reasonable is provided in the course of outlining the content of the Millian hierarchy. It emerges that Mill's hedonistic utilitarianism has an extraordinary structure because it gives absolute priority over competing considerations to a code of justice that distributes equal rights and correlative duties for all. His utilitarianism also recognizes that certain aesthetic and spiritual pleasures may be qualitatively superior even to the pleasant feeling of security associated with the moral sentiment of justice. Thus, for instance, a noble individual may reasonably choose to waive his own rights so as to perform beautiful supererogatory actions that provide great benefits for others at the sacrifice of the right-holder's own vital interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the social norm of general utility among individuals, resulting from maximizing utilitarianism. It presents different conceptions of utility in terms of equal quantities of utility from classical hedonistic utilitarians and modern preference utilitarians. The article suggests that plural ordinal utilitarianism is the best alternative to maximizing utilitarianism. The concept of Millian utilitarianism allows individuals to do what they want in accordance with his rights and duties.

The article reports on the utilitarian aggregation. It states that utilitarianism is about consequences and their evaluation, therefore it is a natural moral theory for policy decisions, although it faces notorious difficulties in aggregating from the individual to the collective level. The author notes that moral theory should be made relevant to real policy debates and should not whirl into the stratosphere of hollow thought on matters that are important to the lives of the people. He adds that for one to aggregate in any way, he or she must first assess what others think and value.

An essay about aggregation is presented. It offers an account of aggregation which is the process or method of combining different parts into a whole. The author notes that aggregation in ethics is often associated with the additive aggregationist approach of classical utilitarianism. He also presented two examples illustrating some of the additive aggregation as well as challenge the plausibility of employing an additive aggregationist approach in the assessment of the outcomes.

In this article, I examine two of the standard objections to forms of value hedonism. The first is the common claim, most famously made by Bradley and Moore, that Mill's qualitative hedonism is inconsistent. The second is the apparent problem for quantitative hedonism in dealing with malicious pleasures. I argue that qualitative hedonism is consistent, even if it is implausible on other grounds. I then go on to show how our intuitions about malicious pleasure might be misleading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the teleological view of value. It explores T. M. Scanlon's "What We Owe To Each Other," which addresses the concept of the relationship between value and reason a teleological view of value. Furthermore, it describes a phenomenon which was directed by Jens Timmermann in an argument on hedonism.

The article examines the value of happiness. It indicates that the value of happiness is not easily adapted in a subjectivist approach, instead, it requires a eudaimonistic conception of well-being. It cites the idea of self-fulfillment which is viewed as a specific form of nature-fulfillment. Furthermore, it presents two arguments on the inability of hedonism to account for the value of happiness and the capability of self-fulfillment view in solving difficulties.

No one can claim to have thought seriously about the question "How ought I to live?", the guiding question of political philosophy, without having confronted the powerful answer to it supplied by hedonism. In thinking about hedonism today, we may begin from that thinker who was both very important to and early in its history: Plato. Of the dialogs that have come down to us as Plato's, only the Philebus takes as its direct aim the examination of pleasure's claim to be the human good. The Philebus culminates in the suggestions that the need for self-awareness or self-knowledge may finally be more fundamental to all human beings (and hence to hedonists) than is even the desire for pleasure, and that the experience of at least some pleasures constitutes a great obstacle to precisely the self-knowledge we seek. The Philebus is important today not only because it contains a searching analysis of hedonism but also because it compels us to raise the crucial question of the precise nature of "the good" with which we are justly most concerned—our own or that of others—a question whose centrality to self-knowledge we are in danger of forgetting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In these comments on Fred Feldman's Pleasure and the Good Life, I first challenge the dichotomy between sensory and attitudinal hedonisms as perhaps presenting a false dilemma. I suggest that there may be a form of hedonism that employs the concept of a ‘feel’ that is not purely sensory. Next, I raise some problems for several of the versions of hedonism explored in the book. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I am extremely grateful to the five commentators for readingmy book and offering such interesting thoughts in reaction. Shortage of space may make my responses seem brusque. But of course they are not meant to be. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

John Broome's ground-breaking Weighing Lives makes precise, and supplies arguments previously lacking for, several views which for centuries have been central to the utilitarian tradition. In gratitude for his enlightening arguments, I shall repay him in this paper by showing how he could make things easier for himself by denying neutrality and accepting hedonism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Examines the textual juxtaposition of the ethical discussion of pleasure and the metaphysical discussion of the principle OM through dramatic prefiguration in the dialogue "Philebus" by ancient philosopher, Plato. Dialogue between hedonist and non-hedonist theses; Hedonist thesis in opposition to Socrates' thesis who proposes a metaphysical principle about one and many; Prudential value of pleasure in human life; Influence to Greek philosophy.

Sidgwick argued that utilitarianism and egoism were in conflict, that neither theory was better justified than the other, and concluded that there was a 'dualism of practical reason' and all that remained to him was 'universal scepticism'. The dualism argument introduced by Sidgwick is an extremely powerful sceptical argument that no theory of ethics is rationally required: it cannot be shown that a moral sceptic or an egoist ought to accept the moral theory, otherwise she is unreasonable. I explain two ways in which the significance of the dualism argument has been underestimated. First, I suggest that a hybrid theory such as utilitarianism with an egoist bias is not (as is sometimes thought) a solution to the dualism. Second, I argue that the dualism argument is not restricted to a conflict between hedonic egoism and utilitarianism, but applies to any attempt to show that a theory of ethics is rationally required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on a hedonistic theory of intrinsic value. Argument on features possessing pleasure and pain in objective values; Discussion on hedonistic theory of value in relation to moral ought; Objections on the hedonistic theory of value.

Develops a perspective on the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill at least four areas. Conception of utility as irreducible multi-dimensional; Awareness of the ambiguity imposed by multi-dimensionality upon optimal choice under the greatest happiness principle; Use of the notion of intrapersonal utility weights to provide an interpretation of qualitative hedonism.

Discusses philosopher J.S. Mill's stoic conception of happiness and pragmatic conception of utility. Hedonistic conception of happiness reflected in the works of Mill; Alternative or non-hedonistic conception of happiness; Role of laws and social arrangements in placing the happiness of every individual in harmony with the interest of the whole.

Explores the relationship between Jeremy Bentham's psychological and ethical hedonism. Definition of Bentham's 'enunciative principle' and 'censorial principle'; Initial formulation of the principle of utility; Elaboration of Bentham's hedonistic calculus; Differences between rigorist and non-rigorist utilitarianism.

Contends that Geoffrey Scarre's objections to the version of qualitative hedonism attributed to John Stuart Mill are unfounded. Flexibility of the of the version to account for many different kinds of pleasures and pleasing activities; Involvement of a non-hedonistic elements; Offering of an account of the relationship between 'higher' and 'lower' pleasures.

Argues against the non-reductionist views of hedonism and pleasure. Definition of hedonism as a unitary sensation and as a desirable consciousness; Identification of mental sensations pleasant absent desire; Absence of a plausible genuine alternative hedonistic theory.

Focuses on the teachings of philosopher Hegesias of Cyrene that focuses on Hedonism and advocates suicide and death which he claims as good because it cuts off bad things and sufferings in life. Overview on the Greek versions of Hedonism; Denial of the possibility of happiness because the human body is full of suffering; Difficulty in realizing happiness.