Stuart Mill Hedonism

The hedonist would argue that pleasure is the only intrinsic good in life, that joy and suffering are the only distinguishing marks of things beneficial or harmful to the human being. To the hedonist, life is like the common balance scale with suffering on one side and pleasure on the other. With pleasure being inversely related to suffering, in order to maximize the good of life, the hedonist strives to minimize suffering, thereby maximizing net pleasure (pleasure minus suffering).

The desire satisfaction theory accommodates the thought which hedonism does not accommodate. According to the desire satisfaction theory, our lives go better when the world actually is a certain way, and doesn’t merely appear to be a certain way. An individual experiences pleasure when the desires are satisfied but it is not a guarantee that the desires cause pleasure.

" Why Be Moral" Glaucon uses the example of the vicious man fooling people and being rewarded with virtue and a person who is a good person tends not have much of luck and instead of being tortured on a rack. Another example was used was Bernie Madoff cheating old people with their life saving and decide to be moral and not end up in prison. The idea Hedonism is a theory being a well-being is based on two things pleasure and absence of pain. Hedonists believe by tranquillizing your mind and free from distress is known to be ataraxia. In the reading, desire satisfaction theory focuses on attaining objects from your desire that which produce satisfaction.

Value hedonists’ view that pleasure is the only intrinsic good and pain is the only intrinsic evil seems to be an assumption rather than a deduced conclusion. This can be seen by asking why it is that pleasure is an intrinsic good. There seem to be only two possible answers to this question. The first possible reply is that the intrinsic good of pleasure is simply assumed, in which case the entire value hedonist’s view is an assumption involving no deduction whatsoever. Once someone agrees with the assumption or not, that is the end of the line; there can be no argumentation over this view. The second possible reply is for the value hedonist to say that he/she knows the goodness of pleasure from experience: that she has experienced pleasure

Happiness is determined by the intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity, fecundity, purity, and quality of the pleasure. Objections to Hedonic

Hedonism was an important part of Epicurus beliefs. Hedonism is easily described as the pursuit of pleasure. Epicurus believed that the goal in life should be to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Epicurus understood hedonism as pleasure being the first priority of life but believed that pleasure should be obtained in a sensible manner ("Hedonism"). The hedonistic beliefs of Epicurus tend to fall on the side of psychology as well as philosophy. People begin to seek pleasure and avoid pain unknowingly as an infant. As we grow into adults looking for ultimate happiness, seeking pleasure is just not as easy with all the curve balls that are thrown in life (O 'Keefe).

Substance addiction can be defined by a loss over control over drug taking, compulsive drug taking and craving despite consequences and an increased risk of relapse despite long periods of abstinence (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). The initial intake of a drug causes a pleasurable effect by increasing neurotransmitters in the reward circuitry in the brain, causing a positively reinforcing effect. But further abuse of the psychoactive stimulant can cause tolerance, reduced sensitivity to natural rewards, but sensitization for the drug and loss of control possibly leading to dependence. Drugs of abuse all differ in the initial effect of the body, but seems to lead to similar behavioural changes and symptoms of addiction. This leads

However, a defender of Nozick would rebut the hedonistic argument by contending that the hedonism doctrine holds an oversimplified view of well-being. Hedonism only takes into account the mathematical calculation of total pleasure minus pain, while disregarding other vital, less quantifiable aspects of well-being. Consider another thought experiment where there are two possible worlds: in world one you are in love with a person and they love you back. In world two, you are in love with the same person; however the person does not love you back.

For Mill utilitarianism is a theory that is based on the belief that “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” also known as the “greatest happiness principle. As “happiness is the sole basis of morality; people rarely want anything but happiness”. Mill believes people’s achievement of goals and ends – virtuous living should be considered a part of the individual’s happiness. Mill defines happiness as pleasure without pain as pleasure can vary in quality and quantity. Mill writes in Utilitarianism, happiness is: “not a life of rapture, but moments of such, in an existence made up of few and transitory pains, many and various pleasures, with a decided predominance of the active over the passive, and having as the foundation of the whole not to expect more from life than it is capable of bestowing.” Mill thought ethics should focus instead on quality of pleasure rather than quantity of pleasure. He divides the pleasures into two categories, that is, higher and lower. Hence, Mill utilitarianism was his differentiation between higher intellectual pleasures and lower bodily pleasures Mill argues that higher pleasures hold actual value; the higher pleasures are more appeasing to one’s feelings. He draws a

-Hedonism where what is good for each of us as an end is pleasure, while what is bad for each of us as an end is pain.

Jeremy Bentham’s quantitative hedonism is a viewpoint that quantity, intensity, and duration of pleasures determines the value of that pleasure. Bentham argues that happiness is the ultimate good. He argues that the definition of happiness is pleasure accompanied by an avoidance of pain. Jeremy Bentham believed that creating the greatest combined happiness was the key to correct moral behavior.

Mill, emphasizing the utilitarianism theory, described the ways through which higher and lower-quality pleasures can be differentiated from one another. Mill argued that happiness is an advanced quality if the individuals would select it over a different happiness, even if it is accompanied by uneasiness. Another misconception regarding utilitarianism arises from the confusion underlying happiness and contentment. Therefore, their pleasure is considered to be of higher character in comparison with others. Based on this notion, it can be affirmed that utility acts as a teleological principle, which is often associated with hedonism.

Happiness - and efforts to objectively measure and define it – is a topic that, to this day, remains hotly debated and theorised. Trying to make objective something that is seen as inherently subjective is difficult, if not impossible, but that fact has yet to deter philosophers putting forward theories for what constitutes happiness, and how to achieve it. One popular happiness theory is that of hedonism. Originally stemming from Bentham's utilitarianism theories, hedonism's argument for happiness is very simple; a happy life is one where the person maximises feelings of pleasure and minimises feelings of pain, similar to how a utilitarian would want to

Hedonistic Utilitarianism is a view that pleasure as a sole good and pain as the only evil. The rightness of an action is determined by how much pleasure it produces, or how much pain it prevents. You have to balance pleasure and pain. It is Justifiable if it produces more pleasure than pain, regardless of how much pain it causes. One major claim from a hedonistic Utilitarianism is consequentialist principal.

Mill’s recognizes higher and lower pleasures, intellectual pleasures, aesthetic pleasures, and of course purely hedonistic pleasures. Happiness, for Mill’s seems a bit more of an objective condition of a human being; For Mill’s happiness is human wellbeing in all its complexity and sophistication. Mill’s can then suggest that human happiness is the foundational to all of morality, and the purpose of morality to promote human wellbeing. This is because Mill’s theory is egalitarian and considers everyone’s happiness equally and that everyone’s happiness matters. In determining the correct course of action, we need to be impartial and objective, not favoring our own happiness, or the happiness of those close to us, over relative strangers.