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hedonism

Set of doctrines shared between philosophical psychology and ethics.

Ethical hedonism says either that pleasure alone (or ‘happiness’, which is usually not distinguished from pleasure by hedonists) is ultimately good, or that every action should aim to maximize pleasure; in neither case need the pleasure be the agent’s (a point that is often forgotten, as is the distinction between psychological and ethical hedonism).

Qualitative hedonism – associated especially with John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) in his Utilitarianism (1861) – says that pleasures differ in quality as well as quantity, and that ‘higher’ ones should be preferred. This doctrine thus gravely complicates the task of aiming to produce the ‘greatest’ pleasure.

Source:
J C B Gosling, Pleasure and Desire (1969);
J S Mill, Utilitarianism (1861), ch. 2 (reprinted in J Plamenatz, The English Utilitarians (1949), 137

Table of Contents

    • 0.1 Related:
  • 1 Videos
  • 2 Related Products
    • 2.1 The Art of Frugal Hedonism: A Guide to Spending Less While Enjoying Everything More
    • 2.2 The Naked Truth about Hedonism II: A Totally Unauthorized, Naughty but Nice Guide to Jamaica's Very Adult Resort
    • 2.3 Hedonism (Just Because You Feel Good) [Explicit]
    • 2.4 The Hedonism Handbook: Mastering The Lost Arts Of Leisure And Pleasure
    • 2.5 The Awakened Ape: A Biohacker's Guide To Evolutionary Fitness, Natural Ecstasy, and Stress-Free Living
    • 2.6 A Hedonist Manifesto: The Power to Exist (Insurrections: Critical Studies in Religion, Politics, and Culture)
    • 2.7 Hedonism: Sensual Tales from a Twisted Mind
    • 2.8 The Birth of Hedonism: The Cyrenaic Philosophers and Pleasure as a Way of Life
    • 2.9 Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll: The Science of Hedonism and the Hedonism of Science
    • 2.10 Dignified Hedonism: A Collection of Basic Instructions

Related:

  • Bentham’s theory of utilitarianism
  • Act utilitarianism
  • utilitarianism
  • preference utilitarianism
  • egoism

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  • Last update 2020-06-17. Price and product availability may change.

    physicalism

    bivalence law or principle

    naturalized epistemology

    naming theories of meaning

    psychophysical parallelism

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