If Someone Is A Hedonist About Well-being Then She Must Be A Hedonist More Generally About Value

What are the best arguments for and against hedonism?

As a theory of well-being, hedonism has three advantages.First, it meets the experience requirement, which maintains that only what affects your experience make difference to your well-being. Although most people will reject this requirement, some will find it attractive.Second, it has direct persuasive power. Few people will deny that pleasure is good and pain bad, though it is not clear they are the only good or bad.Third, it seems to apply not only to humans but also to non-human animals as well. Even lower animals like oysters, which don't seem to have desires may have well-being depending on their hedono-doloric balance.On the other hand, it faces two serious challenges.The famous experience machine objection from Robert Nozick is seen as a decisive blow to hedonism by many philosophers.Assume X had a wonderful life full of achievement, friendship and love. Also assume that Y lived a life plugged in a machine that gives him the same experience as X. Most people will find X's life better than Y's, but hedonism (or any mental state theories) entails the two are the same in value.The second criticism comes from the distinction between higher and lower pleasures.If the value of pleasure is determined only by its duration and intensity, the pleasure taken in listening to Beethoven and the pleasure taken in eating a junk food will have the same value, if they have the same duration and intensity. However, most people will think the former is more valuable.Despite strong objections, hedonism still attracts me because of its apparent intuitiveness and simplicity.

If you are not serving God, does being atheist mean you are hedonistic (even acts of generosity and kindness bring you fulfillment and happiness, or else why would you do them)?

Absolutely!Making others happy is the surest way to achieve joy and fulfillment. It’s hard-wired into us, regardless of culture and religion. There’s even a form of very effective ‘happiness meditation’ that basically consists of wishing others well and noticing how that immediately improves your own mood.Living with integrity, in accordance with your conscience, and behaving the same way whether people are looking or not, is hugely effective in achieving a happier and less stressful life. This is important because even if a particular act doesn’t obviously benefit you, the mere fact that you’re living with integrity and in congruence with your positive value-set, is a satisfaction in itself.Studies show that wealth only improves happiness to a certain point (high middle class income, where most necessities and opportunities are taken care of). But there is one consistent lifehack, if you’re super wealthy and want that to translate to increased happiness: Devote yourself to a cause and use your opportunities to contribute. Do you think Bill Gates would have been happier stashing a bunch of cash, than knowing he’s saving millions and improving the world for the long term?Society may try to distract us from it or throw us off course, but the joys of being good to others and living with integrity are powerful and inherent in us. Embracing those facts simply seems the most effective way to go about life.I’d trust an enlightened hedonist a lot further than someone who just follows specific rules to avoid punishment.

What is wrong with living a life of hedonism rather than responsibility and respectability?

Let me start by saying I’m an advocate for hedonism, which the OED defines as “the pursuit of pleasure, sensual self-indulgence.” Because my entire life is defined by TV Tropes, I use its definition of a hedonist, which is “a person motivated by desire to be amused and experience various kinds of pleasure.” I believe that there’s nothing wrong with pursuing sensual pleasure.Nothing’s wrong with hedonism. That being said, one should not make hedonism the purpose of one’s life. If sensual pleasure is the only thing you live for, your life becomes empty, and therefore unhappy, which kind of goes against the philosophy of hedonism. Other people have commented on the dangers of too much of a good thing, but I’ll tell you that using hedonism as a way to ignore or cover up your problems or your lack of motivation in life will drive you into depression. Pleasure doesn’t mean anything. Partying is great, but then what? Sex is great, but then what? Drinking is great if you’re careful, and horrible if you’re not. Drugs aren’t so great because as far as I’m concerned, they’re not worth the amount of pain they result in, but you acknowledged that, and my question still stands— then what? You’ll be like the evil overlord who’s bored out of his mind because he succeeded in conquering the universe. It’s boring. It gets old. Frankly, it’s shallow. Pleasure can be your motivation in life, but not your purpose. It literally isn’t enough to live for.What do I live for? I live to tell stories and share my ideas with people. That’s what makes me genuinely happy, what I put my effort into, and what makes my life worth living. It’s hard work. It may be what makes my life worth living, buuuuut, it’s very hard work, so I really wouldn’t mind some shameless debauchery on the side.

Is the secret to happiness being a hedonist in good times and a stoic in bad times?

No, there are two key problems with that.First, you can’t just up and decide to be a Stoic one morning, nor, I think, could a well-practiced Stoic just drop it. Stoicism, like any other doctrine, doesn’t simply require you to assent to its core ideas. You have to seriously live it, practice it every day, follow it with constant discipline. You can’t live in ease and luxury today and yet be fully ready to handle a crisis calmly tomorrow. It doesn’t work that way. It’s not a switch you flip.There is a reason there are so many exercises for Stoics to practice. It’s a brutally difficult doctrine to follow, and doing so effectively is all but impossible without knowing a few tricks to help yourself stick to it (like negative visualization, or the various short phrases Epictetus says we should keep handy—“The is the price of freedom”, for example). The more difficult to the doctrine, the more ceaseless practice is required, and Stoicism is way up there in difficulty, requiring us as it does to very actively strive to overcome our normal behaviors (e.g. passing judgement on externals).If you choose to pursue hedonism in good times, you leave yourself vulnerable to bad times. There’s no way around it. That’s why Stoics in good times are advised to practice askesis, training, in the form of moderate challenges to keep us accustomed to discomfort (e.g. cold showers, fasting, slightly under-dressing for the weather).Second, hedonism doesn’t necessarily make one any happier in good times than Stoicism does (and I would argue to the contrary). There’s always some turmoil or struggle to be dealt with, even in the best of times, meaning Stoicism is always useful. Not just that, but since when does the pursuit of pleasure make one happier than the pursuit of virtue? That certainly hasn’t been my experience; I can be discontented even while experiencing a great deal of pleasure, but as long as I’m satisfied with my progress towards virtue my contentment is nearly unshakeable (and the more so the more I progress).It’s worth pointing out—as several Stoic philosophers have—that pleasure simply drives us to more pleasure (eating out today means we want to eat out tomorrow; a raise now drives us to pursue another one) without actually having much of an effect on our satisfaction, whereas with virtue, all progression contributes to our satisfaction and there is a specific, if near unattainable, end point (perfection of virtue).