/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.17646265]

What possible arguments can there be against hedonism? It is simply self-evident that all humans seek pleasure and avoid pain, and there's no reason to believe this is a bad thing.

[Anonymous No.17646290]

>>17646265
There literally isn't. However the low IQ average population shouldn't know this and must have their head filled with spooks instead (this is why religion is good) Hedonism should be exclusively for high IQ people.

[Anonymous No.17646343]

it's just a starting point though, you said yourself it's self-evident. it says nothing about how you should go about it and where it should lead, and whether or not you're doing it properly. not to mention everything else in human affairs.

most hedonists or hedonist-influenced came to the conclusion of fairly austere living focused on minimising pain, nothing like the 'seek pleasure and avoid pain' maxim would you have you think, which is meaningless to say because everyone already does this in their own way (almost always very badly, which implies merely holding to the idea isn't very good for achieving it).

[Anonymous No.17646358]

>>17646265
Someone who wishes to be a bodybuilder must embrace some pain. Same goes for any kind of training. Pleasure is what you should be after, but avoiding all pain will make you very weak.

[Anonymous No.17646360]

>>17646290
Hedonism doesn't work if your poor, i.e. still the majority of humanity.

[Anonymous No.17646378]

>>17646358
It would be more accurate to say you should avoid net losses of pleasure over time - the bodybuilder clearly believes his enduring pain now will be repaid with greater pleasure later.
>>17646360
Yes, poor people should stick to coping strategies like Stoicism.

[Anonymous No.17646385]

>>17646378
>the bodybuilder clearly believes his enduring pain now will be repaid with greater pleasure later.
not necessarily. this is reductive and open to interpretation as a result. the world and human motivation is complicated.

[Anonymous No.17646390]

>>17646385
>the world and human motivation is complicated.
Broad and meaningless statement. Provide an example of a human motivation that couldn't be reduced to or interpreted as "seeking pleasure" or "reducing pain"

[Anonymous No.17646392]

>>17646265
>Seek pleasure
>Avoid pain
Are they compatible though?

[Anonymous No.17646396]

>>17646390
Self-sacrifice comes to mind.

[Anonymous No.17646397]

>>17646378
>It would be more accurate to say you should avoid net losses of pleasure over time - the bodybuilder clearly believes his enduring pain now will be repaid with greater pleasure later.
I don't see how that's more accurate. You just rephrased it while concealing the fact that the bodybuilder must embrace some pain, which is the key element to realizing why radical hedonism (removing all pain and seeking only pleasure) isn't a good idea.

[Anonymous No.17646418]

>>17646358
No fucking shit Jesus Christ why does this board have the most retarded interpretation of hedonism there is

[Anonymous No.17646429]

>>17646418
What's your interpretation then, O Enlightened One? It must be something that is compatible with the general sentiment of that post, which is: "Suffering is necessary for becoming stronger and should be maximized in one's life alongside pleasure."

[Anonymous No.17646451]

>>17646265
>It is simply self-evident that all humans seek pleasure and avoid pain
Is it though?

[Anonymous No.17646486]

>>17646265
The only thing humans inherently seek is reproducing, nothing more. Everything else is secondary. Pleasure is a meme to keep you alive and to reproduce and pain is a survival mechanism.

[Anonymous No.17646499]

>>17646486
>The only thing humans inherently seek is reproducing
Depends on what you mean by reproducing. Physically / sexually? Then obviously not, since you have loads of incels and volcels who are content never having children.

[Anonymous No.17646507]

>>17646499
>since you have loads of incels and volcels who are content never having children.
Lol they're coping, depressed and most likely mentally ill as well.

[Anonymous No.17646514]

Pleasure soothes the body but not the soul. The sentient creature, your dog or cat or fish, possesses not the faculties to do anything other than seek pleasure and minimize pain. Humans, as apes, are subservient to this malignancy as well; however, the gift of sapience allows us to impose our individual will on the natural hedonistic tendencies prevalent throughout the animal kingdom. We can, in effect, construct our reality in a way that denies pleasures soft touch absolutely as many in history have done.

The animal within us seeks pleasure---a purely biological imposition---but the human within us seeks something greater, something that soothes the soul and is not confined to a biological reaction nor accessible to the fish or bear. The Greeks called this eudaimonia, and they recognized that true human happiness, a word absent in the English lexicon, has no relationship with pain or pleasure other than occasionally and by coincidence.

Utilitarian philosophy perhaps recognized this tacitly, but the positivist revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries, Anglo-American hegemony and a literal mistranslation of the Greeks wrought by the English language's natural deficiency coalesced into a sweet concoction that tantalizes our inner ape and plays on vices inherent in every single human: that is the danger.

The human that seeks pleasure and minimizes pain is no human. All of those things that humans can do that elicit no pleasure, like sacrificing your life for an idea, are quintessentially human actions. Actions that elicit pleasure either do so by coincidence or are a rejection of one's humanity and the treating of consciousness and one's individuality as a means to an end: suicide is more excusable.

[Anonymous No.17646516]

>>17646486
Go back to >>>/sci/ and let the adults do the talking

[Anonymous No.17646523]

>>17646507
Not all of them are coping and only stress about it due to peer pressure. Plenty of them would never think about it otherwise and would go to the grave never having even tried sex.

[Anonymous No.17646533]

>>17646523
Lol there is no such thing as a male who has never wanted to fuck a woman (no, not even gays).

[Anonymous No.17646536]

>>17646265
I have the same nose

[Anonymous No.17646548]

>>17646533
Wanting to fuck a woman is not the same as seeking to reproduce and if they really wanted to do that they'd try at least once, but some of them never do their whole lives.

[Anonymous No.17646569]

>>17646514

>dude it isn't utilitarianism if I cite a specific greek flavor and pretend that's different
>i-it isn't pleasure, y-you're stupid!
>humans are special! I have a soul!

[Anonymous No.17646574]

>>17646569
Prove you don't have a soul

[Anonymous No.17646581]

>>17646574
Doesn't work that way.

[Anonymous No.17646593]

>>17646581
Sure it does. You have a belief, so you must have some reason for believing it. Otherwise you're just spouting bullshit.

[Anonymous No.17646606]

>>17646265
Why stop at hedonism? Stop being a bitch and embrace libertinism.
What's that Last Man? You think murder and rape are wrong? On what basis do you make that claim? In the state of nature murder and rape are a natural part of life. Are you suggesting that humans are different from animals? Then why do you lower yourself to a mere animal?

[Anonymous No.17646611]

>>17646593

Incorrect, you're using Alinsky tactics to shift burden of proof away from yourself. It is you who has a particular belief.

It doesn't work that way. The structure of the argument itself, properly understood, precludes it. What is the argument? That there is such a thing as a soul. It falls to the believer to prove this, or to defend this thesis, and not the other way round.

[Anonymous No.17646614]

>>17646514
Based, even if you dont believe in souls, there are plenty of examples of rich Americans who fully indulged in pleasure killing themselves later on, versus dirt farmers in India who are much happier than the average burger. Pleasure doesn't provide long term happiness, leading a peaceful and generous life with somebody you love does.

[Anonymous No.17646633]

>>17646569
Not an argument.

[Anonymous No.17646641]

>>17646614

based vague undergrad generalizing retard appealing to mythical brown peasants he's never known and whose levels of happiness he's never seriously attempted to understand whether by speaking with them, or by reading any kind of study about them, whether sociological or scientific.

[Anonymous No.17646647]

>>17646265
There are many arguments against it, religious, philosophical, materialist and what have you.

I'll give you an argument against hedonism from an evolutionary standpoint.

Our reward mechanisms evolved to maximize survival in our prehistoric environments, mildly modified during our short time in civilization.
A stone age man trying to maximize his enjoyment in day to day activities also, on average, maximized his chance of survival and reproduction. His reward function was never overloaded again and again and was always function well.
In modern society were survival is not a constant struggle and food is available in excess, sex is for many available in excess and for those its not porn is and drugs are available for those that seek additional reward.
Without even trying a modern man can overstimulate his dopamine reward system enough to permanently damage it.
Living in true hedonism is a sure way to damage ones dopamine sensitivity and one will need to constantly up dosages of dopamine for the same subjective reward. Aiming for ever higher dopamine rewards will inevitably lead to an early death and feelings of depression whilst not engaging in hedonistic activities.
Hedonism does not give lasting enjoyment and is likely to have the opposite effect.
In addition a society in which most people engaged in hedonism would obviously not function for very long and suddenly no one could engage in hedonism.

[Anonymous No.17646679]

>>17646633

It is, you're simply dumb and don't care to read, since you disagree. Each greentext rhetorically and correctly refers to a certain negation, a certain sarcasm which undermines the addressee's points, and which therefore amount to an argument, which happens to be correct.

the previous poster made vague and incorrect appeals to dualism, seeking to divorce body and soul/mind in order to reject a certain childish view of "hedonism" (pleasures of the flesh, porn, Spring break etc), as if spiritual and psychological efforts at deeper gratification somehow escape the hedonism paradigm (they don't), no, not even through masochism, which is again a specific hedonism.

Just as there really is no such thing as altruism, so too there is no such thing as not-hedonism.

[Anonymous No.17646692]

>Never better yourself because effort is pain
>Thus never experience the pleasure that is personal growth
>Never work because its not pleasure
>Thus never experience the pleasures of the finer things in life that come from blood, sweat, and tears
>Never strive to better society because its hard work and may even cost people's lives
>Thus always live in a shit society where everyday is pain
>Never abstain from pleasures
>Thus all pleasures lose their worth and pleasure becomes another chore.
Hedonism is an ideology of those spoiled by the work of others. Its not self-evident for anyone other than self absorbed retards. Even fucking monkies and dogs know the value of putting the group and survival above lounging around all day. Its a contradictory "philosophy" that people use as an excuse to be fucking bums and miss out on what "pain" can bring you because they're too caught up in what the pain of other people has already brought them.
>inb4 "STOIC COPE LMAO"
Self-awareness isn't stoicism.

[Anonymous No.17646694]

>>17646611
Lol you stopped him in his tracks.

[Anonymous No.17646698]

>>17646679
Define hedonism

[Anonymous No.17646713]

>>17646698

I want cummies as good as possible as often as possible.

[Anonymous No.17646723]

>>17646692
>Don't do pleasure because other pleasure
R u retard. This is still hedonisim.

[Anonymous No.17646753]

>>17646265
Really depends how one defines hedonism a priori. If you define pleasure as anything which one considers desirable, then it's virtually impossible to argue against it, because by definition every person does what they believe is desirable, unless they have a dissociative personality disorder or something similar. This definition also makes "hedonism" lose real meaning in itself, because lazing around eating grapes is exactly as hedonistic as building muscle at the gym. If someone wants to define hedonism as all desires, then let them, it's just wordplay at this point.

If you define hedonism, more accurately and meaningfully, as directly indulging in sensual pleasures, then it's easy to refute and was done as far back as Plato. Sensual pleasures are, from the perspective of many, base and inferior to greater intentions, like self-sufficiency, physical strength, intelligence, wisdom, and so forth, which most right-minded people value higher than sensual pleasure.

[Anonymous No.17646757]

>>17646378
It is incredibly misleading to talk about an net gains and losses of pain and pleasure. Pain and pleasure isn't a commodity. It cannot be accumulated

[Anonymous No.17646792]

>>17646753
>Sensual pleasures are, from the perspective of many, base and inferior to greater intentions, like self-sufficiency, physical strength, intelligence, wisdom, and so forth, which most right-minded people value higher than sensual pleasure.
I should add as well: they are not valued because they bring or cause sensual pleasure, but because they are noble in themselves, or what Plato called "of the Good." Sensual pleasure does not necessarily factor into one's intentions, because there is at least the aspect of nobility and "goodness", which can many times directly oppose sensual pleasure, without ever compensating for the loss. Of course, if we were to revert to the all-encompassing previous definition, then even nobility and goodness would be considered pleasurable and hedonistic.

[Anonymous No.17646802]

will does not always equal pleasure
/thread

[Anonymous No.17646806]

No hedonist dies happy

[Anonymous No.17646820]

>>17646679
>If I just recontextualize and generalize, surely I'll be right.
Thats not how it works faggot. If I were to describe the American Democratic Platform like:
>They put the many above all else
>This means they help the masses
>This means the DNC is about helping the masses
>Helping the masses is a humanitarian thing to do
>This means the DNC is about humanitarianism
>humanitarianism is about helping people
>This means the DNC is about helping people
>Helping people is something humans do
>This means the DNC is about helping people
Which, would be wrong. "A certain childish view" of hedonism is more accurate than yours since you seem to want to expand and obfuscate your ideology further and further until you seem correct.
>>17646723
Hedonism is always putting pleasure before pain. Often to the point of avoiding any and all pain entirely to seek pleasure. Just because you want to redefine "pleasure", does not make you correct. We can go in circles all fucking day with you redefining shit to suit your needs but you know damn well how disingenuous that is. Its the same fucking thing when you talk to self-described "Hedonists". They'll redefine everything to make themselves feel better. Someone concerned for their wellbeing? Just someone who hates them obviously. Hard work? Obviously just slave labour to keep me from being my best self. Its an unhealthy denial of reality that you fucks always turn to.

[Anonymous No.17646836]

>>17646265
The Buddha refuted hedonism

[Anonymous No.17646838]

don't worry CRISPR will make humanity 110% high on life 24/7 and there will no longer be suffering

[Anonymous No.17646844]

>>17646836
The Buddha was also a conman.

[Anonymous No.17646860]

>>17646844
Source?

[Anonymous No.17647047]

>>17646820

First, you seem to be embarassing yourself by aping the usages "generalize", "that't not how it works" that I've used earlier in the thread, and by using of all things an American political party as a thought experiment. But let's take you at your word.

You complained of my earlier post >>17646679 that it was improperly "recontextualizing and generalizing" the points made in >>17646514 . Specifically, the latter (earlier) post incorrectly held that some vague higher intellectual/religious/other striving is somehow "not-hedonistic", which I then correctly mocked in a polemical and properly argumentative and rhetorcial way.

Your chain-of-faulty-reasoning analogy-meant to undermine my own thought process- approaches being clever but is still wrong, both because itself tedious, and also because it indicates your own lack of understanding of the straightforward process I've sketched: you don't get outside hedonism.

[Anonymous No.17647315]

>>17646265
>it is simply self evident

behold, the power of modern philosophy

[Anonymous No.17647352]

>>17646265
>What possible arguments can there be against hedonism?
Most people are self-destructive. There is clearly a higher notion of 'good' that is at the root of desire. I mean, look at you, posting here. This place is a shithole and you're a dumb faggot.

[Anonymous No.17647400]

>>17646647
This dude gets it

[Anonymous No.17647498]

>>17646358
hedonism is trying to reduce suffering from the self due to self examination, not to eliminate it. stop being a negative utilitarian.

it is if the suffering is worth it for the pleasureable outcome. which most hedonists are okay with.

[Anonymous No.17647519]

>>17647315
lol this is really what most people will do when you push them on their bullshit
>MUH SELF EVIDENT
>MUH COMMON SENSE
>MUH NATURAL LAW
>YOU'RE MENTALLY ILL

[Anonymous No.17647524]

>>17647498
>cont.
which is why hedonists are usually risk adverse and go for the easier pleasures that have less sufferable outcomes. It is like eating a banana and finding it good, because it tastes good.

not many hedonists are going to sky dive, but some will take the risk if the sufferable outcomes lead to a very pleasurable climax.

although this is where the main criticism of hedonism comes by. when the post-nut clarity comes in and realizing the amount of effort to do the pleasurable thing wasn't worth it and thus hedonists start to get depressed about life.

Eudaimonius harmony is destroyed and only that is left is despair at that moment.

[Anonymous No.17647531]

>>17646647
>muh hedonic treadmill
This is easily refuted by a simple mathematical argument. A longer more balanced life yields more total pleasure than a brief more extremely pleasurable life.

[Anonymous No.17647593]

>>17646265
Pure hedonism makes one weak, dependent and easily ruled... especially by those who control access to pleasure.
To practice hedonism, one must have sufficient control over one's own life, have enough wealth to fall back on, and enough power to endure adversity. Without these, hedonism is a fast track to slavery and/or ruin.

[Anonymous No.17647882]

>>17646265
Great route to go down if you want to be a spineless jellyfish softboi. Hedonists that really live the lifestyle inevitably become schizo weirdos set off by the TINIEST thing not going their way. Aka manbabies and women.

[Anonymous No.17648745]

>>17646265
Why not just commit suicide then?
You'd eliminate both pleasure and pain, so in a way you'd achieve a perfect balance of both with no effort involved.

[Anonymous No.17648799]

>>17646486
>>The only thing humans inherently seek is reproducing, nothing more.
you are good at parroting the priests in academia.

[Anonymous No.17648824]

>>17647498
>>17647524
It stands to reason though that greater pleasures require greater suffering. So, if hedonism is just trying to maximize pleasure while minimizing hedonism, then the hedonist won't be enjoying the greatest pleasures, as that post suggested. In order to experience those pleasures, you have to willingly take on more suffering, which means increasing BOTH pleasure and suffering in your life. It's done for pleasure, but is that still hedonism?

[Anonymous No.17648861]

Psychological hedonism (which is a theory of motivation) has a certain intuitive appeal but there are a number of ways to resist the conclusion. Nozick's thought experiment of the experience machine is a well known example. I think one plausible way to interpret it that there is a difference between pleasure and desirability. 'Pleasure' refers to a well known qualitative experience, but 'desirability' is perhaps something broader, and we should say that it is possible to desire things other than pleasure. In that case, the rationale for not plugging oneself into the machine would be that what one desires is not only pleasure, but also certain external objects and situations themselves, even apart from the pleasant sensations they bring (which is not to deny that the pleasant sensations themselves are also desirable).
But these considerations don't settle the issue. It can be argued on the hedonist side that it seems plausible to suppose that a person who is plugged in the experience machine can nonetheless achieve a state of happiness. It is very hard to argue that eg. someone that lives inside a virtual reality would always feel unsatisfied. It is far more plausible to suppose that, as long as he is unaware that the people he interacts with etc. are not real, happiness would be achievable by him. But if pleasure is all that is needed to achieve happiness, we don't need to postulate any other intrinsic good.
In the end we have a stalemate; both the hedonist and the anti-hedonist have a plausible case, but I don't find the arguments on either side to be decisive.

[Anonymous No.17648873]

>>17648745
Why would you want to eliminate pleasure?

[Anonymous No.17648890]

>>17646265
That's where you're wrong. Hedonism is both pleasure and pain. It's an addiction that needs new outlets and the shock to amplify the sensation. Eventually if the need is not filled then what comes afterward is pain. The idea that there is no pain or punishment involved is hedonistic in the mind of one.

When a want becomes a need it becomes an addiction. Getting more than one purses, watches, rings you can carry, and no space in the garage, house, or gross weight of the apartment floor. The party never stops with garbage everywhere. Things in boxes that will never be opened up again the real floor of the room covered up about more than 30cm of used waste like an evergreen forest. If you lit a fire with that person still inside, would they ever decide to leave the building? They live like animals at that point with a living space that looks and smells like one. It is their pleasure, it is their joy. The best has already came for them; the peak of modern pleasure they feel every day.

The withdrawal can progress into something much worse. Reasons for suicide for losing one source of joyous sensation. Isolation to never feel the hurt of other people. Feeling alone when not lonely. Regretting on things that you can never enjoy again. Not getting your way. Not knowing the normal and thinking a normal is abnormal. It grows with lies and disappointment or the inability to accept grief. Love is not the most ideal pleasure because it's also painful.

What about pain? What about feeling motivation though loss? That all begins on what is first perceived as pleasure. The joy to serve another or to be a slave? What if something traumatic can only excite? The joy in this case is not having the traditional pleasures, but adapting to submit to alternative sources. A need to exist has to be fulfilled if the pleasure is not for them? To be valued for the joy of others. The warning about this side is of the tortured becoming the torturer.

The feeling of Hedonistic pleasure is what separates us from a colonial society; the same of ants, and bees, anchovies, as such. The ability to break or change rules of our natrual functions to re-arrange us into culture subgroups and their goals no matter how progressive or recessive, but it is done so in the pursuit of pleasure from someone else. Hedonism is neither good or bad but the end outcomes of the sensations is peak distraction.

[Anonymous No.17649228]

>>17648824
I would claim that it is still hedonism. The optimization of making the pleasurable consequences far more worth it than the insufferable means. Allows for one to live in a positive hedonist sense of the word. The reason why hedonism gets to the point where sado-masochism gets involved is because those individuals decided the sacrifices are well worth it if it ends with pleasures which are beyond our world.

As I demonstrated in my post. The main flaw with hedonism is that taking it into action isn't exactly how it works in the ideal. Eudaimonia is only achieved once one achieves their state of well being.

Hedonism works for those who find it idealic that the consequences gives them the pleasure they seek. However, if the consequences turn out sour that'll make the hedonist fall into despair as a result.

As I said before. When you have post-nut clarity and realize you masturbated to someone who you don't know or even care about. Then realize you are in a decrepit world filled with sorrow. You then look at your mess with disgust and apathy.

This is the state at which a hedonist loses themselves and try to cope with this by searching another momentary pleasurable outcome by rinsing and repeating the same mode. To get what they want, that feeling of an eudaimonius state.

[Anonymous No.17649259]

You have to find the pleasure in pain

[Anonymous No.17649284]

>>17649259
no, you have to find pleasure in death. that's the real endpoint of hedonism. As indicated by Georg Bataille's philosophy.

[Anonymous No.17649286]

>>17649228
>Hedonism works for those who find it idealic that the consequences gives them the pleasure they seek. However, if the consequences turn out sour that'll make the hedonist fall into despair as a result.
But what else would be the motivation for increasing suffering in one's life? Just the suffering? I don't think this is the case. No one likes meaningless suffering for its own sake. Unless of course you're thinking that it should be done out of duty, but when you start talking about virtue like that, what's really the difference between that and pleasure other than how we choose to imagine the pleasure?

[Anonymous No.17649769]

>>17646390
the problem with that is that such broad argument can be aplied to christian that torture their bodies to get the grace of god, developing maximum pain in this life will give them maximum pleasure in heaven
so hedonism and martirism become the same thing and nothing means anything anymore