Hedonism

(hedone, pleasure), the name given to the group of ethical systems
that hold, with various modifications, that feelings of pleasure
or happiness are the highest and final aim of conduct; that,
consequently those actions which increase the sum of pleasure are
thereby constituted right, and, conversely, what increases pain is
wrong.

HISTORY

The father of Hedonism was Aristippus of Cyrene. He taught that
pleasure is the universal and ultimate object of endeavour. By
pleasure he meant not merely sensual gratification but also the
higher forms of enjoyment, mental pleasures, domestic love,
friendship, and moral contentment. His followers, however, reduced
the system to a plea for self-indulgence (see CYRENAIC SCHOOL OF
PHILOSOPHY).

To the Cyrenaic succeeded the School of Epicurus, who emphasized
the superiority of social and intellectual pleasures over those of
the senses. He also conferred more dignity an the hedonistic
doctrine by combining it with the atomic theory of matter; and
this synthesis finds its finished expression in the materialistic
determinism of the Roman poet Lucretius. Epicurus taught that pain
and self-restraint have a hedonistic value; for pain is sometimes
a necessary means to health and enjoyment; while self-restraint
and prudent asceticism are indispensable if we would secure for
ourselves the maximum of pleasure (see EPICUREANISM). With the
decay of old Roman ideals and the rise of imperialism the
Epicurean philosophy flourished in Rome. It accelerated the
destruction of pagan religious beliefs, and, at the same time, was
among the forces that resisted Christianity.

The revival of hedonistic principles in our own times may be
traced to a line of English philosophers, Hobbes, Hartley,
Bentham, James Mill, John Stuart Mill, the two Austins, and, more
recently, Alexander Bain, who are popularly known as Utilitarians.
Herbert Spencer adopted into his evolutionary theory of ethics the
principle that the discriminating norm of right and wrong is
pleasure and pain, though he substituted the progress of life for
the hedonistic end.

EXPOSITION

Contemporary Hedonists are sometimes classed into egoistic and
altruistic. The classification, however, is not quite satisfactory
when applied to writers; for many Hedonists combine the egoistic
with the altruistic principle. The distinction, however, may
conveniently be accepted with regard to the principles that
underlie the various forms of the doctrine. The statement that
happiness is the end of conduct at once raises the question: whose
happiness? To this egoism answers: the happiness of the agent;
while altruistic Hedonism replies: the happiness of all concerned,
or, to use a phrase that is classic in the literature of this
school, "the greatest happiness of the greatest number". Perhaps
the only thoroughgoing egoistic Hedonist is Thomas Hobbes, though
in many places Bentham too, proclaims himself the uncompromising
apostle of selfishness (see EGOISM), while elsewhere he, like J.
S. Mill, expands into altruism. The intrinsic difficulties in the
task of constructing any decent code of morals on the egoistic
principle, together with the destructive criticism which any such
attempts encountered, led Hedonists to substitute the happiness of
all concerned for the happiness of the individual. The transit
from the one to the other is attempted through a psychological
analysis which would show that, through the operation of the law
of association of ideas, we come to love for their own sakes
objects which in the first instance we loved from a selfish
motive. This is true to a certain extent, but the cases in which
it may occur fall far short of the range which the principle would
have to cover in order to justify the theory. Besides, by adopting
the happiness of others as the end, the Hedonist loses the only
semblance of a proof which he had to offer in support of his first
contention, that happiness is the end, viz. that every man does
desire happiness and can desire nothing else; it is only too plain
that not everybody desires the happiness of everybody else.
Another modification was introduced to meet the criticism that, if
pleasure is the standard of right and wrong, sensual indulgence is
just as good as the noblest form of self-sacrifice. The Hedonists,
or at least some of them, replied that not merely the quantity of
pleasure but also the quality is to be taken into account. There
are higher and lower pleasures; and the higher are more desirable
than the lower; therefore conduct which aims at the higher is the
better. But if pleasures are thus to be divided into higher and
lower, irrespective of quantity, the hedonistic standard is, by
the very fact, displaced, and some other ultimate scale of moral
valuation is appealed to or implied. The subjective norm,
pleasurable feeling, is made to retire in favour of some unnamed
objective norm which dictates what the agent ought to pursue. This
is the suicide of Hedonism. Other advocates of the system have,
contrary to its initial principle, introduced a primary altruistic
impulse co-ordinate with and controlling the egoistic as a spring
of action.

CRITICISM

The fundamental errors of Hedonism and the chief unanswerable
objections to the theory may be briefly summed up as follows:

(1) It rests on a false psychological analysis; tendency,
appetite, end, and good are fixed in nature antecedent to
pleasurable feeling. Pleasure depends on the obtaining of some
good which is prior to, and causative of, the pleasure resulting
from its acquisition. The happiness or pleasure attending good
conduct is a consequence, not a constituent, of the moral quality
of the action.

(2) It falsely supposes that pleasure is the only motive of
action. This view it supports by the fallacy that the pleasurable
and the desirable are interchangeable terms.

(3) Even if it were granted that pleasure and pain constitute the
standard of right and wrong, this standard would be utterly
impracticable. Pleasures are not commensurable with one another,
nor with pains; besides no human mind can calculate the quantity
of pleasure and pain that will result from a given action. This
task is impossible even when only the pleasure of the agent is to
be taken into account. When the pleasure and pain of "all
concerned" are to be measured the proposal becomes nothing short
of an absurdity.

(4) Egoistic Hedonism reduces all benevolence, self-sacrifice, and
love of the right to mere selfishness. It is impossible for
altruistic Hedonism to evade the same consummation except at the
cost of consistency.

(5) No general code of morality could be established on the basis
of pleasure. Pleasure is essentially subjective feeling, and only
the individual is the competent judge of how much pleasure or pain
a course of action affords him. What is more pleasurable for one
may be less so for another. Hence, on hedonistic grounds, it is
evident that there could be no permanently and universally valid
dividing line between right and wrong.

(6) Hedonism has no ground for moral obligation, no sanction for
duty. If I must pursue my own happiness, and if conduct which
leads to happiness is good, the worst reproach that can be
addressed to me, however base my conduct may be, is that I have
made an imprudent choice.

Hedonists have appropriated the term happiness as an equivalent to
the totality of pleasurable or agreeable feeling. The same word is
employed as the English rendering of the Latin beatitudo and the
Greek eudaimon�a, which stand for a concept quite different from
the hedonistic one. The Aristotelean idea is more correctly
rendered in English by the term well-being. It means the state of
perfection in which man is constituted when he exercises his
highest faculty, in its highest function, on its highest good.
Because they fail to give due attention to this distinction, some
writers include eud�monism among hedonistic systems. Hedonism
sometimes claims the credit of much beneficent effort in social
reform in England which has been promoted by professed
Utilitarians; and everywhere movements popularly designated as
altruism are pointed out as monuments to the practical value of
the hedonistic principle "the greatest good of the greatest
number". But it must be observed that this principle may have
another genesis and another part to play in ethics than those
assigned to it by Hedonism. Besides, as Green has pointed out, the
Utilitarians illogically annexed it, and the fruits it bore in
their political activity are to be credited to it in its
democratic, rather than in its hedonistic, character.

JAMES J. FOX
Transcribed by Rick McCarty

<Picture: New Advent Catholic Supersite>

From the Catholic Encyclopedia, copyright � 1913 by the
Encyclopedia Press, Inc. Electronic version copyright � 1996 by
New Advent, Inc.

Taken from the New Advent Web Page (www.knight.org/advent).

This article is part of the Catholic Encyclopedia Project, an
effort aimed at placing the  entire Catholic Encyclopedia 1913
edition on the World Wide Web. The coordinator is Kevin Knight,
editor of the New Advent Catholic Website. If you would like to
contribute to this  worthwhile project, you can contact him by e-
mail at (knight.org/advent). For  more information please download
the file cathen.txt/.zip.

-------------------------------------------------------

  Provided courtesy of:

       Eternal Word Television Network
       PO Box 3610
       Manassas, VA 22110
       Voice: 703-791-2576
       Fax: 703-791-4250
       Web: http://www.ewtn.com
       Email address: [email protected]

-------------------------------------------------------

You are viewing proxied material from gopher.ratthing.com. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.