An Assay into Hedonism

Philip Hilton scribbles,

My Theory:

The will makes decisions based on a foresight into which course will produce the most pleasure. Thus, any way one looks, pleasure must be the ultimate goal of any decision.

There are two types of pleasure: the first, is anything that involves personal gratification, improvement, etc. Instances: food, smell, etc, anything that gratifies the five sense, and intellectual pleasures such as literature, music, etc; also, what are commonly called moral pleasures, almsgiving, not-swearing, etc. Such moral pleasures accrue generally to our sense of goodness, and it is a kind of Pharisaical happiness. “I thank God that I am not as other men…” In other words, all things that accrue to ego.

(This last idea of moral pleasure is a Nick Embrey production…Nick Embrey, Inc., however, does not in any way sponsor or approve of the material in this post…)

The other type is the Christ-type, the pleasure that comes from gratifying others. This type of love also has moral pleasures, but they are of such a sort as accrue not to the ego, the focal point of the other love, but the vos, the focal point of this love.

Love and pleasure. Pleasure is the object and love is the force that draws us to it.

To be quite clear:

Our will has two objects: giving pleasure to ourselves, and giving pleasure to others. The one is egotism and the other is self-sacrifice, and what is called love is the force that is considered to be the attraction between us and them, as if it were a kind of gravity force that not only attracts our own body to other bodies, but also our body to our own body…

This has some incidental implications for ethics. Morality/Ethics basically revolves around the second type of love: there can be no real morality based on the first type, since our sense of goodness in ourselves is even more ephemeral than our sense of goodness in others.

However, in theory we should be able to discover the rules for the second type of love, as we have discovered the rules for the first type, and ways of satisfying our ego, assuming that the second type really is separate from the first type, and thereby we could create a code of ethics absent traditional or divine morality, but with equal results.

Theoretically.

Posted at 6:22 pm EST on the 7th of October 2007 by P. B. Hilton.

Under Philosophy as ,

There are 5 replies.
 
  1. Nick says on October 13th, 2007 at 9:32 pm

    You say that the will always chooses what will produce the most pleasure — is that a will at all? Doesn’t that imply determinism?

    And… yeah, again, the idea of an alternate morality is interesting.

    Good post.

  2. Becca says on October 16th, 2007 at 1:20 pm

    I like how you’ve identified the different types of pleasure. It actually sounds a lot like Aristotle in his Ethics, if you haven’t read it already you definitely should. :-)
    Anyway, Aristotle defines true happiness (the happiness that lasts) as “the activity of the soul in accordance with virtue.” In other words, living morally, with virtue, is what produces happiness. So Aristotle goes one step further in saying that by gratifying and pleasing others we in the end will be producing happiness for ourselves although our own happiness should not be our motive but is rather a byproduct.

  3. John R. Ahern says on October 16th, 2007 at 9:40 pm

    Well, interesting post. I think I actually agree with you that the will chooses what shall produce the most pleasure. I think that actually applies to both moralities. I think Hedonism and movement towards desire is the basis in both moralities.

    I guess its my Platonism coming on again, or call it my love of the Old Testament and Covenants: everything here on Earth are shadows or appetizers of the True Pleasure we receive in/from God. Putting the shadows and appetizers first is your first moral code; putting God first is the second. We’re still after desire in the second, and from a Hebrew perspective, we are commanded to enjoy those shadows and appetizers resultant of our putting God first. (I think this is covenantalism in a nutshell.)

    So, here’s to eating, drinking, and being Merry.

  4. Philip Hilton says on October 18th, 2007 at 10:55 am

    Nick –

    The will chooses what it wants.
    We call the things it wants pleasure.
    Ergo, the will must choose pleasure.
    Inferred: the will always chooses what gives the most pleasure.

    And sure, it’s determined by what things give our peculiar person pleasure. That, I would say, is what makes human behaviour meaningful. People can’t randomly choose things that don’t give them pleasure, so with a given person one can say, he will, or he won’t do this.

    John –

    That’s an interesting perspective on covenentalism. But the second moral code — I don’t think that would necessarily be putting God first, it could equally be people, or a person, or an angel, or quidquid persona.

  5. Nick says on October 18th, 2007 at 4:10 pm

    But why does the will want anything? Why should a lil’ ol’ will want food, when it’s the stomach that’s hungry?

    Also… if a man chooses buying a car over buying a house, does that mean, ipso facto, that the car will give him more pleasure than the house?