Default Hedonism Definition

In his book, Pleasure and the Good Life, Fred Feldman introduces an idea known as Default Hedonism. Default hedonism can be broken down into three separate claims that tie together in a single formula. Before default hedonism is defined, Feldman shares that some assumptions about pleasure and pain should be made. The first two assumptions address pleasure. The first assumption is that pleasures are certain feelings or sensations that result in an “episode.” According to Feldman, “episodes” have differing durations and intensities, and when an intensity reaches zero, the episode ends. The second assumption is that each episode of pleasure has a certain amount of pleasure; one unit of pleasure is a “hedon” (Feldman 25). The final four assumptions …show more content…
Contrary to the first claim, this one can be overwhelming and confusing at first glance. Fortunately, this claim can be broken down to be much more simple and understandable. As Feldman points out, there are two units used in Default Hedonism to measure net worth of pleasure and pain. These two units are hedons and dolors. As previously mentioned, a hedon is one unit of pleasure, and a dolor is one unit of pain. So when one experiences an episode of pleasure, the intrinsic value of that episode is equal to the number of hedons in that episode. The same can be applied to an episode of pain. To further break down this claim, Feldman says that experiencing more intense pleasures is better than experiencing less intense pleasures. Additionally, experiencing longer-lasting pleasure is better than experiencing shorter-lasting pleasures. In conclusion, larger episodes of pain are intrinsically worse than smaller episodes, while larger episodes of pleasure are better than smaller ones (Feldman …show more content…
During a lecture, we discussed as a class some other examples of this argument. One that we all agreed upon was the example of a rich man who became poor, in comparison to a poor man who became rich. Most of us agreed that the second case, where the poor man becomes rich, is a better turnout than the first case where a rich man becomes poor. We agreed as a class that the poor man who becomes rich lived a better life because, as Shafer-Landau says, “Continual improvement makes for a better life than one that has long been sliding downhill” (Shafer-Landau 38). If I imagine myself in such a situation as these two men, surely I would prefer the second man’s life because it would be more rewarding to go from having nothing, to having everything rather than the other way around. Dying off slowly and losing everything piece by piece, while still remembering what it was like to experience pleasure, would be torturous and