According to hedonism, a life is good to the extent that it is filled with happiness (pleasure) and bad to the extent it is filled with unhappiness (pain). It is important to note that hedonists are not referring to physical pleasure as the key to the good life, rather, they are referring to it as enjoyment (attitudinal pleasure). Another way to interpret this is by saying that a good life is having many pleasurable experiences and nothing else. A hedonist might say that if you enjoy doing something, then doing so is pleasurable, so your life is good. Well, according to Robert Nozick, a very famous philosopher, a good life is not just about having a good time, it’s about having a true time.…
Wealth plays a massive role in America. Society places a lot of attention on celebrities and other people with enormous fortunes. Americans constantly read about these wealthy people in magazines or watch them on television, desiring to have a similar life. The American Dream is the idea if people work hard, they will be able to obtain their own fortune. Numerous people believe that having a massive amount of money can resolve many of your problems.…
Book Club #5 Man’s Search for a Meaning Every book we read in class had its purpose. Tuesday’s with Morrie, taught us valuable lessons on the things that really matter in life, and dealing with death at an old age. Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, showed us death at a young age, trials, and hope someone can have. Man’s Search for a Meaning, give us a different perspective of life.…
Luxuries are defined as an inessential, desirable item that is expensive or difficult to obtain. However, different authors may use the term to have another meaning to correlate with their own stories. Barbara Ehrenreich, a journalist and activist for improving public access to health care, wrote a story describing how she gave up her luxuries and lived as someone only making minimum wages. Her story, “Serving in Florida,” is a narrative of her experiences as a waitress living off of tips. Ehrenreich is lucky in that she is able to give up her luxuries and have then returned when she finishes her experiment, unlike those less fortunate.…
Every year, Richard Rodriguez and his siblings go to their parents’ house to celebrate Christmas. Due to his siblings’ wealth, their parents always receive a lot of gifts. Because of the excessive number of presents, unwrapping them all wears the whole family out, and the siblings begin to leave, despite their mother’s apparent sadness at their departure. Only Rodriguez stays with his parents and notices his mother’s change in moods. In this passage, Richard Rodriguez uses language and details about his siblings, his parents, and himself in order to convey the superficial nature of material success.…
Eighner restrains himself from collecting things he has no use for; a dumpster diver must learn to control themselves and distinguish between beneficial items and junk. On the idea of materialism, Eighner, at the very end of his essay, takes a hit at the wealthy, comparing himself to someone who is fortunate enough to be in the state of economic well-being: both Eighner and this person know, when it comes to things, there is plenty more where that came from (151). Eighner need never worry about finding something for survival, as the wealthy need never worry about obtaining what they desire. He concludes his essay with a rather stunning and ironic sentence, revealing that while he does not feel sorry for himself, he feels sorry for the well-off: “I feel sorry for them” (151). Eighner takes pity on those who are, perhaps, empty on the inside; those who only value materialistic…
Careless Hedonist’s Withstand Time Approximately 15.6 million people in America acquired plastic surgery and 3, 866 people died at the hands of drunk drivers in the state of Illinois. Hedonism is the belief that pursuit of pleasure is the purpose of human life and carelessness is a person’s failure to recognize the possible consequence of their actions. In today’s society some virtues that people hold include: hedonism and carelessness, which are two of the same virtues that many of the characters hold in The Great Gatsby. In today’s society, people’s pursuits of pleasure bring purpose to their lives, this idea is known as hedonism.…
Evolutionary defence of the Epicurean’s argument that pleasure is the highest good My argument is that from the standpoint of evolution, hedonism is the most valid theory of the ‘good life’. The scope will be narrowed down to Quantitative Hedonism (Bentham, 1789), as there is only one kind of pleasure and its worth is measured on dimensions of intensity and duration. This essay will first lay out the importance of this view and its major positions which it stands for. After which, objections against Hedonism (from Aristotle and Cicero), and the Evolutionary perspective will be discussed.…
Perhaps it is the sensitivity we have to a higher purpose of life that makes higher order actions more pleasurable in the quality of pleasure they create and the long-lasting nature of this said pleasure. A question that arises here, is that how can this ideology be hedonism when it goes against a basic assumption. In hedonism, there is acceptance of the idea that the only way a pleasure is better than another pleasure is by it being more pleasurable. Whereas Mill has added the idea of higher and lower faculties to this.…
Consequently, many act foolishly based on their ignorance. This inhibits people to settle and use materials to define their level of happiness in life. However, McCandless wished,” to escape from the meaningless dullness of human eloquence , from all those sublime phrases, to take refuge in nature”(189). McCandless wanted to live a simpler life in which stuff had no worth. Many times he was offered gifts in which he refused to receive because it took way from the struggle of his…
My Favorite Quote One of my favorite quotes is a quote written by William Shakespeare. The quote says, “All that glitters is not gold.” Although it is very short, it holds an excessive amount of deep meaning that is perceived differently and uniquely to each individual person.…
Influence of Aldous Huxley in Brave New World: Horror of Hedonism Throughout history one great philosophical question that has mankind has struggled with is the question on the purpose of life. A primary answer for this question provided by different philosophers throughout history is the hedonism. The notion that the purpose of life is to be as happy as possible, so, therefore, individuals should live to fulfill their maximum net happiness while avoiding stress and suffering at all cause, because happiness and pleasure are the greatest good and fulfillment, and pain and suffering are the greatest evil. However, the validation of this notion is completely discredited by Aldous Huxley in his utopian world of his novel: Brave New World.…
What is more important: happiness or reality, morality and autonomy? This question is a thought experiment by the philosopher Robert Nozick in order to refute the philosophy of Ethical Hedonism. This theory says that only happiness is necessary for a good life, and it is also sufficient; we do not need anything else. For hedonists happiness is the only intrinsic value, which means that everything else improves our lives only to the extent that it makes us happy. The term of hedonism, comes from the Greek word “hédoné” which means pleasure.…
After completion of this course, I can confidently say I have learned far more than I had ever expected. Looking back over my blog posts over the past five months, I realize my views stayed pretty consistent, however I now have a stronger perspective and reasoning behind my decisions. Something else I noticed about my blog posts was my evidence was backed by morality concepts and very few, if any, fallacious reasoning. For example, at the beginning of class when we were required to take the “Should You Kill the Fat Man” quiz, my reasoning was simply spurt of the moment thinking.…
Some people notice that their lives are more than a chain of actions and reactions, “but only one in a hundred million” (73) can understand that life is not complicated, it’s really simple. Thoreau decides to live life better. This doesn’t require the business and bustle everyone else has grown accustomed to, in fact Thoreau doesn’t even want any of the fancier things in life; a huge house, the most delicious delicacies, or anything of that rich nature. But that doesn’t prohibit others from not following his example, in fact he would rather they pursue this, if it is a better life for them. He says, “If there is any to whom it is no interruption to acquire [expensive things], and who know how to use them when acquired, I relinquish them to the pursuit.”…