The problem of hedonism

[Sair]

Your view is heading towards the truth but it stops short. The highest and most desirable form of happiness springs from love, i.e the unity of individuals.

That raises an important question - what, in essence, is love, if it is not the recognition of mutual interest and mutual benefit in relationships? I don’t think love is some phenomenon that floats above experience - rather it is part of our experience, something stimulated by the comfort and emotional reward we find in our interaction with others.

To give it a somewhat simpler construction, there are plenty of people who say that their nonhuman companion animals “love” them - what do they mean by this? Well, that might be open to interpretation, but let’s be honest - other animals see us as a means by which their needs might be met. We are a source of food, a source of safety, a source of comfort. We meet their needs, so they invest an emotional attachment in us. I don’t think this is, in any way, a lesser form of “love” than that which humans invest in each other. We might perceive it differently, either through poetic romanticism or through sheer arrogance, but at the end of the day, we love those who provide us with rewards - it doesn’t matter whether these rewards are strictly material or whether they are more transitory, in the sense of making us feel emotionally satisfied in some respect. Reciprocity is a key factor in all human relationships.

 

[Sair]

The hedonism in the respect of natural moral law is not truly hedonism.

Hedonism is only of wanting the pleasure as the unique end of his life. Otherwise, it is not hedonism.

Having fun, profiting of pleasure in different forms in the respect of natural order is morally permissible.

**See hedonism everywhere is a wrong view. **

I’m really not sure what you’re arguing here.

Hedonism as an ethical philosophy takes pleasure to be the only intrinsic good, that is, the only state of affairs that is self-evidently good.

To highlight this important point, I assert that those who consider sacrifice to be an intrinsic good are mistaken - what they really mean is that a sacrifice that brings about pleasure, in some respect (generally alleviation of suffering) for others or even for onesself, is a good precisely because it brings about that pleasure.

Even the pervasive Christian notion that suffering in one’s earthly life will lead to pleasure (or, technically, reward - but it’s hard to see what could possibily be rewarding without being pleasurable) in the afterlife is intrinsically hedonistic.

 

[InJesusItrust]

With acceptance and embrace of reality.

From my own recent experience, this has become starkly evident. Our recently-adopted rescue dog killed one of our cats a couple of weeks ago, and as a result, we returned him to the shelter for reassessment - in the hope that he might be adopted into a home without cats to be put at risk. As it turned out, he was found to be too difficult to rehome and so was euthanased. Anyone who loves and respects nonhuman animals will understand how shattered we are by this series of events.

How have we been coping? Both my husband and I are atheists, so we don’t imagine that either our cat or our dog are in a heaven somewhere beyond our sensory perception.

Our beloved cat was four years old when she died. Up until her traumatic end, she had experienced comfort, pleasure and love, to whatever extent she could feel it. The fact that she died in terror and, perhaps, pain (though adrenaline is one of the great mercies of physical existence) in no way changes her previous experience. It doesn’t make it invalid, or cancel out its existence. It doesn’t change the fact that we loved her. By the same token, the fact that our dog succumbed to impulse and killed our cat under the influence of instinct doesn’t change the fact that we took him in with good faith, in confidence that we could integrate him into our household, and gave him a fighting chance at a good life. His death was swift and painless, and it does not cancel out his life.

What I find repugnant about the notion of eternity and immortality is simply that it enshrines the idea that nothing we do actually matters if we don’t somehow last forever - that our actions only have significance if it goes beyond the significance they have in the here and now. Whilst we are alive, when we are in the moment, our experiences do, in fact, matter to us, and really are happening. The focus on eternity is an attempt to deny this.

You are ignoring reality. If there is no eternal your cat’s life and love was in vain. When you and your husband die, it would make no difference how happy or sad your lives were. Both experience and memory will practically make it like nothing happened at all, whether you, your husband, or your cat existed at all. The universe, too, will end someday, so all the lofty goals of building a better future, becoming famous or making people happy are fruitless exercises.

You are just ignoring reality and playing mindgames with yourself by telling yourself life matters anyway. You are ignoring what reason plainly says because to listen to it would make one a nihilist. Rather you are saying “Since there is no objective value or meaning I will make up my own.” The problem with that is that it is just a mind-game and once your are aware that it is just a game it becomes unplayable.

 

[InJesusItrust]

bethinking.org/suffering/the-absurdity-of-life-without-god.htm

 

[tonyrey]

You are ignoring reality. If there is no eternal your cat’s life and love was in vain. When you and your husband die, it would make no difference how happy or sad your lives were. Both experience and memory will practically make it like nothing happened at all, whether you, your husband, or your cat existed at all. The universe, too, will end someday, so all the lofty goals of building a better future, becoming famous or making people happy are fruitless exercises.

You are just ignoring reality and playing mindgames with yourself by telling yourself life matters anyway. You are ignoring what reason plainly says because to listen to it would make one a nihilist. Rather you are saying “Since there is no objective value or meaning I will make up my own.” The problem with that is that it is just a mind-game and once your are aware that it is just a game it becomes unplayable.

Irrefutable!

 

[tonyrey]

That raises an important question - what, in essence, is love, if it is not the recognition of mutual interest and mutual benefit in relationships? I don’t think love is some phenomenon that floats above experience - rather it is part of our experience, something stimulated by the comfort and emotional reward we find in our interaction with others.

To give it a somewhat simpler construction, there are plenty of people who say that their nonhuman companion animals “love” them - what do they mean by this? Well, that might be open to interpretation, but let’s be honest - other animals see us as a means by which their needs might be met. We are a source of food, a source of safety, a source of comfort. We meet their needs, so they invest an emotional attachment in us. I don’t think this is, in any way, a lesser form of “love” than that which humans invest in each other. We might perceive it differently, either through poetic romanticism or through sheer arrogance, but at the end of the day, we love those who provide us with rewards - it doesn’t matter whether these rewards are strictly material or whether they are more transitory, in the sense of making us feel emotionally satisfied in some respect. Reciprocity is a key factor in all human relationships.

To equate human love with animal love is clearly a mistake.

Reciprocity is undoubtedly a key factor in all personal relationships but it doesn’t follow that love always expects a reward. In fact to expect nothing in return is the highest form of love (even though it may sometimes be misguided) - as in the case of an atheist who sacrifices his life for another person or animal!

 

[Sair]

To equate human love with animal love is clearly a mistake.

Reciprocity is undoubtedly a key factor in all personal relationships but it doesn’t follow that love always expects a reward. In fact to expect nothing in return is the highest form of love (even though it may sometimes be misguided) - as in the case of an atheist who sacrifices his life for another person or animal!

Reward isn’t always external.

And equating human love with animal love is simply equating like with like - we are animals, as a matter of fact.

 

[InJesusItrust]

All humans are animals but not all animals are humans. You cannot project human characteristics onto animals. The equation is a sham.

 

[Sair]

You are ignoring reality. If there is no eternal your cat’s life and love was in vain. When you and your husband die, it would make no difference how happy or sad your lives were. Both experience and memory will practically make it like nothing happened at all, whether you, your husband, or your cat existed at all. The universe, too, will end someday, so all the lofty goals of building a better future, becoming famous or making people happy are fruitless exercises.

You are just ignoring reality and playing mindgames with yourself by telling yourself life matters anyway. You are ignoring what reason plainly says because to listen to it would make one a nihilist. Rather you are saying “Since there is no objective value or meaning I will make up my own.” The problem with that is that it is just a mind-game and once your are aware that it is just a game it becomes unplayable.

Whether I make up my own meaning or buy into a predetermined set of meanings laid out by religious tradition, that still doesn’t change the facts of experience in the here and now. We might be subject to the human weakness of supposing that what we do on a daily basis somehow carries eternal significance, but if we can’t find the significance of our actions in a more immediate sense, then we really are chasing shadows. In any case, most serious Catholics would claim that the lives of cats and dogs have no significance anyway, since the efforts of God are primarily invested in human salvation.

Those who claim that atheists are just trying to tear down the consolation of religion ought to witness what you’ve just tried to do here.

 

[Sair]

All humans are animals but not all animals are humans. You cannot project human characteristics onto animals. The equation is a sham.

Yet other animals have characteristics humans might justly envy. We have no right to the arrogance we assume. Read The Philosopher and the Wolf by Mark Rowlands to give you an insight into the cost of human intellect and morality. How do we know that baboons have a theory of mind? Because they can deceive their fellows. As Rowlands says, only a truly unpleasant animal has any need to become a moral animal…

 

[InJesusItrust]

Humans are geared for purpose based reasoning! People say that the fastest way to kill someone is to give them constant, meaningless work. The fact that there is no objective meaning means that you have to project your own; but if you invent your own the fact that there is no objective meaning to anything will always loom over your shoulder. You cannot fool yourself if you are aware of the game; you may be able to delude yourself into thinking the game is real.

If there is no objective meaning, then whatever meaning you give yourself is self-delusion. The religion do not claim that there is no objective meaning. The irreligious do!

 

[Sair]

Humans are geared for purpose based reasoning! People say that the fastest way to kill someone is to give them constant, meaningless work. The fact that there is no objective meaning means that you have to project your own; but if you invent your own the fact that there is no objective meaning to anything will always loom over your shoulder. You cannot fool yourself if you are aware of the game; you may be able to delude yourself into thinking the game is real.

If there is no objective meaning, then whatever meaning you give yourself is self-delusion. The religion do not claim that there is no objective meaning. The irreligious do!

Do the religious actually have any idea what this supposedly objective meaning to life is? Or do they just make it up, depending upon the stories other humans have told in the past?

If you want objective meaning, you should acknowledge that the only objective meaning in life is to allow your genetic material to continue through subsequent generations. The meaning that matters to us, individually and collectively, is almost always subjective - the clue lies in the fact that we care.

 

[InJesusItrust]

You’re not getting it. The religious believe in objective meaning. They may be wrong, but are not “hiding from reality”.

It is those who claim that there is no objective meaning, neccesating they “make up their own,” who are burying their heads in the sand. They claim “there is no truth”, then they live as though their own inventions are the truth, but that is simple inconsistent with the claim that there is no truth.

 

[Sair]

You’re not getting it. The religious believe in objective meaning. They may be wrong, but are not “hiding from reality”.

It is those who claim that there is no objective meaning, neccesating they “make up their own,” who are burying their heads in the sand. They claim “there is no truth”, then they live as though their own inventions are the truth, but that is simple inconsistent with the claim that there is no truth.

Oh, I think I understand it just as well as I need to. If you believe in “objective meaning” but have no notion of what this meaning is, you have no basis for your argument.

In any case, it has for some time struck me as odd to refer to the “meaning” of life, as if life refers to something other than life. Truth is truth, but part of that truth is that we are subjective beings, and assimilate our experiences into the stories we tell about ourselves. Meaning is relative to all our experiences; for some people, a significant part of their experience is the religious narrative into which they fit their own existence. Others, like myself, form a different narrative, one that takes facts into account and is just as meaningful, in its way, as any prefabricated fantasy could be.

 

[InJesusItrust]

The objective meaning is that we were created to live with God forever. The truth is that a man known as Jesus was born, prophesied centuries before He was born, lived an extraordinary life in the last three years of His life, was killed, buried, then He rose from the dead and claimed that all would be resurrected and judged by Him, and then we would be reconciled with the God who created us and live our purpose.

Either this Jesus fellow did exactly these things in objective history or He did not. If it is not objectively true it is delusion.

Saying that there is no objective truth or meaning, then inventing your own, means that you are deceiving yourself, because you just claimed that there is not objective truth or meaning. If there is none, then just accept it. Why go through the pretense of pretending that what you choose to believe is actual? Our choices to believe do not become actual, no matter how much we will it.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Still pretty silly considering that if there is no afterlife all the pleasure in the world is rendered moot because your experience and memories of them eventually become non-existent. On the other hand if there is an after-life you will most likely regret not caring to find out.

That sounds like a variation of Pascal’s Wager. But I’ll leave judgement on how silly that it is or isn’t up to you.

Let me move away from the afterlife for a moment to present a more general view of some human behaviours that I think to be related to what you have seen. Let’s say there is a person that get’s pleasure from spending money. She has the choice between purchasing items at one price to get some amount of pleasure from spending or she can purchase the exact same items at a higher price and get less for her money. Worded this way if I were to ask you what makes more sense you would probably conclude that it would make sense for for her to spend less to get more. Yet people knowledgeably opt to pay more to get less all the time.

Examples of people paying more could include:

• Purchasing something from a local store knowing that if she waits a few days she can receive the same item at a lower price from an Internet order.
• Purchasing something on a credit card and paying it off with compound interest instead of saving enough cash to purchase it.
• Paying more for an item when it first comes out vs waiting for the price to drop.
• Paying more to purchase an item from a well liked store knowing the item could be acquired at a cheaper price at store with pay that are less friendly

There’s a few things to note from this. One is that there tend to be multiple considerations when a person is making this type of decision. Another is that desires and incentives compete with each other. Also as incentives are pushed further into the future the impact they have on one’s behaviour is diminished, whether that incentive be positive.Tell a child that if she does something bad she will be punished immediately will have a different impact then telling her that as she does bad things you will be keeping tally to give appropriate punishments in a few years. You’ll see similar behaviour with incentives. As incentives are moved further into the future their impact diminishes. It’s also diminished if there’s not full confidence that the incentive will be acquired.

This relationship between incentives, punishments, and behaviour and decisions is an area of study under psychology (example: incentive theory). I think that looking at this relationship between incentives and behaviour may give better insight to why, as you worded it, “does not want to ‘waste’ his time to seek out God so that he can use the time to enjoy his life?”

 

[atheistgirl]

polls indicate we won’t have a TV on Wednesday :

The votes are in, and have been duely counted and verified.

The TV gets donated to a women’s shelter on the weekend

:extrahappy::extrahappy::extrahappy:

Sarah x

 

[Portofino]

Here is where I take issue with the apparently standard religious view that experience only has meaning if it lasts forever.QUOTE]

I agree with you, Sair. There is, indeed, no way that a human being ought to respond to the fact of his existence (in this way, I agree with the existentialists). Of course, if he or she wants to be happy, then then there are certain oughts that can be introduced, within the context of time-accumulated wisdom for what generally constitutes the happy life (wisdom).

Some temperaments may say that, if something does not last forever, it is useless (though this a rather cynical-sounding formulation of it ).

Others say that, to the contrary, if something doesn’t last forever, then it becomes that much more valuable. Being alive – being conscious – becomes experienced as an immense privilege, the equivalent of winning a cosmic lottery of sorts.

But that reasoning of, “if it doesn’t last forever, it is of no value” sounds strangely materialistic, in an ironic sense. It assumes that without quantity, there is no quality.

The ancient Hebrews are interesting in this sense, because they believed in God and in a purposeful existence – but not in immortality.

Indeed, they could have viewed life as an immense privilege that the Creator of the universe had given to human beings – the chance to be alive, to be conscious, to know happiness.

When they died, there is a sense that they were dying so that others could enjoy. They had their chance; now, it is the chance of others.

And if one has enjoyed, then it is not as terrible a thing to give up one’s chance to the next person.

The quite wonderful thing is that, on a universal scale, there will seemingly always be a next person. Once there are no more human beings, there will be others races of men, or creatures, in a nearly infinite cosmos.

Life will always exist, in the universe, so long as the universe exists – and we have the immense privilege of being a part of it, and of participating in being. If and when humanity falls, others will rise. If this universe destroys itself, who is to say but that another universe will not rise in its place? The universe may have had a beginning in time, but the play itself may be eternal

 

[atheistgirl]

I agree with you, Sair. There is, indeed, no way that a human being ought to respond to the fact of his existence (in this way, I agree with the existentialists). Of course, if he or she wants to be happy, then then there are certain oughts that can be introduced, within the context of time-accumulated wisdom for what generally constitutes the happy life (wisdom).

Some temperaments may say that, if something does not last forever, it is useless (though this a rather cynical-sounding formulation of it ).

Others say that, to the contrary, if something doesn’t last forever, then it becomes that much more valuable. Being alive – being conscious – becomes experienced as an immense privilege, the equivalent of winning a cosmic lottery of sorts.

But that reasoning of, “if it doesn’t last forever, it is of no value” sounds strangely materialistic, in an ironic sense. It assumes that without quantity, there is no quality.

The ancient Hebrews are interesting in this sense, because they believed in God and in a purposeful existence – but not in immortality.

Indeed, they could have viewed life as an immense privilege that the Creator of the universe had given to human beings – the chance to be alive, to be conscious, to know happiness.

When they died, there is a sense that they were dying so that others could enjoy. They had their chance; now, it is the chance of others.

And if one has enjoyed, then it is not as terrible a thing to give up one’s chance to the next person.

The quite wonderful thing is that, on a universal scale, there will seemingly always be a next person. Once there are no more human beings, there will be others races of men, or creatures, in a nearly infinite cosmos.

Life will always exist, in the universe, so long as the universe exists – and we have the immense privilege of being a part of it, and of participating in being. If and when humanity falls, others will rise. If this universe destroys itself, who is to say but that another universe will not rise in its place? The universe may have had a beginning in time, but the play itself may be eternal

This is a great post

Sarah x

 

[InJesusItrust]

It is not about infinite, it is if all actions have a null effect. Whatever you do or don’t do is all in vain for life and the universe are both ending. Think about the value of nothing and apply its worth to everything.