Re Psychological Hedonism: Do you have any criticisms?
To know more, read :
https://www.britannica.com/topic/psychological-hedonism
Is basically a view, that The Basic Reason for a human to do something is to Be Happy and to avoid Pain. For now I believe it, but I'm open to change, so do you have any argument against it? :D
https://www.britannica.com/topic/psychological-hedonism
Is basically a view, that The Basic Reason for a human to do something is to Be Happy and to avoid Pain. For now I believe it, but I'm open to change, so do you have any argument against it? :D
Comments (88)
That bitter medicine for your sickness? Gone. That yummy food that will to cause you Diabetes? Sure.
It is really problematic when you realize unmodified Hedonism is extremely short-sighted. It is unable to formulate decisions that prolong satisfaction. That is my main point that came into mind. What do you think?
Any argument that has everyone being motivated by the same thing, or claiming that everyone thinks about anything the same way, is going to be wrong. People are different from each other. They have different motivations (at different times), they think about things differently, etc.
^Well, okay, that is fair, Give me an example. Without an example to proof your theory to analyze. I'm still not convince
Sure. An example could be someone, say, voluntarily trimming the trees in some public park once a month, simply because they feel they have a duty to trim the trees in that park.
^What if I say if we look deeper, the thing with people with "Duty" is they feel happy when "They Done their Good Duty" (A Dopamine Release because of that), and they can choose, either they do their duty, OR they feel guilty (Because the thing with Duty is, if you know you have to do it, and you don't do it, you feel guilty). Then I can say "People who trim tree voluntarily, because of duty, know it is their duty to trim it, and they do it, to avoid the displeasure of guilt".
^ You are free to continue to argue using this example, or change to another example by the way :D
That amounts to "I'm going to make up an interpretation --I'll posit something 'behind the scenes' that the person isn't even aware of, and I'll insist that it's there even if the person isn't aware of it--just so my theory stays intact as universally applicable."
^Umm, why is that wrong exactly, "Interpretation" like that is needed and used you know, Psychologist who use Psychoanalysis does this. When their patient say A, the Psychologist must interpret and point what that person isn't aware of to make the person aware. If you want to defend a theory, of course this is okay. What you can do however, is to find the fault in my analysis
Because there needs to be evidence of something to posit that it occurs.
^The thing with evidence is. You can disproof a theory if you give a disprove evidence. You can also proof a theory if you give an evidence to proof. Well, because there are no evidence to disprove it, it can still be valid (Hence the debate is still going in today's time)
As for my proof
"https://jura.ku.dk/jurabog/pdf/juridiske-monografier/ross_on_guilt_responsibility_and_punishment_1975.pdf"
^ But dude, I want to be wrong, but I will accept it is wrong, if my rebuttal is wrong. and because it haven't been disproved, it is still valid
^Well, a smart people choose "Higher Pleasure" and unwise people choose "Lesser Pleasure". We drink bitter medicine, because we want to avoid the bigger pain and want to feel the bigger pleasure (That is being healthty)
Empirical claims are not provable.
The fact that there's one person who is motivated by something else on one occasion falsifies the theory. The fact that you have to make up "Well, this was really going on but they just weren't aware of it" to have the theory not be falsified is a symptom of theory worship.
You don't want to be wrong. You're creating fictions to keep the theory intact.
"In the empiricist view, one can claim to have knowledge only when based on empirical evidence (although some empiricists believe that there are other ways of gaining knowledge)."
I agree that if "One person is motivated by something else will fail the theory" (that's why I want an example of that 1 person). The Well, this was really going on but they just weren't aware of it" is also valid, if you said it is invalid then you can say that the Psychoanalysis is false. and Psychologist is theory worshipping ( / _ \ )
Doesn't have anything to do with what I'm saying. "Every action is motivated by x" is an empirical claim, and "S was really motivated by x; S simply wasn't aware of this" is also an empirical claim. Empirical claims need some sort of evidence (not necessarily empirical evidence, though some part of the evidential chain will be empirical in most cases) to support them.
And in general, any claim that something is going on mentally with someone where they just weren't aware of it had better be supported by evidence of some sort, or the claim is garbage.
I don't think that's hedonistic anymore? Isn't Hedonistic trying to improve net happiness in every decision you make? In that sense, you choose to not drink the bitter medicine since you are a strict Hedonist.
^Very Well, Then we need a research that does that right, or at least the paper from a people who know this better. at least any evidence to support that right?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369848615001612 < The Research
If you can't see it, you can see it here > https://sci-hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2015.10.011#
:D
Again, the fact that there's one person who is motivated by something else on one occasion falsifies the theory.
Also, "from a people who know this better" is patronizing. Maybe you have no relevant background for this stuff, but you can't assume that everyone posting here is in the same boat as you re educational background, research background, professional status, etc.
^Well, I'm talking about PsychologicalHedonism though, but point taken. But no, that's not a strict hedonist. I would call that stupid hedonist. Because net Happiness mean being healthy dude.
My bad, didn't completely read the article.
^Yes, and again, Up until now, there are still no evidence that that One Person exist. Because when you "Theory Worshiping" You can break down those claim. ( / _ \ ).
Sigh..... okay dude, I know you're a bit frustrated by me. But let's make it this way. How about you tolerate my "Theory Worshiping" and give me an example that can even pass my theory worship. Do you think you can give me that (/ w \)
Of course, that's not as sensational of a claim. It's not as click-baity.
Yeah, there is. I just gave you one example. You had to make up that, "Well, really they're motivated by hedonism, they just don't know it."
I'm not frustrated by you. I'm trying to help you. I have a lot of patience.
Umm, what about the soldier who died to save his comrade in the battlefield, like that situation given in the article you quoted from?
^Fair enough, But let's talk Novelty right now, that paper is done in 2004, in 2004 people still debating that. Now, is 2018 and people still debating that while taking the criticism of that 2004 journal in question. But as time goes on, so those the research to defense Psychological Egoism.
https://reasonpapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/rp_392_5.pdf < Which is this one.
The debate still going dude, and in this forum, I'm trying to test that view.But Fine, I agree that it is empirically hard to proof. But it still can be defend. And i'm looking for the theory worship bypass evidence or example.
In a similar move, I could say something like, "Really, every person is motivated by a sense of duty and NOT by a pleasure/pain metric. No one really does anything because of pleasure or pain. When someone says that they're doing something because they enjoy it, and they say that to their knowledge, that's the ONLY reason that they're doing it, it's simply because they're unaware that deep down, they have a sense of duty to do that thing. Parsing it as pleasure is just a rationalizing mechanism."
Or I could say, "Really, every person is only motivated by wanting to collect data for the aliens who are running the simulation we're a part of. When someone says that they're surfing because they enjoy surfing, they don't realize that what's really going on is that subconsciously, we have a desire to collect data for the aliens."
And I'd approach any suggested counterexample in the same way--"they don't realize that what's really going on is . . ."
I could make up anything for that.
^At that specific time of time, the Body thinks The pain of losing one's friend is greater than to die in battle.
False, at that specific time the body thinks that it wants to collect data for the aliens. Pain and pleasure have nothing to do with it.
Quoting Terrapin Station
^ I agree,You can say that. But you can rooted "Duty" to "Pleasure and Pain", But you can't exactly rooted "Pleasure/Pain" Because when you are left with "I don't know, it makes me happy because of dopamine"
^Even the alien example, like "Why do u want to collect data?" "because I want to know about alien" "why do u want to know" "because i want to be stronger" "why stronger" etc etc and in the end you're left with happiness ( / _ \ )
You could suggest that but you'd be wrong. What's really going on is only that you have a duty to suggest that. You just don't realize that that was your motivation, and that your motivation had nothing to do with pleasure and pain.
^I Agree, so do you *give sign of respect
*I agree that I have to read more hahahaha
^Hmmm again ( / w \ ) you could rooted to pleasure. K how's this then, give me a "Motivation" to do something, that couldn't be rooted to "happiness" because Human are animals, and animals acts in pleasure pain impulse. it just Human has a greater knowledge to what is Greater Pleasure is. If you want to use "Duty" that is fine, but animal doesn't have sense of duty, because you can say it is an animal duty to protect their children, but some animal eats them. Duty can also "Changed" depending on the culture. :D
^That metric is called, Wisdom (Because it's hard, diffrent situation and diffrent people like that)
No, that's wrong. Animals might believe that they're acting on a pleasure pain impulse, but that's not really what's going on subconsciously.
Re "animal doesn't have sense of duty, because you can say it"--that's exactly what you're doing here. Everything is a pleasure/pain metric just because you can say it. Otherwise, what else are you claiming there is to this?
Then would it not be opinionated and based on the person's perception? I like Kant better.
^Excatly
If it's opinionated then you can't say it's universal. There's that problem.
For a lot of humans, this is probably true. But hardly for all. There are many who consciously abstain from pleasures and embrace hardship.
^Why do you think they want to embrace that hardship? is it for the hardship sake, or because they desire another thing that could be get from that hardship?
You think that it couldn't be for hardship's sake, even if they were to say that it was, to say that that's all it is.
What supports the claim that it can't be for hardship's sake?
^Yes, I think we can rooted by testing themselves mean to know more about them self, if they know about themselves they became happy. Some want for a better life, which can also be rooted down to "seeking happiness". Strengthen oneself can also be rooted down to happiness. Some "Don't know" then itt will need a deeper meta analyse.
I really want to answer you dude, but before answering you, I need to know what are your argument, why is it that you can't receive my argument, and for that, I must learn about the Tautological meaning of the Psychological Hedonism statement
What are my arguments with respect to what?
Quoting diesynyang
"Everyone does anything they do for x reason(s)" (where the reason in question is mental content) is obviously wrong, because it's easy to find people who say that they're not doing something for x reason at all.
That's not necessarily true. It may bring them knowledge about themselves, but knowledge doesn't always lead to happiness. In fact, I'd say it rarely leads to happiness.
Quoting diesynyang
It can be, but it doesn't have to be. Some people may simply want to lead a life that isn't harmful to their environment.
Quoting diesynyang
How?
^ Well for now, then rebbuting point by point, I think is better to look at the core,1 by 1, one at a time which is
1) A man can find the action itself as their psychological motivation
Feinberg said : We cannot transform 1 selfless act to a selfish one by having the person feel pleasured by their selfless act. If they were selfish, they won't find the selfless act pleasurable. (Abraham Lincoln Story). That mean as Joseph Butler said in the comment of Wayne Johnson
"Butler argues that while we do get satisfaction when the object of our desire is attained, this does not show that it was the resulting satisfaction itself which we desired. The [b]Psychological Egoist mistakenly believes that we want to do something because of the satisfaction we will get from doing
it[/b]."
Butler, though, simply gets it backward in his understanding of human psychology.
As Scott Berman argues:
"It is wrong to suppose that a human could want some external object for its own sake because in order for a human to want some particular external object at all, she must be able to integrate her beliefs about what’s best given her circumstances into an initially indefinite thought-dependent desire for what’s
best given her circumstances."
As Berman highlights, the view that we inherit from Butler, namely, that humans can want objects or states of affairs completely apart from themselves, is misguided. Speaking in terms of first-order and second-order desires, Johnson likewise exposes the mistake in Butler’s reasoning:
"Any first order desire must be accompanied by the second order desire of self-love before an action would be reasonably undertaken. This second order desire clearly involves a motive which is either self-regarding or has a self-referential stimulus. Thus Butler fails to demonstrate that we are not aiming at our happiness when we act on a first order desire."
Or, Take other example, Pursue Revenge
Butler discusses the situation in which a person pursues revenge even though it will ultimately leave the person himself worse off.
This would seem to suggest that Butler is correct in arguing that we sometimes ultimately want something external to us for its own sake, in this case the harm done to another person through revenge. This is not correct, however. Rather, the person seeks revenge in order to satisfy a desire that he cannot bring himself to ignore. He thus considers pursuit of revenge to be in his self-interest; it is a
desire that he ultimately endorses. He recognizes that scratching that itch will leave a scar, but concludes that scratching the itch is nonetheless what he wants to do. He would prefer that it leave no scar, but he is irrationally overcome with the emotional desire to scratch the itch despite the inevitable scar
The decision-making process is usually much more subtle, and can even be self-deceptive. Indeed, motivation is often so influenced by biochemistry that we do not ourselves know why we do the things we do; it is not always completely transparent to us what our motives are. And, of course, not everything we do follows from deliberation. Rather, some things we do from unthinking habit. Indeed, lots of our mental activity is unconscious.
^I agree that PE is unfalsifiable (for now), because it should be a conceptual not empirical. Because PE is a Tautology.
The thesis of psychological egoism is a tautology, and tautologies are not falsifiable. No one has yet devised an experiment that can conclusively settle the matter empirically..
What would count as evidence of any unconscious mental activity?
If it's just an issue of how someone is using words, that's fine. That's how they use words. But that doesn't tell us anything else.
1 of it, Taken from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2440575/ >
Thus, as a default option or starting point for your own behavior, blindly or unconsciously adopting what others around you are doing makes good adaptive sense, especially in new situations and with strangers. These default tendencies and their unconscious and unintentional nature have been demonstrated several times in human adults in the research of Chartrand and colleagues (see Chartrand, Maddux, & Lakin, 2005). Not only do people tend to adopt the physical behavior (posture, facial gestures, arm and hand movements) of strangers with whom they interact, without intending to or being aware they are doing so, but this unconscious imitation also tends to increase liking and bonding between the individuals, serving as a kind of natural “social glue.”
At least as presented, that's pretty much all completely unsupported crap, by the way. It's a bunch of people making claims with no logical argumentation or empirical, evidential support to suggest any of the claims being made.
Let's suppose that's true empirically.
Why are we saying that it's a mental phenomenon?
^
Further supporting this notion of natural contextual tuning of one’s behavior to the present environment, cognitive research indicates that action-related objects activate multiple action plans in parallel and that action production is driven by some form of selective disinhibition.[/b] For example, findings suggest that ambient stimuli (e.g., hammers) automatically set us to physically interact with the world (e.g., perform a power grip, Tucker & Ellis, 2001). The simultaneous activation of multiple action plans is obvious in action slips (Heckhausen & Beckmann, 1990) and in the neuropsychological syndrome of utilization behavior, [i][b]in which patients are incapable of suppressing actions that are elicited by environmental, action-related objects (Lhermitte, 1983).[/i]
The idea that action precedes reflection is not new. Several theorists have postulated that the conscious mind is not the source or origin of our behavior; instead, they theorize that impulses to act are unconsciously activated and that the role of consciousness is as gatekeeper and sense maker after the fact (Gazzaniga, 1985; James, 1890; Libet, 1986; Wegner, 2002). In this model, conscious processes kick in after a behavioral impulse has occurred in the brain—that is, the impulse is first generated unconsciously, and then consciousness claims (and experiences) it as its own.
I disagree with this.
Take for example the concept of charity. Why would someone give to the poor?
A cynic may say "because giving to the poor makes one feel good", so it would be inherently selfish.
But this doesn't have to be the case. When one gives to charity, one may also want that person to stop being poor. Not because of any feelings that may be attached to giving freely, but for the sake of the well-being of another person, who is unrelated to oneself. Speaking from a personal perspective, it doesn't make me feel like a good person for giving to someone in need. All it does is make me hope the person I gave money to will put it to good use and help him or herself get out of their bad situation.
As with all these theories that state selflessness doesn't exist; they're usually written by cynics who, by virtue of their own inability to commit selfless acts, project such abilities on everyone around them, and, as with all things psychological, its fairly easy to create a framework that supports it. After all, it is impossible to look inside people's heads to figure out the truth.
Unsurprisingly, given that what you're quoting isn't a response to me, none of that answers the question I asked.
Why are you changing tactics to ignoring questions that you're asked and instead quoting a bunch of stuff that's at best loosely related to what you're being asked?
^You're asking if
Quoting Terrapin Station
because the the action of Quoting diesynyang (From my previous post) is link to the post about Hammer Gripping, in which both are the example of Unconscious Mental Activity. Why is it Unconscious mental activity? For the Hammer Grip, it is because of some form of "selective disinhibition"
Secondly, The Paragraph below it is to support my claim that Unconcious Mental activity is indeed real and have been proven (or at least research). Linking it to the PE argument, at least we can concluded that "There are indeed some behind the screen motive or activity that we our self cannot be aware of" although I can't say that it is the PE itself, we can at least conclude there are something that we ourselves aren't aware when we do something
Which has nothing to do with what I'm asking you.
You had posted about this:
Quoting diesynyang
I said let's assume that that's the case empirically. I'm fine with accepting that. And I'm not saying that that is conscious, or intentional, or that it's not a default tendency. I'm fine with all of that.
Now, given that, what I'm asking is this: why are we calling that "mental"?
In what way is it like a thought, or a desire, or a concept, or an idea, or whatever mental phenomenon we're saying that it is or is like?
^You are having trouble because if PE was true then Charity is only an act of selfish which I can respect. But think of it this way, it is not more so about selfishness, how about we viewed it like,
Quoting Tzeentch
You feel happy because of Hope. That makes you a good guy who felt happiness by giving poor people charity. That is not selfish, but that Charity is indeed making you happy.
^ It will be long, but that the "physical behavior" is called Contextual Priming.
"contextual priming is a mechanism that provides still more precise adjustment to events and people in present time (Higgins & Bargh, 1987). In contextual priming, the mere presence of certain events and people automatically activates our representations of them, and concomitantly, all of the internal information (goals, knowledge, affect) stored in those representations that is relevant to responding back.
The evolved, innate basis of these ubiquitous priming effects is revealed by the fact that they are present soon after birth, underpinning the infant’s imitative abilities (see Meltzoff, 2002).Such priming effects, in which what one perceives directly influences what one does, depend on the existence of a close, automatic connection between perception and behavior. Indeed, this tight connection has been discovered in cognitive neuroscience with the discovery of mirror neurons in the premotor cortex, which become active both when one perceives a given type of action by another person as well as when one engages in that action oneself (Frith & Wolpert, 2004).
The automatic perception-behavior link results in default tendencies to act in the same way as those around us (Dijksterhuis & Bargh, 2001). [b]Thus, as a default option or starting point for your own behavior, blindly or unconsciously adopting what others around you are doing makes good adaptive sense, especially in new situations and with strangers.[/b] These default tendencies and their unconscious and unintentional nature have been demonstrated several times in human adults in the research of Chartrand and colleagues (see Chartrand, Maddux, & Lakin, 2005). Not only do people tend to adopt the physical behavior (posture, facial gestures, arm and hand movements) of strangers with whom they interact, without intending to or being aware they are doing so, but this unconscious imitation also tends to increase liking and bonding between the individuals, serving as a kind of natural “social glue "
Summary Contextual priming is a trick that our subconscious do in the brain because of mirror neurons in the premotor cortex.
I may not understand your question, it is mental because we do it unconsciously, so our body might work because of unconscious pelasure-pain system.
This is claiming that we wouldn't be able to imitate others if the unconscious processes are not akin to mental representations, goals, and knowledge? (Please don't quote something to answer that, I'm asking you a yes or no question)
^This claim that, we can imitate other without knowing about it WHILE also consciously imitate other.
I don't know if we're having a serious language problem or not.
I'm not challenging that we can imitate others.
I'm not saying that imitating others is necessarily conscious.
I'm asking why we're taking it to be unconscious MENTAL phenomena.
An answer should ideally be in the form, "Unconsciously imitating others counts as unconscious MENTAL phenomena because . . ."
^Ahh that's it :D that's why I'm having trouble following you, because why are we arguing whether is it mental or not? Like at the basic , what is you want to say and what are your dis proofing statement.
NEVER MIND, NOW I REMEMBER :D WAIT A BIT
Either it's mental or it isn't.
If you're saying it is, then I'm asking why.
If you're not saying that it is, then we're not disagreeing about anything. (And also, it would have nothing to do with whether people are unconsciously doing things for pleasure/pain reasons, unless you define doing something for a pleasure/pain reason in terms that are not mental.)
No. It's not a feeling of happiness as a result from hope, as the feeling I am left with is a feeling of worry rather than hope.
Che! It seems I wont be able to proof PE. I found an article that state that "Unconscious Mental Activity" indeed happen,
Contrary to what most of us would like to believe, decision-making may be a process handled to a large extent by unconscious mental activity.
"is In the study, published in Nature Neuroscience, participants could freely decide if they wanted to press a button with their left or right hand. They were free to make this decision whenever they wanted, but had to remember at which time they felt they had made up their mind. The aim of the experiment was to find out what happens in the brain in the period just before the person felt the decision was made. The researchers found that it was possible to predict from brain signals which option participants would take up to seven seconds before they consciously made their decision. Normally researchers look at what happens when the decision is made, but not at what happens several seconds before. The fact that decisions can be predicted so long before they are made is a astonishing finding."
"Many scientists argued that if our decisions are prepared unconsciously by the brain, then our feeling of "free will" must be an illusion. In this view, it is the brain that makes the decision, not a person’s conscious mind"
"Haynes and colleagues now show that brain activity predicts -- even up to 7 seconds ahead of time -- how a person is going to decide. But they also warn that the study does not finally rule out free will: "Our study shows that decisions are unconsciously prepared much longer ahead than previously thought. But we do not know yet where the final decision is made"
but indeed I can't link it to the Pleasure-Pain system heh. But still, I considered Psychological Hedonism is logical. Cheers :D good talk dude
Interesting, you mean right now you feel worried, are you perhaps regretting your decision to give the money?
So, you don't regret the fact that you give the money. Assume that it is true That's mean you don't feel displeasure if you don't give it. By worry what are you feeling exactly? are you feeling "Does that man that I give live better now or not? does my Give is enough"
One problem with this study for our present purposes is that it is NOT saying, "the test subjects had no conscious mental contemplation with respect to which hand to use to press the button prior to feeling that they've made up their minds about which hand to use."
All it really tells us is that prior to feeling that they've made up their mind about which hand to use, there were third-person observable brain states that allowed us to predict which hand they'd use.
I can give possibilities re what might be going on subjectively here, but that's pretty irrelevant.
What we could do instead is pretend that this study is saying:
Prior to being aware of even contemplating which hand to us to push a button, there are third-person observable brain states that allow us to predict which hand someone will decide to use to push the button.
Pretending that the study is saying that, what I'd ask is this: why are we deciding to call those pre-contemplative, unconscious, third-person observable brain states "mental"?
That would be a good way to describe it, yes.
^Hmmm, the definiton of mental activities is "It is activity of the mind resulting in a collection of thoughts"
can I say it is mental because those pre-contemplative, unconscious, third-person observable brain states produce "Thought", the thought to press the button.
^Now the problem is do you know beforehand, that when you give those money, these worry will come up to you? i
Well, either they are thought, or they produce thought. The two wouldn't be the same. If they just produce thought, then they're not identical to thought, and we can't say that they're mental on that grounds.
For example, George Lucas can produce a film, but he's not himself a film.
Or, a shoe factory can produce shoes, but the factory isn't itself shoes
(To suggest to different common senses of "produce.").
(It wouldn't have to just be thought, but anything mental, by the way.)
^You know it beforehand, Can we say it like this then,
You want to give the poor dude money because you want to Help him, even though it will worry you, you still want to give him money because the pleasure of helping people is greater than those worry.
Either that or, "I want to give these poor people money because I want to feel worry" ....... in that case maybe you are a masochist???
^They are not thought, but they are indeed "Mental Activity" because they produce "Thought?" or maybe "a Decision-Making Judgement?"
So is a shoe factory some type of clothing just because it produces shoes?
^Hmmm more like Walking is a physical activities because it depleted energy. Is like Thinking is an mental activity because it produce thought, or Like the process of those pre-contemplative, unconscious, third-person observable brain that produce thought.
I mean if the definition of mental activity is "It is activity of the mind resulting in a collection of thoughts"
Surely the process that those pre-contemplative, unconscious, third-person observable brain does is a Mental Activity because it produce thought.
^But do you feel a sense of joy? like really 0 joy from giving money to poor people, You don't feel joy because you help people. Really? The Fact that you just help a people bring no joy to you whatsoever
A phenomenon can't be mental simply because it produces mental phenomena, unless in general, it's true for all x that if x produces y, which has property F, then x has property F. But that's obviously not the case.
^Then in this case, what kind of action that you would call "Mental Activity" ?
Then won't it be more good if you don't give it in the first place?