Soft Hedonism
Hedonism is a philosophical position that in my view suffers from two main flaws.
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1) That people are only motivated by pleasure. (a straw man of sorts)
2) This point follows from the first, in that people will encounter a slippery slope fallacy in regards to pleasure, and assume that because of this people will all end up engaging in activities that will promote pleasure.
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My rebuttal to these two main points that often hedonists tend to get accused of is to profess a soft version of hedonism that limits suffering instead of pleasure. One can assume, that instead of increasing pleasure directly, it will also be present or arise due to less suffering.
Is this a position that many hedonists embrace? It seems like the only "logical" version of hedonism that everyone ought to aspire towards.
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1) That people are only motivated by pleasure. (a straw man of sorts)
2) This point follows from the first, in that people will encounter a slippery slope fallacy in regards to pleasure, and assume that because of this people will all end up engaging in activities that will promote pleasure.
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My rebuttal to these two main points that often hedonists tend to get accused of is to profess a soft version of hedonism that limits suffering instead of pleasure. One can assume, that instead of increasing pleasure directly, it will also be present or arise due to less suffering.
Is this a position that many hedonists embrace? It seems like the only "logical" version of hedonism that everyone ought to aspire towards.
Comments (45)
This is incorrect. People are motivated by pleasure and pain.
Yes, that is true. But, I meant to point out the extremism of certain positions of hedonism wrt. to pleasure.
I should have stated:
1) Pleasure, according to hedonists, is the only good.
That is also incorrect. The alleviation of pain is also good.
And all pleasure does eventually become painful and then you have a problem Huston.
I think, that's what I'm trying to point out here. Pleasure or rather, content or satisfaction, will indirectly be promoted by the alleviation of pain.
Why indirectly? Why not directly?
The pursuit of pleasure has been time and time again a futile effort. The only sure way to promote it, as far as I can tell, is through reducing pain and suffering (pace Schopenhauer).
Starting at zero, what goes up must come down. Going up is fun. Going down not so. You can not separate pleasure from pain, the up from the down. However because we are zero dwellers, what comes up from down does not have to go down again and we do derive pleasure from it. -1 to 0 is the same as 0 to 1 in pleasure terms.
Yes, I think stability instead of an existence in flux is more desirable, in terms of a happy life?
Yes, agreed. The source of much dissatisfaction is the instability inherent in modern society.
However too little instability can lead to boredom. It us for everyone of us to find the happy middle ground between boredom and stress. And that is a personal choice.
Exactly true. Buddha is basically we saying we want to much and therefor have too much pain.
But then again, only a dead person wants nothing.
True wisdom is beyond pain and pleasure. A yogi or sage feels pain and pleasure like anyone else, but does not shun pain or seek pleasure. There are depths beyond the sensory domain which today's sensory culture cannot even begin to imagine.
True wisdom is knowing what you are talking about and that you clearly do not. There is nothing 'beyond' pain and pleasure and that 'nothing' is called being dead.
From a Buddhist perspective, soft hedonism is compatible with the notion of reducing pain, rather than increasing pleasure, I think?
I've never heard 'hedonism' of any variety mentioned in Buddhist discourse, although the pursuit of pleasure is generally regarded as a canker and a hindrance.
Quoting ovdtogt
That is incorrect neurlogically speaking. Most people think that we are "motivated" by pleasure and pain but neurlogically that's just not the case. There is dopamine then there is things like serotonin. While dopamine is called the "feel good" hormone, it is far from it, it's more like the "want" hormone. There have been experiments on people where neurologists gave people a shot of dopamine for pressing a button, the people kept pressing it incessintly but when asked how it felt to press it they said something along the lines of "awful" and "I don't understand why I'm doing it, but it feels like I have to". The subjects couldn't understand why they wanted to press the button so much but they kept expecting a reward that would never come. Dopamine is responsible for making us WANT things but it doesn't make use enjoy getting them, other hormones such as seratonin do that.
There is a condition where the dopamine system stops functioning but the pleasure centers of the brain don't (I don't remember what it's called) but the result is that patients are taken over by sloth and boredom but they still enjoy things. It's hard to visualise but patients report enjoying food, hobbies and everything else as before but they just "don't feel like" doing them. Their families usually have to tell them to eat or sleep because otherwise they just wouldn't bother, DESPITE still gaining pleasure from all those activities. Idk about pain but it is false that we are "motivated by pleasure", the "motivation" system and the "pleasure" system are not the same system in our brains. That's why you get addiction to smoking, depsite the fact that smoking feels awful as reported by smokers. Smoking tricks the motivation system but doesn't affect the pleasure system, making you crave something you think is disgusting.
There are various neurotransmitters. When it comes to something like ‘motivation’ I’d say GABA is way more influential than anything else - inhibitory function. One thing we’ve become more and more aware of is that all neurotransmitters quite often have completely opposite effects in certain circumstances.
I don’t see how any serious individual would claim to hold to either view without openly accepting that degrees if resistance are required. No matter what the ‘ethical’ premise is, there is always the embedded problem of how we act in ‘the now’ and what this does for us in ‘the long run’.
One thing I see in both stoicism and hedonism is a system of thought that pays more heed to the immediacy of emotional contents rather than the future repercussions - I’m not saying for an instant that they give ZERO regard to the future, just that they seem to lean more toward the immediate.
I think both are applicable in certain mental states. Sometimes a more ‘harsh’ outlook can rouse an individual to action and sometimes a more ‘rose-tinted’ view can rouse people to action. Adherence to either in a dogmatic sense is both dangerous and futile - for others if not for theirselves.
All perspectives have their own little seductions, so in this sense ‘doubt’ should be our home of contemplation where ‘lack of doubt’ is the path of exploration (full of woe, injury and the occasional reward if we’re astute enough to temper the seductions of ‘the new’ before they habituate us into stagnation).
How do you explain the motivation to smoke? It has negative outcomes in the short and long term
Even if you crave food the eating need not be enjoyable. What presses your pleasure buttons can be very personal.
Exactly
If you don't crave food you wil eat out of not desire. We don't desire to live most of time, we fear to die.
That how drugs work: they directly effect your brain to give what it wants even though it might be detrimental to your overall health and well-being.
No not at all. It understand that by fighting you have already lost the battle. You must try to prevent the fighting in the first place.
Stoicism only makes sense if you are incapable of affecting your circumstances.
I thought you were the one that said "We are driven by pleasure and pain". Why would you crave food then if you do not find it enjoyable. Are you saying something else other than taste might be causing the drive.
Quoting ovdtogt
I understand.... I'm just pointing out that drugs don't follow the "Driven by pleasure and pain" perspective you proposed.
Fear of dying can make you crave food. It can make you eat dirt, grass and leaves off the tree. Definitely not pleasure or desire is making you eat this stuff.
I don't think many patients would report that they eat food because they dread non existence.Quoting ovdtogt
When you're near starvation... Which is not the situation discussed at all. Also please explain why anyone would smoke if we are purely motivated by pleasure and pain.
It seems there's a big difference between hedonism, the philosophy, and a hedonistic lifestyle.
The philosophy of hedonism is one of the most candid and unambiguous of philosophies concerning humanity. All of us want pleasure and can anyone doubt that? We can further subdivide hedonism into negative hedonism which I equate to your "soft hedonism" aiming to reduce suffering and positive hedonism which is basically seeking pleasure.
Is it me or do people frown on pleasure, especially if it's indiscreet and borders on what people see as debauchery when they see it in close proximity, either in time or space, to something that's an obvious tragedy. For instance if a disaster kills some people then festivals, parties, concerts, etc. are cancelled. Although this may not be the correct description, people don't like to engage in guilty pleasures and that's for a good reason - opposites, here happiness and suffering, annihilate each other. I think empathy makes it difficult, if not impossible, to partake of pleasure in the presence of suffering.
What's interesting is that time and place have nothing to do with suffering and pleasure. Suffering and pleasure are timeless and space-transcending. Suffering a broken heart is same in 1930 and 2019 or whether in Indiq or Indiana. Ergo, the temporal and spatial proximity of suffering we seem to care about is simply a matter of how easily the fact of suffering reaches our ears. It boils down to awareness of suffering that adds the "guilty" to "pleasure" making it difficult to enjoy in the presence of pain.
Given that there's so much suffering in the world and knowing that positive hedonism doesn't fly once we become aware of this truth, we should stress on negative hedonism - the lessening of suffering in the world. The difference between negative hedonism and positive hedonism is our awareness, or the lack of it, of the world's suffering.
Yet, there seems to be no perceptible change in people's behavior despite their awareness of world hunger, under-5 child mortality, etc. Where is that feeling that should stop us in our tracks from watching sit-coms, going to amusement parks, and partying until dawn? Doesn't this mean we're callous and selfish?
To answer that question we must remember that we're all in the same boat and everyone, with no exceptions, is trying their best to just stay one tiny step ahead of the tsunami of misery that's at everybody's heels. We shouldn't begrudge a person who works hard to feed her family the pleasures he indulges in because we all know everyone needs a breather from tedium. It's not that such people are being insensitive to the suffering of others. They're just too exhausted to react.
Negative hedonism should be a priority. Suffering should be considered enemy number 1. However, there is no fault in engaging in pleasure.
Yes. :)
Really?
Yeah, you dug into the argument and understood the issue as I presented it. Or otherwise, I don't really have anything against a negative version or "soft" version of hedonism.
But, we are in agreement, that even the Buddhists are limiting something (desire) that they assume causes suffering>?
I appreciate the spirit of hedonism. It is truly one of the greatest of philosophies, cutting through the befuddling fog and gets right to the point of literally everything we do - seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. Of course there's more there than just that but I guess somebody will figure it out one day if they haven't already.
Yes, it is. I find it relieving, in a way that allows me to affirm my existence of solitude and comfort.
Sure, but requires some analysis. The Buddhist approach is less like a commandment than a counsel, based on an appeal to our innate ethical sense (although I can already see that 'innate ethical sense' might be a red flag for a lot of people.)
[quote=Bhikkhu Bodhi]The Buddha points to two mental qualities as the underlying safeguards of morality, thus as the protectors of both the individual and society as a whole. These two qualities are called in Pali hiri and ottappa. Hiri is an innate sense of shame over moral transgression; ottappa is moral dread, fear of the results of wrongdoing. The Buddha calls these two states the bright guardians of the world (sukka lokapala). He gives them this designation because as long as these two states prevail in people's hearts the moral standards of the world remain intact, while when their influence wanes the human world falls into unabashed promiscuity and violence, becoming almost indistinguishable from the animal realm (Itiv. 42).
While moral shame and fear of wrongdoing are united in the common task of protecting the mind from moral defilement, they differ in their individual characteristics and modes of operation. Hiri, the sense of shame, has an internal reference; it is rooted in self-respect and induces us to shrink from wrongdoing out of a feeling of personal honor. Ottappa, fear of wrongdoing, has an external orientation. It is the voice of conscience that warns us of the dire consequences of moral transgression: blame and punishment by others, the painful kammic results of evil deeds, the impediment to our desire for liberation from suffering. Acariya Buddhaghosa illustrates the difference between the two with the simile of an iron rod smeared with excrement at one end and heated to a glow at the other end: hiri is like one's disgust at grabbing the rod in the place where it is smeared with excrement, ottappa is like one's fear of grabbing it in the place where it is red hot.
In the present-day world, with its secularization of all values, such notions as shame and fear of wrong are bound to appear antiquated, relics from a puritanical past when superstition and dogma manacled our rights to uninhibited self-expression. Yet the Buddha's stress on the importance of hiri and ottappa was based on a deep insight into the different potentialities of human nature. He saw that the path to deliverance is a struggle against the current, and that if we are to unfold the mind's capacities for wisdom, purity and peace, then we need to keep the powderkeg of the defilements under the watchful eyes of diligent sentinels.[/quote]
I see absolutely no reason why they would. If by "secularization of values" you mean rejecting appeal to religious traditions, all that means is an openness to questioning what actually is a wrong to feel ashamed or afraid of, and what is not actually wrong at all and so unreasonable to feel ashamed or afraid of. For a not (necessarily) religious example, many men are ashamed to cry, or to ask for help, and afraid of the negative social consequences that will befall them if they do such a "shameful" thing. But there is nothing actually wrong with crying, or asking for help, and it is unreasonable for men to feel ashamed of it, and unreasonable for there to be negative social consequences for them doing so: they should feel free to do so, and others should not punish them for doing so. That's not to say that there is never cause for shame or fear of repercussions, just that that particular thing is not actually wrong, and so should not be a cause of shame or repercussions. Many "superstitions and dogmas" are like that: things long said to be wrong, that are not actually wrong. It is good, and positively philosophical, to question whether the things that are long said to be wrong actually are or aren't, and to feel shame about and to stand for repercussions for only those things that are actually wrong.
Do you know how addiction works. Suggest you look into that.
The fear of death is the only thing that is keeping us alive.
I don't think expression of emotion is quite what Buddhist ethics have in mind. When they speak of 'moral dread' and 'sense of shame over moral transgressions', it is, I fear to say, rather closer to the old-fashioned sense of sin. I mean, Buddhist ethics are probably closer to traditional Christian ethics than modern secular values, even though they're based on completely different belief structures.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Quite true! Notice this well-known passage from the Pali suttas:
Kalama Sutta
I wasn't suggesting that that example I gave was the kind of thing Bhikkhu Bodhi meant, just that that's an example of letting shame and fear guide your actions that doesn't end up guiding them correctly, and that modern secular values don't do away with shame and fear, they just say they should apply to different things than traditional religious values do. The point is that shame and fear aren't the difference between modern and traditional ethics: both have them, and just disagree over what they're best applied to.
Axiological Hedonism vs Motivational Hedonism: Axiological Hedonism argues that pleasure is the only type of thing that could make an individual life or the world better and suffering is the only kind of thing that can make those things worse. Motivational Hedonism argues that we are only motivated by pleasure and suffering.
Hard Hedonism vs Soft Hedonism: Soft Axiological Hedonism argues that there might be other types of things that impact the quality of a life besides pleasure and suffering but pleasure and suffering are the most important things to consider. Soft Motivational Hedonism argues that other things motivate us but pleasure and suffering are the main motivators.
Prudential Hedonism vs Folk Hedonism: Folk Hedonism is a lifestyle that is stereotypical of hedonists(ie sex, drugs, and rock music). Prudential Hedonism is more like Epicureanism which focuses on maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering in one’s own life.
Prudential Hedonism vs Hedonic Utilitarianism: Prudential Hedonism is only concerned with one’s own hedonic well being. Hedonic Utilitarianism is concerned with the hedonic well being of the entire world. Of course, there’s also a whole bunch of different positions in between the 2 extremes.
Positive vs Negative Hedonism: positive hedonism focuses more on pleasure. Negative hedonism focuses more on suffering.
Quantitative Hedonism vs Qualitative Hedonism: Quantitative Hedonism argues that the importance of a pleasure can be quantified while qualitative hedonism tends to think that different pleasures have radically different degrees of quality. I honestly only consider quantitative hedonism to be a form of hedonism.
Internal Hedonism vs External Hedonism: Internal Hedonism argues that pleasure and suffering are experiences while external hedonism considers them to be something else. Once again, I really don’t consider external hedonism to be a form of hedonism.