Philosophy

6 Introduction

objections I can think of. When it seems necessary, I revise that version of hedonism so as to generate versions of the doctrine that yield evaluations consistent with the intuitions of the objectors. I repeat the process until I have found a version (or a couple of versions) of hedonism that seem to me to be acceptable. They are not refuted by the standard objections. Insofar as there is an argument here, this is the form it takes. Perhaps it would be acceptable to say that my procedure is to attempt to get myself (and my patient and sympathetic reader) into reflective equilibrium with some form of hedonism.

A second thing that will not be found here is a discussion of Bentham’s hedonic calculus. This may seem a bit surprising, since I devote quite a lot of attention to puzzles concerning the calculation of the amount of pleasure (or value) in various stipulated lives. Since Bentham did it first, why is there no discussion of his way of doing it? I of course have tremendous admiration for Bentham. He is a giant among hedonists. However, I think his discussion of the hedonic calculus is hopelessly confused. I sketch his view and explain my misgivings elsewhere. I see no point in repeating them here.

2 I discuss Bentham’s hedonic calculus in the article ‘Hedonism’.

CHAPTERI

The Quest for the Good Life

1.1. Pleasure and the Good sz'e Since the earliest days of recorded philosophy, philosophers have been interested in a cluster of questions about the Good Life. This focus can easily be seen in the writings of Plato and Aristotle and in their remarks about Socrates. It can also be seen in descriptions of the various schools of philosophy that followed the Golden Age. It has even been suggested that some of these schools understood the point of philosophy in general in such a way as to forge an essential link between doing philosophy and living the Good Life. The Epicureans and Stoies, for example, seem to have advertised in this way, each claiming that students who enrolled in their programs of study would thereby be given a good shot-—perhaps the best possible shot—at getting to live the Good Life. Subsequent philosophers have continued to be interested in this topic, though it seems to have lost its central position as the whole point of doing philosophy.

In this book I defend one of the oldest, simplest, and most intuitively plausible views on this question. I claim that the Good Life is the pleasant life. I claim that pleasure is the Good. Since I make these claims, I am a hedonist.

Since its earliest days, hedonism has been in bad repute. Critics have dismissed it with scorn. They have presented a barrage of classic objections. Advocates of the view often insisted that the hedonism they defended was not refuted by the objections of the critics. They frequently claimed that their view had been misunderstood or misrepresented. They often tried to explain more carefully what they had in mind when they said that the pleasant life is the Good Life. I join this line of defenders. I try to explain what I mean (and what I think some of my predecessors meant) by saying that pleasure is the Good, and I try to show that, when charitably interpreted, hedonism is not refuted by the classic objections that have been raised against it.

8 The Quest for the Good Me

1.2. Clarzfi'cation of “the Good sze” The central intuition of hedonism is that the pleasant life is the Good Life. But this sentence——‘The pleasant life is the Good Life’—is open to a number of interpretations. It can be misunderstood. In fact, I think it has been misunderstood and that the misunderstandings have in many cases led critics to dismiss hedonism prematurely.

Something like this often happens: a hedonistic philosopher pro- poses a theory about the Good Life. He says, ‘Pleasure is the Good; possession of a lot of pleasure makes for a good life.’ Another philosopher comes along and denies this, pointing out that it is pos- sible for a person to be disgusting and disgraceful even though he has a lot of pleasure. Thus, the second philosopher concludes, having a lot of pleasure does not necessarily make you a good person or ensure that you lead a good life.

But, as I see it, the dispute might be at cross—purposes. Perhaps the first philosopher took the question about the Good Life in one way, and proposed a view about that question as he conceived it, and the second philosopher took it in another way, and rejected the view as an answer to the question as he conceived it. Such disputes would be pointless. If we are to have a meaningful debate, we must have a shared understanding of the question.

Thus it seems to me that we should attempt to make the question at least a little bit clearer before we begin. To clarify the question, let us distinguish among several different things that we might have in mind when we ask whether someone has a good life.

A. When we speak of a good life, we might mean a morally good life; or (to use an old—fashioned—sounding phrase) a life of virtue. So, for example, if certain popular views about the life of virtue are correct, we could say that Mother Teresa had a good life in this sense. If a Kantian view is correct, we might want to say that someone who steadily acted for the sake of duty would therefore have had a good life. If we think that the moral virtues are traits from some list (e.g., justice, wisdom, courage, temperance) then we might think that a person who exemplifies these traits (and few vices) would therefore have a good life in this sense.

B. When we speak of a good life, we might use ‘good’ in a sense in which it means ‘good as a means’ or ‘causally good’. We use the word in this sense when we say, for example, ‘although it was not good in itself, it was still a good thing that I had my teeth drilled’. Such things are good because of what they cause or prevent or lead to. A life might be like that. So when you say that Mother Teresa had a good life, you

9The Quest for the Good Lfie might mean that her life as a whole was benefiaa'l. You might say this if you thought it was a good thing that she lived her life as she did— a good thing because of its effects, largely on other people who bene- fited from her good works.

C. Another sort of good life would be the beautiful life. We might want to know what makes a person’s life aesthetically good. A certain' person’s life might make a fine subject for a moving and beautiful biography, or even for a novel or play. Yet at the same time, that life might have been pretty rotten in itself for the one who lived it. Tragic figures come to mind. If someone lived the life of King Lear, we might think he had an aesthetically outstanding life—~a skilled playwright might be able to cook up a good play about it—but a life that was less than ideal for him. Only a man absurdly obsessed with being memorialized in drama could want such a life.

D. Someone might take the question about the Good Life to be equivalent to a question about what sort of life best exemplifies human life. He might be looking for lives that are good examples, or ideal specimens, of human life. Imagine that you are setting up a museum exhibit designed to illustrate some of the main species here on Earth. You might want to include a good sample of a blue whale, and a good example of a garter snake. Additionally, you might want to include a good example of a human being. An ideal candidate for that position would be someone who leads a ‘good human life’ in this “exemplar” sense.

Finally, we come to the sense of the phrase that is relevant here. Sometimes, when we speak of the Good Life, we have in mind the concept of a life that is good in itself for the one who lives it. Some philosophers speak here of ‘personal welfare’ or ‘well—being’. A good life, in this sense, would be a life that is outstanding in terms of welfare, or well—being. Other philosophers seem to have the same idea in mind when they speak of ‘a life well worth living’.

I think we may be able to get ourselves to focus on the relevant notion if we engage in a little thought experiment.1 Imagine that you are filled with love as you look into the crib, checking on your newly arrived firstborn child. The infant is sleeping peacefully. You might think of various ways in which the baby’s life could turn out. What schools will he attend? What career will he choose? What sort of personality and intellect will he have? Will he someday have children

‘ I first appealed to this thought experiment in 1988 in my ‘On the Advantages of Cooperativeness'. Since that time I have come to see that it is problematic. Robert Adams appeals to the same test in his Finite and Infinite Goods. Stephen Darwall elevates it to the status of a metaethical analysis of the concept of welfare in his Weflare and Rational Care.

10 The Quest for the Good Lfie of his own? Your concern for the baby might express itself in the hope that, whatever he does, things will turn out well for him. You might hope that this baby gets a good life—a life good in itself for him. That hope—the hope for a life good in itself for the one who lives it—is a hope about the topic of this book.

It is not entirely clear that this thought experiment will always work. Suppose a religious fanatic looks into his child’s crib. Suppose he wants the child to have a wonderful life. Suppose he thinks that the best imaginable life for the child is one in which the child becomes a martyr for God. This religious fanatic might be filled with love, and he might be thinking about the Good Life for his child. But it is not clear that he is expressing a hope about what we would normally think of as the child’s weflare. Perhaps he is thinking about what he takes to be moral or religious virtue. Perhaps he is thinking about the most beneficial life the child could live. So the mere fact that he is a parent filled with love, and is looking into his child’s crib, and is saying something about ‘the Good Life’, does not absolutely guarantee that he is thinking about the topic of this book.2

These five concepts of the goodness of lives are indeed five distinct concepts.3 In the absence of actual views about what makes for a morally good life, or a useful life, or a beautiful life, or a good life in itself, or an exemplary life, it might be hard to prove conclusively that these are different ideas. But there are some considerations that may help to make the differences more apparent. Reflection on these differences may also help to clarify the concept that is of central importance here.

I am convinced that it is one thing to have a morally good life, and another to have a life good in itself for the one who lives it. Many would agree that Mother Teresa had a morally good life. Perhaps this is because she tried so hard to be helpful to others. Perhaps she always tried to do her duty for duty’s sake. Maybe she never committed a sin. But it is consistent with this to suppose that things did not turn out well for her. Remarks in some of her personal letters indicate that she suffered from persistent depression, especially as she got older and her health began to fail. In some letters she said that she felt as if God had abandoned her, and that her life was meaningless. In addition to this, she suffered from a number of painful physical ailments. Some who advocate her beatification appeal to these facts in support of her

2 I thank Chris Heathwood for helping me to see this point. 3 Owen McLeod has reminded me that there are more than just five such concepts. There is

the concept of the legally good life, perhaps the etiquettically good life, the religiously good life, etc. Even this list is not intended to be complete.

11The Questfor the Good Lfie

claims to sainthood. She endured considerable suffering as she tried to do her morally good works. In this case, it seems to me that we might want to say that Mother Teresa’s own personal welfare was not outstandingly high. Though her life might have been one of the most impressive in terms of moral goodness (Scale A), that life was not outstandingly good in itself for her (Scale E). Her moral standin'g was high, but her welfare was low}

We can make the case even more dramatic. Imagine Mother Teresa again. Imagine that there is some sort of malicious but powerful deity. Imagine that the deity watches Mother Teresa closely, even looks III-I0 her heart. When she is motivated by her goodwill to perform morally admirable actions, the deity gives her heartburn, or serious pain in the knee and elbow. The better she is from the moral point of view, the worse things go for her. Since she is such a good person, her life is a disaster for her. She suffers constantly. In this imagined situation, Mother Teresa’s life is morally good but intrinsically bad for her. This strongly suggests that these two kinds of evaluation diverge. They evaluate lives from two different perspectives.

Similarly, there’s a difference between the extrinsically good life (Scale B) and the life good in itself for the one who lives it. I assume that Mother Teresa did a lot of good in the world. She made things better for others. Her life as a whole was tremendously beneficial. So in one sense it was a good life. That is, it was extrinsically good, or good as a means. At the same time, we can easily imagine that doing all these good deeds took a toll on her. She sacrificed her own welfare in order to benefit others. As a result, her life went less well for her. She suffered; she took less pleasure in this life. We can imagine that she lived with constant frustration; she was not happy. This illustrates a way in which a person can have a life that is good for others (Scale B), but not so good for herself (Scale E).

I think it is interesting to note that this talk of the beneficial life presupposes the concept of the life good in itself for the one who lives it. Presumably, when Mother Teresa benefited others, she did this by making their lives better. But when we say that she made their lives better, we surely do not mean to say that she made their lives better for others. That would just induce a long chain of lives, each making the next better for others. Rather, what we mean is that Mother Teresa helped other people to live lives that were better in themselves for

‘ The information about Mother Teresa's suffering can be found in her letters, excerpts of which have been published in the ]ouma[ of Theological Reflection. The topic is discussed in ‘Mothcr Teresa's Letters Reveal Doubts’ by Satindcr Bindra that appeared in (he CNN/World website dated September 7, 2001.

12 The Questfor the Good Life those others. That is, as a result of Mother Teresa’s efforts, each of those others got a life that was somewhat better in itself for that other person than the life that other person would have gotten had it not been for Mother Teresa’s efforts. So if you fully understand the idea of the beneficial life, then you must also understand the idea of the life good in itself for the one who lives it.

It takes only the briefest reflection to see that there is a difference between the aesthetically good life (Scale C) and the life good in itself for the one who lives it. King Lear’s life is widely taken to be an example of an aesthetically good life. I would not wish it for my beloved first— born child.

Suppose that it is typical, or normal, for human lives to be filled with suffering and misery. Then a good example of a human life would have to be one that illustrated this unfortunate fact about people. It would have to be a life of relatively low welfare. This shows that it is at least possible that a life could rank high on Scale D (which assesses lives for their value as exemplars) while ranking low on Scale E (which assesses them for their welfare—value). A life might be good as an example of a human life, while being not so good in itself for the unfortunate individual who has to live it.

My focus here is on a question about the life that is good in itself for the one who lives it. If such lives turn out (by some surprising chance) also to be good for Others, or beautiful, or morally outstand— ing, or good examples of lives, then I will be delighted. But if in the end it turns out that there are no connections among these scales of evaluation, I will not be dismayed. I will still be interested in the Good Life (in the sense I have tried to identify). When I say that the pleasant life is the Good Life, What I mean is that the pleasant life is the life that is good in itself for the one who lives it; it is the life of high personal welfare.5 Thus, I focus on goodness as evaluated by Scale E.

1.3. What is the Question about the Good Lfie? There are several different questions we could ask about the Good Life. One is a fundamentally metaethical question: what do we mean when we say that a certain life is “good in itself for the one who lives

5 I sometimes suspect that some writers—especially ancient writers~conceived of the Good Life as the life that was at once good on all five (or more) scales. To be truly excellent, on this conception, a life would have to be morally good, useful, beautiful, typical of humans, and good for the one who lives it. I certainly would not defend the claim that the pleasant life would have to be truly excellent in this five (or more)-fold way.

13The Quest for the Good Lfie

it”? To answer this question, we would have to engage in conceptual analysis, or at least semantical theorizing about ethical language. Perhaps we would have to consider various forms of naturalism, nonnaturalism, emotivism, prescriptivism, and other theories about the meanings of ethical terms.

A much more practical question concerns the steps one must take in order to have a good life. We might focus on some puzzles such as these: If you hope to have a good life, is it essential to complete high school? Are your chances of getting a good life better if you take a job working for a big company, or would you be better off going into business for yourself? What about investment strategies? And how about the details of your personal affairs? Is it a good idea to marry young, or would you be better off waiting until you reach a more settled period in your life?

Those are undoubtedly interesting questions, but they are not examples of the sort of question I mean to discuss here. Indeed, it seems to me that we cannot do a fully responsible job of anSWering these practical questions until we have a somewhat clearer answer to the question I do mean to ask.

I mean to be asking, not for an analysis of the meaning of the phrase ‘the Good Life’, and not for a lot of practical tips about how to get a good life. Rather, I mean to be searching for a suitably general state— ment of necessary and sufficient conditions for a life’s being good in itself for the one who lives it. I want to know, in the abstract, what features make a life a good one for the one who lives it. Ideally, I would like to find a principle that would yield a ranking of lives—a principle that would tell us when one life is better in itself for the one who lives it than some other life would have been. I would like to find a theory that would locate the fundamental sources of value in lives. Ideally, I would like the theory to assign specific (perhaps numerical) values to those elements, and then to give a systematic way of aggreg— ating those values so as to yield a value for the whole life.

As I proceed, it may very well appear that I have been making some large and controversial assumptions in metaethics. More exactly, it may appear that I have assumed some sort of Moorean or other objectivism about the meaning of ‘the Good Life’. That is because I will frequently write about considerations that Show that certain statements about the Good Life are “true” and will present and discuss various arguments for and against theories. In some cases, I will say that certain views are “closer to the truth” than others. All this suggests that I think that there is some objective truth about good and evil.

2%;

14 The Quest for the Good Life

While Iam inclined to accept some such view in metaethics, Ithink itplays no role in what follows. Iam inclined to think that my

arguments and claims are all firmly in a branch of substantive normative cthics—axiology. Ithink that my remarks can be understood (and per- haps interpreted) in accord with any plausible metaethical view. Perhaps Iam describing an independent moral reality; perhaps Iam describing the valuation scheme of some ideal observer; perhaps Iam just emoting or issuing imperatives. Iprefer to remain neutral on that issue.

1.4. Why Should We Be Interested in this Question? My focus in this book isthe attempt to develop a view about the sort of life that would be good in itself for the one who lives it. Iam interested in this topic for a couple of reasons. For one thing, Iam inclined to

believe that philosophical discussions since ancient days have presup— posed, roughly, that the central pro'ect of an important part of moral philosophy is the attempt to identify the Good Life in this sense. So there isample historical precedent for undertaking the project. Iam also inclined to think that many familiar theories about ration-

ality presuppose this notion. According to these theories, the concept of rationality isto be explained by appeal to t e concept of individual welfare. What’s rational for you to do is what will most enhance your welfare (usually weighted for probability). Your welfare, as Isee it, is to be explained by appeal to the Good Life. Those who have high welfare are precisely those who live good lives. Some consequentialist views in the normative ethics of behavior are similarly linked to views about the Good Life. On these views, the morally right act is the one that most enhances the aggregate of welfare of all affected.

Another reason to pursue this topic isa bit more practical. Medical personnel are often called upon to give evaluations of “quality of life”. For example, ifa fetus isdiscovered to have some serious abnormality,

parents might want to know about the quality of life the baby would enjoy (or suffer) ifallowed to live. If the baby were destined to have a life of very low quality, they might think that it would be better to abort this fetus and try again. So they might ask the doctor to make some predictions about the baby’s expected quality of life. But what is the doctor to think about? Should he reflect on likely income adjusted for inflation? Or net worth? Or the baby’s chances of having a satisfy- ing social life? As Isee it,the real question in such cases presupposes an answer to our question: will the baby get a life good in itself for the baby? And ifnot, how bad in itself for the baby will it be? This

provides yet another reason to be interested in the Good Life.

The Quest for the Good Life 15

My own view is that the project needs no such justification. The question about the Good Life is intrinsically worthy of our attention. We are people. We are alive. It is reasonable for us to wonder about what would make our lives good ones.6

So Itake the question about the lGood Life to be a substantive axiological question about what sort of life is good in itself for the one who leads it. The answer (if one should be discovered) might have some connection to questions about the rationality or moral tightness of behavior; but then again itmight not. It might have some connec— tion to questions about virtue and vice and excellence of character, but then again it might not. Iproceed on the assumption that it is an independent question in axiology.

In what follows Iwill try to be wary of arguments that presuppose some other interpretation of the question. So, for example, ifsomeone were to say that a life filled with sensual pleasures is not a good one because it involves lots of disgraceful, immoral behavior, Iwill be cautious. Maybe the person who puts forth that argument is confus- ing evaluation of a life in terms of goodness for the one who lives it with evaluation of a life in terms of its moral excellence. The life of sensual pleasure might still rate high on one scale of evaluation, even if it isoff the bottom of the other scale.

1.5. What are the Main Sorts ofAnswer that have been Given?

It seems to me that the most widely discussed answers to our question fall into a couple of main categories. They are as follows: a. Eudaimonism. Aristotle seems to endorse this view in the Nicomachean Ethics when he says ‘the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that [the highest of all goods] is happiness, and identify living well and doing well with being happy’.7 A bit later he

6 Near the end of the Apology, Socrates says that the unexamined life is not worth living. Although Iam not entirely sure that Iunderstand what he meant. Ithink the remark could naturally be taken to mean that ifa person does not engage in philosophical reflection on the Good Life and the goodness of his own life (in other words, ifhe has not examined his life), then his life cannot be good in itself for him (his life is not worth living). The Socratic claim seems to be this: ifyou don’t think about the Good Life, you can’t be having one. So understood. the doctrine seems very implausible. Surely there are plenty of unreflective, philosophically unsophisticated people who have been happy. and whose lives have been morally good, beneficul to others, and good in themselves for those who lived them. To say otherwise. itseems to me, is to suggest that if you are not happy in the peculiar way preferred by some philosophers. then your life is not worth living. This seems to me to be an astonishing view (whether Socrates’ or not).

7 Ntcomachean Ethics, I. 4.

20 The Quest for [be Good Life

I think similar problems would infect other forms of pluralism, too. That is, this problem would arise unless advocates could somehow guarantee that the items on the list would be things that would simply have to be enjoyed by the one who had them. I would be prepared to look more closely into a form of pluralism that had that feature.20 e. Hedonism. Finally we come to hedonism. Hedonism is roughly the idea that the Good Life is the pleasant life. Or somewhat more exactly, it is the view that a life is better in itself for the one who lives it as it contains a more favorable balance of pleasure over pain.

Hedonism comes in many forms. Before selecting the present title for this book, I thought I would call it ‘Forms and Limits of Hedonism’.21 That would not be such a bad title, since quite a lot of this book is devoted to a discussion of these different forms, and one of my aims is to show that the limits of hedonism are further out than they are often assumed to be. My discussion of hedonism will begin in Chapter 2.

2° I think it is important to distinguish between (a) pluralist theories according to which there are several goods, and each is something that is necessarily enjoyed, and (b) hedonist theories according to which enjoyment is the Good, and enjoyment in certain things—the ones on some objective list, for example—is especially good. I discuss such forms of hedonism in chs. 4, 5, and 7. I explain the distinction in ch. 8.

2' Alluding thereby to the title of David Lyons's wonderful book on utilitarianism.

C HAPTE R 2

Hedonism: A Preliminary Formulation

2.1. Problems Concerning the Formulation ofHedonism I want to defend a number of substantive views concerning hedonism. These include views about the forms it can take and the plausibility of the doctrine in many of its guises. However, before turning to my presentation and defense of these views concerning the truth or plaus- ibility of hedonism, I think it is important to have a clear conception of the nature of the doctrine. Otherwise, you may not know what I am trying to defend.

In common parlance, ‘hedonism’ suggests something a bit vulgar and risque’. We may think of someone like the former publisher of a slightly scandalous girlie magazine. He apparently enjoyed hanging out with bevies of voluptuous young women, drinking and dining perhaps to excess, traveling to tropical resorts where the young women would reveal extensive amounts of tanned flesh, and reveling till dawn. In an earlier era the motto was ‘wine, women, and song’. Nowadays, we are required to substitute the somewhat more RC. ‘sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll’. No matter what the motto, the vision is misguided. It reveals a misconception of the views of most serious hedonists (though, perhaps, it gets one of them approximately right). In an apparent expression of exasperation, Epicurus lamented this sort of misunderstanding. He insisted: ‘So when we say that pleasure is the goal we do not mean the pleasures of the profligate or the pleasures of consumption, as some believe, either from ignorance and disagreement or from deliberate misinterpretation, but rather the lack of pain in the body and disturb— ance in the soul.’1 Mill was similarly troubled by attacks from critics who apparently thought he was defending a doctrine worthy only of swine. Like Epicurus, he struggled to explain that his conception of hedonism did not have the unsavory implications. Yet even today some

1 'Letter to Mcnoeceus,’ in The Epic‘urus Reader, 30.

22 Hedonism

critics of hedonism seem unable to conceive or unwilling to concede that hedonism can be anything other than some sort of vulgar sensual— ism. It behooves us, therefore, to take a moment to formulate the view with a bit more care.

Immediately, however, a problem arises. The professional literat— ure on hedonism is filled with defective formulations of the View. Critics and advocates alike seem to have real trouble saying just what hedonism is supposed to be. There is apparently a genuine puzzle about how to state the hedonistic idea. I have to admit that I am fascinated by this puzzle. However, I also have to admit that some readers might not share my enthusiasm. They might be bored silly by a long discussion of failed formulations of the view. Thus, some of what I have to say is relegated to an appendix at the end of this chapter. I beg the reader’s forbearance as I discuss just one typical formulation before proceeding. This one is due to William Frankena.

In his Ethics (2nd edition), Frankena gives a brief account of the fundamental thesis of hedonism. He says this:

to see just what a hedonist about the good is claiming we must use a series of statements. 1. Happiness = pleasure, or happiness = pleasantness. 2. All pleasures are intrinsically good, or whatever is pleasant is good in itself... 3. Only pleasures are intrinsically good, or whatever is good in itself is pleas- ant in itself. . . . 4. Pleasantness is the criterion of intrinsic goodness. It is what makes things good as ends.2

Frankena’s statement seems to me to illustrate at least six mistakes, some of which also appear in other attempted formulations of the view.

i. First we should note that in (1) Frankena says that hedonists identify happiness with pleasure. While some hedonists may have suggested such a view, it is by no means essential to hedonism as I understand it. Clearly a philosopher could be hedonist while simply refusing to commit himself to any view about the nature of happiness. As I see it, hedonism is a view about what makes a person’s life good in itseflfor the person, not a view about happiness.

Furthermore, even if a hedonist were to maintain that there is an important connection between pleasure and happiness, he could deny that this connection is identity. He might say that pleasure is some- thing that one can enjoy at a given moment. A person can experience pleasure briefly, and can experience it even if his life as a whole is pretty miserable. Happiness is not like this, he could say. We count

2 Frankena, Ethics, 2nd edn., 84.

23Hedonism

no man happy until we have accumulated evidence concerning a long period of his life—perhaps the whole of it. Such a hedonist might describe the connection between pleasure and happiness by saying that in general a person lived a happy life if and only if he experienced many moments of pleasure and relatively few moments of pain during his life. This view, obviously, is not equivalent to the view that happi- ness and pleasure are the same thing.

To drive home the difference between happiness and pleasure, note that a person might experience pleasure at a time when he is not happy (e.g., if he is also experiencing a lot of pain at the same time). Equally, a person might be happy throughout a period of time even though he experiences no pleasure at many of the moments during that time (e.g., if he is happy just to be alive, well fed, and not in pain).

A philosopher could recognize these facts about pleasure and happiness, and could go on to insist that it is pleasure alone that plays the crucial role in increasing the intrinsic value of a person’s life. Such a philosopher would be a hedonist, but he would not claim that hap- piness is identical to pleasure. Thus, I think it is a mistake to say that hedonism essentially involves the idea that pleasure and happiness are the same thing.

ii. Frankena says in (2) that ‘whatever is pleasant is good in itself’. I think this is a mistake, too. Indeed, I think that no careful hedonist would want to maintain that pleasant things are intrinsically good; they want to maintain that it is the pleasure we get from pleasant things that is intrinsically good. To see this clearly, consider a typical, uncontroversially pleasant thing: if I have been out shoveling snow on a cold winter’s day, I may enjoy a warm, soapy shower when I come indoors. Consider the event that is my taking of that warm and soapy shower. That event is a pleasant thing. Yet the hedonist does not want to say that the taking of the shower itself is intrins- ically good. The hedonist typically would want to say that taking the shower was extrinsically good because it produced so much pleasure for me.

This same mistake appears as well in (3) and (4).

iii. Another apparent error pervades Frankena’s formulation. This is an error of omission: he fails to say anything about pain. It is impos- sible to give an adequate hedonistic evaluation of anything (a life, the consequence of an action, a possible world) without taking into account the adverse impact of the pains that occur within that thing. Thus, insofar as he fails to mention pain, Frankena’s account is at least seriously incomplete.

24 Hedonism

iv. Frankena says in (3) that ‘only pleasures are intrinsically good’. This is another common mistake. It appears as well in several other attempted formulations of hedonism. If taken at face value, (3) would imply that no pleasure-containing complex thing (such as a life, or a possible world) could be intrinsically good. Clearly, no matter how much pleasure it contains, no possible world “is a pleasure” (whatever precisely that may mean). As Frankena suggests in (4), the hedonist certainly does want to allow for the possibility that such complex things can be intrinsically good. Generally, the hedonist wants to say that a complex thing is intrinsically good if and only if it contains a favorable balance of pleasures over pains. If he says this, he cannot also say that pleasures are the “only things that are intrinsically good”.

v. Frankena does not say anything explicit about the evaluation of complex things such as lives. This is another respect in which Frankena’s statement is incomplete. vi. Finally, I note the puzzling remark in (4) about pleasantness “making things good as ends”. Frankena’s remark seems to imply that, according to hedonism, if a thing is pleasant, then it is good as an end. But as I have already mentioned above in (ii), the possession of the property of being pleasant does not make things good as ends according to hedonists. The taking of a hot, soapy shower might: be very pleasant, but it is not good as an end according to hedonists. Rather, hedonists want to say that the property of being a pleasure makes things good as ends (if ‘good as an end’ is equivalent to ‘intrins— ically good’). Thus, hedonists would say that taking the shower is good as a means, since it leads to a lot of pleasure, and the pleasure is good as an end.

It is possible that in (4) Frankena is trying to say that things that are not themselves pleasures are made to be good as ends by their containment of pleasures. Perhaps this is what he means when he says that pleasantness is the criterion of intrinsic value. If this is right, then we see that (4) conflicts with (3), since (3) implies that nothing other than a pleasure can be intrinsically good.

Enough of this. It should be clear that there is a puzzle about the formulation of hedonism. (If it is not yet sufficiently clear to you, you are invited to take a look at Appendix A, where another typical formulation of hedonism is criticized.) I wish now to turn to the more ‘positive’ task of formulating a clear answer to the question ‘What is

3 I discussed this mistake at some length in my ‘On the Intrinsic Value of Pleasures’. I also discuss it below in Appendix‘ A.

25Hedonism

hedonism?’ My answer to this question begins with some brief (and preliminary) remarks about pleasure and pain.

2.2. Default Hedonism In order to simplify later discussion, I think it will be useful to have a sort of default hedonism available. Then, with this in hand, we can attempt to construct a variant to represent the hedonism of Aristippus. Later, I will construct another variant to represent the hedonism of Epicurus. And later still, I will try to make use of this default hedonism as a starting point when constructing other forms of hedonism. So let us first formulate our default, maximally simple version of hedonism.

First we need to make some assumptions about pleasure and pain.

i. We assume that pleasures are certain feelings or sensations. (Later, we will have reason to reconsider this assumption.) When a person experiences a feeling of pleasure, there is an event, or “episode”, that consists in that person’s feeling pleasure at that time. Each such episode lasts through a period of time, and so it has a duration. The pleasure experienced in the episode is of a certain intensity—or “strength” or “vividness”. Of course, in real-life cases the intensity of pleasure in an episode will vary through time. Perhaps at the outset of the episode, the pleasure is of low intensity. Then it rises to a crescendo and subsequently fades. When the intensity reaches zero, the episode ends. In order to accommodate this fact, we will stipulate that the intensity of an episode of pleasure is the average strength of the feeling of pleasure in that episode.

ii. We assume that each episode of pleasure contains a certain ‘amount’ of pleasure, and that this amount is in principle subject to measure- ment. (We need not assume that these amounts can in practice be precisely determined either by introspection or by any existing technology.) The amount of pleasure in an episode depends upon intensity and duration, with longer—lasting and more intense pleasures being said to contain more total pleasure. For purposes of exposition I will imagine that there is a standard unit of measurement for these amounts. I call one unit of pleasure a “hedon”.

iii. We assume that pains are also feelings that come in episodes with intensity and duration. Each such episode contains a determinate amount of pain. I call one unit of pain a “dolor”.

26 Hedonism

iv. We assume that pain is ‘opposite’ to pleasure, so we can speak of a balance of pleasure over pain. In other words, it makes sense to sub— tract the number of dolors of pain that a person feels during a stretch of time from the number of hedons of pleasure that he feels during that time. The resulting number indicates a sort of “hedono-doloric balance”. This is often called “net pleasure”, or “pleasure minus pain”. The mathematical operation has a point only if one hedon of pleasure is (in some important but elusive sense) “equal in size but opposite in sign” to one dolor of pain.

v. We assume that it is possible in principle to compare the amount of net pleasure in some combination of pleasures and pains to the amount of net pleasure in some other combination of pleasures and pains. Thus, consider a person’s whole life. It contains a lot of episodes of pleasure and pain. There must be a way of evaluating the life as a whole by appeal to facts about the pleasures and pains contained therein.

We need also to make some assumptions about the concept of intrin- sic value. For present purposes it will be sufficient merely to say that a thing has intrinsic value when it has value “in itself”. The intrinsic value of a thing is a component of its value that depends on the intrin— sic features of the thing rather than on its relations. Thus, for example, the intrinsic value of an episode of pleasure must depend upon facts about that episode of pleasure itself (such as the strength of the feeling, or its duration, or some phenomenological feature such as the plea— sure’s “feel”) and not upon extrm‘sic features (such as its cause, or its effects, or the attitude that someone takes toward it).

I will assume that we can represent intrinsic values with numbers in a typical way. Positive numbers represent amounts of intrinsic goodness, with higher numbers representing greater amounts of intrinsic goodness. Negative numbers represent amounts of intrinsic badness. The numbers are not to be taken too seriously. An amount of value that here is represented as ‘+10’ might just as well have been represented as ‘+100’ or ‘+1000’. The important facts are that positive numbers represent amounts of goodness; negative numbers represent amounts of badness; and relationships among these num- bers represent relationships among the corresponding amounts of intrinsic value.

Since intrinsic values depend upon intrinsic features, it follows that if two things are intrinsically alike, they must have the same intrinsic value. This has implications for hedonism. If we say that episodes of pleasure are the fundamental bearers of positive intrinsic value, then

27Hedonism

we will have to say that if two episodes of pleasure are intrinsically alike, then they must have the same intrinsic value.

Later I will have much more to say about intrinsic value. In partic- ular, I will have some things to say about some of the metaphysical features of the items that are the bearers of the most fundamental sort of intrinsic value. But for now I hope it will not be necessary to say much more.4

With these assumptions as background, we can formulate a simple kind of hedonism. It is not clear that any actual hedonist has ever endorsed precisely this view. But some critics of hedonism seem to understand hedonism in something like this way, since their criticisms are best interpreted as attacks on such a doctrine. So, here is Default Hedonism (DH):

i. Every episode ofpleusure is intrimicially good; every episode ofpain is intrinsically had.

ii. The intrinsic value of an Ave isode ofpleasure is equal to the number of hedons ofpleasure contuine in that episode; the intrinsic value of an e isode of uin is equal to — (the number of dolors ofpain contained in t at episoape).

iii. The intrinsic value of a life is entirely determined by the intrinsic values ofthe e isodes ofpleasure and pain contained in that lfie, in such a way that one life is intrinsically better than another and only the net amount ofpleusure in the one is greater than the net amount 0/pleasure in the other.

The first component of this formulation serves to indicate that DH is a form of “universalistic hedonism”—it says that every episode of pleasure is good in itself. Thus, it makes no provision for “worthless pleasures” or “Overridden pleasures”, or any other pleasures that fail to have positive intrinsic value. (It says a corresponding thing about the intrinsic badness of all pains.)

The second component of the doctrine serves to assign an amount of intrinsic value to each episode of pleasure and to each episode of pain. In the case of pleasures, the amount of intrinsic value in such an episode is always a positive number equal to the number of hedons it contains. As a result, “bigger” pleasures are said to be intrinsically better. This means that more intense pleasures are intrinsically better than less intense ones, durations being equal. Similarly, longer—lasting

4 Note that I did not mention the Isolation Test. That was intentional. I do not understand the Isolation Test well enough to endorse it. Nor did I say that things have their intrinsic values of necessity. In the present context, where we are taking the bearers of intrinsic value to be “episodes”, I am inclined to reject the necessity principle. Later, when we reconsider the metaphysics of the bearers of intrinsic value, I will reconsider the necessity principle.

28 Hedonism

pleasures are better than briefer ones, intensities being equal. In the case of comparisons between pleasures that differ in both intensity and duration, the one containing more hedons of pleasure is always the better.

The intrinsic value of any episode of pain is guaranteed to be a negative number by the minus sign in the second component of DH. Thus, every episode of pain has a negative intrinsic value determined by the number of dolors of pain it contains. In other words, every episode of pain is intrinsically bad. “Bigger” episodes of pain (ones that contain more dolors of pain) are therefore intrinsically worse than “smaller” ones.

The third component of DH ensures that DH is a form of “pure” hedonism. In effect, it says that nothing other than pleasures and pains has any direct effect on the intrinsic value of a person’s life. As a result of (iii), we cannot say that knowledge, or virtue, or preference satisfaction has any direct impact on the intrinsic value of a life. Of course, if the possession of a bit of knowledge leads to pleasure, then the possession of that bit of knowledge has some positive extrinsic value. But in itself it must be worthless on DH.5

It would be natural to combine with DH the assumption that extrinsic values are somehow determined by the production or preven- tion or signification of pleasure and pain. This is hardly surprising, but it does have one implication that should be noted. An episode of pleasure certainly can have a negative extrinsic value. In other words, there can be (extrinsically) bad pleasures. An advocate of DH would say that if a pleas— ure leads to later pains, and the pains are sufficiently bad, then the pleas— ure itself is extrinsically bad. Of course, in light of the pleasure continues to be intrinsically good. A corresponding thesis holds in the case of pains, some of which are extrinsically good.

DH does not have the defects I claimed to have detected in the formulation due to Frankena. Notice, first, that DH does not say

5 Notice that in all this, I did not say that “the absence of pain” is good, or that “the absence of pleasure" is bad. In this I seem to have departed from some of the great hedonists of the past. For example, note that Bentham says: “A thing is said to promote the interest. or to be for the interest, of an individual. when it tends to add to the sum total of his pleasures; or, what comes to the same thing, to diminish the sum total of his pains’ (Principles of Morals and Legislation, 341). And notice that Mill says something quite like this, too: ‘pleasurc, and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends’ (Utilitarta'nism, 10). However, I think it is a big mistake to say that absence of pain is good in itself. The measurement problems would be enormous. How could we calculate amounts of absence of pain? I assume that ‘absencc of pain’ refers to that state in which one feels no pain. In my view, and according to DH, the mere absence of pain has no intn’nsic value. The question about the relation of “absence of pain" to pleasure is discussed below in connection with Epicurean Hedonism in Appendix C. Chisholm discusses this question in Brenmno and Intrinsic Value. 61.

29Hedonism

anything about happiness. It would be consistent with DH to say almost anything about happiness, though of course some hedonists might want to say that the amount of happiness in a life is also determined by the amounts of pleasure and pain contained therein. That would be possible. But DH itself does not require any views about happiness.

Notice, second, that DH does not imply that pleasant things are intrinsically good. DH does not mention pleasant things. It mentions episodes of pleasure and episodes of pain, and complex things containing them. If we assume that a pleasant thing is a thing that gives pleasure, such as a warm, soapy shower, then it would be consistent with DH to say that such things are extrinsically good.

Notice, next, that DH contains a number of claims about the intrinsic values of pains. According to (i), each of them is intrinsically bad. According to (ii), the intrinsic badness of one of them is deter— mined by the number of dolors of pain it contains. And according to (iii), adding greater amounts of pain to a life serves to make that life worse in itself (assuming that it does not affect the amount of pleas— ure in the life). 50 DH does not forget to incorporate appropriate doctrines about “The Bad”.

DH does not imply that pleasure is the only intrinsic good. Indeed, as (iii) makes clear, plenty of things other than episodes of pleasure can be intrinsically good according to DH. For example, any life containing a favorable balance of pleasure over pain is alleged by (iii) to be intrinsically good. But whenever such a thing is intrinsically good, its goodness derives entirely from the pleasures and pains contained therein.

50 it should be clear that this proposed formulation of hedonism is different from the one stated by Frankena. I am inclined to think that DH is sufficiently clear for present purposes. It provides a basis for further discussion. Real—life forms of hedonism (I will claim) can be seen as variants, or modifications, of DH. Some discussion of hedonism can begin on the assumption that hedonism is adequately represented by DH. DH may be false, but it is not internally incoherent.

It should also be clear that DH does not imply that the Good Life has to be something like the life of the magazine publisher described at the outset. In fact, given a standard set of assumptions about the pains associated with hangovers, heart attacks, sexually transmitted diseases, and loneliness in old age, DH might imply that such a life is not very good at all. And given an uncontroversial set of assumptions about the pleasures of good health, the possession of a rewarding job, and a happy and secure family life, DH might imply that the Good Life is

3O Hedonism

much less scandalous. Perhaps a person who wants to maximize his lifetime hedono-doloric balance should think more about finishing college, embarking on a rewarding career, and finding a loving and loyal spouse.

2.3. The Hedonism ofAristippus One of the central themes that I want to urge in this book is a doctrine that I call ‘the plasticity of hedonism’. This is just a fancy way of indicating that I think that hedonism comes in many forms. Hedonism is really a fairly large family of axiological theories, rather than a particular theory. As a first illustration of this alleged plasticity, I would like very briefly to discuss the hedonism of Aristippus.

Aristippus of Cyrene (c. 435—350 BC) is generally recognized as the founder of the so—called Cyrenaic school of hedonism. He apparently wrote quite a lot, but nothing survives beyond a few supposedly witty remarks.6 The hedonism of Aristippus is alleged to be distinctive in several ways. For one thing, Aristippus is alleged (by Diogenes Laertius) to have maintained that physical, bodily pleasures are more valuable than mental, intellectual pleasures. It is not clear that this will require any alteration in the default hedonism, since the Aristippean view will be accommodated if we just assume that physical pleasures tend to be more intense than mental ones. Then the added intrinsic value of the physical over the mental will be guaranteed merely because we continue to say that more intense pleasures (ceteris paribus) are intrinsically better than less intense ones. So let us add a parenthetical remark in which we say this:

Physical pleasures are in general more intense than mental ones, and so episodes of physical pleasure generally contain more hedons than mental ones.

For a second thing, Aristippus is alleged to have said that we should go for near—term pleasures rather than long—term ones. This might be thought to be an integral component of his hedonism. Maybe he

6 Diogenes Laertius provides many examples of his humor. I will repeat just one of these examples here. Ans‘tippus worked in the court of Dionysius of Syracuse. According to the story, Dionysius spat upon Aristippus, but Aristippus didn’t make a fuss. When asked about this, Arts'tippus replied by saying: ‘If the fishermen let themselves be drenched with sea water in order to catch a gudgeon, ought I not to endure to be wetted with negus in order to take a blenny?’ Diogenes claims, on the basts' of remarks such as this', that in addition to his philosophical insight. Ans'tippus also had quite a remarkable sense of humor.

31Hedonism

thought that the value of a pleasure decreases as it gets further out in time. That would require some fairly extensive and subtle modifica- tions of DH. But a more reasonable view would be this: though future pleasures are just as valuable in themselves as same—size pre5ent pleas- ures, the future ones are so uncertain that it would be more prudent to go for the near-term ones. If interpreted in this way, this 15' not a view in axiology at all. Rather, it is a view about prudence: it is more prudent to pursue near-term pleasures, since you cannot be sure about your chances of achieving the pleasures of the future. In this case, we have no reason to modify our default hedonism at all. In deference to Aristippus, I will just add a parenthetical remark about the uncertainty of the future:

Since we have no way of knowing what the future will bring, it might be prudent to aim for near—term pleasures rather than tempor- ally distant ones (even if they in fact turn out to be of the same size).

For a third thing, it is said that Aristippus defended the notion that each person should pursue his own pleasure, perhaps because each person could never experience the pleasures of any other person. You can see hints of this sort of interpretation in the following passage from the Internet Encyclopedia. ofPhilosophy.- When the Cyrenaics say that ‘pleasure’ is the highest good, they do not mean that pleasure in general is good, so that we should seek to maximize the overall amount of pleasure in the world, as utilitarians say. Instead, they mean that, for each of us, our own pleasure is what is valuable to us, because that is what each of us seeks. Also, each of us can only experience our own pleasures, and not the pleasures of other people. Thus, the Cyrenaic view is a form of egoistic hedonism.8

These remarks seem to me to be problematic. One problem is that there seems to be some confusion of hedonism as a View in axiology with hedonistic egoism as a view about what sort of actions we should perform. The latter would be a doctrine in the normative ethics of behavior. Hedonism (as I understand it) says nothing about what we should do, or what we should seek. It says something about what’s intrinsically good. So the contrast between Aristippean hedonism and utilitarianism seems to be a case of apples and oranges.

7 I would find this doctrine troublesome, since it implies that the intrinsic value of a given episode of pleasure could change as it becomes closer in time. That seems to me wrong, since I think that every episode of pleasure has its intrinsic value in virtue of its intrinsic features. and distance in time is apparently not intrinsic. It would suggest that while the episode itself remains intrinsically unchanged, its value steadily increases as it gets temporally closer.

8 O’Keefe, ‘Cyrenaics’.

32 Hedonism

Secondly, there seems to be a confusion in the remark about what is valuable to us. Insofar as hedonistic utilitarians have a view about what is valuable to us, they mainly seem to agree with Aristippus— each person values his or her own pleasure.9 But hedonism is not a view about what is valuable to us. It is intended to be a view about what is intrinsically valuable. And Aristippus and Mill agree entirely about that—according to each of these views, every episode of pleasure is intrinsically good. From the fact that each person can experience only his own pleasures, nothing of any interest follows about the intrinsic value of pleasure. I am sure that Mill and Bentham and any other universalist hedonists would agree that each person experiences only his or her own pleasures. This has no bearing on what is of value.

I guess that if we wanted to incorporate something of this egoism, we could do it by adding another parenthetical remark. We could say that although all pleasures are intrinsically good, each person pursues (or should pursue, or has reason to pursue?) his own pleasures. Since the remark seems to me to have almost nothing to do with hedonism, I prefer to leave it out. I would prefer to let it appear in the statement of some egoistic theory about prudent, or morally right, behavior.

Relying on the remarks of Diogenes Laertius, we can formulate a variety of hedonism on behalf of Aristippus. It turns out, strangely enough, to be DH but with just a couple of parenthetical remarks added.

Aristippean Hedonism i Every episode ofpleasure is intrinsically good; every episode ofpain is

intrinsically bad. (But physw'al leasures tend to be much more intense, and hence tend to contain more hiedons ofpleasure, than mentalpleasures. And since near—term pleasures are more certain than far-off ones, it is prudent to pursue them instead of their temporally distant cousins.)

ii The intrinsic value ofan ape isode ofpleasure is equal to the number of hedons ofpleasure containe in that episode; the intrinsic value of an e isode of(gain is equal to — (the number of dolors ofpain contained in t at episo ).

iii. The intrinsw' value £0 a lfie is entirely determined by the intrinsic values of the e]; isodes ofp asure and pain contained in the life, in such a way that one ife is intrinsically better than another if'and only[[i the net amount ofpleasure in the one is greater than the net amount 0 pleasure in the other.

9 Mill notoriously seems to appeal to this very fact as a premise in his proof of utilitarianism in ch. 4 of Uttl'ita‘ria'nism: ‘Each person’s happiness is a good to that person, and the general hap- pin'ess, therefore, is a good to the aggregate of all persons,’ (Note that Mill explicitly defines hap- pm‘ess as ‘pleasure and the absence of pain’.)

33Hedonism

Like DH, Aristippean Hedonism, or “AH”, implies that every episode of pleasure is intrinsically good. We can therefore say that AH is also a form of universal sensory hedonism. AH also implies that the intrinsic value of a person’s life is determined entirely by the Ln'trm'sic values of the pleasures and pains occurring therein. No other thing (e.g., knowledge, virtue, freedom, goodwill) plays a similarly direct role in the determination of intrinsic values of complex things. Therefore, we can say that AH, again like DH, is a form of pure hedonism.

AH differs from DH in only a couple of respects. For one thing, AH contains the added claim that physical pleasures are generally more intense than mental ones. If this is understood as an empirical claim about real-life episodes of pleasure, then I am inclined to think that it might be true. (I have not done enough research to verify it.) However, in light of the possibility that these extra—intense physical pleasures might be more likely to lead to later pains, and some of those pains might be pretty intense, a cautious hedonist would not endorse the Aristippean notion that we should “go for the physical”. If someone is interested in piling up the largest possible lifetime supply of hedons, he might do well to bypass some very intense physical pleasures in favor of some rather milder mental ones. In the long run, this might be the pleasanter path to follow. Apparently, Aristippus advocated the riskier approach.

AH also differs from DH in its attitude toward time. According to AH, it is always (or perhaps only generally) more prudent to seek the near—term pleasure in preference to the more temporally distant one. DH says nothing about the temporal location of pleasures it would be prudent to pursue. This seems appropriate since, as I see it, axiological doctrines should stick to axiology and leave prudence to others.

On the face of it, however, the Aristippean claim seems unreason— able. Suppose you are given a choice of two pleasures. Suppose you are told on unimpeachable authority that the first pleasure would occur within the next five minutes, and would contain exactly 300 hedons. On the other hand, the second pleasure would occur tomorrow and would contain 10,000 hedons. Neither pleasure will lead to further pleasures or pains. Each is guaranteed. You cannot have both. AH, as I have formulated it, implies that you should pursue the much smaller near—term pleasure. This seems to me to be foolish. I am inclined to say, ‘Grow up. Learn to defer gratification. You only make things less good for yourself in the long run by choosing the near—term pleasure in a case such as this.’ In any case, the parenthetical remark about the alleged advantages of near-term pleasures is not an axiological doc— trine. It is an inessential (and dubious) claim about prudence.

34 Hedonism

But my aim here is not to refute AH. Rather, it is merely to show that AH is little more than a trivial variant of DH. In fact, it is just DH with some added non~axiological claims. This illustrates the plasticity of hedonism. So far, we have seen that it can take two forms.

I would like to present and explain some of the classic objections to hedonism. However, before I turn to that project, I want to discuss (briefly) another inadequate formulation of the view. Readers with little patience for this sort of thing are encouraged to move directly to Chapter 3.

APPENDIX A Another Defective Formulation

As I mentioned at the outset, when philosophers attempt to provide clear and accurate statements of the hedonistic doctrine, they often become entangled in a briar patch of confusion. I illustrated this in Chapter 2 by appeal to the formulation presented by William Frankena in his Ethics.

Another good example is provided by a passage from Richard BrandL Brandt has made enormous contributions to our understanding of hedonism, and his work is often insightful and well informed. Yet even he seemed to stumble when he tried to say what hedonism is. Here is the passage from Brandt’s Encyclopedia ofPlJilosoley article ‘Hedonism’, in which he gives his summary statement of the essence of hedonism:

[Ethical hedonism] is the thesis that only pleasant states of mind are desirable in themselves; that only unpleasant states of mind are undesirable in them- selves; and that one state of affairs is more desirable in itself than another state of affairs if and only if it contains more (in some sense) pleasant states of mind than the other (the quantity of value in a state of affairs being measured by the quantity of pleasure in it).1

As I see it, Brandt’s formulation of the hedonistic thesis is defective in several important ways.

a. Brandt says that hedonism involves the View that “pleasant states of mind are desirable in themselves”. This seems wrong. (I do not mean to say that the hedonism here is wrong. What I mean to say is that Brandt’s remark fails to express the thought that hedonists want to affirm.) Suppose I am tired and cranky. I take a nap and wake up refreshed and with new energy for the job at hand. I find this new state of mind (the state of mind of being refreshed and energetic) to be a pleasant state of mind. Brandt’s formulation suggests that hedonists then would want to say that this very state of mind is therefore desirable in itself. Yet no careful hedonist would want to say that. The careful hedonist miLuht want to saytliatrrtla‘eLlcasurc I get ‘from beingm'thisastateof miindifiswdeisirable i_n‘its#elf;2 the state of beingrefreshed and energetic is at most extrinsically desirable in virtue of its connections to the associated pleasure.

b. Brandt says that hedonism involves (A) the view that only pleasant states of mind are desirable in themselves and (B) the View that a state of affairs is more desirable in itself than another if and only if it contains “more pleasant states of mind”. In saying these two things, Brandt seems to have committed himself to a contradiction.

' Brandt, ‘Hedonism’, 432. 2 Other hedonists might want to say that what makes this a pleasant state of mind is the fact

that I take pleasure in it. In that case, it is not the pleasant state of mind that is good in itself; it is instead the pleasure that I take in this state of mind. I