Once upon a time, the ancient Greek king Odysseus and his crew arrived on an island inhabited by the Lotus Eaters. These people seemed to live in a state of perpetual pleasure and joy, spending their days eating the sweet fruit of the lotus plant. Curious, the sailors tried the lotus plant and soon fell under its powerful effect: they forgot all their worries and abandoned their other desires.
They even failed to remember the purpose of their journey and lost any longing for home, their families, and their children. The power of the lotus became apparent to Odysseus, as did the danger of taking it. Those who indulge in its pleasure forget about their responsibilities, become apathetic toward other aspects of their lives, and are only interested in satisfying their neverending hunger for the lotus.
With great effort, Odysseus dragged his weeping men back to the ship. Though they resisted, he eventually succeeded in leading them away from the island. The story of the Lotus Eaters serves as a cautionary tale about pleasure.
Indulging in pleasure often arouses an appetite for more. As soon as we’re hooked on a particular pleasure, it’s challenging to part from it. It’s no surprise that many philosophers and religious traditions warn against it.
Lust, greed, sloth, and gluttony are Christian ‘sins’ for a reason, and Buddhists see sensual pleasures as hindrances to enlightenment. Yet, there is a philosophical view that acknowledges the value of pleasure in human existence: hedonism. As a philosophical school of thought, hedonism views pleasure not just as an enjoyable experience but as the ultimate goal and highest pursuit of human life.
This video explores hedonism as a philosophy and why the pursuit of pleasure is actually pretty profound. If you want to support Einzelgänger, consider joining my Patreon page, which allows access to ad-free videos, bonus content, and free merch. Thank you, and I hope you’ll enjoy this video.
We can’t deny pleasure is an important aspect of life. The human tendency to pursue pleasure and avoid pain seems to be a natural occurrence. Some argue that all human actions are driven by the desire for pleasure and the avoidance of pain, a view known in philosophical psychology as ‘psychological hedonism.
’ Given the human tendency toward pleasure, many ancient philosophers have explored its significance and even developed ethical systems centered on its pursuit. The earliest record of a hedonistic philosophy is found in an old Babylonian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh, saying: “Fill your belly. Day and night make merry.
Let days be full of joy. Dance and make music day and night… These things alone are the concern of men. ” Another early concept of hedonism is found in an ancient, atheist Hindu school, the Charvaka, which saw wealth and pleasure as the only rational goals worth striving for by a wise person (although they considered wealth purely a means for attaining pleasure).
Then, we have the ancient Greek hedonistic schools, which expanded on the pursuit of pleasure in detail and gave birth to “ethical hedonism. ” We’ll dive into these schools later. Pleasure also has its place within non-hedonistic traditions.
For example, there’s Christian hedonism, which sounds a bit contradictory. Aren’t Christians supposed to be prudent and lovers of God rather than lovers of pleasure? American Theologian John Piper believed that pleasure is vital to worshipping God, saying, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.
” He thought we should worship God not out of duty but out of delight. He wasn’t advocating for food, sex, and partying as the ultimate goals of a Christian but rather affirmed that humans are, by nature, pleasure-seeking beings rather than solely motivated by duty and virtue. Nevertheless, pleasure-seeking as the highest goal generally doesn’t get a good rep in major religious traditions or philosophical schools.
Why is that? Perhaps one of the reasons is that the pursuit of pleasure can be a dangerous trap. The story of the Ring of Gyges, found in Plato’s Republic, tells of a shepherd named Gyges who discovers a ring that grants him the power of invisibility.
Embracing his newfound power, he went to the royal palace, where he seduced the queen, murdered the king, and seized the throne. According to Glaucon, Plato’s brother, Gyges’ actions weren’t surprising. After all, aren’t people ultimately motivated by desires for pleasure and the avoidance of pain?
The ring simply removed the barriers between the shepherd and formerly inaccessible pleasures. Once he gained access, he indulged without fear of consequences—something any human being would do, according to Glaucon. Socrates, however, didn’t agree with Glaucon.
According to him, not everyone would follow in Gyges’ footsteps: just and virtuous people wouldn’t use the ring’s power for selfish pursuits. The story nonetheless shows the dangers of unrestrained pleasure-seeking, which can easily lead to what many people consider immoral behavior. We don’t have to look far to see the destructive effects of greed and how addiction destroys lives.
For example, we can see how greed leads to theft and exploitation. People have been enslaved and murdered because of greed. Hence, it’s no surprise that many traditions have chained the human pursuit of pleasure.
Some go as far as engaging in asceticism, which we could consider in many ways the opposite of hedonism. Others see the pursuit of pleasure as a hindrance to achieving a higher goal, such as spiritual enlightenment in Buddhism, as mentioned earlier. Christians often associate excessive pleasure-seeking with sin, leading to immoral behavior and separation from God, which is similar to the Islamic position.
For the hedonist, stuff like superhuman entities and virtue are meaningless. Pleasure is what life is about. Eating a nice meal is more meaningful than prayers, and instead of going to church, why not go partying?
The latter is probably much more fun. But what about the dangers of pleasure-seeking? We surely don’t want to end up as the Lotus Eaters, and we also don’t want to have people like Gyges walking around.
Ancient hedonist philosophers were very aware of the dangers of an unrestrained and, say, ‘unwise’ pursuit of pleasure. Therefore, Aristippus of Cyrene, founder of the ancient Greek Cyrenaic school, established ‘ethical hedonism,’ which teaches that immediate pleasure is the highest good and should be pursued but… with care. As a pupil of Socrates, Aristippus of Cyrene saw his teacher’s enjoyment of parties, drinking wine, and receiving gifts.
Hence, he realized the importance of pleasure and its role in a happy life and created the philosophy of ethical hedonism. According to his view, pleasure and pursuing pleasure is life’s supreme good. Even though Aristippus was a student of Socrates, he adopted different philosophical views.
Socrates didn’t reject pleasure as a whole but held that virtue is the only and highest human good, and the pursuit of pleasure is subordinate to it. Aristippus disagreed. He stated: “I assign myself to those who want to live as easily and pleasantly as possible.
” When Aristippus expressed his views, he faced criticism from Socrates and many of his followers. But that didn’t stop Aristippus from founding the Cyrenaic school in the fourth century BC. Aristippus was quite the party animal.
He pursued anything pleasurable, from bodily pleasures like eating and having sex to the joy of a peaceful mind. He paid for his lifestyle by charging people for his wisdom, unlike Socrates, who didn’t accept payments. Aristippus believed in his product: he considered his education highly valuable and more than worth the fee.
The book The Birth of Hedonism: The Cyrenaic Philosophers and Pleasure as a Way of Life written by Kurt Lampe states: In fact many of our sources go further, and suggest that Aristippus not only values eating, drinking, having sex, and avoiding hard work, but indeed prefers to do so in style. End quote. The Cyrenaics believed that pleasure was the highest good, and they logically defended this view.
They stated that the goodness of pleasure and the badness of pain is self-evident. The experience of both pain and pleasure proves whether it’s good or bad. Furthermore, they saw the experience of pleasure and pain as the only reliable experience of the external world.
We interpret the external world through our senses: seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling. Our senses pick up information, which, we assume, comes from an external realm and thus generate our experiences. But what we perceive aren’t the things in themselves, thought the Cyrenaics; it’s the sensory information from our senses.
So, the Cyrenaics believed that we can’t really know the outside world. Let’s take a look at colors, for example. I cannot know if what I perceive as yellow is the same yellow someone else perceives.
Even though we collectively call a specific external appearance ‘yellow,’ who knows: maybe you see yellow as I see purple? So, how certain can we be about the external world? How can we truly understand what’s virtuous or not or what’s good and evil?
Most of these things are based on manmade ideas. Pain and pleasure, on the other hand, give direct information. In his book, Lampe describes it as follows, and I quote: We can think of this as a two-tiered argumentative strategy.
First, the fact that pleasure is satisfying and pain is repellent is unmistakably given in the experiences themselves. Second, if you insist on looking beyond your own self-evident experiences and “meddling” in debates about external reality, you will conclude that other percipients universally agree about the motivational properties of pleasure and pain. End quote.
When a dog bites you, your pain tells you you’re in trouble: it’s a direct message that something is wrong. We don’t have to think or philosophize about it: being bitten by a dog is painful; therefore, according to the Cyrenaics, it’s bad. And most likely, we universally agree on this unpleasantness of being bitten by a dog unless, maybe, you have a weird fetish for it.
On the other hand, a nice, tasty plate of food brings immediate pleasure to someone hungry. Again, we don’t have to think about it. The immediate message we get when eating the food is pleasure.
Thus, food is good. According to Lampe, the ethical core of the Cyrenaic theory of experiences is calling physical pleasure the “end of good things” and physical pain the “end of bad things. ” Interestingly, mental pleasures, such as reading a book or checking out paintings in a museum, are also good but not the “end.
” Physical pleasures, due to their intensity, belong in the S tier. So, being at a party and talking philosophy with a friend is nice, but it cannot match the enjoyment of making out with a cutie a couple of drinks later. However, Aristippus stated that we should be cautious.
Unlike the Lotus Eaters, we shouldn’t let our pleasures take us over. We should control our pleasures, not the other way around. “I possess, I am not possessed,” said Aristippus.
Pleasure goes wrong if it governs our lives, as is the case with addiction. Aristippus also taught “to be disdainful of excess,” which may sound contradictory. After all, if pleasure is good, isn’t more pleasure better?
Not necessarily. According to Aristippus, enough is enough: at some point, our sources of pleasure are more than plentiful to live a pleasurable life. What’s the experiential difference between owning two luxurious villas or twenty?
If a luxurious villa grants pleasure, don’t twenty of them offer even greater pleasure? Suppose the answer is yes, we may overlook one thing: the cost of pleasure. If our demand for pleasure (which is good) is excessive, we also risk pain (which is bad).
And this pain may nullify and even grow more prominent than the pleasure. Suppose you want to buy a Ferrari because driving in a Ferrari brings a lot of joy. But if buying that Ferrari means you’ll have to work 80 hours a week for five years, is the cost worth the pleasure?
Imagine all the stress and toil you’ll have to endure. It may even be better to steal a Ferrari. Or not.
Stealing surely doesn’t sound “ethical. ” However, according to Cyrenaics, there’s nothing wrong with stealing in itself. But whether or not stealing a Ferrari would be acceptable depends on the risk.
Let’s revisit the story about Gyges and the ring and how an ethical hedonist deals with perceived vices such as theft and murder. The Cyrenaics didn’t see those things as vices in themselves but looked at the potential consequences when engaging in these things to gain pleasure. For example, murdering a man to obtain his wallet may eventually result in disturbances many times greater than the pleasure of having acquired some cash: when caught, your deed will likely result in imprisonment or even the death sentence.
So, if Gyges could prevent himself from getting caught, his actions would probably be acceptable. Hence, it’s essential to choose your pleasures wisely. After Aristippus founded the Cyrenaic school, many other hedonistic philosophers emerged, such as Hegesias, Anniceris, and Theodorus the Godless.
For the sake of time, I won’t explore them, but if you’re interested, I highly recommend the book by Kurt Lampe. Now, let’s jump to a well-known hedonist philosopher with a pretty different outlook on pleasure-seeking. In today’s society, we are constantly bombarded with advertisements and social media showing people flaunting their fancy cars and designer clothes.
It’s almost like the highest attainable life is one of lavish pleasures, which seems to be the ultimate representation of hedonism. If pleasure is the highest good, aren’t we excelling by living lives filled with expensive houses, exclusive restaurants, and extravagant indulgences? The Cyrenaics would find today’s world quite appealing.
Pleasures are widely available, and we’ve become masters at reducing human suffering, particularly physical suffering. However, excessive pleasures, wealth, status as societal ideals, and the overabundance of pleasures would also make it challenging not to overindulge. Also, our society’s imperative to achieve, which romanticizes working ourselves into an early grave, means we risk experiencing lots of pain (in the form of stress, burnout, depression, anxiety, etc.
) in an attempt to gain pleasure. Nevertheless, Aristippus would have the time of his life if he could avoid the pain of hard work and excess and not get into trouble. So, even for the Cyrenaics, a 500 million dollar mega yacht would be too much.
Fine dining, a big house, and driving a nice car would be hedonistically preferable, but if you have to grind 70 hours a week for that, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. It’s just too much pain. In the third century, a philosopher named Epicurus appeared.
Epicurus, a hedonist sage, developed his philosophy of pleasure, which even more offsets today’s pursuit of lavish pleasures, wealth, and status. Compared to the Cyrenaics, Epicurus was moderate. To him, Aristippus was a bit too reckless.
Also, Epicurus carefully distinguished between pleasures that are worth pursuing and those that are not. For example, he distinguished natural and vain desires. Vain desires, Epicurus believed, are not worth pursuing.
Vain desires are power, fame, and extreme material wealth. Epicurus observed that such desires don’t have natural limits: they cannot be naturally satisfied. Usually, the more power one gains, the hungrier one becomes for power.
Hence, superwealthy technofeudalists such as Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Besos still seek to increase their wealth. To Epicurus, focusing on vain desires never satisfies. And let’s face it.
If you always need more, it’s pretty difficult to sustain happiness and satisfaction, which, for Epicurus, should be the goal of attaining pleasure. Also, vain desires are usually tricky to obtain and easy to lose, meaning that, in pursuing them, our happiness becomes expensive and fragile. So, what’s left are natural desires, which Epicurus splits into necessary and unnecessary.
Eating in a luxurious restaurant is pleasurable, but is it necessary to be satisfied? The same goes for fancy clothing; it’s nice to wear but not essential for happiness. And if you think sex is a necessary desire, think again.
According to Epicurus, sex isn’t needed to be happy and satisfied. Epicurus’ belief that pleasure is our highest good makes him a hedonist. But his aim for only a carefully selected category of ‘natural, necessary desires’ sets him apart from his predecessors.
According to Epicurus, ‘necessary desires’ are necessary because we’ll be in pain if we don’t satisfy them. What are these desires? Food, shelter, rest, and friendship.
These essentials for a happy life are generally widely available and affordable. By pursuing these pleasures, we hit two targets with one shot. First, we experience the joy of satisfying our basic desires, such as eating, which Epicurus called ‘moving pleasures,’ which involve an active stimulation of the senses.
And we attain this pleasure without much effort, as food is generally widely available. After we’ve fulfilled this desire, the best pleasure of all arises, which Epicurus called ‘static pleasure. ’ Static pleasure is the contentment of being satisfied.
When there’s no sense of lack, one experiences static pleasure. Epicureanism was a popular philosophy from its beginning. However, in the first and second centuries, this philosophy experienced a decline, mainly because it could not compete with Stoicism.
The rise of Christianity caused further decline. The Cyrenaics’ views on pleasure and pain, and these experiences being the only reliable ones as opposed to an outside world we can never truly know, I found very interesting. Ancient hedonistic philosophy is actually far more nuanced and ethical than the unrestrained indulgence typically associated with hedonism.
Also, the Epicurean approach to life may just be what we need in times of rampant consumerism, stress, depression, and anxiety. Even though ancient hedonistic schools like those of the Cyrenaics and Epicureans are no longer active, the principles of hedonism continue to influence philosophy. An example is utilitarianism, developed by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, which I might explore in the future.
Thank you for watching.
