2 upvotes, 5 direct replies (showing 5)
View submission: /r/philosophy Open Discussion Thread | January 27, 2025
Are there any good arguments against Psychological Hedonism?
The philosophy that everyone is a hedonist. It argues that all humans, consciously or unconsciously, act to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.
That even those who proclaim to choose paths of self sacrifice or altruism do so as it is what they unconsciously think will attain more pleasure. I guess it would relate a bit to Camus writings on inauthenticity.
Comment by Non_binaroth_goth at 01/02/2025 at 18:09 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Also, the existence of "pain as pleasure" or "pleasure as pain" put a grey area on this concept which isn't easily explained away.
Which would imply that hedonistic sensory approaches in and of themselves (like masochists) rule out the avoidance of pain and heightening of pleasure. As well, experiential and environmental differences can change someone's perception of, pleasure and pain.
Objective oriented people, seem to forgo both for an objective.
Comment by Kartonrealista at 30/01/2025 at 09:26 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I don't think phrasing it in terms of pain and pleasure is correct, but I don't disagree with the general idea.
There is some process in the human brain, a function, that decides whether we act or not. I would call it satisfaction. You can define it almost tautologically: if you're satisfied, you're not compelled to action, if you're not, you're compelled to do whatever you need to increase your satisfaction level. Keep in mind that this "satisfaction" can vary and even pain or sacrifice could be a part of it, depending on the person and their wiring.
You could rephrase it as "goal fulfillment", and that lays out a possible outline for morality (in a descriptive sense) not only of every single human, but also animal, computer program or any other agent capable of pursuing goals. Programmers like to call what I called satisfaction a "utility function".
Comment by CabinetEducational55 at 29/01/2025 at 14:25 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Well you could talk about Nietzche's principal idea of Ubermensch, this being try to find the source of what makes you feel that pain so you can fix it and become fulfilled. Also another interesting view on this matter would be that of Epicureanism, which it's main view is the idea that we should limit our emotions independently of them being good or bad as they create one another.
Comment by Sabotaber at 27/01/2025 at 23:49 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Is there a good argument to categorize everything in terms of pleasure in the first place? Just because you are precise does not mean you are hitting the target, which is the problem with attempting to define all of your concepts too rigidly.
To me pain is generally a signal that you are not paying enough attention to something important. I refuse to use pain killers because I know I need that feedback to function properly, and I know I need to be accustomed to pain to keep my sobriety in difficult situations. For example, when my mom was dying I was holding her hand, and I noticed my dad was just sitting off to the side while everyone else had their last moments with her. Instead of being crushed by despair I forced my dad to take my spot so he could hold her hand one last time. There was no reward for this. I was simply accustomed to pain, and that made me strong enough to do the right thing in that particular situation.
None of that means I think people should be tormented or be denied pleasure. What I care about is each thing serving its proper purpose. So I ask again: What sense is there in casting everything in terms of pleasure? Are you hitting the target?
Comment by Shield_Lyger at 27/01/2025 at 23:28 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I think the simplest argument against it is that it cannot prove its claims other than making them tautologies. After all, I can claim whatever I want about people who sacrifice themselves *because they'll never be around to contradict me*.
So in the end, either their statements make some sort of sense to you, or they don't. But I tend to find them tautological, precisely because there never seems to be any way to do otherwise; they simply declare that whatever course of action a person undertook was more pleasurable than the alternative. And if they need to invoke some sort of "unconscious" drive to get around being contradicted, then so be it.
In this sense, I don't think of it as a philosophy. Rather it's an unfalsifiable hypothesis. And that which cannot be falsified cannot be proven, either.