Its founder, Epicurus, agreed that pleasure is the greatest good, but he identified pleasure with tranquillity rather than bodily gratification, and emphasized the reduction of desire over the immediate acquisition of pleasure. They maintained that pleasure was the supreme good, especially physical pleasure, which Aristippus considered more intense and preferable to mental or intellectual pleasures, and especially immediate gratification, which he argued should not be denied for the sake of long-term gain.Įpicureanism is considered by some to be a form of ancient Hedonism. The Cyrenaics emphasized one side only of Socrates' teaching that happiness is one of the ends of moral action ( Eudaimonism), while denying that virtue has any intrinsic value. (although, arguably, Democritus had propounded a very similar philosophy even earlier). Perhaps the earliest example of Hedonism (and one of the most extreme) was the philosophy of the Cyrenaics, an early Socratic school founded by Aristippus of Cyrene, in the 4th Century B.C. In common language, Hedonism has come to mean devotion to pleasure as a way of life, especially to the pleasures of the senses, and is synonymous with sensualism, libertinism, debauchery and dissipation.
The term "hedonism" is derived from the Greek "hedone" meaning simply "pleasure". The Paradox of Hedonism (also called the Pleasure Paradox), points out that pleasure and happiness are strange phenomena that do not obey normal principles, in that they cannot be acquired directly, only indirectly and we often fail to attain pleasures if we deliberately seek them. A similar but more altruistic approach results in Utilitarianism, the position that the moral worth of any action is determined by its contribution to overall utility in maximizing happiness or pleasure as summed among all people. Epicureanism is a more moderate approach (which still seeks to maximize happiness, but which defines happiness more as a state of tranquillity than pleasure). Hedonism usually pre-supposes an individualist stance, and is associated with Egoism (the claim that individuals should always seek their own good in all things). It is the normative claim that we should always act so as to produce our own pleasure.
Ethical Hedonism, on the other hand, is the view that our fundamental moral obligation is to maximize pleasure or happiness. Psychological Hedonism is the view that humans are psychologically constructed in such a way that we exclusively desire pleasure. They believe that pleasure is the only good in life, and pain is the only evil, and our life's goal should be to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.
Hedonists, therefore, strive to maximize their total pleasure (the net of any pleasure less any pain or suffering). Hedonism is the philosophy that pleasure is the most important pursuit of mankind, and the only thing that is good for an individual.
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