Paradox of hedonism

Template:Short descriptionTemplate:Over-quotationTemplate:Utilitarianism The paradox of hedonism, also called the pleasure paradox, refers to the practical difficulties encountered in the pursuit of pleasure. For the hedonist, constant pleasure-seeking may not yield the most actual pleasure or happiness in the long term when consciously pursuing pleasure interferes with experiencing it.

The utilitarian philosopher Henry Sidgwick was first to note in The Methods of Ethics that the paradox of hedonism is that pleasure cannot be acquired directly.<ref name="Paradox of Hedonism">Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Unreliable source? Variations on this theme appear in the realms of philosophy, psychology, and economics.

Quotations

Template:Hedonism Failing to attain pleasures while deliberately seeking them has been variously described:

Suggested explanations

Happiness is often imprecisely equated with pleasure. If, for whatever reason, one does equate happiness with pleasure, then the paradox of hedonism arises. When one aims solely towards pleasure itself, one's aim is frustrated. Henry Sidgwick comments on such frustration after a discussion of self-love in the above-mentioned work:

I should not, however, infer from this that the pursuit of pleasure is necessarily self-defeating and futile; but merely that the principle of Egoistic Hedonism, when applied with a due knowledge of the laws of human nature, is practically self-limiting; i.e., that a rational method of attaining the end at which it aims requires that we should to some extent put it out of sight and not directly aim at it.<ref>Henry Sidgwick. The Methods of Ethics. BookSurge Publishing (1 March 2001) (p. 3)</ref>

While not addressing the paradox directly, Aristotle commented on the futility of pursuing pleasure. Human beings are actors whose endeavours bring about consequences, and among these is pleasure. Aristotle then argues as follows:

How, then, is it that no one is continuously pleased? Is it that we grow weary? Certainly all human things are incapable of continuous activity. Therefore pleasure also is not continuous; for it accompanies activity.<ref>Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, Book X, page 4</ref>

Sooner or later, finite beings will be unable to acquire and expend the resources necessary to maintain their sole goal of pleasure; thus, they find themselves in the company of misery. Evolutionary theory explains that humans evolved through natural selection and follow genetic imperatives that seek to maximize reproduction,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> not happiness. According to David Pearce, the extent of human happiness is limited biologically by a genetically determined baseline level of well-being that cannot be permanently altered through environmental improvements alone. He argues in his treatise The Hedonistic Imperative that humans might be able to use genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and neuroscience to eliminate suffering in all human life and allow for peak levels of happiness and pleasure that are currently unimaginable.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Competing philosophies seek to balance hedonism with good acts and intentions, thus "earning" the pleasure.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

• Altruism
• Anti-consumerism
• Cognitive dissonance
• Crab mentality
• Easterlin paradox
• False pleasure
• Hedonic treadmill
• Intrinsic value
• Negative hedonism
• Leisure satisfaction
• Psychological egoism
• Rat race
• Tantalus
• Willpower paradox
• Wireheading

Further reading

• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1175, 3–6 in The Basic Works of Aristotle, Richard McKeon ed. (New York: Random House, 1941)
• John Stuart Mill, Autobiography in The Harvard Classics, Vol. 25, Charles Eliot Norton, ed. (New York: P. F. Collier & Son Company, 1909)
• Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics (London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1874/1963)

External links

• Template:IEP
• Konow, James, & Joseph Earley. "The Hedonistic Paradox: Is homo economicus happier?" Journal of Public Economics 92, 2008.