Hedonism and enslavement

I'd never deny myself anything I could afford. Why would you? Do you think it grants you some sort of spiritual credit?

everything in moderation my friend.

If I see something as wrong even though it might unguidingly stimulate a sense of pleasure, then I would want to change that feeling. Most people have been through this. For example if a person I hated got hurt, I might at one instant feel a sense of joy, but in realizing that it is wrong for someone to be hurt, I am disturbed by the feeling or I'd change it right away.

Is it a spiritual credit? perhaps, but I don't think about it as a
selfish gain and I don't want to get into this spirituality stuff now that it's associated with New Age stuffs.

Feelings are motivators that need to be guided. One can feel pain or pleasure for the wrong things so one must control their feelings. This to me is living rightly.

Re: Hedonism and enslavement
Ray

I believe, like most of ancient greek philosophers did, that our goal in life is to reach pleasure. The question is: what is pleasure?
Epicurus said that there is no greater pleasure that the absence of pain. And he included in the notion of pain, hunger, thirst, cold, need to sleep and so on. But eating when you are not hungry, drinking to the point of become drunk, using luxuriant clothes only by vanity, are examples of a wrongly understood pleasure.
I think Greeks had the key regarding pleasure: moderation.

I disagree with this. Pleasure and pain are just motivators. Did not Aristotle mention in the Nichomachean Ethics that abstaining from pleasure is one part of virtue development?
I believe that contentment and truth is the goal in life. True happiness is contentment.

No ?

If pleasure and pain are both motivators and you are attempting to develope virtue by eliminating pleasure, well then that's quite a masochistic, puritan path to take.

whatever floats your mayflower

Masochism is the desire for pain, which is totally opposite of what I am suggesting. Masochism is a psychological disorder and is not what I was talking about.

We must associate pleasure and pain for the appropriate things, and never let our decision be solely made on whether something gives us pleasure or not. Our state of being is not a state of "pleasure", for a state of pleasure never lasts long anyways, and if it does, it will lead to an excess which can equate to as much suffering as pain does.

Aristotle mentioned something about abstaining from pleasure, and this just means that we must know when to abstain from drinking alcohol, sex, etc, for they gives pleasure but does not give happiness.

Happiness is not a feeling of pleasure. I believe that we don't live for pleasure.

But Ray, why talking only about alcohol and sex? If you are very, very thirsty and you drink a glass of water, you feel pleasure, not happiness.

Imagine another situation: you love the piano and want to be a pianist. In order to achieve that goal, you must study and play for years arid exercises from Czerny or Clementi. They give you - believe me - no pleasure. But your fingers learn. And one day you are able to play a Beethoven's Sonata. Then you reach pleasure. And that is what you wanted since the beginning.
I don't see how someone can be happy without pleasure.

Val, Your example of the pianist struggling to build his or her chops validates Ray's argument of pleasure and pain being motivators. The pleasure one gains from mastering a difficult piece is the motivation for plowing through the grueling, repetitive practice.

Ray, I do understand what you are saying, and it is a respectable, virtuous position to take. However, I have to agree with Val in that I don't see how someone could be happy without pleasure.

If I follow you correctly, you are talking about abstaining from pleasure as much as possible in hopes of obtaining the highest level of virtue. However, I think pleasure and happiness, or "contentment" are really one in the same.

Would not following through with your idea of abstaining from pleasure eventually give you pleasure for your actions? Do you not take pleasure in your elevated virtue?

Deep Conditioning inherent in the system
Because of the deep unsconscious conditioning inherent in -almost- all humans, it is not a suprise for the natural movement of the domesticated primates ("humans") would be into extremest hedonism, particularly, materialistic hedonism .
Most people don't like the idea of fate or conditioning, but cause and effect is a reality - or a truth you might say- and the effect is subtle but devastating. Internal rapture can be derived from contentment, and slothful hedonistic behaviors make one's mind far too chaotic for any sort of true contentment, because one's happiness is derived from feeling, not of experience (or pure mind).

Then again there are those with the attitude "This is my one and only life, why waste it?", and in one respect I could not agree more. Why waste life on temporary pleasures when the sea of infinite joy, lies within your grasp. Thats what I thought was logical, infinite capacity as oppose to limited, cold mechanisms. In the end only wisdom prevails. I see no wisdom in hedonism, prove me wrong if you disagree.

Ray:

I think your definition of Hedonism is flawed. Your definition of ethical pleasure is that more pleasure is better. This is the Cyrianic definition of pleasure and leads to orgies and drug use until the person is dead.

The Epicurean definition of pleasure is: 'The cessation of pain.' There is not intermediate state - when you have done something (say eat to rid yourself of hunger pains) that gives you pleasure - if you do too much you are back into pain. This defines in the concept of moderation and gives a sucessful ethical standard for life.

Epictetus could never define how one knows when they have gotten to 'happiness' (Eudomonia) - and Epicurus said that the only way to know you are happy is to feel happy - and that is pleasure.

So the real question, Ray - is how do you know that you are happy - without feeling happy?

TF

I always wanted a really big pianist but alas it's just regular sized...

Thanks for the Vulcan history - I was feeling too 'ungeek' and you seemed to have cured it for me.



TF

For some reason, it seemed appropriate, but I'm a free assosciator. Other than that, I really enjoyed your last post on the nature of hedonism, but I always enjoy your posts. I wish you a hedonistic holiday of the Epicurean variety.

Thanks Cav - you too. I am a free associator too - but I can't bring to bear that much Star Trek knowledge.

I do think 7 of 9 is hot though.... so...

TF

If you are very thirsty and you drink a glass of water, you feel "delight" or "relief" for a slight instant and then your state of mind goes to back to the original state of moderation. Thirst is a need for water, and your body insures that you get to drink that water by making you feel pleasure at the instant you drink the water. The satisfaction afterwards could very well be the absence of that pleasure and of the pain.



All one has to do to "feel" happy without pleasure is to like the state of being one is in. You don't have to feel the chemical induced pleasure derived from a certain thing. Aristotle's Eudaimonia is a state of flourishing not a feeling, and I do agree with him to an extent.



Actually, that's not quite what I'm saying.
Feel pleasure where pleasure "should" be felt and feel pain where pain "should" be felt. I think of pleasure as something chemically induced that motivates someone to a certain thing. I don't see it as something that we should base our decisions on.

My elevated virtue would give me pleasure, and rightly so, but it is not the "reason" I choose the certain path.

Perhaps my definition of pleasure conflicts with yours. Let me explain my stance thoroughly:

Pleasure and pain are "feelings" that are chemically induced to motivate someone to something or to avoid something. These feelings do not last. Our normal state of satisfaction is absence of the feeling pleasure and pain; one can associate this state as the "highest pleasure" but it is technically not a "feeling" of pleasure but that of contentment.
Now, what I am suggesting is that we guide our feelings of pleasure and pain to the appropriate things so as to live rightly.

I really don't think that we live for pleasure. Sometimes I feel oddly more in touch with reality when I am depressed.



If you are satisfied with yourself then you "feel" happy.

Hope I clarified...

One more thing: how one associate certain pleasures are a result of past experiences, and these experiences might not be good experiences, so if one sees something wrong with one's feeling, then certainly one must change the association of pleasure to other things or cease to associate the feeling of pleasure to the certain thing.