UNIVERSITY OF THE EAST

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES-MANILA

DEPARTMENT OF HUMANITIES AND PHILOSOPHY

LECTURE NOTES IN ETHICS

CLASS OF DR. ALLAN C. ORATE

MODULE 9
Ethical Theory of Hedonism
M9. TOPIC OVERVIEW

We cannot deny that one supreme goal of human life is to be happy in the sensual terms of
enjoyment, delight, gratification, satisfaction, comfort, convenience. Popular sayings refer to this
view as: “Live life to the full,” “Express yourself,” “Just do it,” “Kung saan ka masaya, di
suportahan ta ka. We desire to experience pleasure and to avoid pain. We dedicate all our works
and actions for the pursuit of pleasant life for ourselves, our family and our society. The principle
that pleasure and pain are the determinants of the morality of human acts is central to the ethical
teachings of hedonism and utilitarianism. Generally, these theories both assert that a good act is
the one that leads to pleasurable experience, and an evil act is the one that leads to painful
experience. But they differ in theorizing about what exactly are the acts that constitute real pleasure
and real pain, to whom they are done and how much amount of sensual values they contain. The
main difference in particular is that, for hedonism pleasure, as the basis of good act, is measured
by the personal and subjective sensation experienced by the individual agent; while for
utilitarianism, it is conditioned by the collective experiences of people in the community.

M9. OBJECTIVES

At the end of the lessons, the students are expected to:

1. Compare and contrast hedonism with other ethical theories.
2. Exemplify some human acts to which hedonism is employed.
3. Evaluate the moral quality of an act based on hedonism.
4. Apply the principles of hedonism to ethical reasoning and decision-making.

M9. READINGS

M9. Reading 1. The Ethics Center, Ethics Explainer: Hedonism,” in https://ethics.org.au/ethics-

explainer-hedonism/.
M9. Reading 2. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2004), “Hedonism” in
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hedonism/.
M9. Reading 3. Big Think (2022), “Are we naturally hedonist? Here’s what Epicurus thought,” in
https://bigthink.com/thinking/are-we-naturally-hedonists/.

LECTURE NOTES IN ETHICS PREPARED BY DR. ALLAN C. ORATE 1

 M9. VIDEOS

M9. Video 1. TED Ed, “Would you opt for a life with no pain? – Harley Levitt and Bethany
Rickward,” in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNP1x11Z2Ig.
M9. Video 2. PHILO-Notes, “What is hedonism?” in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ELLBLwv_Hc.
M9. Video 3. The School of Life, “PHILOSOPHY - Epicurus,” in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg_47J6sy3A

M9. LECTURE

HEDOS MEANS “PLEASURE”

Came from the Greek hedos that means “pleasure,” hedonism is mainly a philosophy of
human life which believes that man exists in this world only for the sake of personally experiencing
pleasure. It declares the dictum: “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you die.” From the
perspective of ethics, hedonism asserts that the good life for an individual is the pleasant life he
experiences for himself while being alive in this world. Tending to become egoistic in their
attitude, the hedonists act only for their own pleasure and for the avoidance of their own pain.

There are two versions of hedonist ethics: the Extreme Hedonism by Aristippus and the
Moderate Hedonism by Epicurus. Both theories believe that pleasure is the only intrinsic good
while pain is the only intrinsic evil, and that it is the nature of human beings to desire for and
perform acts that are pleasurable for them, and to avoid desiring for and doing those acts that are
painful for them. The two doctrines differ, however, as to their particular conception of what
constitutes a superior form of pleasure. For Aristippus, pleasure is an intense and temporal bodily
satisfaction and it is experienced by a person by means of active sensation. While for Epicurus,
real pleasure is an enduring peace of mind achieved by a person through the passive control of
sensual inclinations.

Hedonism discusses the essence of ethical life according to the following concepts: the
physical composition of man, the nature of pleasure and how it is practiced by man during the
present life, and the inevitable reality of death.

EXTREME AND SENSUAL PLEASURE

Hedonism was first proposed in theory by Aristippus (c. 435-350 BC) who also lived its
principles in practice. Very wealthy with highly extravagant and discriminating lifestyle,
Aristippus founded the Greek school of hedonistic philosophy called Cyrenaics. He objected
against the purely intellectualist tradition of his mentor Socrates, and profounded an ethical theory
of man based on sensualist thinking and attitude.

According to Aristippus, man is composed of physical body naturally inclined towards

pleasure and away from pain. The greatest pleasure is life because within it all sensual pleasures
take place. The greatest pain is death because it takes away all the possibilities of pleasure. The
fact of our human existence is that we live only once, and death is our ultimate end, and all of us
will inevitably die. What we have to do in this world, therefore, is to grab the opportunity of having

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this single life by actively experiencing the maximum amount of pleasure that we can possibly
possess while we live, and by getting rid of the maximum amount of pain until we die.

Pain is evil in itself, and it is negative being the absence of pleasure. Only pleasure is
intrinsically good and the only positive thing in life. Pleasure is described as forms of bodily and
physical sensations that an individual person finds enjoyable and gratifying. It is subjective,
relative, limited and temporal. The only standard of judging what act is good is the one that brings
“the most intense sensual pleasure of the moment.”

Acts of pleasure are characterized by two important quantification principles: intensity and
duration. The experience of the intensity of sensual pleasure is measured by the feeling of
satisfaction or dissatisfaction by the agent similar to the amount of sharpness in scratching the itch
in the body. The more intense the itch, the more intense it needs scratching to be satisfied. And
the more internal the scratching is, the more intense the pleasure becomes. The wind touching, or
some sort of rubbing, the body brings gentle pleasure. But eating is more pleasurable because it
scratches the internal parts of the body. The most intense, internal bodily scratching is sexual
pleasure.

Pleasure has a temporal duration. It is experienced by a person within only a period of time,
that is, right at the moment when the sensation exists. The past is over and the future is not yet,
thus, the experience of pleasure is only at the present. But the present pleasure does not last because
it is limited and time passes away. We, therefore, need to keep on experiencing pleasures
repeatedly, moment by moment, in order to maximize its effect. And since at the end all of us will
die, but we do not know when, we have to take every present moment always to be an occasion
for pleasure so that our lives may not be wasted and that when we finally die, at least we die of
pleasure.

Extreme hedonism teaches that there are only three basic human acts, all dedicated for the
pursuit of physical pleasures of the body: eating and drinking to nourish the body, sleeping to rest
the body, and having sex to enjoy bodily sensations. Anyone who undergoes intensely the cycle
of these acts has lived until death a one, momentary experience of pleasure to the full—the only
good and pleasant life in this world.

REAL PLEASURE: MODERATE AND PEACEFUL LIFE

Born in Samos, Epicurus (341-270 BC) went to Athens and established a secluded school,
called the Garden, where he taught his disciples and lived with them. Most of the original texts by
Epicurus have been lost. But his doctrines were recorded in On the Nature of Things by his student
Lucretius Carus, and in the remaining fragments of his writings such as his Letter to Menoeceus
where he stated his theory of the good life.

According to Epicurus, humans are material beings like everything else in the universe.
The soul, the principle of life, is constituted by refined matters moving in the body. Sensations are
caused by these matters in motion. Death is the disintegration of these material elements, hence
there is no afterlife. God exists, as proven by our clear knowledge of him. But we must not expect
for God’s supreme rewards or punishments for our acts because, by his inherent blessedness, God
does not meddle with human affairs. We are left alone in this world to care for ourselves and

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determine the course of our own lives. By nature we seeks pleasure according to hedonism. But,
Epicurus adds, by knowledge we are guided by the choice of real pleasure.

The hedonist ethics by Epicurus stresses that “good and evil consist in sensations,” but
sensations directed by reason and virtue. So as Aristippus identifies the good and pleasant life with
the extreme physical sensations of the body, Epicurus believes that, although successive sensual
enjoyments are not in themselves objectionable, real pleasure cannot be constituted by the intense
physical satisfaction of the body alone, but also by an enduring peace of mind.

Real pleasure results from the experience of moderation decided by the mind. In actual
experience, too much sensations lead to pain, in a way that too much scratching wounds the skin;
and it is reason that tells how much amount of scratching is just enough. Also, there are pains that
have to be confronted or pleasures that have to be delayed at the present moment in order to avoid
greater burden or for the sake of greater satisfaction in the future, such as some delicious foods to
be avoided for the sake of better health. And there are pleasures that can be achieved only after
much pains have been encountered, like the satisfaction of winning in the Olympics after severe
training.

The wisdom and capacity to control oneself is the virtue of prudence. Prudent persons
understand the future outcomes of their momentary acts, and decides whether these acts are worth
doing or not for the sake of more lasting pleasure. For some students, watching television late at
night might be more pleasurable than studying their lessons. But when they know that there would
be an exam the next day, prudence dictates when to stop watching television and starts studying
the lessons for the sake of passing the exam and so that they could sleep the whole night without
being troubled by the thoughts of failure in their minds.

Real pleasures derived from acts of prudence are not, therefore, the positive pleasures
achieved through active accumulation of bodily sensations, like eating delicious foods as one
pleases. Instead, they are the negative pleasures brought by the passive acceptance of not
experiencing any pain, such as absence of hunger by means of proper eating or absence of
constipation due to overeating. The pleasant life is, finally, the state of mental serenity, called
ataraxia, negatively characterized by “freedom from trouble in the mind and pain in the body.”

One greatest mental torture in human life is the fear of death. According to Epicurus, we
have to release our minds from the fear of our own mortality by realizing that “death is nothing to
us” while we live because it has not yet come, and when it does come to us, we don’t feel anything
for we no longer exist.

Epicurus teaches that ideally we need to uphold justice in our dealings with other people
in the society. The laws by the state enforce justice as they attempt to equally protect all men from
injuries towards common good. But in actual practice, the society and its citizens are hardly just
at all times. The incidents of social injustice are the source of pain in human relations. The best
way to protect ourselves from the misconduct of our fellow men is to “release ourselves from the
prison of affairs and politics” by withdrawing from the mainstream society and live private lives
with the selected circles of friends who share common interests in mental serenity.

LECTURE NOTES IN ETHICS PREPARED BY DR. ALLAN C. ORATE 4