Please join us in Auerbach 320 or online this Wednesday, Sept. 20, from 1 p.m. – 2 p.m., for our next meeting of the University of Hartford Philosophy Club as Brian Skelly presents for discussion: “The Case for Non-Hedonism (Not Anti-Hedonism)."
To join the meeting online, click here. If you have trouble joining, call Brian Skelly at 413.273.2273.
Hedonism is the theory that goodness is to be defined as pleasure. It is classified as a theory of metaethics, which is the study of goodness, our awareness of which is widely taken to be the material origin of our moral agency; the basic input to moral judgment. Although prospective goods can be elaborated and combined in the imagination ad infinitum into complex goods, none of this invention is ex nihilo, but rather is derived from the simple goods of which we are at first immediately or intuitively aware in our experience. Metaethics seeks to answer the question of what these goods are. The products of such investigation are called axiologies, or theories of value.
Hedonism is one attempt at accomplishing this, and it has a certain appeal, especially to the skeptic, who may hold out little hope in answering deeper questions about what human life is all about. In that sense, it is good news if hedonism is true. It would give us the grounds for an elegant theory of moral awareness based on something easily notable, and even, in a sense, measurable, in our experience. Its intuitive appeal also stems from the fact that pleasures are things we inherently like, while their opposite: pains, are things we inherently dislike. If good things are supposed to be likable things and bad things are supposed to be dislikable, why might it not be that pleasure is what defines goodness and pain evil? For the remainder of this essay, let it be tacitly understood that for whatever is alleged about pleasures, a counterpart allegation is intended for pains.
Hedonism is a theory with longstanding and far-reaching influence in the social sciences and the arts, as well as in philosophy and even to some extent theology. Most utilitarians are hedonists, even though the two are conceptually unrelated. Utilitarianism, as a normative ethical theory, i.e., seeking to answer the question of what makes right acts right, could just as easily be matched with a non-hedonist axiology. Its own intuitive appeal notwithstanding, this accidental association with utilitarianism is perhaps the key to the enduring influence of hedonism to our day, since utilitarianism’s popularity in the political, economic, and military sciences has carried hedonism with it. (See full document here.)
Brian Skelly’s publications include Introduction to Philosophy - Themes for Classroom and Reflection, Third Edition, Cognella, 2022. ISBN: 978-1-7935-2686-1; and Logic Between the Lines - Making Philosophical Sense of Logic and Logical Sense of Philosophy, Cognella, First Edition Coming out by the end of 2023.
An ongoing weekly tradition at the University since 2001, the University of Hartford Philosophy Club is a place where students, professors, and people from the community at large meet as peers. Sometimes presentations are given, followed by discussion. Other times, topics are hashed out by the whole group.
Presenters may be students, professors, or people from the community. Anyone can offer to present a topic. The mode of presentation may be as formal or informal as the presenter chooses.
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