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Main features of hedonism
Essay about hedonism
Hedonism what is it
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The Implausibility of Ataraxia Epicurean ethical theory consistently operates under the presumption that hedonism, or pleasure, is the greatest good. For the Epicureans, an individual in a state of ataraxia, or complete freedom from mental disturbance, has achieved the most complete and pleasurable life, the greatest good for a human being. The concept of ataraxia, however, differs in many ways from what most would characterize as hedonism. Consequently, Epicurus is able to construct a great many controversial (and perhaps counterintuitive) views on particularly delicate subjects like death, the gods, friendship, and society. I find the issue of death to be one of the most glaring holes in all of Epicurean ethics. How are we to reconcile an ethical doctrine of hedonism with the issue of death? The manner in which Epicurus defines his hedonism sheds an alternative light on the world, a light which illuminates a much more accepting image of death than other generic notions of hedonism. With any form of hedonism, one is committed to the concept that pleasure is the chief good. In an extremely generic form of hedonism, it seems as though the quality of sensual pleasure should be given no more weight than the quality of emotional pleasure and vice versa. Additionally, this sort of hedonism would hold that the acquisition of kinetic pleasures would increase overall pleasure to seemingly no end, a concept which Epicurus’ doctrine would reject. Even if we understand death to be a genuine ceasing to exist, we must conjecture that it is bad for a person to die in the sense that it terminates even the possibility to acquire more pleasure. Under this concept of hedonism, we must agree that a person who lives a pleasurable life for ... ... middle of paper ... ...e years of kinetic pleasure can not compare to the enjoyment of ten years of kinetic pleasure. The argument that the Epicureans fabricate in order to refute the negativity of death is alluring but ultimately dysfunctional. The foundation disintegrates in a wave of implausibility, allowing for the possibility that the ultimate consequence of death could potentially be bad for a person. Even hedonism, teeming with pleasure, cannot cast off the iron chains of death. For Epicureans, it may be the only obstruction to the plausibility of ataraxia. Death itself carries no negative impact on hedonistic individuals, but “he fears death not because it will be painful when present but because it is painful in anticipation” (LS 150). Works Cited Long, A.A. & Sedley D.N. The Hellenistic Philosophers. Trans. Long & Sedley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Slavery had a big impact on the market, but most of it was centered on the main slave crop, cotton. Primarily, the south regulated the cotton distribution because it was the main source of income in the south and conditions were nearly perfect for growing it. Cheap slave labor made it that much more profitable and it grew quickly as well. Since the development in textile industry in the north and in Britain, cotton became high in demand all over the world. The south at one point, was responsible for producing “eighty percent of the world’s cotton”. Even though the South had a “labor force of eighty-four percent working, it only produced nine percent of the nations manufactured goods”, (Davidson 246). This statistic shows that the South had an complete advantage in manpower since slavery wasn’t prohibited. In the rural South, it was easy for plantation owners to hire slaves to gather cotton be...
Many are skeptic as to whether Atlantis existed solely because of the size but many researchers believe that the books Timeus and Critias are too detailed to be made up by Plato. Unfortunately the books of Plato’s thoughts and descriptions get cut off at the end of the second book hence ending the story of Atlantis quite abruptly. Some think that either the end of the story was lost during a burning of an attack on one of the Greek cities or that Plato’s patron for the project, Dionysius I, was going to publish the books as prose and poem and try to become famous. Unfortunately Dionysius died unexpectedly and Plato did not finish the story.
Williams, B. (1973). The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality. B. Williams, Problems of the Self. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Before I enter into the argument proper, two statements should be made. First, I do not intend to defend hedonism in this paper. Although, I am uncomfortable defending any particular thing as having intrinsic value, I am inclined to say there must be some things other than pleasure that have intrinsic value (and the converse). However, this rejection of hedonism is in no way relevant to my defense of this argument, because the loss of goods has no bearing on death, regardless of what exactly the goods are. Second, I will define death as follows: the permanent end to existence. Since existence is a binary property (either there exists something that corresponds to x or there does not), this means that death must be instantaneous. For at any given moment one could ask, "Does Kai exist?" and receive an answer, we can narrow the time of death to an instant. Thus, death mimics a function of the form: f(x) = 1 if x < 1; f(x) = 0 if x > 1. The idea is that at every point after 1 you are dead, but at every point up to and including 1 you are alive. In other words, there is no point at which you are not either alive or dead and no point at which you are both.
...nterest in limiting the spread of slavery into new states to prevent fewer plantations of the South, which could reduce the South’s economic, affecting the political power (Leidner). The final straw, Abraham Lincoln’s presidency was a major factor of the Civil War because he was a northerner, anti-slavery, southerners thought he had the Northerners interests and intended to eradicate slavery. They fretted knowing if Lincoln had the North’s best interest; the South’s political power would drop, and they would be severely damaged economically. It is clear that to every causes of the war, economics seems to be the key foundation. To the south, slaves were central part of the plantations, without slaves, the South would enter a great depression. Slaves was so important to the South’s economic, they would resort to anything to prevent slavery from being abolished, even
Eating the candy is at first a very enjoyable experience. It is intrinsically good, but will cause serious pain later. Eating the candy will lead to later pain, thus eating the candy is extrinsically bad. So, it is clear that something can simultaneously be intrinsically good as well as extrinsically bad. This distinction does pertain to the Epicurean argument. It is logical and sound for an individual to believe that since being dead in itself is not a painful experience, death is not intrinsically bad. But the issue arises when it comes to extrinsic badness. To imply that pain and badness are interrelated in death, as Epicurus does, is a problem. There are many things that are extrinsically bad, such as verbal bullying or the death of a parent, that do not cause physical pain. Thus, death can be extrinsically bad despite not causing any
Epicurus. (2010). Letter to Menoeceus and The Principle Dotrines. In S. Brennan, & R. J. Stainton, Philosophy of Death Introductory Readings (pp. 163-171). Canada: Broadview Press.
Many would argue that tobacco or cotton was main profits for Southern states, but we can all agree that without slavery there would be no gatherings of both products. The Southern states would believe that slavery is acceptable; they would do so by scaring people into believing that “Defenders of slavery argued that the sudden end to the slave economy would have had a profound and killing economic impact in the South where reliance on slave labor was the foundation of their economy. The cotton economy would collapse. The tobacco crop would dry in the fields. Rice would cease being profitable.” Slave owners were looking for a way to maximize the use of slaves, in doing so Eli Whitney created the cotton gin1. Since this revolutionary machine was increasing the production of cotton it required for more slaves to be put to work in fields.
Thanatology is derived from the Greek word Thanatos, which means death; Death of the physical self and death of the internal self. As Sigmund Freud institutes in his work Beyond the Pleasure Principle there are two drives in the brain that both coincide and conflict within the individual and one of these drives is death itself. Eros is the drive of life, love, creativity, sexuality, self-satisfaction, and species preservation. Thanatos consists of aggression, sadism, destruction, violence and the unknown thoughts of death (Freud, 1953). These self-destructive characteristics are present in all human beings, but they are in the unconscious part of the mind that can be accessed but can also be repressed in order to survive (Freud, 1953). The purpose of this essay is to examine the history of Thanatology, what it is, and the correlations of Sigmund’s Freud’s understanding of the unconscious death instinct that has infiltrated into today 's society.
Plato’s writings are where the topic of Atlantis first appeared, Timaeus and Critias. No other accounts on Atlantis before Plato were written down, this could simply be Plato’s imagination reflected onto paper. Benjamin Radford said, “It's clear that Plato made up Atlantis as a plot device for his stories because there are no other records of it anywhere else in the
“Bernard Williams is a distinguished twentieth-century english moral philosopher” (Jacobsen, p. 104). His perception of death and desire varies greatly from Lucretius who was a Roman follower of the ancient atomism and defended the views of Epicurus who like Lucretius, declared that death is a bad thing for people. On the contrary, Williams asserts that death gives meaning to life and that immorality might not be such a good thing and rather he believes that it is to be undesirable. The reasons as to why Williams thinks that a person’s death is a bad thing is due to the fact that when a person dies they are no longer able to fulfill/satisfy the desires we had when we were alive.
Early in the letter, Epicurus states that is never too early or late to learn. In the to letter Menoeceus, Epicurus explains that Menoeceus should live his life according to certain doctrines that Epicurus created. By doing so, Epicurus informs Menoceus that if he does follow these principles, then his life will be full of happiness and pleasure. Epicurus includes that maintaining the goal in life is to seek pleasure, and the avoid pain. Epicurus seems to push his views about the nature and the value of life, specifically talking about death. Epicurus argues that it is irrational to fear death because it does not harm you, so why fear what cannot harm or cause you pain. Epicurus believes that only pleasure and pain can define a person’s life,
In this paper I am going to deal with Epicurean ethics. More specifically, I am going to center around the nature of pleasure and its connection with desire-satisfaction. Throughout the paper I will argue, the only thing we desire for its own sake is pleasure. Thus it is best to keep our desires simple in order to achieve the greatest feeling of pleasure. I will accomplish this by first giving arguments for why the only thing we desire for its own sake is pleasure, as well as arguments for why it is best to keep our desires simple. I will then take a look at a number of objections and give some reasons as to why these objections are unconvincing.
Weijers, Dan. "Hedonism." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. N.p., 8 Aug. 2011. Web. 29 Nov. 2013. .
Solon, as the story goes, was educated by Egyptian clerics in the city of Sais, placed in the Nile delta, that there was at one time an area significantly more seasoned in history than Egypt, which the Greeks recognized as being hundreds of years more seasoned than their own particular pop culture. The ministers portrayed a huge island mainland called Atlantis that succeeded in the ballpark of 8,000 years prior, which dates Atlantis before 8500 b.c.e. The landmass was placed past "the Pillars of Hercules," the Greek term for the sharks that structure the Straits of Gibraltar, the westernmost purpose of the Mediterranean Ocean. Past the straits is the Atlantic Ocean.