Enlightened Hedonism - The Subjectivity of Desire

[cemeinke]

A critique of hedonism is that it is a selfish act, and as such, concepts of altruism, or self-sacrifice that are normally expected of a moral system are absent. Morality seems to require that our desires be denied or sublimated for some common good. In practice though, these moral systems still must convince someone to accept and internalize the “

Comments

[sophie832]

Fascinating! I hope you continue with this series. It is so difficult to pursue ultimate happiness when we are constantly subjected to societal rules, but it is certainly fun to try.

[cemeinke]

I've plenty more to explore in this topic - especially on dealing with the society at large, for there will always be others cramping your style.

[disneyphile]

If you were to write a book on this, I'd so buy it.

Seriously, look into typing it up and selling it via CafePress. You could make a small fortune. :)

[cemeinke]

heh - at the moment I'm only in it for the hedons ;)

[wendolyn]

I feel that there should be a test following the reading of this fine post. (Preferably at a martini bar, whilst getting a massage from a naked Swede of ones' gender choice.)

[cemeinke]

I see you certainly are a hedonist of the enlightened variety

[codenamedanger]

This post reminds me that any system will suffer from the same problem: Not everyone is like me, and I have to get over that. Even the most close-minded of systems still give some sort of wiggle room to acceptance of others, even if it's just "not everyone can be a priest" or "you can't save everyone", and it's always hard for humans to get over it.

Even hedonists, nihilists, you name it, every group has their absolutists, their un-empaths.

Now you got me making up words....this is a dangerous road, my friend. ;-)

[wendolyn]

Making up words is one of the fun things about the English language, until one goes to teach it anyway. ("I don't know why it's spelled/pronounced/utilized in that way- it just is, dammit!)

I agree with your assessment, though. Any society of more than one human being will differ at some point on any philosophy. Every group seems to have their hard ass extremists and their opposites, with the majority falling somewhere in the middle. I think Aristotle was right- the Golden Mean seems to be the rule in nearly everything.

[cemeinke]

I'm of the mind that there will always be some sort of ongoing negotiation with other people. But like all negotiations, you have to know at what point it's in your best interest to walk away from the table. It would be ideal if everyone could accept one another and their whole host of desires both light and dark, but it's likely that some of our pleasures we'll continue to carry on in secret. Heck that might be even part of the desire being satisfied for the crypto-hedonist.

[bacondelight]

We are creatures of analogy. It's been argued, notably by Douglas Hofstadter, that the ultimate key to our sense of self and knack for higher reasoning is our ability to create highly complex symbolic mental models of nearly any concept and, by analogy, to generalize those concepts. Empathy is nothing more than a simulation of someone else's consciousness running in our own brain's hardware.

Our practically endless capacity for analogy is what allows us to make logical leaps, to derive meaning from meaningless parts of a whole. It's analogy that allows us to seamlessly consider the complex array of charged particles being emitted from your computer monitor right now as "the same thing" as ink on paper. It's what allows us to communicate with others of our own species (and to some extent other species) in meaningful ways.

Thus, it is hardly surprising that, as a species, we are prone to taking that power of analogy too far. We are programmed, for the sake of social functionality, to mistake "analogous" for "equal", forgetting

[cemeinke]

Very well said - My hope is to maintain this perspective, understanding that other people's unknowability presents certain problems, but the solution is not to be found in absolutes, but rather understanding our own limitations (as well as desires).