Schools Of Hedonism - Part 3: What Kind Of Pleasure?

One of the most disputed aspects of Hedonism is whether the human's goal is pleasure or happiness... Pleasure is usually attributed to intense physical sensations like sex, gluttony, or euphoria. Happiness is usually attributed to the feel good state of the mind like tranquility, content, satisfaction, or the company of friends.

Some people argue that simple beings like pigs have easier access to simple pleasures as they are ignorant to higher forms of life dilemmas, and thus can indulge in their pleasures without spoiling that pleasure by other worries. Similar lines of thought recognize simple (rural?) life as being more fulfilling.

One of the Greek old-school Hedonists, Epicurus, (among others) claimed that the highest pleasure consists of a simple, moderate life spent with friends and in philosophical discussions. I might add that: This blog recognizes this form of pleasure, and it is one of its goal to create a favorable space for that. [An alternative pimp house if you may call it!] - Hope it has been able to deliver that...

Some schools of thought advocate that it is unwise to indulge deeply into some pleasures as it might induce counter-intuitive side-effect. In particular, they advocate that a person should not indulge in pleasures that belittle other pleasures; For example, extreme sexual fetches might cause a person to lose interest in the milder forms of sexual pleasures and lead to dissatisfaction in the general sense of human experiences. I might add that I generally oppose the view that indulging in one pleasure diminishes the enjoyment of later pleasures.

On a final note, some schools challenge the view that pain as an opposite of pleasure. Generally, masochistic fetishes provide the biggest challenge to the "minimize pain" part of the definition. It is obvious that pleasure-through-pain proves that pain is not the opposite of pleasure. For this reason, I prefer to amend the second part of the definition to: "maximize pleasant experiences and minimize unpleasant ones"; where pleasant experiences include all types of pleasure, including: happiness, sensual pleasure, and even pain when applicable.

In this series:
Schools Of Hedonism - Part 1: Introduction
Schools Of Hedonism - Part 2: Methods Of Evaluation
Schools Of Hedonism - Part 3: What Kind Of Pleasure?
Schools Of Hedonism - Part 4: Egoism VS Utilitarianism