PAGANISM as saint Paul teaches it, this one came as a shocker, lovers of pleasure, God help me. (hedoné, pleasure). The name given to the group of ethical systems that hold, with various modifications, that feelings of pleasure or happiness are the highest and final aim of conduct; that, consequently those actions which increase the sum of pleasure are thereby constituted right, and, conversely, what increases pain is wrong. History The father of Hedonism was Aristippus of Cyrene. He taught that pleasure is the universal and ultimate object of endeavour. By pleasure he meant not merely sensual gratification but also the higher forms of enjoyment, mental pleasures, domestic love, friendship, and moral contentment. His followers, however, reduced the system to a plea for self-indulgence (see CYRENAIC SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY). To the Cyrenaic succeeded the School of Epicurus, who emphasized the superiority of social and intellectual pleasures over those of the senses. He also conferred more dignity on the hedonistic doctrine by combining it with the atomic theory of matter; and this synthesis finds its finished expression in the materialistic determinism of the Roman poet Lucretius. Epicurus taught that pain and self-restraint have a hedonistic value; for pain is sometimes a necessary means to health and enjoyment; while self-restraint and prudent asceticism are indispensable if we would secure for ourselves the maximum of pleasure (see EPICUREANISM). With the decay of old Roman ideals and the rise of imperialism the Epicurean philosophy flourished in Rome. It accelerated the destruction of pagan religious beliefs, and, at the same time, was among the forces that resisted Christianity. The revival of hedonistic principles in our own times may be traced to a line of English philosophers, Hobbes, Hartley, Bentham, James Mill, John Stuart Mill, the two Austins, and, more recently, Alexander Bain, who are popularly known as Utilitarians. Herbert Spencer adopted into his evolutionary theory of ethics the principle that the discriminating norm of right and wrong is pleasure and pain, though he substituted the progress of life for the hedonistic end.
Posted on: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 20:27:05 +0000
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