I will call the first kind of hedonism “inferential hedonism,” for reasons to be explained
in the next section. (Alternately, I will just refer to it as “I–hedonism.”) I–hedonism holds
that for any agent, A, and for any desire, D, A has D only because A believes that the
satisfaction of D will promote A’s pleasure. In this view, in order for A to desire
something other than pleasure, then, A must possess certain beliefs about the relationship
between the satisfaction of that desire and pleasure. In most cases, these will be causal
beliefs (i.e., that the satisfaction of D will cause pleasure). They can also be
“constitutive” beliefs, that is, beliefs to the effect that satisfying D is constitutive of
pleasure (e.g., my belief that health is somehow constitutive of happiness). This is the
kind of hedonism that philosophers are typically thinking about when they discuss
psychological hedonism.
I will call the second kind of hedonism, “reinforcement hedonism” (or, alternately, “R-hedonism”).
R-hedonism holds that, where D is an ultimate desire, D is maintained or reinforced in A’s cognitive
system only by virtue of the fact that D is associated with pleasure. When I say that D must be “associated
with” pleasure, I am thinking of two different sorts of cases. In the first case, the satisfaction of D
(regularly, typically, or non-negligibly) causes, or is constitutive of, pleasure. In the second case, A
derives pleasure merely from entertaining the satisfaction of D. According to R–hedonism, it is possible
for someone to have a long-standing, ultimate desire that is never satisfied, such as a
desire for revenge or a desire for world peace. The R-hedonist simply maintains that such
desires are reinforced because the agent derives pleasure from imagining their being
satisfied. A monk can have a lifelong, unfulfilled, and ultimate desire for sex. The R-hedonist says
that the only reason this desire is reinforced is because the monk derives pleasure from contemplating
its satisfaction. When I contemplate satisfying a desire, and
I get pleasure from that, that sets up a kind of “virtual reinforcement scheme” that causes
the desire to persist. (Note that the R-hedonist is not committed to the claim that all
desires are reinforced only by virtue of their association with pleasure, but only that
“ultimate” desires are reinforced this way. “Instrumental” desires are maintained simply
by virtue of the agent’s beliefs about the relation between the instrumental and ultimate
desire.)
Another way of framing the distinction between I–hedonism and R–hedonism is in terms
of the distinction between the content of a desire, on the one hand, and the mechanism by
which that desire is reinforced in the cognitive life of the agent, on the other (or,
alternatively, the function of that desire – see below). I–hedonism is a theory about the
contents of one’s ultimate desires. It claims that one only has ultimate desires about one’s
own hedonic states. R–hedonism is a theory about the mechanism by which those desires
are maintained or reinforced over time – namely, by virtue of their actually being
associated in the right sort of way with one’s hedonic states. According to R-hedonism,
people can have ultimate desires regarding the welfare of others. R-hedonism just holds
that, if those desires were not, in fact, associated with pleasure, they would soon
disappear.
Psychological Hedonism (Egoism vs Altruism)
- hamiltonB
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Psychological Hedonism (Egoism vs Altruism)
2023/2024 Philosophy Books of the Month
Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023
Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023