Greetings from a Newcomer

Welcome to the forum and thank you for saying hello! And what an excellent first post- thank you!

Welcome! We are very happy to have you here.

I am glad you have such a love for the idea that pleasure drives motivation. Just so you know, that is called Motivational/Psychological Hedonism. I think everyone, whether they realize it or not, acts to gain pleasure (or avoid pain). Examples demonstrating this are everywhere.

Being a utilitarian, I feel obligated to correct you and say the motivating strength of pleasure is vital to utilitarianism, as taught by utilitarian leaders:

"Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think" (Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation)

"whether mankind do desire nothing for itself but that which is a pleasure to them, or of which the absence is a pain; we have evidently arrived at a question of fact and experience, dependent, like all similar questions, upon evidence. It can only be determined by practised self-consciousness and self-observation, assisted by observation of others" (John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, Chapter 4)

I am happy you have joined us and hope you will be a great Epicurean friend.

Daniel your post is worded oddly. Are you responding to someone else in another post?

I was responding to this post.

Thank you for telling me about my odd wording. I think I have improved it.

No issues - thanks for posting and look forward to continuing to talk with you!

1 - Good points Pivot

2 - Good grief I am sorry Daniel! For some reason when I first read your post above I did not realize what thread we were in and that you were replying to Pivot! My fault entirely and I should not have thought there was anything unusual about your wording. "Negligent reading" on my part!

The emphasis that happiness should be maximized for all has been present in utilitarianism since its foundation: "The said truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong." - Jeremy Bentham

I find the argument against this interesting. Honestly, it had never occurred to me as unnatural until I spoke with a mormon (they are predominant where I live) about it.

The mormon (who may not have been representing his church) said focus on maximizing the happiness of others leads to stress (because of unnecessary worry concerning others) and anxiety/depression (because of worry of and inevitable failures) while straining one's time and resources (because of constantly spending them on others).

I think accepting or rejecting this part of utilitarianism comes down to personal opinion. I would love to get your thoughts on this. If you are willing, we can enter a private conversation on the website.

That is fine, Cassius. I appreciate your help and I think it was very good for me to check over that post.

I do appreciate your openness to admit error. I think it shows much about one's character of how they handle when (not if) they are wrong.

Yes Daniel, I agree with Pivot. Could you please go to one of the ETHICS forums - scratch that - I will set up a new forum because Utilitarianism will come up a lot - just a sec

Daniel Van Orman could you please add that question here: Comparing Epicurus With Utilitarianism

Cassius

Okay, I will make a thread discuss that question.

Please allow me a few days to set it up. I would like its setup to be of high quality.

Utilitarianism can only go so far. We can only aim to please others to an extent, then we lose our ataraxia and our own enjoyment. BUT a good discussion would be on the limits to which we are willing to go for our friends and associates, for the sake of MUTUAL BENEFIT (which = justice). And based on this we can discuss various models of what Michel Onfray called hedonic covenant.

Right, we need to save the good stuff for Daniel's thread! But one of the things I will want to cover is what Pivot just pointed out - that no matter what people say, they are really doing what brings them the most pleasure. That is an argument that is brought up a lot, and I think one very important aspect in addressing it is not to get lost in the trees and not see the forest. Yes it can be observed that people do what they think is most pleasing to them in a very general sense, even it that means embracing pain.

But for a lot of people (I think) that argument ends up being circular and confusing and leads them to conclude SO WHAT? If pleasure is the motivation behind everything, including seeking pain, then why are we even bothering to have this conversation?

And we can't let people get confused and drop out at that point, because that's NOT the real issue they need to understand. The real issue is that by our proofs in Epicurean physics and canonics, we show that the COMPETING ideas of motivations (idealism, rationalism, supernatural religion) are FALSE, and it DOES make a difference that we examine people's motivations. Because the root of PLEASURE is the faculty given us by nature as the "go" signal of life. That puts pleasure in an entirely different status than idealism, rationalism, and supernatural religion, which are at best wishful thinking and probably in truth fraud.

Quote from Pivot

...he derived no inner satisfaction from knowing that he had helped another, I believe he would no longer help them.

This is hedonic calculus, and the 'search for meaning' can framed according to our nature as a search for the pleasure of meaning. Many people say they are looking for "meaning", and for many the use of philosophy is to create meaning for life, and this is noble and understandable, but what is this meaning? It's the OBJECT OF PLEASURE that justifies the PAIN we are willing to endure--whether it be the knowledge that our loved ones will be / are safe and happy and/or healthy, or the Master's or PhD degree we will earn at the end of our toils (and higher wages), or the anticipation of any other future pleasure.