Hedonism postulates that pleasure is the all and only bearer of intrinsic value and pain is all and only bearer of intrinsic disvalue.
In this essay I will evaluate the coherence of the normative version of Hedonism, defined as the theory that says pleasure should be pursued and pain should be avoided and that the right action is the one that produces the greatest amount of net happiness. Prudential hedonism talks about pleasure being good for the one experiencing it.
I will examine if this type of hedonism can be effectively defended by looking at some key objections and responses to those.
Some objections to normative Hedonism
a. On the hedonist account the only intrinsic thing of worth is pleasure and pain. All else, friendships, character, achievements, virtues are of instrumental value-they are a means to an end, either to increasing the pleasure they cause or diminishing the pain.
The oponents of hedonism say that there are things beside pleasure which contribute to well being. Values such as love, friendship, generosity, virtue, achievement are taken by non
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They would say the value of money is only instrumental. Thus Hedonists try to explain why intrinsic values of pluralists tend to be actually hedonic instrumental values. Pluralists according to this view have come erroneously to think instrumental values as intrinsic values. This might be due to conflating instrumental value with it being valuable in itself. The hedonist argues that intrinsic values proposed by opponents are only instrumental values. They produce pleasure and are therefore explainable as a means to an end-pleasure. By promoting knowledge for example one might produce pleasure. By introducing other goods and presenting them as intrinsic values, a hedonist argues, one complicates the account unnecessairly. Occam`s razor requires a more simple account ; it suffices to list pleasure as the only intrinsic value rather than to introduce a more complicated