On Wednesday, we talked about Lucretius's philosophy based on hedonism, which is that pleasure is the only intrinsic good. At first I disagreed with the idea because I don't think that every kind of pleasure is achieved through good deeds. Pleasure is different for everyone and some people may get pleasure from doing things that we consider morally wrong. Some may take pleasure in hurting others, therefore I wasn't really convinced that pleasure is the only intrinsic good.
However as the discussion progress, I found out that there's more about the idea behind hedonism. There are two conditions for pleasure to be intrinsically good, pleasure have to be achieved with ataraxia and aponia. Ataraxia means freedom or peace from fear and aponia means the absence of pain. With these two conditions the idea makes more sense because when someone commits morally wrong actions fear and pain are usually incorporated in their actions. If one gets pleasure from hurting others, they wouldn't have peace in mind for fear of being caught and their actions inflict pain on others. Therefore even if this person gets pleasure, it isn't an intrinsically good pleasure because the two conditions aren't fulfilled.
With the two conditions set for pleasure, I would agree more about Lucretius's philosophy because it makes more sense how pleasure can be an intrinsic good.
Pleasure is good for a person because it sets a tone for a happy person but pleasure is easy to make corrupt.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI still agree with Aristotle that happiness is the only intrinsic good. Pleasure is simply a cause and a positive effect of happiness. Why do we want pleasure? It is an effect that proves that "we lived well and did well." On the subject pleasure can also be a vice. Too much of it can be at the expense of yourself and other, and too little of it can cause other problems such as anxiety and tiredness.
ReplyDelete