Daily Archives: March 27, 2017

The notion of hedonism conjures up images of alcohol-fuelled pool parties rather than bookish old blokes holding theoretical discussions. But this much-maligned philosophy has its roots in ancient Greece and has been defended famously by Enlightenment thinkers such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.

By making pleasure an end in itself, hedonism was sure to have its ethical opponents. However, traditional objections to the philosophy are ill-founded, argues Trinity College Dublin lecturer Ben Bramble.

At the outset, he says, it is important to understand that hedonism is a theory of well-being not a charter for selfishness. Simply put, hedonism says that your well-being is fully determined by your pleasures and pains; any two people identical in their pleasures and pains would be identical in their levels of well-being.

The major competitor to hedonism, he explains, is desire-fulfilment theory. Desire-fulfilment theory says that what is good for you is fundamentally, not good feelings but, having the sort of life you want.

To see the difference between these theories, ask yourself: Is pleasure good for you because you want it? Or do you want it because you are in some sense responding to the fact that it is good for you? I think it is the latter. Pleasure is good for us, not because we want it, but just because of how it feels. A pleasurable life would be good for us whether we wanted it or not.

Hedonism does not have many public advocates these days. What prompted you to mount a defence of it?

Ben Bramble: I am defending hedonism mainly just because I think it is true.

Like other philosophers, I am interested in getting at truth for its own sake. But I also think that arriving at the right theory of well-being is extremely useful for certain practical matters. How can we know how to live well if we do not know what is good for us all in the first place?

JS Mill famously said it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied. Do you agree?

A popular criticism of hedonism is that it seems to entail that the life of a pig could be higher in well-being than the life of a normal human, providing that the pig has many intense pleasures of, say, slopping around in the mud, lying in the sun, eating its fill, etc.

Mill argued that hedonism does not entail this. In particular, he argued that there are pleasures that human beings can feel that add more to well-being than any amount of the only pleasures pigs can feel.

What are these higher pleasures? They include pleasures of love, learning, aesthetic appreciation, and so on. I agree with Mill.

Now, you might wonder, how can a hedonist consistently hold this view? Mustnt she say that the best life is simply the one with the most pleasure? The answer, I believe and here I depart from Mill has to do with diversity. Diversity of pleasure matters in and of itself. And there is much greater diversity available, I believe, in the higher pleasures than in mere bodily ones. Bodily pleasures, most of the time, are just more of the same.

The point here, it is important to emphasise, is not that bodily pleasures necessarily get boring or stop being pleasurable - though they often do. It is that purely repeated pleasures - pleasures that bring nothing new to our lives in terms of their quality - are, in and of themselves, a waste of time. This is not to say that bodily pleasures are unimportant.

Even purely repeated bodily pleasures can help us carry on in life, and so can act as a kind of oil for our joints. The point is rather that with only such pleasures, we would be missing out on the richest and most varied pleasures available - and, I would add, some of the most pleasurable.

Acceptance of a refined form of hedonism may be reasonable but is it the best way of approaching ethical matters?

Hedonism, as Ive said, is just a theory of well-being. By itself, then, it has nothing to say about how we should live. Importantly, it does not say we should live so as to maximise our own self-interest-that (false) theory is called egoism.

I think we should combine hedonism with utilitarianism, the theory on which we should live so as to maximise the well-being of all sentient creatures, including non-human animals. Combining these views, we get the appealing conclusion that we should live so as to help all creatures feel good and avoid feeling bad.

Why is this appealing? Every other theory of how we should live is committed to saying that there are at least some occasions when we should choose something that doesnt maximally improve the feelings of sentient beings ie occasions when we should forgo making some particular individual feel better in favour of doing something that makes nobody feel better. That strikes me as highly counterintuitive.

Does your theory of hedonism have broader implications for how we should treat animals?

As I mentioned earlier, I think hedonists should distinguish between mere bodily pleasures and higher pleasures of love, learning, aesthetic appreciation, etc. Bodily pleasures have their place, but higher pleasures have special value.

For this reason, pigs and most other non-human animals, who cannot experience these higher pleasures to the same degree humans can, are cut off from living especially fortunate lives. This is a great shame for pigs, etc.

That said, there are many pleasures,and pains, that non-human animals can feel. This means that they can have lives that can go better or worse for them. So, it is absolutely vital that we take their interests into account.

I think that the way we treat animals today most clearly, in the meat industry is so bad that it is hard to fathom. Meat tastes good, yes. But this benefit to us is infinitesimal when compared to the incredible suffering we inflict on animals to get it. Future generations, I suspect, will look back at us with profound dismay.

ASK A SAGE:

Question: Why is so much public debate unmannerly?

Mary Wollstonecraft replies: Virtue can only flourish amongst equals.

Continued here:

Unthinkable: In defence of hedonism - Irish Times

Evrybodys talking bout Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism

This-ism, that-ism, ism, ism, ism Give Peace a Chance by John Lennon

Brothers George and Charles plus their buddy Noah (Merriam-Webster to you), define the word ism thusly:

While all -isms arent bad, I try to work on the ones in my life that are.

Racism:Ive shared anecdotes about being the target of racism in the past, but never talked about my own. Back in the 1980s I had a friend who worked at Luckys supermarket and I went there on Thanksgiving Day. I saw she was crying so I asked what was wrong. She said a customer had called her a stupid b-word and he was still there in the deli. She pointed him out and I went outside fuming and smoked a cigarette (yes, I smoked then gross). The guy came outside and I flicked my cigarette at him and started yelling and cussing him out (yes, I cussed then, sigh). Now, the guy was a punk, but his Asian race had nothing to do with that, but thats where I shamefully went in insulting him. He hurried to his car and when far enough away, he returned racist taunts. But I, sad to say, started it.

Oakland Raiderism:Also known as Commitment to Excellence-ism, Silver and Blackism, Pride and Poise-ism, whatever you call it, its all good.

Hedonism:When I was younger, I was enamored of The Doors Jim Morrison who was a disciple of Dionysian hedonism. Thankfully, I, unlike Morrison and others, survived that phase and now prefer to experience life with my senses unaltered. In the available light, if you will. Instead of just seeking to entertain myself, caring for others or humanitarianism is what makes me happy. Im always amazed by people who figured that out the easy way.

Able Bodyism:I was on the school newspaper staff at Armijo High School and there was a guy there named Kenton Pfister who was physically disabled and used a motorized wheelchair. The first time I heard him talk in his loud and slurred voice that I could not understand, Im now ashamed to admit that I immediately assumed he not only had a physical disability, but a mental one as well. I was dead wrong. I got to know Kenton and we became friends. There was nothing wrong with his mind. He would dictate his stories and they would be typed up and printed in the newspaper. Once I got to know him, I had no problem understanding his speech and he was bright, sharp and had a crisp sense of humor. That experience taught me a lot about judging people and I continue to work on it.

Antidisestablishmentarianism:When I was in elementary school (yes, I was once a lil braniac) I thought I was cool because I could spell this word. I could never work it into a conversation, though.

Sexism:I wrote a column in January 2016 about women in nontraditional occupations. Denise Marie Torkelsen Lazzara shared about working at Mare Island as a machinist, as a mechanic on a nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers and driving an 18-wheeler, among other jobs. She said she faced sexism numerous times in her working career. I had to confess my own sexism. Denise and I attended Armijo High at the same time (shes a year younger than me) and I didnt know her, but knew who she was. In my memory, I put her in a box as just a frail, blonde (Green) Valley girl. I told her my own blind spot in this area was especially galling since I had my own sort of role-reversal years ago when I was a stay-at-home dad who home-schooled my daughter.

Google-ism: Did you know adamitism means nakedness for religious reasons? Me either. Thanks, Google.

Petism:I like dogs better than cats. Dogs miss you horribly when you leave for five minutes, but cats arent even mentally in the same dimension with you until its Fancy Feasttime. I refuse to work on this ism.

Reach Fairfield writer Tony Wade at [emailprotected].

Here is the original post:

Here's a look-see at some of my -isms - Fairfield Daily Republic

Samantha Bee turned her attention to small-town journalism on Full Frontal this week, heading to New Jersey to help out an ailing newspaper with a new, more hedonistic subscription plan.

On Wednesdays show, Bee focused on the importance of local news outlets, noting in a stand-up introducing the segment that important recent news stories like the Flint water crisis or Bridgegate began as local news stories. So, to that end, Bee focused in on New Brunswick Today, the New Jersey towns lone local newspaper.

Bee spoke with editor-in-chief Charlie Kratovil, who told the Full Frontal host that just 100 people subscribed to the newspaper. Subscriptions, Kratovil added, are just $5 per month.

That low subscriber number was surprising to Bee, given that Kratovils paper had previously exposing corruption at the New Brunswick Water Utility that covered up water contamination in the town. As Kratovil explained to Bee, the town was rocked last year by a scandal in which one man pled guilty to public corruption.

Without old-timey reporting like Charlies, people in New Brunswick would have no idea that their water was poisoned, Bee said in the segment.

So, to drum up subscriptions, the Full Frontal host spoke with Gabe Zichermann, a gamification expert who recommended the paper pursue hedonism and pleasure to drum up subscriptions because people will always choose the most pleasurable option between a set of given choices.

The answer for New Brunswick Today: Lottery tickets. Specifically, lottery tickets potentially worth $500 that also get buyers a yearlong subscription to the paper.

As Bee notes on the show, that approach increased the papers subscriptions by 400 percent a number that Bee said this week is still growing.

Maybe with a little luck, a sprinkle of civic engagement, and a healthy dose of hedonism, Bee said, local journalism will survive.

New Brunswick Today thanked Bee on social media for her work Thursday, and asked that readers continue to support their coverage.

Published: March 24, 2017 12:56 PM EDT | Updated: March 26, 2017 7:01 AM EDT

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Watch: Samantha Bee lends a hand to New Jersey newspaper with ... - Philly.com (blog)

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Elite Dance & Theatre has transformed The Picture of Dorian Gray into a combination of movement and drama opening on Friday, March 31, at the North Fourth Theatre.

Dan Belden is Lord Henry Wotton and Alex Harde is Dorian in The Portrait of Dorian Gray. (SOURCE: Two Brunos Photography)

In 1890, Oscar Wilde incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity and beauty into his sole novel.

The story begins with a man painting a picture of the nobleman Gray. When Gray sees the portrait, he breaks down, distraught that his beauty will surely fade while the painting remains youthful. He inadvertently makes a Faustian bargain ensuring that the image decays and ages while he remains young. As Grays portrait allows him to escape the physical ravages of his hedonism, he destroys the lives of those closest to him.

The production opens with the artist Basil at his easel as dancers surrounding him mimic his paint strokes, director Cheri Costales said.

Its an amazing story; Oscar Wilde is just brilliant, Costales said. When I had my kids read literature, I always told them to wait until the last chapter. Dorian Gray has one of those endings.

Lord Henry Wotton goads Gray with his hedonistic philosophy: that beauty and sensual fulfilment are the only things worth pursuing in life. In living out this ideology, Gray courts the naive actress Sibyl Vane, who commits suicide after he rejects her.

As Gray descends into an opium den, the dancers will perform Oblivion, a surreal trip through the depths of his debauchery, Costales said. On returning home, he notices the portrait bears a subtle sneer of cruelty. Its decay is foretold as he continues his descent into self-indulgence.

Eventually, Gray tries to destroy the painting in a moment of repentance, killing the vestiges of his own conscience.

The cast consists of 30 dancers in costumes resembling Steampunk with a twist, Costales said.

Weve got the top hats and the gloves and the boots, she added. Weve probably got about 100 hats.

The Picture of Dorian Gray has inspired countless TV and movie adaptations. The 1945 film starred George Sanders, Donna Reed and Angela Lansbury. In 2003, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen featured a Dorian Gray character, as did the 2014-2016 Showtime series Penny Dreadful.

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Elite Dance & Theatre presents 'Dorian Gray' - Albuquerque Journal