A Hedonist Manifesto by Michel Onfray

Author:Michel Onfray
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: PHI005000, Philosophy/Ethics and Moral Philosophy, PHI019000, Philosophy/Political
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2015-11-09T16:00:00+00:00

A Dialectic of Politeness

Hedonism thus entails a perpetual calculus that considers the pleasures one can expect from a given situation, as well as the possible pains. We make a list of what delightful things could happen, what distresses could occur, what will be pleasant or disagreeable, and then we judge, doubt, and calculate before acting. Epicurus gave us a mathematical maxim: do not accept a pleasure here and now if it must be paid back later with a pain. Let it go. Better, choose a pain in the here and now if it leads toward the creation of a pleasure later. Therefore, avoid total jubilation in the present. Joy without conscience will only ruin the soul…

We should always have more pleasure than pain. In all hedonist ethics, suffering—the suffering that we undergo and that is inflicted on us—is the absolute evil. Consequently, absolute good corresponds to pleasure, defined as the absence of troubles, a serenity that’s acquired, conquered, and maintained, a tranquility of the soul and spirit. But this conceptual game can be complex. The mental tension that it entails may seem radically impractical since it requires a permanent concern for others. It seems like a perpetual ethical drama, an interminable moral theater; it seems like a titanic venture, something untenable—no more viable than the Judeo-Christian morality of holiness.

But it’s untenable only if there is a lack of neuronal training that permits us to act reflexively. These calculations need not require painful efforts if we have preexisting moral education and our nervous fibers are functioning properly. On the contrary, the fluidity of its unfolding generates a kind of delight. There is a real pleasure to be had from acting ethically and practicing morality; it activates and rewards the hedonic fibers in our cerebral matter.

Any kind of pleasure-arithmetic entails a concern for others. This is the core of any morality. To its adversaries, hedonism is a symptom of the indigence of our time. They say it is individualism confounded with egoism. The first of those argues that there is nothing but individuals, while the second argues that there is nothing but Me. They label it autism, consumerism, narcissism, and indifference to the pains of others and of humanity.

In fact, hedonism proposes exactly the opposite. Pleasure is never justified if the pain of another must pay for it. There is only one justification for the pain of another: when there is no other way to thwart someone’s destructive negativity: in other words, when war is inevitable. Others’ joy leads to my own joy; others’ discomfort produces my own discomfort.

In contrast to the static Christian morality that flees from history and functions on a foundation of absolutes, I propose a dynamic ethics. It’s not about theory, but concrete instances. Nominalists use concepts that are useful for discussion, but not for anything else. In a humanistic religion, surely God is one of these concepts. There are only concrete situations populated by individuals.

Attention requires tension. Others call me into relationships that are able to give me satisfaction—this is the anthropological and psychological process we are always subject to.

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