Hedonism and asceticism

Abstract

AbstractSome philosophers take the ascetic sage as a test case for the plausibility of theories of welfare. They maintain that attitudinal hedonism entails that the sage lives the good life, since he enjoys meditation, solitude, peace and quiet, and so on. Some of the longest-enduring traditions of asceticism, however, deny that the sage takes attitudinal pleasure in these kinds of things. A group of Upaniṣads aptly named the Saṃnyāsa, or Ascetic Upaniṣads, for example, explicitly states that the sage neither enjoys nor despairs in earthly states of affairs. The attitudinal hedonist might argue that the sage of the Saṃnyāsa Upaniṣads lives the good life nonetheless, since he takes immense and constant pleasure in the ātman– the eternal, immaterial self. The sage's immense and constant pleasure in the ātman, however, also commits the attitudinal hedonist to the stronger claim that the ascetic lives the best life possible. The sage's life seems less than optimal, however, because he enjoys only one thing to the exclusion of all other things.