Hedonism Before Bentham

Ole Martin Moen

doi:10.14324/111.2045-757x.007

Abstract

The hedonistic theories of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill are both widely known. Hedonism before Bentham, however, is much less known and, hitherto, no systematic presentation of hedonism’s early history has been written. In this paper I seek to fill this gap in the literature by providing an overview of hedonism in early Indian and ancient Greek thought (Sections 1-4), in Roman and Medieval thought (Section 5), and from the Renaissance until the Enlightenment (Section 6).

Highlights

Peer Review: This article has been peer reviewed through the journal’s standard double blind peer-review, where both the reviewers and authors are anonymised during review
In this paper I seek to fill this gap in the literature by providing an overview of hedonism in early Indian and ancient Greek thought (Sections 1-4), in Roman and Medieval thought (Section 5), and from the Renaissance until the Enlightenment (Section 6)
Even though it becomes clear that Aristotle rejects hedonism in the Nicomachean Ethics, it is unclear if the work achieved its full purpose: The work is written to Aristotle’s son, but in spite of his father’s attacks on hedonism, Diogenes Laërtius reports that ‘Nicomachus, Aristotle’s son, has said that he declares pleasure to be the good.’[22]

Summary

Aristotle

In Book VII he claims that the arguments that philosophers have advanced against hedonism so far have all failed to disprove the theory Thereafter he argues that pleasures are ends in themselves (1153a10) and necessary parts of a good life. Aristotle points out that a similar argument can be used against Eudoxus’ own view, for we can imagine that everything—pleasure included—can be made better if, in addition to it, we have another good, such as justice or wisdom If this is so, hedonism must be false, for ‘nothing can be added to the good to make it more choice worthy’ (1172b33-34). Even though it becomes clear that Aristotle rejects hedonism in the Nicomachean Ethics, it is unclear if the work achieved its full purpose: The work is written to Aristotle’s son, but in spite of his father’s attacks on hedonism, Diogenes Laërtius reports that ‘Nicomachus, Aristotle’s son, has said that he declares pleasure to be the good.’[22]

Epicurus

Roman and Medieval Hedonism

Renaissance and Early Modern Hedonism

Conclusion