As Socrates claimed in Plato’s dialogues, the unexamined life is not worth living. Hedonistic pleasure is also essentially subjective – it can’t really be known or planned for, and this matters, because in order to seek what’s good, we must think about it. Deluded into thinking that our self is a subject deserving elevation, we remain unable to see the truth, unable to ground our lives in any real path. These insights accord well with Buddhist philosophy, which describes this state as being caught in the cycle of suffering and death. We’re always left wanting more, and suffering because of our craving. One cannot make progress because appetites increase and multiply. But Socrates says a life of egoistic hedonism is like filling a leaky vessel: satisfied desires require continual replenishment. “The irony,” says Kupfer, “is that a life of hedonism is actually much less pleasant than a virtuous one.” A hedonist may seek power because power confers the ability to dominate others so as to better gratify one’s appetites. As a result, hedonists miss out on the enjoyment of activities done for their own sake. The goal of life for an egoistic hedonist is to maximize pleasure, especially one’s own. Chapter 11: Case Study: Environmental Virtue Ethicsġ1.2 Egoistic Hedonism, Meet Stanley HauerwasĮgoistic hedonism is necessarily self-defeating and filled with ironies.
