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Fourth Edition

RUSS SHAFER--LANDAU
University ofWisconsin, Madison

New York Oxford

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Shafer-Landau, R. 2012. ‘Hedonism’
in The Fundamentals of Ethics (2nd
ed.),. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, pp. 21-29.
CHAPTER 1
............. ~ ............ .

Happiness and Intrinsic Value

If you are like me, and like everyone else I know, you've spent a fair bit of
time thinking about how your life can go better. You may be doing pretty
well already, or may be very badly off, or somewhere in between. But there
is always room for improvement.
To know how our lives can be better, we first need to know how they
can be good. In other words, we need a standard that will tell us when our
lives are going well for us. That standard will help us determine our level
of well-being, or welfare.
Many things can improve our well-being: chocolate, sturdy shoes,
vaccinations, a reasonable amount of money. These things pave the way to
a better life they help to make it possible, and may, in some cases, even
be indispensable to it. Philosophers call such things instrumental goods, 1

things that are valuable because of the good things they bring about.
If there are instrumental goods, then there must be something they
are good for, something whose value does not depend on being a means to
anything else that is good. Such a thing is worth pursuing for its own sake;
it is valuable in its own right, even if it brings nothing else in its wake.
Philosophers call such things intrinsically valuable. Instrumental values
are things that are good precisely because they help to bring about things
that are intrinsically valuable.

1. All terms and phrases that appear in boldface are defined in a glossary at the end of
the book.
23
24 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF ETHICS

When asking about what makes a life go better for us, we will of course
want to know which things are instrumentally valuable, so we can get our
hands on them. But when we take a philosophical step back and ask why
(for instance) going to the dentist, or making money, makes us better off,
we will need to have some grasp of what is intrinsically good for us-
something whose presence, all by itself, makes us better off.
A natural way to start thinking about this is to consider some clearly
good lives, ones that definitely qualify as being good for the people who
live them. My top ten wouldn't include those of anyone you'd ever heard
of. Instead, I'd pick the lives of certain of my friends and acquaintances,
people who are deeply invested in their exciting work, secure in their love
for others, physically healthy and active, and possessed of modest but
real self-esteem and self-respect. But there is no need to be limited by my
choices. Think about your own top candidates, and then ask yourself this
question: What makes each of those lives so good? Is there a single feature
that each of them shares, something that explains why they are as good as
they are? If so, what is it?
The most popular answer is just what you'd expect: happiness. On this
view, a good life is a happy life. This means something pretty specific. It
means that happiness is necessary for a good life; a life without happiness
cannot be a good life. It also means that happiness is sufficient for a good
life: When you are happy, your life is going well. The happier you are, the
better your life is going for you. And the unhappier you are, the worse off
you are.
On this view, there is only a single thing that is intrinsically good for
us: happiness. Everything else improves our lives only to the extent that it
makes us happy. Likewise, there is just one thing that is intrinsically bad
for us: unhappiness. Unhappiness is the only thing that directly reduces
our quality of life.
There is a name for this kind of view: hedonism. The term comes from
the Greek word hedone, which means ((pleasure:' According to hedonists,
a life is good to the extent that it is filled with pleasure and is free of pain.
Before we can assess hedonism, we have to recognize that there are
two fundamental kinds of pleasure: physical pleasure and attitudinal plea-
sure (enjoyment). The first kind is the sort we experience when we taste a
delicious fall apple, or when we let the jets from a hot tub dissolve the ten-
sion in our backs. These very different kinds of pleasurable feelings usually
make us happy, at least for the moment. But such feelings are not the same
thing as happiness.
 CHAPTER 1 Hedonism: Its Powerful Appeal 25

As the hedonist understands it, happiness is attitudinal pleasure: the

positive attitude of enjoyment. It can range in intensity from mild con-
tentment to elation. Being happy does not necessarily feel like anything;
there is no special sensation or physical quality associated with happiness.
I can enjoy a home-team victory or a beautiful painting without experi-
encing any physical pleasure.
In order to be at all plausible, hedonism must be understood as the
view that enjoyment, rather than physical pleasure, is the key to the good
life. This may come as a surprise, since we nowadays think of hedonists as
those who are always pursuing sensual pleasures. But we must abandon
that picture, and fix our sights instead on the view that identifies the good
life as one that is full of sustained enjoyment, containing only minimal
sadness and misery. That is the hedonist's model of the best life for human
beings.
Happiness, understood from now on as enjoyment, is indeed a good
candidate for an intrinsic value. 2 It's not like a vaccination or a chocolate
bar. If such things generate no benefits if, say, the vaccination fails to pro-
tect you from disease, or if you hate chocolate (I've heard of such strange
people) then there is nothing valuable about them. They are good, when
they are, only because of the benefits they bring about. Thus they are only
instrumentally good. Happiness isn't like that. It is worth pursuing for its
own sake. It is valuable in its own right.

The Attractions of Hedonistn

Hedonism can trace its origins in the West to the ancient Greeks. Epicu-
rus (341-270 BCE), the first great hedonist, argued that pleasure was the
only thing worth pursuing. Yet he was not calling on us to pursue carnal
pleasures. Epicurus argued that the most pleasant condition is one of
inner peace. The ideal state of tranquility comes largely from two sources:
moderation in all physical matters, and intellectual clarity about what is
truly important.

2. Many who reject hedonism still believe that happiness is the key to a good life. The
disagreement is about what happiness really is. Hedonists insist that it is a kind of experience
we have the experience of enjoyment. Others, such as Aristotle, claim that happiness is much
more than this; it is, in particular, a combination of enjoyment, intelligence, virtue, and activity.
The sort of happiness that we discuss in this chapter and the next is the one that hedonists have
in mind namely, enjoyment.
26 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF ETHICS

Philosophy is the path to such clarity. Philosophy can reveal the false
beliefs that cause so much unhappiness specifically, as Epicurus saw it,
our beliefs that death is bad for us, that the gods are mean-spirited and
easily angered, and that sex and money are key ingredients in the good
life. Philosophy can help explain the error of such popular ways of think-
ing, and thereby ease us along the path to happiness.
Skip ahead a couple thousand years, and consider the view of English
philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), perhaps the most famous
hedonist since Epicurus. Mill's critics claimed that hedonism was a ((doc-
trine of the swine;' because it advised us to live like animals, gaining as
much brute pleasure as possible. Mill argued that pleasures come in dif-
ferent levels of quality, and that the best pleasures for human beings were
those that come only through hard work especially the work of the mind.
Intellectual and artistic pleasures topped his list; physical pleasures were at
the bottom. Mill thought that people who have enjoyed both physical and
intellectual pursuits always prefer the intellectual pleasures. That was good
enough for him, since he also thought that the true test of something's
value was the approval of those with knowledge and experience.
As you might expect from a view whose popularity spans thousands
of years, there is a great deal to be said on behalf of hedonism. Here are the
most important reasons that have won it so many fans.

There Are Many Models of a Good Life

There are a variety of ways to live a good life, and hedonism explains
why this is so: there are many paths to happiness. Can woodcutters,
professional athletes, or musicians live very good lives? Not according
to Plato (427-347 BCE) and Aristotle (384-322 BCE), who thought that
philosophical contemplation was essential to a truly good life. Nowadays
we are likely to reject such views as narrow-minded and elitist. We think
that people from all walks of life have the potential to be well-off. This
democratic view about the prospects for the good life fits comfortably
with the hedonistic outlook. Because the sources of happiness vary quite
widely, and happiness is the key to a good life, there are many ways to
live a good life.
Hedonism offers us a kind of flexibility that some of its competitors
lack. Many of these competitors identify a kind of activity, such as doing
philosophy, as the greatest good. They then say that those who don't pursue
it, or who pursue it badly, are unable to lead a good life. Hedonism rejects
all such approaches. The best activity for human beings is the one that
 CHAPTER 1 Hedonism: Its Powerful Appeal 27

brings us the greatest happiness. But what makes me happy needn't make
you happy. So my recipe for the good life may be very different from yours.

Personal Authority and Well~ Being

This diversity of good lives has an interesting implication: hedonists provide
each of us with a substantial say in what the good life looks like. And that
seems a plus. What makes us happy is largely a matter of personal choice. As
a result, we each get plenty of input into what makes our lives go well.
So long as we really do know what will make us happy, hedonism sup-
ports the resistance we feel when others try to tell us how to live our lives.
And when others counsel us, for our own good, to give up happiness and
to pursue a less enjoyable way of life, hedonism assures us that such advice
is deeply mistaken.
In one sense, however, hedonism does not allow us to have the final
say about what is good for us. If hedonism is true, then happiness improves
our lives, whether we think so or not. According to hedonists, those who
deny that happiness is the sole thing that is intrinsically good for us are
wrong, no matter how sincere their denial. In this way, hedonism follows
a middle path between approaches to the good life that dictate a one-size-
fits-all model and those that allow each person to decide for herself exactly
what is valuable.

Misery Clearly Hampers a Good Life;

Happiness Clearly Improves It
Hedonists tell us that misery takes away from a good life, and this is hard
to deny. To test this claim, imagine a life full of sadness, with no compen-
sating enjoyments. Surely this life is bad for the person who leads it. It may
be good in other respects the very sad person might, for instance, be a
brilliant artist or a mathematical genius. But we are not asking whether
the life is good in any way at all. Rather, we are asking about whether the
life is going well for the person living it. Specifically, we are asking whether
a really miserable person can have a high level of well-being. This is hard
to accept, and hedonism explains why that is.
Hedonists also claim that happiness improves one's welfare. To test
this, imagine two people leading identical lives, with only one difference:
the first person enjoys his life, and the second doesn't. Surely the first
person is better off. If we were to choose between these lives solely on the
basis of what would be best for us, we'd select the first, without question.
That is precisely what hedonism would recommend.
28 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF ETHICS

The Limits of Explanation

The claim that happiness is intrinsically beneficial seems about as obvi-
ous as anything in ethics. And the value of everything else seems easily
explained by showing how it leads to happiness.
If hedonism is true, then happiness directly improves one's welfare,
and sadness directly undermines it. Just about everyone believes that.
Indeed, how could we even argue for something as basic as this? This is
where thinking in this area starts. Perhaps no claim about well-being is
more fundamental than the one that insists on the importance of experi-
encing happiness and avoiding misery.
When we undertake something that is painful or difficult, it makes
sense to ask why we'd do such a thing. Suppose, for instance, that you spot
me red-faced, huffing and puffing, as I make my way around a track. Why
am I willing to suffer so? To get in shape. Why is that important? To be
healthy. Why is that important? Because it makes me happy. That's where
all such lines of questioning seem to end. If being healthy only made me
miserable not easy to imagine, but possible then what good would it
do me? True, it might make me more attractive, or allow me to live longer,
or make me a better athlete. But if those things didn't make me happy, it is
hard to see how being healthy would make me better off.
It is perfectly sensible for us to ask about how we'd be better off by
studying hard, playing by the rules, dieting, or telling the truth. We can
defend the value of such things if we can show that they make us hap-
pier. But that shows only that they are instrumental goods. By contrast, we
don't need to show that happiness leads to anything else in order to show
that it is valuable. We recognize that to be happy is already to be in a desir-
able state. This supports the hedonist's claim that happiness is intrinsically
valuable.

Rules of the Good Life and Their Exceptions

Hedonism can justify the many rules for living a good life, while at the
same time explaining why there are exceptions to these rules.
Almost all of us are better off if we manage to be free of manipula-
tion, crippling illness, enslavement, constant worry, unwanted attention,
treachery, and physical brutality. Remove these burdens, and you imme-
diately improve the quality of life. The hedonist's explanation is simple
and plausible: in almost every case, eliminating these things reduces our
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misery.
 CHAPTER 1 Hedonism: Its Powerful Appeal 29

On the positive side, we can improve our lives by making sure that
they contain interesting work and hobbies, trustworthy friends, a giving
and understanding sexual partner, and a commitment to causes we
strongly believe in. Why? Because such things usually add enjoyment to
our lives.
These lists are not complete, and I'm not concerned to argue for any
specific item on either one. The lists are meant to reflect common sense.
And the point is that hedonism can explain why common sense says what
it does. Certain things reliably damage our welfare, because they almost
always bring misery in their wake; other things just as reliably improve
our quality of life, because they are a source of enjoyment.
Hedonism can also explain why there are exceptions to these rules.
Some people enjoy being humiliated or manipulated. For them, we must
put these experiences on the positive side of the ledger. Others, such
as certain masochists, delight in experiencing various kinds of physical
pain. So pain adds to their quality of life, while diminishing it for the
rest of us.
Recall that hedonism, as I understand it here, does not say that all
pleasure enhances our quality of life only enjoyment does that. Likewise
for physical pain: usually, it lessens our well-being, because we don't enjoy
it. But in unusual cases, when a person actually likes it, physical pain can
improve that person's welfare.
Hedonism thus explains why it is so hard to come up with universal,
iron -clad rules for improving our lives. Such rules hold only for the most
part, because increasing our welfare is a matter of becoming happier, and
some people find happiness in extremely unusual ways. Hedonism honors
both the standard and the uncommon sources of happiness; no matter
how you come by it, happiness (and only happiness) directly makes you
better off.

Happiness Is at We Want for Our Loved Ones

I have two children, Max and Sophie. I love them very much. I have a
very strong desire that they be happy, and an even stronger desire that
their lives contain as little misery as possible. This makes perfect sense if
hedonism is true.
That's because parents who deeply care for their children want what is
best for them. I, like so many other parents, want my children to be happy.
That shows that happiness is what is best for them. Right?
30 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF ETHICS

Not necessarily. Consider the words of Philippa Foot, a contemporary

philosopher who rejects hedonism:
I recall a talk by a doctor who described a patient of his (who had
perhaps had a prefrontal lobotomy) as "perfectly happy all day long
picking up leaves:' This impressed me because I thought, "Well, most
of us are not happy all day long doing the things we do;' and realized
how strange it would be to think that the very kindest of fathers would
arrange such an operation for his (perfectly normal) child. 3

What Foot is suggesting here is that parents who really care about their
children would want things for them other than their happiness. If happi-
ness is of paramount importance, and if a lobotomized person experiences
more happiness than the rest of us, then why shouldn't a loving parent sign
up her child for such an operation? But the thought is absurd. And the
reason, apparently, is that happiness is not the only thing that improves
the quality of life. In Foot's example, parents quite reasonably give greater
priority to their children's ability to develop their talents, and to pursue
worthwhile activities even those that bring them less happiness.
I think that there is definitely something to Foot's observation. But it
is possible to make a common mistake when thinking about it. The error
lies in assuming that the following is a surefire test for becoming better off:
(T) If someone knows you very well, loves you, and for your own sake
wants you to have X, then X makes you better off.
Most parents know their children very well, love them, and, for their
sake, want them to be happy. If (T) is correct, this shows that happiness
makes them better off.
But (T) is not correct, because even the dearest friend or parent can
be mistaken about what will increase another person's welfare. Consider a
father who loves his daughter and wants what is best for her. But he truly
believes that a woman's welfare is a matter of how well she serves her hus-
band. Suppose that his daughter has married someone who is physically
and emotionally abusive. Such a father might advise his daughter to remain
with her abuser, for her own good. Or consider parents whose son has
told them that he is gay. They are appalled. They may really love him, and
want him, for his own sake, to marry a nice young woman. But marrying
a woman is not going to make this man better off. The cares of those who
love you are not always a reliable indicator of where your self-interest lies.

3. Philippa Foot, Natural Goodness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 85.
 CHAPTER 1 Hedonism: Its Powerful Appeal 31

Hedonism can explain why this test, (T), fails. If hedonism is true,
then there is a different, and perfectly reliable, test of when well-being is
improved:
(H) If something makes you happier, then it promotes your well-
being; if something fails to make you happier, then it fails to promote
your well-being.
The hedonist's test will sometimes conflict with (T). Staying with an
abusive husband will not promote a daughter's happiness; marrying a
woman will not promote a gay son's happiness. Therefore (H) tells us that
such actions will not improve their well-being. And that is correct. (T)
gives us the wrong results in these cases. (H) gives us the right ones.
But there is a nagging suspicion that more needs to be said. Although
(H) provides the right answers in these cases, it does seem to get things
wrong in the specific case that Philippa Foot described. After all, we
don't want our children lobotomized, even if they'll be happier as a result!
That seems to show that happiness is not the he-all and end-all of a good
life. Let's now see whether that's so.

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Discussion uesttons
1. What is the difference between intrinsic value and instrumental value?
2. What is the difference between physical pleasure and attitudinal plea-
sure? Which kind of pleasure do hedonists claim is always intrinsi-
cally valuable? Why do you think that hedonists make this distinction,
rather than claiming that all pleasure is intrinsically valuable?
3. In what sense does hedonism ((give us a say" in what the good life looks
like? Do you think that this is an attractive feature of hedonism? If so,
why? If not, why not?
4. Can you think of any case in which experiencing pleasure fails to con-
tribute to a person's well-being? If so, consider what a hedonist might
say in order to undermine such a case.
5. Imagine someone who chooses to sacrifice his or her own happiness in
order to help others, and claims that this is the best sort of life to live.
Would the existence of such a person be a problem for hedonism? Why
or why not?
6. What is the point of Foot's comments about lobotomies? How do you
think a hedonist might respond to Foot's challenge?
7. Given the arguments of this chapter, do you think hedonism is correct?
Why or why not?