Philosophers commonly distinguish between psychological hedonism and ethical hedonism

Psychological hedonism is the view that humans are psychologically constructed in such a
way that we exclusively desire pleasure.
Ethical hedonism is the view that our fundamental moral obligation is to maximize pleasure
or happiness.

There were two main groups of Hedonists in the ancient world. The first group, the
Cyrenaics, believed that only the pleasures of the body were important for happiness, while
the second group, the Epicureans thought that the pleasures of the mind were ultimately
more important than those of the body

There were two main groups of Hedonists in the ancient world. The first group, the
Cyrenaics, believed that only the pleasures of the body were important for happiness, while
the second group, the Epicureans thought that the pleasures of the mind were ultimately
more important than those of the body

They were only concerned with how (1) immediate, (2) physical, (3) brief, (4) intense, and
(5) diverse the pleasure we strive for. In this sense being able to eat a rich and sumptuously
prepared meal or spending a few hours frolicking on a beautiful beach in the Caribbean are
to be preferred to such intangible pleasures as the enjoyment of intellectual contemplation
or stimulating conversation

... The philosopher Aristippus (born c. 435 BC, Cyrene, Libya - died 366 BC, Athens), was one
of the disciples of Socrates. He was the founder of the Cyrenaic school of hedonism, the
ethic of pleasure. Aristippus believed that the good life rests upon the belief that among
human values pleasure is the highest and pain the lowest - and one that should be avoided.
He also warned his students to avoid inflicting, as well as suffering, pain. Like Socrates,
Aristippus took great interest in practical ethics. While he believed that men should dedicate
their lives to the pursuit and enjoyment of pleasure, he also believed that they should use
good judgment and exercise self-control to temper powerful human desires. His motto was,
"I possess, I am not possessed."

Epicurus (342-270 BCE.) who taught that our life's goal should be to minimize pain and
maximize pleasure. In fact, all of our actions should have that aim

Epicurus explains how we can reduce the psychological anguish that results from fearing the
gods and fearing death. Concerning the nature of pleasure, Epicurus explains that at least
some pleasures are rooted in natural and, as a rule, every pain is bad and should be
avoided, and every pleasure is good and should be preferred. However, there is delicate
relation between pain and pleasure. Every pain we have is bad, and we should minimize
pain when possible. However, sometimes simply minimizing life's pains is sufficient to attain
happiness, and we need to go a step further and actively increase pleasure. He argues that
we should not pursue every possible pleasure, such as when they produce more pain. Also,
argues that the fewer desires we have, the easier it will be to experience happiness.

Epicurus had little patience with religion, which he considered a form of ignorance. He was
particularly eager to help people loose their fear of the gods. He did, however, also say that
the gods existed, although they lived far away in space somewhere and had little or nothing
to do with people on earth. Atheism, you see, was still illegal in Athens!

One of the most persistent issues concerning belief in God is the problem of evil. Epicurus's
argument still holds up:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
 Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

During the middle ages, Christian philosophers largely denounced Epicurean hedonism,
which they believed was inconsistent with the Christian emphasis on avoiding sin, doing
God's will, and developing the Christian virtues of faith, hope and charity. Reniassance
philosophers such as Erasmus (1466-1536) revived hedonism and argued that its emphasis
on pleasure was in fact compatible with God's wish for humans to be happy. In his famous
work Utopia (1516), British philosopher Thomas More (1478-1535) explains that "the chief
part of a person's happiness consists of pleasure." Like Erasmus, More defends hedonism on
religious grounds and argues that, not only did God design us to be happy, but that uses our
desire for happiness to motivate us to behave morally. More importantly More distinguishes
between pleasures of the mind, and pleasures of the body. He also argues that we should
pursue pleasures that are more naturally grounded, so that we do not become preoccupied
with artificial luxuries. In the 18th century, the moral theme of pleasure and happiness was
more systematically explored by Francis Hutcheson (1694-1747) and David Hume (1711-
1776), whose theories were precursors to utilitarianism.

Cynicism
The founder of Cynicism was Antisthenes, who was about forty when he watched Athens defeated in the
Peloponnesian War. He was a former student of Socrates, and he witnessed the execution of Socrates.
Like Plato, Antisthenes was disgusted with the world around him. He had grown tired of what he saw as
the worthless quibbling of refined philosophy. He saw himself as a teacher, and he left the company of
other philosophers to preach to people in market places, in a manner he thought they could understand.
He told people that virtue demanded withdrawal from involvement with a world that was immoral and
corrupt.
Antisthenes' best known disciple was Diogenes - decades before Alexander the Great. Diogenes disliked
his father's profession: money changing. He rejected chasing after wealth. He found virtue in having few
or no possessions, in simplicity and in modest wants. He rejected fame and honor, but his demonstrations
of asceticism were so novel to his fellow Greeks that it attracted great attention, and many Greeks came
to think of him as extraordinarily wise. In his old age his fame was enough that Alexander visited him and
asked if there was any favor he wished, and Diogenes, the story goes, replied that he wanted only that
Alexander stand out of his sunlight.
In the Hellenistic times that followed the death of Alexander, a few philosophers adopted the thinking and
style of Antisthenes and Diogenes. They wandered from place to place, and at town squares they
discussed social conventions and simple virtues. It was with these Cynics that the word cosmopolitan was
coined, a word used to signify that they belonged to no state. They advocated salvation from worry and
conflict by what some in modern times would call dropping out. They were entertaining to listen to, but
Cynicism would forever remain a small and barely influential movement. For most people the call to drop
out made no sense: they were already barely able to feed and clothe themselves and their families. The
Cynics were little interested in economic realities. Only a few could go about without working, living off
what was provided by those who labored in the fields or at other occupations. For most who had to
struggle to get by the Cynics must have appeared as much the intellectual babblers that Antisthenes
thought other philosophers to be.

Socrates taught that the man who had only simple wants and needs was more likely to survive and
prosper than the one who had numerous, elaborate wants and needs. In other words, the less you desire
and require in life, the more likely you are to find genuine happiness.

The Cynics took this concept a step further, and reasoned that in order to achieve the goal of absolute
happiness and virtue, one should have no wants and needs at all. Thus, they sought to abolish all areas
of human desire from their lives.

They dressed differently from others, talked differently, behaved differently. They allowed their clothes to
literally rot off their bodies to demonstrate their lack of desire and concern for material things. Some have
characterized them "the hippies of the ancient world."

The major flaw in their reasoning was their behavior was a demonstration of the desire to be different, and
thus superior to others. This led to pride, which was not a virtue.

Antisthenes is the founder of cynicism. Cynic comes from the Greek word for dog, originally because
Antisthenes taught at the Cynosarges (Dogfish) gymnasium, which had been set up for the poor of
Athens.

Cynicism makes virtue the only good, the only true happiness. You can’t control the world and life’s ups
and downs, so control yourself! Inhibit your desires! become independent of the world! “I would rather
go mad than feel pleasure!” said Antisthenes.

The utilitarianism of John Stuart Mill is sometimes classified as a type of

Pragmatism is an American philosophy from the early 20th century. According to Pragmatism, the truth or
meaning of an idea or a proposition lies in its observable practical consequences rather than anything
metaphysical. It can be summarized by the phrase “whatever works, is likely true.” Because reality
changes, “whatever works” will also change — thus, truth must also be changeable and no one can claim
to possess any final or ultimate truth.

Pragmatism is a philosophy in which the consequences of actions determine the moral goodness or
badness of the causing actions. Since the turn of the century pragmatism has been the prevailing
philosophy in America. Much of today's society is "results driven." For them, only the results are
important. For pragmatists, there are no objective standards that can evaluate actions up front.

For pragmatists, Darwin has replaced God. There is no longer an authoritian, exalted ruler of the universe
who establishes truth. The God above has been replaced by the god within, pantheism or monism. So, in
the absense of objective truth, how should pragmatists decide which of many alternative choices is best?

Pragmatists say that life is a process of discovering the truths of how our actions work for us. Their
question is not so much "What is true?" or "What ought we to believe?" Instead they ask "What, if we
believe it, will work best for us?"
Pragmatism, by William James
The Meaning of Truth, by William James

Pragmatism is the philosophy for which the test of truth is the usefulness of the consequences of an act.
There is no static or objective truth. Rather truth is constantly updated through the process of the mind
working on the ever increasing store of our experiences. Truth is the instrument or tool by which human
beings solve their problems, and it changes as their knowledge and problems change.

Without an objective moral compass to guide our actions, pragmatism causes us to ask, "Does it work?"
rather than "Is it right?" Pragmatism does not look backward to axioms, premises or conjectures, but
rather it looks forward to conclusions, results, or consequences.

Pragmatism comes from the Greek word pragma, meaning action. Words like practice and practical also
derive from pragma. Pragmatism looks at consequences and asks: "What practical difference would there
be if this alternative or that were true?" Many philosophical or moral arguments collapse into
insignificance when you subject them to this test and find no significant difference in consequence
There are no absolute truths. Rather, there are postulates. Postulates are true when they function to
explain our experiences. All so called truths are empirical and are all man-made. They are valid or true
only if within our experience they produce practical results. In other words, a statement is true if believing
it provides the most benefit at this moment. The "Law of Pragmatism" is simply: "If it works, it's true."

Pragmatism does not consider the question of God's existence. Rather the important
concept is "Does a person's belief in God work satisfactorily for him?" When it is beneficial to
believe in God and moral order in the universe, then this is the truth. Would it be "better" to
believe or not believe? Pragmatism is willing to consider all possibilities, rational, emotional,
spiritual in the search for the truth that fits the world best for us.

Pragmatism denies that objective concepts, eternal judgments, and universal reasoning
processes can represent reality.

Pragmatists look at the consequences of a variety of beliefs. The belief that delivers the best
results is the truth. They may ask the question: What would the world be like if this
alternative were true, or that alternative? If there is no difference, then the distinction is
irrelevant. For example, consider the concepts "There is a God" and "There is No God."
Which is true? The pragmatist would not examine the evidence, but rather the
consequences of each belief. The totality of God cannot be known. All we have is what is
know of God, which is an imaginative product of history and the experience and reflection of
many peoples. This "apparent god" can give meaning and function to our lives.

Pragmatism as a philosophical movement began in the United States in the 1870s. Its
overall direction was determined by the thought and works of Charles Sanders Peirce
(pronounced /ˈpɜrs/ like "purse"), William James, and Chauncey Wright (members of The
Metaphysical Club

Bentham and Mill were hedonists; i.e., they analyzed happiness as a balance of pleasure
over pain and believed that these feelings alone are of intrinsic value and disvalue.
in normative ethics, a tradition stemming from the late 18th- and 19th-century English
philosophers and economists Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill that an action is right if it
tends to promote happiness and wrong if it tends to produce the reverse of happiness—not
just the happiness of the performer of the action but also that of everyone affected by it.
Such a theory is in opposition to egoism, the view that a person should pursue his own self-
interest, even at the expense of others, and to any ethical theory that regards some acts or
types of acts as right or wrong independently of their consequences. Utilitarianism also
differs from ethical theories that make the rightness or wrongness of an act dependent upon
the motive of the agent; for, according to the Utilitarian, it is possible for the right thing to
be done from a bad motive.

One such criticism is that, although the widespread practice of lying and stealing would have
bad consequences, resulting in a loss of trustworthiness and security, it is not certain that an
occasional lie to avoid embarrassment or an occasional theft from a rich man would not
have good consequences, and thus be permissible or even required by Utilitarianism. But
the Utilitarian readily answers that the widespread practice of such acts would result in a
loss of trustworthiness and security. To meet the objection to not permitting an occasional
lie or theft, some philosophers have defended a modification labelled “rule” Utilitarianism. It
permits a particular act on a particular occasion to be adjudged right or wrong according to
whether it is in accordance with or in violation of a useful rule; and a rule is judged useful or
not by the consequences of its general practice. Mill has sometimes been interpreted as a
“rule” Utilitarian, whereas Bentham and Sidgwick were “act” Utilitarians.

Another objection, often posed against the hedonistic value theory held by Bentham, holds
that the value of life is more than a balance of pleasure over pain. Mill, in contrast to
Bentham, discerned differences in the quality of pleasures that made some intrinsically
preferable to others independently of intensity and duration (the quantitative dimensions
recognized by Bentham). Some philosophers in the Utilitarian tradition have recognized
certain wholly nonhedonistic values without losing their Utilitarian credentials. A British
philosopher, G.E. Moore, a pioneer of 20th-century Analysis, regarded many kinds of
consciousness—including love, knowledge, and the experience of beauty—as intrinsically
valuable independently of pleasure, a position labelled “ideal” Utilitarianism. Even in limiting
the recognition of intrinsic value and disvalue to happiness and unhappiness, some
philosophers have argued that those feelings cannot adequately be further broken down into
terms of pleasure and pain and have thus preferred to defend the theory in terms of
maximizing happiness and minimizing unhappiness. It is important to note, however, that
even for the hedonistic Utilitarians, pleasure and pain are not thought of in purely sensual
terms; pleasure and pain for them can be components of experiences of all sorts. Their claim
is that, if an experience is neither pleasurable nor painful, then it is a matter of indifference
and has no intrinsic value.

Its central principle - its only principle - is that the right action to perform is the one which
creates most happiness.

It is known as 'act utilitarianism'. To repeat, it holds that we should decide how to act in any
given situation by considering what course of action will cause the most pleasure and the
least pain for all involved. Bentham came up with a hedonistic calculus for such decisions,
and attempted to popularise it with a memorable rhyme:

Intense, long, certain, speedy, fruitful, pure -