Cicero (106-43 BCE), a vehement critic of Epicurus, refers to the pursuit of pleasure as “the sort of position that seems utterly unworthy of a human being”, claiming that “Nature has created and shaped us for better things” ( On Moral Ends).
Indeed, it would seem as if hedonism has usually been vilified to some degree throughout the various epochs of culture, and frequently banished to the periphery of discussions on ethics.Ī number of common criticisms have kept hedonism in the fringes. By contrast, Bentham’s development of utilitarian ethics around the end of the eighteenth century was considered scandalous at the time, primarily because it revived the notion of pleasure as the highest good. For example, despite the influence of Epicurus around the Mediterranean in the Hellenistic period, Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum were the more influential schools of philosophy, with Aristotle’s exposition of virtue ethics commonly considered a cornerstone of classical antiquity. This idea’s popularity through the ages has been fickle. In its most basic form, hedonism argues that one ought to pursue pleasure and avoid pain as the fundamental aim of human behaviour. By comparing and contrasting the Indian hedonists with their Greek counterparts, and by illustrating how well-developed and varied hedonism actually is, my hope is that we can revisit hedonism as a viable ethical theory while simultaneously moving beyond the traditional dismissal of Asian philosophy found in the West.
I will then compare this Ancient Indian form of hedonism with an Ancient Greek form, namely Epicureanism. After my overview of hedonism, I’ll describe the ancient Indian Cārvāka school, a form of hedonism that was notably naturalistic or anti-mystical. My second aim is to respond to charges of mysticism leveled at Asian philosophy.
I’ll provide a rough description of what hedonism is and what it looks like, based on Fred Feldman’s distinction between sensory pleasures and attitudinal pleasures. My first aim is to introduce the doctrine of hedonism. It’s an ancient theory, with well-documented precedents in both ancient Greece and India. In this article I want to examine an ethical theory that has never been quite as well-received as some others: hedonism. SUBSCRIBE NOW Articles Hedonism in Ancient India & Greece Nick Gutierrez wonders if pleasure-seeking is underrated as a virtue.
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