Essay on Hedonism

Some people agree with this school of thought while others do not agree with it. Those who do not agree think that life has a lot of feelings not just pleasure while those who agree with hedonism are known as hedonists. Hedonists always strive to live happily with greater amounts of pleasure because it is the best thing life can offer unlike non-hedonists who believe that life has a lot in store. The aim of this paper herein is to discuss the hedonism as a theory of well being of humans, objection to hedonism in regards to experience machine and also a discussion of the best response that hedonists can get from the experience machine. The paper will also give the reasons as to why the experience machine objection to hedonism does not succeed.

Physically this man felt the pain or suffering which contracts the unseen pleasure and happiness out of giving out. This also is in contrast to the hedonism theory of well-being because it argues that happiness and pleasure should be attained with no pain or suffering and that is why it is a paradox as the pleasure received by this man contradicted his physical feeling. All in all, hedonists are in pursuit of pleasure in their human life. The experience machine objection to hedonism In regards to hedonism, real life of happiness can be equated to a simulated life of happiness that is experienced by a person if the person would hook up to a machine’s experience and experience pleasure. However, some people do consider the real life of happiness to be the best but for hedonists who are only in pursuit of pleasure do not have any problem with machine’s experience as it gives the pleasure for their well-being.

The experience machine requires people or rather hedonists to visualize their life situations from a plugged machine that generates amazing experiences perfectly and can account for a real life experience. This idea of the experience machine has been borrowed by some individuals that consider reality to be more significant to their well-being and thus a reality’s significance. Since hedonism theory believes that every action is done for the production of the highest amount of pleasure, some choose to follow it, but others do not, and thus it is always a matter of life’s choice. Robert Nozick, one of the greatest informers to the experience machine objection, objected hedonism and used an experiment with the experience machine to prove his decision that experience machine does not satisfy someone’s second desire and therefore advised hedonists to consider other matters of life besides pleasure.

The best response that a hedonist could make to the objection A defense for pleasure and happiness is the response to machine’s experience (Silverstein, 2010). However, hedonists do get pleasure as the best response to the machine’s experience objection. Why experience machine objection does not succeed Plugging into the experience machine frustrates people’s desires because it means that pleasure is the only thing you desire, but in the actual sense, there are other things that matter most to you. This is an objection to hedonism but hedonists do have a different case as pleasure is their objective desire for them and the experience machine fulfills. This therefore makes the experience machine objection fail. For the hedonists, the experience machine does work for them.