Hedonism Reconsidered
Abstract
This paper is a plea for hedonism to be taken more seriously. It begins by charting hedonism's decline, and suggests that this is a result of two major objections: the claim that hedonism is the ‘philosophy of swine’, reducing all value to a single common denominator, and Nozick's ‘experience machine’ objection. There follows some elucidation of the nature of hedonism, and of enjoyment in particular. Two types of theory of enjoyment are outlined–internalism, according to which enjoyment has some special ‘feeling tone’, and externalism, according to which enjoyment is any kind of experience to which we take some special attitude, such as that of desire. Internalism–the traditional view–is defended against current externalist orthodoxy. The paper ends with responses to the philosophy of swine and the experience machine objections.
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- Authors
- CRISP, R.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Corresponding author
- CRISP, Roger
- ORCID
- CRISP, Roger
- Venue
- Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2006-11
- Volume
- 73
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 619-645
- ISSN
- 0031-8205 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4252707510
- Cited by
- 282
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 18 · 2025: 20 · 2024: 37 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 34 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 45 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 25 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 5
- FWCI
- 21.22
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Philosophical Ethics and Theory
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Ethics, Aesthetics, and Art
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy
- Keywords
- hedonism, experience machine, Robert Nozick, internalism, externalism, desire, values
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