Abstract of Book

Hedonism is the view that the Good Life is the pleasant life. The central aim of this book is to show that, when carefully and charitably interpreted, certain forms of hedonism yield plausible evaluations of human lives. The forms I defend understand pleasure as intrinsic attitudinal pleasure. I reject all forms of sensory hedonism. I defend my preferred forms of hedonism against a barrage of classic objections derived from Plato, Aristotle, Brentano, Moore, Ross, Rawls, and many others. I compare my forms of hedonism to the hedonistic views of Aristippus, Epicurus, Bentham, and Mill. Some views in value theory are typically thought to be anti-hedonistic. I show that some of these views are equivalent to forms of hedonism. I also defend the claim that all the allegedly hedonistic theories discussed in the book are properly classified as forms of “hedonism”. Near the end of the book I present my vision of the Good Life and I mention some remaining problems.