Plato's anti-hedonism
| Abstract | It often seems obvious to us that our pleasures can justify our actions. If I ask you why you’re reading right now instead of dancing, and if your answer is that reading, unlike dancing, is just something you like to do, then (all else equal) your answer seems perfectly sufficient. To demand that you specify some further end you have in enjoying yourself would seem unreasonable if not bizarre. As Elizabeth Anscombe observes, “‘It’s pleasant’ is an adequate answer to ‘What’s the good of it?’ or ‘What do you want that for?’ I.e. the chain of ‘Why’s’ comes to an end with this answer.” (Anscombe 1957/1999, 77) And from this observation alone it is natural to infer—as Plato’s Academic colleague Eudoxus apparently does—that your taking pleasure in something gives you a special, non-derivative reason to pursue that thing. Consider the following argument, attributed by Aristotle to Eudoxus in book X of the Nicomachean Ethics. | |||||||||
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