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Notes
Throughout, I refer to “the good life”, “well-being”, and “prudential value” interchangeably.
Feldman (2004). All parenthetical page references in this paper are to Feldman’s book.
Throughout, the reference is to intrinsic prudential value, that is, the value an episode of pleasure contributes to a life in virtue of its intrinsic features.
For another discussion of the features of various types of mental states, see Sumner (1996).
Peter de Marneffe’s recent criticism of Feldman’s view (De Marneffe, 2003) is misplaced, in my view, in that it wrongly ascribes to him a narrow, enjoyment-based view. According to De Marneffe, we can conceive of a creature who is psychologically incapable of enjoyment but who nonetheless approves of the experiences in her life, and it would be implausible to hold, as Feldman’s view supposedly implies, that these experiences do not make this creature’s life go better. I think that Feldman would reply by holding that the creature in question is describable as “being pleased about” the experiences in her life, or as “satisfied with her life”, and does not therefore constitute a counterexample to attitudinal hedonism.
Note furthermore that there could be different interpretations of hedonism depending on what view one takes concerning, first, whether or not a person identifies with or endorses the attitude that is ascribed prudential value; and second, whether the attitude has a history that justifies deeming it as “authentic”. It is open to a hedonist to suggest that only endorsed attitudinal pleasures have prudential value, or that only attitudinal pleasures which are “authentic” make a person’s life go better. I think these restrictions to a hedonist view would be plausible. Feldman does not discuss these aspects of attitudinal pleasures, presumably because these point to extrinsic features of attitudes. I too leave them aside here.
Strictly speaking, this seems true only of universal adjusted hedonist views (which ascribe value to all pleasures, but hold that the value of some pleasures is greater than that of others), as opposed to non-universal ones, which hold that only pleasures that have the relevant feature are valuable. I leave this point aside here.
Feldman himself seems to have this sense of “pure hedonism” in mind at times. See pp. 180–1.
Feldman states: “(...) If we allow ourselves a certain amount of conceptual leeway, we can construct the theory in such a way that the object of attitudinal pleasures are intrinsic elements in the episodes of pleasure. Thus, we can avoid conflict with the principle that intrinsic values depend upon intrinsic features. The objects will be actually intrinsic features of the episode”. (p. 73).
References
De Marneffe, P. (2003). An objection to attitudinal Hedonism. Philosophical Studies, 115: 197–200.
Feldman, F. (2004). Pleasure and the good life. Concerning the nature, varieties, and plausibility of Hedonism. Clarendon Press.
Sumner, L. W. (1996). Happiness, welfare and ethics. Clarendon Press.
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I would like to thank Paul Bou-Habib, Martin O’Neill and Andrea Sangiovanni-Vincentelli for their very helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper.
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Olsaretti, S. The limits of hedonism: Feldman on the value of attitudinal pleasure. Philos Stud 136, 409–415 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-006-9040-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-006-9040-5