Book Review: A Hedonist Manifesto by Michel Onfray

Ethics, Art and Knowledge are all subjects that can be seen to have a transcendental element. Each is capable of acquiring a religious tone, especially when they unconsciously replace the un-touchable figure of God with abstract notions of un-corrupted beauty, goodness or truth. Even in nominally secular pursuits there is often a desire for contact with something beyond the mundane and terrestrial: a desire for art that portrays an ideal form, ethics that could transcend human subjectivity or even knowledge that we can be certain to represent reality as it is.

This transcendental impulse is what Onfray takes to be the stumbling block of philosophy. From Plato's cave to Kant's Noumena and Phenomena, philosophers have been obsessed with attempts to reach beyond the material world. Onfray's alternative is to refocus on the here and now. To reject any transcendental claim that pulls us away from the material conditions of life. Drawing on Pre-Christian philosophers such as Epicurus and Diogenes the Cynic, Onfray pulls together thinkers who rebel against the transcendental impulse identified early on in his historiography of philosophy: though he later also incorporates the existential humanism of Nietzsche and hints at some of the themes in Camus in order to more fully situate his approach. The result is a philosophy that is concerned with, and exalts, the human experience and rejects any attempt to supersede our subjectivity.

The book is philosophically iconoclastic in a very exciting way. Onfray doesn't just sneer at the empty verbal gesticulations of arm-chair theorists, he works productively to identify new directions for philosophy. What's more he identifies precedents in philosophy's own history that could act as starting points for more hedonistic and concrete theorising. Onfray's case is extremely compelling, perhaps one of the reasons philosophy is often seen as an impotent practise, next to more scientific endeavours, is due its lack of material relevance Onfray identifies in this book. To quote Dawkins 'Science works'. The criteria for successful scientific research involves an improvement of our ability to control and impact the world: something which is often independent of any abstract truthiness.

Ultimately, 'A Hedonist Manifesto' is not just an appeal to refocus philosophy on human affairs but it is also a polemic in defence of hedonistic human relations. Onfray does not advocate for any particular form of utilitarianism but rather for an ethic of honour and kindness; an ethic which considers acts with the the thoughts, feelings and freedoms of other humans at its heart to be the highest good. An ethic which asserts, perhaps un-controversially, that the highest good is whatever pleases us best. Our moral responsibility is then not to God or History or any empty abstract talk of values but to each-other and we must interrogate norms and practises which suggest otherwise.

His closing suggestion for making this world a better one is decidedly humble, but perhaps this is in line with the books ethos. He advocates not for social revolution or mass immediate change, but for his readers to become 'Nomadic Epicurean Gardens'. Doing what they can to look after those around them and build pockets of micro-resistances to the boredom and tyranny of the world.

This is a far reaching book that does well to unify Onfray's critical look at our current, sorely limited, idea of what philosophy can be, with his more bold and hedonistic sensibilities. It's iconoclastic in a constructive way and subtly political in a way that is more humanistic than it is partisan. An important read for ethicists and lay people alike.

Defending Dionysus: The Hedonic Treadmill. Part II of II.

I have started so I will finish but first I will give a short recap so that people don't have to skip over to part one of this little literary duet for context.

The driving point of "Defending Dionysus" is that hedonism is not necessarily something which we should shy away from and the idea that it degrades our humanity is largely a claim made from a position of hysteria. Someone skilfully pursuing hedonism has very little incentive to avoid winding up in hospital having their stomach pumped, as per the worries of the epicureans, and every incentive to practise "higher" arts as per the worries of... well... snobs.

So I knew when I wrote part one that I would have some more thoughts on this topic, and what do you know? I did.

There is one issue regarding hedonism that has been tumbling around in my brain or at least jogging around; I am referring to, of course, the hedonic treadmill.

The hedonic treadmill describes a psychological process in which a person adapts to changes in their overall wellbeing establishing a general baseline of happiness that all other experiences are measured by. If you have heard of the hedonic treadmill then you will have no doubt heard of the study conducted by Brickman et al on Lottery winners. The study found that after winning the lottery, in the long run, happiness did not increase; there was a brief spike after which the winners acclimatised and were no longer perceivably any more happy than people who had never won the lottery.

This would seem to raise the question:

If lottery winners have money and the ability to satisfy their desires better, why aren't they happier? What does this mean for hedonism?

It means that simply being capable of satisfying desires is not necessarily the goal of a skilful hedonist. It may be that a skilful hedonist is a hedonist that is aware of the hedonic treadmill and in turn looks to pursue eudemonia not by pursuing a constant maximisation of pleasure but by pursuing the right pleasures in the right doses.

In fact the idea of "maximising pleasure" may be misleading. After all, humans long for a number of qualitatively different pleasures. These pleasures cannot be easily compared or tallied up using a single over-arching metric and so being a good hedonist may indeed involve taking advantage of different kinds of pleasure to offset the treadmill.

Variety is the spice of life and by changing between pleasures it may, and of course this is all speculation at this point until the evidence is in,  be possible to seek out and switch between pleasures that our minds have not become accustomed to and thereby escape the monotony of a "baseline level of happiness".

So, why discuss hedonism anyway?

 Is it because I believe hedonism, on its own, can function as a moral system? No.

Do I think practising a skilful form of hedonism may actually lead to a good life? Maybe.

The more germane reason for writing these pieces has its roots in my more existential and physicalist streaks. If we are going to construct a theory that can provide a comprehensive explanation of what it is that humans live for in a godless, spiritless universe then it is going to have to be suitably secular in its groundings. If we do find a sober and suitably atheist account of purpose it is going to have to be rooted in our most basic biological motives which are to seek pleasure and avoid pain.*

*For those of you about to claim that reproduction is our prime motivator I refer you to this little piece on sex. ->   http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/insight-therapy/201204/why-do-we-have-sex

While reproduction is the "goal" of all biological entities, for humans at least, pleasure takes precedent when it comes to our actual motives (even when pleasure is weighed against reproductive goals). That being said the attached article distinguishes between sexual pleasure and comfort/attachment which I don't think can count as a criticism of my position as long as we aknowledge that comfort is a form of pleasure.