Currently, I would call myself a narrow hedonist ('narrow hedonism' being the view that happiness and stress are basic, universal emotions that are intrinsically good and bad regardless of one's attitude towards them, in opposition with preference hedonism or the view that any subjective experience is good if it's wanted or preferred. I would argue that a preference is just an intuitive estimation of the likeliness of something causing pleasure but preference satisfaction isn't pleasure, it just causes pleasure, this is separate topic). I want to disassociate myself from 'hedonism' in the layman sense of the word (ie. the pursuit of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll) and it's egoistic connotations. 'Narrow' hedonism is pejorative, coined by someone who didn't give the view any serious credibility. Maybe 'value hedonism' would work. Is there a better term?

Hi Ubuntu.

I don't usually use the word hedonism to describe my position. But if I did, I'd call myself a broad hedonist, not a narrow one. This is because the phrase narrow hedonism only conjures to mind visceral, primitive pleasures to mind. Alternatively, I could use a word like human flourishing. This seems to capture the more sophisticated pleasant conscious states, whether they are intellectual, romantic, or otherwise. But perhaps flourishing goes too far the other way. What about the feeling we derive from food or sex. They don't seem to be captured by the term human flourishing. As a linguistic aside, the phrase "pleasant conscious states" doesn't seem to be limited to sex, drugs and rock n roll, unlike its cheaper cousin "pleasure". But it's a bit long-winded. I think the best word available to us is "wellbeing".

So, I'm a utilitarian. I want to maximise wellbeing. I want happiness to prevail over suffering, that is, for the total of pleasant conscious states to exceed the total of unpleasant ones.

To describe what utilitarianism is, it's often useful to compare it to other ethical principles. This should give you some more examples of the kind of language I might use:

Other ethical ideas such as justice and autonomy are often seem to rival wellbeing, but this is only partly true. Justice is overall compatible with wellbeing. For our wealth to be distributed evenly will mitigate against jealousy and theft. So is autonomy. For people to be allowed to govern their bodies and their immediate environments is desirable, and doubly so. Firstly, given autonomy, people tend to construct their lives so that they do not have to suffer physically or emotionally unpleasant situations. Secondly, the sense that one is free to build one's own life rather than be oppressed is a satisfying one. I do believe in justice and autonomy too. However, they do not rival wellbeing. Rather, they are servants to it. If someone suggests promoting justice beyond its capacity to improve human experience, I'll say that no, we should not! We should only promote justice in so far as it can improve wellbeing. The same is true for autonomy. In scenarios when autonomy and wellbeing are brought in opposition with each other (say, in the case of involuntary admission of a patient who is psychotically ill), I say that it is so much the worse for autonomy.

If I'm asked what type of utilitarian I am, well I'm a global, total, classical utilitarian. But that's a different story! Hope this helps, Ubuntu.

I don't usually use the word hedonism to describe my position. But if I did, I'd call myself a broad hedonist, not a narrow one. This is because the phrase narrow hedonism only conjures to mind visceral, primitive pleasures to mind.

That's a good point although I was hoping that, if somebody hadn't heard the term 'narrow' hedonist they wouldn't make any assumptions since they'd never heard the specific term before, lol.

Alternatively, I could use a word like human flourishing. This seems to capture the more sophisticated pleasant conscious states, whether they are intellectual, romantic, or otherwise. But perhaps flourishing goes too far the other way. What about the feeling we derive from food or sex. They don't seem to be captured by the term human flourishing. As a linguistic aside, the phrase "pleasant conscious states" doesn't seem to be limited to sex, drugs and rock n roll, unlike its cheaper cousin "pleasure". But it's a bit long-winded. I think the best word available to us is "wellbeing".

I usually use the term 'happiness' instead of pleasure to avoid the shallow connotations of 'pleasure' as well.

So, I'm a utilitarian. I want to maximise wellbeing. I want happiness to prevail over suffering, that is, for the total of pleasant conscious states to exceed the total of unpleasant ones.

Hedonist utilitarian is a mouthful and I want to make clear where I differ with non-hedonist utilitarians.

Other ethical ideas such as justice and autonomy are often seem to rival wellbeing, but this is only partly true. Justice is overall compatible with wellbeing. For our wealth to be distributed evenly will mitigate against jealousy and theft. So is autonomy. For people to be allowed to govern their bodies and their immediate environments is desirable, and doubly so. Firstly, given autonomy, people tend to construct their lives so that they do not have to suffer physically or emotionally unpleasant situations. Secondly, the sense that one is free to build one's own life rather than be oppressed is a satisfying one. I do believe in justice and autonomy too. However, they do not rival wellbeing. Rather, they are servants to it. If someone suggests promoting justice beyond its capacity to improve human experience, I'll say that no, we should not! We should only promote justice in so far as it can improve wellbeing. The same is true for autonomy. In scenarios when autonomy and wellbeing are brought in opposition with each other (say, in the case of involuntary admission of a patient who is psychotically ill), I say that it is so much the worse for autonomy.

I agree, I don't see a point to justice, autonomy, preference fulfillment etc. if it doesn't increase human flourishing/well-being

If I'm asked what type of utilitarian I am, well I'm a global, total, classical utilitarian.

What is global utilitarianism?

edit : does value hedonist sound stupid?