Imagine two lives equal in pleasure. In the first life, your pleasure is mindless and comes from a "pleasure machine" that stimulates your brain. In the second life, you have the same amount of pleasure, but it comes from a normal exercise of your higher powers. Hedonism says that both lives, in themselves, are equally good, since they are equal in pleasure.
Imagine two lives equal in pleasure. In the first life, your pleasure is mindless and comes from a "pleasure machine" that stimulates your brain. In the second life, you have the same amount of pleasure, but it comes from a normal exercise of your higher powers. Hedonism says that both lives, in themselves, are equally good, since they are equal in pleasure.
However, almost everyone would prefer the second life. So our preferences are pluralistic -- not hedonistic. And it's hard to imagine that these preferences would change if we became more rational. If so, then our rational preferences support the pluralistic view.
This example concedes to hedonism that we can make sense of the phrase "two lives equal in pleasure." In practice, though, "amount of pleasure" is very vague.
Imagine two lives equal in pleasure. In the first life, your pleasure is mindless and comes from a "pleasure machine" that stimulates your brain. In the second life, you have the same amount of pleasure, but it comes from a normal exercise of your higher powers. Hedonism says that both lives, in themselves, are equally good, since they are equal in pleasure.
Hedonism would say that two lives equal in pleasure are equally good.