Belief that pleasure {Gk. ‘hdonh [h?don?]} is the highest or only source of intrinsic value. Although commonly defended as a moral theory about the proper aim of human conduct, hedonism is usually grounded on the psychological claim that human beings simply do act in such ways as to maximize their own happiness. Aristotle argued against any attempt to identify pleasure as the highest good, but Epicurus held that physical pleasure and freedom from pain are significant goals for human life. The utilitarianism of Bentham proposes a practical method for calculating hedonic value.
Recommended Reading: F. E. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon (NYU, 1967) {at Amazon.com}; The Essential Epicurus, tr. by Eugene Michael O'Connor (Prometheus, 1993) {at Amazon.com}; Lionel Tiger, The Pursuit of Pleasure (Transaction, 2000) {at Amazon.com}; Fred Feldman, Utilitarianism, Hedonism, and Desert: Essays in Moral Philosophy (Cambridge, 1997) {at Amazon.com}; Rem B. Edwards, Pleasures and Pains: A Theory of Qualitative Hedonism (Cornell, 1987) {at Amazon.com}; and Kate Soper, Troubled Pleasures: Writings on Politics, Gender, and Hedonism (Verso, 1991) {at Amazon.com}.