Hedonism and Pleasure – Philosophy Tube
What do you need to live a good life? Is pleasure the only good?
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Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State & Utopia
John Stewart Mill, Utilitarianism
Epicurus, Principle Doctrines (See also Lucretius: De Rerum Natura)
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Derek Parfit, “Appendix I” in Reasons and Persons
Thomas Carlyle, Latter-Day Pamphlets
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@teehee4096
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
I think part of the experience machine is that you're plugged into a world that doesn't have any other sentient people in it. It sounds so lonely, even if very pleasurable. The thought experiment would be more interesting if we asked folks if they'd plug in to the fake world knowing their family and friends joined too. But then, maybe it wouldn't be "fake".
@HouSE88888
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
this very much applies to you and your current iteration albeit
@Johnnysmithy24
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
Epicurus had his own philosophy called Epicurianism , not hedonism
@fbauefigad
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
hahahhahaha. I legitimately follow this channel for years, but when I look for older videos I always think, "Where is Abigail? who is this twink?"
@octoberharvest5661
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
Hi, interesting discussion. You will have to excuse my possible grammatical errors as I am not wearing my reading glasses at the moment.
Pleasure is to make life, well, pleasant. But jt needs and requires opposition in order to be effective, or as you mention -make life good.
Can we have too much pleasure? What about drugs? Drugs, particularly stimulants can give you a pleasant feeling that is why we have addiction.
After years of hedonistic behavior, regarding drug use, most if not all addicts currently on recovery agree that at one point, more pleasure was simply impossible, regardless if they had the drug or not.
So, pleasure, or at least our capacity for experience it for continuous long periods is finite.
The pleasure becomes, unpleasant.
So how does it work? Is pleasure a circular system like the yin and yang? Two sides of the same coin.
If pleasure makes life good, then pain should make it not good, right? With complete agency comes complete consequences depending in how we use it.
Is pleasure good if having it means taking it away from others? Or reducing their access to it?
Ahh opposition. Similar to never experiencing heat or cold, always the perfect temperature. How would the right, even perfect temperature make us happy? You need both values of the scale to make the other have real value or to make sense.
If this is true, giving pain is part of taking pleasure, how does that work?
I'm not preaching I just typed my thoughts.
Great discussion!!!
@josephbills9903
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
My argument against hedonism is the following: imagine the activity you like doing the most. If you had the opportunity to ONLY do that one activity forever, would you? I wouldn’t, because I think a variety of experience is more valuable than optimizing pleasure.
@NostalgiaDigital
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
Hello from the futuristic earth of 2024, nothing has changed
@yeenbean3318
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
I heard something that sparked my interest in the subject so I looked it up and found this. Oh, it's Philosophy Tube. I like that channel. I click on it and wonder for a good few seconds who the fuck is on my screen.
@aprilshadows
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
I left a distasteful comment around this time a while ago. Something where I noticed plucked eyebrows and facial fat changes…
I was right!
@dirksparrow
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
love your video .
i got a question about a tshirt in your merch on Nebula , I love your Hedonism one but i dont get the XIV on it ?
I got some ideas but not really sure .Can someone help me with this ?
thank you
@ericarrick6365
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
We should assume that people want their lives to be saved until they tell us otherwise
@JanStue
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
Where can I find this experience machine?
@alecjaxn
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
Hey Abigail! I was thinking about humanism recently and decided to give it a search on youtube and this gem popped up. Thank you for your thoughtfulness in your explanations and responses and I'm happy to see where you are now vs where you were when you made this video. Thanks for being awesome and I look forward to seeing what new things are in store for you in the next 7 years!
@ZootZinBootZ
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
Satisfaction guaranteed also works
@chickenskink1
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
I mean, did he TRY being a pig? I doubt it. 🐖🐖🐖 The hubris of philosophers to assume being human is best or that there's a difference in principle (as opposed to a gradual one) between humans and animals has always irked me.
@grahamstrickland3040
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
A reason for the experience machine to not give a person the give a person the good life is that failure can make success more satisfying. No one wants to fail to do something. But successfully doing something you failed at in the past feels amazing. The experience machine could not give a person that feeling because it needs failure or not being able to get a desire to happen.
@changedname2244
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
Well we can also consider the pleasure of other beings. They don't get anything from you being lazy in that machine. Maybe you'd just feel more pleasure sharing good experiences and not needlessly taking up resources. I think unless sb is incapable of empathy thethought experiment doesn't go against the basic promise of hedonism at all…
@adamfranz3702
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
I want to address the “problem” of whether we should want to be a pig.
If someone would prefer to be an unhappy human to a happy pig, they should have good reasons for expecting others to feel that way. I for one would rather be happy, and I don’t see what’s so bad about being a pig
@alittax
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
Thank you, this was a very informative and fun video! 🙂
@Q269
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
The burden of society is to create a life worth striving towards.
@3seven5seven1nine9
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
The problem with the machine scenario is that there's a difference when someone knows the current pleasure is real, versus knowing the machine pleasure will be fake but feel real. Of course a ton of people would choose the lesser real pleasure over the greater fake pleasure, because it makes them feel better to know they have the real pleasure over the fake pleasure, thereby making them feel better for making the right choice. The decision is still entirely short term pleasure based, it's just not as inherently objective and logical as 4:35 makes it out to be
@3seven5seven1nine9
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
I kind of prefer to be a pig though?
@Soulfire39
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
"Any state that is desirable" can steer alarmingly close to "Brave New World" territory, though. Careful with that one. I tend more towards feeling that sadness is necessary to happiness, anger to love, all that balance stuff. I imagine you've seen "Inside Out"? That idea.
@wildshepherd5918
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
I wouldn’t have traded my harder life for a good one, and it is because the awareness that comes with experience is more valuable in and of itself than just pleasure. Pleasure in ignorance without responsibility is like being a pig.
@TheHyena42
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
For me, the key is not knowing that I made the decision to enter the experience machine. It could be an individual defect or a broader human function, but I think I would feel guilty to myself for taking "the easy way". I'd feel like my limitless pleasure was undeserved because I had not achieved it myself.
@yt_Ajay_
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
I think as long as the Matrix experience is at the very least indistinguishable from a real life experience, it doesn't matter to me which life I'm living. We could be living in a simulation right now for all we know. Now, if the Matrix comes with bonuses (if living in the Matrix enables us to do stuff we couldn't do in the real world), that's definitely a preferable experience for me.
@natheria4933
March 13, 2026 at 3:08 am
philosophy works in not answering questions, but posing more questions to answer your questions. To get you to think about the answer for yourself. This is why I like philosophy. It trains the mind and feeds it to sustain itself free from the tendrils of oppression from forces of manipulation.
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