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Full Idea
Hedonism failed because it offered as an end of human aspiration an object in which the human spirit, pledged by its own nature to self-betterment, …could never find satisfaction.
Gist of Idea
Hedonism offers no satisfaction, because what we desire is self-betterment
Source
report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II
Book Ref
Muirhead,John H.: 'The Service of the State: T.H. Green' [John Murray 2021], p.27
A Reaction
It is always both sad and amusing to see that 150 years ago someone wrote of a doctrine that is still with us that it has 'failed'. Nowadays they try to say the same of physicalism. His objection rests on optimism about humanity.
Related Idea
Idea 22032 Fichte's key claim was that the subjective-objective distinction must itself be subjective [Fichte, by Pinkard]
| 130 | Is the happiest state one of sensual, self-indulgent freedom? [Plato] |
| 377 | If you lived a life of maximum pleasure, would you still be lacking anything? [Plato] |
| 378 | A life of pure pleasure with no intellect is the life of a jellyfish [Plato] |
| 388 | Hedonists must say that someone in pain is bad, even if they are virtuous [Plato] |
| 71 | Licentiousness concerns the animal-like pleasures of touch and taste [Aristotle] |
| 5954 | All inventions of the mind aim at pleasure, and those that don't are worthless [Metrodorus of Lamp., by Plutarch] |
| 5967 | People need nothing except corn and water [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| 4019 | Things are good and evil only in reference to pleasure and pain [Locke] |
| 23033 | Hedonism offers no satisfaction, because what we desire is self-betterment [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |