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People are free to agree on what they and their group or culture generally consider to be a life well lived, but there will never be an objectively defensible a
by tracerbulletx 4y ago
People are free to agree on what they and their group or culture generally consider to be a life well lived, but there will never be an objectively defensible answer, it's ontologically impossible.
- rini17 4y agoSubjectively defensible answer is enough. But very hard.
- hospitalJail 4y agoYeah, a life of hedonism is not providing value to society. Even the epicurean subreddit agreed when this was brought up.
- fortissimohn 4y agoIn order for someone's existence to be acceptable, they should provide value? Monetary value? Or does human life intrinsically have value, making this a tautology...?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- fortissimohn 4y agoI really wonder what this means in terms of how the homeless or the elderly are treated.
- birdyrooster 4y agoWhat a strange inversion of reasoning. * Hedonism is an example of society being so capable of providing that it has largess. Any society without hedonists would be cautionary. Hedonists test the limits of what society has achieved on behalf of the individual and is in my belief the entire point of society. Society should elevate the individual be it hedonism or otherwise. * this is a quote and I am being a bit facetious here, I agree with other commenters that it’s impossible to draw a line on this balance
- AussieWog93 4y agoYou could make the exact same argument about people with clinical psychopathy, and it would be just as valid.
- birdyrooster 4y agoWell said, yes it’s very much relative to other humans around.
- goodpoint 4y agoThat largess is very much not equally distributed.
- ambientenv 4y ago"is not providing value to society" ... are we talking only the core values today of profit and growth?
- speakfreely 4y agoIt's like pornography... you can't properly set boundaries on what defines it, but "you know it when you see it"
- marcusverus 4y agoNothing about gp’s comment is particularly capitalist. It actually reminded me of The old communist slogan: “He who doesn’t work, doesn’t eat”.
- chewz 4y ago> The old communist slogan Lenin have repeated that after Paul... and John Smith 2 Thessalonians 3:10 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_who_does_not_work,_neither_shall_he_eat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_who_does_not_work,_neither_...
- nemo44x 4y agoThe other communist slogan is “He who does work, probably doesn’t eat too”.
- git_rancher 4y agoWhat about unique patterns of wealth redistribution across the economies they participate in? Surely this is a value to society.
- leroy-is-here 4y agoIndulgence doesn’t necessarily have to mean abuse.
- ian0 4y agoThat could only be true if each of our desires made true were not of value to society. And I think its obvious lots of people derive pleasure in things that create value, from helping others to producing nice thing to throwing a great party. Hell even the stereotypical hedonistic lifestyle provides value. From that friend who gets you out of the house to do something, the life and soul of the party who makes everyones night brighter, your friend the uber-optimist who encourages you when your down.
- Retric 4y agoA life of hedonism is unlikely to provide maximum value to society but it could be net positive. Someone aiming for maximum pleasure and minimum risk could spend much of their time as yet another cog in capitalistic society, but an ambitious hedonist is likely to aim for more. Someone like Hew Hefner might seem like a poor role model, but he did make something millions of people wanted while living a life of extreme excess. Given different talents that could be anything from becoming a rock star to curing cancer.
- paulcole 4y agoWhy does the definition of a “life well lived” have to include value to society?
- denkmoon 4y agoWhere does "providing value to society" come into it? Why?
- kajaktum 4y agoNot true. It is only that way because people have only considered a single kind of hypothetical human (probably of themselves). But solving this merely requires us to integrate all of these solution into 1 by mapping the personality -> solution. Trivially, every person requiring a unique solution is an objective answer.
- dclowd9901 4y agoI think you could reasonably boil it down to “fulfilling.” Just about every other motivation has “fulfilling” At its heart, in one respect or another.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoIt’s also ontologically impossible to proclaim ‘there will never be an objectively defensible answer’ as truth.