The next word in the hedonistic discourse did not emerge soon. Ethical currents that did not prioritize pleasure gained popularity. For example, Stoicism, which debated both Hellenistic hedonism and Epicureanism.

The lull proved to be prolonged. Medieval theologians disapproved of both sinful bodily pleasures and heretical spiritual ones. Christianity encouraged principles that were opposed to many of the views of Aristippus, Epicurus, and Aristotle. Only eudaimonism found a place in the texts of Thomas Aquinas.

Hedonistic Practices

In the era from Ancient Rome to modern times, while the theory slumbered, the discourse of pleasures acquired a number of vivid practitioners of hedonism. Overall, this is associated with the birth, strengthening, and flourishing of various kinds of aristocracy and monarchs—a class of people who had the opportunity to implement hedonistic desires in life. It was in practice that Aristippus' hedonism acquired a non-conformist variation.

Particularly notable in this field were some Roman emperors and their entourages: Elagabalus, Tiberius, Valeria Messalina, Caligula, Nero, and others. A professional historian might doubt that these were truly vice-obsessed libertines (after all, past historiographers are often biased), but we are more interested in the myth that has developed around them. These figures are usually spoken of as people who went to extremes in sensual pleasures, which refers us to a fundamental question within the hedonistic discourse—do unlimited pleasures remain pleasures?

Both Aristippus, Epicurus, and Aristotle would answer no. But, as we see, it is not so easy in practice to establish personal moral limits when there are no tangible external constraints. Moreover, the boundaries of the permissible can vary greatly in different eras. For example, the Romans were extremely tolerant of prostitution, and in the institution of concubinage, they even attempted to legalize extramarital relationships (those purely for pleasure, not for producing heirs). One could say that many people are not hedonists simply because they are not allowed to be by material conditions or the morals of the society they live in.

So, what do the examples of people who had virtually unlimited opportunities for pleasure tell us? We can note several main trends.

Strangely enough, pleasures have their limits. The popular notion that no matter how much a person has, they will always want more, is somewhat true, but in practice, it is more of a veiled cry for something missing. This can be heard as a certain simplification. Without the ability to obtain some pleasure in due measure, a person mistakenly believes that if it were possible, they would not be able to stop. In reality, this is a debatable issue. Even in the case of drug addicts or alcoholics, for some, health turns out to be more important. In other words, it can be an example of the limits of pleasures, because if it is violated, suffering outweighs.

When the enjoyment of pleasures reaches its limit, the question of changing their form or modifying existing ones becomes crucial. In fact, stories about the wild orgies of Roman emperors, sudden self-realization as a god, or even the phallocentrism of Elagabalus are precisely examples of how individual pleasures are strictly limited in how long and fully one can indulge in them. Therefore, at some point, the question of the number of different types of pleasure becomes more important.

A banal and familiar example of this approach can be gourmets. In other words, the pursuit of bodily or other pleasures should be understood not only as a pursuit of a specific kind of enjoyment but also as a pursuit of variety. Specific cases show that the initial interest of a hedonist only expands over time to the point where, in the final variations, the initial impulse is completely lost, and to us, it all looks like sheer madness.

Again, human nature is far from natural, so many refined pleasures (or for some, "perversions") converge with phenomena of the disgusting, which in itself, without a long history of previous pleasures, can bring nothing but unpleasant experiences.

The third trend can be called the burnout of the hedonist. Receiving a large number of pleasures often leads to their devaluation. This is partly due to biology, partly to psychology (a delicacy ceases to be such precisely after it becomes a regular dish), and partly to the limitations in the variety of pleasures. The wisdom of ancient philosophers lies precisely in the fact that by proposing certain restrictions, they allow pleasure to remain pleasure.

For modern people, the historical primacy of the tendency toward variety might be slightly unclear, as they already have a certain breadth of types of pleasure. From the nearest supermarket, which allows for a feast of unprecedented variety by the standards of Roman emperors, to the ubiquitous entertainment industry. Meanwhile, as a rule, it is the depth of pleasures that is limited for modern people, so purely in terms of quantitative indicators, they are still far from the entertainments of the aristocracy and monarchy of bygone centuries.

This is one of the main differences in the understanding of pleasures not only then and now but also in principle among people with different psychologies. For some, enjoyment is breadth and variety. For others, it is the depth or intensity of the experience. Practice shows that one can easily flow into the other, and not just once.

The described non-conformist hedonism is, in fact, a variant corresponding to common understanding. Subsequently, it developed not through philosophical but through artistic works. One of the gems became the well-known "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde. The novel was far from the first on such topics, rather the opposite, but this allowed it to become the quintessence of such hedonistic views.

In other words, a natural cultural reflection of the sensual aspirations of the elites followed the practice. However, the question remains—what is this novel about? Is it about the evolution of depraved pleasures or about the inevitable reckoning and natural limit for them in the form of illness and death? The question of the representation of hedonism in art and the emergence of non-conformist hedonism from art will be covered in a separate material of the course.

The supposedly dull era of hedonism is not as gray as it seems. There is even something symbolic in the fact that an important part of the discourse on pleasures arose not from the theorizing of individual thinkers, but from experience, reflection, and practice. In summary, one can derive an approximate maxim of Aristippus's non-conformist version of hedonism: a person craves bodily pleasures, and when they have had enough of some, they inevitably want others, continuing in this way until they burn out.

Christianity: Questions to Hedonism

Christianity also contributed to the discourse on pleasures. This is related to the development of eudaimonism in a theological context, the emergence of clear distinctions between high-spiritual and low-bodily pleasures, and a number of questions it raises.

We will now turn to the latter. It is particularly interesting that Christianity develops the idea of accumulating "points of a good person," which will be converted into pleasures in the future. This is similar to views in Epicureanism and eudaimonism, with the only difference being that in this case, it is suggested to live moderately or even suffer in earthly life in order to fully enjoy what will come after death.

Note that such a formulation is not commonly attributed to hedonism, although it essentially stems from the hedonistic discourse. It implies that people ultimately desire pleasures, enjoyment, and happiness. Eternal enjoyment or a moment of a non-ascetic life? Given the belief in heaven, the choice is obvious, but is it so easy to achieve when the world is full of temptations and seductions?

It turns out that religious thought approves of hedonism, but only the deserved kind, and of course, the kind that is definitely not finite and imperfect. This exposes the problem of consequences and pleasures that lead to suffering. The same applies not only to consequences but also to achievement—can it be considered a pleasure if attaining it requires going through excessive displeasure?

This contains a profound ethical problem. What is the meaning or benefit of acting ethically? Pleasure, especially infinite pleasure, turns out to be an attractive answer. Even Kant was tempted and wrote a few words about the posthumous bliss of the soul.

This creates a polarity in the perception of pleasures. On one hand, it is something distant that must be strived for long and hard. It must be done because, in the end, it will pay off, as the payoff of efforts is guaranteed by God. On the other hand, it is only what can be felt here and now, so focusing on the future while neglecting present pleasures is pointless. These two extreme positions to some extent create a spectrum of all possible hedonisms—those closer to the latter seem to us more obvious forms of hedonism.

At the same time, the Christian solution to the question of pleasures has one advantage. A person's actions are inscribed in metaphysical processes, so a sincere believer seemingly feels a sense of higher meaning in what is happening to them. Consequently, they can experience pleasure and happiness in situations where others might feel nothing. If we may, let's make a secular comparison. It's entirely different when a person moves pieces on a board randomly and when they play chess. Playing chess is a kind of metaphysical attunement to a set of wooden pieces and a checkered board.

The Thaw of the Renaissance

The rediscovery of ancient texts during the Renaissance contributed to the return of philosophy to the discourse on pleasures. Discussions began to emerge that pleasures are part of God's design. For example, Erasmus of Rotterdam believed that they are a manifestation of God's care, who truly wants to see people happy on earth. Ultimately, people, created with the ability to create, know that creativity is combined with pleasure—for the creator and for the consumer. From this, it is not far to a risky analogy that God also enjoys.

Pleasures were now considered not necessarily as temptation and excess, but also as a natural right given to humans. After all, why can't a diligent Christian decently rest in body and spirit? This idea is also traced in Thomas More's "Utopia." After him, the naturalness and necessity of some level of satisfaction would appear in various utopian projects.

It is also worth mentioning that by the modern era, there emerged a quasi-philosophical movement called libertinism. It arose somewhere in the Baroque era, possibly even earlier. Essentially, it is the same non-conformist hedonism but with an element of pick-up artist training and, accordingly, sex as the main bodily pleasure.

Libertines distinguished themselves by their ethos, which may seem suspiciously familiar to modern internet users, as they were philosophers, nihilists, cynics, and misanthropes. And, as is often the case, not just in jest. They mainly criticized the social rules that encroached on personal satisfaction, which was enough at the time to cause scandal. Although most of their legacy is essentially artistic, libertinism did form a certain special philosophical understanding of sexuality.

The most famous representative of this school of thought is the Marquis de Sade. His work had a huge impact on the rethinking of questions of pleasure in the 20th century, first with Georges Bataille, and then with a whole array of French thinkers. However, Sade was not the first; even in the novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, the main characters articulate a specific philosophy prescribing the use of others for one's own pleasure as one sees fit.

Mechanicism: The Godfather of Modern Hedonism

By the 18th century, an important change occurred in the hedonistic discourse, which was so subtle that it is still considered a self-evident premise today. This change is associated with the activities of Enlightenment philosophers such as Julien Offray de La Mettrie, whose views shaped a direction known as mechanism. This included the consideration of human nature in terms of strict cause-and-effect relationships. Humans were viewed as mechanisms, fundamentally different from clocks only in the complexity of their structure.

Applied to ethics, this perspective gave rise to the view that is still often heard today: "Man is an animal." Generally, proponents of such judgments mean roughly the same thing that mechanists meant by mechanisms—that is, reducing humans to something limited and focused on what drives their mechanism (instincts that command animals).

For La Mettrie, humans are limited and focused on satisfying their needs, which are diverse but essentially similar. The difference here is that it is harder to launch a steamship than a music box. Similarly with people: someone's happy existence is the result of the hard work of a well-coordinated team, while for someone else, just start them up, and everything will be fine.

In mechanism, hedonism is embedded in human nature. In other words, it moves from the ethical field to the anthropological field. Of course, these are often connected, but this is essentially a big but subtle shift in the hedonistic discourse. The core of the argument is the idea that humans naturally desire pleasures, which are equated to biological needs.

The difference is significant. If, according to the ancient Greeks, one must first understand that they need pleasures, figure out what they are and whether they are good (because if they are not good, why do they need them?), La Mettrie's mechanistic approach assumes that all this is known to humans a priori.

For example, Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, in his famous thought experiment with the statue, initially assumes— as something self-evident—that every being is drawn to pleasant sensations and avoids unpleasant ones. However, there was no need to wait for Freud's theory to see how often this does not correspond to reality (e.g., various forms of self-criticism and self-deprecation).

Strangely enough, the change of course remains almost unnoticed. The discourse on pleasures simply continues to exist and evolve as an ethical system, but with an anthropological bonus. This bonus is hidden, as it is directly addressed only in kitchen table discussions with intuitively self-defined hedonists.

The anthropological turn is also associated with the dominance of non-conformist hedonism as an unshakable aspect of the worldview of the upper society. After all, to assert that the pursuit of pleasures is inherent in human nature, there need to be people who regularly prove this. It is quite likely that, for La Mettrie, the average contemporary of decent standing in society looked like a mechanism with an understandable motivational core.

It is important to understand that there is a huge difference between referring to human nature and discussing the formation of sensuality. In the first case, the program already includes what pleasure is possible from and what is fundamentally not, whereas in the second case, the list of forms and methods is open.

In summary, the maxim of the mechanistic view sounds as follows: a person is like a mechanism, limited and fixated on their own mechanics, an integral part of which is the pursuit of pleasure.

The line

At this point, we can draw a conditional line after which all directions within the hedonistic discourse took a somewhat different path. In the future, instead of direct appeals to ethics, we will see not only hidden anthropological assumptions but also attempts at social, rational, and scientific justification of hedonistic schools of thought. The discourse on pleasures as a whole is a consequence of the fact that Western ethics is strongly connected with pleasure, even if it denies or displaces it.

One could even consider it as yet another example of how the ancient Greeks set the topic for discussion for all subsequent generations. It is worth asking a rhetorical question: has this framing of the question become a prescription? Ultimately, many people are critical, if not hostile, towards such modern offshoots of the hedonistic discourse as consumerism. This often happens due to the notion that consumption is prescribed from above.

However, to earn an automatic negative connotation, the consumer is not so far removed from the hedonist. But more on this and other manifestations of the discourse on pleasures that have influenced modern society in upcoming articles.