Axiological Hedonism is the view that pleasure is the only thing which is intrinsically good and suffering is the only thing that is intrinsically bad. For something to be intrinsically good or bad, it has to be good or bad for its own sake rather than something else it leads to. For example, money is usually regarded as only being instrumentally good since it’s only good because of what it can buy you. On the other hand, having pleasurable experiences is usually regarded as being good for its own sake since it’s good regardless of what other thing it leads to. There are various things that some philosophers might regard as being intrinsically good: pleasure, satisfied desires, practical accomplishments, knowledge, survival, and a bunch of other things. There are also various things that philosophers might regard as intrinsically bad: suffering, frustrated desires, death, betrayal, and a bunch of other things. As an axiological hedonist, I consider only pleasure to be good for its own sake and only suffering to be bad for its own sake. In my interpretation of hedonism, pleasure is defined as any kind of attribute of an experience which makes the experience feel unambiguously and undeniably good. Suffering is defined as any kind of attribute of an experience which makes the experience feel unambiguously and undeniably bad. Essentially, I am claiming that anything that feels good should be the only thing considered good for its own sake and anything that feels bad should be the only thing considered bad for its own sake. Of course, this should not be construed to mean that we should only pursue pleasure and avoid suffering. Rather, we should try to either maximize pleasure and minimize suffering as ultimate aims. These aims might be best accomplished by sometimes avoiding certain pleasures and pursuing certain sufferings. In addition, I am not assuming that we should only be concerned with our own hedonic well being. We might argue that we should maximize the pleasure and minimize the suffering of others. In order to defend axiological hedonism, I proposed the following argument:

P1: If there is some credible evidence that pleasure is intrinsically good and suffering is intrinsically bad and no credible evidence that other things are intrinsically good or bad, then we have good reason to accept axiological hedonism.

P2: Credible evidence is either observed or logically deduced.

P3: There are 2 types of credible observed evidence which could be used to support theories regarding the intrinsic goodness or badness of certain things: sensational observations and introspective observations. Sensational observations are observations with the 5 senses relating to the outside world. They are most frequently used in science and the perception of basic objects. Introspective observations are observations of our inner subjective experiences. These inner subjective experiences include our own emotions, attitudes, memories, preferences, and personality states.

P4: The intrinsic goodness of pleasure and the intrinsic badness of suffering is observed within our inner subjective experiences and thus there is credible introspective empirical evidence that pleasure is intrinsically good and suffering is intrinsically bad.

P5: There is no introspective evidence which suggests that there other things which are intrinsically good or bad.

P6: There is no sensational evidence which suggests that there other things which are intrinsically good or bad.

P7: The supposed intrinsic goodness or badness of things aside from pleasure and suffering cannot be logically deduced in any way.

C: Thus, we have good reason to accept axiological hedonism.

It would take me a while to defend each premise of the argument so I will only defend the premise if they are doubted or questioned by a responder to the thread. I’m interested to know which premise of my argument is most controversial.