Saturday, March 5, 2011

Is life worth living for the hedonist?

Those who see life as worth living only if it is a good pleasurable life must ask themselves if they could start over again with life, they would do it again. Life may begin over for them if reincarnation is true. More profanely, will they have good reason to continue to live life as they know it? I take it that just about everyone desire deeply a happy, pleasurable life and few are willing to sacrifice their happiness and pleasure for the life of a moral saint or martyr. But look at history and the world. Is there good probability that you will live such a good life? Though just about all people have tried, there does not seem to be a preponderance of such lives over miserable or boring lives. In fact, the desired life of the hedonist seems to be a rarity and its not a matter of not trying.

Most have tried; but it seems that living such a life is a matter largely of luck. If so, the honest-with-herself hedonist must admit that it would be unwise to go on to live another life (or even to continue with her current life) as prospects that it will turn better for her so that she will live such a life or if she is lucky enough to currently live such a life, not turn bad at some later time is slim. She will also refuse to have children on such conclusions.

But is life worth living? Who will still want to go on living? Who will still have purpose under such bleak prospects? Who will still have meaning and value? It is precisely the Moral Saint or those who try to be one through cultivation.