Why Epicureans and Utilitarians are wrong: on the axiology of pain and pleasure

The four big hedonists: Aristippus (upper left), Epicurus (upper right), Bentham (lower left), Mill (lower right)

Hedonism, philosophically speaking, is “the ethical theory that pleasure (in the sense of the satisfaction of desires) is the highest good and proper aim of human life.” (Apple Dictionary) Two major clusters of hedonistic theories appeared in the history of western philosophy: the Cyrenaics and Epicureans of Hellenistic times, and the Utilitarians of the 19th to the 21st centuries.

Cyr...