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    A Not So Good Philosophy Paper

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    Scott Simmons
    This is a summary of the philosophy paper by Scott Simmons: [1] The paper attempts to argue for hedonism, the view that pleasure is the only thing of intrinsic value. It presents two premises in an argument: 1) happiness brings pleasure, and 2) pleasure is what people want. It concludes that pleasure is the thing people want. [2] The paper discusses two types of value according to hedonism - instrumental value of things that are useful, and intrinsic value, which hedonism defines as pleasure. It uses examples of puppies and money to illustrate these concepts. [3] In supporting hedonism, the paper briefly discusses utilitarian philosophers Jeremy Bentham and

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    A Not So Good Philosophy Paper

    Uploaded by

    Scott Simmons
    63 views2 pages
    This is a summary of the philosophy paper by Scott Simmons: [1] The paper attempts to argue for hedonism, the view that pleasure is the only thing of intrinsic value. It presents two premises in an argument: 1) happiness brings pleasure, and 2) pleasure is what people want. It concludes that pleasure is the thing people want. [2] The paper discusses two types of value according to hedonism - instrumental value of things that are useful, and intrinsic value, which hedonism defines as pleasure. It uses examples of puppies and money to illustrate these concepts. [3] In supporting hedonism, the paper briefly discusses utilitarian philosophers Jeremy Bentham and

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    Example of a bad philosophy paper (what not to do!)

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    This is a summary of the philosophy paper by Scott Simmons: [1] The paper attempts to argue for hedonism, the view that pleasure is the only thing of intrinsic value. It presents two premises in an argument: 1) happiness brings pleasure, and 2) pleasure is what people want. It concludes that pleasure is the thing people want. [2] The paper discusses two types of value according to hedonism - instrumental value of things that are useful, and intrinsic value, which hedonism defines as pleasure. It uses examples of puppies and money to illustrate these concepts. [3] In supporting hedonism, the paper briefly discusses utilitarian philosophers Jeremy Bentham and

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    63 views2 pages

    A Not So Good Philosophy Paper

    Uploaded by

    Scott Simmons
    This is a summary of the philosophy paper by Scott Simmons: [1] The paper attempts to argue for hedonism, the view that pleasure is the only thing of intrinsic value. It presents two premises in an argument: 1) happiness brings pleasure, and 2) pleasure is what people want. It concludes that pleasure is the thing people want. [2] The paper discusses two types of value according to hedonism - instrumental value of things that are useful, and intrinsic value, which hedonism defines as pleasure. It uses examples of puppies and money to illustrate these concepts. [3] In supporting hedonism, the paper briefly discusses utilitarian philosophers Jeremy Bentham and

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    A Not So Good Philosophy Paper

    By Scott Simmons

    Since the dawn of time philosophers have pondered the cosmos. What is freedom? What is
    love? Why does Plato have a big white beard? Freedom is open to so many opinions. Maybe freedom
    is being able to do what you want. Someone else says freedom is being able to want what you want. I
    say freedom is hard to define. You get the point. Philosophy is hard. Really hard. I’m going to talk
    about hedonism. Hedonism says that people only want things that bring them pleasure. Think about
    whenever you did something. Did you ever do it for any reason other than wanting pleasure? Does
    anyone?
    Hedonists say there are two kinds of value. Instrument value, which something being useful.
    Money is useful. You can buy a lot of things with money. But money can’t buy you pleasure. That’s
    why there’s also intrinsic value. Hedonism defines intrinsic value as pleasure. Different things make
    different people happy. Some people are happy because of puppies. Some people don’t like puppies.
    Maybe in their opinion puppies are slobbery. In my opinion puppies are not slobbery. Even puppy
    haters still get pleasure from some things. Maybe cats. Eating cat food causes cats pleasure. Here’s
    my argument for hedonism:
    P1.) If pleasure is the thing people want then happiness brings pleasure.
    P2.) Happiness brings pleasure.
    C1.) Pleasure is the thing people want.
    An argument has logic and premises. This argument is a deductive argument. Deductive
    arguments must be true if the conclusion is true. Inductive arguments just make things probably true.
    My argument is deductive, because I am really sure that hedonism is true. My first premise is that
    happiness is what people want. I think it’s true. What could you want other than to be happy? To
    make money? Money is no good if your house is on fire. You can be happy even if your house is on
    fire. I met a guy who was homeless because his house burned down. He said “you can’t let the world
    keep you down. It ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving
    forward.”
    Jeremy Bentham would agree with that guy. Jeremy Bentham was a Utilitarian hedonist. He
    argued for social reform using Utilitarian philosophy. Some Utilitarian ideas are that pleasure is
    good, pain is bad and we should make as much happiness for everyone as we possibly can. Bentham
    even thought that animals and criminals pleasure mattered. It mattered to the criminals and the dogs.
    So, it mattered.
    John Stuart Mill another Utilitarian. He also thought pleasure mattered. But he thought there
    were higher and lower pleasures. That’s really elitist. I like Bentham’s hedonism better. He said that
    everyday card games (pushpin!) are just as much fun as Chess. That’s true, isn’t it? Chess makes my
    head hurt. Mill also thought that women should get the right to vote and published a book arguing
    that using his hedonism.
    In conclusion, people will keep arguing about pleasure. Who’s to say who’s right? Is my
    pleasure the same as your pleasure? I will leave you to decide for yourself.

    Instructions: identify and explain at least five significant problems with my “Not So Good
    Philosophy Paper.” I would prefer that you download the Word doc, open it in Word or similar word-
    processing software and use the “comment” feature to identify and explain the problems. Then save
    the document with your comments and upload it to the assignment dropbox.
    I will use Word comments on your paper. I find them a helpful format for providing feedback since
    they visually flag the part of the paper that us problematic (for problems that are features of the paper
    as a whole, e.g. a lack of citations, just place the comment on the title or start of the paper, or at the
    end).
    If you lack access to word a word processor for some reason, there are freely available options like
    OpenOffice and Google docs, both of which include a comment feature.

    Grading: you need to identify and explain at least five distinct problems you see with my paper.
    Each problem is worth four of your 20 points. One point will be for identifying a problem at all, and
    three will be for explanation. Your explanations should tell the author what you think the problem is
    and, if possible give a suggestion about how you think they should fix the problem.

    Use class concepts where appropriate. For example, maybe you think the paper missuses the term
    “valid,” as that term is used in logic. You could say what you think the term really means, and how
    theirs differs. Given such information, the author could improve their paper’s word use.

    I recommend looking at the rubric for your paper when doing this assignment, that way you are
    looking at this paper with an eye toward how your own papers will be graded.

    That said, do not feel constrained to only the paper problems I flagged for this unit. I did call
    attention to some common problems I see in student papers, but there are a lot of ways to make a
    mistake in a paper. And a lot of ways in which even an already great paper can be improved. Even if
    I disagree with you and think the paper does not have the problem you think it has, you won’t lose
    points. Your actual grade on this assignment is a matter of whether you identified at least five
    problems and gave an explanation of the problem.

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