Ethical Hedonism

Ethical Hedonism is the idea that all men have the right to do everything in their power to achieve the greatest amount of pleasure possible to them. It is also the idea that every man's pleasure should far surpass their amount of pain. Along with those ideas ethical hedonism supports that idea that it is morally and ethically right to do what is needed to achieve such pleasure. According to the Encyclopedia of Religion, it is possible to adopt psychological hedonism without adopting ethical hedonism. It goes on to state that unqualified psychological hedonism does not leave very much room for ethical admonition. On the matter of history, ethical hedonism has been around longer than psychological hedonism. It is said to have been started by a student of Socrates, Aristippus of Cyrene (Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, pg. 567 vol. 6). He held the idea that pleasure is the highest good (pg.567 2nd paragraph). He also said that everyone should try to attain pleasure at every time they possibly could.