>

What if living a hedonistic life makes your life more miserable in long run outside of the momentary pleasure of selfish indulgence?
The only inherent wrongness of hedonism I can think of is that it largely requires everyone else keep the system running. We cant all fuck and drink to our hearts content because certain aspects of society require discipline and control as a standard.
But really I think there may be some confusion. People don't dislike hedonist for it's inherent failure. For instance I don't care if you're a hedonist in particular, as long as you don't work for me, as long as I'm not the friend you call to bail you out and as long as you don't walk around blaring music. This is because hedonists have this annoying habit of doing what they want first and dealing with the consequences tomorrow. Which is a problem if you rely on me or I rely on you. I'd wager most people who are 110% done with hedonism are just tired of being the one to clean up a hedonist mess. 
I think your view is the widely accepted one. Go ahead and be a hedonist, just do it as far away from others as possible >

To truly maximize the amount of pleasure one can have in life would require a regular income, stable housing, healthcare, quality food, etc. You can be a hedonist and a productive member of society. >

My friend lived like that, and now he's dead. His death, directly related to his hedonistic lifestyle interfered with my life, and more-certainly the lives of his parents and brother.
Nobody lives in a vacuum. All of your actions affect someone.
Even if you don't die, there will be people worrying that you might, which is interfering with their lives. >

Well as unfortunate as that is the sad fact  that we are all going to die whether by drugs drinking  or a bus  a sudden heart attack. We all will die and people will be sad  and because of that is the reason to live wild and free but mostly just happy whatever gets ya there .  Sorry for your loss but while your sitting there all sad you instead could be celebrating the fact that you are still alive and hoping to go out with a bang instead of a whimper  . Better to die regretting what you have done the die regretting. The things you didn't life is short take big bites mo >

The way the human brain works makes the seemingly innocuous position of "letting things take their course" inadvertently destructive even with a disposition towards mutually assured selfishness. 
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For one, the brain is naturally hedonistic. Aside from the fact that egocentric desires drive all human actions, it actually undergoes physical and chemical transformations when it's interacting with positive stimuli. One of the most obvious forms of these changes is physical addiction(where your body's chemical balance is altered based on the consistent introduction of an external substance), another less obvious but very real example is psychological addiction(when there is no obvious physical change but rather behavioral patterns are modified to your own detriment). All of these developments are counter-productive, usually self-destructive, and bluntly, often fatal. 
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Another problem, again innate to humanity, is what's aptly known as the Hedonic Treadmill. To make a long story short: regardless of what you change, external events don't have a strong bearing on internal motivations. Or in other words, however much you choose to self-indulge, it will ironically never make you happy and you'll always rationalize reasons why it's "never enough". As you can imagine, this opens the floodgate to reckless behavior or dependence, you're existentially chasing the dragon. 
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Lastly, probably the hardest and most tragic part of being human is that we are our own best salesmen. When we take on maladaptive or self-destructive behaviors, we are very good at rationalizing why it's a good idea, or why this occurrence is exceptional, or our control in any given situation. We also tend to lose objectivity and self-awareness because of it, in short when we're going off "our own compass" we're basically wearing blinders and just see what we want to look at. Though I've heard time and again people say that "people are best left to their own devices"/"people know what's best for themselves"/"listen to your heart" the bald truth of it is that most people will slip into many maladaptive behaviors if left to their own affairs and will never escape them, especially when they're in a community and culture that reinforces the belief that they don't need help, criticism or restraint. >


regardless of what you change, external events don't have a strong bearing on internal motivations

Does that mean that it's pointless to improve the circumstances of one's life? 
So if someone changes their job for one they enjoy, reconnects with their family, makes a new friend, moves from a dingy apartment into a nice house they share with their significant other, anything like that, their wellbeing/quality of life won't improve in any lasting way, but sooner than later revert to the point it was before they changed things? >

Oh but there is.
You see, we humans can only feel the difference between states. Put your hand in lukewarm water, you will stop feeling the water after a while. Live a life of hedonism and you will feel nothing after a couple of days, weeks or months, depending how far you've already been down that alley. But you will eventually stop feeling anything as you indulge further
So yes it is wrong to live a hedonistic lifestyle. Because it does not work. It is naive to assume that you can constantly have fun when your steady state constantly increase, until you wont feel anything and the only way to go is down. How often have you felt that void eating you from the inside after a massive party? Every seasoned alcoholic will tell you to have a glass of water in between of booze. Not so that you drink less, but it's to delay that point where further consumption of alcohol is no longer fun.
So, if you want to extract the most "juice" in life, you gotta alternate between hedonistic/ascetic/hedonestic/ascetic and so on. Living a purely hedonistic lifestyle is an ineffective way to live a fun life, as you probably intend to do so in the first place. So your view is not a moral wrong but a practical one. I rest my case. >

You life in a society. You take care of it and it takes care of you. It is a social arrangement that helps us thieve. The only way to be hedonistic without being morally wrong is to not live in the society. This means you can be a moral hedonist in the woods. But nobody wants that. they want to take and take and use the luxuries and securities of society and give nothing back. Therefor all hedonists you meet are asocial egoists (you would of cause not meet isolated hedonists) >

But what if society as we've come to define it is a morally wrong enterprise? It's an overwhelmingly destructive endeavor, all for the selfish pursuit of human comfort. I don't think you can defend contributing to that beast as the moral path.
This is not a defense of Hedonism - at the end of the day you have some responsibility to that which you benefit from. I just think it's worth considering whether this notion of societal righteousness is just a self-serving perspective for a lifestyle that's just as selfish as the hedonist's in its own way. >

so here’s one of the problems with hedonism as I see it.
imagine you’re a sort of normal person, right? (haha). imagine, as a sort of normal person, you’ve got this dream job. A great job where they pay you plenty of money and you love your team and you get a lot done and it’s really satisfying and you really couldn’t ask for anything else. Let’s just say that this job pays you $250,000 a year. How good would that be? $250,000 a year to do something that you actually enjoy. 
now, imagine that I’ll go up to 400,000! Man that would just be the best…
you’re getting $400,000 a year, which is way beyond what we agreed was great, to do a job that you really enjoy, with a team that you like. You. Are. Gravy.
now imagine it’s Friday afternoon, and you’re packing up for the afternoon, and everyone said you’ve done a great job and the world is just fine. And when you’re locking up, on the way out the door, there’s an envelope with $10,000 in it.
The thing is, you know exactly where this $10,000 came from. The client is a bit of a jerk. It’s an accounting error. They won’t miss it. Nobody would know if you just put this $10,000 into your bag. Nobody would try and track you down; it would just disappear off the side of the planet. no consequence, no sin, no repercussion.
no I’m not asking you whether or not it would be right to take the money. I think we all agree it would be wrong. The point of the exercise is
you would still be tempted to take it, right?
even though I told you there’s no harm. Even though there’s no consequence. Even though literally nothing bad would happen, you know who the money belongs to, and they’re a jerk, and they wouldn’t know and they wouldn’t miss it anyway.
I suppose the point of the exercise is to show that no matter how much you have, you’d always crave a bit more if it was in front of you. And that’s just a feature of being human.
maybe that’s a part of our nature that we ought to resist? Maybe we should stop, chill, and make a virtue of being satisfied. Because, even if we do no harm, we are insatiable by nature. And maybe that’s a problem >

I used to feel this way... Or act this way.
It breaks my heart now, when I think about it.  When I go home to my mom's house, she has a mini 'shrine' (not really a shrine obv) of/to me on her fridge.  She has other things on it too. Pics of my niece and nephew, pets, a letter from my sis.  But it's heavy on the me stuff. 
A few times, I thought it was kinda weird or favoritism.  Then it hit me, and I'm tearing up as I type this, for a long time, my mom didn't know if I was ok. If I would be ok. If I was alive or dead, or if I'd ever visit or call her again. So she held on to what she had. 
I'm in recovery now, but she doesn't/ can't know that's for good, or if I'm slipping and she just doesn't know, or if one day I might go out again and do too much, or get something I didn't intend to.  God-willing I won't, but, it's true, it's possible.  
Her dad was an alcoholic. Her brother is an addict and has been since he was a preteen. I don't even know how that man is  alive.
And now I think about it, the picture she has, the notes she has, are from right before I started using (or one right before she knew I started using). 
So, unless you live in a vacuum and all your relatives, friends, and anyone who's cared for you are dead- you're harming people besides yourself.
That's nothing to say of the people you egg on to use or drink with you, the families you are helping to take them further from.  I didn't know or care about people's sobriety when I was in my cups, and I pushed at least 2 people to drink with me who tried so hard so many times to turn me down until I got the 'ok, maybe 1 won't hurt....' >

Regarding illicit drug use...
You're enabling organisations that commit heinous crimes in order to thrive. So your choice does indirectly interfere with other people. This is unless of course you're making the product yourself for your own consumption. >

Indirectly, sure.  Not directly. >

Why is "indirectly harming another" not worth taking into account for your calculations? >

Tbf nobody exists who doesn't indirectly harm others >

That's why I asked "take into account for your calculations" rather than "do nothign that indirectly harms others". >

In our modern society where everything is so interconnected, when it comes to participating in a hedonistic lifestyle that ends up fueling / sustaining / supporting clearly criminal activity and groups, I think it's an excuse to say you are hurting anyone. Some very clear examples include supporting prostitution rings that traffic human and practices modern slavery, gambling dens that uses violence or owned by criminals, heavy drugs (crack, cocaine) using networks run by criminal gangs that practice violence on the general population. It is a stretch for me to say that there's nothing inherently wrong with participating in activities provided by these three examples. >


choosing to be offened by them.

Why is it wrong for them to be offended?
Whenever you're making a statement like "It's okay to do ____ as long as it doesn't directly interfere with others", as yourself this question: What would happen to society if all or most people lived this way?
If the answer isn't good, that's why people don't like that behavior. Can a strong society tolerate antisocial behavior? Yes. But that's because people who engage in much more pro-social ways of life create the social stability that allows for people to live in anti-social ways.
Those who live a hedonistic lifestyle are not helping society, at least. Much of the social problems in modern America, for example, are a result of the normalization/removal of stigmatization of various anti-social behaviors. >


Much of the social problems in modern America, for example, are a result of the normalization/removal of stigmatization of various anti-social behaviors.

Would you be willing to elaborate on this? I'm interested in which social problems and anti-social behaviors this refers to. >

Maybe "interferes" is the wrong word, but a hedonistic lifestyle certainly RELIES on others.
Want to play video games all day? Then the electric company needs to keep power flowing to your house. The ISP needs to keep internet service operational. You'll likely get thirsty, so you'll need whoever maintains your water utilities to keep water flowing. You'll have to pee and poop, so whoever runs sewage needs to keep that going. You'll need to eat food, so your grocery stores will need to be stocked, plus you'll probably have to drive your car to get to the store and need your gas stations to be supplied with gas to get there.
You can pretend like you're living on your own and not depending on anyone or engaging with anyone to do it, but that's clearly incredibly naive to think so.
Consider the fact that if everyone in the world tried to be a hedonist, nobody could be, since all of the things you depend on in order to live that life would have been destroyed. By choosing a hedonist life, you're interfering with anyone's ability to live by inching us closer to the dismantling of society. >

How do you define interference? So long as it causes no direct observable harm whatsoever?
Your view is purely consequentialist, but there's many facets of right and wrong that could be taken into account, things like Fairness, Honesty, Dignity, and more.
Scenario 1: a teacher was to give a bunch of students a B since they didn't do too well but okay enough on their projects, but decided to give their favorite student an A anyway, this would be unfair since the favorite didn't earn that grade, but obviously the favorite isn't in any way directly harmed by getting a better grade (anything they do afterwards, like choosing not to study as hard, is an indirect consequence), and the other students don't get a worse grade as a result of the teacher's decisions. This seems inherently wrong even if the other students don't find out, but for a hedonistic teacher, they would be otherwise be fine with it. It also doesn't have to be on the basis of the favorite being a generally good student, they could be the favorite simply for superficial reasons, like the teacher enjoying their personality, or liking talking with them, or just because of the kid's eye color reminding them of someone they liked, or some other superficial reason not related to the child's grade.
Scenario 2: A raffle is being held with the winner receiving a great prize, with all those entering having to pay a small fee to have gotten in. The person running the raffle really likes a certain girl and wants to go out with her, and so promises to rig it in her favor. He does so, and she wins, with none the wiser as the two soon go out and enjoy life as a consequence. No one else entering was directly interfered with (there was no guarantee of them winning), nor could you say the potential winner was interfered with since we don't know who it is, and it could even have actually been the girl anyway. If it turns out the girl would have won anyway and thus no one was actually interfered with, we'd still say rigging it would have been inherently wrong. 
Scenario 3: A doctor learns that a comatose patient of theirs will soon for sure die within the next day. There is no chance of the patient surviving, they are fully unconscious and feel absolutely nothing, and no one else will enter the room in the next 24 hours. The doctor decides to have sex with the unconscious dying individual and then clean up any and all evidence of their wrongdoing. This is generally regarded as obviously terrible and inhumane, and very much inherently wrong but there is no direct interference since the individual is entirely comatose and will die soon anyway, so this has no direct effect on them, with our hedonistic doctor going on enjoying life anyway. >

Scenario 1 interferes with the student’s agency. They’re making a decision based on a lie.
Scenario 2 interferes with everyone’s chances. 
Scenario 3 is regarded as wrong because it’s not certain the patient won’t survive. Do you consider necrophilia wrong? >


What agency? Who got interfered with? None of the non-favorites got a grade any different than they would have received. As for the favorite, what decision? The teacher could even tell them that they got an A for being their favorite, straight up tell everyone why, and now that even removes the lie portion. It may break school rules, but absent those, it seems to be fine by OP's ideals which seems wrong.
I already specified that if the girl would have won anyway without any manipulation, it would still been wrong. 
The premise given was that the patient for sure would die. Changing that premise changes the scenario entirely. >



If there’s no lie involved, then their agency hasn’t been interfered with. But I’m sure the student would still like to know what they actually got on the test using the standards the other students got. And if the teacher doesn’t want to tell them, then the student is free to to report the teacher and/or request a different teacher.


Doesn’t matter. The actual chances still changed beforehand.


You missed my question. As an aside, do you consider necrophilia immoral? >


K. Doesn't dispute the situation I discussed then. I say what the teacher does is immoral, we can change up the scenario to remove as much interference as we want, the immorality of the situation still seems clear.
K. Doesn't dispute the situation I discussed then. I pointed out that even if changing the odds is considered interference, it wouldn't work if it turned out the girl would have won anyway. We can even make this more clear by having it be by a machine that would spit out a ball with names on them and the person running the raffle would do a hand trick to swap the ball with a second one, but by happenstance the girl's name popped out first anyway. There's no hypothetical that could have been pointed to, the girl was always going to win, and yet it's still wrong for the person to have even planned it.
K. Doesn't dispute the situation I discussed then. The question didn't seem relevant since the patient is alive in the scenario. As to the question, obviously yes. This goes against OP's viewpoint as well though, so I fail to see how that presents any issue with what I explained here. >



Why is it immoral?


Maybe I’m not understanding the scenario. You said the girl’s name is on the first ball. If you swap the ball with the second ball without looking at the names, then you go with the second ball, meaning she won’t win. Everyone still has an equal chance with this because you’re not looking at the name before you pick the ball. 


Why is necrophila immoral? >


Why is lying and fraud for discrimination immoral? That's what you are asking? Are you asserting otherwise?
The person holding the raffle has a second ball with the girl's name. When they get the ball from the machine, they plan to do a sleight of hand trick to swap the ball from the machine with their hidden second ball. When they get the ball from the machine, by happenstance, it has the girl's name. Therefore, the girl was already gonna win. 
Why not? Are you asserting otherwise?

If you're not defending OP's view, I have no requirement to respond to other inquiries. If you wish to assert otherwise to my statement, you are free to assert and give an argument defending OP's viewpoint. If you fail to do so, then I have no obligation to respond to similar inquiries without an actual counterargument. >


You literally said that the teacher didn’t lie. “removes the lie portion.”

Discrimination is immoral because it interferes with other people’s opportunity. If the student continually got A’s for being the favorite, this means they have a better chance of getting into a college than the other students, thus the students were interfered with.


Ok, I was assuming that her name was only on one ball. The act is fine in this situation because it had no effect. However, as a general rule, it is immoral, because it interferes with others’ chances of winning. In this scenario it didn’t, but we can’t just make an exception here because no one knew her name was on the first ball. Things are considered immoral for a reason, because of their interference. 


Can you please just answer the question. 


Your whole claim is that something can be immoral without causing interference. I’m countering that. Unless you want to give an explanation for what it is that makes something immoral. >

There is numerous problems with what you've presented here, by rather than start from the beginning, let's start at the end:

Your whole claim is that something can be immoral without causing interference. I’m countering that. Unless you want to give an explanation for what it is that makes something immoral.

Completely and utterly INCORRECT. Since I have made no such argument for this position, I am under zero obligation to defend a position I never asserted, and so your counters are moot. We can literal see it all for ourselves, my second sentence questioned interference as "So long as it causes no direct observable [HARM] whatsoever"
I have asserted that something can be immoral without causing direct observable harm. Any other objection that doesn't try to defend the position that morality only requires direct observable harm doesn't counter anything I have asserted.
So, with this in mind, let's actually look at the numerous errors you've made.

Discrimination is immoral because it interferes with other people’s opportunity.

Incorrect. Discrimination itself is not inherently immoral, every decision you make done with any reason whatsoever is by definition an act of discrimination, you have discriminated between two or more things and chosen to value one over the other. What makes discrimination wrong is the basis for why its done. If someone went to one bakery over another because they think the pies are better, you could make the same odd argument that they have interferred with the bakers and that the someone has done something wrong, but now you'd have no argument to why it is any more wrong if the basis was because the other baker was black and that someone was racist.
I even explicitly pointed out this, in asking "Why is lying and fraud for discrimination immoral? That's what you are asking?"

If the student continually got A’s for being the favorite-

Since I never put forward any such situation, it can not counter my own argument. OP has asserted a universality. I counter it with a counterexample. You can not present a different scenario to counter my example, since my counterexample would still exist. It would be akin to if OP argued "Everyone's name is Sarah", I said "My name is Jacob", and you responded "Hold up, my name is Sarah!"

The act is fine in this situation because it had no effect.

Why do you use the word fine and not moral? Is it morally okay to have made a plan to do something morally wrong, execute it, but the consequences being no different? By such an assertion, if someone shot a person in their bed with full intention of murder, but by happenstance the person had already died in their sleep, the someone is morally in the clear.
You try to go around this by saying:

However, as a general rule, it is immoral, because it interferes with others’ chances of winning. In

But these are in contradiction. If the rule is that it's immoral, it can't be morally acceptable in the situation. Either there is a rule or there isn't. Saying 'general' rule is just vague and tries to have a contradictory position.

Can you please just answer the question.

Nah. Not obligated to. It's not relevant to the discussion. You can keep asking all you like. I decline. >


I have asserted that something can be immoral without causing direct observable harm.

Ok, we can go with this. But either way, you mentioned consequentialism. So I assume that you don’t think morality is based solely on consequences. Is this correct?

Discrimination itself is not inherently immoral, every decision you make done with any reason whatsoever is by definition an act of discrimination, you have discriminated between two or more things and chosen to value one over the other. What makes discrimination wrong is the basis for why its done. If someone went to one bakery over another because they think the pies are better, you could make the same odd argument that they have interferred with the bakers and that the someone has done something wrong, but now you'd have no argument to why it is any more wrong if the basis was because the other baker was black and that someone was racist.

I understand the literal definition of discrimination. And I agree. But the terms tends to have a negative connotation, so I was just going with that. But sure, we can take discrimination on a case by case basis.

Since I never put forward any such situation, it can not counter my own argument.

Then I’m not sure what you’re saying. Is your example that the student got an A just once for being a good student? I thought you were implying that this was an ongoing thing. But I don’t really think that makes a difference. The point still stands. The student getting an A automatically means their opportunities are better

Why do you use the word fine and not moral? Is it morally okay to have made a plan to do something morally wrong, execute it, but the consequences being no different? By such an assertion, if someone shot a person in their bed with full intention of murder, but by happenstance the person had already died in their sleep, the someone is morally in the clear.

I say ‘fine’ because it’s not a question of morality. It doesn’t make a difference in that specific scenario. It’s immoral because the act is immoral because of future consequences of repeated behavior. What are the options? It’s either immoral or moral. If you say it’s immoral, then why? What makes something immoral? It can only be due to future consequences. I don’t know what other options there are.

Nah. Not obligated to. It's not relevant to the discussion. You can keep asking all you like. I decline.

What makes something immoral? Plain and simple. That’s all I’m asking. Is it not relevant to discuss the meanings of the terms before we dictate what is and isn’t immoral? I don’t know why you’re so keen to avoid this. >

What if it hurts the person doing it? >

It seems to me that it would still require consistent effort and mindfulness to withhold ones hedonism from interfering with others when everything around us is interconnected. Plus maybe it’s just a personal experience, but pleasure doesn’t fill the need for meaning.