Free Essays on Hedonism

, the ultimate goal of life is to obtain pleasure or happiness and avoid pain and suffering. Humans spend their entire lives following this philosophy whether they realize it or not. This philosophy is called Hedonism and philosophers have split it into two branches; one being ethical hedonism and the other psychological hedonism. Ethical Hedonism is the view that our fundamental moral obligation is to maximize pleasure or happiness. It is most associated with the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus (342-270 BCE.) who taught that our life's goal should be to minimize pain and maximize pleasure. In Epicurus’ A Letter to Menoeceus, one of his only surviving fragments, Epicurus gives advice on how to decrease life’s pains and describes the nature of human pleasure. â€Å"We recognize pleasure as the first good innate in us, and from pleasure we begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we return again, using the feeling as the standard by which we judge every good.† (Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus). Epicureans believe that every pain is bad and should be avoided, whereas every pleasure is grand and should be sought after. Therefore, when making choices, man should strive to attain the most pleasure possible, to seek ataraxia (peace of mind, or intellectual pleasure). Psychological Hedonism is the view that humans are psychologically constructed in such a way that we exclusively desire pleasure. With Psychological Hedonism there exist three sub-sections of it: â€Å"Goal is Pleasure†, stating that a person will only do something if they believe it will either cause them pleasure or avoid pain. â€Å"Motivation by Pleasant Thoughts†, where a person would choose to do A rather then B if and only i... Free Essays on Hedonism Free Essays on Hedonism Through out a person’s life, they will make billions of decision that affect them. But why do they make the decisions they do? I believe every decision made is in the pursuit of pleasure, or the avoidance of pain. In other words, the ultimate goal of life is to obtain pleasure or happiness and avoid pain and suffering. Humans spend their entire lives following this philosophy whether they realize it or not. This philosophy is called Hedonism and philosophers have split it into two branches; one being ethical hedonism and the other psychological hedonism. Ethical Hedonism is the view that our fundamental moral obligation is to maximize pleasure or happiness. It is most associated with the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus (342-270 BCE.) who taught that our life's goal should be to minimize pain and maximize pleasure. In Epicurus’ A Letter to Menoeceus, one of his only surviving fragments, Epicurus gives advice on how to decrease life’s pains and describes the nature of human pleasure. â€Å"We recognize pleasure as the first good innate in us, and from pleasure we begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we return again, using the feeling as the standard by which we judge every good.† (Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus). Epicureans believe that every pain is bad and should be avoided, whereas every pleasure is grand and should be sought after. Therefore, when making choices, man should strive to attain the most pleasure possible, to seek ataraxia (peace of mind, or intellectual pleasure). Psychological Hedonism is the view that humans are psychologically constructed in such a way that we exclusively desire pleasure. With Psychological Hedonism there exist three sub-sections of it: â€Å"Goal is Pleasure†, stating that a person will only do something if they believe it will either cause them pleasure or avoid pain. â€Å"Motivation by Pleasant Thoughts†, where a person would choose to do A rather then B if and only i...

10 Ways to Blog Your Book to Increase Sales Without Being Pushy or Annoying (Part 1)

10 Ways to Blog Your Book to Increase Sales Without Being Pushy or Annoying (Part 1) A lot of people think that once a book is written, the work is done. Often times, especially if you are a self-published author, the work is just beginning. After the brainstorming and drafting, writing and revising, editing and publishing comes the†¦ selling. There are only so many times you can say, buy my book! But the fact of the matter is, you need to continue placing your book in front of your audience if you have any prayer of selling copies. To help, I’ve come up with a list of ten ways you can blog about your book. I am breaking this article up into two parts, so read on for the first five suggested ways to blog about your book and then check back in next week to learn the second set of ways to increase your book sales through your blog without being pushy or annoying. The Inspiration Every story has to start somewhere. If you write about the inspiration behind the story, you don’t even have to wait until it’s published to engage your audience. Readers will feel like they are getting a behind the scenes sneak peek at your work in progress and endear them to the project right from the start. In this post, I shared all about how I turned my friend’s reality into inspiration for a fiction story. Writing Tips   Another topic you can talk about before you publish are the techniques you are using to write the story. For example, for my most recent book, I wrote about outlining, writing sprints, and using YouTube for research. First Chapter and Cover Reveal   A few weeks before you publish, give your readers a little teaser Music Play Lists   Mark Parsons wrote Road Rash, a â€Å"band-on-the-road† story about growing up- and growing into yourself. There probably isn’t a better scenario on the planet for a novel playlist. Being both a writer and a musician, Mark wrote this article for Huffington Post: 10 Best Road Trip Songs. Your book doesn’t have to be about music though to pull this off. Wisconsin based author Valerie Biel created playlists for her YA historical fantasy novels. Playlists are a great content addition to her website and also an excellent way for readers to create the atmosphere of the book to enhance their reading experience. Book Trailers Another way you can engage readers is â€Å"As authors, we want to give readers as much information as possible about our books so they can decide if it’s worth their precious time and money because let’ face it, this is a busy and expensive world. A book trailer can do this in 60 seconds or less using visuals and music. If a picture says a thousand words, adding tone and music says ten thousand.† – Teri Case, author of the award-winning novel Tiger Drive and forth-coming title, In the Dog House Once the trailer is finished, you can write a post about the creation process, including how you chose the images and music, how you scripted the video and any tips and tricks you’d recommend for other’s looking to give a book trailer a try. Okay! That’s it for today! Be sure to come back next week for the second half of the list!! (Click here for Part 2)