To the Cyrenaic succeeded the School of Epicurus, who emphasized the superiority of social and intellectual pleasures over those of the senses. His followers, however, reduced the system to a plea for self-indulgence (see Cyrenaic School of Philosophy). By pleasure he meant not merely sensual gratification but also the higher forms of enjoyment, mental pleasures, domestic love, friendship, and moral contentment. He taught that pleasure is the universal and ultimate object of endeavor. HISTORY.-The father of Hedonism was Aristippus of Cyrene. Hedonism ( edone, pleasure), the name given to the group of ethical systems that hold, with various modifications, that feelings of pleasure or happiness are the highest and final aim of conduct that, consequently, those actions which increase the sum of pleasure are thereby constituted right, and, conversely, what increases pain is wrong.
