title: Dignified Hedonism: A Collection of Basic Instructions
author:  Scott Meyer 
description: Scott Meyer is the creator of the Comic Strip Basic Instructions, and the author of the novel Off to Be the Wizard.
zlib_text: The Hedonistic Imperative
  David Pearce
  Copyright © 1995/2015 David Pearce
  
  [HI was written in 1995. Only the later Replies to Objections, added sequentially in Chapter 
  Four, are more recent. For a contemporary outline, see The Abolitionist Project (2007, ht  tp:
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   b   o  l   i   t  i   on
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   )   and Utopian Neuroscience (2008, h   t  tp:
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   p   e  r  h   a  pp
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   )   . 
  Chapter Two can safely be skipped or aggressively skimmed even by the analytic philosophers 
  for whom it was primarily intended. It contains a defence of HI on the basis of, first, practical 
  means-ends rationality and, secondly, ethical negative utilitarianism. The instrumental case 
  from means-ends rationality derives from the broad applicability of psychological hedonism. 
  This isn't here construed as a universal law. It's just a trite everyday rule of thumb: we spend a 
  lot of time trying to make ourselves happy. Often we fail. HI achie