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    Carmelics

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    Made withinDC&Austin
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    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
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    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Leibniz's theory of the good cannot be characterized as mere hedonism

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Pleasure, for Leibniz, is a confused or distinct apprehension of harmony
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    • 2.Knowledge serves as the necessary means by which an individual cultivates the moral good (the charity of the wise)
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    • 3.A theory that requires knowledge as a necessary condition for the good is richer than simple hedonism
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.For Leibniz, the highest good is the glory of God realized through the perfection of rational creatures, not the maximization of pleasure.
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    • 2.Leibniz explicitly subordinates pleasure to perfection: pleasure signals perfection but does not constitute it, making perfection the primary normative category.
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    • 3.This perfectionist framework aligns Leibniz with Aristotle's eudaimonism, where flourishing is grounded in the actualization of rational capacities, not hedonic states.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Leibniz holds that disinterested love—willing the good of another for their own sake—is a genuine moral motive irreducible to the agent's own pleasure.
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    • 2.If moral motivation can be genuinely other-directed in Leibniz's system, then his ethics exceeds any hedonism, which must ultimately reduce all motivation to self-regarding pleasure.
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    • 3.This structure anticipates Francis Hutcheson's distinction between self-love and benevolence, grounding moral worth in other-regarding affection rather than hedonic self-interest.
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