QuestionsWhat is happiness?Happiness is lasting pleasure, free of remorse
What is happiness?Pleasure

Happiness is lasting pleasure, free of remorse

La Mettrie's Anti-Seneca

Julien Offray de La Mettrie 1709 · 1751Man is a machine: the soul is only the working of the body.
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What it claims

True happiness is to enjoy without remorse the pleasures that wrong nobody: to repent of a pleasure taken is childish.

Why

Happiness is a pleasant sensation that lasts, and remorse is only a useless old habit: better to enjoy without suffering from it.

In short

"Happiness is lasting pleasure, free of remorse" is an argument by Julien Offray de La Mettrie (Anti-Seneca, or Discourse on Happiness, 1748 (revised 1750)) on the question "What is happiness?" (answer: pleasure). Its claim: True happiness is to enjoy without remorse the pleasures that wrong nobody: to repent of a pleasure taken is childish. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P6). AskPhilosophy presents 4 objections, 2 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Anti-Seneca, or Discourse on Happiness, 1748 (revised 1750)
Valid with an implicit premise

La Mettrie, a physician, wrote this discourse as the opening of his translation of Seneca (On the Happy Life), and turns it against him: the Stoics are "severe, sad, hard", he wants to be "gentle, cheerful, obliging". His starting point is the body. Happiness is the same pleasant sensation as pleasure, but lasting; it depends on our organisation and our upbringing, not on an effort of will. He goes further: remorse would be only a habit of feeling planted in childhood, useless to the wicked and cruel to the honest. Note: La Mettrie does not advise harming anyone. He keeps the fear of the laws and the pleasures that wrong nobody. We read the text in the 1796 edition; we have not compared it with that of 1748 or 1750.

P1Happiness is the pleasant sensation our organs feel, when it lasts: short, it is called pleasure; longer, voluptuousness; permanent, happiness.
P2The inner causes of happiness, which are thought to depend on us, do not: they come from our organisation and our upbringing. So we cannot become happy by commanding our sensations, as the Stoics would have it.
P3Remorse is not the voice of a natural law: it is an old habit of feeling, received in childhood, that regains the upper hand.
P4There is no absolute virtue: merit and demerit come from convention, and what is useful to society is what we call virtue.
P5Remorse is useless to society: the fear of the laws restrains the wicked, whereas remorse mostly torments honest people and does not curb wickedness.
P6 · implicit premiseIf happiness is lasting pleasure, if remorse is only a habit with neither authority nor use, and if virtue is only what serves society, then happiness consists in enjoying pleasures that wrong nobody, without remorse.
Therefore true happiness is to enjoy without remorse the pleasures that wrong nobody: to repent of a pleasure taken is childish.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P6, the computer finds a world where happiness is indeed lasting pleasure and remorse is indeed a useless habit, but where there are still good reasons not to get rid of it (for instance because conscience protects others from us, or because it is part of who we are).
The argument is valid with the hidden premise P6. P1 to P5 describe happiness (lasting pleasure), the will (powerless over sensations), remorse (a useless habit) and virtue (a useful convention). P6 ties them into a practical conclusion: enjoy without remorse. Without P6 one can grant everything and refuse the conclusion. The objections therefore target P6 (does pleasure alone make happiness? does a life without virtue remain pleasant?) and P3 (is remorse a mere habit?).
Analogy. A child has learned to be afraid of the dark. Grown up, they know there is nothing to fear, yet the fear returns. La Mettrie would say remorse is that kind of fear: a trace left by upbringing, which reason can wear away as a path is closed.

Objections

4

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Seneca (On the Happy Life) 58 · attacks premise 6

I do not call a man wise who is the slave of anything, least of all the slave of pleasure. How will he resist toil, danger, poverty and death if pleasure rules him?

a defender replies
see the argument
La Mettrie (Anti-Seneca) defender of the argument · 1748
La Mettrie, answering Seneca himself here, accepts that slavery: the Stoics think they are above pleasure and pain, he wants to feel them and take pride in it. We do not command our sensations, he says; let us admit their rule and try to make them pleasant.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Our summary: Seneca and La Mettrie are not talking about the same thing. For Seneca, pleasure without virtue enslaves; for La Mettrie, the self-mastery the Stoic promises is an illusion. The debate between virtue first and pleasure first is still open.
E
Epicurus (Letter to Menoeceus) 300 BC · attacks premise 6

Pleasure does not come from feasts and endless enjoyment, but from sober reasoning: one cannot live pleasantly without living prudently, honourably and justly, nor the reverse. The pleasant life is inseparable from these virtues.

a defender replies
see the argument
La Mettrie (Anti-Seneca) defender of the argument · 1748
La Mettrie is not aiming at Epicurus here, but his text answers the point: he keeps a virtue, but reduces it to its social use: whatever is useful to society is one, the rest is only virtue's phantom. The fear of the laws, he says, is enough to restrain the wicked; remorse adds nothing.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Our summary: La Mettrie and Epicurus agree that pleasure is the aim. They differ on the place of virtue: a condition of pleasure for Epicurus, a social convention for La Mettrie. The debate is still open.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Emile, Creed of a Savoyard Priest) 1762 · attacks premise 3

The Savoyard vicar, Rousseau's spokesman in Emile, says the love of good and the hatred of evil are as natural to us as self-love. For him this is not a learned habit but a feeling we carry within us.

no reply
see the argument
No reply possible: objection raised in 1762, after the author's death (1751).
Where the debate stands (our summary)Our summary: La Mettrie died in 1751; Rousseau writes after him, without naming him. The disagreement is about P3: is conscience a natural voice or a trace of upbringing? The debate is still open.
Robert Nozick (Anarchy, State, and Utopia) 1974 · attacks premise 1

If a machine could give us every pleasant experience we want, many would not plug in: happiness is not reducible to pleasant sensations, we also want to do things and be someone.

no reply
see the argument
No reply possible: objection raised in 1974, after the author's death (1751).
Where the debate stands (our summary)Our summary: Nozick's objection targets P1: if happiness is a sensation, a machine could give it to us. Many refuse, which suggests pleasure is not enough. Hedonists reply with reasons of caution or bias. The debate is still open.