6227 On Hedonism vs Nihilism

Freedomain with Stefan Molyneux

Stefan Molyneux

Anarchy, Democrat, Atheist, Objectivist, Conservative, Atheism, Freedom, Freedomainradio, Libertarian, Objectivism, Pacifism, Republican, Liberal, Joe-rogan, Philosophy, Politics, News & Politics

4.6 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 15 December 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Stefan Molyneux looks into why people who feel their lives lack purpose tend to slide into nihilism rather than hedonism. He describes nihilism as the view that existence holds no real worth, and hedonism as chasing after pleasure above all else. Molyneux argues that actual contentment comes from focusing on virtue and ethical conduct, drawing on Aristotle's idea of eudaimonia.

He points out that dropping one's ethical guidelines often pushes people toward temporary escapes through pleasure-seeking, but these fade over time and pull them toward nihilism. Molyneux also takes aim at today's economy for encouraging reliance on debt and rewarding unwise choices. In the end, he calls on his audience to embrace clear moral standards and consider how virtue plays a role in finding ongoing satisfaction.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	All right, good morning, everybody. Good afternoon, actually, sorry. I hope you're doing well.
0:03.3	Steve Mollary from Free Domain. Some questions from the listeners.
0:10.8	And, yeah, it's going to be a little spicy. A little spicy. That's all right. We can handle
0:16.5	some spice, right? All right. So first question is this. Philosophers and psychologists will state that when people lose meaning in their life, they will turn to nihilism, but why would that be the destination rather than hedonism? It's a great question, and I appreciate the depth, clarity, and subtlety of the question, and I will give a ham-fisted, monochromatic answer. Oh, I should try not
0:41.3	to. depth, clarity, and subtlety of the question, and I will give a ham-fisted monogrammatic answer.
0:40.5	Oh, I should try not do. So nihilism is the belief that there's nothing of value.
0:48.4	Hedonism is the belief that pleasure is the purpose of life. And generally by pleasure, we're talking about
0:58.4	a short-term physical stimuli such as sex, drugs, rock and roll, that kind of stuff. So,
1:05.9	the first and most important question we ask of our lives, of our days when we wake up of our
1:11.9	months or years as we plan is, what do I want to achieve? What do I want to achieve? Now, my particular
1:19.6	goal and approach is to say, I would like to achieve the expansion of virtue in the world. So I aim to be a good person. I
1:32.8	aim to do good shows, have good conversations, so that's my goal. And that's how I organize my
1:38.7	life. It's how I organize what I do with the 16 hours a day that I'm up and about, and you need to have that in your life.
1:48.8	You have to have some way of organizing your day, because as human beings, we have kind of an
1:56.9	infinity of choices, right?
1:58.9	I mean, for lions, it's like hunt, don't hunt, have sex, don't
2:02.2	have sex, play with your cubs, don't play with your cubs, whatever, right? It's not an infinity of
2:06.6	choices. But the higher your consciousness, the more choices you have, the more choices you have,
2:12.5	the more you need principles by which to organize your day. Like if you are a monarch butterfly and you're flitting
2:19.2	down to Mexico because it's winter or you're a Canada geese heading south, you really only have
2:24.7	one place to go, one way to go and one way to get there, right? You follow the herd, you follow the
2:30.5	flock and you fly south, right? So that's your, that's your life. You really have
	...

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