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Hedonism is a philosophical system which holds that people are motivated primarily by the production of pleasure and happiness and the avoidance of pain. A person chooses his or her actions on the basis of how much pleasure and pain the actions will foreseeably cause. The word's origin is in h?donismos, the Greek word for "delight." In the discussion of hedonism, pleasure and pain have broad meanings. Pleasure and pain refer, respectively, to all pleasurable or unpleasant feelings, experiences, states, things, properties, and events.

There are a few different types of hedonism. Motivational hedonism asserts that only pleasure and pain motivate people to do or to not do things. Normative hedonism, however, asserts that only pleasure and all types of pleasure have worth, while only pain and all types of pain have no worth. Egoistic hedonists believe that the happiness of the individual is paramount, while altruistic hedonists feel the happiness of all people is the most important.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonism