If There Is No Objective Morality, Then Why Shouldn't We Live a Non-Ethical, Hedonistic Life?

In The Meaning of Life, I explain how ethics are complex, situational, and subject to evolution over time.  A good example of an evolving ethic is if children were ethically obligated to go into the business of their parents hundreds of years ago due to the difficulty of earning a living for a large family back then, while in more recent times it has become unethical to push them into doing so (cue 80's movie where the star football player who really wants to act or dance flips out on his father for forcing him to live his father's dream).  As such, while you can get to near-universal ethics like fairness, reciprocity, and minimal harm, all ethics have exceptions such as being able to harm someone who is trying to harm you.

Note: If you think this is wrong and there are universal ethics like don't kill people, notice how both sides of the modern political (note: politics are just applied ethics) spectrum are okay with killing under certain conditions: for one side, it's okay to kill humans if you do so between conception and birth; for the other side, killing is a fair punishment for wrongdoing via the criminal justice system.  While there are some who probably hold an ethic that they should not kill under any circumstances, one might say that this is the wrong position because if they do not kill a person who is in the middle of committing genocide, they are being immoral.  See the problem?

Because of the fact that universal ethics don't exist, some have an existential crisis as a result and believe that nothing can matter if there is no absolute, objective right and wrong.  Therefore, they think that it doesn't matter whether they have ethics at all, and they conclude that life is just about getting as much pleasure as possible before they die.  This is known as hedonism, and non-ethical hedonism would effectively doing what felt good regardless of how it affected anyone else.

This might seem like a reasonable conclusion, but it’s far from the ideal way of living for those seeking to live a meaningful life.  Hedonism might include what I call “emotion hacking” or using substances in addictive ways that can cause harm or detract from your growth even though they’re pleasurable.  It’s, therefore, neither the optimal strategy nor the optimal outcome for meaning.  Also, living unethically takes away your sense of meaning in life, so now you have both components of this conclusion that you think might make you experience more pleasure and happiness in the short-term actually take long-term fulfillment away from you.  Let's dissect each of these points a little more:

• Why you need ethics to live meaningfully despite their ambiguity – While ethics are usually set by whatever humans can agree on, they are critical to feeling meaning in life in two ways.  First, ethics help you maximize your growth.  Ethics evolved as rules for living when amongst other organisms because cooperation has an evolutionary advantage.  So you live ethically because by not harming others, you have the potential to experience less harm and more growth.  Therefore, a purely non-ethical hedonistic approach would actually limit your growth and is definitely not ideal.  Secondly, ethics are a key component to living meaningfully in terms of significance.  The best example is a world record accomplished by someone using performance-enhancing drugs.  Does this record “count”?  If you feel that using them is cheating (i.e., unethical attainment), you will say that it doesn't count.  If you feel that using them is fair (i.e., you rationalize the act as “gaining an edge” or say that everyone was doing it), you will say that it does matter.  Either way, the significance of the achievement is dependent on its ethical attainment.  Meaning in life works the same way: unethical behaviors detract from the significance of accomplishments.  Again, It is not ideal.
• Why even hedonism—ethical or not—still isn't optimal – Living “ethically hedonistic” is still not optimal.  Meaning requires growth, and you can live hedonistically and not grow, such as by taking drugs or engaging in addictive behaviors.  You’ll find the opposite of meaning—pointlessness—by going down that route.  The reason is that emotions are giving you feedback on the direction and velocity of growth—if you’re happy, you’re growing.  However, if you “hack” your emotions through cheats, you’ll get the pleasure but won’t be growing.  That type of pleasure that hedonism suggests is just fine will detract from your feeling of meaning in life.  Being happy from winning an award, feeding people at a soup kitchen, or healthy pleasures such as good food, sex with someone you care about, etc. will contribute to your sense of meaning.  So even ethical hedonism is not optimal, but rather continuous growth and healthy (i.e., growth-enabling) living is superior.  And since much growth requires delayed gratification or discomfort, a purely hedonistic approach limits your potential for meaning.

In conclusion, a hedonistic life is not optimal, ethical or not.  You will not find as much meaning in it as you would an ethical, growth-oriented one.  More likely, you’ll just be another person who says the cliche, “I kept living for the next high only to find that it wasn’t satisfying. I ultimately [gave up the hedonistic lifestyle] and started living [a better way, such as helping others or being your best self].”  That’s the answer you’ll likely find if you take that route—though you're welcome to try, as you are free to choose your own life path.  And you have to have ethics to sense that your life had positive significance.  Just because there are no moral absolutes doesn’t mean that nothing matters and there’s no system behind it.  There definitely is.  Meaning is growth-centric and has a set of rules/concepts, and unethical hedonism breaks/violates several of them.  You are free to test it for yourself, but you've been warned.