Also: I realize you haven’t read the second website yet, but I would if I were you, it seems to be a whole bunch of rationalism and collectivism, I’m not really sure it’s similar to the rational hedonism philosophy you’re describing here.

Now, if we combine the prescription “Do whatever you want as long as its consistent with survival” and the idea that it is sometimes rational to sacrifice your life for your loved ones, we are essentially left with “Do whatever you want” along with a few vague generalizations about what you should want.

In your last paragraph, the only problem is that “your life” is vaguely defined, just as I’ve often seen in Rand’s writings. If you replace it with “the integral of life quality (generalized pleasure minus pain) over the duration of your life”, then it is clearly defined and you have reached rational hedonism.

As far as the difference between the police officer example and the drugs example, the key is potential. As a police officer, you might potentially die, that is, some (as yet) unknown criminal may gun you down, or you may die in a high speed chase, etc. However the act of being a police officer does not cause these things to happen, it just “increases the chances.” However, doing heavy drugs does have a measurable and easily definable causal effect on your body and health, and the only cases in which one manages to survive and live after taking drugs is if one ceases to use them. This is because drugs inhibit the rational faculty, and as stated before life (including long term happiness) is not possible without a functioning ability to reason.

As far as the pleasure/pain calculation, it sounds like a secondary name for value judgements. That is, if happiness is a value to you, (which it should be) then things that will make you happy are judged as good, and things that will not are judged as bad, the spectrum forming when measuring how good vs. how bad it is and judging whether the action is correct from there. This is the basis of rational judgement right there.

As far as hedonism, if your philosophy holds that one should rationally judge actions with Life (including being happy in the short -and- long term) as the standard of judging whether x is good and y is not good, then it is congruent with Objectivism. The issue you seem to be raising is what if X will bring me much happiness, but threatens my life in the doing. As I said, in cases where the threat is potential and not causal, the danger should be weighed rationally against the good gained. In cases where the threat is causal, that is ‘if I do Y I will lose a body part, but I want to gain whatever pleasure Y will give me right now and not worry about the limb until later’ then it is irrational. However there are cases, such as when, say one has a terminal illness and a drug with hefty side effects will extend life or effectively treat the disease, such things can be rational to choose. It depends on the context.

Also there is a difference between pleasure and happiness. Both are consequences, as all emotions are consequences of your value judgements, however happiness is the achievement of your values, and pleasure is a response to a direct bodily influence.

A well developed philosophy should clearly define what counts most. For example, what should a man do when the pursuit of pleasure conflicts with the pursuit of survival (snowboarding, sky-diving, etc)? When pressed on the issue, Rand suggests that survival is the fundamental value and pleasure is just a consequence.

I am coming from a rational hedonistic standpoint, which is similar to your description, but apparently not consistent with Objectivism according to Rand.