Advertisements are well worth analyzing, since they make up so much of our education.  Recently I passed by a billboard showing a photograph of people who had climbed ‘way up into the hills, and now, late in the day, were having a beer.  The motto:  “It isn't worth it unless you enjoy it.”

I’ll bet the flacks who composed the slogan never expected anyone to disagree.

Well, I have been known to have a beer with friends too (I like stout).  But think about that motto.  “It,” I suppose, means whatever one aims to achieve.  Replace that vague word with an actual achievement.  Your pick.

It isn’t worth changing the baby’s diaper unless you enjoy it.  It isn’t worth getting off drugs unless you enjoy it.  It isn’t worth learning to read unless you enjoy it.  It isn’t worth being kind to the old lady next door unless you enjoy it.  It isn’t worth driving carefully unless you enjoy it.

Hmm.  How would the philosophy of beerism be expressed as a syllogism?  Perhaps something like this.

1.  Nothing is good except pleasure.

2.  What you achieve doesn’t ever give you pleasure in itself.

3.  Therefore it is pointless to achieve anything unless you are rewarded with some other unrelated pleasure, such as beer.

But really:

Lots of things are good besides pleasure.

Difficult achievements usually do give you pleasure in themselves.

It can be fun to enjoy a beer with friends when you have achieved something together, but it isn’t the beer that makes the achievement worth doing.  And you could have had the beer without doing it.

You aren’t celebrating the beer.  You are enjoying the beer to celebrate the achievement.