A Dictionary of Philosophy, Third Edition
. An agreeable quality of experiences or the experiences themselves. An ambiguity exists between ‘pleasure’ in general and ‘pleasure’ in the sense of a pleasant activity or experience, a source of pleasure in the first sense. ‘Pleasure’ can also mean something like ‘will’ as in ‘at the king’s pleasure’.
Philosopher’s discuss primarily the first sense, and start by asking what pleasure is. It has often, especially in connexion with HEDONISM, been regarded simply as ‘agreeable feeling’. But competing accounts have been offered, especially recently. Pleasure has been thought to be a process, or a kind of activity, or to be essen-tially connected with attention or desire. Adverbial theories make pleasure a modification of activity, so that ‘experiencing pleasure’ means something like ‘living pleasurably’. The relations between pleasure and enjoyment, liking, pain, etc., are also topics for discussion. Special problems concern asceticism and masochism: Does anything count as disliking or failing to like pleasure, or as liking or failing to dislike pain?
Discussions of hedonism have raised the question whether pleasure can be measured. Can pleasures, or amounts of pleasure, whether of the same or different people, be compared and added together, or arranged in order of magnitude, as some versions of UTILITARIANISM demand? What would it be that was being measured? Are there any bad pleasures? Can pleasure itself be bad, or only its source? Qualitative hedonism, a form of ethical HEDONISM, says pleasures differ in quality as well as quantity, and some are better than others. How pleasure relates to happiness is also important for hedonism and utilitarianism.
A particular set of problems concern pleasure and belief, and the notion of being pleased that…. How is pleasure related to what one is pleased at, by, etc., especially when the object is illusory? How are the object and the cause of a pleasure related? And can pleasures themselves ever be false, as against merely resting on false beliefs? Can one be mistaken about whether one is pleased, etc.? See also UTILITARIANISM.
J.Annas, ‘Aristotle on pleasure and goodness’, in A.O.Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics, California UP, 1980, esp. pp.
292–8. (Are pleasures commensurable? Are they subjective?)
Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, book 7, chapters 11–14, book 10, chapters 1–5. (Aristotle’s two discussions of pleasure. The relations between them are disputed.)
J.Dybikowski, ‘False pleasure and the Philebus’, Phronesis, 1970. (False pleasure and Plato. Fairly difficult, with occasional Greek, but refers to other literature.)
R.B.Edwards, Pleasure and Pain, Cornell UP, 1979. (Defence of qualitative hedonism.)
J.C.B.Gosling, Pleasure and Desire, Oxford UP, 1969. (Discusses hedonism in light of modern treatments of pleasure.)
J.C.Hall, ‘Quantity of pleasure’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1966–7. (Can pleasure be measured?)
D.A.Lloyd Thomas, ‘Happiness’, Philosophical Quarterly, 1968.
M.A.McCloskey, ‘Pleasure’, Mind, 1971. (Asymmetries between pleasure and pain.)
J.S.Mill, Utilitarianism, 1861, chapter 2. (Qualitative hedonism. See J.Plamenatz, The English Utilitarians, 1949, p. 137; this volume includes Mill.)
D.L.Perry, The Concept of Pleasure, Mouton, 1967. (General discussion of what pleasure is, and how it relates to neighbouring concepts and expressions.)
Plato, Philebus, esp. §§ 31–55. (Extended discussion, including on whether there are false pleasures.)
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