Observe this
22 hours ago
15 May 2009
Science of Pleasure IV
Epicureans offer a corrective to the utilitarian account of pleasure in a second aspect also. The epicurean recognizes the ways in which our beliefs affect our happiness. For example, they encourage us to develop a disposition toward gratitude. If we give thanks for the good things in our lives, if we don’t believe we deserve them as our right but can welcome them as a gift, we will be happier. (Epicureans also claim that belief an judgmental gods and belief in an afterlife in which one suffers under the judgment of those gods leads to unhappiness. In the pursuit of happiness, we should jettison such beliefs.)
14 May 2009
Science of Pleasure III
That other well-known hedonist, the epicurean, offers a helpful corrective to the utilitarian. While the epicurean agrees that everyone desires pleasure, she operates with a different conception of pleasure than the utilitarian.
First, the epicurean does not hesitate to distinguish higher and lower pleasures as correlated with different kinds of desire. Some desires are necessary and natural (desire for food and drink); some desires are natural but not necessary (desire for sex). The examples of desires I have given are all classified as bodily desires. According to the epicurean (and in conflict with the popular image of epicureans) people who chase bodily desires will never be satisfied. They find certain kinds of passing pleasures, but they do not find happiness. In fact, trying to satisfy bodily desire is like pouring water into a leaking bucket. In order to be happy, one ought to learn to limit bodily desires. Do not pursue excessive desires; rather confine one’s desires only to what is necessary and natural. With work, one may even overcome the natural but unnecessary desires. This, it turns out, will actually cultivate one’s ability to enjoy, to feel pleasure; a simple meal is a feast for a hungry woman. One may discover in this the pleasure of existing.
First, the epicurean does not hesitate to distinguish higher and lower pleasures as correlated with different kinds of desire. Some desires are necessary and natural (desire for food and drink); some desires are natural but not necessary (desire for sex). The examples of desires I have given are all classified as bodily desires. According to the epicurean (and in conflict with the popular image of epicureans) people who chase bodily desires will never be satisfied. They find certain kinds of passing pleasures, but they do not find happiness. In fact, trying to satisfy bodily desire is like pouring water into a leaking bucket. In order to be happy, one ought to learn to limit bodily desires. Do not pursue excessive desires; rather confine one’s desires only to what is necessary and natural. With work, one may even overcome the natural but unnecessary desires. This, it turns out, will actually cultivate one’s ability to enjoy, to feel pleasure; a simple meal is a feast for a hungry woman. One may discover in this the pleasure of existing.
11 May 2009
Science of Pleasure II
The practice of undergraduates betrays their theoretical relativism. They do judge within themselves between things they like better than others. When they aren’t held captive by political politeness, they can even recognize that they believe their judgments have validity that others should recognize. They feel free to mock musical genres. They detest bad songs within a particular genre – this on matters presumably limited to “taste.”
Bentham, and even Mill, would agree that we must attend to and make judgments about our ends. Bentham asserted that all human aims could be gathered up under one word: pleasure. However, pleasure had many dimensions; every pleasure has a definite intensity and duration, purity and fecundity, and we anticipate it with more or less certainty in the proximate or remote future. Rarely does a contemporary utilitarian calculus work out the varying dimensions of pleasure, which is to say, it has stopped taking pleasure seriously. We say that pleasure is relative; but in reality it is too complex for our vocabularies and calculations. The difference is important for our future happiness.
Bentham, and even Mill, would agree that we must attend to and make judgments about our ends. Bentham asserted that all human aims could be gathered up under one word: pleasure. However, pleasure had many dimensions; every pleasure has a definite intensity and duration, purity and fecundity, and we anticipate it with more or less certainty in the proximate or remote future. Rarely does a contemporary utilitarian calculus work out the varying dimensions of pleasure, which is to say, it has stopped taking pleasure seriously. We say that pleasure is relative; but in reality it is too complex for our vocabularies and calculations. The difference is important for our future happiness.
10 May 2009
Science of Pleasure I
Popular understanding too easily equates utilitarianism with instrumental rationality, a relentless logic of efficiency incapable of evaluating the ends it pursues.
On the other hand, an introductory course in ethics will insist that the concept of the end, pleasure, plays a central role in the evolution of utilitarian thought. Whereas Jeremy Bentham insisted that Halo is as good as Heidegger, Bentham’s successor John Stuart Mill retorted, “Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.” On this story, Bentham thought all pleasures could be quantified and so compared, but Mill claimed that pleasures may be qualitatively different and so incomparable. For Mill, only one who has tasted the pleasures of port and the pleasures of beer can judge between them.
Still, what moral does the introductory ethics student draw from this story? I suspect that they may go further than Mill. Perhaps they conclude that there is no judging, not even within oneself, not between even comparable pleasures of beer and port. Perhaps they make every pleasure a potentially absolute pleasure relative to some potential hedonist for whom “man is the measure of all things.” And so we are delivered back into the hands of instrumental rationality, where we can no longer reason about ends, but only about means.
What would it mean to take utilitarianism seriously? That is, can we imagine paying closer attention to pleasure, to its natures? Does utilitarianism have some insight to offer us in thinking about ends?
On the other hand, an introductory course in ethics will insist that the concept of the end, pleasure, plays a central role in the evolution of utilitarian thought. Whereas Jeremy Bentham insisted that Halo is as good as Heidegger, Bentham’s successor John Stuart Mill retorted, “Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.” On this story, Bentham thought all pleasures could be quantified and so compared, but Mill claimed that pleasures may be qualitatively different and so incomparable. For Mill, only one who has tasted the pleasures of port and the pleasures of beer can judge between them.
Still, what moral does the introductory ethics student draw from this story? I suspect that they may go further than Mill. Perhaps they conclude that there is no judging, not even within oneself, not between even comparable pleasures of beer and port. Perhaps they make every pleasure a potentially absolute pleasure relative to some potential hedonist for whom “man is the measure of all things.” And so we are delivered back into the hands of instrumental rationality, where we can no longer reason about ends, but only about means.
What would it mean to take utilitarianism seriously? That is, can we imagine paying closer attention to pleasure, to its natures? Does utilitarianism have some insight to offer us in thinking about ends?
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