In fact, some of the time desires can be seen as a kind of disease, something that does not give back as much as it takes. My desire for a soda can be resolved by buying a soda, but the soda doesn't really make me happier, it just relieves me of the stress of having a desire for a soda. It stands that for some desires, it's better not to have them in the first place. — darthbarracuda

It's kind of like the Buddhist's 2nd Noble Truth, right?

Other desires, however, seem to lead to overall well-being. More precisely, these desires (or preferences) are those that allow us to live in better "harmony" with our environment. — darthbarracuda

I think all desires are under the first type you described. Some might lead to some sort of tranquility, but usually even these long-term goals of balance and harmony are instrumental in nature. Striving for nothing always. Actually, long-term goals for balance are the height of absurd because of the instrumental nature of any endeavor, noble or otherwise.

Interesting stuff, but I don't get how pleasure and pain could be attitudes towards experiences. How could one possibly identify an experience at all, as an experience, if the pain or pleasure is not the experience but an attitude towards it?

For example, a painful pinch in my arm may evoke conscious awareness of the fact that my body behaves as it should, which in turn may evoke pleasure. The pinch being the cause of the pain, awareness of a working body being the cause of the pleasure.

It's kind of like the Buddhist's 2nd Noble Truth, right? — schopenhauer1

Yeah. Desires cause stress.

I think all desires are under the first type you described. Some might lead to some sort of tranquility, but usually even these long-term goals of balance and harmony are instrumental in nature. Striving for nothing always. Actually, long-term goals for balance are the height of absurd because of the instrumental nature of any endeavor, noble or otherwise. — schopenhauer1

The problem I see with this view is that it basically means all pleasure is bad, because pleasure is inherently tied to desires, and desires are all bad. Which I think is a bit absurd. I mean I legitimately have fun when I play a video game, or read a book, or go for a walk, read philosophy, etc. I desire to do these things, and I have fun doing them.

Would I be worse off if I didn't have these desires? Perhaps not. But certainly we can at least accept a basic notion that, given two options, a world with satisfied desirers is better than a world with no desirers at all. I say satisfied desirers because I still think that there is a difference between certain desires - some desire satisfactions make you happy, whereas others just eliminate a discomfort.

So my desire for ice cream is more of a disease-desire, since it's not going to really make me happier in the long run. But my desire to, say, understand Nietzsche, will make me happier in the long run.

So my desire for ice cream is more of a disease-desire, since it's not going to really make me happier in the long run. But my desire to, say, understand Nietzsche, will make me happier in the long run. — darthbarracuda

I'm not sure anything fits so nicely into good or bad desires. How is reading Nietzsche happier, because it satisfies or quells some "spiritual" desires? Perhaps, but things keep moving, and you must keep satisfying something otherwise you are probably unconscious. I don't disagree that we make do with the best we can though.

Social interaction with friends/intellectuals and reading topics that move the mind, does seem better than just having a good meal. These too are liable to change or not being fulfilled. In fact, nothing provides permanent satisfaction. Newer and novel things must be dealt with. The body, and keeping an equilibrium in one's surroundings have to be dealt with first or at least alongside these more interesting pursuits. So with this attainment comes a lot of upkeep.

I don't know for sure, I would have assumed that even the most basic organisms experience pleasurable and painful sensations. Any animal will experience hunger and satiety, comfort and discomfort, pain and pleasure. What the human brings to the picture is the ability to reflect on that and to seek pleasure and avoid pain. That forms the kernel of the persona with its habituated wants, likes and dislikes.

I think your reasoning about whether pleasure is 'good' or not, is hampered by the inability to conceive of other criteria for what it might be. Whereas the Buddhist attitude isn't so much suppressing desires (although that may be part of it) but developing a different conception of the good, if you like. In other words, they're pointing out a source of good which is not reliant on pain or pleasure. In their analysis, the cause of dissatisfaction is the pursuit of pleasure through transient sensations, through attachment to things which are bound to perish. The point of 'insight meditation' is to become directly aware of that process (which has many resemblances to what Schopenhaur calls 'will' in being basically an autonomic drive). That awareness gives rise to the antonym of 'dukkha', namely 'sukha', translated as 'ease' or 'bliss'.

The question, though, is whether or not the satisfaction of a desire is always equally valuable as the lack of any desire in the first place. I think this is only true is the satisfaction of a desire does not somehow play a part in the overall well-being or "happiness" of a person like eudaimonia. So eudaimonia would, in virtue of its definition, requires the satisfaction of certain desires. And eudaimonia seems to be a good thing.

So the adverbialist theory is that pleasure and pain are attitudes towards experiences, and pleasure and pain are on a kind a subjective scale, similar to how different kinds of dances are on a scale of slow-fast.

Phenomenologically, pleasure is whatever we experience that we wish to continue to experience, and pain is whatever we experience that we wish to discontinue to experience.

Continuing on to the ethical side of this, is the satisfaction of a desire "better" than the absence of that desire in the first place? — darthbarracuda

Pleasure and pain may certainly be associated with, and the joy or suffering attendant upon them amplified or diminished by, "attitudes towards experiences"; but I would say that pleasure and pain themselves, as basic sensations cannot plausibly, or even coherently, be thought to be governed by attitudes.

To say that "pleasure is whatever we experience that we wish to continue to experience, and pain is whatever we experience that we wish to discontinue to experience" seems by and large, reasonable enough; but that simple formulation is spoiled somewhat by the fact that people may, for whatever reasons, enjoy pain or come to despise pleasure.

I don't think the absence of a desire can be counted as "better" than its satisfaction, since there may be considerable joy accompanying its satisfaction and none whatsover its absence. Imagine if there were no desires at all in human life. There would still be, due to embodiment, pleasure and pain, but nothing at all to motivate any movement towards one or away from the other. We would then be like machines registering stimuli, but having no affective connection with them. We would be numbed automata; would you really want to live like that?

Human and other animals are attracted by pleasure and repulsed by pain. I think these are instinctual responses to things we experience. We don't have to have language to experience pleasure or pain. We may not even be aware of our automatic reflexes as part of these experiences.

Once we become aware of these sensations as sensations they become inferential, associative, cognitive, and we learn to enjoy what we desire. Our reflexive reactions become constructed normativley, we want what others want, our description of sensations tend to match up with what others who share our normative contexts describe as pleasurable. The first time I had a beer in High School, I couldn't stand the taste, but when I got to College my taste changed and I came to love the taste of beer. Isn't this what advertising & peer pressure is all about?

Chomsky postulated innate evolutionary structures in the brain which make language acquisition possible. Maybe similar structures in the brain account for our automatic reflexive response to pleasure and pain and also how we can come to have ethical or aesthetic pleasure.

I think that cognitive desire is form of time bias toward the future attainment of what is desired. Perhaps the concept of escaping from desire, and pain is actual a desire to escape time, since time continually frustrates many of our desires. Perhaps this is why monks spend years meditating, it is not easy to escape the hegemony of time.

Christoph Fehige argues:

Orexigenic cases are those in which a preference exists and is satisfied.

Prophylactic cases are those in which a preference does not exist (and therefore nothing is satisfied).

Fehige spends a very long time in his paper (A Pareto Principle [...]) discussing why the Orexigenic case is equal to the prophylactic case in value. However, he makes sure to note that the prophylactic case can never be better than the orexigenic case by itself - such would require the addition of additional frustrated preferences.

Personally I have to question why preferences are seen as the basis of morality here. For instance, why is it that a satisfied preference is good? And why is it that we have preferences in the first place?

The reason we have preferences is because we enjoy something - the process of enjoyment is not in-itself strictly a preference. Our preferences are guided in virtue of our ability to enjoy something. This is also why a satisfied preference is good - because it makes the person feel good.

During his essay, Fehige says the following:

"[...]we have obligations to make preferrers satisfied, but no obligations to make satisfied preferrers."

However, this strikes me as saying one thing and then negating it right afterwards. By making preferrers satisfied, you are making satisfied preferrers.

So I don't know if preference-based ethics can stand independently from hedonism. All of our preferences can be traced back to whether or not they make us feel pleasure or pain - the advice of the sage to avoid acquiring new preferences is not because these preferences aren't going to make you any better off, but because of the empirical fact that these preferences are oftentimes accompanied by disappointment and pain, which are independent notions of preferences per se.

Personally I have to question why preferences are seen as the basis of morality here. For instance, why is it that a satisfied preference is good? And why is it that we have preferences in the first place? — darthbarracuda

I don't think it is merely a matter of satisfying 'preferences'. Some of the greatest satisfactions in life come from mastering difficult tasks, like learning philosophy for example. This kind of deep satisfaction cannot be adequately reduced to pleasure and pain, simpliciter. We choose to endure the inevitable frustrations that come with the inherent difficulties of mastery, and work to overcome them. When we achieve an elevation in understanding, there is great satisfaction, no? The same could be said about achieving mastery in the arts, or even athletic pursuits, or even (perish the very thought!) business.

Continuing on to the ethical side of this, is the satisfaction of a desire "better" than the absence of that desire in the first place? — darthbarracuda

From what I understand, the central focus of this thread is a comparison (which is better) between (A) the satisfaction of desire and (B) the cessation of desire. The comparison can't be made without contextualizing the apparent advantage of each option. From what I understand, the advantages are as follows: satisfying a desire results in X units of pleasure while ceasing a desire results in Y units of avoided suffering. Hence, the question can viewed in the following light:

Which is better, the X units of pleasure gained or the Y units of suffering avoided?

I think one challenge of trying to answer this question is that it is difficult to limit the discussion to a single individual, and hence, the discussion would have to take into account the pleasure and suffering of other people.

Of course, it is a different matter altogether if there is a convincing narrative explaining why one ought to pursue personal pleasure. If such a narrative is available, then maybe we can say that Y units of suffering justifies X units of pleasure.

Since I haven't yet looked at this possibility yet, I'll just share my thoughts on why I think prevention of Y units of suffering is 'better' in the context of collective pleasure and suffering.

1. Pursuit of one's material desires, more often than not, infringes on other people's desires. (EDIT: Plus it is unsustainable.)

Take for example enjoying a hot cup of coffee. It seems innocent at first glance but looking at it deeply, with the interconnectedness of the modern world, one can argue that this act is contributing to the suffering of other people in some other parts of the world, e.g. cheap coffee beans as a result of cheap labor and cheap oil, cheap oil for transportation and electricity driving wars, corruption, and collapse of countries. Taken as a singular act, drinking a hot cup of coffee may be insignificant but take a whole nation wanting to enjoy this simple pleasure, I must say, leads to a net increase in overall suffering. It would be interesting to consider what would happen if one is to promote the pursuit of Western pleasures to the rest of Asia -- somebody or something must definitely give.

Indirectly, one's pursuit of pleasure results in and justifies the suffering and sacrifices needed in its satisfaction. If left unchecked, it could potentially create a vicious cycle of satisfying growing levels of desires at the expense of growing levels of suffering. So I guess that in this case, the prophylactic case is 'better' than the orexigenic case in the sense that there is less net suffering.

On the other hand, abstaining from satisfying material desires wouldn't lead to such levels of suffering -- actions are chosen to minimize it in the first place.

For other kinds of desires, e.g. reading on Nietzsche, I think there's no problem in pursuing such pleasures if it would not add to the suffering of other people. The difference in philosophy is that the pursuit of pleasure is taken only as secondary to minimizing suffering. (One could also argue that reading on Nietzsche, or any other book at that, is a concious/unconcious act of alleviating suffering; suffering caused by emptiness or boredom.)

2. Cessation of suffering is 'more universal' than the satisfaction of pleasure.

Beyond the basic needs for survival, there is no universally accepted way of increasing overall pleasure. This brings about inconsistencies in holding this view, one of which is the infringement of the desires/pleasures/suffering of others.

On the other hand, cessation of suffering is much more universal, i.e. I think it is much more generally accepted that nobody desires bodily pains, stress-inducing events, emptiness, boredom, etc and hence, there is much less resistance to the idea of minimizing these. I think it is more consistent and makes much more sense to build one's philosophy on top of this idea.

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TLDR: I think, that in the wider context of human suffering and pleasure, the cessation of suffering is a much more consistent view than the pursuit of pleasures. Hence, the pursuit of pleasures should only be considered secondary to the cessation of suffering, if there is merit in considering this at all.

[Coffee] seems innocent at first glance but looking at it deeply, with the interconnectedness of the modern world, one can argue that this act is contributing to the suffering of other people in some other parts of the world, e.g. cheap coffee beans as a result of cheap labor and cheap oil, cheap oil for transportation and electricity driving wars, corruption, and collapse of countries. Taken as a singular act, drinking a hot cup of coffee may be insignificant but take a whole nation wanting to enjoy this simple pleasure, I must say, leads to a net increase in overall suffering. — OglopTo

Interesting observation, and why Oxfam created Fair Trade coffee. I think it illustrates the inter-dependent nature of things.

Agree about the cessation of suffering principle, also.

When we achieve an elevation in understanding, there is great satisfaction, no? The same could be said about achieving mastery in the arts, or even athletic pursuits. . . . — John

Right. A cliff-diver who learns a new dive may find the height and the risks involved unpleasant, but overcoming the fear and mastering the dive very pleasant. These experiences tend to dwindle, however, as the dive becomes a habit. But then there is typically a new, more difficult dive, to learn. :)

But the ability to overcome unpleasant experiences becomes controversial in cases such as medical experiments on animals, or uses of violence or torture on humans. Humans have many ways to psychologically rationalize the most horrific acts, to make them seem tolerable, or admirable, which in turn may evoke pleasure even. :(

Plato did much analysis of pleasure and pain, I'll see if I can recall some of the principles put forward by him. To begin with, pleasure is not to be opposed to pain, because despite the fact that release from pain does bring a type of pleasure, there are other pleasures such as the pleasures of virtue, and the intellectual pleasures, which are not derived from a release from pain.

So the adverbialist theory is that pleasure and pain are attitudes towards experiences, and pleasure and pain are on a kind a subjective scale, similar to how different kinds of dances are on a scale of slow-fast. — darthbarracuda

Here, you have opposed pleasure and pain, which is what Plato advised against. The reason why we should disassociate these two is so that we can seek pleasures which have no associated pains. If it is the case that we only get pleasure through satisfying a desire, and desire, being a deprivation, is a pain, then we will always have to go through pain in order to get pleasure.

I mean I legitimately have fun when I play a video game, or read a book, or go for a walk, read philosophy, etc. I desire to do these things, and I have fun doing them. — darthbarracuda

Perhaps there is a subtle difference in types of "desire", which you need to consider. If, throughout your work day, you find yourself constantly desiring to play a video game, or read a book, then this is like an addiction, and it may develop into a form of illness. If, on the other hand, you know that these options are available to you, when you have time, and so you choose to do them, when you have time, without ever really desiring to do them, then you can derive the pleasure without ever suffering from the desire.

The question, though, is whether or not the satisfaction of a desire is always equally valuable as the lack of any desire in the first place. I think this is only true is the satisfaction of a desire does not somehow play a part in the overall well-being or "happiness" of a person like eudaimonia. So eudaimonia would, in virtue of its definition, requires the satisfaction of certain desires. And eudaimonia seems to be a good thing. — darthbarracuda

The issue I see, is that desire is never good. It is always caused by some deprivation, whether a real physical deprivation such as food or water, or a psychological one. You might think that the desire for food, hunger, is good, because it makes you eat, but it really means that you haven't eaten when you should have.

Now what Plato found, was that when pleasure is properly separated from pain, such that it is not associated with desires and release from pain, it becomes very difficult to say what pleasure is. That is because it is easier to understand what pain is, and when pleasure is opposed to pain, we can simply say that releasing ourselves from pains and desires is to have a pleasure. But this gives us no goals or objectives for producing pleasures which will provide the means for avoiding the pains and desires in the first place, and altogether, giving us true pleasure.

So I see that the closest thing to a description of pleasure in this thread, is a referral to "enjoyment". Is this the term which people would be most likely to use in describing pleasure, "enjoyment"? What does "enjoy" mean, and how else might one describe pleasure?

The article isn't very clear on how the adverbial position differs from the 'hedonic tone' position described at the beginning of the article, and indeed the analogy with the speed of a dance seems parallel to Kegan's analogy with the loudness of a sound. There's some babble about psychofunctionalism, but I'm not sure what it's about.

Plato did much analysis of pleasure and pain, I'll see if I can recall some of the principles put forward by him. To begin with, pleasure is not to be opposed to pain, because despite the fact that release from pain does bring a type of pleasure, there are other pleasures such as the pleasures of virtue, and the intellectual pleasures, which are not derived from a release from pain. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree with this. The Plato/Aristotle picture does not have a pleasure/pain spectrum. Nor does our ordinary language.

Pleasure, for instance, can be opposed to 'displeasure' on a spectrum including indifference: our aesthetic pleasures, for instance, fall into this category.

And pain, for instance, can be opposed to 'painlessness', which is altogether different from pleasure.

There are other zones in the pleasure/pain nexus. Aristotle, for instance, discusses the 'pleasure' in the 'good' of recovering from illness, and points out that this is hardly a good or a pleasure we would in general seek or regard as good.

There are other zones in the pleasure/pain nexus. Aristotle, for instance, discusses the 'pleasure' in the 'good' of recovering from illness, and points out that this is hardly a good or a pleasure we would in general seek or regard as good. — mcdoodle

I would really like some indication as to what exactly, pleasure is. Enjoyment has been mentioned, but this doesn't tell me much. It might imply that pleasure is a state of mind, and cannot be isolated to any specific part of the body. Pain though, does seem to be often associated with particular parts of the body.

Let's assume that pleasure is some state of mind, of enjoyment, or feeling good. I would think that health, and lack of pain, are fundamental to enjoying oneself. However, depending on the severity of the pain or illness, I think that one can still experience pleasure when one is in pain, or ill. The pain or illness, if acute, may overcome one's ability to experience pleasure though.

Can we identify pleasure by looking for the capacity, or ability, to experience pleasure? Many things, like pain, illness, stresses, and other instabilities may affect this capacity. What produces this capacity though, giving us the ability to experience pleasure, if it has not been taken away by pain or some such thing? Is it something which we must be trained in, like knowledge, which gives us the capacity to figure things out, and other habits which we learn? Is it the case that we must be taught how to experience pleasure?

Pleasure might be able to be characterized as an attitude we have towards a certain experience, one in which we wish the experience to continue. Certainly all pleasurable experiences are experiences that we wish to continue to experience. The opposite can be said of pain.

Another thing, coming from Levinas, is that pleasure is the act of turning the Other into the Self. For example, eating food turns food (the Other) into something inside of you (the Self). All pleasure thus is the transformation of the Other to the Self.

I like Levinas' thought.

As far as Plato goes...his Philebus is all about pleasure and pain. He thought of pleasure/pain as limitations in a continuum, their genesis brings us in or out of balance. Pleasure is the restoration of human balance which leads to the Good Life and the Good Life is the goal. Plato thought that neither pleasure in itself nor knowledge in itself was sufficient to achieve the Good Life. What is required is the right mix of Pleasure and Knowledge that enables the Good Life. Of course what the right mix is open to question, but the idea is a balanced approach to life.

Aristotle agreed to a large extent with Plato ideas about pleasure and pain and he adopted many Plato's ideas into his Nicomachean Ethics Where they significantly disagree... Plato's takes pleasure as a genesis (a becoming) versus Aristotle who sees pleasure and pain taken in an activity.

Another thing about pain and pleasure is that people can be instrumentalized when they suffer, but they cannot be instrumentalized when they experience pleasure. However, maybe it could be said that someone can be the focal point of pleasure, like a birthday party.

We generally have an intuition that pain is of ethical priority, almost of a totally different kind, than pleasure. What makes this so?

↪Metaphysician Undercover Pleasure might be able to be characterized as an attitude we have towards a certain experience, one in which we wish the experience to continue. Certainly all pleasurable experiences are experiences that we wish to continue to experience. The opposite can be said of pain. — darthbarracuda

This falls to the Euthyphro problem as well. I want an experience to continue because it's pleasant, not vice-versa. It also seems that I can have pleasant experiences without having to reflexively want anything about my experiences. The pleasantness just happens to me; I don't need a second-order awareness of that experience, such that the pleasure is brought on by or concomitant with my desires.

Right, that's exactly why I mentioned originally how the desire-view was similar to nominalism - our desires don't make things pleasurable, things are pleasurable and therefore we desire them.

However the adverbialist theory as I understand it holds that there is already a subconscious "directed-ness" that approves of experiences without our control, which results in pleasure and pain.

Some more thoughts on this:

Pleasures and pains seem to be connected to the resolution of problems. Of course, one can stimulate the brain and produce pleasurable experiences without resolving a problem per se, but the fact is that pleasures evolved to act as a reward-and-motivating system whereas pains evolved to act as a motivating system only.

Generally, when we have a problem, we experience some degree of pain, which notifies us to act. We then act, and, depending on the intensity of the pain, we act either because we wish to experience pleasure or because we wish to get rid of the pain. For example, I eat food primarily because I'm hungry, but I don't eat it in order to remove a bad feeling necessarily but also because I desire to experience the pleasurable food. In addition to being a necessity it's also an opportunity. But if I have a headache I act only to remove the bad feeling.

So in the sense that pleasure accompanies pain in the cycle of desire and need, pleasure becomes merely something that makes an act permissible, but does not act as a reason to do an action. The pleasure has to "make up" for the required pain, instead of actually being a reason in itself. But why? What is the motivating reason behind a suffering-prioritized ethics?

For if we were all super happy all the time, I suspect we might have a different perspective on all this: we would have immediate access to pleasure all the time, recognize it as a good, and wish to multiply the amount. It only seems repugnant or unworthwhile right now because we aren't currently able to conceptualize what this pleasure feels like.

Another idea is that we feel more compassion towards those who are suffering than those who are happy. This would seem to have come from evolution as well - attend to those in the clan who are in more need than others, because those who are happy can fend for themselves.

Generally it seems like we have the intuition that we ought to make people (who already exist) happy, but not make happy people (who do not exist). But this already puts a constraint upon ethics, in which the moral thing to do is "bring people up" rather than make more people who are already up.

But the ability to overcome unpleasant experiences becomes controversial in cases such as medical experiments on animals, or uses of violence or torture on humans. Humans have many ways to psychologically rationalize the most horrific acts, to make them seem tolerable, or admirable, which in turn may evoke pleasure even. :( — jkop

I think this just shows that the business of overcoming unpleasant experiences must always be a meter for the individual who is having those experiences. In other words discipline should never be forced on an individual by others for their own ends, or even in the mistaken idea that they are 'doing them good'. Discipline must be freely accepted by the individual for her own reasons.

For example, I eat food primarily because I'm hungry, but I don't eat it in order to remove a bad feeling necessarily but also because I desire to experience the pleasurable food. — darthbarracuda

I think that what Is actually the case is slightly different from this. It is generally not because you are hungry that you eat food. We establish eating habits such that we eat before we get hungry. If you always waited until you were hungry, you would always get that bad feeling, and be eating to remove that bad feeling. So we should ask, how is the habit produced, and maintained, and here we find pleasure. We create an experience of pleasure which is associated with the desired eating habits, and the pleasure produces the habit.

So in the sense that pleasure accompanies pain in the cycle of desire and need, pleasure becomes merely something that makes an act permissible, but does not act as a reason to do an action. — darthbarracuda

So I think, contrary to this, that pleasure truly does act as a reason to do the act. That is what habits are all about. We get pleasure from a certain thing, so we want to do it again, The difficulty is in developing good habits and minimizing bad habits. Also, when we know that some specific action is good, we need to devise a way to make it pleasurable, such that it will become a habit, a good habit.