* Ragtime^ changes topic to 'Presentation in progress; Pleasure and Pain from The Syntopicon--abstract posted at http://www.philosophy-irc.com'

* Ragtime^ sets mode: +m

<Ragtime^> Thank you for participating in this, our sixty-eighth presentation in the effort to resuscitate The Chicago Experiment.

<Ragtime^> We are discussing each of the 102 Great Ideas from The Syntopicon.

<Ragtime^> Every library in existence has a set of the Great Books of the Western World.

<Ragtime^> This is a 54 volume set. Volumes 2 and 3 are entitled The Syntopicon.

<Ragtime^> The Great Idea for tonight's presentation will be "Pleasure and Pain."

<Ragtime^> The presentation will be divided into four parts.

<Ragtime^> In PART II we will discuss the physiological basis for pain and pleasure. Although there may be specialized nerves for pain, there are none for pleasure. Pleasure can have a visual basis, an auditory basis, or an olfactory basis. We will discuss how Plato distinguishes sensual pleasure from aesthetic pleasure.

<Ragtime^> In PART III we will discuss the relation between pleasure and happiness. Sancho Panza claims that happiness results when all the sensual needs are met. Dr. Johnson claims that pleasure is contrary to happiness. Mill states it even better: "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; it is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied."

<Ragtime^> Pleasure and pain, writes Locke, "like other simple ideas, cannot be described, nor their names defined; the way of knowing them is . . . only by experience."

<Ragtime^> That pleasure and pain are elementary experiences, attributed to animals as well as enjoyed or suffered by men, is attested by poets and physiologists alike, by economists and theologians, by historians and moralists.

<Ragtime^> Yet in the tradition of western thought, few of the great writers are content to leave the nature or meaning of pleasure and pain to the intuitions of experience alone.

<Ragtime^> Conflicting definitions are proposed.

<Ragtime^> Psychologists disagree about the conditions under which the feelings of pleasure and pain occur, their causes and consequences, their relation to sensation, to desire and emotion, to thought, volition, and action.

<Ragtime^> Moralists dispute whether pleasure is the only good and pain the only evil, whether pleasure is only one good among others to be assessed according to its worth in the scale of goods, whether pleasure and pain are morally indifferent, whether some pleasures are good, others bad, or all are intrinsically evil.

<Ragtime^> Not only in the theory of good an evil, but also in the theories of beauty and truth, pleasure and pain are fundamental terms.

<Ragtime^> They are affected by all the difficulties which belong to these great themes; and also with the difficulties attendant on the ideas of virtue, sin, and punishment, of duty and happiness, into the consideration of which pleasure and pain traditionally enter.

<Ragtime^> The traditional use of the words "pleasure" and "pain" is complicated by more than the variety of definitions which have been given.

<Ragtime^> Other words are frequently substituted for them, sometimes as synonyms and sometimes to express only one part or aspect of their meaning.

<Ragtime^> Locke, for example, uses "pleasure" or "delight," "pain" or "uneasiness," and he observes that "whether we call it satisfaction, delight, pleasure, happiness, etc., on the one side, or uneasiness, trouble, pain, torment, anguish, misery, etc., on the other, they are still but different degrees of the same thing."

<Ragtime^> Other writes us "joy" and "sorrow" or "grief" as synonyms for "pleasure" and "pain."

<Ragtime^> The words "pleasure" and "pain" are closely associated in meaning with "pleasant" and "unpleasant," though Freud sometimes uses "unpleasure" (unlust) to signify an opposite of pleasure which is not the same as ordinary pain (schmerz).

<Ragtime^> The pleasant is often called "agreeable," "enjoyable," or "satisfying."

<Ragtime^> In the language of Shakespeare, the words "like" and "dislike" have currency as the equivalents of "please" and "displease."

<Ragtime^> A person who is displeased by something says of that "it likes me not."

<Ragtime^> The problem of what pleasure and pain are seems logically to precede the ethical consideration of their relation to good and evil, happiness and misery, virtue and duty.

<Ragtime^> But in the tradition of the great books, the psychological questions about pleasure and pain are usually raised in moral or political treatises, and sometimes in connection with discussions of rhetoric.

<Ragtime^> What pleasure is, how it is caused, and the effects it produces are seldom considered apart from whether pleasures should be sought or avoided, whether some pleasures should be preferred to others, and whether pleasure is the sole criterion of the good.

<Ragtime^> Sometimes, as with Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, the ethical point-that pleasure and pain are in one sense morally indifferent-is made without any psychological account of the nature and origin of these experiences.

<Ragtime^> More frequently, as in Plato's Philebus and Aristotle's Ethics, or in the writings of Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, and Mill, the psychological discussion is imbedded in an ethical or political context.

<Ragtime^> Even Lucretius and William James do not seem to be complete exceptions.

<Ragtime^> James' theory that the feeling of pleasure accompanies activity which is unimpeded, whereas pain attends arrested activity, seems to be a purely psychological observation, and on which can be readily divorced from moral considerations on the ground that it makes no difference to the occurrence of pleasure and pain whether the activity in question is ethically good or bad.

<Ragtime^> Yet James makes this observation the basis for arguing against those whom he calls "the pleasure-philosophers"-those who make pleasure the only motive or goal of conduct.

<Ragtime^> They confuse, he thinks, the pursuit of pleasure itself with the pleasure which accompanies the successful achievement of other things which may be the goals of activity.

<Ragtime^> "A pleasant act," he writes, "and an act pursuing a pleasure are in themselves two perfectly distinct conceptions, though they coalesce in one concrete phenomenon whenever a pleasure is deliberately pursued . . . Because a pleasure of achievement can become a pursued pleasure upon occasion, it does not follow that everywhere and always that pleasure must be pursued."

<Ragtime^> One might as well suppose that "because no steamer can go to sea without incidentally consuming coal, and because some steamers may occasionally go to sea to try their coal, that therefore no steamer can go to sea for any other motive than that of coal-consumption."

<Ragtime^> Psychological observations of this sort have an obvious relevance to Aristotle's theory of good and bad pleasures, as well as to Locke's Mill's position that pleasure is the only good or the only object of desire.

<Ragtime^> They reveal an ethical strain even in the psychologist's view of pleasure and pain.

<Ragtime^> The same point can be made with regard to James' observation that "pleasures are generally associated with beneficial, pains with detrimental, experiences."

<Ragtime^> Lucretius appears to give a purely physiological account of pleasure and pain in terms of the effect upon the sense-organs of various atomic configurations.

<Ragtime^> "Those things which can touch the senses pleasantly are made of smooth and round bodies, but those which seem to be bitter and harsh are made up of particles more hooked, and for this reason are wont to tear a way into our senses . . . Hot fires and cold frost have particles fanged in different ways to prick the senses."

<Ragtime^> But Lucretius is concerned to point out not only the basis of pain in the atomic nature of things, but also the natural tendency of all sensible things to avoid pain as the one besetting evil.

<Ragtime^> "Nature cries aloud for nothing else but that pain may be kept far sundered from the body, and that withdrawn from care and fear, she may enjoy in mind the sense of pleasure."

<Ragtime^> Without giving any psychological explanation of the pleasures of the mind, Lucretius sets them above the pleasures of the body because the latter-as his diatribe against love makes clear-seem to be inevitably followed by bodily torments or even to be admixed with them.

<Ragtime^> The first maxim of nature, then, is not to seek pleasure, but to avoid pain; and among pleasures to seek only the unmixed or pure, the pleasures of knowledge and truth.

<Ragtime^> The distinctions between different qualities of pleasure (pleasures of the body and of the mind, mixed and pure pleasures), which is made by Plato and Mill as well as by Lucretius, inevitably tends to have at once both moral and psychological significance.

<Ragtime^> If, in the great books, there is any purely psychological theory of pleasure and pain, divorced from moral considerations, it is probably to be found in Freud.

<Ragtime^> The pleasure-principle, according to him, automatically regulates the operation of the mental apparatus.

<Ragtime^> "Our entire psychical activity," he writes, "is bent upon procuring pleasure and avoiding pain."

<Ragtime^> Though pleasure and pain are for him primary elements of mental life, Freud admits the difficulty they present for psychological analysis.

<Ragtime^> "We should like to know," he writes, "what are the conditions giving rise to pleasure and pain, but that is just where we fall short."

<Ragtime^> "We may only venture so say that pleasure is in some way connected with lessening, lowering, or extinguishing the amount of stimulation in the mental apparatus; and that pain involves a heightening of the latter."

<Ragtime^> "Consideration of the most intense pleasure of which man is capable, the pleasure in the performance of the sexual act, leaves little doubt upon this point."

<Ragtime^> Yet for Freud the pleasure-principle is not the only regulator of mental life.

<Ragtime^> In addition to the sexual instincts, which aim at gratification and pleasure, there are the ego-instincts which, "under the influence of necessity, their mistress, soon learn to replace the pleasure-principle by a modification of it."

<Ragtime^> "The task of avoiding pain becomes for them almost equal in importance to that of gaining pleasure; the ego learns that it must inevitably go without immediate satisfaction, postopone gratification, learn to endure a degree of pain, and altogether renounce certain sources of pleasure."

<Ragtime^> "Thus trained, the ego becomes 'reasonable,' is no longer controlled by the pleasure-principle, but follows the reality-principle, which at bottom also seeks pleasure-although a delayed and diminished pleasure, one which is assured by its realization of fact, its relation to reality."

<Ragtime^> This recognition of a conflict between pleasure and reality, with a consequent attenuation or redirection of the pleasure-principle, is not amplified by Freud into a moral doctrine.

<Ragtime^> It does, however, bear a striking resemblance to the theories of moralists like Kant who oppose duty to pleasure; and also to the teachings of those who, like Aristotle and Aquinas, conceive virtue as the foregoing of certain pleasures and the endurance of certain pains, thought a reasonable and habitual moderation of these passions. * Ragtime^ sets mode: -m

<Ragtime^> The floor is now open for discussion.

<LvcisPveR> I have never seen a person doing things which don't give him pleasure, in fact, even sacrifice has a kind of pleasure for the ego, then pleasure and egocentric attitudes as a reward go hand in hand.

<bsod> pleasure is a nice word, it has two meanings imho, one being 'fun' and the other 'lust.

<whai_if_> I do things constantly that give me no pleasure

<LvcisPveR> bsod: either ways are the same

<whai_if_> it is called work

<zblue> whai_if_: but doesn't work provide you with the means to achieve some pleasures?

<LvcisPveR> whai_if_ sometimes is not what you do but the aim at the end of the road

<bsod> LvcisPveR: not for everyone * lazerlvl is still chasing that same rush he got on the slippery dip when just a wee sprat

<bsod> fun is more social, while lust is purely individual

<LvcisPveR> sometimes suffering is the path to get pleasure, but even then, the path means to receive pleasure as long as you feel there's lesser time to get the main pleasure

<whai_if_> "pleasure" has taken on a new meaning

<LvcisPveR> bsod: imagination is funny, nevertheless you don't need others

<Brood^> it is almost obvious that pain make us wish to remove that pin (e.g. hard physical pain). When we think of such pain in future, we are afraid, but if we get to undergo such reoccurring pain regularly, doesn't fear become smaller ? So, is there some other thing besides pain which controls our actions ?

<bsod> i'm sorry, but really, I'm dutch and pleasure translates to both 'plezier' (fun) and 'lust' (lust)

<whai_if_> so... pain and pleasure are those things which are not normally experienced

<Paris--> I think the reason that pain and pleasure are so complicated is because human emotions are very complicated and we strain to explain them with words

<lazerlvl> ...its all in the expectation of...sensation

<Brood^> Paris--, agreed

<Brood^> Paris--, with two words in this case :)

<Paris--> its not like the human brain is a simple machine with little meters that read out a specific amount of pain and specific amount of pleasure

<bsod> is pleasure-pain a real duality? are they opposites?

<GGeorge> I'd say their poles apart.

<bsod> pain is a sensory experience, but there is also 'mental pain' for example the loss of a loved one

<whai_if_> they are subject to your personal perception / preference

<bluejenny> mental pain is the result of a bad philosophy

<GGeorge> but whats their axis? sensory experience, human condition?

<bluejenny> as Epictetus said

<whai_if_> something pleasurable to me could be un pleasurable to you

<bsod> yeah like work:>

<GGeorge> sadism screws up the whole thing doesn't it?

<bsod> your pain is my pleasure

<GGeorge> so much for Do onto others.

<bsod> I see no real new ideas in that

<Ragtime^> Have you ever scratched a mosquito bite till it bled, just because it felt so good to scratch?

<whai_if_> pain and pleasure are the same thing, the only difference is our perception of it right ?

<GGeorge> nah, there's real pain, then there is philosophical pain, thats the kind thats not so bad that you can philosophize about.

<Brood^> GGeorge, sensory experience alone can't be reason for the phenomena of pleasure. One can enjoy a taste of food, which other person finds gross.

<bsod> Ragtime^: sure. but it does give an ambivalent feeling, i was rather not bitten in the first place

<ugotme> whatever allows the escape

<GGeorge> Brood^ seems it can.. if its relative, right? I think it isn't relative. Just like DNA is different for different people, its still very alike.. Similarly with pleasure pain perception, there are deviations but nobody likes real pain.

<LvcisPveR> what I don't understand is why judeo-xian religions say pleasure is bad?

<LvcisPveR> and pain is the punishment.

<Ragtime^> Maybe pleasure is more intense when it is forbidden.

<JohnGuru> Lvcis, it's very simple. The enticements of pleasure distract from the dreary but valuable demands of duty

<bsod> those religions have a say on just about anything

<GGeorge> how about how knowledge increaseth sorrow

<lazerlvl> agreed

<GGeorge> duty is a pleasure for a slave at heart.

<bsod> oh i see. i'm not a slave at heart then

<Brood^> GGeorge, true about pain (e.g. physical pain), which seems similar if not same all the time. But pleasure while eating some food, or listening some music changes with the time, and seems that changes by the influence of that food/music * Ragtime^ sets mode: +m

<Ragtime^> In PART II we will discuss the physiological basis for pain and pleasure. Although there may be specialized nerves for pain, there are none for pleasure. Pleasure can have a visual basis, an auditory basis, or an olfactory basis. We will discuss how Plato distinguishes sensual pleasure from aesthetic pleasure.

<Ragtime^> If pleasure and pain were simply sensations, like sensations of color or sound, they would pose a problem for the physiological psychologist no different from the problems which arise in the fields of vision and audition.

<Ragtime^> Modern physiological research claims to have discovered differentiated nerve-endings for pain which, together with the specific sense-organs for pressure, head, and cold, make up the cutaneous senses.

<Ragtime^> But whether there are special cells for the reception of pain stimuli or whether cutaneous pain results from the too intense stimulation of the pressure and thermal nerve- endings, there seems to be no evidence of organs sensitized to pleasure as, for example, the nerve cells of the retina are sensitized to light.

<Ragtime^> The feeling of pleasure, it would seem to follow, is not a sensation.

<Ragtime^> This seems to be confirmed by the traditional observation that every type of sensation, including the sensation of pain, can be pleasant.

<Ragtime^> Even if pain, unlike pleasure, is found to be a specific mode of sensation with a special sense-organ of its own, all other types of sensation-visual, auditory, olfactory, etc.-might still have painfulness or a feeling of unpleasantness as an attribute.

<Ragtime^> That such is the case seems to be a matter of traditional observation.

<Ragtime^> Locke, for example, says that "delight or uneasiness, one or the other of the, join themselves to almost all our ideas of sensation and reflection: there is scarce any affection of our senses from without . . . which is not able to produce in us pleasure or pain."

<Ragtime^> So understood, pleasure and pain-or the pleasant and the unpleasant-are not opposite sensations, as are hot and cold, but contrary attributes with which every sort of sensation can be affected.

<Ragtime^> All need not be.

<Ragtime^> Some sensations may be neutral with respect to what psychologists call "affective tone" or "affective quality."

<Ragtime^> The kind of pleasure and pain which is called "bodily" or "sensuous" would thus be sensuous because it is an attribute of sensations, and bodily because sensations involve bodily organs.

<Ragtime^> But in almost every great discussion of pleasure and pain, other types are recognized: intellectual delights, the pleasures and pains of learning, aesthetic pleasure in contemplating beauty with the mind as well as with the senses, and the pain of loss, the grief accompanying deprivation, which is so different from the torment of a painful affliction of the senses.

<Ragtime^> The human suffering with which the great poems deal is much more often a torment of the spirit than of the flesh.

<Ragtime^> To cover these other types of pleasure and pain, we must go beyond sensation to two other terms traditionally connected with the psychological analysis of pleasure and pain.

<Ragtime^> One is emotion, the other desire, the latter to be understood broadly as including both the sensitive and the rational appetites-both the passions and the will.

<Ragtime^> Aquinas, for example, treats joy and sorrow as specific emotions which represent the appetite in a state of satisfaction or frustration.

<Ragtime^> So, too, the will as an appetite can come to rest in the attainment of its object and, with fruition, be in a state of joy.

<Ragtime^> As conditions of the appetite, pleasure and pain (or joy and sorrow) can be either passions and, like all other emotions, bodily states; or they can be acts of the will and, according to Aquinas at least, spiritual states.

<Ragtime^> But either way pleasure and pain seem to represent the satisfaction or frustration of desire rather than objects desired or averted.

<Ragtime^> To be pleased by the attainment of an object desired, such as food and drink or knowledge, is not the same as to desire pleasure itself, as, for example, the pleasant sensations which may be involved in eating or drinking.

<Ragtime^> Aquinas talks about the desire for pleasure and the aversion to pain, as well as the pleasure and pain of satisfied and unsatisfied desires.

<Ragtime^> Since the same words are almost always used to express both meanings, the two senses of pleasure and displeasure may go unnoticed unless by context or by explicit mention the author refers to pleasure as an object of desire or identifies it with the satisfaction of any desire, whether for pleasure or for some other object.

<Ragtime^> As a passage already quoted from James indicates, and as we shall presently see more fully, the distinction between these two senses of pleasure has a critical bearing on the dispute between those who think that pleasure is the only good, and those who think that pleasure is one good among others.

<Ragtime^> The generally recognized difference between two kinds of pain-the pain of sense and the pain of loss or deprivation-parallels the distinction which most writers acknowledge between sensuous pleasure and the pleasure of possession or satisfaction.

<Ragtime^> Plato's example of the pleasure involved in the relief of itching by scratching seems to catch both meanings, and, in additions, to show that bodily pleasures may be either sensual objects or sensual satisfactions.

<Ragtime^> In contrast, the pleasures of the mind are satisfactions of intellectual desire, as in the contemplation of beauty or the knowledge of truth.

<Ragtime^> Aristotle deals with pleasure and pain as objects when he defines temperance as a moderate pursuit of bodily pleasures, and courage as controlling the fear of pain and its avoidance.

<Ragtime^> But he also conceives pleasure as that which completes any activity, whether of the senses and the body or of thought and the mind.

<Ragtime^> "Without activity," he writes, "pleasure does not arise, and every activity is completed by the attendant pleasure."

<Ragtime^> This meaning of pleasure seems to be analogous to, if not identical with, pleasure as satisfaction, at least insofar as the satisfaction of a desire is that which completes the activity springing therefrom.

<Ragtime^> There can be as many different kinds of pleasure as there are kinds of activity; the quality of the pleasure is determined by the character or the activity it accompanies.

<Ragtime^> Though Mill refers to pleasure and freedom from pain as "the only things desirable as ends, he admits many other objects of desire, in the attainment of which men find pleasure or satisfaction.

<Ragtime^> It is wrong to suppose that human beings, he writes, are "capable of no pleasures except those of which swine are capable."

<Ragtime^> Precisely because "human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites," they have sources of pleasure or gratification not open to swine.

<Ragtime^> Here as before two meanings of pleasure seem to be involved.

<Ragtime^> In pointing out the "money, in many cases, is desired in and for itself," Mill is naming an object of desire which, like health, knowledge, power, or fame, is not pleasure, yet which though being desired, is a source of pleasure (i.e. satisfaction) when achieved.

<Ragtime^> Like other objects of desire, sensual or bodily pleasures may also be sources of satisfaction. * Ragtime^ sets mode: -m

<Ragtime^> The floor is now open for discussion.

<LvcisPveR> our motivations are reinforced thru pleasure * bsod listens to 'the thorn within'

<bsod> well, to be honest i don't really have my motivations led by pleasure and pain i think

<whai_if_> what leads them ?

<bsod> they are both extremes and will come on my path

<bsod> but i basically want to lead a 'normal' life with 'normal' motivations

<Brood^> whai_if_, for example curiosity ? it surely motivates, but is neither pleasure nor pain

<whai_if_> I experience pleasure in exploring my curiosity

<lazerlvl> kareoke ...-now theres collective pleasure -and pain

<GGeorge> motivations, needs, desires, definitions?

<bsod> of course i don't mind pleasure on the way or try to avoid pain

<Brood^> whai_if_, so that's why you are curious ? :)

<bsod> but i wont let the pleasure of being with my parents be suppressed by the idea of future pain when i'll lose them

<bsod> for example

<Ragtime^> Omar Khayyam said that, since pleasure is transient, that is all the more reason to enjoy it while you can.

<GGeorge> sounds like you can decide when to feel pain bsod

<bsod> so, i don't think pleasure and pain are essential concepts (sorry ragtime;)

<Ragtime^> bsod: Maybe you are enlightened.

<bsod> far from it:>

<GGeorge> people have been talking about pleasure forever

<GGeorge> I don't think that biomedical nerve endings really change the debate.

<GGeorge> it's still the same

<whai_if_> the philosophical problem is that for the same inputs, in one mind you get pleasure . In another pain ...

<bsod> whai_if_: this only strengthens the idea that they are not really opposites

<whai_if_> this says a lot for the mind and brings up questions of "programming" vs "environment"

<GGeorge> bull, only if you're talking about mild stimuli does opinion or perception come into play

<bsod> perhaps you can only compare pleasure with pain-in-the-poets-sense

<GGeorge> pleasure and pain are not two external entities, not opposites, they are states of man.

<whai_if_> they are 2 states of perception

<GGeorge> real pain transcends perception.

<Ragtime^> What state were Romeo and Juliet in? Were they in pain or in pleasure?

<GGeorge> as in "personal" perception..

<GGeorge> They were drama junkies. suicides.

<whai_if_> they were in love, which balances beautifully between the two

<GGeorge> drama junkies in love. :)

<lazerlvl> we also construct associative epiphenomena from habitual behaviour ...x collects books ...y collects women

<bsod> what would be more wise... to study pain or to study pleasure?

<Ragtime^> I suppose it would depend on which you dealt with more.

<LvcisPveR> bsod: hard to answer since pain may give pleasure

<GGeorge> to study either is to study both.

<UnDone^> bsod might be wiser to have the pleasure of studying pain.

<bsod> true, GGeorge

<bsod> but i suppose sensory-pain is out of the discussion now?

<bsod> that's something for the doctors imho

<GGeorge> i suppose you're right there.

<lazerlvl> to *become more wise* is an outcome based motive

<whai_if_> I suppose in evolution... those things which make us survive would become dominant

<whai_if_> those people that do not enjoy sex, do not reproduce , and that gene does not get carried on

<GGeorge> whai_if_ evolution must have some role.

<whai_if_> so is pain & pleasure a product of evolution

<GGeorge> who doesn't enjoy sex? I imagine one could only not enjoy a mate.

<whai_if_> if so, in our current state of civilization we are " de-evolving"

<Ragtime^> Rabbits that do not fear coyotes probably do not do much reproducing either.

<whai_if_> my point exactly

<GGeorge> pain and pleasure is a product of life, without life, it does not exist.

<whai_if_> they are a product of perception....

<GGeorge> with life, it does. perhaps evolution has refined its nuances.

<Abyssus_i> whai_if_; "that gene does not get carried on" you mean the factor that activates/inactivates that gene dosent get carried on.

<Abyssus_i> the genes most likely there. Genotype vs Phenotype

<whai_if_> lets say then that it becomes "less-dominant in the society"

<whai_if_> less common

<Abyssus_i> Humans have so much junk DNA (unused genetic material) its amazing. * Ragtime^ sets mode: +m

<Ragtime^> In PART III we will discuss the relation between pleasure and happiness. Sancho Panza claims that happiness results when all the sensual needs are met. Dr. Johnson claims that pleasure is contrary to happiness. Mill states it even better: "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; it is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied."

<Ragtime^> These two meanings of pleasure are most in need of clear distinction when the relation of pleasure to happiness is being discussed.

<Ragtime^> If happiness, As Aristotle and Mill seem to say, consists in having all desires satisfied, then the content of the happy life can be described either in terms of the goods which the happy man possesses-the objects of desires fulfilled-or in terms of the pleasures which accompany the goods possessed, that is, the pleasures which are satisfactions of desire.

<Ragtime^> If pleasure in the other meaning, especially sensual or bodily pleasure, is only one object of normal desire, then lack or deficiency of pleasure may, like loss of health or deficiency of pleasure may, like loss of health fortune, impair a man's happiness.

<Ragtime^> But the pursuit of pleasure in this sense cannot be identified with the pursuit of happiness.

<Ragtime^> A life including every sort of bodily pleasure and free from every sort of bodily pain, if it lacked other things men normally desire, would be marred by many dissatisfactions inconsistent with happiness.

<Ragtime^> Talking to Don Quixote of the island he would like to govern, Sancho Panza says: 'The first thing I would do in my government, I would have nobody to control me, I would be absolute . . . No he that's absolute, can do what he likes; he that can do what he likes, can take his pleasure; he that can take his pleasure, can be content, and he that can be content, has no more to desire."

<Ragtime^> Here, it would seem, Sancho conceives happiness as the sum of pleasures in the sense of satisfactions-all desires come to rest through the possession of their objects.

<Ragtime^> Dr. Johnson seems to make the opposite point about pleasure and happiness.

<Ragtime^> Boswell asks him whether abstention from wine would be "a great deduction from life."

<Ragtime^> "It is a diminution of pleasure to be sure," Johnson replies, "but I do not say a diminution of happiness."

<Ragtime^> But, Boswell asks, "if we could have pleasure always, should we not be happy?"

<Ragtime^> "Johnson explains his negative answer by saying that "when we talk of pleasure, we mean sensual pleasure."

<Ragtime^> "When a man says, he had pleasure with a woman, he does not mean conversation, but something of a different nature."

<Ragtime^> "Philosophers tell you that pleasure is contrary to happiness."

<Ragtime^> This last observation does not seem to describe the position taken by those philosophers who make happiness the greatest good or ultimate end of human striving.

<Ragtime^> Both Aristotle and Mill distinguish the life of pleasure, the bestial or swining life, from one which employs the higher faculties peculiar to man.

<Ragtime^> In this sense, perhaps, the life of pleasure can be regarded as contrary or opposed to what Johnson, along with Aristotle and Mill, calls "the rational life."

<Ragtime^> But pleasure itself, far from being inimical to happiness, either represents the state of satisfaction which is identical with happiness, or one of the things a man desires and hence a constituent of the happy life.

<Ragtime^> Hobbes and Locke seem to go further in the direction of identifying pleasure with happiness or the good.

<Ragtime^> "Pleasure," writes Hobbes, "is the appearance or sense of Good . . . and Displeasure is the appearance or sense of Evil."

<Ragtime^> Similarly, Locke says that "things are good or evil only in reference to pleasure or pain."

<Ragtime^> "That we call good which is apt to cause or increase pleasure or to diminish pain in us . . . And, on the contrary, we name that evil which is apt to produce or increase any pain, or diminish any pleasure in us."

<Ragtime^> As for happiness, it is, according to Locke, "the utmost pleasure we are capable of, and misery the utmost pain; and the lowest degree of what can be called happiness is so much ease from all pain, and so much present pleasure, as without which anyone cannot be content."

<Ragtime^> In which sense of the term is Locke identifying pleasure with happiness?

<Ragtime^> Not sensual pleasure, not even pleasure as an object of desire, it would seem, for he says: "let one man place his satisfaction in sensual pleasure, another in the delight of knowledge; though each of them cannot but confess there is great pleasure in what the other pursues, yet neither of them making the other's delight a part of his happiness, their desires are not moved, but each is satisfied without what the other enjoys."

<Ragtime^> Yet his understanding of happiness as consisting in the pleasures or satisfactions accompanying the possession of things desired leads him to criticize "the philosophers of old" who "did in vain inquire whether the summum bonum consisted in riches, or bodily delights, or virtue, or contemplation; they might have as reasonably disputed whether the best relish where to be found in apples, plums, or nuts, and have divided themselves into se

<Ragtime^> "For as pleasant tastes depend not on the things themselves, but on their agreeableness to this variety; so the greatest happiness consists in the having those things which produce the greatest pleasure . . . These, to different men, are very different things."

<Ragtime^> The difference between Locke's position and that of Mill seems, therefore, not to lie in a different conception of the relation of pleasure-as object or as satisfaction of desire-to happiness, but rather in Locke's conception of degrees of happiness as being determined only by larger and smaller quantities of pleasure, whereas Mill insists upon diverse qualities of pleasure, and upon the possibility of ordering pleasures as higher and lo

<Ragtime^> In consequence, Mill can say what Locke would seem unable to approve, namely, that "it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied."

<Ragtime^> Locke's denial that happiness is the same for all men explicitly takes issue with Aristotle's contrary view.

<Ragtime^> It also involves an issue about pleasure.

<Ragtime^> For Locke, as apparently for Hobbes and Mill, the good and the pleasant are inseparable.

<Ragtime^> Nothing which satisfies a desire can be evil.

<Ragtime^> Whether, as in Locke's view, one satisfaction is as good as another, and the only thing which matters is the amount or number of satisfactions; or whether, as in Mill's view one pleasure may be better than another, in no case is a pleasure bad so long as some one desires it, or desires the thing which produces satisfaction when possessed.

<Ragtime^> But, for Aristotle, desires themselves can be good and bad pleasures, as well as pleasures which vary in quality and in degree of goodness.

<Ragtime^> But, for Aristotle, desires themselves can be good or bad, and consequently there can be good and bad pleasures, as well as pleasure which vary in quality and in degree of goodness.

<Ragtime^> "Since activities differ in respect of goodness and badness, and some are worthy to be chosen, others to be avoided, and others neutral, so, too" Aristotle writes, "are the pleasures; for to each activity there is proper pleasure."

<Ragtime^> "The pleasure proper to a worthy activity is good, and that proper to an unworthy activity bad; just as the appetites for noble objects are laudable, those for base objects culpable."

<Ragtime^> Pleasure and pain, in Aristotle's judgment, are measured by virtue, not what is good and evil by pleasure and pain.

<Ragtime^> Pleasure and pain are elements common to the good life and the bad, but only the pleasures which the good man enjoys, and the pains he willingly suffers, can be called good.

<Ragtime^> That is why "in education the young we steer them by the rudders of pleasure and pain . . . for to enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on virtue or character."

<Ragtime^> Virtue is possessed only by those who habitually take pleasure in the right things. * Ragtime^ sets mode: -m

<Ragtime^> The floor is now open for discussion.

<LvcisPveR> Ragtime: your last statement is very subjective, to take pleasure in the right thing?

<Ragtime^> it is, yes

<^Holden^> that was Aristotle's view I think

<LvcisPveR> Ragtime: well, that means there's no such a thing as objective goodness or that each person sense pleasure in the same way

<^Holden^> certainly societies already decide which pleasures are good and which to be avoided

<^Holden^> via morality

<LvcisPveR> Holden: that's very arbitrary

<^Holden^> I wouldnt say arbitrary, there are usually reasons behind that morality

<Ragtime^> LvcisPveR: are you saying that good and evil do not exist?

<bluejenny> good and evil do not exist but thinking makes it so, as Epictetus said

<^Holden^> that was hamlet

<LvcisPveR> Ragtime: they do, as human creation, I'd say things are convenient or unconvinient

<bluejenny> ^Holden^, if Hamlet, then quoting Epictetus

<^Holden^> ok, sorry

<LvcisPveR> I'd say the moral problem lies in if what gives you pleasure is at the same time good for you

<^Holden^> right, eating heartily can be pleasureful but bad for you

<LvcisPveR> yes, like smoking marijuana

<^Holden^> I think any pleasure in excess is bad for you, at least mentally

<LvcisPveR> Holden: you say pleasure has limits?

<S|ye> pleasure has a purpose; pain has a purpose

<LvcisPveR> S|ye: what's that purpose and where does that purpose come?

<S|ye> pain is a teacher, so is pleasure, we arrived with them intact as a result of 3 billion years of evolution

<GGeorge> pleasure and pain cannot have purpose without purpose to the structures out of which pleasure and pain arises, eg, life itself must have a purpose.

<LvcisPveR> S|ye: a xian would say that thru pain you get to divine happiness (pleasure)

<GGeorge> whether pleasure is bad for you in excess is to be determined. is too much pleasure painful? certainly too much pain isn't pleasureful is it?

<bigApple6> it would be ridiculous to embrace pain.. I embrace my 'F' marks because it causes pain

<GGeorge> depends on how you get your pleasure, whether there will be health risks in excess.

<Slye> the purpose of life is not pleasure, it's the lessons we learn from pain and pleasure

<bigApple6> pain is to be avoided

<bluejenny> the purpose of life is to be happy

<GGeorge> we do not learn from pleasure or pain itself. * _heathen_ thinks the purpose of life is living

<LvcisPveR> but when you suffer too much pain you body , as a defense, adapts to the level pain

<GGeorge> we learn, like monkeys, from what acts led to pleasure or pain.

<GGeorge> but to propose that learning is the meaning of life is a leap.

<GGeorge> you'd need to elaborate and defend that conclusion Slye

<JRandall> well I think the key is, developing the right "pleasures"--i.e. developing the virtues--eudaimonistic ethics and the virtuous life...nothing wrong with deriving pleasure from "the good life"

<JRandall> and that's an Aristotelian vantage point mind you

<JRandall> not even a Millian view of higher and lower pleasures

<_heathen_> it isn't pleasure thats harmful, its way one reacts to it that causes problems

<JRandall> because remember, Mill was no Bentham

<Slye> pain serves to teach us that we did something wrong and pleasure tells us we did something right in a concrete, unreasoned sense

<bluejenny> and Bentham was no Marcus Aurelius

<JRandall> Bentham believed (at the risk of me being glib) that a Shakespeare play was worth a thousand pizzas

<JRandall> Mill believed in higher and lower pleasures

<_heathen_> "gee, that felt nice, id like to do it again" creates problems

<JRandall> and there were qualitative judgments involved

<JRandall> as opposed to Bentham

<JRandall> so even among some utilitarians, all "pleasures" are not created equal

<JRandall> well I think it's fair to say that Bentham wasn't a stoic bluejenny lol

<JRandall> I think it's fair, rather

<bluejenny> Fair or unfair, it's left and down.

<Slye> We could not grow as human beings if pain and pleasure were not tied to the tangibles in life

<GGeorge> _heathen_ is it the repetition that causes problems, causes problems? :)

<Slye> pleasure is nothing but a chemical hormone released into the brain to teach it that it has done something that is good for the body's survival

<GGeorge> I think the desire to repeat parts of our lives is a serious issue.

<_heathen_> GGeorge, a problem being wanting to relive or hold that moment again.

<JRandall> "pleasure is a chemical hormone".....well not technically Slye

<GGeorge> body's well being maybe.

<Slye> pain is another chemical message that teaches the brain not to do such a thing again

<GGeorge> or well feeling.

<_heathen_> call it attachment

<bluejenny> pain is a chemical message that says "buy stock in Bayer"

<GGeorge> heroin isn't good for survival, but great for well feeling.

<bigApple6> cancer got me at age 40..you must hear out the talking points.. why this happened and for what purpose..

<Slye> exactly, heroine cheats the natural system of learning

<GGeorge> and pleasure is the pharmaceutical company kickbacks.

<Slye> all it teaches you is that it seems right to shoot harmful chemicals into your veins

<GGeorge> not really, Pavlov could have used heroine, the dogs would still salivate. * Ragtime^ sets mode: +m

<Ragtime^> As indicated in the presentations on Happiness and Duty, the moralists who make duty rather than virtue the spring of right conduct, and who make the goodness of anything depend upon its rightness according to the moral law, see little difference among the various theories of pleasure and happiness as the ultimate good and standard of conduct.

<Ragtime^> The most eloquent tribute which Kant can pay to the idea of duty is that it "embraces nothing charming or insinuating."

<Ragtime^> Reason, he says, "will never let itself be brought around" to the view that "there is any intrinsic worth in the real existence of a man who merely lives for enjoyment . . . even when in so doing he serves others."

<Ragtime^> Admitting that "the greatest aggregate of the pleasures of life, taking duration as well as number into account," would appear to merit "the name of a true, nay, even of the highest good," Kant adds that "reason sets its face against this, too."

<Ragtime^> The line of duty is always set against the seductions of pleasure or any calculations of utility, whether in terms of the means to achieving happiness or the ways of augmenting life's satisfactions.

<Ragtime^> According to Stoics like Marcus Aurelius "pleasure is neither good nor useful," nor is "pain an evil, for when we are "pained by any external thing," we should remember that "it is not this thing which disturbs us, but our own judgment about it."

<Ragtime^> Pleasure and pain are morally indifferent, for like death and life, honor and dishonor, pain and pleasure are things which "happen equally to good men and bad" and therefore "make us neither better nor worse . . . and are neither good nor evil."

<Ragtime^> From the same observation, that pleasure is enjoyed by good and bad men, Aristotle and Plato seem to draw the conclusion, not that it is morally indifferent, but, as we have seen, that there are good and bad pleasures.

<Ragtime^> Plato uses pleasure and wisdom to typify fundamentally different kinds of good.

<Ragtime^> Wisdom is always true and good, but like opinion, which can be either true or false, there are true and false pleasures, good and evil pleasures.

<Ragtime^> Furthermore, wisdom or knowledge represents the kind of good which is definite or intrinsically measured, whereas pleasure, like wealth, is an indefinite good, requiring something external to itself, something like wisdom, to measure it and limit its quantity.

<Ragtime^> If wisdom be allowed to choose among pleasures, Socrates suggests in the Philebus, it will choose those associated with itself in the activities of the mind, not the bodily pleasures which are always mixed with pain.

<Ragtime^> So far as pleasure belongs to the realm of change or becoming, it is, again like opinion, inferior to knowledge and wisdom, which draw their goodness from the realm of immutable being.

<Ragtime^> Yet Plato does not seem to think that knowledge and wisdom are the only goods.

<Ragtime^> The argument against those who think so seems to be as conclusive as against those who think that pleasure is the only good.

<Ragtime^> Each of the simple lives-the life of pleasure or the life of wisdom-is deficient.

<Ragtime^> Only the mixed life, the life which combines both pleasure and wisdom, is the complete life.

<Ragtime^> Like the happy life in Aristotle's view, it includes every kind of good; and the difficult problem, for Plato as for Aristotle, seems to be finding the principle which determines the goodness of the mixture or the right order and proportion in which the variety of goods should be combined.

<Ragtime^> The moral issues which have been raised here with respect to pleasure and pain are more broadly considered in the presentations on Good and Evil and on Virtue, Temperance, and Sin, as well as in the presentations on Happiness and Duty.

<Ragtime^> Other issues are reserved entirely for discussion elsewhere, such as the role of pleasure in the perception of beauty and in judgments of taste (the presentation on Beauty), or the role of pain in relation to the government of men (the presentation on Punishment).

<Ragtime^> Two special problems which involve pleasure and pain remain to be briefly mentioned.

<Ragtime^> The first concerns the contrast between asceticism and self-indulgence or even profligacy.

<Ragtime^> The tradition of western thought and culture, and in the ancient as well as in the modern world, those who worship pleasure, though perhaps only as a minor deity to be celebrated in bacchic revels, stand opposed to those who turn away from pleasure, as from the world, the flesh, and the devil, even mortifying the flesh and sanctifying themselves with pain.

<Ragtime^> In their less extreme forms these contrasting attitudes generate the traditional issue concerning the place of worldly recreations in man's life and in the state.

<Ragtime^> Is the pleasure of play a necessary and proper relief from the pain fo work, or is it always an indulgence which provides occasions for sin?

<Ragtime^> Are the enjoyment of the theatre, of music and poetry, the gaiety of public festivals, and the diversions of games or sports things to be promoted or prohibited by the state?

<Ragtime^> Man's avidity for amusements and diversions of all sorts leas Pascal to say, "How hollow and full of ribaldry is the heart of man!"

<Ragtime^> The fact that "men spend their time in following a ball or a hare" and that "it is the pleasure even of kings," indicates to him how deep is the misery from which men try to escape through play and pleasure.

<Ragtime^> "If man were happy," Pascal suggests, "he would be the more so, the less he was diverted."

<Ragtime^> But "so wretched is man that he would weary, even without any cause of weariness, from the peculiar state of his disposition; and so frivolous is he, that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient to amuse him."

<Ragtime^> Men need such diversions in order to "prevent them from thinking of themselves."

<Ragtime^> Men indulge in pastimes for another reason, according to Aristotle.

<Ragtime^> They "need relaxation because they cannot work continuously" and "amusement is a sort of relaxation."

<Ragtime^> But "happiness does not lie in amusement."

<Ragtime^> "It would, indeed, be strange," he says, "if the end were amusement, and one were to take trouble and suffer hardship all one's life in order to amuse one's self."

<Ragtime^> It is true that "pleasant amusements" resemble happiness in having the nature of an end, because we engage in playful activity "not for the sake of other things," whereas we do serious work for some end beyond itself.

<Ragtime^> But in Aristotle's opinion "a virtuous life requires exertion" and since "the happy life is thought to be virtuous," it follows that "serious things are better than laughable things and those connected with amusement."

<Ragtime^> These reflections on work and play, and the pains and pleasures they involve, lead us to the second of the two problems mentioned above.

<Ragtime^> That concerns pleasure and pain in the life of learning.

<Ragtime^> Here there seems to be no fundamental issue, for the tradition speaks with an almost unanimous voice of the pleasure all men find in knowing and the pain none can avoid in the process of seeking the truth.

<Ragtime^> The problem is rather a practical and personal one which the great books put to their readers, to solve in their individual lives.

<Ragtime^> Their invitation to learning should not be accepted, nor their promise of pleasure relied upon, by those unwilling to take the pains which, however great initially, gradually diminish as the mind, in the very process of learning, leans how to learn. * Ragtime^ sets mode: -m

<Ragtime^> The floor is now open for discussion.

<JRandall> well the key for Aristotle is how the intellectual life is the highest pursuit--what man needs to do to fulfill his nature...but that must be built upon the prudent, active life

<JRandall> phronesis precedes intellectual virtue

<GGeorge> yeah, if we were all horribly desperate for resources, like food, or security, we wouldn't be here talking philosophy it requires leisure.

<MrKeller> "We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joys in the world. " - "Helen Keller

<GGeorge> and maybe a sick sense of humour.

<JRandall> so prudence (phronesis) is the backdrop...yes pleasure and pain are indifferent according to Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, but it is eudaimonia that enables us to find pleasure in the good things

<MrKeller> GGeorge diversion is relaxation and Aristotle said is was because we cannot work all the time that we engage in leisure, to paraphrase

<MrKeller> does devotion to evil preclude the practitioner pleasure?

<JRandall> well it would preclude proper pleasure, at least if you believe Aristotle

<stotleNerve6> devotion to evil is for a new twist

<MrKeller> i agree JRandal it must be a twisted demented pleasure they receive

<GGeorge> I would suggest not mixing terms, pleasure and good, pain and evil.

<JRandall> nothing wrong with mixing terms as long as you keep them straight

<JRandall> eudaimonia is, in some part, about associating pleasure with virtue

<GGeorge> It is not because we cannot always work that we're talking philosophy. it is because we Do not currently work and we choose to talk it.

<GGeorge> agreed, so long as you keep them, and their connotations free from tangle

<MrKeller> The Highest end is eudaimonia according to Aristotle

<MrKeller> The Highest Good is eudaimonia

<bluejenny> the end towards which all other ends are directed

<Ragtime^> Do you know what that highest good is?

<JRandall> eudaimonia is virtue...

<JRandall> according to Aristotle the highest virtue is intellectual virtue

<JRandall> or nous (if I remember my Greek)

<Ragtime^> What is intellectual virtue? Not cheating on your tests?

<JRandall> no I think it's merely the love of learning...

<JRandall> but I haven't read Nicomachean Ethics in quite a while

<GGeorge> the highest is engaging in politics isn't it?

<GGeorge> for Aristotle.

<Ragtime^> I know that Aristotle said that man is a political animal.

<JRandall> no not nous

<JRandall> I'm sorry

<JRandall> nous is intuitive reason

<JRandall> philosophic wisdom is sophia, that's the highest

<JRandall> you've got episteme, techne , nous, phronesis, and sophia

<JRandall> thank goodness for google it found me the nicomachean ethics hehe

<Ragtime^> I wish to thank everyone who participated in this presentation tonight.

<Ragtime^> The topic was appropriate, because now is one of my rare moments of pleasure on irc.

<Ragtime^> There are 102 Great Ideas in The Syntopicon.

<Ragtime^> Tonight I have an excuse to break out the champagne.

<Ragtime^> We have covered Great Idea Nr. 68.

<Ragtime^> I am two-thirds of the way through this project.

<JRandall> yay Ragtime!

<Ragtime^> Who knows? Maybe I will live to see the project through to completion.

<Ragtime^> In any case. * JRandall applauds

<Ragtime^> The next presentation will be on Oct 2.

<zblue> Ragtime^: thanks for your efforts in doing the presentations

<Ragtime^> The topic will be Poetry.

<Ragtime^> zblue: you are welcome