Evil pleasure is good for you!
| Abstract | Many people are uncomfortable with the idea that pleasure from certain sources is genuinely beneficial. These sources can be sorted into two classes: ones that involve others’ pain; and ones that involve what seems to be damage rather than benefit to the person involved. Here’s an example of the latter: a woman who claims that she enjoys her work performing in hard-core pornographic films. Some find it hard to take such a claim at face value – they instinctively assume that the woman is insincere or self-deceived.1 The reason seems a strongly paternalistic one: because the activity is assumed to be bad, it’s thought that only someone who was in some way damaged could genuinely like it. A statement from Brian Hill, the director of a documentary about such women, illustrates this: ‘I felt certain that she couldn’t enjoy what she does, that there must be some reason why she’s undergoing this kind of experience. But there was nothing: no messed-up childhood, no sense of pain or humiliation.’ (Smith, 2003, 17) Forced to conclude that the woman in question really does enjoy her work, Hill changes his view to imply that the pleasure gained cannot be truly beneficial: ‘When I hear a young woman talking about doing videos of fisting and asphyxiation, I have to wonder what it’s doing to her – even if she says that she’s having fun.’ (Smith, 2003, 17). | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,679 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Only published papers are available at libraries |
Similar books and articlesDale Hample, Bing Han & David Payne (2010). The Aggressiveness of Playful Arguments. Argumentation 24 (4):405-421.
P. X. Monaghan (2010). A Novel Interpretation of Plato's Theory of Forms. Metaphysica 11 (1):63-78.
Peter J. Taylor (1994). Shifting Frames: From Divided to Distributed Psychologies of Scientific Agents. PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1994:304 - 310.
J. L. Schellenberg (2005). The Hiddenness Argument Revisited (II). Religious Studies 41 (3):287 - 303.
H. M. Malm (1989). Commodification or Compensation: A Reply to Ketchum. Hypatia 4 (3):128 - 135.
H. E. Baber (1987). How Bad Is Rape? Hypatia 2 (2):125 - 138.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads29 ( #42,388 of 549,087 )Recent downloads (6 months)6 ( #12,372 of 549,087 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
