The Two Facets of Pleasure

Philosophical Topics 41 (1):215-236 (2013)
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Abstract

Several tensions run through philosophical debates on the nature of pleasure: is it a feeling or an attitude? Is it excited engagement during activities, or satisfaction and contentment at their completion? Pleasure also plays fundamental explanatory roles in psychology, neuroscience, and animal behavior. I draw on this work to argue that pleasure picks out two distinct, but interacting neurobiological systems with long evolutionary histories. Understanding pleasure as having these two facets gives us a better account of pleasure and explains the persistent tensions in the concept. This account of pleasure also sheds light on happiness and well-being.

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Laura Sizer
Mount Holyoke College

References found in this work

The Republic.Paul Plato & Shorey - 2000 - ePenguin. Edited by Cynthia Johnson, Holly Davidson Lewis & Benjamin Jowett.
Principia Ethica.G. E. Moore - 1903 - Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 13 (3):7-9.
The Methods of Ethics.Henry Sidgwick - 1907 - Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 30 (4):401-401.
Emotion and meaning in music.Leonard B. Meyer - 1956 - [Chicago]: University of Chicago Press.

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