Unexpected pleasure

In Luc Faucher & Christine Tappolet (eds.), The Modularity of Emotions. University of Calgary Press. pp. 255-272 (2007)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

As topics in the philosophy of emotion, pleasure and displeasure get less than their fair share of attention. On the one hand, there is the fact that pleasure and displeasure are given no role at all in many theories of the emotions, and secondary roles in many others.1 On the other, there is the centrality of pleasure and displeasure to being emotional. A woman who tears up because of a blustery wind, while an ill-advised burrito weighs heavily upon her digestive tract, feels an impressive number of the sensations felt by someone who is gut-wrenchingly sad. Yet, unless she feels bad, the way she feels is only a pale echo of the feeling of sadness. If she feels good in spite of the burrito and the wind, then she does not feel at all the way she would if she were sad. Likewise, a man falling asleep can hardly fail to feel his muscles relax, his heart rate fall, and so on, but unless he feels good his state is only a shadow of feeling content. This paper will begin with a sketch of the nature of pleasure and displeasure, and the relation between them and the feelings that are characteristic of emotions. It will then argue that the capacity to feel pleased and displeased is, quite literally, a sense modality: one allowing us to perceive net change in the satisfaction of our intrinsic desires. As with any sense modality, the capacity to feel pleased and displeased displays substantial modularity. The paper concludes by considering the ways in which the modularity of pleasure and displeasure contributes to effects that might reasonably be called “the modularity of the emotions.”

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Hedonism as the Explanation of Value.David Brax - 2009 - Dissertation, Lund University
Extrinsic attitudinal pleasure.Thomas A. Blackson - 2012 - Philosophical Studies 159 (2):277-291.
The feels good theory of pleasure.Aaron Smuts - 2011 - Philosophical Studies 155 (2):241-265.
The Subjective Basis of Kant's Judgment of Taste.Brian Watkins - 2011 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 54 (4):315-336.
Three Faces of Desire.Timothy Schroeder - 2004 - New York, US: Oxford University Press.
Cognitive pleasure and distress.Irwin Goldstein - 1981 - Philosophical Studies 39 (January):15-23.
Pleasure, displeasure, and representation.Timothy Schroeder - 2001 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 31 (4):507-530.
Unexpected pleasure.Timothy Schroeder - 2008 - In Luc Faucher & Christine Tappolet (eds.), The Modularity of Emotions. University of Calgary Press. pp. 255-272.
The distinctive feeling theory of pleasure.Ben Bramble - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 162 (2):201-217.

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-08-10

Downloads
100 (#160,085)

6 months
4 (#319,344)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Timothy Schroeder
Rice University

Citations of this work

The authority of pleasure.Keren Gorodeisky - 2021 - Noûs 55 (1):199-220.
Emotion as Position-Taking.Jean Moritz Mueller - 2018 - Philosophia 46 (3):525-540.

Add more citations