On pleasures Olivier Massin Thèse de doctorat ès lettres Université de Genève Directeur de thèse : Professeur Kevin Mulligan, Université de Genève Président du jury : Professeur Pascal Engel, Université de Genève Jury : Professeur Jonathan Lowe, Université de Durham Professeur Wlodek Rabinowicz, Université de Lund Professeur Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen, Université de Lund Professeur Michael Zimmerman, Université de Caroline du Nord à Greensboro 2 3 4 Contents Acknowledgments 9 Introduction 11 I Pleasures and their cognates 15 1 Varieties of pleasantness 19 1.1 Pleasantness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 1.2 Definitions of pleasantness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 1.3 Dimensions of pleasantness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 1.4 Hedonic monism vs. Hedonic pluralism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 2 Pleasures and their opposites 45 2.1 Varieties of contrarieties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 2.2 Pleasures, unpleasures and their degrees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 2.3 Indolences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 II Pleasures and their value 65 3 Pleasantness as a value 69 3.1 The Axiological Theory of Pleasure (ATP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 3.2 Pleasure's goodness: the ATP vs. the standard view . . . . . . . . . 77 3.3 Grounding hedonic goodness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 3.4 Problems for value-reductionism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 4 In favor of the Axiological Theory of Pleasure 97 4.1 From hedonic tones to hedonic values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 5 6 CONTENTS 4.2 From desired episodes to hedonic values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 4.3 Three arguments in favour of the ATP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 III Pleasures and their subjects 129 5 Analyzing pleasantness 133 5.1 The Reductionist Axiological Theory of Pleasure (RATP) . . . . . . . 133 5.2 Against primitive thick values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 6 Pleasantness as a final value 147 6.1 The problem of evaluative pleasures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 6.2 Intrinsic vs. extrinsic values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 6.3 Fundamental vs. derivative values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 6.4 Final vs. non-final values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 7 Pleasantness as a personal value 165 7.1 The problem of good non-pleasant mental episodes . . . . . . . . . . 165 7.2 What personal values are . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 7.3 What personal values are not . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 7.4 Solving the problem of good non-pleasant episodes . . . . . . . . . . . 186 7.5 Real personal values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 IV Pleasures and their objects 197 8 Intentional pleasures 201 8.1 The Intentionalist Axiological Theory of Pleasure (IATP) . . . . . . . 201 8.2 Pleasures as attitudes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 8.3 Attitudes towards pleasures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 8.4 Malicious pleasures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 9 Some pleasures are intentional 221 9.1 The distinctive-feeling view of pleasure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 9.2 The intentionality of mental feelings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 9.3 The intentional dependency of pleasure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 10 All pleasures are intentional 239 10.1 Hedonic dualism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 10.2 Three versions of hedonic dualism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252 CONTENTS 7 10.3 Against hedonic dualism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 10.4 The intentionality of bodily pleasures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 Appendices 281 A Episodes and ontological dependence 283 A.1 Episodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 A.2 Ontological dependence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286 B In defence of qualities of pleasantness 291 B.1 The objection from superfluity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291 B.2 The objection from the lack of resemblance order . . . . . . . . . . . 293 B.3 Heights of pleasantness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296 C Some other views on pleasure 299 C.1 Perceptualist theories of pleasure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299 C.2 No-pain theories of pleasure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301 D Brentano's hedonic monism 305 D.1 Brentano's hedonic monism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306 D.2 A problem for Brentano: the objects of pleasures . . . . . . . . . . . 308 E Mixed feelings (1): the co-occurrence problem 313 E.1 The co-occurrence problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313 E.2 Rejecting the contrariety of pleasure and unpleasure . . . . . . . . . . 314 E.3 Rejecting mixed feelings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318 E.4 Dismissing the co-occurrence problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325 F Mixed feelings (2): the summation problem 327 F.1 The summation problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327 F.2 The case for resultant pleasures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331 F.3 Against resultant pleasures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337 Glossary 345 8 CONTENTS Acknowledgments My greatest gratitude goes to Kevin Mulligan. This work owes to him its existence and most of its main insights. I am very grateful to Cain Todd, Otto Bruun, Fabrice Teroni and Anne Meylan who read versions of this work and made invaluable suggestions. I benefited from precious exchanges about parts of this work with Julien Deonna, Alain Pé-Curto, Raffaele Rodogno, Federico Lauria, François Jacquet, David Furrer, Barry Smith, Ghislain Guigon, Fabrice Correia, Ingvar Johansson, Philipp Keller, Lorcan Meyfarth, Wlodek Rabinowicz, Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen, Florian Cova, unebellepetite, Julien Dutant, David Sander, Conor McHugh, Wayne Riggs, Christophe Al-Saleh, Ben Caplan, Irwin Goldstein, Achille Varzi, Andras Szigeti, Johan Bränmark, Graham Oddie, Frédérique de Vignemont, Marion Hämmerli. I thank them all very much. I also wish to thank for their advices, support and friendship Jean-Maurice Monnoyer, Johannes Stern, Davide Fassio, Pascal Engel, Anita Konzelmann, Jérôme Dokic, Alain de Libera, Claudine Tiercelin, Laurent Cesalli, Graham Peebles, Tim Bayne, Luc Schneider, Alix Cohen, Rémi Clot-Goudard, Sophie Roux, Bernard Baertschi, Stéphane Dunand, Philippe Poncet, Jessica Leech, Amanda Garcia, Akiko Frischhut, Denis Vernant, Nikolaj Jang Lee Linding Pedersen, Guillemette Naessens, Benoit Demongeot, David Berger, Dascha, Alain Doche, Olivier Toole, Sylvain Lamouille, David Parel and Baptiste Delieutraz. My parents and Marlyse Meylan-Bettex were of crucial material and moral help, they have all my gratitude. Finally, I want to express my special gratitude to Anne Meylan. Besides her numerous and insightful comments, her affection was truly decisive. 9 10 CONTENTS Introduction Pleasures are manifold. We take pleasure in a rich variety of things: in entering a hot bath, in reading a novel, in scratching when it itches, in receiving a gift, in offering a gift, in torturing a cat, in playing chess, in winning at chess, in remembering having won at chess, in feeling able to win at chess, in putting one's painful finger under cold water, in drinking a glass of Figeac, in stretching one's limb, in being complimented, in having an orgasm, in looking at the Alps from the Jura, in being massaged, in having improved one's German, in humiliating one's enemy, in anticipating good news, in searching for the truth, in finding the truth, etc. Beside the diversity of things we take pleasure in, there is likewise a broad range of hedonic affects: joy, gladness, contentment, merriment, glee, ecstasy, euphoria, exhilaration, elation, jubilation, happiness, felicity, bliss, enjoyment, amusement, fun, rejoicing, delectation, enchantment, delight, rapture, relish, thrill, satisfaction, gratification, good mood, jollity, gaiety, cheerfulness, relief, etc. I shall here use the term 'pleasure' in this most generic, encompassing, sense, as subsuming all of the items in the lists above and other similar ones. That is, 'pleasure' includes pleasures taken in anything, and covers the whole variety of hedonic affects. There might also be a specific sense of 'pleasure' according to which pleasure is only one of the items in this list. Indeed, one sometimes means by 'pleasure' only bodily pleasures. This is not the meaning of the term that I shall rely on here. The more comprehensive sense of the word we shall operate with here includes, to follow Sidgwick (1981, p. 127) "the most refined and subtle intellectual and emotional gratifications, no less than the coarser and more definite sensual enjoyments". That there is such an inclusive sense of the word 'pleasure' is argued in detail by Katz (2006, n.1) and is standardly assumed by philosophers writing about pleasure1. 1See e.g. Broad (1959, p. 230), Sidgwick (1981, p. 127), Von Wright (1963b, p. 11), Alston (1967, p. 341), Sprigge (1988, p. 128), Johansson (2001, p. 39). Some philosophers prefer to use "enjoyment" instead of "pleasure" in order to refer to that generic concept (Crisp, 2006, pp. 101-2). Some others use "happiness". For Hartmann (1932, vol. 2 p. 160), happiness is opposed to "suffering" and includes "pleasure, satisfaction, joy, blessedness". 11 12 CONTENTS I will not assume that, corresponding to this generic usage of the term 'pleasure', there necessarily is a single natural kind or bona fide type of psychological episode. Whether there is such a natural kind is precisely the question I want to tackle. Is there any natural or bona fide property that all and only pleasures have in common? Or is the class of pleasure arbitrary, disjunctive, heterogenous, or one established by fiat one?2 Do all pleasures have something in common apart from being called "pleasures" in the generic use(Plato, 1993, 12b)? Following Feldman (1988) I shall call this the heterogeneity question about pleasures. Feldman however limits this question to sensory pleasures. Here I consider it as encompassing both sensory and non-sensory pleasures. Following Goldstein (1985), I shall call hedonic pluralism the negative answer to the heterogeneity question, i.e. the view that no single essential property is shared by all pleasures3. The property of being a pleasure, the hedonic pluralist claims, is a shadow cast on our mind by hedonic predicates. I shall call hedonic monism, on the other hand, the positive answer to the heterogeneity question, i.e. the view that there is such a unifying hedonic property. hedonic monism: view according to which all pleasures share a common bona fide essential property. 2I shall speak of bona fide vs. fiat properties instead of natural vs. abundant properties (Lewis, 1986, p. 60) so as to be able contrast natural properties with axiological ones (in a Moorean way): • Natural property $ non-axiological property • Bona fide property $ non-fiat property According to this terminology, there might be some non-natural properties which are perfectly natural in Lewis's sense, i.e. bona fide. The terminological distinction between bona fide and fiat entities is borrowed from Smith and Varzi (2000). By bona fide properties, I mean roughly what Lewis means by natural properties: i.e. properties that are not "gruesomely gerrymandered, miscellaneously disjunctive". I shall, however, drop Lewis's requirement that natural –bona fide– properties have to be intrinsic. Intuitively, the property of being intrinsically desired is extrinsic, but is neither "gruesomely gerrymandered", nor "miscellaneously disjunctive" (see also 1.2.1 page 26 on extrinsic bona fide properties). 3The expression "hedonic pluralism" has been used to refer to other theses. Edwards (1979) introduces it to refer to the thesis that (i) only pleasure is of intrinsic value (= axiological hedonism, see note 20 page 39) , (ii) non-hedonic things might still combine with pleasure to yield organic unities of greater value that pleasure alone. Johansson (2001), for his part, introduces the expression to refer to the view that there are different qualities of pleasantness (which he calls species of pleasure). I shall come back to this issue in 1.3.2 page 38, but it should be stressed already that admitting qualities of pleasantness does not commit one to admitting hedonic pluralism, as long as qualities of pleasantness fall under the same bona fide determinable property of pleasantness. CONTENTS 13 hedonic pluralism: view according to which not all pleasures share a common bona fide essential property. The bone of contention between hedonic monism and hedonic pluralism is whether all pleasures are alike or share some property, independently of the way we talk or think about them. This is the way I shall understand the heterogeneity problem here. The solution I shall defend is a version of hedonic monism. According to the definition I subscribe to, a pleasure is a mental episode that exemplifies an hedonic value. (Clearly, such a proposal belongs to hedonic monism only if the properties appealed to in its definiens –being an hedonic value, being a mental episode, being an exemplification relation– are themselves bona fide): Axiological Theory of Pleasure (ATP): x is a pleasure=df x is a mental episode that exemplifies an hedonic value. Though heterodox, this theory is not new. It has been endorsed, suggested, or favourably mentioned by Meinong (1972, pp. 91, 95, see also introduction Kalsi's Introduction p. liv.), Scheler (1973a, p. 105, for sensory pleasures), Hartmann (1932, vol. 1, pp. 131-2, vol. 2 p. 160), Von Wright (1963b, chap. 4), Goldstein (1989, 2000), Mendola (1990), Rachels (2000), Mulligan (2009a). The present account is original in two ways. First, it articulates the axiological theory in more detail than has been done hitherto, by contrasting it to its rivals, drawing out some of its consequences, and addressing some of its issues. Second, it defends a version of the axiological theory that does not yet appear to have been defended. On this version, a pleasure, in the generic sense, is an intentional episode that is finally good for the person that has it. Let me say a little more about this view. Most of the authors above either do not address the question of the nature of hedonic value, or they suggest that it constitutes a primitive kind of thick value. I shall here depart from them by proposing an analysis of hedonic goodness. Hedonic goodness, according to this analysis, is the final and personal goodness of mental episodes. Let us call this, in rather cumbersome fashion, the reductionist axiological theory of pleasure: Reductionist Axiological Theory of Pleasure (RATP): x is a pleasure of a person P =df x The ATP and the RATP do not say anything about the nature of mental episodes. Hedonic pluralists might step into that breach in the following way. They might claim that there are two fundamentally distinct kinds of mental episodes: intentional and non-intentional ones. To the former correspond the pleasures "of the mind", to 14 CONTENTS the latter the pleasures "of the body", and the only thing that makes such episodes 'mental' is that they are conceived of or described as such. In order to counter that threat, I shall defend an intentionalist version of the ATP: Intentionalist Axiological Theory of Pleasure (IATP): x is a pleasure=df x is an intentional episode that exemplifies an hedonic value. On the whole, the definition of pleasure I shall defend is a version of the ATP which is reductionist with respect to hedonic goodness, and intentionalist with respect to mental episodes: Reductionist Intentionalist Axiological Theory of Pleasure (RIATP): x is a pleasure of a person P =df x is an intentional episode of P which is finally good for P. Pleasures are indeed manifold, but all and only pleasures are intentional episodes that are finally good for their subjects. In order to defend this view, this thesis is divided into four parts. Part I clears the ground for a defense axiological theory of pleasure, in its reductionist and intentionalist version. It introduces the concept of pleasantness and its various opposites. Part II presents and defends the ATP. It contrasts it with the standard view about the value of pleasures and puts forward some arguments in its favour. Part III presents and defends the RATP –the reduction of hedonic goodness to the final and personal value of mental episodes. Final and personal values are characterized and it is argued that they allow the RATP to dismiss important counterexamples. Part IV presents and defends the IATP–the intentionality of all pleasures. It argues that pleasures cannot be purely self-reflexive feelings nor sensory qualities. Part I Pleasures and their cognates

This first part prepares the ground for the subsequent defense of the axiological theory of pleasure. Chapter 1 deals with the concept of pleasantness, understood as the essential property of pleasures. The main different approaches to understanding pleasantness are presented and classified, and the view that pleasantness comes in different qualities is contrasted with hedonic pluralism. Chapter 2 presents the different contraries of pleasures: displeasures or unpleasures, indifferences or indolences, and the different degrees that pleasures admit of. 18 Chapter 1 Varieties of pleasantness The aim of this chapter is to delineate more sharply the opposition between hedonic monism and hedonic pluralism by introducing the concept of pleasantness. Section 1.1 introduces the notion of pleasantness and distinguishes it from its cognates. Section 1.2 lists some of the main monistic definitions of pleasantness that have been proposed so far, and proposes one way of classifying them. Section 1.3 addresses the question of the dimensions of variation of pleasantness: pleasantness, it is claimed, can in principle vary in intensity and in quality without this threatening hedonic monism. Section 1.4 contrasts the acceptance of qualities of pleasantness with hedonic pluralism. 1.1 Pleasantness 1.1.1 Giving pleasure: pleasantness vs. pleasingness Let me start with a reasonably uncontroversial assumption: pleasures are mental episodes. What might be controversial is how one conceives of mental episodes (whether mental episodes are essentially conscious, intentional...), but let us rely for now on an intuitive, pre-theoretical conception of the mental1. Following a common usage among philosophers, I shall call pleasantness the property in virtue of which a mental episode is a pleasure . Accordingly, pleasures are pleasant mental episodes (be they sensations, feelings, 1An intentionalist conception of the mental will be endorsed in part IV, but is not to be assumed at this stage. The reason why I speak of mental episodes rather that of mental states is that states are only one type of episodes among others (see chapter A.1 in the appendices). 19 20 CHAPTER 1. VARIETIES OF PLEASANTNESS experiences, cognitions, conations...) and pleasantness is the essential property of pleasures2. The heterogeneity question boils down to asking whether pleasantness is a bona fide property of mental episodes, or not. It is worth noting that this philosophical use of "pleasantness" departs from its ordinary use. Pleasantness, ordinarily speaking, is not the property of pleasures, but the property of entities that please, i.e., of entities that give pleasure. In ordinary language, what is pleasant is what is 'pleasure-giving' (Perry, 1967, p. 52; Armstrong, 1993, p. 175; Feldman, 1997b, p. 83). The relation of 'giving pleasure' is here understood as encompassing the following three possibilities: 1. 'giving pleasure' might mean a purely causal relation: what gives pleasures is what causes pleasure. 2. 'giving pleasure' might mean a purely intentional relation: what gives pleasures is what ones enjoys, what pleases one, that in which one takes pleasure. 3. 'giving pleasure' might mean both a causal and intentional relation: what gives pleasures is what causes pleasure and is the object of pleasure. Pleasure is not pleasant in that ordinary sense, for at least two reasons. 2Among the authors who understand "pleasantness" as referring to the essential property of pleasures, one finds for instance Moore (1993, p. 130), Broad (1959, p. 230) Rawls (1999, §84, p. 486), Goldstein (1985), Goldstein, 1989, Rachels (2000), Mulligan (2009a). Broad writes for instance "A pleasure" then is simply any mental event which has the pleasant form of hedonic tone. (Broad, 1959, p. 230) When not explicitly asserted, the view that pleasures are essentially pleasant is entailed. Von Wright writes for instance : ...instrumental or useful for the production of pleasure, i.e. causally responsible for the coming into being of pleasant things. (Von Wright, 1963b, p. 86) This view is also often entailed by definitions of hedonism taken to be equivalent. Psychological hedonism is often indifferently defined as the view that pleasure is the only desirable thing and as the view that only pleasant episodes are desirable. Mill writes for instance : to think of an object as desirable (unless for the sake of its consequences), and to think of it as pleasant, are one and the same thing [...] desire can [not] possibly be directed to anything ultimately except pleasure (Mill, 2002, Utilitarianism, 4, §10-11, p. 214) The term "pleasurable" is also used in order to express the essential property of pleasures (Mill, 1869, chap. 17), but I shall reserve it for another use (see page 25). 1.1. PLEASANTNESS 21 1. First, adjectives formed by adding suffixes such as -ent, -ant or -ing to the original verb usually qualify the subject of those verbs. Something is exciting if it excites. Something is amusing if it amuses. Something is distressing if it distresses. Now the states that result from these processes – excitement, amusement, and distress – are not themselves necessarily exciting, amusing and distressing. Only the elicitor of those states is. A joke is amusing. The amusement that results from an amusing joke is not itself amusing (one does not laugh twice). By parity of reasoning, the same should hold for pleasures: the pleasure that results from a pleasant thing is not itself pleasant in the sense in which the thing is pleasant. One possible answer is that an amusement is not necessarily a mental episode that results from the encounter with an amusing thing, but that it is sometimes the amusing thing itself, such as in "His daughter was an amusement to him". In this sense of amusement, amusements are amusing. In the same way, there is a sense of pleasure in which pleasures are pleasant, such as in "This dinner was a pleasure". It is clear, however, that such uses of 'amusement' or 'pleasure' are only derivative. The same kind of phenomena, where the name of an emotion ends up denoting the object of that emotion, occurs in "That defeat was a shame", "His car is his pride", "Meeting him was a great excitement", etc. Strictly speaking however, amusements, pleasures, shames, fears, excitements...are psychological episodes, though the causes and/or objects of those episodes might by metonymy be called by such names. 2. Second, if pleasantness is the property of giving pleasure, the given pleasure cannot be essentially pleasant in that sense, on pain of a problematic regress. If pleasures were pleasant in that ordinary sense, then pleasures would be episodes which bring about pleasures (which would themselves be episodes which bring about other pleasures...). Note that it is still possible that some pleasures are pleasant in the ordinary sense. One might be pleased by a wine, and also be pleased to be pleased by that wine (because we think, for instance, that our first order pleasure is appropriate, the wine being indeed a good one). In that case the pleasure we take in the wine is itself pleasant in the ordinary sense. The present point is only that all pleasures cannot be pleasant in the ordinary sense. As a consequence, if pleasantness is considered as the essential property of pleasures, it must be understood in another sense than in the ordinary, pleasure-giving one. Pleasures are not essentially pleasant in the sense that they give pleasure. To say 22 CHAPTER 1. VARIETIES OF PLEASANTNESS that pleasures are essentially pleasant amounts to saying, trivially, that pleasures are essentially pleasures3. The property of pleasantness, in this second sense, is the pleasure-making property, by contrast to the pleasure-giving property meant in the ordinary sense. In order to disambiguate the terms 'pleasant', I shall use pleasing to qualify things that give pleasure, and reserve the term pleasant to qualify things that are pleasures4. Likewise, I shall use pleasingness to denote the property of giving pleasure, and pleasantness to denote the property of being pleasure. pleasing: that gives pleasure (= pleasure-giving). pleasant: that is a pleasure (= pleasure-making). pleasingness: the property of giving pleasure pleasantness: the property (whatever it is) in virtue of which its bearer is a pleasure Two related differences between pleasingness and pleasantness are worth noting. First, pleasingness is by nature an extrinsic property of its bearer, in the same way that the property of being the cause of an experience, or the property of being the object of an experience are. Pleasantness, on the other hand, can be accounted for in many ways, some of them making it an intrinsic property, some other an extrinsic one (see 1.2 page 26). Some claim for instance that a mental episode is a pleasure – is pleasant – when it exemplifies an intrinsic phenomenal property or hedonic tone; others claim that it is a pleasure when it has the extrinsic property of being desired. Even when pleasantness is thus equated with an extrinsic property, it differs from pleasingness. To say that something is a pleasure when it is desired is distinct from saying that something gives pleasure when it is desired. Second, pleasantness being the essential property of pleasures, which are by assumption mental episodes, pleasantness is necessarily a property of a mental episode. Pleasingness, by contrast, might be exemplified by non-mental entities. Electrons, places, numbers, sounds, propositions, cannot be pleasures. On the other hand, some non-mental entities can be pleasing: an evening, a journey, a book, a symphony cannot be pleasures, but they can give pleasure(s). 3Note already that this is accepted both by hedonic monists and hedonic pluralists: the nontrivial issue is what pleasnatness consists in, whether it is a bona fide, unified property, or a fiat, gerrymandered, one. 4Another way to disambiguate the term "pleasantness" would be to coin the new term "pleasureness" to express the essential property of pleasure. It is, however, better not to coin new terms when possible; and it might also be preferable to follow the philosopher's standard use of the term pleasantness here, even if it departs from the common use. 1.1. PLEASANTNESS 23 The distinction between the two senses of 'pleasant' - pleasantness and pleasingness - is worth stressing because ignoring it leads to misunderstandings. Here are three examples. 1. Feldman (1997b, p. 110 n. 12, 2004, pp. 35 sqq.) is puzzled about Brandt's definition of hedonism as the thesis that "only pleasant states of mind are desirable in themselves". The careful hedonist, Feldman claims, should rather claim that only the pleasures we get from being in some states of mind are desirable in themselves. I suspect however, from what both Brandt and Feldman say, that they are using 'pleasant' in different senses. While Brandt means by 'pleasant' the essential property of pleasure (here, pleasantness), Feldman means by 'pleasant' the property of giving-pleasure (here, pleasingness). 2. Failure to agree on the distinction might also lead to misunderstandings concerning bodily pleasures. Most agree that some bodily sensations are pleasant. But this superficial agreement might hide important differences. For some, this means that some bodily sensations are pleasures. For others, this means that bodily sensations are not themselves pleasures, but give pleasure. In the first case the pleasures themselves are localised in the body. In the second case, only the elicitors of bodily pleasures are localised in the body. 3. Failure to make the distinction might bias the interpretation of empirical studies. Thus, one might diagnose mixed feelings (i.e. co-occurrence of pleasure and unpleasure in a subject, see chapters E and F) where the subject is in fact reporting the pleasantness of one of his sensations or feelings, and the unpleasantness of some external object. Not only are external objects and mental episodes pleasant (or unpleasant) in a completely different sense – this is the reason why I introduced the term 'pleasing'. But external objects, according to this latter, "objective meaning" of pleasantness (Young, 1918), might be called "pleasant" even when they do not actually cause pleasure, but usually do so5. Claiming that this pleasing wine displeases us is therefore not necessarily reporting a paradoxical case of mixed feelings: the pleasingness of the wine might just be remembered, believed, known by testimony, without being actually felt. The objective type of report, on the other hand, is distinctly ambiguous, since it tells us nothing directly about the experience. If a subject reports 'the object was P' we, of course, cannot doubt 5Brentano (2009b, p. 100) introduces a related distinction between things that are normally agreeable –pleasing– and things that are not normally so. 24 CHAPTER 1. VARIETIES OF PLEASANTNESS that the meaning of pleasantness attaches to the object. But what guarantee have we that pleasantness was felt? (Young, 1918, p. 258) We should therefore carefully distinguish between the mental and the objectual senses of pleasantness, that is, between pleasantness and pleasingness. Which one is the more fundamental? One common view is that mental pleasantness wears the trousers. Movies, evenings and journeys are pleasant –pleasing– in virtue of their bringing about, or being the object, of pleasant mental states. terms as "pleasant " and "unpleasant", when applied to the objects of our sensations, reveal a fundamental difference from words with which we designate sensa, such as names of colours and other sensuous qualities. " Pleasant " and " unpleasant " appear then to belong to the same group of designations as words like " the sensed," " the seen," " the heard," " the longed for," " the feared," " the hoped for." They are relational terms and the understanding of them necessarily involves thinking of the state of consciousness of which the things called pleasant and unpleasant are the objects. (Katkov, 1939, p. 182) It is, of course, always possible to extend the name of a feeling to its cause. Thus pleasantness comes to denote a property of the object (an "objective meaning")-as when we speak of pleasant weather or of a pleasant odor. ... the pleasantness of an object should not at any cost be confused with an actual feeling-tone of pleasantness pervading an actual experience. (Duncker, 1941, p. 400)6 I shall here endorse this assumption: things are pleasing in virtue of causing, or being the object of, pleasant mental episodes. 1.1.2 Positive emotions: pleasantness vs. pleasurableness Given the generic use of pleasure I am relying on here, should we say that all positive emotions are pleasures ? Those who answer affirmatively subscribe to the hedonic theory of emotions: hedonic theory of emotions: theory according to which all positive emotions are pleasures. (Helm, 2002, Goldstein, 20027). 6See also Von Wright, 1963b, p. 66-67 and Mulligan, 2009a, p. 493 for similar claims. 7Contrary to Helm, Goldstein does not explicitly says that emotions are pleasures, but only that they are pleasant. If he means by pleasant, as I do, the essential property of pleasures, he is committed to the hedonic theory of emotions as defined here. But he might be using 'pleasantness' in the sense in which I shall use 'pleasurable' below. 1.1. PLEASANTNESS 25 A close relative of the hedonic theory of emotions is the more general view according to which all emotions are either pleasures or unpleasures. One might call this view the 'algedonic theory of emotion' (the term 'algedonic' is introduced on page 53) : algedonic theory of emotions: theory according to which all emotions are pleasures or unpleasures. (Helm, 2002, Goldstein, 2002). One main incentive behind the algedonic theory of emotions is that an essential feature of emotions is their valence (Charland, 2005, Colombetti, 2005, Mulligan, 2009a), and that valence is plausibly construed in hedonic terms. This suggests that positively valenced emotions are nothing but pleasant emotions, i.e., pleasures. Let us assume that valence is indeed an essential property of the emotions8 and that valence is rightly construed in hedonic terms. That is, let us assume that all emotions have hedonic valence. Does it follow that all positive emotions are pleasures? I think not. An important alternative to the hedonic theory of emotion, which satisfies this assumption, claims that pleasures are only some of the constituents or aspects of positive emotions. Positive emotions would not be positive in virtue of being pleasures, but in virtue of having pleasures as some of their proper components or parts. What should we say about the emotions that are partly constituted by pleasures? It is tempting to call them pleasant, but in the sense of pleasantness outlined retained above, this cannot be so for emotions partly constituted by pleasures are not themselves pleasures. The adjective 'pleasurable' seems well suited for this role: as noted by Perry (1967, p. 54) it primarily applies to mental episodes such as emotions, feelings or sensations. I shall define pleasurableness as follows: pleasurable: which has a pleasure as a part. pleasurableness: property of having a pleasant part. The valence of positive emotions might consist in their pleasurableness rather than in their pleasantness. That is, positive emotions might be positive in virtue of having pleasures as proper parts rather than in virtue of being pleasures. The notion of pleasurableness proves to be useful not only for understanding emotional valence (if emotions have pleasures or unpleasures as proper parts). It is also crucial if one is to understand complex episodes which have several pleasures, and/or unpleasures as parts. Happiness and mixed feelings have been claimed to be such kinds of complex episodes. I shall come back to this issue in chapters E and F. 8This is controversial. Bain (1859, p. 35) argues that surprise or wonder are emotions which might be neither pleasant nor unpleasant. 26 CHAPTER 1. VARIETIES OF PLEASANTNESS To recap. The objects and/or causes of pleasures are pleasing but they are neither pleasant nor pleasurable (except when the cause or object of a pleasure is itself a pleasure). Emotions, if pleasure is only one among other constituents, are pleasurable, but they are not pleasant. Nor are they usually pleasing (except again, if they are the causes or objects of second-order pleasures). Pleasures, being parts of themselves, are both pleasant and pleasurable, but are not usually pleasing (unless some secondorder pleasure is directed at them). 1.2 Definitions of pleasantness 1.2.1 Main definitions of pleasure Hedonic monism amounts to the claim that the properties of being a mental episode and of being pleasant are bona fide properties, i.e. not fiat, arbitrary properties, but ones that exhibit some unity independently of the way we speak about or conceive of them. So understood, hedonic monism is a broad theory that allows for a great variety of theories of pleasantness. In particular, pleasantness as a bona fide property of pleasures is neither necessarily a constituent of pleasures, nor necessarily an intrinsic property of pleasures: 1. To say that two entities share a bona fide property is just to say that those entities have something in common independently of the fact that we say or think that they have something in common. This is not to say that what they have in common is a sui generis, metaphysical property. Nominalists might welcome bona fide properties in that sense. I take up this non-committal use of the term 'property' from Rodriguez-Pereyra (2002, pp. 14-21): Thus all my use of the word 'property' commits one to is the idea of an identity of nature between some different particulars. But this need not mean that there are one or more entities, over and above the particulars that are identical in nature, which are present in those particulars. (Rodriguez-Pereyra, 2002, pp. 16-17) Accordingly, the claim that pleasantness is the essential property of pleasure does not entail that pleasures are complex entities constituted by the bearer of pleasantness on the one hand –mental episodes–, and pleasantness itself on the other (though I will myself defend some theory of this kind). Pleasure might be simple, lacking structural complexity. Thus the 'distinctive-feeling theory' of pleasure, according to which pleasures are simple non-intentional sensations 1.2. DEFINITIONS OF PLEASANTNESS 27 or feelings of a certain "pleasure" type, belongs to hedonic monism (see 9.1 for the presentation of the theory, and 9.3 page 226 and 9.2 for objections to it). 2. Bona fide properties do not have to be intrinsic properties either. The properties of being desired or liked are extrinsic properties that are possessed independently of the way we talk or think about their bearer (I assume that desiring and liking are themselves bona fide phenomena). This paves the ways for an important class of monist theories of pleasure according to which pleasures are mental episodes that are intrinsically desired or liked (see 4.2 page 106 for the presentation and assessment of this theory). Consequently, hedonic monism not only includes hedonic-tone theories of pleasure, according to which the pleasantness shared by all pleasures is a primitive intrinsic phenomenological property. It also includes theories such as the theory according to which pleasures are simple distinctive feelings, or intrinsically desired mental episodes. Here are some of the main theories of pleasure that hedonic monism encompasses: 1. desired episode: x is a pleasure =df x is a mental episode that one desires to have for its own sake. 2. desirable-episode: x is a pleasure =dfx is a mental episode that is worthy of being intrinsically desired. 3. perception of value: x is a pleasure =df x is the perception/intuition/apprehension/feeling... of a positive value or of something of positive value (see Appendix C.1). 4. analgesic: x is a pleasure =df x is the absence of pain, the end of a pain, or the decrease of a pain (see Appendix C.2). 5. desire satisfaction1 : x is a pleasure =df x is the perception/apprehension/feeling... of the satisfaction of a desire.9 6. desire satisfaction2 : x is a pleasure =df x is the perceived/apprehended/felt... satisfaction of a desire.10 7. unimpeded activity1 : x is a pleasure =df x is the unimpeded exercise of an organic activity. 9McDougall (1923, 1927, 1928, p. 203), Allen (1930, p. 32); Roberts (2003, p. 157), Schroeder (2004, p. 90) 10Findlay (1961, p. 170), Stout (1915, p. 401), Armstrong (1993, p. 176). 28 CHAPTER 1. VARIETIES OF PLEASANTNESS 8. unimpeded activity2 : x is a pleasure =df x is the unimpeded exercise of an agentive activity. 11) 9. attention: x is a pleasure =df x is a type of attention 10. personal value: x is a pleasure of S =df x is a mental episode of S which is finally good for S. (the view defended here). 11. distinctive feeling : x is a pleasure=df x belongs to a natural class of a nonintentional mental feelings (or sensations), essentially independent from any other mental episodes. 12. hedonic tone1 : x is a pleasure =df x is a primitive phenomenal quality, the hedonic tone, of a mental episode. 13. hedonic tone2 : x is a pleasure =df x is a mental episode that exemplifies a primitive phenomenal quality, the hedonic tone. 14. hedonic value1 : x is a pleasure =df x is the hedonic value of a mental episode. 15. hedonic value2 : x is a pleasure =df x is a mental episode that exemplifies a primitive hedonic value. 16. hedonic attitude: x is a pleasure =df x is a primitive attitude of enjoying/liking/loving... 17. hedonic object : x is a pleasure =df x is a mental episode that is intrinsically enjoyed/liked/loved...12 18. hedonic buck-passing : x is a pleasure =dfx is a mental episode that is worthy of enjoyment/like/love All these theories are versions of hedonic monism. The two last ones however raise a special problem that might commit them to hedonic pluralism: using enjoyment to define pleasure suggests that enjoyment is not itself a kind of pleasure. The only way to make these theories versions of hedonic monism is to define enjoyment itself as an object (worthy) of enjoyment, which leads to circularity. In the case of hedonic buck-passing however, this circularity might not be psychologically vicious: contrary 11Sulzer (1767, pp. 29 sqq.), Bouillier (1877), Bolzano –see Reicher (2006), Hamilton (1882, vol.II, pp. 440 sqq.), Stout (1902, vol. 2, p. 270). 12Hall (1989), Parfit (2011). See also Broad (1959, pp. 237, 261) for a presentation of this view, which he does not endorse. 1.2. DEFINITIONS OF PLEASANTNESS 29 to the hedonic-object definition (17), it does not require an infinity of actual mental episodes. The most standard theories nowadays are 12 and 13 on the one hand, and 1 and 17 on the other (which are often conflated). Some of the theories on the list, such as 4 or 7 are mainly of historical importance and do not appear to have any contemporary defenders, nor are they likely to find one. Yet some other theories appear to be undeservedly ignored considering contemporary interests: this might be the case, I suggest, of theories 2, 3, or 16 (the latter though plays a central role in Feldman's theory of pleasure – but he is not an hedonic monist – and some version of it is defended in detail in Brax, 2009). Note finally that some of the theories above are sometimes conflated, and wrongly so. 1 is sometimes conflated with 5 or 6 though they face quite independent challenges. The difference between 12 and 13, and similarly that between 14 and 15, are rarely noticed despite the important misunderstandings that might ensue (see de la présente page). More dramatically, 17 and 16 are sometimes put under the heading of "attitudinal/intentional theory of pleasure" though they are deeply disanalogous. Some of these theories will be assessed below. For the moment, I shall mention first two hedonic pitfalls that might lead to conflating distinct theories of pleasures. I shall then introduce two independent oppositions between the theories listed here: the opposition between primitivist and reductionist theories of pleasures on the one hand, and the opposition between realist and anti-realist theories of pleasure on the other. 1.2.2 Hedonic pitfalls Pleasure as parasite vs. pleasure as host Definitions of pleasure are often introduced by using idioms such as "pleasure involves [hedonic tone/hedonic value/enjoyment...]", "pleasure is defined in terms of [hedonic tone/hedonic value/enjoyment...]". Such idioms conceal a significant –thought not crucial– distinction among theories of pleasure. Compare first the members in the following pairs of definitions: (12, 13), (14,15). Compare for instance these two versions of the hedonic tone theory of pleasure : [1] Pleasure is an essentially incomplete experience. It exists only as a "side" or "property" as an "abstract part" (Husserl) of a more comprehensive experience. It is pleasantness of something, or more precisely: a tone of pleasantness or hedonic tone pervading an experience. The flavor 30 CHAPTER 1. VARIETIES OF PLEASANTNESS of the wine is, as it were "aglow with pleasantness". (Duncker, 1941, p. 400)13 [2] there is a quality, which we cannot define but are perfectly acquainted with, which may be called 'Hedonic Tone.' It has two determinate forms of Pleasantness and Unpleasantness. [...] "A pleasure" then is simply any mental event which has the pleasant form of hedonic tone, and "a pain" is simply any kind of mental event which has the unpleasant form of hedonic tone.(Broad, 1959, p. 230) Or contrast again these two versions of the axiological view of pleasure: [1] The pleasant, pleasure, we have called a form of the good or of goodness. (Von Wright, 1963b, p. 85)14 [2] Pleasure is not a value, it exemplifies a value-property, the property of being pleasant. (Mulligan, 2009a, p. 477 ) In the first case, pleasure is the hedonic tone, or the hedonic value. In the second case, pleasure is the mental episode that possesses an hedonic tone or an hedonic value: the hedonically toned or valued mental episodes. Theories of type [1] equate pleasure with an incomplete or dependent entity that attaches, from the outside, to non-hedonic mental episodes. Theories of type [2] equate a pleasure with the whole complex of a non-hedonic mental episode parasitized by some hedonic entities (hedonic tone, hedonic value...). Let us call type [1] theories 'parasite-theories of pleasure' and type [2] theories 'host-theories of pleasure' (a host being in biology an organism harboring a parasite). parasite-theories of pleasures: pleasures are incomplete episodes, that ontologically depend on (non-hedonic) mental episodes wholly distinct from the pleasures. host-theories of pleasures: pleasures are complete and complex mental episodes, composed of (i) an incomplete hedonic-making episode or property (hedonic tone, hedonic goodness...) and (ii) a non-hedonic mental episode on which the hedonic-making episode depends ontologically. 13See also, e.g.: pleasure-pain modes are quales of all mental states (Marshall, 1894, p. 45) 14See also Goldstein (2000) for the view that pleasure is a value-quality. 1.2. DEFINITIONS OF PLEASANTNESS 31 Parasite theories have it that pleasure is a dependent episode, and might hold that it is simple and non-intentional (as are arguably the hedonic tone and the hedonic goodness). Host-theories of pleasure on the other hand have it that pleasure is a complex and independent mental episode (i.e. independent from other mental episodes) and standardly construe pleasures as being intentional (because the nonhedonic mental episode – the dependee– is usually an intentional episode). Note however that not all parasite-theories of pleasure construe it as being non-intentional: though dependent on other intentional episodes, pleasure might be itself intrinsically intentional. Paraphrasing Husserl (1970, V, §15, vol. 2, p. 108), pleasure might really have the intentionality it owes to the mental episode it depends on. The disagreement between parasite-theories and host-theories sounds crucial, but as far as hedonic tone and hedonic value theories are concerned, it might prove to be more superficial than expected. Parasite and host theories both agree that each time a pleasure is encountered, there is a mental episode exemplifying an hedonic property, be it phenomenal, axiological or both. Their basic ontology is the same. Their disagreement consists only in what they label "pleasure" in that common ontology. Parasite theories of pleasure sometimes rely on a misleading conflation of pleasure and pleasantness. This appears to be the case in the quotation from Duncker's above, and Von Wright might also be making the same mistake (see also Von Wright, 1963b, pp. 63, 68, 73 and passim.). It might be true that pleasures are dependent mental episodes, as some advocates of type 1 theories insist (see Johansson, 2001). But it is a non-sequitur to infer the dependence of pleasure from the dependence of pleasantness. All properties are dependent entities: they generically depend on their bearers (and even individually depend on them according to some trope theories). Properties are incomplete entities15. Suppose that one agrees that the essential property of rabbits is a sui generis monadic property of rabbitness. One cannot conclude that rabbits are incomplete entities on the ground that rabbitness is incomplete and that rabbits are rabbitness. The mistake is clearly that rabbits are not rabbitness. Nor is pleasure pleasantness, pace Duncker. We should keep clearly apart the claim that pleasures are dependent mental episodes from the claim that pleasantness is a dependent property (as any property is). Both claims might be true, but they do not derive from each other. Relatedly, one last difference between parasiteand host-theories of pleasure concerns the way they treat pleasantness (the property that makes mental episodes pleasures). According to the host-version of the hedonic tone theory for instance, pleasantness is the hedonic tone: the hedonic tone is the pleasure-making property of mental episodes. But parasite versions of the hedonic tone theories cannot equate 15Platonic universals are not properties, but abstract substances. 32 CHAPTER 1. VARIETIES OF PLEASANTNESS hedonic tone and pleasantness, for pleasures are no more pleasantnesses than rabbits are rabbitnesses. What they have to say is that pleasantness is the property that makes hedonic tones pleasures. To understand what this amounts to, note first that parasite-theories of pleasure entail the acceptance of tropes, in the sense of particular (non-repeatable) and dependent entities. For it would be impossible otherwise that two pleasures differ merely numerically. Particular pleasures, according to parasitetheories, are hedonic-tone-tropes, hedonic-value-tropes, etc. What is pleasantness then? Following a standard version of trope-theory, what all pleasures –hedonic-tone tropes– share is to be members of the same resemblance class. (I shall come back to the issue of pleasure dependency and the distinction between host and parasite theory in 9.3.2 page 229). The nature of pleasure vs. the source of pleasure When presenting their theories of pleasures, philosophers sometimes vacillate between claims about pleasures and claims about the causes of pleasures. Among the theories proposed above, many of them have been merely advanced as theories about the typical causes of pleasure, rather than theories about the nature of pleasure. Thus, feelings of value, absence of pain, end of pain, decrease of pain, satisfaction of desire or unimpeded activities are sometimes said to be the ordinary causes or sources of pleasure. Such theories, so understood, are not definitions of pleasure, but only theories of pleasingness. The only way to reconcile theories about the cause of pleasure with theories about the nature of pleasure would be to embrace a strong form of dispositional essentialism, according to which the causes of pleasure enter into its very nature. Pleasure would be whathever causes it, and whathever it causes in turn. Apart from the difficulties raised by such a theory (strong holism, strong necessitarianism, causal relations preceding their terms, the so-called 'always-packing-never-traveling' objection, causation relations themselves eschewing the theory...), it is interesting to note that pleasure is often considered to be resistant to purely functional descriptions16. Even when we know what causes pleasure and what it causes, we would intuitively say that we still do not know what pleasure is. I will not pursue this line of argument further here: I will just assume that the nature of pleasure does not consist in its causal role. 16See Rachels (2000) for a more detailed examination and rejection of the functionalist views of (un)pleasure. 1.2. DEFINITIONS OF PLEASANTNESS 33 1.2.3 Hedonic reductionism vs. hedonic primitivism A first way to distinguish the theories above is to set apart reductionist views of pleasure from primitivist ones. In the list above, definitions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 10 are reductionists theories of pleasure, while theories 11, 12, 15, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18 are primitivist ones. According to primitivism about pleasure, pleasantness cannot be defined in purely non-hedonic terms. There are some irreducibly hedonic entities that are either phenomenal (feelings, hedonic tone), axiological (hedonic value), or intentional (hedonic attitude, i.e. enjoyment). According to hedonic reductionism, on the other hand, pleasure can be defined in purely non-hedonic terms. I will not be interested here in the reduction of pleasure to brain activities or other biological episodes, a question that I shall leave open. I am interested in the question of what pleasure is from the point of view of commonsense ontology. I take that to be an ontological question, but some might prefer to call it a conceptual one, an inquiry into what we mean when we use the word pleasure in the generic sense. Be that as it may, anybody should agree that this question is of ontological importance: it is crucial for the assessment of the biological reduction of pleasure, and more generally for any science of pleasure: it fixes its explanandum. If we want to be able to assess such biological reductions, we have to be clear from the start about the kind of thing we intend to reduce. If we are going to carry out a reduction of pleasures to brain episodes, or to evaluate whether this reduction has been achieved, we need to understand first what kind of ontological candidate pleasure is. Biological reductionism about pleasure is not eliminativism: though both should agree on the ontology in the end, biological reductionism about pleasure holds the reduction of the mental episodes posited by ordinary psychology to be an important task to achieve, which is denied by eliminativism. I shall assume that eliminativism about pleasure, in the ordinary sense, is false. The reductionist definitions of pleasure that will be assessed here are not biological reductions of pleasure, but reductions of pleasures to other categories of commonsense ontology, such as other types of mental episodes, actions or values. (7, which equates pleasure with the unimpeded activity of some organs, is the only exception: it is on this list because it is sometimes misleadingly conflated with 8). Hedonic primitivism is a quite common view: [Pain and pleasure] like other simple ideas cannot be described, nor their names defined; the way of knowing them is, as of the simple ideas of the senses, only by experience. (Locke, 2008, II, xx, §1) 34 CHAPTER 1. VARIETIES OF PLEASANTNESS Pain and pleasure are simple ideas incapable of definitions. (Burke, 1767, P.I, sect. II) Pleasure, in itself, is of course indefinable (Bain, 1892) The state of pleasure is an ultimate, indefinable, experience of the mind. The fact itself is known to each person's consciousness (Bain, 1875, p. 13) Il semblera peut-être que nous aurions dû commencer par une définition du plaisir et de la douleur. Mais le plaisir et la douleur, comme tout qui est simple, comme toutes les qualités sensibles refusent par leur nature même à une définition nominale. Que sont-ils donc? Ils sont ce que nous les sentons et ils ne sont pas autrement que nous les sentons, voilà notre seule réponse. (Bouillier, 1877, p. 43) Pleasure and Pain being original mental states are, strictly speaking, undefinable ; but, as is the case with all such original states, they may be explained and described by making clear their relations to other mental states. (Marshall, 1894, p. 2) And if anybody tried to define pleasure for us as being any other natural object; if anybody were to say, for instance, that pleasure means the sensation of red, and were to proceed to deduce from that that pleasure is a colour, we should be entitled to laugh at him and to distrust his future statements about pleasure. Well, that would be the same fallacy which I have called the naturalistic fallacy. [. . . ] pleasure is absolutely indefinable (Moore, 1993, §12) Even if pleasure is indefinable however, hedonic primitivists must still say to which ontological category pleasure belongs. One might agree that there is something irreducibly hedonic, but disagree about what it is: a feeling, a phenomenal property, a value, an attitude: this is the kind of disagreement that opposes the different primitivist definitions of pleasure (11-18). 10, the definition of pleasure I shall defend in chapter 5 belongs to hedonic reductionism. Pleasures will be defined in terms of mental episodes, final values, personal values, and exemplification, which are all non-hedonic concepts. 1.2.4 Hedonic realism vs. hedonic anti-realism Some of the theories listed above explicitly define pleasure as the object of some attitude (1, 6, 17). Other theories may do so implicitly: assuming that a phenomenal property is a property that is by nature experienced, theories 12 and 13 also define pleasure through attitudes directed towards it. (I shall, however, argue that 1.2. DEFINITIONS OF PLEASANTNESS 35 phenomenal properties are better construed as properties we can be acquainted with in experience –see 4.1.1 page 97; on this reading, hedonic tone theories do not define pleasure in terms of attitudes directed towards it). I shall call such theories anti-realist theories about pleasure. Realist theories about pleasure, on the other hand, hold that pleasures are what they are independently of any attitude directed towards them17. Realism about pleasure is not to be construed merely as the thesis that pleasure is independent from our mental episodes. Dependence being reflexive, this would forbid realism about any kind of mental episode. For pleasure to be real, it has to be independent from other mental episodes directed towards it : hedonic anti-realism: pleasures are by definition episodes towards which some intentional act distinct from themselves is directed. I shall call hedonic realism, on the other hand, the claim that the nature of pleasure does not depend on their being the object of some intentional act: hedonic realism: pleasures are episodes which are not by definition episodes towards which some intentional act distinct from themselves is directed. (= pleasures are episodes which are by nature independent of any intentional acts that take them as their objects). Those definitions state that the intentional acts directed towards pleasures have to be distinct from pleasures themselves. The reason for this claim is that some theories of pleasure claim that pleasures are directed towards themselves. They might be directed only towards themselves, as the distinctive feeling view of pleasure (11) usually has it; or, following Brentano, they might be reflexively directed towards 17Sumner (1996, chap. 4) distinguishes internalist from externalist theories of pleasures: according to the former, pleasures share an intrinsic property or hedonic tone; according to the latter, pleasures are the object of some pro-attitudes. Sumner's distinction is close to the distinction I am introducing here between hedonic realism and anti-realism, but not equivalent. Sumner's distinction, contrary to the present one, is not exhaustive. First, because one might be a realist about pleasure (internalist in Sumner's sense) without appealing to any kind of hedonic tone. In particular, those who claim that pleasures are intentional acts of liking or enjoyment are not committed to any hedonic tone, but neither are they defining pleasure as objects of some pro-attitude. Second, because one might be an anti-realist about pleasure (an externalist in Sumner's terminology) without claiming that pleasures are objects of pro-attitudes. This is the case in theories 6 that define pleasures in terms of attitudes of perception, feelings or apprehensions directed towards them, i.e. in terms of attitudes which are not pro-attitudes. 36 CHAPTER 1. VARIETIES OF PLEASANTNESS themselves as secondary objects, and to something else as their primary object. Such reflexive theories, according to the present definitions, belong to hedonic realism: though pleasures are by nature objects of intentional acts, those intentional acts are the pleasures themselves and not further distinct acts, as hedonic anti-realism requires. Hedonic anti-realism, so defined, is open to a weak and a strong interpretation. Compare these three definitions of pleasures: 1. a pleasure is an intrinsically desired mental episode (= definition 1 above) 2. a pleasure is an intrinsically desired pleasure. 3. a pleasure is an experienced pleasure While 1. is informative, 2. and 3. are patently circular insofar as one is interested in what pleasure is18. The difference between 1. and the two other definitions is that in 1. the mental act is not directed towards the pleasure qua pleasure. 1. does not claim that what makes a mental episodes a pleasure is for it to be intrinsically desired as a pleasure. It is because the mental episode is desired that it is a pleasure, not because it is a pleasure that it is desired. In 1., the desired mental episode is first not a pleasure, and then becomes a pleasure at the very moment at which it becomes desired (the priority, however, should here be understood metaphysically rather than temporally). Pleasantness is the property of being desired. It is not, as in 2. and 3. the property of being a desired or experienced pleasure. One might call theories of type 1. weakly anti-realist, and theories of type 2. and 3. strongly anti-realist, or idealist theories of pleasures. hedonic weak anti-realism: pleasures are by definition episodes which are not pleasures towards which some intentional act distinct from themselves is directed. hedonic strong anti-realism (=hedonic idealism): pleasures are by definition pleasure-episodes towards which some intentional act is directed. A rarely noticed fact is that psychological hedonism, though compatible with hedonic idealism, is not compatible with the more common weak anti-realist view according to which pleasures are intrinsically desired mental episodes. Psychological hedonism is standardly defined along the following lines: 18I argue in more detail on page 93 that such a circularity is of a bad kind. 1.3. DIMENSIONS OF PLEASANTNESS 37 psychological hedonism: theory according to which pleasure is the only thing that humans can intrinsically desire.19 If pleasure is by nature a non-pleasure episode that is intrinsically desired, then psychological hedonism is false. For any pleasure contains by nature a non-hedonic intrinsic desire. One cannot be both a psychological hedonist and claim that pleasure is by nature an intrinsically desired (non-hedonic) episode. Note that according to the definition of hedonic realism given above, buck-passing or fitting-attitude analyses of pleasure, such as 2 and 18 count as versions of hedonic realism. To claim that pleasures are mental episodes that should be desired, or that it is appropriate to desire, does not entail that pleasures are actually desired. The axiological definition of pleasure to be defended below is a version of hedonic realism: a pleasure is a mental episode that is good for its subject, independently of any attitude that the subject has towards that episode. The different definitions of pleasure listed above might on the whole be classified as follows with respect to the hedonic primitivist/reductionist and realism/antirealism debates (given that "phenomenal properties" might either be construed realistically or anti-realistically, hedonic tone theories appear twice in that classification): Hedonic Primitivism Reductionism Realism 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 Anti-realism (weak) 17, 12, 13 1, 6 Table 1.1: Classification of some main monistic theories about pleasure (see pp. 27 sqq. for the numbers reference). 1.3 Dimensions of pleasantness Hedonic monism is not only compatible with a wide variety of definitions of pleasantness, it is also compatible, I shall now argue, with the view that pleasantness varies not only in intensity, but also in quality. To claim that pleasantness is a bona fide property is compatible not only with the idea that it can be an extrinsic property, but also with the claim that it can be a determinable property that has more than one dimension of variation. Though qualities of pleasantness are compatible with hedonic monism, which I endorse, I shall present two argument in favour of their reduction. 19See 4.2.1 page 108 for a tentative definition of intrinsic desires. 38 CHAPTER 1. VARIETIES OF PLEASANTNESS 1.3.1 Degrees of pleasantness Pleasantness can vary in degrees: pleasures are more or less intense depending on the intensity of their pleasantness. Pleasantness is therefore a determinable property: what all pleasures share is not a determinate degree of pleasantness, but a pleasantness of some degree, whatever it is. That pleasantness comes in degrees imposes a clear constraint on any reductive account of pleasantness: the analysans of pleasantness should itself be liable to variation by degrees. Thus, if pleasure is analysed in terms of being desired, then such a property should come in various intensities. As it happens, this is the case for desires, which might be more or less intense. 1.3.2 Qualities of pleasantness What they are Whether pleasantness varies not only in degree but also in quality is a controversial issue. Is the pleasantness-space unidimensional, with only variation in intensity to be allowed? Or is it (at least) two-dimensional, with the different determinate pleasantnesses varying not only in degree but also in quality? The goal of this subsection is not to take sides on this issue (see chap. B for a proposal), but to make clear what qualities of pleasantness amount to in order to understand their relation to hedonic monism and hedonic pluralism. By quality of pleasantness I mean any dimension of variation of pleasantness distinct from its intensity. quality of pleasantness: two determinate pleasantnesses differ in quality iff they differ in something else than in their intensity. It should be stressed that the question of qualities of pleasantness does not boil down to the question of qualities of pleasures. Given that pleasantness is not all there is to pleasures –pleasures are pleasant mental episodes– pleasures might differ from each other in virtue of their non-hedonic aspects or parts. In this way, we might have a variety of pleasures without having a corresponding variety in pleasantnesses. That there is a wide variety of pleasures is not controversial. That there is a wide variety of pleasantnesses is. Who subscribes to them The main proponents of qualities of pleasantness are usually considered to be qualitative hedonists such as Mill (2002) and more recently Edwards (1975, 1979). Pleas1.3. DIMENSIONS OF PLEASANTNESS 39 ures, they insist, vary not only in quantity but also in quality, which allows qualitative hedonists to propose a refined version of axiological hedonism escaping the "doctrine worthy only of swine" objection (Mill, 2002, chap. II)20. However, it is a mistake to present Mill and Edwards as friends of qualities of pleasantness. This mistake relies on a confusion between qualities of pleasures and qualities of pleasantness. By qualities of pleasure, Mill and Edwards mean that pleasures might have completely different "qualities of feelings" (Edwards, 1979, p. 32). The question, however, is whether such qualities of feelings –akin to hedonic tones– are the essential properties of pleasures according to Mill and Edwards. If they are, both of them are clearly defending qualities of pleasantness. But this is precisely the point that they refuse to make: what makes a pleasure a pleasure, they say, is not its quality of feeling but some attitude of intrinsic desiring that one has towards it. Pleasantness, Mill and Edwards claim, is not a phenomenal property, but the property or being intrinsically liked and desired21. In other terms Mill and Edwards reject the hedonic tone theory of pleasure (see 4.1.1 page 97) in favour of a desired-episode one ( 4.2.1 page 106). Their answer to the question "What do all pleasures have in common?" is roughly " We desire to have them". Now it may be that "being intrinsically desired" has more that one dimension of variation. Desires are sometimes said to be more or less intense, but also, in another sense, more or less urgent. If so, desires have two dimensions of variation, and the same goes for pleasures which are defined through them. But there is nothing to suggest that Mill and Edwards subscribe to this twodimensional view of desire, so it is reasonable to assume that they do not subscribe to qualities of pleasantness. Although Mill and Edwards insist that there are qualities of pleasures, they do not claim that there are qualities of pleasantness. It might be that they should have 20Axiological hedonism, the view that only pleasure is of intrinsic value (see 3.4.1 page 90), is to be distinguished from psychological hedonism, the view that only pleasure can be intrinsically desired (see 1.2.4 page 37). 21 to think of an object as desirable (unless for the sake of its consequences), and to think of it as pleasant, are one and the same thing (Mill, 2002, Utilitarianism, chap. IV) the generic class of pleasure [is] the set of all feelings we wish or desire to sustain or cultivate (Edwards, 1979, p. 92) That pleasantness is not for Edwards a phenomenal property is concealed by the fact that Edwards uses the term pleasantness to refer to the quality of feeling (cf. Edwards, 1979, p. 46-7). This leads him to deny that there is a single quality of pleasantness common to all pleasures. But in my sense of pleasantness, i.e. the essential property of pleasure, Edwards clearly agrees that all pleasures share a common pleasantness, namely the property of being liked and desired. 40 CHAPTER 1. VARIETIES OF PLEASANTNESS done so. Qualitative hedonism introduces qualities of pleasures in order to argue that some qualities of pleasures are higher than other ones. One question, crucial for the assessment of qualitative hedonism, is whether the different heights of pleasures are of an hedonic kind. Are higher pleasures hedonically superior to lower ones? If not, qualitative hedonism is to be suspected of surreptitiously reintroducing some non-hedonic values. If this is so, then the different heights of pleasures amounts to the different heights of their pleasantnesses. In which case, there has to be different qualities of pleasantness -and not only different qualities of pleasure.22 If qualitative hedonists such as Mill and Edwards do not believe in qualities of pleasantness, who does? The thesis is attributed to Lotze (1888) and Lipps by Scheler (1973a, p. 330), and Scheler himself subscribes to a strong version of it, which commits him to hedonic pluralism (see p. 316 for Scheler's own pluralist view). Duncker (1941) also attributes the view that pleasantness comes in different qualities to Hobbhouse. More recently, this view is also to be found in Von Wright (1963b, chap. IV), it is assumed by Zimmerman (2007)23, and defended by Sprigge (1988, pp. 136-148)24, Johansson (2001)25 and Mulligan (2009a). 22The idea of qualities of pleasures does not by itself entail the concept of heights of pleasures (pleasures of different qualities may be on an equal footing, or incommensurable). However the idea that there are different heights of pleasures entails that they are different qualities of pleasures. Heights attach to qualities of pleasures, while intensities attaches to occurrences of pleasures. A pleasure of a higher type might be less intense than a pleasure of a lower type. Qualitative hedonists usually claim that pleasures of the mind are higher that pleasures of the body. Some bodily pleasures might still be more intense than some pleasures of the mind. 23 a person can experience two pleasures with identical content and intensity at once. For example, Bob could be intrinsically delighted in two different ways in the fact that his beer is frosty cold (Zimmerman, 2007, p. 433) Later on however, Zimmerman writes: there seems to be an intuitive sense (that I do not know how to specify) in which an attitude of pleasure has been ''fully specified'' once its duration, intensity, and object have been specified. (Zimmerman, 2007, p. 435) 24Sprigge (1988, 147-8) clearly raises the question whether we should speak of qualities of pleasures as wholes, or of qualities of pleasantness as dependent and essential parts of pleasures. He finally chooses the later option. 25Johansson is indeed speaking indifferently of species of pleasures and of species of pleasantness, while I am here refusing to equate pleasure with pleasantness (see page 29). 1.4. HEDONIC MONISM VS. HEDONIC PLURALISM 41 Compatibility with hedonic monism Hedonic monism is compatible with the claim that the essential property of pleasures comes in different qualities. The contrary is sometimes assumed. Discussing the analogy of pleasures with colours, Moore, writes, contra Mill: If you say "pleasure", you must mean "pleasure", some one thing common to all different "pleasures", some one thing, which may exist in different degrees but which cannot differ in kind (Moore, 1993, p. 130). Goldstein (1985) also suggests that the admission of qualities of pleasures commits one to hedonic pluralism. I have already argued that this is clearly not the case if we are speaking of qualities of pleasures, for pleasures might be qualitatively distinct from each other in virtue of their non-hedonic properties. I am now arguing that even the strong claim that pleasantness varies not only in quantity but also in quality is compatible with hedonic monism. The argument for that claim is quite simple: it is puzzling that hedonic monists see in the qualities of pleasantness a threat to the unity of pleasure, but readily admit intensities of pleasantness. If pleasantness can vary in intensity, as hedonic monists standardly agree, why should we exclude the possibility that it can vary along more that one dimension, in the same way that colours do? As long as different pleasures with varying qualities of pleasantness share something more than being called "pleasures", hedonic monism can welcome them. In a nutshell, once pleasantness is recognized as being a determinable property anyway, adding one dimension of variation besides its intensity should not raise any new difficulty. Defining this additional dimension of variation might well raise problems of its own, but this is another issue (see chap. B page 291). 1.4 Hedonic monism vs. Hedonic pluralism Hedonic monism, the theory that pleasantness is a bona fide property, therefore covers a wide variety of views about pleasure. Because bona fide properties include determinable properties of possibly more than one dimension, theories according to which pleasantness comes in different qualities belong to hedonic monism. Because bona fide properties include extrinsic properties, hedonic monism includes not only hedonic realism theories, but also various kinds of hedonic anti-realism, such as the view that pleasures are intrinsically desired mental episodes. One might worry that this definition of hedonic monism is so wide that it scarcely leaves room for hedonic pluralism. 42 CHAPTER 1. VARIETIES OF PLEASANTNESS Hedonic pluralism has been defined as the theory according to which pleasantness is not a bona fide property (p. 13): there is no single, unitary property that all pleasures share. There are in principle infinitely many versions of hedonic pluralism depending on the number and nature of the hedonic disjuncts one is ready to accept. But now that the class of bona fide properties is considered as including determinable and extrinsic properties, we face the worry that hedonic monism has become trivially true, and that hedonic pluralism ends up being trivially false. This is not so. 1.4.1 Hedonic pluralism vs. qualities of pleasantness Consider qualities of pleasures first. Where does the distinction lie between the hedonic monist who welcomes qualities of pleasantness and the hedonic pluralist who insists that "pleasantness" splits up into many pleasantnesses having nothing to do with each other? One suggestion, due to Scheler, a declared hedonic pluralist, is that qualities of pleasantness, unlike heterogeneous pleasantnesses, are incompatible with each other: [. . . ] there is quite a difference between sadness (or woefulness) and a painful feeling on the skin, and in this sense the difference is not one of quality. It appears to me that the special kind of difference is made evident by the fact that both types of feeling can coexist in one and the same act and moment of consciousness, and this most clearly when they possess different, i.e. both positive and negative, characters. [. . . ] A human being can be blissful while suffering from bodily pain. [. . . ] On the other hand one in a state of "deep despair in his soul" can experience some sensuous pleasure [...](Scheler, 1973a, pp. 330-1) It is not clear to me that Scheler's examples are indeed cases of opposite feelings coexisting in the same act of consciousness as he claims (rather than coexisting only in a same subject). The mental act of blissfulness is arguably numerically distinct from the act of suffering from bodily pain (see E.2 for a rejection of Scheler's account of mixed feelings). Still, Scheler's insistence that the difference between blissfulness and bodily pleasures or pains is more than one of qualities, because such positive feelings are not incompatible, is worthwhile. I shall agree with Scheler that any theory that allows for one and the same mental act to be both at once pleasant in one sense, and unpleasant in another sense is committed to hedonic pluralism. Qualities of pleasantness are contraries of each other; but the different types of pleasantnesses that the hedonic pluralist subscribes to are not contraries. Note that this is at best a way of diagnosing hedonic pluralism (as suggested by Scheler's phrase "is made evident by"), but that it cannot help to define it. The 1.4. HEDONIC MONISM VS. HEDONIC PLURALISM 43 reason for this is that the relation of contrariety itself relies on the idea of categorial homogeneity (see 2.1 page 45). It would therefore be circular to claim that two pleasantnesses are instances of one and the same bona fide property of pleasantness only if they are contraries of each other. Consider now the long but not exhaustive list of monistic definitions of pleasures given above. Is there any option left for the hedonic pluralist? Yes: indeed the hedonic pluralist has even more options than the monist. Any theory that claims that the term 'pleasure' corresponds to a disjunction of at least two definiens in the list above will be a pluralist theory of pleasure. Those disjuncts have nothing in common, the hedonic pluralist claims, apart from being called 'pleasures'. Accordingly, hedonic pluralism comes in degrees. Extreme hedonic pluralism claims that for any two pleasures, there is no essential property that they share. The class of pleasure is not a natural one, and no sub-class of it is a natural one: the term 'pleasure' refers to a very long disjunction of heterogenous phenomena. Moderate hedonic pluralism claims that although the class of all episodes called 'pleasure' in the generic sense does not correspond to a bona fide property, still some sub-class(es) of pleasures share a common property. Let me recap the main points of this preparatory chapter. 1. Pleasantness is the essential property of pleasures and accrues to mental episodes. A pleasure is a pleasant mental episodes. 2. Pleasantness is to be distinguished from both pleasingness, the property of things that gives pleasures; and from pleasurableness, the property of complex episodes, such as (maybe) emotions, which contain pleasures as proper parts. 3. Pleasantness is a determinable property that has at least one dimension of variation (intensity) and might have another one (quality). 4. Hedonic monism, according to which pleasures do have something in common apart from the fact of being called pleasures, is a broad thesis. It can countenance purported qualities of pleasantness. It encompasses reductionist and primitivist theories of pleasure, as well as realist and anti-realist ones. 44 CHAPTER 1. VARIETIES OF PLEASANTNESS Chapter 2 Pleasures and their opposites This chapter aims at specifying the different contraries of pleasure. Section 2.1 introduces the various kinds of incompatibility relations that I will rely on throughout. Section 2.2 introduces unpleasures as the polar opposites of pleasures, and degrees of pleasures as their hedonic scalar opposites. Section 2.3 introduces indolences as the neutral opposites of pleasures and addresses various questions about their nature and existence. 2.1 Varieties of contrarieties 2.1.1 Incompatibility, contrariety, polar opposition Before introducing the different opposites of pleasures, some precise formulations of the varieties of oppositions are in order. The most general type of opposition, I shall assume, is incompatibility. Two predicates are incompatible if they cannot be simultaneously true of the same subject.. Incompatibility: two predicates are incompatible iff they cannot be true of the same subject at the same time. Incompatibility is not a very interesting relation as it stands. Many predicates have nothing to do with each other and yet are incompatible. For instance, being odd and being creamy are incompatible. This is not due to some real opposition between them, but only to the fact that they do not apply to the same categories of objects: only numbers can be odd, only concrete substances or stuffs can be creamy. I shall say that two predicates are contraries when they are incompatible and apply to the 45 46 CHAPTER 2. PLEASURES AND THEIR OPPOSITES same category of subject (i.e. have the same range, see Woods, 1969, Barnes, 1969, Lehrer and Lehrer, 1982). Contrariety: two predicates are contrary iff they have the same range and are incompatible. Contradiction is primarily a relation between sentences, but it might be extended to predicates. The contradiction between predicates is a species of contrariety. Two predicates are contradictories if they are contraries and if the negation of the one entails the affirmation of the other. Many predicates have infinitely many contraries (blue, yellow, dark... for white), but they all have only one contradictory (non-white). Contradiction: two predicates are contradictory iff (i) they are contrary and (ii) if one is not true of a subject at a time, the other is true of that subject at that time. I shall use opposition to refer to all the species of contrariety that are not cases of contradiction. Opposition: two predicates are opposites iff (i) they are contraries (ii) that are not contradictories. Polar opposition, which relates antonyms such as bad and good, is a type of opposition. This will prove important for understanding the nature of pleasure. However, though often appealed to, its definition remains problematic, and as a result many very different kinds of oppositions end up being called "polar opposition". I shall here try to disentangle and distinguish the varieties that exist. To some extent I shall be building from scratch distinctions that might have been introduced elsewhere in philosophy; as far as I know the study of polar oppositions have mainly interested linguists (see e.g. Lehrer and Lehrer, 1982, Horn, 1989, Cruse, 1995, chaps 9, 10, 11). Despite invaluable discussions, however, part of the metaphysical work remains to be done. One definition of polar opposition inspired by Barnes (1969) claims that two predicates F and G are polar opposites if and only if they are contraries, and for every predicate H which is contrary to both F and G, H is "between" F and G.1 1Barnes' original definition reads as follows: C3(F,G)= (x)((RF=RG) &(Gx→ ¬Fx)&((H)(((RH= RF) &(H 6= F) &(H 6= G))→ (H is between F and G)))) (Barnes, 1969) 2.1. VARIETIES OF CONTRARIETIES 47 This definition of polar opposition takes up the Aristotelian idea according to which the extremes or boundaries of an order or continuum enter in a specific relation of opposition(Horn, 1989, p. 37). This relation of polar opposition, so defined, is a sub-type of the relation of scalar opposition. The "betweenness" here entails that the predicates concerned by this definition are ordered (Russell, 1903, chap. XXV). Gradable predicates constitute a clear case of such orders. Those orders might be discrete or continuous. Consider thus the continuum bounded by black and white. Any two predicates of this continuum are contraries: dark grey and light grey can never fill the same extension at once. They are in a relation of scalar opposition: scalar opposition: contrariety between predicates that belong to a same order. Contrary to all the other predicates of the order, the extremes of an order are not themselves between other predicates of the order. Thus gray is between black and white, but white is between gray and any other predicate of that continuum. The polar opposition defined by Barnes relates not just any predicates of an order, but only the farthest ones. Rather than calling it polar opposition, I shall call it scalar opposition between extremes, or for short, extreme scalar opposition: extreme scalar opposition: contrariety between predicates which bound an order. The reason why we should speak here of scalar extreme opposition rather than of polar opposition is that there is yet another kind of opposition that better deserves to be called polar opposition. This is the polar opposition that will be needed to understand the opposition between pleasantness and unpleasantness. Extreme scalar opposition captures the opposition between black and white, bald and hirsute, the farthest and the closest. These extreme scalar opposites are not polar opposites. Good and bad, desire and aversion, love and hate, positive and negative charge are polar opposites in the sense I am interested in here. Here are three differences between extreme scalar opposition and polar opposition: Where C3means polar opposition and R means the range of a predicate. One objection to it goes as follows : F=black, G=white, H=visually extended. It is true that visual extension and color have the same range (whatever is colored is visually extended and whatever is visually extended is colored). It is not the case however that H is between F and G (in any intuitive sense). So according to Barnes, definition black and white would not be polar opposites (he himself claims that they are). By requiring that H be contrary to both F and G, my definition above avoids this problem. 48 CHAPTER 2. PLEASURES AND THEIR OPPOSITES 1. Predicates which do not express extremes of an order can be polarly opposed. The most beautiful is indeed polarly opposed to the ugliest. But the quite beautiful and the quite ugly are polar opposites as well. 2. The orders to which polar opposites belong include a null value, "indifference zone" (Lehrer and Lehrer, 1982) or "pivotal region"(Cruse, 1995, p. 205): thus between the good and the bad one finds the axiologically neutral, between desire and aversion one finds the motivationally indifferent, between love and hate one finds the emotionally indifferent. No such null value is essentially found between extreme scalar opposites: traveling from black to white one never crosses a colorless point. 3. Relatedly, the orders to which polar opposites belong are essentially polarized, unlike the orders of extreme scalar opposites: love, goodness, desire, positive charge fall on the positive side of their respective orders, while hate, badness, aversion and negative charge fall on their negative side. White and baldness are essentially neither positive nor negative. While extreme scalar opposition captures the relation between the farthest points of an order, polar opposition captures the relation between contrary positive and negative predicates. polar opposition: contrariety between predicates of opposed signs (+/-), in between which a contrary predicate of null value is found. Polar opposition and extreme scalar opposition are independent. Black and white, bald and hirsute are extreme scalar opposites but not polar opposites. -2 and +2, mildly good and mildly bad are polar opposites but not extreme scalar ones. The worst and the best are both extreme scalar opposites and polar opposites. Positive charge and negative charge are polar opposites that are not scalar opposites in any sense, for they do not form an order (they are not gradable). Finally, a last kind of opposition entailed by the concept of polar opposition is the contrariety between a positive or negative predicate and a predicate of null value. neutral opposition: contrariety between a predicate of negative or positive sign and a neutral predicate. These various kinds of oppositions are represented in fig. 2.1 page ci-contre. 2.1. VARIETIES OF CONTRARIETIES 49 i n c o m p a t i b i l i t y c a t e g o r i a l i n c o m p a t i b i l i t y o d d / c r e a m y c o n t r a r i e t y c o n t r a d i c t i o n g o o d / n o n g o o d o p p o s i t i o n n e u t r a l o p p o s i t i o n g o o d / n e u t r a l s c a l a r o p p o s i t i o n m e r e s c a l a r o p p o s i t i o n v e r y g o o d / m i l d l y g o o d e x t r e m e s c a l a r o p p o s i t i o n b l a c k / w h i t e p o l a r o p p o s i t i o n g o o d / b a d Fi gu re 2. 1: Va rie tie s of in co m pa tib ili ty 50 CHAPTER 2. PLEASURES AND THEIR OPPOSITES 2.1.2 Varieties of polar opposition Let us now focus on the concept of polar opposition. One should distinguish pseudo polar opposites from real ones. The opposition between the good and the bad is a case of real polar opposition (so is the opposition between pleasure and unpleasure, as I shall show). The opposition between the obligatory and the forbidden, or the opposition between the necessary and the impossible are pseudo polar oppositions. They are all types of polar opposition according to the definition above: in each case, we have two contrary predicates separated by a neutral point2: the neutral value lies between the good and the bad, the optional lies between the obligatory and the forbidden, the contingent lies between the necessary and the impossible. One can conventionally assign positivity to one of the two opposites predicates, the other one being then conceived of as negative. Why are the obligatory and forbidden only pseudo polar opposites? Because the one might be defined in terms of the other: p is necessary $ not-p is impossible p is obligatory $ not-p is forbidden But no such definition is possible for values, for it is not the case that: p is good $ not-p is bad p is admirable $ not-p is despicable p is beautiful $ not-p is ugly This suggests that the necessary and the impossible are not two different kinds of modal properties (or functors or connectives, see note 2), but only one kind of modal property having sometimes positive complements, sometimes negative ones. The same applies to deontic properties/functors. If disbelieving p can be shown to be equivalent to believing not-p, then disbelief is not a new type of attitude, but only a new name for an old attitude. Likewise, the linguistic opposition between necessary and impossible does not reflect any modal difference, but only the difference between the necessity of something and the necessity of its negation. Obligation and interdiction, necessity and impossibility are therefore not really polarly opposed, for they are not really distinct. Not so with values and disvalues: the fact that it is 2I am here treating obligatory and forbidden, necessary and impossible as well as good and bad as predicates, but the same remarks hold, mutatis mutandis, for the functors 'It obligatory/necessary/forbidden...that...'. I intend to remain neutral on the question of whether alethic modalities, norms, and values are better construed in terms of functors or predicates. 2.1. VARIETIES OF CONTRARIETIES 51 elegant to wear a hat is not equivalent to the fact that it is inelegant not to wear a hat. The opposition between elegance and inelegance does reflect a real axiological difference. While "it is necessary that..." and "it is impossible that" are so-called dual operators, this is not so with "it is good that..." and "it is bad that...". By pseudo polar opposition, I shall mean a polar opposition that relates the linguistic representations of some phenomena, but which finds no counterparts in these phenomena themselves. By real polar opposition I mean a metaphysical relation that occurs not (only) at the linguistic or representational level, but at the level of the things represented: good is polarly opposed to bad in rebus, and not in virtue of the oppositeness of 'good' and 'bad'. pseudo polar opposition: contrariety between predicates of opposed signs (+/-), (i) in between which a predicate of null value is found, and (ii) which does not correspond to any such contrariety between the properties expressed by those predicates. real polar opposition: contrariety between predicates of opposed signs (+/-), (i) in between which a predicate of null value is found, and (ii) which does correspond to an analogous contrariety between the properties expressed by those predicates. The polar opposition between the necessary and the impossible is an artefact of language which contains two words to express the same phenomena applied to contradictory propositions. A different kind of pseudo polar opposition is the opposition between positive and negative temperatures. It is only by convention that +2°C and -2°C are polar opposites3. The very same temperatures, measured in degrees Fahrenheit become scalar opposites. Given any single-dimensional continuum, one might assign the value zero to a given point and then define as positive and negative the values which lie on each side of it. But where to put the zero, and which sides of it to call positive or negative is arbitrary with respect to the continuum itself. Relatedly, the question of whether the zero corresponds to some actual sui generis property or to a mere absence (a question that arises for indolences –see 2.3.2) does not arise with such continua: the zero always corresponds to some sui generis property. Temperatures are really only scalar opposites. They are artificially polarized by the bipolar temperature scales adopted. I shall call lexical polar opposition the kind of pseudo polar opposition that opposes obligation and interdiction, necessity and impossibility, or desire and aversion, and other so-called dual operators or predicates. This opposition is lexical to the extent that it relies on the contingent fact that the 3A non-arbitrary convention, governed by the behavior of water. 52 CHAPTER 2. PLEASURES AND THEIR OPPOSITES polar opposition pseudo polar opposition lexical obligatory/forbidden conventional 3 C/-3 C real polar opposition good/bad Figure 2.2: Varieties of polar opposition complex expression constituted by an incomplete item A, followed by the negation of its complement, can be substituted for a simple item B of the lexicon. I shall call conventional polar opposition the polar opposition that relates +2C° and -2C°, big and small, far and close, etc. This opposition is conventional in so far as it relies on the conventional introduction of a 0 point on a continuum. lexical polar opposition: type of pseudo polar opposition introduced by the existence in the lexicon of a predicative or functorial simple expression B( ) substitutable for the predicative or functorial complex expression A¬( ). conventional polar opposition: type of pseudo polar opposition introduced conventionally by the assignation of a zero or neutral value to an inner point of a continuum. 2.2 Pleasures, unpleasures and their degrees 2.2.1 The polar opposite of pleasure Let us now apply those distinctions to pleasure and its opposites. Pleasure being positive, it might have a polar opposite (though this has been questioned, see E.2). Pain is often claimed to be the antonym or polar opposite of pleasure (e.g. Locke, 2008, Bk II, sec. II, XX, Bentham, 1996, chap. IV, V, Bain, 1859, pp. 21, 32, Bain, 1875, p. 12, Hamilton, 1882, vol. 2, pp. 436-7, Marshall, 1894, Sidgwick, 1981, Bk II, Chap. II, §2, p. 125). This claim has been challenged in two ways. 1. One might object that pain is only one of the many polar opposites to pleasure. Pain would just be too narrow to encompass all of those polar opposites. First, 2.2. PLEASURES, UNPLEASURES AND THEIR DEGREES 53 because pain is often restricted to bodily sensation, while pleasure encompasses not only bodily pleasures but also pleasures of the mind. Second, because even if we confine ourself to bodily feelings, pain remains too narrow to subsume all bodily unpleasures. Some unpleasant bodily sensations are not pains: itching, nausea, feeling cold, hungry, exhausted, and so on. Pain cannot therefore be the polar opposite of pleasure, not even of bodily pleasure. 2. One might wonder whether pain is even a contrary of pleasure. This has been questioned by people subscribing to the view that pleasure is a state of mind while pain is a type of sensation akin to the sensation of heat and cold (see e.g. Von Wright, 1963b, p. 70, Wohlgemuth, 1917, p. 437, 450, Russell, 1995a, p. 704). I shall defend this view in 10.4.1 page 272. The antonym of 'pleasure' in the generic sense is rather 'unpleasure' (Hume, 2000, Mezes, 1895, Wohlgemuth, 1917, p. 437, Russell, 1958, Findlay, 1961, Rachels, 2004 Mulligan, 2009a). Relatedly, the polar opposite of pleasantness is unpleasantness. Pleasantness and unpleasantness are contraries: if x is pleasant, then it is not unpleasant (this does not rule out mixed feelings, as argued in E page 313). They are not contradictories since, as we shall see, some states are neither pleasures nor unpleasures but states of hedonic indifference which I shall call indolences (see 2.3). Pleasantness and unpleasantness are polar opposites since pleasantness is positive while unpleasantness is negative, and since a neutral state, indolence, is located between them (see fig. 2.4 page 55). The adjective hedonic is used loosely to cover all the phenomena related to pleasure. An hedonic episode is nothing but a pleasure. An hedonic object is the intentional object of a pleasure. An hedonic value is the value of a pleasure. Etc. Though the expression "hedonic tone" is commonly applied to unpleasures, unpleasures are strictly speaking not hedonic phenomena. Pleasures and unpleasures are often labelled as "feelings" but this is unsatisfying for two reasons. First, many of the phenomena we call feelings are neither essentially pleasant nor unpleasant (e.g. cutaneous feelings such as feelings of pressure or feeling of coldness, epistemic feelings such as feelings of knowing, feelings of familiarity...). Second, to call such pleasures and unpleasures 'feelings' suggests either that they are essentially felt or that they essentially feel something beyond themselves (that they are intentional acts). Both claims being disputed, it is better to have a neutral term at this stage (I shall argue in the third part that pleasures are always intentional but they are not essentially felt). 4Though he does not explicitly say that pain is not a contrary of pleasure, Aydede (2000)'s analyze of pleasure by contrast to pain might lead to such a view. 54 CHAPTER 2. PLEASURES AND THEIR OPPOSITES pleasant indolent unpleasant Non-pleasant Non-unpleasant algesic hedonic algedonic Figure 2.3: Pleasure, indolence, unpleasure Marshall (1894, p. 9) conveniently introduced the term algedonic to cover both pleasures and unpleasures5, and phenomena related therewith. I shall here adopt the following definition: algedonic episode: episode which is either a pleasure or an unpleasure. I shall also occasionally use the term algesic in order to cover the unpleasant phenomena: an algesic episode is nothing but an unpleasure, an algesic object is the intentional object of an unpleasure, and algesic value is the value of an unpleasure, etc. These distinctions are represented in fig. 2.3. 2.2.2 The scalar opposites of pleasure 'Pleasant' is a gradable adjective. Relatedly, pleasantness comes in degrees: one might say that a sensation is more pleasant than another one, that an experience is very or only slightly pleasant. Each episode of pleasure has an intensity. One can apparently pass from a moderately intense pleasure to a very intense one quite continuously, without any jump. The order that the pleasures of different degrees 5See also Stumpf (1928b, p. 68, n. 1) and Titchener (1908, p. 338 n. 5). 2.3. INDOLENCES 55 Figure 2.4: Hedonic square constitutes is presumably a continuous order. Strong and mild pleasantnesses are scalar opposites. Different degrees of pleasantness are incompatible: if x is pleasant to the degree n, it is not pleasant to the degree n+1. The different degrees of pleasantness are scalar opposites. 2.3 Indolences Following Berkeley (1998, First Dialogue), I shall call indolences the neutral opposites of pleasures. By indolence I mean a state of hedonic indifference. 'Indolence' is preferable to 'hedonic indifference' for the latter refers to an attitude and it should not be assumed at this stage that pleasure, unpleasure, and the mental episode that mediates between them are necessarily attitudes (whether pleasures are all intentional is a controversial issue, see part IV). A mental episode is an indolence only if it is neither an episode of pleasure nor an episode of unpleasure. A first question about indolences is whether we are ever in such states. I shall argue that we can be (2.3.1). A second question about indolences is whether such states are merely mental episodes that lack any algedonic property, or whether they are mental episodes exemplifying a sui generis property of being indolent. I shall argue that indolences do not exemplify any algedonic property (2.3.2). One last question about indolences is whether they are in the middle of the pleasant-unpleasant continuum, or rather stand closer to one of its ends. I shall argue that if there are higher and lower pleasures, indolences do not stand in the same place in the algedonic continua for all of them (2.3.2). 56 CHAPTER 2. PLEASURES AND THEIR OPPOSITES 2.3.1 Do indolences exist? Are there some mental episodes which are neither pleasant nor unpleasant? This question might sound uninteresting nowadays for its answer appears to be trivially positive. But this was not always so. The question was heavily debated at the end of the nineteenth century and most psychologists and philosophers at that time rejected indolences (Hamilton, 1882, vol. II, p. 433, Lotze, 1888, I, p. 242 sqq, also quoted by Brentano, Lipps–according to Fréchette, to appear–, Brentano, 1995, p. 147 sqq., who presents also the proponents of this view, Schlick, 1962, p. 37, Beebe-Center, 1965, p. 7). Bain (1859, p. 35), Mill (1869, chap. 17, p. 184)) and Külpe (1895, §36 pp. 242-3) were among the rare defenders of indolences6. Brentano (1995, p. 276) finally gives up his view that there are no idolences, as well as the claim that visual and auditive perceptions are never intrinsically pleasant or unpleasant. Here are two of the arguments put forward against indolences. 1. First, enemies of indolences insist all ordinary experiences are always experienced as either slightly pleasant or slightly unpleasant. "It cannot be denied, Brentano writes, that a certain faint feeling of pleasure is connected with a faint sensation of light" (Brentano, 1995, p. 150). Brentano's phenomenological intuition is not, however, uncontroversial. Pale neons are not even slightly pleasant, and considering all the faint lights we see without paying attention to them, it does not seems obvious that such unattended sensations are slight pleasures rather than indolences. I suggest that the intuition that sensations of light are pleasant might come from the contingent fact that they are usually attended to. Suppose it is true that: (a) to have one's attention caught, to be absorbed by something, is usually pleasant (Ryle, 1954 even suggests to define pleasure in these terms). 6Earlier on, Burke (1767, Part I, sect. II) clearly defended indolences against the view that pleasure is the negation of pain (see appendix C.2 on such views). Stout (1902, vol. 2 p. 288) grants that there can be indolences, but only after the impression of pleasantness or unpleasantness becomes faint due to habit. Note also that Stout clearly distinguishes between the question of whether some mental episodes are neither pleasant nor unpleasant from the question of whether our whole mental being, "our total consciousness", might be neither pleasurable nor unpleasurable (I am using my terminology). To this latter question he answers negatively. Sidgwick (1981, pp. 124-5) defends the existence of indolences, which he refers to as the "hedonistic zero", but urges that they do not constitute the "normal condition of our consciousness". Likewise Marshall (1894, pp. 57-8, 244-5) insists that states of indifference are seldom reached: our mental episodes are usually pleasant or unpleasant, but often to such a small degree that we do not notice it. 2.3. INDOLENCES 57 (b) our attention is usually caught by unusual things or episodes. (c) there are fewer lights than non-lights in our normal surroundings. These would entail that lights are pleasing insofar as they grab our attention. Lights that twinkle are even more pleasing, since even more attention-grabbing. The point is that this is all contingent. Suppose we were living in an environment made of phosphorescent objects, walls, grounds, etc. It might very well be that in such a world, our attention would be spontaneously attracted by the few non-phosphorescent objects. Suppose all these phosphorescent objects were twinkling constantly. Wouldn't a non-twinkling faded gray spot naturally catch our attention, and therefore be pleasing? Brentano indeed recognizes and insists on such contextual influences (Brentano, 1995, p. 152 sqq.). However, if the present hypothesis concerning attention is true, it suggests that unattended features of our environment are neither pleasing nor unpleasing, and that our perceptions of them are neither pleasant nor unpleasant. For while the view that having one's attention grabbed is a pleasant episode is plausible, the claim that inattentive mental episodes are unpleasant sounds very unlikely. It seems indeed that most of our beliefs or perceptual states bear on objects that do not catch our attention. If this attention hypothesis is true, indolences appear to be the rule rather than the exception. 2. Beebe-Center (1965, p. 7) presents an apparently more empirical argument against indolences: some subjects he studied consider some stimuli as indifferent, while still considering some of them as more pleasing than the others. This, according to him, shows that the concept indifference does not express a null point, but a range of slight pleasantnesses and slight unpleasantnesses. Note first that, by the same argument, one might very likely purport to show not only that indolences do not exist, but also that determinate degrees of pleasantness or unpleasantness do not exist. Such an argument however is a non-sequitur. That we tend to call 'indifferent' stimuli or sensations that are not so, does little to show that none are. It remains open, in particular, that among the stimuli or sensations we called indifferent, some are truly so. BeebeCenter observations show at best that our concept of a fully determinate state of indifference, or indolence, is not easily applied. It does not show that this concept is meaningless, nor that it is never correctly applied. These two arguments against indolences are therefore inconclusive. There is, however, an argument in favor of their existence. One reason to think that indolences 58 CHAPTER 2. PLEASURES AND THEIR OPPOSITES exist is that passing from the pleasant to the unpleasant, we have to pass through an hedonically neutral state7. We do not jump directly from the least pleasant to the least unpleasant. As a conceptual argument, (i.e. if "passing" means passing from the concept of pleasant to the concept of unpleasant) this shows at best that indolences are conceptually possible. It does not, however, prove that indolences are psychologically possible or actual. However, if "passing" is understood phenomenologically, that is, if there is indeed such an experienced transition from pleasure to unpleasure, this argument shows that there are some experienced indolences. Here are two examples. • The feeling of the hotness of the water, when entering the bath, is very pleasant. It becomes less and less pleasant with time, and sometimes becomes unpleasant when the water is too hot. Experiencing such a transition from pleasure to unpleasure, there might well be a time at which the feeling of the hotness of the water is not presented as pleasant or unpleasant. • The first hearing of a simple melody might be pleasant, the second one a bit less pleasant, and the melody might be heard so many times that its hearing becomes in the end very unpleasant. Between the first pleasant hearing and the last unpleasant one, there might have been a hearing of the melody which was indifferent. The claim here is not that we necessarily pass through such a state of indolence, when passing from pleasure to unpleasure. We might sometimes jump from pleasure to unpleasure. The point, rather, is that it would be ad hoc to claim that this is necessarily the case. As an answer, Brentano grants that there are specific states of indifference between pleasures and unpleasures, but he claims that such indolences are not to be construed as episodes which are neither pleasant nor unpleasant. Indolences, he says, are better conceived of as episodes which are both pleasant and unpleasant to the same extent. I myself am very doubtful whether [. . . ] the sensations which occur between decidedly pleasant and decidedly unpleasant sensations should not rather be described (in accord with John Stuart Mill) as sensations which contain a mixture of pleasure and displeasure such that neither of them is predominant over the other. (Brentano, 1995, p. 149, see also p. 151) 7See Sidgwick (1981, p. 125) for a version of this argument. A specific version of it was put forward by Wundt, see Brentano (1995, p. 149). 2.3. INDOLENCES 59 Traveling in experience from pleasantness to unpleasantness we never pass through a state devoid of pleasantness and unpleasantness, but only through a state of mixed feeling, in which pleasantness and unpleasantness compensate each other. Brentano might appear here to be denying the contrariety of pleasantness and unpleasantness, but this is ultimately not the case. His claim is that, traveling from the pleasant to the unpleasant it is not the very same sensation that is both pleasant and unpleasant at once, but different concomitant sensations. He gives the following example: sensations of light or brightness are even more pleasant when they are intense, but looking at the sun is painful. It would be a mistake, he claims, to think that the same sensation of light that was pleasant suddenly becomes painful. The pain we experience when looking at the sun qualifies a sensation which is distinct from the sensation of brightness, which remains pleasant. Brentano's view is therefore that although all component mental episodes are either pleasures or unpleasures, some resultant episodes, made up of several component pleasures and unpleasures, might be indolent, not in the sense of being neither pleasant nor unpleasant, but in the sense of containing as much pleasantness as unpleasantness (see Appendix F on component and resultant pleasures). I agree with Brentano that it is not the sensation of light which is unpleasant when we look towards the sun, and that in such cases one might never be in an indolent state: we rather have first an increasingly pleasant mental episode, which falls into the background of our consciousness or attention when an intense pain enters the scene. The point, however, is that this is not always so: when the same sensation ceases to be pleasant and becomes unpleasant, there is very likely a transitory episode in which it is indolent. One should in any event not conflate the question of whether our overall algedonic balance might sometimes be null (see again Appendix F) with the present question of whether one's particular mental episodes might be neither pleasant, nor unpleasant. I have argued here that they might be. 2.3.2 Are indolences sui generis algedonic episodes? One puzzling question is whether indolences correspond to some positive, in the sense of sui generis, episodes, or whether they are only characterized negatively as episodes lacking both pleasantness and unpleasantness. Pleasantness and unpleasantness, the essential properties of pleasures and unpleasures, are usually though to be positive/sui generis properties (see however "no-pain" theories of pleasure on p. C.2). Do indolences in the same way have to possess a positive/sui generis property of indolentness, or is it enough for them to be neither pleasant nor unpleasant? Marshall (1894, p. 46) and Beebe-Center (1965, pp. 6-7) are among the few authors who 60 CHAPTER 2. PLEASURES AND THEIR OPPOSITES mention that problem (Mulligan, 1991, §4 compares Meinong's and Wittgenstein's positions on this issue; Balashov, 1999 discusses this problem in the area of physical quantities). To put it another way: we can pass from the very pleasant to the moderately pleasant. Are such steps of the same kind as the one between the slightly pleasant and the indolent? Travelling from the pleasant to the unpleasant, do we stay on the same algedonic continuum, or must we at some point step outside the hedonic continuum while not yet having stepped into the algesic one? Is there anything like an algedonic continuum or is the qualitative space of pleasure and unpleasure gappy in the middle? If something weights 0 kilos, it has no weight (admittedly, but see Balashov, 1999). If something has a temperature of 0°C it has a temperature. Is pleasure like weight or like temperature? Is indolence not an algedonic state, or is it an algedonic state of degree 0? I shall argue that indolence is an absence of pleasure and pain by rejecting two arguments in favor of the view that indolences are sui generis algedonic states. 1. The first argument goes as follows: P1 Pleasantness and unpleasantness belong to the same natural kind (i.e. algedonic kind). P2 What unifies the different degrees of pleasantness-unpleasantness is the fact that one can pass from any degree of pleasantness-unpleasantness to any other one by a succession of continuous transitions. C Indolentness is a sui generis property (otherwise the transition form any degree of pleasantness to any degree of unpleasantness could not be continuous) The argument relies on the idea that different determinate properties fall under the same determinable only if they are path-connected. Thus it has been claimed that what unifies all the determinate phenomenal colors together is that one can travel from any determinate color shade to any other by a succession of continuuous gradations, i.e. of indiscriminable or "matching" steps (Helmholtz, 1995, p. 345, Carnap, 2002, p. 171, Goodman, 2004, p. 43, Clark, 1993, p. 140). If true, we have either to give up the claim that pleasantness and unpleasantness fall under the same bona fide determinable, or to accept that indolentness is a sui generis algedonic property. Given that I want to maintain both that pleasantness and unpleasantness belong to the same bona fide determinable, and that indolences are not sui generis algedonic 2.3. INDOLENCES 61 states, I have to reject this way of unifying different degrees of pleasure and unpleasure in a single quality space. One important reason for believing that this cannot be the only way to construe determinable properties is that such a strategy applies only to phenomenal determinables, i.e. qualities, such as colors, sounds, and maybe pleasures; for "Matching", or "indiscrimination" are psychological concepts. Certainly, different weights or temperatures have something in common independently of our apprehending them. Some have claimed alternatively that determinates of a same determinable are unified in virtue of possessing a common sui generis property, the determinable property itself. (Fales, 1990, chap. 9, Elder, 1996, Johansson, 20008). I think that such theories are doomed to failure for the following reason. One distinctive feature of determinate properties falling under a determinable is that what distinguishes them from each other is the very same thing that makes them akin to each other. It is not as if we could separate here the questions of the unity and diversity of determinate properties (a point rightly emphasised by Johnson, 1964, chap. XI). Their unity-maker and their diversity-maker are not distinct. Now if determinables are equated with sui generis properties shared by all determinates falling under them, what all colors have in common is to be related to this single determinable property of being colored (that relation might be exemplification, inherence, constitution, participation...the issue can be left open here). This determinable property is, ex hypothesis, exactly the same for each phenomenal color: it does not vary (if it did, the need to explain the unity of colors would recur). Therefore according to this view, what distinguishes determinate colors from each other is not their being colors. But what then? The diversity-maker of colors becomes utterly mysterious. In order to get a grip on it, we should be able to abstract the being colored of redness and to contemplate what's left. That remainder would distinguish redness from yellowness. Such a proposal is deeply implausible9. If the unityand diversity-makers of determinates falling under a same determinable are not distinct, the most natural way to go, and maybe the only one, is to claim that determinates enter into brute relations of inexact resemblance. I shall here assume that determinates belong to the same determinable in virtue of exemplifying a relation of objective inexact resemblance10. Consequently, there is no need to 8Sprigge (1988, p. 137) assumes this existence of such determinable universals in his theory of pleasantness as a determinable property. 9The proposal in Armstrong (1978, 1997, chap. 4), according to which determinables are to be explained in terms of partial identities between determinates, might face the same worry in the end. 10Rodriguez-Pereyra (2002, p. 49) comes close to such a view, I have tried to defend it in Massin (2010, 3.3.1.). 62 CHAPTER 2. PLEASURES AND THEIR OPPOSITES rely on a psychological relation of matching or indiscrimination to ensure that pleasures of different intensities are all pleasures. For instance, the less intense degree of pleasantness and the less intense degree of unpleasantness resemble each other more than they resemble, say, a color or color sensation. According to such a construal of determinables, in terms of raw resemblance between qualities, the space of qualities might be gappy: qualities on both side of the quality-break might still inexactly resemble each other. No path-connectedness between them is required. That the space of pleasantness/unpleasantness is gappy therefore poses no threat to its unity. 2. The second argument in favor of the view that indolentness is a sui generis property rather than a lack of pleasantness-unpleasantness is that it is not the case that any entity that lacks both pleasantness and unpleasantness is an indolence. Numbers, neutrinos, and knobs of butter are neither pleasant nor unpleasant. But they are not indolences. Thus, one should refine the view that indolences are things which are neither pleasant nor unpleasant. Indolentness is indeed a lack of a property, but a lack of a particuliar kind. Indolences are things that are neither pleasant nor unpleasant but that could be so, i.e. that are of the same category as pleasures and unpleasures. The predicates 'indolent', 'pleasant' and 'unpleasant' must have the same range. This amounts to saying that indolentness is not only incompatible with pleasantness and unpleasantness, but contrary to them, given that contrariety entails categorial homogeneity ( 2.1.1 page 46). I have assumed that pleasantness and unpleasantness accrue to mental episodes only ( 1.1.1 page 22). If so, indolences can be defined as follows: indolence: x is an indolence =df x is neither pleasant nor unpleasant and x is a mental episode. Indolentness is, in conclusion, not a positive/sui generis property but merely the lack of pleasantness and unpleasantness. However, not all entities that lack pleasantness and unpleasantness are indolences, for not all of those entities are of the type of entities that could be pleasures or unpleasures. All and only mental episodes that are neither pleasant nor unpleasant are indolences. 2.3.3 Are indolences in the middle of the algedonic continuum? One last and even more rarely raised question is whether indolences lie in the middle of the algedonic continuum. Roughly, is there more pleasure on their left, more unpleasure on their right, or an equal amount of each? The pessimist has it that the worst pains have no counterpart on the hedonic side. The optimist, on the 2.3. INDOLENCES 63 contrary, takes it that no pain might ever counterbalance an intense joy. A more subtle optimist answer is suggested by Hartmann (1932, vol. 2, pp. 464 sqq.). Hartmann does not speak about indolences, however, but about the indifferencepoint in value scales. Hartmann subscribes to the view that some value-types are higher than others (height of values characterizes types of value –moral, aesthetic...– and should not be confused with degrees of values which characterize determinate values of a type). The higher a type of value is, Hartmann claims, the closer the difference point will be to the positive value: In the case of the higher values the whole scale lies more above, in the case of the lower more below the indifference-point.(Hartmann, 1932, vol. 2, p. 468)11. This suggestion is easily transposed to the algedonic realm if one recalls the distinction between higher and lower pleasures introduced, among others, by qualitative hedonists (see (1.3.2) and Appendix B). The idea is that the higher the pleasures are, the closer to the most intense pleasure the indolence is (and correlatively, the lower a pleasure is, the closer to the most intense unpleasure the indolence is). If lower pleasures are bodily pleasures, the worst physical pain would have no counterpart on the pleasure side. If higher pleasures are pleasure of the mind, the most pleasant reading would have no unpleasant counterpart. The higher the pleasures are, the closer to the most intense pleasures indolences stand. I neither intend nor need to defend that claim here, but it seems like a plausible view. (Note that it is no objection to that view that it is morally better to spare intense unpleasure to 11Hartmann gives the following examples in support of his view: Dishonesty (stealing, for example) is criminal; honesty, on the other hand, attains only to the height of what is merely approved, that is, it almost coincides with the indifference-point, rising above it only to the lowest degree. Lying is dishonourable, but not criminal; but sincerity deserves a far more positive recognition. An unloving disposition is by no means dishonourable, still it is morally of no value, while neighbourly love compels respect. [. . . ] Indifference to the destiny and future of mankind can scarcely be called a vice [. . . ] universal love, on the other hand [. . . ] is something directly heroic and merits admiration. Finally, the absence of the virtue which dispenses spiritual value is manifestly no moral delinquency, but its presence influences others like a kind of moral perfection. If we compare the last two scales with the first, we clearly see the extreme positions towards valuational indifference reversed. With honesty almost the whole scale lies below the zero-point, the value scarcely rises above it; with universal love and radiant virtue almost the whole scale lies above indifference, the corresponding disvalue scarcely below it.(Hartmann, 1932, vol. 2, p. 467) 64 CHAPTER 2. PLEASURES AND THEIR OPPOSITES somebody than to cause intense pleasure to somebody. That unpleasures are morally more compelling than pleasures does not entail the pessimistic conclusion that unpleasures are, on the whole, more unpleasant than pleasures are pleasant). Part II Pleasures and their value

Do all pleasures (pleasure being understood in the generic sense) have something in common apart from being called "pleasures"? This is the heterogeneity problem. The view defended in this second part is that they do, and that pleasantness, the essential property of all pleasures, is a value: hedonic goodness. Whether this hedonic value is a primitive thick value, or whether it is reducible to thin value plus some differentia is an issue that will not be addressed in this part, but in the following one. The view that pleasantness is a value is dubbed the Axiological Theory of Pleasure (ATP). Chapter 3 fleshes out the ATP, and some of its mains problems and implications. Chapter 4 presents arguments in its favor. 68 Chapter 3 Pleasantness as a value The goal of this chapter is to present in more detail the view that pleasantness is a value and work out its implications. Section 3.1 introduces the Axiological theory of pleasure. Section 3.2 contrasts the ATP with the more standard view according to which pleasures are necessarily good. Section 3.3 addresses a potential worry for the ATP: does the value of pleasure have any supervenience basis or is it an ungrounded property? Section 3.4, finally, draws some consequences of the ATP for reductionists – and in particular buck-passing – accounts of value. 3.1 The Axiological Theory of Pleasure (ATP) 3.1.1 Presentation Pleasantness is a positive value: hedonic goodness. Unpleasantness is a negative value: hedonic badness. The differentia or hallmark of pleasure, the property that all and only pleasures share, is a value. This, in a nutshell, is the axiological theory of pleasure (ATP). I do not claim originality in equating pleasantness with hedonic value. This view is put forward by Meinong (1972, pp. 91, 95, see also Kalsi's Introduction p. liv.), Scheler (1973a, p. 105)1 Hartmann (1932, vol. 1, pp. 131-2, vol. 2 p. 160)2 Von Wright (1963b, chap. 4), Goldstein (1989, 2000), Mendola (1990), Rachels (2000), Mulligan (2009a). Here are some explicit statements of this view: 1Scheler for instance identifies agreeableness or pleasantness (angenehm) with a value, a sensory value (see also Scheler, 1973a, p. 97). 2Hartmann indeed says that happiness is a value. But happiness includes for him "pleasure, satisfaction, joy, blessedness". Hartmann's happiness is close to our inclusive concept of pleasure. 69 70 CHAPTER 3. PLEASANTNESS AS A VALUE Is pleasure a value-concept or is it a psychological concept? The question is related to the problem of whether pleasantness is a 'natural' or a 'non-natural' characteristic of things and states.(Von Wright, 1963b, p. 7) Most writers in the past regard pleasure as either some kind of sensation or as something between sensation and emotion. Moore, Broad, and the non-naturalists in general take it for granted that pleasantness is a 'naturalistic' attribute of things and states and not an axiological term. This, I think, is a bad mistake. (Von Wright, 1963b, p. 63)3 Appreciating its value and understanding what pleasure is are not independent projects. Intrinsic goodness is not merely incidental to pleasure; I suggest it is fundamental to what makes an experience pleasure. (Goldstein, 1989, p. 273). "unpleasure" is evaluative. (Rachels, 2000, p. 198) Pleasantnesses, we may say, are hedonic values.(Mulligan, 2009a, p. 493) These authors however, typically mention favorably the ATP without laying it out in full detail. For this reason probably, the ATP has not yet entered the inner circle of standardly assessed theories of pleasures, together with, for instance, the motivational, the distinctive-feeling, or the hedonic tone theories. This chapter seeks to give a fully fledged version of the ATP, by contrasting it with the standard view about the value of pleasures, addressing one of its main issue (the supervenience basis of hedonic goodness), and drawing one of its main consequences for valuereductionism. Let us try first to give a precise definition of the ATP. Like most good things, pleasures are not evaluative through and through: their value is only one of their essential constituents. The other constituent of a pleasure, the bearer of hedonic goodness, is the mental episode. Pleasures are mental episodes that exemplify hedonic values. Although pleasures are mental episodes, their hedonic goodness is not itself mental: it is a non-mental, axiological property of a mental episode. Axiological Theory of Pleasure (ATP): x is a pleasure=df x is a mental episode that exemplifies an hedonic value. 3See also: The pleasant, pleasure, we have called a form of the good or of goodness. (Von Wright, 1963b, p. 85) 3.1. THE AXIOLOGICAL THEORY OF PLEASURE (ATP) 71 Figure 3.1: A pleasure, according to the ATP Hedonic goodness is a thick property: if x is pleasant (i.e. hedonically good) then it is valuable, but not everything valuable is pleasant. Whether hedonic goodness can be analyzed is an issue to be left open at this stage, but at least one option should be dismissed here: hedonic goodness is not an instrumental value. Pleasure's nature does not consist in its being conducive to other things of (more) basic value. Pleasure is not essentially a tool or instrument which furthers our survival4, happiness, morality, or whatever other ends can be ascribed to it. It might indeed serve some of these purposes, but if it does so, this is in virtue of what it is. That the value of pleasure is non-instrumental is often expressed by saying that pleasure is intrinsically good. Perhaps a better way of expressing the same idea is to claim that pleasure is finally good. This is the expression I shall retain here: hedonic goodness is a final value. More will have to be said later on what exactly this claim amounts to (see 6 page 147), but for the purposes of this chapter, the rough idea that hedonic goodness is a final value, in the sense of being a non-instrumental value, is sufficient. According to the ATP, a pleasure has the structure represented in fig 3.1. Not all the authors mentioned above will agree with such a definition of the ATP. As mentioned page 29, Von Wright not only equates pleasantness with hedonic goodness, but he also regularly equates hedonic goodness and pleasantness with pleasure (see e.g. Von Wright, 1963b, pp. 63, 68, 73). In his theory, a pleasure does not correspond to the whole schema above, but only to one part of it: hedonic value. In stark contrast, I am here equating pleasure with the whole schema, i.e. with mental episodes exemplifying an hedonic value. 4A view of this kind has been recently defended by Pianalto (2009). See Taylor (2010) for an answer. 72 CHAPTER 3. PLEASANTNESS AS A VALUE 3.1.2 Hedonic goodness as a dependent part of pleasures One should carefully distinguish between (i) the pleasure episode, which corresponds to the whole schema, i.e. to the hedonically good mental episode and (ii) the simple mental episode which is only a part of the whole pleasure. The relation between pleasantness, i.e. the hedonic value, and the pleasure episode is of a very different kind than the relation between pleasantness and the simple mental episode. Hedonic value is accidentally (i.e. non-essentially) exemplified by the mental episode, but is exemplified essentially by the pleasure.5 It is indeed unclear whether we are dealing here with one single relation of exemplification that covers both relations. Instead of there being two ways of having a property (accidentally or essentially), there might be two distinct relations that should be clearly flagged as such (see Wilson, 2011 for a suggestion of this kind). Here is a short argument for that claim. Suppose some simple material thing exemplifies redness. Consider then the whole complex of the thing-exemplifiying-redness –a state of affairs. If that complex were to exemplify redness as well, redness would be exemplified twice: once by the thing (a constituent of the state of affairs) and once by the state of affairs. Surely this is wrong: there is only one exemplification of redness there. The same holds for pleasantness: assuming hedonic value is exemplified by the simple mental episode constituting a pleasure, it is not exemplified a second time by the whole pleasure. The "is" in "A perception is pleasant" is not the same "is" as in "A pleasure is pleasant". It is not part of what a perception is to be pleasant; but it is part of what a pleasure is to be pleasant. In order to pinpoint this difference, I shall reserve the term "exemplification" to designate the relation between a thing and its accidental properties and I shall call "containment" the relation between a thing and its essential properties. exemplification: the relation between a thing and its accidental properties. containment: the relation between a thing and its essential properties. A thing exemplifies its accidental properties, but contains its essential ones. One incentive for speaking of "containment" here is that there appear to be a close relation between essentiality and parthood. The classical view on this topic is mereological essentialism: mereological essentialism: if x is a part of y, then x is essential to y. 5See Duncker (1941, p. 400) for a similar remark: in his terminology pleasantness (i.e. hedonic goodness according to the ATP) is an attribute of pleasure, but only an accidental property of mental episodes. 3.1. THE AXIOLOGICAL THEORY OF PLEASURE (ATP) 73 What one needs here however, in order to vindicate the claim that essential properties are contained in their bearers, is the dual of mereological essentialism, which might be called essential mereologism: essential mereologism: if x is essential to y, then x is a part of y. According to essential mereologism, if hedonic goodness is essential to each pleasure, then it is a part of each pleasure. Essential mereologism is less discussed than mereological essentialism, but is arguably a very intuitive view as soon as we allow for mereological talk in the realm of essence (see A.2.2 page 288). It would have been odd to claim that hedonic goodness is essential to pleasures while denying that it is a constituent of them. The ATP, as understood here, follows our intuition: the goodness of pleasures is an essential part of them. One possible worry here is that hedonic value cannot be properly said to be a part of pleasure in the standard mereological sense because it is dependent or inseparable from the mental episode it qualifies. I shall here however assume that there are dependent or inseparable parts (following especially Husserl, 1970, LI III, Smith and Mulligan, 1982). Hedonic goodness is a dependent part of pleasures: hedonic goodness is a value, values are properties and properties are dependent on their bearers (see page 31). I shall leave it open whether the hedonic goodness of a pleasure is a universal or a trope (i.e. whether all pleasures share a single common pleasantness-part or have each their own pleasantness-part)6. The other part of a pleasure is the simple mental episode that exemplifies hedonic goodness. The bearer or exemplifier of hedonic goodness is that simple mental episode, it is not the whole pleasure7. Accordingly, the ATP claims that a pleasure contains an hedonic value, as an essential constituent or part, but does not strictly speaking exemplify it. A pleasure, to repeat, is identical to the complex: [a mental episode exemplifying an hedonic value]. 6One might think that if goodness is a part of pleasure, then it cannot be a universal. This view suggested by Hochberg (1962)'s interpretation of Moore, who denies that values, contrary to natural properties are parts of their bearers (Moore, 1993, p. 93) –see Mulligan (2009d) for a presentation. I do not think that upholders of universals would agree. In Armstrong's metaphysics, universals are wholly present in states of affairs, and are said to be constituents of them. True, the mode of composition of states of affairs is also said to be non-mereological (Armstrong, 1997, pp. 119-123), but, in the present terminology, this is due precisely to the fact that universals are dependent parts of states of affairs. 7The mental episode is a natural part of a pleasure, and it is arguably not necessarily a dependent part (some mental episodes might be independent of any other ones). 74 CHAPTER 3. PLEASANTNESS AS A VALUE 3.1.3 Pleasures as goods A pleasure, on the whole, has therefore two essential parts or constituents according to the ATP: a natural independent part (the mental episode) and an axiological part depending on its natural part (hedonic goodness). This mixed nature of pleasures, which contain two essential parts intermingled with each other, one natural the other axiological, makes them belong to the category of goods. I shall here assume, following Scheler, that goods are less fundamental than values: a good is the whole complex of a natural thing exemplifying a value. Goods are, according to their essence, things of value [Wertdinge]. (Scheler, 1973a, p. 9) The mental episode that exemplifies hedonic goodness is no more a good than it is a pleasure, because that mental episode is not essentially of hedonic value. This is not to say that it is only contingently hedonically good. This might be the case, but need not be so: maybe some mental episodes are necessarily hedonically good. But that does not yet make them goods (nor pleasures) as long as this necessary value remains accidental –i.e. non-essential– to them (I come back to the distinction between necessary and essential values in 3.2.1 page 77). Such mental episodes are what they are (beliefs, desires, expectations, perceptions...) independently of the hedonic goodness they happen to exemplify. They are not pleasures. On the other hand, a pleasure, that is, the whole state of affairs of a-mentalepisode-exemplifiying-goodness is a good. Its value is not accidental to it, but part of what it is. While hedonic goodness accrues to the mental episode constitutive of pleasure so to speak from the outside, it accrues to pleasure from the inside: according to the essence of a good, its value does not appear to be situated on a thing; on the contrary, goods are thoroughly permeated by values. (Scheler, 1973a, p. 22) Pleasures are goods permeated by hedonic values. Note that some might agree with the literal claim that pleasures are goods while rejecting that part of their essence is to be good. The main way to do so is to endorse some kind of axiological nominalism, according to which values are classes of goods. If goods are more fundamental than values, then to claim that pleasures are goods no longer entails that they are made up of values. Quite the contrary: hedonic values would be made up of pleasures.8 This is not however the conception 8The view that goods are prior to values appears to have been assumed by Aristotle, who indeed seems to neglect the category of value altogether (see Scheler, 1973a, p. xxviii). 3.1. THE AXIOLOGICAL THEORY OF PLEASURE (ATP) 75 of goods retained here: values come first, goods are derived from them. Accordingly, claiming that pleasures are goods does entail that pleasures have hedonic values as essential constituents. The view that pleasures are goods, made up of values, might be thought to be incompatible with the immanent realism about values I have assumed so far. Such a realism has it that values exist only when they are exemplified. There are no unexemplified values. There are two reasons which might be given for thinking that axiological immanent realism threatens the view that pleasures are goods. • First, immanent realism about values seems to make values dependent on goods, while according to the view on goods defended here, values are more fundamental than goods. This worry is easily met as soon as one distinguishes essential dependence from existential dependence (see Appendix A.2 page 286). Immanent realism about values is a claim about their existential dependence. Values depend for their existence, but not for their nature, on goods (see Lowe, 2006, p. 62 for the same point about all universals). No values can exist outside of a good, but values would still be what they are if they were not exemplified. Goods, on the other hand, depend not only existentially but also essentially on values: no good can exist without a value as a constituent, but also, no good can ever be the good it is without this value as a constituent. • Second, immanent realism about values seems to preclude non-actual goods, while such goods are needed, notably to explain motivation. We aim at goods, we desire that some possible goods become real. For instance, psychological hedonism claims that having pleasures is the only thing that one can intrinsically desire (see page 37). But the objects of desires are usually, if not necessarily, not actual (see page 109). If some goods are not actual, and if goods are analyzed in terms of values, then, it seems, some values are not exemplified. The answer to this worry is to part ways with standard immanent realism about properties, as it is endorsed by Aristotle, Armstrong (1978, 1989, 1997), Johansson (2004) and Lowe (2006). Immanent realists usually assume that in order for a property to be exemplified, it has to be exemplified by an existing bearer. But between the Platonic claim that unexemplified properties exist, and the Aristotelian claim that properties exist only when exemplified by some existing bearers, there is perhaps room for an intermediate claim: properties exist only when exemplified by some existing or non-existing, bearers. Consider the following cases: 76 CHAPTER 3. PLEASANTNESS AS A VALUE 1. Unexemplified redness. 2. Redness exemplified by Santa Claus. 3. Redness exemplified by a real ladybird. There is certainly a distinction between 2. on the one hand, and 1. and 3. on the other: Santa Claus' redness is neither an unexemplified property, nor a property exemplified by a real bearer. It is a property which is indeed exemplified, but by a non-existing bearer. My suggestion is that, as far as value properties are concerned, such exemplifications are sufficient for values to exist: values depend existentially (and generically) on some bearers, whether or not those bearers actually exist. Santa Claus does not exist, but his generosity does. Consequently, when we desire that some goods become actual, though those goods do not actually exist (yet), goodness is already exemplified in these goods. On the whole, the axiological immanent realism subscribed to in this work might then be defined as follows: Axiological immanent realism: all values depend existentially and generically on some bearer(s), which might, or might not, actually exist. On this basis, one might subscribe to the set of views that pleasures are goods, that values are essential to goods, that all values are exemplified, and that some goods do not actually exist. 3.1.4 Mental episodes as bearers of value One implication of the ATP is that mental episodes can be bearers of values. That mental episodes or acts can be bearers of values is explicitly claimed by Scheler (1973a, pp. 92, 101) and Shand (1918, II). If mental episodes are neither facts nor states of affairs, the ATP is incompatible with the view that only facts or states of affairs can be the bearers of values9. Because the ATP identifies pleasantness with hedonic goodness, it cannot say that hedonic goodness accrues to the fact that a mental episode is pleasant. This option is open to any other theory that distinguishes pleasure's value from pleasure's nature: such theories can say that hedonic value accrues to the fact that one's mental episodes are pleasant.10 9See Meinong (according to Chisholm, 1982, p. 81), Ross (2002, pp. 112 sqq.), Chisholm (1968), Zimmerman (2001, chap. 3), Lemos (1994, chap. 2) for different versions of that view. 10'pleasantness-qualifying-my-present-experience is good' to take up Baylis expression quoted in Hall (1961, p. 21). 3.2. PLEASURE'S GOODNESS: THE ATP VS. THE STANDARD VIEW 77 If one really wants to maintain the idea that only facts can be bearers of values, one might embrace a close cousin of the ATP according to which hedonic goodness accrues not to mental episodes, but to the having of some mental episodes. Hedonic goodness would accrue directly to the fact that one has certain mental episodes. That way, pleasantness no longer figures in the bearers of hedonic values, which are still facts. Despite this advantage, such a view puts the cart before the horse: if it is hedonically good to have certain mental episodes, it is because those episodes are hedonically good, not the reverse. I shall therefore reject that close cousin of the ATP. It might nonetheless remain the best strategy for those sticking with the thesis that only facts can be good or bad. As for the ATP defended here, I shall simply assume that the view that only facts or states of affairs are bearers of values is false11. As it stands, the ATP is a fairly flexible theory. It comes in many different versions, depending on the way one conceives of hedonic value and of mental episodes. I shall argue in chapter 5 that hedonic value is analyzable in terms of the personal and final value of mental episodes, and in chapters 8 and 10 that mental episodes are intentional episodes. Even if such claims are wrong, the ATP might still be true. 3.2 Pleasure's goodness: the ATP vs. the standard view In this section I try to clarify the relation between the axiological theory of pleasure and the more common claim according to which pleasure is finally good. 3.2.1 Necessary vs. essential values What is the relation between the present definition of pleasure and the more common view that pleasure is finally (i.e. non-instrumentally) good? The ATP entails that pleasures are finally good, but the reverse does not hold: indeed, most philosophers who claim that pleasures are finally good do not define pleasures in axiological terms. What they claim is that pleasure is finally good, and necessarily so, but that this goodness does not enter into the very nature of pleasure. Rather, hedonic goodness supervenes on pleasantness, construed as a natural (classically psychological) property. In this context supervenience is usually understood as embedding an explanatory relation: the final value of pleasure not only supervenes on pleasantness 11I am here siding with Rescher (1969, p. 8), Anderson (1995, p. 20), Rabinowicz and RønnowRasmussen (2000, 2003), Rønnow-Rasmussen (2002a), and Mulligan (2009d). 78 CHAPTER 3. PLEASANTNESS AS A VALUE but is also explained by it: pleasures are finally and necessarily good in virtue of their pleasantness. For the standard view, pleasures are good in virtue of what they are; for the ATP, pleasures are what they are in virtue of being good. Fig. 3.2 represents the structure of the standard view about the value of pleasure. Incidentally, claiming that the hedonic value supervenes on pleasantness allows the standard view to give a simple analysis of hedonic goodness: hedonic goodness is thin goodness accruing to pleasure. Figure 3.2: Standard view of the value of pleasure Isn't it contradictory for the standard view to maintain that pleasure is necessarily but not essentially good? No, the standard view about the value of pleasure relies, though most often implicitly, on the distinction between necessary and essential properties. Not all properties that something has by necessity are essential properties (Fine, 1994). Paul is necessarily distinct from an orange, but is not essentially so (it is not part of the definition of Paul that he is not an orange, it just follows from the definition of Paul, of oranges, and of being distinct). In the same way, the standard approach to the value of pleasures claims that it is not part of the nature of pleasures to have intrinsic value. Zangwill makes that point clearly for pain (see also Fine's quote page suivante): There is a metaphysical necessity linking pain to badness, even though there is no essential tie. Pain necessitates (or suffice for) badness even though it is not part of pain's essence (or nature or being or identity) to be bad.(Zangwill, 2005, p. 127) 3.2. PLEASURE'S GOODNESS: THE ATP VS. THE STANDARD VIEW 79 Assuming that pain is a contrary of pleasure (see 2.2 page 52), this is where the axiological definition of pleasure departs from the standard view of the value of pleasure: both agree that pleasure is necessarily good, but only the axiological definition of pleasure claims that pleasure is essentially good. The distinction between necessary and essential properties is indeed implicit in most attributions of final value. People who claim that knowledge is necessarily good do not want to claim that knowledge is an evaluative thing. The same goes for life, health, Mona Lisa, and so on. The strategy of including the values of things in their nature is, I think, relevant in the case of pleasure, but I do not want to suggest that we should pursue this line of thought in all cases of necessary intrinsic values. Assuming the following have final values, there is certainly a contrast between a person, a state of knowledge and a chair on the one hand, and an injustice, a chefd'oeuvre, and a coward on the other. The standard view holds pleasures to belong to the first list. The axiological view has it that they belong to the second. Accordingly, I shall define the standard view about the value of pleasures in the following way: standard view about the value of pleasures: the final value of pleasures supervenes on their pleasantness, which is a natural (=non-axiological) property. Pleasures are necessarily, but not essentially, good. 3.2.2 Ways of being necessarily good What is the kind of necessity in virtue of which the nature of pleasures necessitates the value of pleasures, according to the standard view? There appears to be two options: 1. A first option is to introduce a new sui generis kind of necessity, normative necessity, distinct from ordinary metaphysical necessity. This strategy is defended by Fine (2002), for whom normative necessity is the kind of necessity in virtue of which the normative supervenes on the natural. Though some natural things are necessarily good or bad, this is not so in virtue of their essence. Relying on Fine's approach, the standard view about the value of pleasures claims that pleasures normatively necessitate their being good. Fine himself subscribes to the standard view of the value of pleasures (assuming that he holds pain to be a contrary of pleasure, see 2.2 page 52): If metaphysical necessity is taken to be that form of necessity that derives from the nature of things, then it is prima facie highly 80 CHAPTER 3. PLEASANTNESS AS A VALUE implausible that the necessary connection between the naturalistic and normative features of a given situation should be taken to be metaphysical. For there would appear to be nothing in the identity of the naturalistic or normative features that demands that they be connected in the way they are. It is no part of what it is to be pain that it should be bad and no part of what it is to be bad that it should include pain. (Fine, 2002, p. 252, my emphasis). The axiological view of pleasures defended here takes the opposite view: it is part of what it is to be a pleasure to be good. Therefore, according to the axiological theory, and to take up Fine's terminology, pleasures are good as a matter of metaphysical rather that normative necessity12. But let us stick for the moment to the question of what the upholder of the standard view should say about the relation between the nature and the value of pleasures. Appealing to sui generis normative necessity is problematic. Metaphysical necessity flows from the natures of things (Fine, 1994, p. 9). By contrast, normative necessity appears utterly ungrounded. There is nothing it stems from: it is a kind of free-floating necessity that happens to relate nonaxiological to axiological properties13. Whoever subscribes to Fine's project in 12Mulligan (2009d) raises a structurally similar objection to Fine's account of promises: according to Mulligan, promises impose an obligation to keep them in virtue of their nature, i.e. metaphysically, rather than normatively (in this paper, Mulligan seems, however, to grant Fine's account of the value of pain). I am claiming that what holds true for promises and their correlated obligations also holds true for pleasures and their value: they are metaphysically rather than normatively linked. The analogy between pleasure and its value, on the one hand, and promise and obligation, on the other, is explicitly made by Audi (2004, p. 127). 13At the end of his paper, Fine suggests that while the source of metaphysical necessity is the identity of things, the source of normative necessity is the normative order. The only way to make sense of this suggestion, it seems to me, is to claim that normative necessity stems from the identity of normative things, which would make it a kind of metaphysical necessity. One should here distinguish between: (a) the necessity within then normative sphere (i.e. between normative things) . (b) the necessity between natural and normative things. The first one, according to the present proposal, is grounded in the essence of normative things; the second one is grounded in the essence of natural things and of normative things. If pleasure is necessarily good, this is in virtue of what pleasure is and in virtue of what goodness is. Fine is right that no natural thing, per se, demands to be connected in the way it is with normative things; and he is also right that no normative thing, per se, demands to to be connected with natural things in the way it is. But natural things and normative things, together, demand to be connected with each other in the way they are. 3.2. PLEASURE'S GOODNESS: THE ATP VS. THE STANDARD VIEW 81 1994 project to ground necessity on essence should resist Fine's introduction of normative necessity in 2002. 2. Is there then any room left for the standard view of the value of pleasures? If all necessity is metaphysical, and all metaphysical necessity is grounded on essence, there is no option left but to admit that pleasures are good in virtue of their essence. If so, pleasures are essentially good: giving up normative necessity leads to the axiological view of pleasures, or so it seems. I do not think this alternative between normative necessity and the ATP holds: as I said, the axiological view of pleasures should not be defended at the price of rendering knowledge or life normative entities. In other words, the truth of the axiological view of pleasures should not rely on the alleged untenability of necessary but non-essential properties. My proposal on behalf of the standard view goes as follows. Rather than distinguishing two kinds of necessity, metaphysical and normative, one should distinguish two kinds of metaphysical necessity, which one might call internal and external. The distinction is seen when comparing these two locutions: A (part of) the essence of x is to be F B x is F in virtue of its essence Claims of type A tell us what x 's essence is. Claims of type B are ambiguous. On one interpretation, they boil down to claims of type A: to say that humans are rational in virtue of their essence amount to saying that humans are essentially rational, i.e. that (part of) their essence is to be rational. But there is a second and equally natural reading of claims of type B that Fine might overlook. According to the second reading, B-claims do not tell us what the essence of things consists in, but what flows, or is derived from the essence of things. In other words, one legitimate reading of B is that x is F thanks to essence, and that F is not part of the essence of x. In A-claims, as in the first reading of B-claims, the essence of things is the explanandum. In B-claims, read in the second way, the essence of things is an explanans. There is an important distinction between x 's being F in its nature, and x 's being F because of this nature, but not in its nature. The locution 'x is F by nature' is to some extent ambiguous : it might mean either that being F figures in or is the essence of x, or that being F derives, externally, from the essence of x. In the first case, that x is F is a matter of what I shall call internal necessity. In the second case, that x is F is a matter of what I shall call external necessity. Both kinds of necessity are metaphysical to the extent that they are grounded 82 CHAPTER 3. PLEASANTNESS AS A VALUE in the essence of x. But while the first one involves merely unfolding the essence of x, the second builds on it. (see Appendix A.2 for a related distinction between internal and external ontological dependence). Internal and external metaphysical necessities will then be defined as follows: internal metaphysical necessity: x is F as a matter of internal metaphysical necessity=df x is F in virtue of its essence and F is part of the essence of x.14 external metaphysical necessity: x is F as a matter of external metaphysical necessity=df x is F in virtue of its essence and F is not part of the essence of x. For instance, that Paul is distinct from an orange is a metaphysical necessity that flows from the nature of Paul (together with the nature of oranges and distinctness) but that is not part of what Paul is. Paul is distinct from an orange as a matter of external metaphysical necessity. By contrast, that Paul is a human being is a metaphysical necessity that flows from the nature of Paul (together with the nature of human beings), and that is part of the nature of Paul. If true, what supporters of the standard view of the value of pleasures should say is that pleasures are good as a matter of external metaphysical necessity. According to the axiological view, on the contrary, pleasures are good as a matter of internal metaphysical necessity. To repeat: according to the standard view, it is not part of the essence of pleasures to be good, though pleasures are good in virtue of its essence, together with the essence of goodness and, presumably, with the essence of exemplification15. According to the ATP, it is part of the essence of pleasures to be good. 3.3 Grounding hedonic goodness One might worry that by denying that the value of pleasures supervenes on their nature, the ATP loses any supervenience basis for the value of pleasures. However, 14Since 'F being part of the essence of x' entails 'x being F in virtue of its essence', the first conjunct is ultimately superfluous. I note it here merely for the sake of clarity. 15Fine in the above quote expresses skepticism about that latter claim, but if it is not the nature of the natural and normative things that necessitate their relation, what else could it be?Again, normative necessitation sounds like an ad hoc answer as long as nothing is said about what grounds it. 3.3. GROUNDING HEDONIC GOODNESS 83 this is not the case. I shall first quickly argue that hedonic goodness can easily have a supervenience basis according to the ATP (3.3.1). However, I then argue that the ATP should reject the view that hedonic goodness conceptually supervenes on pleasures' natural properties (3.3.2). 3.3.1 Supervenience basis for hedonic goodness A potential objection to the ATP goes like this: either the value of pleasures supervenes on their natural properties, or it does not. If it does not, the ATP is committed to the strong and unlikely claim that some values do not supervene on natural properties. If it does, then the natural subvenient properties of pleasures on which the value of pleasures supervenes are the real core essential properties of pleasures and the ATP is false. As an answer, it has to be granted that the value of pleasures does supervene on their natural properties. But it should be denied that those natural properties are essential properties of pleasures. True, each pleasure episode could not be what it is without those natural subvenient properties; and it is also true that those natural subvenient properties are sufficient for each pleasure episode to occur. But this does not entail that pleasantness, the essential property of pleasures, has to be identical to those subvenient properties, nor that pleasures should be defined through these properties. By the same token, no supervenient property could ever be essential to its bearers. Not only axiological properties, but also psychological, biological, chemical or macro-physical properties would never be essential to anything. The ATP is indeed committed to denying such a strong microphysicalism. The axiological theory of pleasure belongs to the camp of those who reject the systematic identification of the supervenient with the subvenient. Once supervenient properties are taken ontologically seriously, there is no objection to their being essential properties of some entities. One main argument in favor of this view comes from multiple realizability. The very same determinate hedonic value, pleasantness of intensity n, might in different pleasure episodes supervene on different natural properties. Mary and some martian might take a pleasure of the very same intensity and same quality in the very same wine, but Mary's pleasure might supervene on some processes in her nucleus accumbens shell (Berridge, 2003), while the martian's pleasure might supervene on a discharge of green slime in his second head. Equating pleasantness with the disjunction of those heterogeneous natural subvenient properties would amount to embracing hedonic pluralism. According to the ATP, the class of all pleasures (actual and possible) is, from the strict point of view of their natural properties, very 84 CHAPTER 3. PLEASANTNESS AS A VALUE heterogeneous. There is only one bona fide property shared by all pleasures, and only them, i.e., their hedonic goodness. The unity of all pleasures therefore hangs on their value. As Scheler underlines, such an axiologically-grounded unity is indeed a central features of goods (see page 74 on the view that pleasures are goods): The unity of a value guides the synthesis of all other qualities of a good – other value-qualities as well as those which do not represent such qualities, such as colors and forms in the case of material goods. The unity of a good has its foundation in a specific value (Scheler, 1973a, p. 22)16 To conclude, the nature of pleasures, their hedonic goodness, does have a supervenience basis for each pleasure episode. But qualitatively identical pleasures might have diverse supervenience bases: the supervenience bases of hedonic goodness are therefore not essential to pleasures. 3.3.2 Butterfly values The conceptual supervenience of values A more important worry for the ATP is that it appears committed to denying the claim that values supervene conceptually, in an a priori way, on natural properties. The supervenience of values upon natural properties, unlike the supervenience of, say, psychological properties upon biological ones, has been claimed (since Moore, 1993) to be known a priori, as a matter of conceptual analysis (see e.g. Blackburn, 1985, Zangwill, 1995, 200517). One might conceive of two biologically identical beings, one being conscious, the other not; but one cannot conceive of two vases identical with respect to all of their natural properties, but one being delicate, the other not. The reason this is so, Zangwill (2006) argues, is that we know a priori that value-properties are exemplified because of natural properties: The slogan might be: not just bad, but bad because: we judge not that something is bad period, but that it is bad because of certain natural properties. It is a priori that moral properties depend. (Zangwill, 2006) 16I am assuming that Scheler here means by "a good" "a type of goods", so that Scheler is here concerned about the unity of a class of goods. Another reading however has it that a good is a particular complex of qualities, that hang together thanks to the essential value of the good. Such a reading, if it were true, would be irrelevant with respect to the claim defended here. 17Blackburn and Zangwill's claim is limited to moral properties. However, in their terminology, such moral properties count among their number the values of pleasure and pain. 3.3. GROUNDING HEDONIC GOODNESS 85 When we judge that something has some moral property, we are constrained to judge that the thing has that moral property because it has some natural property. By contrast, in the case of natural kinds, colour, and proper names, there is no such principle at work. We can judge simply that the thing is water, not that it is water because it has such and such molecular structure. We can judge simply that a thing is yellow, not that it is yellow because it has such and such reflectance properties. We can judge that someone is in pain, not that he is in pain because he has such and such brain or functional states. And we judge that someone is Cicero, not that he is Cicero because he is Tully. Yet in morality we cannot just judge that something is bad; we must judge that it is bad because it is such and such. (Zangwill, 2006) If values did not conceptually supervene on natural properties, they would appear to us to alight directly on their bearers. Such "butterfly values", to use RønnowRasmussen(2011, chap. 1)'s expression, should be rejected on conceptual grounds: our concept of value requires that values inhere in things in virtue of some natural properties of those things. As it stands, the ATP is not committed to the view that pleasantness is an axiological butterfly. The only thing it entails is that the value of pleasures does not conceptually supervene on their (distinct) pleasantness, for the value of pleasures is their pleasantness. The axiological theory leaves it open whether the value of pleasures conceptually supervenes on other properties of the pleasures. For instance, this means that the value of pleasures might very well supervene, as a matter of conceptual necessity, on the intentional properties of the mental states that constitute them. One would know a priori that, if two mental episodes are exactly alike in all of their intentional properties, then it is impossible for one of those states to be pleasant and for the other not to be. Hedonic values would find natural supervenience bases in the pleasures themselves, although such bases would not be the essential differentiating properties of pleasures. The volatility of pleasantness Things are not that easy however. The problem is that pleasantness arguably does not conceptually supervene on other subvening properties. Pleasantness appears to be a "property-butterfly": if so, and if no value is a butterfly, pleasantness is not a value. Let us call the claim that pleasantness is a "property-butterfly" that does not conceptually supervene on any other property the "volatility of pleasantness". 86 CHAPTER 3. PLEASANTNESS AS A VALUE volatility of pleasantness: pleasantness does not conceptually supervene on other properties. Can we conceive of two mental episodes that differ in their pleasantness without differing in their other properties? It seems that we can, and often do so. It often comes as a surprise that the very same pressure sensation, or pattern of pressure sensations, sometimes feels pleasant, while at other times leaving us cold. Likewise, the hearing of the very same melody is sometimes very pleasant, but might on some other occasion leave us quite indifferent. And the speciality of a good restaurant that might once have been very pleasing, on another occasion might be only mildly pleasing without us being able to taste any difference in the dish. There are presumably some subvenient properties that ground such differences in hedonic goodness. One might discover that some phenomenon of hedonic adaptation explains why the third sip of the wine was not as pleasing as the first, or one might discover some biological grounds for this difference. But the point is that those natural subvenient properties often escape us : we fail to understand why pleasantness sometimes alights on our experiences, sometimes not. Mental episodes that are in all other respects indiscernible from the point of view of the subject, happen to feel good on some occasions, but not on others. The volatility of pleasantness, no doubt, has baffled more than one pleasure-seeker. The present point is not to be confused with the true and compatible observation that sometimes the very same stimulus gives rise to different experiences. For instance, the gustatory experiences that we have when tasting the very same Figeac before and after having eaten some Roquefort are phenomenally different. The wine feels more tannic after the Roquefort, and consequently, less pleasing. In such cases, we do access changes in the supervenience bases of pleasantness. But the point is that this is not always so. Sometimes the only accessible change in our experience is a change in its pleasantness. Pleasantness alights randomly on certain mental episodes, and not on others. If true, we can easily conceive of changes in pleasantness without changes in subvenient properties, which suggests that pleasantness, contrary to values, does not conceptually supervene on any further properties. To adopt Zangwill's usage one can judge that a mental episode is pleasant, without judging that it is pleasant because it is such and such. The objection can be summed up as follows: P1 One knows a priori that values supervene on some natural properties. P2 Pleasantness appears to us to be a volatile property: we do not know a priori that it supervenes on some natural properties. 3.3. GROUNDING HEDONIC GOODNESS 87 C Pleasantness is not a value. Answer P2 should be granted: it comes indeed as a surprise that some mental episodes are pleasant, but not others which are exactly similar in all other respects. Because of the volatility of pleasantness, the ATP has to reject the common claim that all values conceptually supervene on natural properties. I shall here try to cast doubt on this common claim. Note first that everybody has to admit alighting properties in the above sense, that is, properties that accrue to substances without conceptually entailing subvenient properties (as Zangwill, 2005, 2006 makes clear). This is admittedly the case for most ordinary perceptual properties such as colors or shapes. There is nothing conceptually misguided in monadic "property-butterflies". Some landing has to take place. If this were not the case, then not only would there be no fundamental properties but an infinite hierarchy of them, but these infinite hierarchies of properties would have to be somehow knowable a priori. The controversial issue is whether only natural properties should be given a landing permit. Moore, Blackburn, Zangwill, Rønnow-Rasmussen say yes. Redness is an alighting property, goodness is not. On this basis, a first general worry for P1 is that it sounds ad hoc. Why should only non-natural properties be given a landing permit? A related worry is this. Supporters of the conceptual supervenience of values upon natural properties grant that no further explanation is to be given about why axiological properties supervene on the natural properties they do18. But then if goodness can be directly related to natural properties, why couldn't it be directly related to substances as well? If we are anyway unable to explain why values supervene on natural properties, why should we be able to provide an explanation of why value attaches to their bearers? Zangwill (2006)'s proposal might be read as an answer to this ad hocness worry. According to him, we can only access values (moral properties in his terminology) on the basis of our prior access to natural properties. This is not so with redness itself: we do not need to access the subvenient base of redness (say reflectances) to access redness itself. Zangwill concludes from this that values can only be known by inference on the basis of our acquaintance with natural properties. This is clearly controversial but Zangwill does not need to go that far: he might just insist that 18This is true for pleasure according to the standard view of pleasure's value: the reason why pleasure is good is that it is pleasant, but there is no reason why the pleasantness grounds the value of pleasure. When asked "Why are pleasant episodes good and unpleasant ones bad, and not the reverse?", the upholder of the standard view answers "For no reason, this is just so, given that pleasantness and goodness are what they are". Note that an advocate of the ATP has here a somewhat more informative answer: "Because pleasantness is a form of goodness". 88 CHAPTER 3. PLEASANTNESS AS A VALUE our acquaintance with values depends on our acquaintance with natural properties (and not the reverse). Dependent acquaintance is not inference: it owes its intrinsic intentionality to some other intrinsically intentional act (see Husserl, 1970, vol. II, RL V, §15, p. 108). Be that as it may, I think that the very idea that our awareness of the value of things depends on our awareness of their natural properties is false. Zangwill on the contrary does not believe in such ungrounded axiological knowledge: The idea that we could know the moral properties of a thing while being ignorant of the natural properties in virtue of which is has those moral properties is incredible (Zangwill, 2006, p. 275). What Zangwill deems incredible, however, strikes Scheler as a familiar phenomenon: We know of a stage in the grasping of value wherein the value of an object is already very clearly and evidentially given apart from the givenness of the bearer of the value. Thus, for example, a man can be distressing and repugnant, agreeable, or sympathetic to us without our being able to indicate how this comes about; in like manner we can for the longest time consider a poem or another work of art "beautiful" or "ugly", "distinguished" or "common", without knowing in the least which properties of the contents of the work prompt this. Again, a landscape or a room in a house can appear "friendly" or "distressing", and the same holds for a sojourn in a room, without our knowing the bearers of such values....Clearly... the experience of values [does not depend] in any way on the experience of the bearer of the values. [. . . ] Indeed it is as if the axiological nuance of an object (whether it be remembered, anticipated, represented, or perceive) were the first factor that came upon us [. . . ] A value precedes its object; it is the first "messenger" of its particular nature[19]. An object may be vague and unclear while its value is already distinct and clear. (Scheler, 1973a, pp. 17-8) As Mulligan (2009b) puts it, one may be "struck by value" (see also Mulligan, 2008b). Scheler and Mulligan are not the only ones who have thought that values come first in our experiences. According to J. Gibson's theory of affordances, we directly perceive what the things in our environment afford us: "walk on me", "eat me", "do not touch me" etc. Gibson explicitly identifies such affordances with directly perceived values 19If the axiological theory is right, the value of pleasure is not even the messenger of the nature of pleasure, but is its very nature. As noted above, Scheler subscribes to such a theory of bodily pleasures. 3.3. GROUNDING HEDONIC GOODNESS 89 (Gibson, 1986, p. 127) and urges that they come in two kinds, positive and negative (Gibson, 1986, p. 137). What might prompt hostility towards the view that our awareness of the value of a thing can be independent of our awareness of its natural properties is a conflation between this view and some more radical ones. First, to claim that awareness of value does not depend on awareness of natural properties is not to claim that awareness of value is independent of the causal impact of the natural properties of a thing. It is certainly true that in order to feel the value of a physical thing, the physical properties of that thing have to impact on our perceptual system. As far as metaphysics is concerned, natural properties come first. But the question here is not about metaphysical priority, but about epistemological –first personal– priority. Zangwill, I submit, is wrong to maintain that we know values necessarily on the basis of previously knowing natural properties. As Scheler insists, we often are presented with values first, and only afterwards inquire to discover the natural bases of these values in the objects. To this extent, the relation between redness and reflectances, or the relation between the phenomenal and the microphysical properties of water, are not epistemologically different from the relation between goodness and the natural properties on which it supervenes. Second, to claim that the awareness of the value of a thing does not essentially depend on our awareness of its natural properties is not to claim that one can feel the value of a thing without standing in any relation to that thing. The claim is that the awareness of the natural properties of a value-bearer is not necessary for the awareness of its axiological properties; not that the awareness of the value-bearer itself is dispensable. Quite the contrary, we do not feel free floating values: felt values are always felt as exemplified by a bearer (in the very same way in which redness is exemplified as qualifying some body, surface, or volume). The point is only that our awareness of the value-bearer does not need to rely on our clear awareness of its natural properties. Here are two compatible ways of accounting for our awareness of the value bearers: • First, one might have some descriptive but vague awareness of the value bearers: something with some natural properties there, which are not clearly known (yet), has such-and-such determinate value. • Second, one might anchor indexically on the value bearer instead of descriptively. In the same way that the content of visual perception has been claimed to be of the form "This is red", or "redness here" (see e.g. Armstrong, 1997, p. 96 , Pylyshyn, 2001, Clark, 2000, pp. 39-79), the content of our value experiences might be of the form "This is ugly", or "ugliness here". In both cases "this", and 90 CHAPTER 3. PLEASANTNESS AS A VALUE "here" refer to the value bearer (an object or a place) non-descriptively. The property is ascribed to its bearer directly, independently of any other properties it is presented as having. To sum up: the ATP is committed to rejecting either the volatility of pleasantness or the conceptual supervenience of values on natural properties. I have argued that it should reject the latter. 3.4 Problems for value-reductionism The view that pleasantness is a value, i.e. hedonic goodness, has far-reaching consequences for the general theory of value. 3.4.1 Problems for hedonist analyses of value Consider first axiological hedonism, standardly defined as follows: axiological hedonism: thesis according to which pleasure is the only thing of intrinsic value. The axiological view of pleasure is compatible with axiological hedonism. But axiological hedonists sometimes go a step further: having claimed that pleasure is the only thing of intrinsic value, they then propose to define goodness in terms of pleasantness. Being (finally) good would amount to being a pleasure. Goodness is thus reduced to a purported natural property, which is supposed to be one of the main advantages of this view (or one of its main mistakes if one follows Moore, as we should). The axiological view of pleasure is completely incompatible with this extension of axiological hedonism: pleasantness being a value, equating goodness with pleasantness does not amount to any naturalization of values. One should not define goodness in terms of pleasantness, but pleasantness in terms of goodness. Values come first.20 20The same remark applies to the more modest view that pleasure is the only thing of final and personal value. Such a version of hedonism, defended by Feldman (2002) and Crisp (2006, chap. 4), is compatible with the axiological view of pleasure. However, the thesis according to which what it is to be good for an individual is to be a pleasure for him is not compatible with the ATP: the axiological view of pleasure entails that such a definition is circular. 3.4. PROBLEMS FOR VALUE-REDUCTIONISM 91 This incompatibility between the ATP and the view that goodness is nothing but the natural property of pleasantness is however of limited import, for such reductions of goodness to pleasantness are no longer fashionable. However, this kind of incompatibility readily generalizes to more up-do-date theories of values. 3.4.2 Are pro-attitudes essentially good ? What makes pro-attitudes pro-? What accounts for their being positive attitudes? Conative pro-attitudes, such as desire, might be claimed to be positive in virtue of their being dispositions towards the realization or actualization of their object (this at least is one standard view of desire, see Schroeder, 2004).21 Even if such an account of positivity were true of conative, pro-attitudes, it could not apply to non-conative ones, for conative and non-conative pro-attitudes are "pro-" in very different senses: • First, non-conative pro-attitudes –also called affective attitudes–, such as liking, admiring, loving, enjoying, revering, cherishing..., do not essentially dispose us to action. A purely contemplative being, knowingly deprived of any capacity to act, could not desire, but he could still admire God, or regret being paralyzed. It might nonetheless still be true that emotions are necessarily connected with "action-tendencies", since dispositions to act might flow from the nature of affective pro-attitudes, but the point is that it is not part of their nature. If loving disposes us to action, this is at best a matter of external metaphysical necessity. By contrast, desiring disposes us to action as a matter of internal metaphysical necessity (see page 82 on these two kinds of necessity). If so, the positivity of non-conative pro-attitudes cannot be explained in terms of the disposition to bring about existent beings. • Second, assuming that desire is the prototypical conative pro-attitude, the opposition between conative pro-attitudes and con-attitudes and the opposition between non-conative proand con-attitudes are of a different kind. As explained above, desire and aversion are duals of each other, pseudo-polar opposites (4.2.2): rather than two polarly opposed attitudes, they constitute one and the same attitude directed at contradictory objects. But liking and disliking, loving and hating, pride and shame are real polar opposites. Liking skiing 21Possibly one assumption behind this account is that existence (actuality, presence...) is intrinsically positive, while non-existence (non-actuality, absence...) is intrinsically negative. Therefore what promotes existence (e.g. desire) is extrinsically positive, while what promotes non-existence (e.g. aversion) is extrinsically negative. 92 CHAPTER 3. PLEASANTNESS AS A VALUE in not the same as disliking not skiing. Being proud of winning the race is not the same as being ashamed of losing it. If the valence of emotions is not to be explained in motivational terms, it may plausibly be explained in hedonic terms. Pleasantness, the essential property of pleasures in the generic sense, is likely to be an essential constituent of positive emotions, either because positive emotions are pleasures, or because they contain some pleasures as essential proper parts (1.1.2). It is indeed hard to see what could make non-conative pro-attitudes "pro-" if not their pleasantness. It is intrinsically pleasant to admire, to be proud, to love, to be interested, to be amused etc., and it would come as a surprise to discover that the pleasantness of non-conative proattitudes proves to be unrelated to their positivity. Accordingly, emotional valence is standardly construed in hedonic terms. Now if the axiological theory of pleasure is true, all non-conative pro-attitudes have as an essential part something of value. Pro-attitudes are, by their very nature, not purely psychological entities: they are made positive in virtue of containing an hedonic value. Pro-attitudes are positive because they are hedonically valuable attitudes. 3.4.3 Problems for buck-passing analyses of values If true, any theory which purports to analyze values in terms of pleasures or positive emotions is viciously circular, a worry raised by Mulligan (2009a). The psychological definiens of such theories, be it enjoyment, love, admiration, pride, liking, etc. is not value-free. The view that pleasantness is a value deprives value-reductionists of one of their favorite analysans. Such reductionist approaches to value mistakenly assume that mental episodes are always purely mental, i.e. not axiological in any sense, a view rightly criticized by Scheler (1973a, 196-200). According to the present hypothesis, positive emotions are positive in virtue of being hedonically good. Theories that analyze positive values in terms of positive emotions come in two main kinds. The first equates being good with being the object of a positive emotion (let us call love the generic positive emotion). The second one, the buck-passing or fitting-attitude account of value, equates being good with being worthy of love. According to the present hypothesis, such analyses of goodness, as they stand, are doomed to circularity for being loved is itself a property which is not purely psychological, but partly axiological. Though the ATP is incompatible with important versions of buck-passing views about value, it is not incompatible with all of them. Here are five options open to the buck-passer who subscribes to the ATP: 3.4. PROBLEMS FOR VALUE-REDUCTIONISM 93 1. He might deny that emotional valence is hedonic. 2. He might analyze value in terms of conative pro-attitude instead of nonconative ones. 3. He might analyze values in terms of preferences instead of non-conative proattitudes. 4. He might restrict the scope of his analysis to all positive values to the exclusion of hedonic value. This would amount to an hedonistic version of buck-passing: all varieties of goodness, except hedonic goodness, are analyzable in terms of fitting hedonically good attitudes. 5. He might try to argue that the circularity of buck-passing accounts entailed by the ATP is benign. Let me focus on this last option, which is not as desperate as it might at first appear. Analysing values in terms of values is viciously circular. This is indeed not analysing: no progress can be made in the understanding of the nature of values by claiming that they are the appropriate/required... object of valuable attitudes. Kit Fine, however has suggested, in recent talks, that circular definitions are not always badly circular. One example he relies on is this: to be cool is, by definition, to be judged to be cool. I agree that such definitions are informative. But I disagree with Fine that their definiendum is coolness. What is here defined are the conditions under which a property, which is left entirely undefined, is exemplified. It is one thing to know what a property is, it is quite another to know when it is exemplified. In other words, such definitions tell us the necessary and sufficient conditions under which certain properties, about which they say nothing, come to qualify some bearers. They target not the property itself, but its conditions of exemplification. Such definitions are useful, because different properties might have different conditions of exemplification. For instance, in order to exemplify F -ness it might be necessary: • to fall under the F -ness concept • to be considered as being F • to count as an F in context C22 22One plausible reading of Searle (1995, 2010)'s theory of social objects is that it is a theory about the condition under which such objects have some properties, rather than a theory about the nature of such properties. He writes for instance: 94 CHAPTER 3. PLEASANTNESS AS A VALUE • simply to enter into a primitive internal relation of exemplification with F -ness • etc... Accordingly, some definitions of the form "x is F=df" target the condition of exemplification of F -ness, instead of the very nature of F -ness. Once we know that coolness is exemplified by x just when x is judged to be cool, we still do not know anything about what coolness is. But we know under which conditions it is exemplified. Indeed, any definition of the form: x is F=df... exhibits such an ambiguity: it might either be read as a definition of F -ness, or as a definition of the conditions of exemplification of F -ness. The first reading of "x is F=df..." is the most standard one, and the one used in this work. Still, the second reading is sometimes required. My suggestion is that this "conditions-of-exemplification" reading is the one the buck-passer subscribing to the ATP should rely on. Such a buck-passer is committed to an analysis along the following lines: x is good=dfx ought to be the object of an hedonically good attitude (alternatively: there are reasons to have a good attitude towards x/it is appropriate to have good attitude towards x, ...) Read as a definition of goodness, this is badly circular. But read as a definition of the condition of exemplification of goodness this is a substantial claim. It says that in order for something to exemplify goodness, that thing has to be the intentional object of an hedonically good fitting attitude.23 Buck-passers might feel cheated by such a reading of their view: they were trying to analyze values, not the conditions under which values are exemplified. But they might also find some cause for satisfaction in that proposal. What motivates valuereductionism is often the putative queerness of the existence of values rather than counting an X as a Y is a case of making an X into a Y by representing it as being Y Searle (2010, p. 22) This tells us under which condition an X is a Y, namely when it is counted as a Y. But this does not tell us at all what Y-ness is. For instance, that X is president when he is counted as a president, does tell us under which condition one is a president, but does not tell us what being a president is. 23There is another kind of regress threatening here. The exemplification of goodness by an attitude is in turn defined in terms of this attitude being the required object of some other good attitude. But this regress is arguably harmless: good attitudes are not required to actually exist. 3.4. PROBLEMS FOR VALUE-REDUCTIONISM 95 the queerness of their nature. That values might have the same mode of existence as shapes is what puzzles many value-reductionists. Now, exemplification is the way properties exist, their mode of existence: to exist, for a value, is to belong to an existing bearer. Value, qua properties, cannot exist independently of any bearers (see p. 31). If so, the buck-passing theory, read as a claim about the condition of exemplification of values rather than about the nature of value, can easily explain the relevant asymmetry between shapes and values. Values and shapes have different conditions of exemplification, and therefore, different conditions of existence. In order for a shape to be exemplified –to exist–, it does not need to be the object of any attitude, possible or actual, fitting or not. No attitudes towards shape-bearers figure in the condition of exemplification of shapes. By contrast, in order for a value to be exemplified, its bearer has to be the object of some fitting attitude, according to the present version of buck-passing. x 's exemplification of goodness (but not x 's goodness) is a matter of x being the object of a fitting pro- (i.e. good) attitude. By contrast to shapes, values could not belong to objects independently of any possible attitude (both good and fitting) directed towards these objects. But they would still be what they are independently of those attitudes. Without fitting attitudes directed towards their bearers, values lose their existence (they are no longer exemplified), but keep their nature. This, I submit, is what buck-passers subscribing to the ATP should say in order to avoid the vicious sort of circularity involved in any definition of values in term of values. To sum up: buck-passers subscribing to the ATP might either reject the hedonic account of emotional valence, or formulate their theory in terms of conative proattitudes or preferences, or limit their analysis to non-hedonic values, or, finally, switch from a buck-passing account of value to a buck-passing account of the conditions of exemplification of values. This latter option might be peculiarly appealing to them in so far as their axiological reductionism is motivated by a reluctance to admit independently existing values. This is the best I can do for buck-passing, but I should say I am not myself a buck-passer, not even of this last variety24. Though I shall not defend this view here, 24To my mind, the two main problems for buck-passing (aside from the one raised by the ATP), are these: • It leaves at least one normative concept unanalyzed (appropriateness, fittingness, correctness, requirement, reason, ought...depending on the version of buck-passing involved), and it is not clear to me why this remaining normative concept is less queer than values. (See however Tappolet, to appear for an assessment of the view that appropriateness might be non-normative, akin to truth). 96 CHAPTER 3. PLEASANTNESS AS A VALUE nor assume its truth, I subscribe to naïve realism about values. Values are monadic properties, they are not reducible to natural properties though they depend on them. They cannot be seen, heard or touched, but they can be felt (rather than intuited or emoted, Mulligan, 2008b). The ATP might prove troublesome for buck-passers and other value-reductionists, but for those who maintain their axiological naiveté, the ATP causes no discomfort. • It reverses the natural order of explanation:"x is worthy of love because x is good", not: "x is good because x is worthy of love" . This appears to me to be the weightiest objection. Chapter 4 In favor of the Axiological Theory of Pleasure This chapter aims to support the Axiological Theory of Pleasure introduced in the previous chapter: pleasures are mental episodes that exemplify hedonic values. It is argued that the ATP avoids the main problems encountered by two of its mains rivals, the hedonic tones theory and the motivational theory of pleasure - here called the desired-episode theory of pleasure. Independent arguments in favor of the ATP are also introduced. Section 4.1 argues that the ATP fares better than the hedonic theory of pleasure. Section 4.2 argues that the ATP fares better than the desired-episode theory of pleasure. Section 4.3 presents three independent arguments in favor of the ATP. 4.1 From hedonic tones to hedonic values A first kind of argument in favor of the ATP is that it solves important worries faced by its main rivals among the monistic theories of pleasure. This section focuses on the relation between the ATP and the hedonic tone theory of pleasure (the relation between the ATP and the desired-episode theory of pleasure is addressed in section 4.2). After presenting the hedonic tone theory (4.1.1), I present the main objection to it (4.1.2) and finally show how the ATP avoids it (4.1.3). 4.1.1 The hedonic tone theory According to hedonic tone theories of pleasure, pleasure is to be understood by appealing to a primitive phenomenal property or quality of mental episodes, called 97 98CHAPTER 4. IN FAVOR OF THE AXIOLOGICAL THEORY OF PLEASURE their "hedonic tone". Consider all the pleasures, sensory and non-sensory ones: they all share some felt quality that makes them pleasures. Here is Broad: I do not think that "pleasantness" can be defined, or even described unambiguously by reference to its relations to desire. But I think we can give a fairy satisfactory ostensive definition of it as that characteristic which is common to the experience of smelling roses, of tasting chocolate, of requited affection, and so on, and which is opposed to the characteristic which is common to the experiences of smelling sulphuretted [sic.] hydrogen, of hearing a squeaky slate-pencil, of being burnt, of unrequited affection, and so on.(Broad, 1959, p. 187) As mentioned above (p. 1.2.2), in the same way as the axiological theory, these theories come in two versions. According to the first one, pleasure is the hedonic tone of mental episodes; according to the second one, pleasure is any mental episode exemplifying an hedonic tone, i.e. any hedonically toned mental episode. hedonic tone parasite theory of pleasure: x is a pleasure =df x is a primitive phenomenological quality, the hedonic tone, of a mental episode. hedonic tone host theory of pleasure: x is a pleasure =df x is a mental episode that exemplifies a primitive phenomenological quality, the hedonic tone. Hedonic tone theorists are not always very explicit about what is meant by a phenomenal property, or by an hedonic quale or quality. It would be unfair to ask them to define the hedonic tone, since it is claimed to be primitive, but one might still wonder what is meant by the claim that the hedonic tone is a phenomenal property. The adjective "phenomenal" can be understood in at least three ways in this context: phenomenal1 x is phenomenal=df x 's nature is revealed in our experience of it. phenomenal2 x is phenomenal=df (i) x 's nature is revealed in our experience of it (ii) x is necessarily experienced as a matter of external necessity (i.e. x is necessarily experienced in virtue of its nature, but it is not part of x 's nature to be experienced, see p. 82) phenomenal3 x is phenomenal=df (part of) x 's nature is to be experienced. Consequently, the claim made by the hedonic tone theorists that pleasantness –the nature of pleasure– is a phenomenal property can be understood in at least three ways: 4.1. FROM HEDONIC TONES TO HEDONIC VALUES 99 1. The nature of pleasure is revealed in our experience of it. 2. The nature of pleasure is revealed in our experience of it and pleasure is necessarily experienced in virtue of its nature, though it is not part of its nature to be experienced. 3. (Part of) the nature of pleasure is to be revealed in experience. 3. entails. 2., 2. entails 1., but not the reverse. The hedonic tone theory, in its most general version, should stay with 1, the idea that pleasantness is a kind of property which is revealed in our experience of pleasure. This indeed corresponds to Broad's initial definition of the hedonic tone as "a quality, which we cannot define but are perfectly acquainted with" (Broad, 1959, p. 229). The hedonic tone theory has no need to endorse 2 (though this option is open to more specific versions of the theory): it is not essential to the hedonic tone theory in general to maintain that pleasures are necessarily conscious. Another common label for the hedonic tone theory is the "felt quality theory". This label misleadingly suggests that the hedonic tone theory is committed to the view that hedonic tones are necessarily felt. Even if many hedonic tone theorists might well have had such a strong view in mind, it is not consubstantial with the theory. In order to embrace an hedonic tone theory, it is sufficient to claim that the hedonic tone can be felt, can be the object of our acquaintance. One might want to go further and claim that the hedonic tone has to be felt, but this is an addition to the general theory. Furthermore, it should avoid 3. The hedonic tone, according to 3., is a property which is essentially experienced. The esse of pleasure would be its percipi. Pleasures would be what they are because they are experienced as being that way. This is a kind of hedonic idealism and like any version of idealism, is viciously circular (see pp. 36, 93). The definiendum, pleasure, reappears in the definiens (experience of pleasure). One cannot make sense of the expression 'the experience of an hedonically toned episode' if one does not first get what is meant by 'hedonic tone'. Better to stay with 1. The hedonic theory, as long as it understands "phenomenal" as in 1., looks pretty much like primitivist realism about colors1: colors are primitive monadic properties of external things, that depend on their physical properties but that are distinct from them, and with which one might be acquainted. Acquaintance is the only access to the nature of colors, but colors are essentially and existentially independent from our 1See e.g. Cornman (1975), Hacker (1987), Westphal (1991, 2005), Yablo (1995), Campbell (1997), Petitot and Smith (1997), Watkins (2005, 2009), Gert (2008) for different version of that view. See Byrne and Hilbert (2007) for a discussion. 100CHAPTER 4. IN FAVOR OF THE AXIOLOGICAL THEORY OF PLEASURE being acquainted with them. Hedonic tones are akin to primitive colors, except that they constitute a distinct kind of primitive determinable quality, and that they are attached not to material things but to mental episodes. Though adopting 1. makes the hedonic tone theory quite flexible, it also makes clear that insisting that the hedonic tone is a phenomenal property is still of no help in allowing us to distinguish that phenomenal property from other ones. "Phenomenal" expresses a kind of access that one can have to other kinds of properties as well: it does not spell out the nature of the hedonic tone. It might even be that pleasantness as defined by rival views of pleasure is a phenomenal property. One might claim, for instance, that we are acquainted with the desired nature of pleasure, with its axiological nature, with its relief nature etc. Indeed, all the definitions of pleasantness listed above (p. 27) are compatible with the view that we are acquainted with pleasantness (although some will accommodate this view more plausibly than others). If it is not in the nature of the hedonic tone to be experienced, we have yet to articulate what distinguishes the hedonic tone theory from the other definitions of pleasantness. The four positive things we know about the hedonic tone are: 1. The hedonic tone is a property we can be acquainted with. 2. The hedonic tone is a monadic, intrinsic and simple property of mental episodes. This, I take it, is what Broad means by saying that the hedonic tone is a quality. This excludes any theory that equates pleasantness with an extrinsic property such as being desired or liked. And this excludes as well any theories that equate pleasantness with some complex property such as being the satisfaction of a desire or being a perception of value. 3. The hedonic tone might vary in degrees or intensity. 4. The hedonic tone is either positive or negative: "It has two determinate forms of Pleasantness and Unpleasantness"(Broad, 1959, p. 229). This excludes some other monadic properties of mental episodes, prominently non-hedonic qualia if there are such things. For instance, if the phenomenology of seeing a red patch is not exhausted by the appearance of the red patch, the sensory quale that our experience purportedly exemplifies is not an hedonic tone for it is not essentially positive or negative. For the rest, the hedonic tone has to be characterized negatively: 5. The hedonic tone is a non-intentional property, thus excluding theories which equate pleasures with kinds of attitudes such as enjoyment, or perceptions of 4.1. FROM HEDONIC TONES TO HEDONIC VALUES 101 value. 6. Third, the hedonic tone is not a normative property : it is not a value (but is standardly claimed to ground the value of pleasure), nor is it to be equated with other normative entities: to have positive hedonic tone is not to ought to be for instance (though hedonic tones might again ground ought-to-be). To anticipate a bit, my view is that the hedonic tone theory is right about everything, except for the last point. hedonic tone: monadic, intrinsic and simple property whose bearers are mental episodes, which is either positive or negative, which can vary in intensity, with which one can be acquainted, which is neither intentional nor axiological. Defenders of the hedonic tone theory include Moore (1993)2, Broad (1959) Baldwin (1893, §8 p. 110), Marshall (1889, 1894, chap. 1), Stout (1915, chap. 8, pp. 310 sqq. for bodily sensations), Schlick (1962); Duncker (1941), Feibleman (1964), Sprigge (1988, chap. 5), Tännsjö (1998), Johansson (2001), Crisp (2006, pp. 103-111), Smuts (2010)3. This has to be qualified however, for those authors are not always explicit about the idea that the hedonic tone is not a value. This is rather a possibility that they do not seem to have considered and with which some of them might agree in the end. As a consequence, some of the authors in this list might be better presented as defending a generic hedonic-property theory, remaining silent on the axiological or non-axiological nature of that hedonic property4. The hedonic tone theory is sometimes criticized for leaving room only for conscious or sensational pleasures. Such objections, however, miss the point. First, nothing in the hedonic tone theory requires that only sensations might be hedonically toned. Quite the contrary, it is often insisted that any kind of mental episode can come to exemplify hedonic tones. Second, as noted above, the hedonic tone theory is not committed to the view that the hedonic tone is always felt or conscious. All that the hedonic tone theory is committed to claiming is that when a pleasure is felt, 2Moore does not appear to be completely explicit about his adherence to the hedonic tone theory, but it can be reasonably inferred from his claims (i) that pleasure is indefinable(Moore, 1993, §12, pp. 6465), (ii) that pleasantness is an intrinsic and simple property of pleasure (Moore, 1993, §47, p. 130), (iii) that pleasantness is not an axiological property, but a natural one (Moore, 1993, §12, p. 65). 3Aydede (2000) seems to defend an hedonic tone theory of pleasure as well, and so does, Chalmers (1997), as noted by Rachels (2000). The concept of hedonic tone, besides, plays a central part in the psychology of pleasure, see notably Beebe-Center (1965). 4I am grateful for this point to Ingvar Johansson, who is willing to be included among the upholders of that latter, neutral kind of hedonic-property view. 102CHAPTER 4. IN FAVOR OF THE AXIOLOGICAL THEORY OF PLEASURE the hedonic tone of a mental state is presented to us. This does not forbid unfelt, unattended, or unconscious pleasures. 4.1.2 The heterogeneity objection (I shall from now on focus on the host version of the hedonic tone theory, see page 98. But the following applies, mutatis mutandis, to the parasite version of the hedonic tone theory). The worry standardly raised against the hedonic tone theory is that experience fails to present us with any phenomenal quality common to the pleasures taken in a hot bath, in drinking a good wine, in playing badminton, in reading poetry, etc (see e.g. Sidgwick, 2000, p. 127; Gosling, 1969, p. 37; Brandt, 1979, p. 37, Feldman, 1997b, p. 87, for sensory pleasures; Sumner, 1996, p. 92; Sobel, 2002). Introspecting our pleasures would not reveal to us such a unique phenomenal property. Many people, at least, have declared themselves utterly unable to isolate such a property in their pleasure experiences. Though I ultimately agree with this objection, it is important not to accept it for bad reasons. People sometimes find it compelling for the reason that they find themselves unable to isolate a single determinate property shared by all pleasures. If so they are looking for the wrong kind of property and the objection misses the point. The hedonic tone theorist is not asserting the existence of a single determinate property present in all pleasures. Each pleasure has a determinate hedonic tone, but this hedonic tone is not the same in each pleasure. All the hedonic tones together constitute a determinable property liable to variation in intensity, and even, according to some, in quality ( 1.3.2 page 38)5. According to the hedonic tone theory, each pleasure, when felt, is felt to possess an hedonic tone of a determinate intensity (and possibly, quality), but that determinate hedonic tone is not shared by all pleasures. It is relatedly a bad objection to the hedonic tone theory to claim that it does not allow for enough diversity among pleasures. That the hedonic tones constitute together a determinable property partly explains why pleasures differ from each other. Besides, this diversity of pleasures might also be explained by differences in the mental episodes to which hedonic tones accrue. Different pleasures might have different intentional objects, or different modes of intentional reference (perception, imagination, memory...). Finally, pleasures might vary with respect to their durations 5See Crisp (2006, pp. 109 sqq.) for a similar argument. Broad's statement that the hedonic tone "has two determinate forms of Pleasantness and Unpleasantness" "(Broad, 1959, p. 229) may have misled some: Pleasantness and Unpleasantness are indeed determinates of the determinable Hedonic Tone, but they are not maximal determinates. They are in turn determinables, under which fall pleasantnesses and unpleasantnesses of different intensities. 4.1. FROM HEDONIC TONES TO HEDONIC VALUES 103 and locations (see page 291 sqq.). The hedonic tone theory is therefore not imposing a strong homogeneity of pleasure. Consider by comparison the set of all colored things. It is maybe even more diverse than the set of all pleasures. But still every element of that set has the property of being colored. The very same thing holds for the set of pleasures, according to the hedonic tone theorists. Though the pleasure of reading a book and the pleasure of taking a hot bath might not share any determinate hedonic tone, nor intentional object, nor location, they still share the determinable property of being hedonically toned. What this common determinable property amounts to, I submit, is nothing but a resemblance order among determinate hedonic tones (In the same way that the property of being colored is nothing but the property of having one of the determinate properties constituting the color space, thanks to their internal resemblance relations). What all pleasures have in common is to resemble each other, exactly or inexactly, in virtue of their determinate degree (and quality) of hedonic tone. What unifies together those determinate hedonic tones is nothing but a primitive and internal relation of inexact similarity ( 2.3.2 page 60). Hedonic tone or pleasantness, as a determinable property, is an infinite and ordered disjunction: being either pleasant to degree n or pleasant to degree n+1, or unpleasant to degree -n, or unpleasant to degree n-1 (to which qualities of pleasantness might be added as a second dimension of variation). It is only this determinable property that pleasures share according to the hedonic tone theory, rightly construed. But this property is not directly experienced when we experience pleasure: we access only some of its determinate instances. Arguably, when two pleasures are experienced (or considered) together, one gets an impression of resemblance. That pleasures inexactly resemble each other in virtue of their pleasantness is experienced when two pleasures are experienced together. But we never experience at once the whole space of hedonic tones. Compare again with colors. The property of being colored is never experienced as a whole (except maybe when we look at the color solid), though we sees its determinates, and occasionally access the internal resemblance relations between several of its determinates. At best one might see that several co-presented colors inexactly resemble each other. It would, however, be obviously misleading to push an heterogeneity objection against the view that visual things share some common chromatic property. Though we do not see the determinable property of "being colored", we indirectly access it on the basis of our seeing its determinate instances. The heterogeneity objection against the hedonic tone theory, in order not to miss its target, should therefore be spelled out as follows: all pleasures presented in experience do not appear to all as having a determinate property or hedonic tone 104CHAPTER 4. IN FAVOR OF THE AXIOLOGICAL THEORY OF PLEASURE in virtue of which they exactly or inexactly resemble each other. What we fail to isolate in our different experiences of pleasures is a set of determinate properties that resemble each other. Thus goes, or should go, the heterogeneity objection against the hedonic tone theory. 4.1.3 Hedonic values to the rescue Even when hedonic tones are correctly understood as determinates falling under the same determinable, many people whose introspective skills and sincerity are not in doubt declare themselves unable to isolate such an inexactly resembling determinate property among heterogeneous pleasures. My diagnosis is that this inability stems from the fact that we are asked to look for a non-axiological property in respect of which pleasures resemble each other. There is no such thing. Though I agree with the hedonic tone theorist that all felt pleasures share a common phenomenal property, I think that the only common phenomenal property to be found in pleasure experience is axiological: what all pleasure have in common, phenomenologically, is to feel (more or less) good, when they are felt. By describing the hedonic tone as a non-axiological property akin to color or temperature, the hedonic tone theorist directs our attention in the wrong direction and lays itself open to the heterogeneity objection. The heterogeneity objection loses much of its weight once the hedonic tone is replaced by an hedonic value. Few people, I take it, would deny that pleasures, when felt, feel good in different degrees. If the pleasure of reading a book can be felt, then there is a least one respect in which it resembles the pleasure of a hot bath: it feels good to us. While the hedonic tone of pleasures is elusive, its hedonic value is far more palpable. One the whole, the difference between the hedonic tone theory of pleasure and the ATP boils down to the question of whether or not pleasantness is a natural or axiological quality. The axiological theory of pleasure is usefully thought of as an improvement on the hedonic tone theory: simply replace hedonic tones by hedonic values. Interestingly, the main proponent of the heterogeneity objection against the hedonic tone theory, Sidgwick himself, almost claims that all pleasures feel alike with respect to their intrinsic value: Shall we then say that there is a measurable quality of feelings expressed by the word "pleasure," which is independent of its relation to volition, and strictly undefinable from its simplicity? –like the quality of feeling expressed by "sweet," of which also we are conscious in varying degrees of intensity. This seems to be the view of some writers: but, for 4.1. FROM HEDONIC TONES TO HEDONIC VALUES 105 my own part, when I reflect on the notion of pleasure [. . . ] the only common quality that I can find in the feelings so designated seems to be that relation to desire and volition expressed by the general term "desirable"...I propose therefore to define Pleasure...as a feeling which, when experienced by intelligent beings, is at least implicitly apprehended as desirable or –in case of comparison– preferable. (Sidgwick, 1981, Bk II, Chap. II, §2, p. 127, my italics)6 Sidgwick is not denying that pleasures are presented as having some common quality: but he urges that that property is desirability rather than some kind of sweetness. If what all pleasures share is to be felt as desirable and if desirability is construed as a normative property, then pleasures are not natural, purely psychological episodes, but partly normative ones. I do not want to claim however that Sidgwick endorses the axiological theory of pleasure, for whether "desirability" is for him a normative or a natural property is a complex issue7. But he is at least pointing in that direction. To recap. Take all the pleasures and bracket the fact that when felt, they feel good to us. Is there any other common felt property left? The answer is negative. If the hedonic tone is distinct from the goodness of pleasure, then skepticism about the presence of such a quality in our pleasure experience looks apposite. On the other hand, if the hedonic tone is replaced by an axiological property, the heterogeneity objection against the hedonic tone theory falls apart. 6Though Sidgwick is often presented as a proponent of the the view that pleasure is an object of desire ( 4.2.1 page 107), this is a mistake (see Feldman, unpublished, n. 5). True, Sidgwick at some points comes close to such a view (Sidgwick, 1981, Bk I, Sidgwick (1981, Bk II, Chap. IV, §2, p. 42), but he finally explicitly rejects it in favor of the present view. Perry (1967, pp. 199-200) has a slightly different interpretation of Sidgwick's view. Perry suggests that Sidgwick is equating pleasure with the apprehension or awareness of the desirable mental episode rather than with the desirable mental episode itself. It seems to me however, from this quote, that Sidgwick construes desirability as a property of the pleasures themselves rather than as a property of their objects. 7Sidgwick neither wants to say that what is desirable is what one can desire, nor is it what one ought to desire. He is looking for a somewhat intermediary position: –meaning by 'desirable' not necessarily 'what ought to be desired' but what would be desired, with strength proportioned to the degree of desirability, if it were judged attainable by voluntary action, supposing the desirer to possess a perfect forecast, emotional as well as intellectual, of the state of attainment or fruition. (Sidgwick, 1981, Bk I, chap. IX, p. 111). 106CHAPTER 4. IN FAVOR OF THE AXIOLOGICAL THEORY OF PLEASURE 4.2 From desired episodes to hedonic values A second popular monistic theory of pleasure purports to define it in terms of desired mental episodes. This view is often called the motivational theory of pleasure, but for reasons that will be addressed below, I prefer to call it the desired-episode theory of pleasure. After presenting this theory in its two main versions (4.2.1), I raise several difficulties for such theories (4.2.2) and show how the ATP deals with them (4.2.3). 4.2.1 The desired-episode theory of pleasure According to the desired-episode theory of pleasure, what all pleasures have in common is to be desired mental episodes. As a first approximation, the desired-episode theory of pleasure therefore answers the heterogeneity question by claiming that what all pleasures have in common is to be intrinsically desired. The main motivation for this theory is that it escapes the heterogeneity objection faced by the hedonic tone theory: instead of relying on an elusive intrinsic phenomenal property that all and only pleasures share, the desired-episode theory "goes extrinsic", and claims that there is nothing that those pleasures share except their being desired (Sidgwick's quote on page 104 is often considered as the locus classicus of the desired-episode theory's attack against the hedonic tone theory, but as mentioned in note 6 page précédente, this relies on a questionable interpretation of Sidgwick). The desired-episode theory promises to unify all pleasures, be they sensory or intellectual, without relying on any dubious phenomenal property or hedonic tone. This theory is not to be conflated with the two following ones: • The desired-episode theory of pleasure is distinct from the theories which define pleasure in terms of satisfaction of desire (see 5 and 6 page 27). This is why I prefer to speak of 'desired-episode theory of pleasure', instead of using the more standard appellations 'motivational theory of pleasure' or 'desire-based theory of pleasure' which might encourage such a conflation. The reason why the claim about pleasure as an object of desire is distinct from the claim about pleasure as a satisfaction of desire is simply that objects of desire are not satisfactions of desire. One might concede, at best, that part of the object of desires are their own satisfactions: the desire that p would be sui referential : "S desires (that p and that this very desire be satisfied)". But first, in such a case, the satisfaction of the desire is only a part of the object of the desire, not the whole of it. Indeed, the satisfaction of a desire can never become the whole content of a desire: a desire whose sole content would be "that this very desire be satisfied" would 4.2. FROM DESIRED EPISODES TO HEDONIC VALUES 107 be an empty conative loop8, deprived of any motivational "oomph" (in which direction should we act?). Second, even if the desire's satisfaction is part of the desire's content, the satisfaction of the desire is not an actual satisfaction, but a targeted one. But definitions of pleasures in terms of desire-satisfaction purport to define pleasure in terms of an actual desire's satisfaction. Desired-episode theories of pleasure and desire-satisfaction theories of pleasure are therefore essentially distinct. • Another kind of theory of pleasure which is sometimes misleadingly conflated with the desired-episode theory is the view that a pleasure is the object of an affective (rather than conative) pro-attitude, such as loving, liking, enjoying, etc (see 17 page 28)9. Both theories belong to the same family of hedonic anti-realism (see p. 34): both have it that pleasure is what it is in virtue of an extrinsic attitude directed towards it. But in one case, that attitude is a conative pro-attitude, in the other, it is a non-conative, affective one (I assume that non-conative pro-attitudes are affective pro-attitudes). Some of the objections I shall present below to the desired-episode theory of pleasure also apply to the liked-object theory of pleasure, some others do not. The likedobject theory is itself vulnerable to an objection that the desired-episode theory avoids: liking, loving and even more clearly enjoying, qua affective attitudes, might well be themselves pleasures in the generic sense, or at least contain pleasures as proper essential parts (see p. 24). If true, the liked-episodes theories of pleasure are viciously circular, a worry that the desired-episodes theories of pleasure avoids (but see note 14 page 110). A first generic formulation of the desired-episodes theory goes as follows: desired episode theory of pleasure: x is a pleasure of S=df x is a mental episode of S and S intrinsically desires that x occurs.10 The reason why the desire has to be intrinsic is that there are many mental episodes which we might desire to have without making them pleasures. Mary might desire to suffer because she thinks this will move Paul. This does not make Mary's suffering a pleasure. Jimmy might want to learn more in school because he believes he will then earn more money. This does not entail that Jimmy's learning is a pleasure 8See 9.2 for a similar and more detailed objection against purely reflexive feelings. 9See Rachels (2000) for a clear diagnosis of this common conflation. 10See Heathwood (2007, p.30) for a close definition of sensory pleasures only (which he refines afterwards). 108CHAPTER 4. IN FAVOR OF THE AXIOLOGICAL THEORY OF PLEASURE for him. To say that S desires the occurrence of x intrinsically amounts to saying that S desires the occurrence of x for its own sake, not in order to get the occurrence of y (see Feldman, 1997b, p. 89). Intrinsic desires might be defined as follows: intrinsic desire: S intrinsically desires that x occurs=df S desires that x occurs and S does not desire that x occurs only because [S desires that y occurs (x 6=y) and S thinks (feels, expects...) that the occurrence of y depends on the occurrence of x ].11 The desired-episode theory of pleasure might be made still more plausible, I submit, by appealing not only to intrinsic desires, but to "for one's sake" desires. One common objection to it is that one might intrinsically desire the occurrence of one's own mental episode without it being pleasant (Feldman, unpublished, Rachels, 2000, Smuts, 2010). Suppose Paul thinks his suffering is intrinsically virtuous, and he desires to stay virtuous. Or suppose Mary does not want to ignore that the world will ends in three days. Her piece of knowledge (or apparent knowledge) that the world will end in three days is an unpleasant mental episode of her which she intrinsically desires to continue to be in, for she values knowledge more than she values pleasure. Defenders of the desired-episode theory of pleasure might handle such counterexamples by refining the kind of desire at stake. Relying on RønnowRasmussen (2007, 2011)'s proposal (see 7.2.2 page 172), they might introduce "for someone's sake" desires, and claim that desires motivated only by moral or epistemic virtues are not "for one's sake". Roughly, "for one's sake" desires are desires directed at our benefit or at what is of benefit to us. The desired-episode theory might then treat the above counterexample as follows: either Mary intrinsically desires the piece of knowledge tout court or for the sake of knowledge, or she desires it for her own sake. In the first case, the piece of knowledge is not a pleasure, which is no objection to the desired-episode theory in its "for-its-own-sake" version. If on the other hand Mary does desires the piece of knowledge for her own sake, then arguably that piece of knowledge is a pleasure for Mary. Because of the possibility of such a refined 11See 6.3 page 152 for more on that determination relation, which is meant to be sufficiently generic to include cases in which x causes y and x is a part of y. The appellation "intrinsic desire" is not entirely satisfying: to say that one intrinsically desires the occurrence of x, might suggest that one desires that occurrence for its intrinsic properties only. But according to the concept of intrinsic desire aimed at here, it might be possible to desire something intrinsically (i.e. for its own sake) because of its extrinsic properties. In the same way that final values have to be distinguished from intrinsic ones ( 6 page 147), desiring something for its own sake should be distinguished from desiring something for its intrinsic properties. It might sound odd to speak of final desires, but this is nonetheless what is intended here. 4.2. FROM DESIRED EPISODES TO HEDONIC VALUES 109 version of the theory, I shall not pursue here the line of objection to the desiredepisode theory that consists in putting forward intrinsic desires for mental episodes that are not pleasures. So characterized, the desired-episode theory of pleasure is open to an important problem stemming from the nature of desire. Desires have been claimed to have an essentially prospective nature, i.e. to be essentially directed towards the future. Kenny (1966, pp. 115-6) attributes this thesis to Thomas Aquinas, and close versions of it are to be found in Hamilton (1882, vol. II, p. 433), Perry (1967, p. 215), Sumner (1996, pp. 128-30). This is not quite exact: desires are at best directed at what one thinks to be future12. This claim, I contend, might be derived from the two following ones: 1. First, one cannot desire what one takes oneself to possess already, and more generally what one thinks is already the case. If one desires that x occur –become actual– then one thinks that x has not yet occurred –is not already actual. The essential claim is only that one has to think of the desired-episode as non-actual : it is clearly possible to desire what is actual while thinking wrongly that it is not actual. "Thinking" should here be understood in a very wide sense, including all cognitive episodes (beliefs, perceptions, feelings...), be they conceptual or not, directed at the non-actuality of the desired episode13.However, other attitudes are also essentially directed at what is thought of as being non-actual, such as wishing. 2. Second, desires being motivational, their objects have to be thought of as possibly occuring in the future. This distinguishes desires from wishes. Everything that we wish is thought of as non actual, but one might wish things that we think can never happen; not so with desire. This accounts for the prospective nature of desire: objects of desire are thought of not only as being non-actual, but also as being possible in the future (contrary to the objects of wishes/wishing). This prospective nature of desire poses an important problem for the desiredepisode theory of pleasure. If true, the view that pleasures are by nature objects of 12I here favor an internalist account of the content of desires. Faced with desires directed towards the past, an externalist might say alternatively that such past-oriented desires are indeed not desires but wishes. 13The claim that the object of desire has to be thought of as non-actual might still be too strong: maybe it is sufficient not to think that the object of a desire is actual. This, however, does not substantially affect the forthcoming objection to the desired-episode theory. 110CHAPTER 4. IN FAVOR OF THE AXIOLOGICAL THEORY OF PLEASURE desires, entails that pleasures are by nature always thought of (believed, felt...) to be non-actual, which is clearly wrong.14 Faced with this difficulty, upholders of desired-episodes theory of pleasures have usually endorsed two modified versions of it. One is to reject the above claim that desire is essentially directed at what seems not to be the case. Pleasures are then defined as episodes that one desires to have at the moment at which one has it. The other strategy is to define pleasures as one's present mental episodes of which one desires the continuation.15 desired episode theory of pleasure1 : x is a pleasure of S=df x is a mental episode of S occurring at t and S intrinsically desires at t that x occurs at t. desired episode theory of pleasure2 : x is a pleasure of S=df x is a mental episode of S occurring at t, and S intrinsically desires at t that x continues to occur after t. The first theory is defended by Heathwood (2007), for sensory pleasures; the latter one is endorsed by Brandt and Edwards: The theory to which we come is, roughly, that for an experience to be pleasant is for it to make the person want its continuation. (Brandt, 1979, p. 38) We have identified the generic class of « pleasure » as the set of all feelings we desire or wish to sustain or cultivate, and the generic class of 14A second potential objection stemming from the nature of desire takes one of the three following starting points: • desires are essentially unpleasant: Locke, 2008, chap. 21,§31-2, Mackenzie –according to Sidgwick, 1981, p. 47, Bain –according to Sidgwick, 1981, p. 54, Marshall (1891, p. 477). See Sidgwick (1981, p. 54-56), Allen (1930, pp. 27 sqq.) for a critique. • desires are essentially pleasant or unpleasant (Helm, 2002). • desiring that p is essentially to be disposed to feel pleasure when it seems that p. (see Schroeder, 2004, pp. 27 sqq. on this "hedonic theory of desire"). If any of these theories of desire are true, defining pleasure in terms of desire would be badly circular. Note, however, that the desired-episode theory usually assumes a standard, motivational, definition of desire as a disposition to act (Schroeder, 2004, p. 11 sqq.). If so, the present objection loses any grip. 15One other strategy, which does not appear to have been endorsed, would be to claim that a pleasure is an episode that one has now, but which one intrinsically desired before. One difficulty, among other ones is that it seems possible that mental episodes that we intrinsically desired prove not to be pleasant once they occur. 4.2. FROM DESIRED EPISODES TO HEDONIC VALUES 111 « pain » as the set of all feelings we wish or desire to eliminate and avoid (Edwards, 1979, pp. 92-3).16 I shall assess these options in turn, since they face distinct objections. We shall see that the second version of the desired-episode theory of pleasure avoids some important objections faced by the first, but not all of them. 4.2.2 Objections to the desired-episode theory of pleasure Desiring what one has Let us start with the first version of the desired-episode theory: a pleasure is a mental episode that one intrinsically desires to have at the moment one has it. A first problem for this view is to justify the rejection of the venerable principle that one can desire only what one thinks is not the case. Heathwood argues that desire(s) can be present-directed thanks to the following example: Suppose Cheapskate's car is parked outside, and it begins to rain. Worrywart notices, and says to Cheapskate, ''I bet you prefer that your car be in the garage right now.'' But Cheapskate's car is dirty. He thinks letting it sit in the rain is a cheap way to get it clean. So he replies, ''No, I want my car to be right where it is.'' Cheapskate is expressing a desire, and I think what he says is literally true. He really does want his car to be right where it is. The object of Cheapskate's want is that his car be where it is. But, of course, Cheapskate's car is right where it is-the object of his desire is true. (Heathwood, 2007, p. 34) I do not think Heathwood's example provides a conclusive case of desire oriented towards the present. There are two natural readings of Cheapstake's sentence which avoids such a commitment to desires directed at what one thinks to be the case: • Either Cheapskate means "No, I am happy/satisfied/glad... that my car is right where it it is." and he is really not expressing a desire, but a non-conative proattitude. 16See also Carson (2000, p. 44). 112CHAPTER 4. IN FAVOR OF THE AXIOLOGICAL THEORY OF PLEASURE • Or Cheapskate means: "I desire my car to stay where it is", in which case he is indeed expressing a desire, but directed at a future episode (a more explicit formulation of what he means would be "I desire my car to stay in the future, where it is now "). Given that is not clear what else Cheapskate could mean here, the idea that desire can only be directed towards what one thinks to be non-actual is not threatened17. The first version of the desired-episode theory of pleasure has to argue that desire is not of a prospective nature, and, in the above case at least, fails to do so.18 How does the second version of the desired-episode theory of pleasure fare with respect to the prospective nature of desire? This is not a problem for it. What is desired in the second version is the continuation of the present episode: this continuation is a non-actual episode (according to the subject): the prospective nature of desire is safe. The important point is that the pleasure is not this continuation: the pleasure is no more what is desired, but that of which we desire the continuation. This solution relies on a distinction between what one desires (a seemingly non-actual episode) and what one's desire is about. There is no objection to a desire being about something presently occurring: quite the contrary, many desires have a present anchor. This anchoring is however distinct from their destination, which has to be thought of as future. The anchor is the present mental episode, the destination is its continuation, the pleasure is the anchor, not the destination. This is why pleasures do not have to be future. To make things clearer, suppose Paul intrinsically desires his present seeing of the Mont Blanc to continue after t. Then his visual state directed at the Mont Blanc is a pleasure according to the second version of the desired-episode theory. Now suppose that his desire become satisfied: at t+1, Paul still sees the Mont Blanc. According this second version, the perceptual state Paul is in at t+1 is not necessarily a pleasure. The additional time of Mont-Blanc-seeing might not be pleasant. It will be a pleasure only if it in turn becomes the object of an intrinsic desire for continuation. 17Feldman (unpublished) proposes other objections to this principle. He suggests that one might desire to have taken the good decision. It is questionable, however, whether desire rather than hope is the attitude we are in in such cases. The word "desire" might be used in a loose way, to cover attitudes which are not properly speaking desires (satisfaction, liking, hope...). This does not necessarily threaten the prospective nature of desire. 18One might hazard the following hypothesis about the first version. By appealing to desire directed at the (seemingly) present, this first version of the desired-episode theory blurs the distinction between such theories and theories that define pleasure in terms of the satisfaction of desire. A desire directed at what (appears to) be already the case is necessarily (apparently) satisfied. 4.2. FROM DESIRED EPISODES TO HEDONIC VALUES 113 Oppositeness objection Theorists who equate pleasure with desired mental episodes have to explain the polar opposition between pleasures and unpleasures in terms of the polar opposition between conative pro-attitudes and conative con-attitudes. If a pleasure is a mental episode whose continuation is intrinsically desired, an unpleasure will be a mental episode whose continuation is the object of one's intrinsic aversion. . The problem stems from the following equivalence: desire that p $ aversion that ¬p Desire and aversion are dual attitudes, pseudo-polar opposites (see 2.1.2 page 52). Pleasure and unpleasure are not: ¬(taking pleasure in p $ taking displeasure in ¬p) ¬(being pleased that p $ being displeased that ¬p) ¬(enjoying p $ suffering ¬p) The opposition between desire and aversion is of the same type as the opposition between the obligatory and the forbidden; the opposition between pleasure and unpleasure is akin to the opposition between the good and the bad. No equivalence is to be found between, on the one hand, hedonic attitudes and positive values accruing to some fact, and, on the other hand, algesic attitudes and negative values accruing to the negation of this fact. Does this asymmetry between the pleasure/unpleasures and desire/aversion's oppositions represent a problem for the desired-episode theory? To the extent that the desired-episode theory does not identify pleasures with desires, not directly. But the dual nature of desire and aversion still raises problems for the desired-episode theory (Klocksiem, 2010). Suppose Paul intrinsically desires to watch TV. Watching TV is then one of his pleasures. This is equivalent to Paul having an intrinsic aversion to not-watching TV. Not watching TV should then be an unpleasure of Paul. But this does not seem to be necessarily the case. Even if watching TV is pleasant to him, Paul's not watching TV might not be unpleasant to him. Does this represent an equal problem for both versions of the desired-episode theory? Consider the first one. Paul is watching TV and intrinsically desires to be watching TV at the time he is watching it. So his watching TV is a pleasure of him. Now, given the duality of desire and aversion, for Paul to desire to watch TV at t is for him to avoid watching TV at t. This entails that had Paul not watched TV at t, he would have been unpleased by it. But this sounds wrong: it is not the case that 114CHAPTER 4. IN FAVOR OF THE AXIOLOGICAL THEORY OF PLEASURE each time one takes pleasure in something, one would have taken unpleasure in the negation of that thing. However, the present objection from oppositeness fails to threaten the second, continuation-version of the desired object theory of pleasure. If Paul desires to continue to watch TV, watching TV is a pleasure for him. This is equivalent to Paul having an intrinsic aversion for not continuing to watch TV. But nothing substantial follows from this. It does not follow, in particular, that not continuing to watch TV is an unpleasure, for this version of the desired-episode theory identifies pleasure and unpleasure with that of which one desires the continuation, not with the continuation itself. Here, that about which one has aversion is the discontinuation of a pleasure. One the whole, the first version of the desired episode theory of pleasure is jeopardized by both the prospective nature of desire and the dual nature of desire and aversion. This is not so with the second version, which might grant both these venerable principles. The greater robustness of this second version relies on its distinguishing between what one desires, and what one's desire is about, between the anchoring of desires and their destination. For this reason, I take this last version of the desired-episode theory of pleasure to be the most promising. The three last objections I shall mention affect both versions of the theory equally. Given that the first version has already been shown to be open to the two above objections, what matters most is the way those three last objections affect the second, more solid, version of the desired-episode theory. Pleasure without desire One might have pleasure without having an intrinsic desire directed at that pleasure (Feldman, unpublished). Especially, one might be in a state of pleasure without desiring that state to continue (Johansson, 2001, §1). Consider Mary who strongly believes that the world will end in a few minutes and decides to enjoy her last minutes as much as she can: she manages it. According to the desired-episodes theory2 for her to enjoy her last minutes is for her to intrinsically desire her last mental episodes to continue. But first, it is certainly not necessary that Mary forms such desires. Mary, while enjoying her last minutes, may just have given up any future-directed pro-attitude for the reason that she sincerely believes that there is no future. Indeed, it might even be impossible for her to form such a desire. This follows from the prospective nature of desire. Given that Mary thinks the continuation of her last mental episodes to be impossible, she cannot desire it. But surely her last mental episodes can be pleasant. Knowingly enjoying our last minutes might perhaps be psychologically impossible, but it is certainly not metaphysically so. 4.2. FROM DESIRED EPISODES TO HEDONIC VALUES 115 The cart before the horse The desired-episode theory relies on a strong reversal of the natural order of explanation (see e.g. Smuts, 2010). Pleasures, it claims, are pleasant because they are desired, but the natural explanation goes the other way: we desire pleasures because they are pleasant. Consider in particular the second version of the desired-episode theory: a mental episode, it is claimed, is pleasant because one intrinsically desires its continuation. The natural way to go is the opposite: one intrinsically desires the continuation of a mental episode because it is pleasant. We do not end up intrinsically desiring some mental episodes, and not others, without any reason. There is usually an answer to the question "why do you intrinsically desire to prolong that mental episode and not the other one ?", namely, "because that one is more pleasant than the other". To be sure, the desired-episode theorist is not bound to leave the intrinsic desire for continuation ungrounded. He might appeal to non-hedonic properties of mental episodes to ground such a desire. The problem is that the non-hedonic properties of mental episodes are very poor grounds for intrinsic desires of continuation. Paul does not intrinsically desire the continuation of his seeing Mont Blanc only because it involves a presentation of whiteness or because it is intentional. The only option left would be to insist that the reason why we intrinsically desire the continuation of some mental episodes is not their being pleasant, but their being virtuous, deserved, epistemically good, or any other non-hedonic values attached to mental episodes. But the desired-episodes cannot appeal to such values on pain of undermining its core claim that only pleasures can be intrinsically desired. If some mental episodes are intrinsically desired in virtue not of their pleasantness but of their virtuous character, then they are not necessarily pleasures. This Euthyphro objection against the desired-episode theory might, though quickly stated, like any objection of this kind, be the most important one on balance. Even if advocates of the desired-episodes theory were to reach a formulation of the theory guaranteeing the equivalence between pleasures and some kind of desired mental episodes, they would still face that problem. The distinction between the mental episodes that one intrinsically desires to prolong and those one does not intrinsically desire to prolong is not brute. It is grounded in some difference in the nature of the mental episodes involved. We desire to prolong those which are pleasant because they are pleasant. When asked why one intrinsically desires to prolong one episode for one's sake, and not another, the answer is not "for no reason, just like this", but "because it is pleasant". 116CHAPTER 4. IN FAVOR OF THE AXIOLOGICAL THEORY OF PLEASURE Being desired is not a bona fide property The fifth objection against the desired-episode theory relies on a more general metaphysical worry concerning extrinsic properties such as being desired. Such properties are monadic reductions, or derelativizations, of intentional relations. Initially, what we have is a desiring relation between a subject and an object: Paul desires a biscuit (let us assume, for the sake of simplicity, that desires are directed towards objects). One can construe this relation in two monadic ways. On can focus on the biscuit and claim that it's a (desired-by-Paul) biscuit; or on can focus on Paul and claim that he is a (desiring-the-biscuit) guy. Unless one endorses monadism about relations, i.e. the reduction of dyadic relations to such pairs of monadic properties, one will naturally consider the relation as the fundamental thing there, and the two monadic reductions as built on its basis. Such monadic reductions, following Russell (1903, chap. XXVI p. 222)'s are just "cumbrous ways of describing relations". The problem is not with the cumbrous character, but with the fact that monadic reductions are one-sided ways of describing or looking at a relation. All there is, in reality, is one relation –xRy–, that might be described or represented in three ways: as a relation –'xRy '–, as a monadic property of x –'x (Ry)'–, or as a monadic property of y –'y(Rx )'. Those three descriptions have one and the same truthmaker: the relational fact xRy. The proposition that Paul desires a biscuit, that there is a desired-by-Paul biscuit, and that Paul is a desiring-a-biscuit person are made true by one and the same intentional and relational fact: Paul desires a biscuit. Monadic reductions only occur at the representational level. Though often useful, they should not be taken literally, as far as metaphysics is concerned. What are the consequences for the metaphysics of pleasure? If we want to know what the pleasure of Mary is, all what we can rely on is that Mary currently desires to have the mental episode she has (or desires to continue to have the mental episode she has). The pleasure of Mary, if it is not merely a description, has to be that whole intentional relation. Her pleasure is not only the episode towards which her desire is directed. Such a "desired-episode" is just a representational artefact. In reality, it includes the desire, which does not stay out of it. Mary's pleasure is Mary's intrinsically desiring that episode. That is, Mary's desire is part of her pleasure. That very conclusion might be reached in a slightly different way: if whatever is essential to A is a part or constituent of A (see page 73 and Appendix A.2), the view that if x is essential to y, that x is a part of y. The liking defines the sensory pleasure, but is not intrinsic to it.), then if desires are essential to pleasures, desires are parts of pleasures. If true, it is misleading to suggest that we can speak of Mary's pleasure as if it were the desired episode only, not containing the desire directed at it. If Mary's pleasure is to be reduced in terms of desire, it has to be reduced not 4.2. FROM DESIRED EPISODES TO HEDONIC VALUES 117 only to the desired-episode, but to this episode together with the desire directed at it. Pleasures, then, have to be desires directed at occurring mental episodes. This, however, strongly affects the plausibility of the desired-episode theory. We want to maintain that Mary's sensation in entering her bath is her pleasure; that Paul's tasting a Figeac is a pleasure he has; or that John's thinking about Mary is one of his pleasures. The desired-episode theory ends up revising all those claims, and many others: Mary's pleasures are not her sensations, but her desiring to have those sensations, Paul's pleasure is not his tasting of the Figeac but his desiring his tasting of the Figeac, John's pleasure is not his thinking, but his desiring his thinking, etc. The desired-episode theory entails that we are almost always mistaken when we speak about our pleasures. On the whole, it faces the following dilemma: • either reality contains monadic reduction of relations. • or our pleasures are not the episodes we think they are. 4.2.3 Hedonic values to the rescue The problems above are easily met in the context of the ATP. Consider those four objections. 1. Desiring what one has. The ATP does not entail that pleasures have to be thought of as non-actual, nor that pleasures without desires are impossible, for the simple reason that it does not appeal to desire in its definition of pleasure. Values can accrue to far more things than desires can be targeted at. Desire is a kind of attitude which entails that its object is thought of as being non-actual. Hedonic values do not impose any requirement of this kind on their bearers: they can accrue to mental episodes which are thought of as actual. 2. Oppositeness objection. Concerning the oppositeness problem, not only does ATP not entail that we would suffer from the negation of everything we enjoy, but it also provides us with a neat explanation of the opposition between pleasure and unpleasure. The reason why they are opposed to each other in the same way that good is opposed to bad, but not in the way desire is opposed to aversion, is simply that goodness and badness enter into the very nature of pleasure. More generally, the reason why positive affects are opposed to negative ones, is in turn grounded in the axiological opposition between the good and the bad. Real polar oppositions are not that common in nature, and it would come as a surprise to discover that the opposition between good and 118CHAPTER 4. IN FAVOR OF THE AXIOLOGICAL THEORY OF PLEASURE bad, on the one hand, and the opposition between pleasure and unpleasure on the other, are completely unrelated. 3. Pleasure without desire. Mary enjoys what she believes to be her last minutes. She does not have to desire her last mental episodes to continue. It is enough, for her to enjoy her last minutes, that her last mental episodes are hedonically good. More generally, as long as the actual desires do not enter in the nature of hedonic goodness (see 3.4 page 90), one might have pleasures without having any desires directed at those pleasant episodes. 4. The cart before the horse. The ATP does not revert the natural order of explanation: mental episodes are desired, when they are, because they are pleasant, not the reverse. The reason why we desire some mental episodes is that they are (or seem) pleasant. Our desires for continuation are grounded in the apparent pleasantness of the mental episodes. Besides, the reason why the pleasantness of a mental episode is a reason to intrinsically desire its continuation is that pleasantness is an evaluative property. 5. Being desired is not a bona fide property. The ATP is neither committed to real derelativized properties, nor to any revision of our common beliefs about which episodes really are pleasures. Mary's sensations when she takes her bath are her pleasures, not her desires directed at these occurring sensations. Besides, pleasures are pleasures in virtue of some bona fide monadic property –hedonic goodness– which, contrary to the property of being desired, is not a relation in disguise. 4.3 Three arguments in favour of the ATP The two arguments I have hitherto presented in favor of the ATP relied on comparisons with rival theories: the ATP fares better than the hedonic tone and the desired-episode theories of pleasure. I shall here present three independent arguments in favor of the ATP. 4.3.1 From ordinary language One first point is that the essential connection between pleasures and goodness is engrained in many expressions of ordinary language: hedonic expressions are axi4.3. THREE ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR OF THE ATP 119 ological (Von Wright, 1963b, p. 85). This is shown, in particular, by the fact that 'good' sometimes means: • pleasure, such as in 'to do somebody good'. • pleasing (= pleasure-giving), such as in 'a good time', 'It is good to see you'. • pleasant (=pleasure making) such as in 'a good sensation', 'a good feeling' (= a pleasure). The conclusion to draw from this, in accordance with Moore, is not that "good" is a natural term. The conclusion is instead, this time in opposition to Moore, that pleasure, pleasing and pleasant are evaluative terms. One might reply that, by the same token, natural properties such as being healthy should be held to be evaluative as well. When we say that we feel good, or are fine, we often mean that we are healthy. This does not show that being healthy is a value: it is of course a biological property. Or so the objection goes. As a rejoinder, it has to be maintained that being healthy is a thick value. The objection relies on a confusion between biological values and natural properties. That some values are specific to biological bearers, and more generally that some values can only accrue to natural things, does not show that they are natural –non-axiological– properties (see 5.2.4 page 141 on the essential links between values and their bearers). Healthiness is a biological value. The reason why good sometimes means pleasant, sometimes healthy (among many other things), is that pleasantness and healthiness are thick values, forms of goodness. It is not that being good is the natural and highly disjunctive property of being either pleasant or healthy or...The ATP, therefore, is not a philosopher's artefact: ordinary hedonic judgments are evaluative. What needs to be sustained is not the claim that pleasantness is a value, but the claim that it is not. 4.3.2 From motivation Ceteris paribus, we desire pleasures more than we desire indolences, and we desire indolences more that we desire unpleasures. Relatedly, we prefer pleasures to indolences and indolences to unpleasures. Besides, such desires and preferences for pleasures are intrinsic (see p. 108 for a definition of intrinsic desires). That is, we desire pleasures just for what they are, not (only) in order to get something else. For instance, even if we think that God or evolution made pleasure useful for our survival, we do not (only) aim at pleasure because we intrinsically desire to survive. Pleasures are (also) desired for themselves, as ends. Psychological hedonists go as 120CHAPTER 4. IN FAVOR OF THE AXIOLOGICAL THEORY OF PLEASURE far as claiming that only pleasures can be intrinsically desired. They might well be wrong: our natural desires might be initially directed towards the external world rather than towards our own mental episodes, and desiring pleasure might often be the surest way not to get it19. But even so, intrinsic desires for pleasure still play a central role in the psychology of contemporary human adults. As a result, any theory of pleasure should satisfy the two following requirements: 1. It should be compatible with the fact that pleasures are often intrinsically desired. A theory of pleasure that entailed that pleasures can only be instrumentally desired would be misguided. 2. It should provide some explanation of why pleasures are desired, rather than indolences or unpleasures. A theory of pleasure that made it entirely contingent that pleasures are desired would be misguided. Any theory of pleasure should allow for and explain pleasure's intrinsic magnetism. I shall now argue that only the ATP can accommodate these two requisites. The overall argument is that in order to explain the fact that desires for pleasure are not contingent, one has to claim that pleasures are desired because they are good. But if pleasures are held to be only accidentally (non-essentially) good, then our desire for pleasures can no longer be intrinsic. I shall first argue that appealing to pleasure's values is the only way to explain that we desire pleasures rather than non-pleasures. The second requisite has been advanced by Findlay (1961) as an objection to hedonic tone theories, in an often quoted passage (see e.g. Goldstein, 1980; Rachels, 2000; Bramble, 2011): Were pleasure and unpleasure peculiar qualities of experience, as loud and sweet are peculiar qualities of what comes before us in senseexperience, it would be a gross, empirical accident that we uniformly sought the one and avoided the other, as it is a gross, empirical accident in the case of the loud or the sweet, and this of all suppositions the most incredible and absurd. Plainly it is in some sense trivially necessary that we should want pleasure (or not want unpleasure) (Findlay, 1961, p. 177) Findlay might have underestimated the extent of the problem he raised. It is often thought, indeed, that the desired-episode theory of pleasure easily solves that problem by claiming that being desired is part of the nature of pleasure. If pleasure is, by definition, something which is intrinsically desired, then pleasure's magnetism is 19See Sidgwick (1981, p. 48) , Scheler (1973a, p. 253), Broad (1959, p. 192), Shand (1920, p. 517), Feinberg (2007) on the hedonist paradox, initially raised by Butler. 4.3. THREE ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR OF THE ATP 121 de facto explained (as Findlay, 1961, p. 178 argues20. Goldstein, 1980 grants this strategy, which he rejects on independent grounds). I think this is wrong: desiredobject theory cannot account, by itself, for the fact that our desiring pleasure is not a gross empirical accident. This is due to the fact urged above ( 1.2.4 page 34) that desired-episode theories of pleasure define pleasures in terms of intrinsic desires directed at non-hedonic mental episodes. Were they to define pleasures in terms of intrinsically desired pleasures, they would fall into hedonic idealism and its vicious circularity. No non-circular theory of pleasure can claim that pleasure is by nature intrinsically desired: pleasures are not intrinsically desired pleasures. For this reason, the desired-episode theory of pleasure faces Findlay's difficulty in exactly the same way that hedonic tone theory of pleasure does. When we wonder why a pleasure is intrinsically desired, in the context of the desired-episode theory of pleasure, we wonder why a pleasure, i.e, an episode which is the object of an intrinsic desire D1 is the object of another intrinsic desire D2. If D2 were identical to D1, D2 would not be an intrinsic desire for pleasure, but for a non-hedonic mental episodes. Findlay's problem then becomes: how is it that we form second-order intrinsic desires directed at first-order desired mental episodes? How is it that we intrinsically desire to have intrinsically desired mental episodes? Why don't we have second order intrinsic desires to have first-order mental episodes for which we have aversion? Is it a gross, empirical accident, or is there something about intrinsically desired mental episodes that attracts or necessitates our second order desires towards them? Contrary to initial impressions, when faced with Findlay's problem, the desired-episode theory of pleasure and the hedonic tone theory are on an equal footing. By themselves, such theories do not explain why our desires for pleasures are not contingent. Something has to be added to those theories to comply with the second requirement. The only thing to do, it appears, is to put some normative clothes on our naked natural pleasures. The reason why pleasures are intrinsically desired is that pleasures are good (this is indeed the strategy endorsed by Goldstein, 1980 and Bramble, 2011 to counter Findlay's objection). That is, non-axiological theories about the nature 20Note that Findlay himself subscribes to the view that pleasure is the satisfaction of a desire, rather than to the view that pleasure is the object of a desire. He claims that this satisfaction-view also tautologically entails that pleasures are desired. The is debatable: it is not clear that we desire the satisfaction of our desire. Indeed, it might even be that if pleasure is the satisfaction of a desire, then pleasure cannot be the object of that desire. The reason for this flows from the prospective nature of desire ( 4.2.1 page 109). The satisfaction of a desire D1 in an actual episode. Given that desired objects are non-actual, D1 cannot have its own satisfaction as its object. The satisfaction of a desire, when presented, known, believed... coincides with the end of the desire. One never has a desire that one thing is satisfied. If so, there is no obvious entailment from the claim that pleasures are satisfactions of desire to the claim that pleasures are non-contingently desired. 122CHAPTER 4. IN FAVOR OF THE AXIOLOGICAL THEORY OF PLEASURE of pleasure have to be complemented by some theory about the value of pleasures. Once the hedonic-tone theorist and the desired-episode theorist are supplemented by the standard view of the value of pleasures (3.2), they might claim that the reason why our desires for pleasures are not contingent is that pleasures are good. Thanks to their goodness, pleasures are no longer contingently desired. All non-axiological theories of pleasure distinguish the essential property of pleasures –their pleasantness– from their value. Hedonic goodness, they say, is not part of what pleasure is. It is an accidental, though necessary, property of pleasure. Such a distinction, I shall now argue, jeopardizes the claim that pleasures can be intrinsically desired. The reason why we desire pleasure, for all those who reject the ATP, is not that pleasure is what it is. We desire pleasure, because being what it is, it necessitates that it is hedonically good. But if this is so, our hedonic desires are no longer intrinsic. We do not desire pleasures for their own sake, qua pleasure, but because of their goodness, which is external to them. In order to intrinsically desire some pleasure, we should desire it not because we think that it will help us to get some other thing we desire. But here, as it appears, we desire some pleasure to occur because we desire hedonic goodness to be exemplified and think that such an exemplification depends on the occurrence of pleasure. What we pursue finally is not pleasure, but its goodness. Given that its goodness is accidental to pleasure, our pursuit of pleasure is just a means in our pursuit of hedonic goodness. One might reply, not implausibly, that what we intrinsically desire is indeed not hedonic goodness, nor its exemplifications, but hedonically good mental episodes. Our intrinsic desires are directed at goods, i.e. things of value (see 3.1.3 page 74), and not at values tout court nor at value-exemplifications. This might be granted, but it does not affect the present point. For pleasures, according to the standard view, are not even goods: they are not essentially valuable. Focus on a pleasure and only it, not on its accidents: no value is there to be found if one endorses any of the non-axiological theory of pleasure. If this is so, what we desire intrinsically in that case is not pleasure per se, in itself, but pleasure+ , that is pleasure-together-with-itsgoodness. In other words, we do not intrinsically desire pleasant mental episodes, but good-and-pleasant-mental-episodes. We desire pleasant mental episodes only because once we get them, we get good-and-pleasant-mental-episodes. We desire pleasures in order to get pleasures+ , which are distinct from pleasures. Pleasures -pleasant mental episodes- per se, have no magnetism. In both cases, whether the objects of our intrinsic hedonic desires are exemplifications of hedonic goodness or goods possessing hedonic goodness, pleasures, as long as the ATP is rejected, prove to be the only means to get what we really want. In the first case, pleasure is of instrumental value, in the second case it is of contributory 4.3. THREE ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR OF THE ATP 123 value (these different kinds of derivative values are defined in 6.3 page 152). In the first case, our desire for pleasure is analogous to our desire for the arrival of the waiter that will bring the intrinsically desired beer (pleasure is not part of what is intrinsically desired). In the second case, our desire for pleasure is analogous to our desire for the butter that will constitute the intrinsically desired cake (pleasure is a proper part of what is intrinsically desired). In neither case is pleasure intrinsically desired, for in neither case is pleasure held to possess final value. All our desires for pleasure ends up being extrinsic: we desire pleasures for the sake of their goodness, which is extrinsic, accidental to them. Pleasures become mere instruments in our quest for values, or mere ingredients in our quest for goods. They are never what we are looking for in the end. Non-axiological theories of pleasures can only satisfy the second requirement at the price of the first: if our desires for pleasures are not contingent, and if pleasures are not essentially good, then our desires for pleasures are not intrinsic. We do not desire pleasures for their own sake. This argument in favor of the ATP might be summed up as follows: P1 Desires for pleasures are intrinsic. P2 Desires for pleasures are not contingent. P3 The reason why desires for pleasures are not contingent is that pleasures are good. P4 If pleasures are accidentally (=non-essentially) good, our desires for pleasures are extrinsic. C Pleasures are essentially good. 4.3.3 From phenomenology A third argument in favor of the ATP is that its rejection unduly complicates the phenomenology of pleasure. When we feel pleasure, in the ordinary sense, we feel it qua pleasure: felt pleasures are presented to us as being pleasures. But felt pleasures also feel good. If the essence of pleasure and its values were distinct, the ordinary phenomenology of pleasure would be double-layered: we would feel the pleasantness of our mental episodes, and on top of it, their goodness. Probably we would have to feel as well the grounding relation between the two: to feel a pleasure would amount (i) to feeling a mental episode as being pleasure (ii) to feeling that mental episode as being good. (iii) to feeling that mental episodes as being good because it is pleasant. 124CHAPTER 4. IN FAVOR OF THE AXIOLOGICAL THEORY OF PLEASURE This is certainly not the way our pleasures are presented to us. Pleasures do not feel good and pleasant and good because pleasant. Let us bracket the last conjunct in order to focus on the first two: it is not the case that pleasures are presented to us as having a pleasantness distinct from their goodness. The argument might be stated as follows: P1 Pleasures, when felt, are felt as being pleasant . P2 Pleasures, when felt, are felt as being good. P3 Pleasures, when felt, are not felt as having two distinct properties: pleasantness and goodness. P4 The way pleasure feels reflects, in some case cases at least, the way pleasure is. C Pleasantness and goodness of pleasure are not two distinct properties. It is wrong to separate the phenomenology of the essential property of pleasure from the phenomenology of the value of pleasure. A clear version of this argument was put forward by Goldstein against the hedonic tone theory: It is a mistake to suppose what makes a mental state's quale pleasure is one thing and the quale's intrinsic goodness another. We do not pick out a quale as pleasure by some as yet unspecified, and perhaps unspecifiable, pleasure-making property p and then notice independently, that qualia with property p have the additional property of being (intrinsically) good. (G. E. Moore thinks both goodness and pleasure are unanalysable. Pleasure's being good consists in a sensation's having both some unanalysable pleasure-making property p and some second, unanalysable property g.) A quale's pleasure-making property p is not distinguishable from the quale's goodness. An experience is pleasure by having a particular quale. This quale's intrinsic goodness is property p-the property that makes a quale pleasure. (Goldstein, 2000, p. 96) When we feel a pleasure, we then feel two monadic properties according to the hedonic tone theorist: the hedonic tone, and the hedonic value. The first one is the essential property of pleasure which inheres in it. The second is a necessary but accidental property of pleasure which is exemplified by pleasure. Pleasures are two-layered cakes, made of flavorless bases covered by tasty ganache. They are felt as having an axiologically insipid hedonic tone and, in addition, some hedonic goodness. 4.3. THREE ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR OF THE ATP 125 The argument proposed here generalizes beyond that of Goldstein. The phenomenological redundancy of pleasantness and hedonic goodness is not only a problem for the hedonic tone theory of pleasure, but for any theory that distinguishes the two. Thus, if pleasures are experienced as being desired, and, as a bonus, as being good, the property of being desired and the property of being good appear phenomenologically redundant. Likewise, if we grant that pleasures are presented to us as satisfying our desires, and, as a bonus, as good, we seem to be overloading the phenomenology of pleasure. Let me now motivate the premises of this argument in turn. P1 is just the claim that we sometimes feel pleasures as such. It does not state that pleasures are essentially, or necessarily felt. It is compatible with the view that some pleasures are not felt. It is also compatible with the claim that one might be under the impression of feeling pleasure, without actually feeling pleasure. The claim is only that pleasures, when felt, are presented to us as they are, qua pleasures. In other words, we are sometimes under the impression of feeling pleasure as such, and this impression is sometimes veridical. We then feel a pleasure. To feel a pleasure is to be acquainted with it. Feeling pleasures is here understood as a factive attitude directed towards pleasures, and presenting us with their natures. To reject that claim would amount to saying that we are never acquainted with pleasures, that their nature is beyond the reach of experience, that pleasures are not phenomenal (i.e. phenomenal1 on p. 98).21 P2 is the claim that pleasure, when felt, feels good. Here are two arguments for that claim. First, in order to claim that pleasure is good while denying that we can be acquainted with its goodness, one has to say that our knowledge of the value of pleasure is somehow inferred, known by testimony... And relatedly one would have to say that unpleasures do not feel worse than pleasures, but can only be known descriptively to be worse than pleasures. These are very unlikely claims. Second, the view that pleasures, when felt, are felt as being good can be straightforwardly derived, it seems to me, from the widely accepted claim that pleasures feel good. But not everybody appears to understand "pleasure feels good" as meaning "pleasure is felt (to be) good". For instance, Smuts (2010) has recently defended a version of the hedonic tone theory which he calls the "feels good theory of pleasure". According to him "feeling good" is the essential property shared by all and only pleasures. Despite his insistence that the good feel of pleasure constitutes its very pleasantness, Smuts does not consider the ATP and indeed rejects it by im21P1 might be disputed on the ground that it might be conceivable to feel pleasure without feeling it as pleasure, in the same way that we can see some oak tree without seeing it as an oak tree. Even if this is true, this is not the sense of 'feeling' employed here. 126CHAPTER 4. IN FAVOR OF THE AXIOLOGICAL THEORY OF PLEASURE plicitly subscribing to the standard view of the value of pleasure. He assumes that if pleasures necessarily have intrinsic values –which he even doubts– this can only be because of their feeling good. Good because pleasant, and consequently: good because feels good. As mentioned earlier, Smuts rightly objects to the desired-episode theory that it puts the cart before the horse (see p. 115). But as far as his own theory is concerned, Smuts is himself committed to a reversal of the natural order of explanation. The natural way to go, indeed, is to hold that pleasure feels good because it is good, not that it is good because it feels good. That Smuts is able to develop his whole "feels good" theory of pleasure without ever considering the ATP, and without being puzzled by such a reversal of the natural order of explanation suggests that he might be reading "feeling good" in a different way from my understanding of it. I subscribe to the following intentional reading of "pleasure feels good": Intentional reading pleasure feels good $ pleasure is felt to be good I suspect that Smuts understands "feels good" in another way, possibly adverbially: Adverbial reading pleasure feels good $ pleasure feels goodly Thanks to such an adverbial reading, the goodness of pleasure no longer appears in the intentional content of the feelings of pleasures, but becomes a modality of feeling. I shall now defend the intentional reading. One might distinguish two kinds of intentional verbs (i.e. verbs expressing intentional episodes):. Typically intentional verbs take the intending subject as their grammatical subject, and the intended object as their direct object: S sees/loves/respects/enjoys/believes that/loves... O On might call them right-side intentional verbs: Right-side intentional verbs: verbs take the intending subject as their grammatical subject, and the intended object as their direct object (e.g.: "S sees O.") . Some other intentional verbs, however, take the intended object as their grammatical subject and the intending subject as their indirect object. Besides, they take some intended features of the intended object as their direct object: O seems/appears/looks/sounds/present itself/reveal itself/manifest itself... (to be/as) P to S.22 One might call them wrong-side intentional verbs: 22'O strikes S as P' is a close case. 4.3. THREE ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR OF THE ATP 127 Wrong side intentional verbs: verbs that take the intended object as their grammatical subject, the intending subject as their indirect object, and some intended features of the intended object as their direct object (e.g.: "O seems P to S."). A first conclusion is that one should not think that because "pleasure" is the grammatical subject in "pleasure feels good", and that pleasures cannot reasonably be intending subjects, then "pleasure feels good" is not an intentional expression. "To feel" might just be used here as a wrong side intentional verb. Indeed, one specificity of the verb 'to feel' is that it appears on both lists : • Paul feels the unease of Denise. • Her bath feels cold to Fanny. That is, "to feel" takes as its grammatical subject sometimes the intending subject, and at other times the intended object (there are probably other verbs like this but I cannot think of any). "To feel" is both a rightand wrong-side intentional verbs, depending on its occurrences. In "pleasure feels good", "to feel" is used in its wrong side way. Now the crucial question is to determine what the direct object of wrong-side intentional verbs modifies. In 'The tomato looks red to Fanny', does 'red' modifies 'tomato' or 'look'. A reason to think that it modifies 'tomato' is the likelihood of the following equivalence: The tomato looks red to Fanny $ Fanny sees (or has the impression of seeing) the tomato as being red. "As being red" clearly does not modify Fanny's seeing or impression of seeing. Rather, what is reported here is the apprehension (or apparent apprehension) of a state of affairs, that is, the apprehension (or apparent apprehension) of the having of a property by a substance. Likewise, the following equivalence sounds intuitive: • Her bath feels cold to Fanny $ Fanny feels her bath as being cold. If so, one should admit: • Her pleasure feels good to Fanny $ Fanny feels her pleasure as being good. That is, what we report when we say that pleasures feel good, is that pleasures are apprehended as having the property of being good. We are not reporting that Jeanne is feeling her pleasure in a good way, that she feels-goodly her pleasure. What is 128CHAPTER 4. IN FAVOR OF THE AXIOLOGICAL THEORY OF PLEASURE meant to be good is her pleasures, not her feeling it. Good is in the content of the feeling, not in its mode. The move from "Pleasures feels good" to "Pleasures are felt to be/as being good" therefore sounds legitimate. Consequently P2 above, according to which the value of pleasure enters in its phenomenology is vindicated both by the unlikeliness of the claim that we can never be acquainted with pleasure's goodness and by the common claim that pleasure feels good. To recap the whole phenomenological argument in favor of the ATP; the phenomenology of pleasure acquaints us with its nature. The phenomenology of pleasure acquaints us with its value. The phenomenology of pleasure is simple: it does not acquaint us with two different properties of pleasures: its nature and, in addition, its values. The phenomenology of pleasure acquaints us with a single property: its axiological nature. Part III Pleasures and their subjects

This third part defends a reductionist version of the axiological theory of pleasure according to which hedonic goodness boils down to the final and personal value of mental episodes: a pleasure is a mental episode which is finally good for its subject. Chapter 5 introduces the Reductionist Axiological Theory of Pleasure (RATP), and argues that hedonic goodness has to be analyzed. Chapter 6 takes the first step towards this analysis: a definition of final values is proposed, and pleasantness is claimed to be a value of this kind. Chapter 7 completes this analysis by arguing that pleasantness is a personal value of mental episodes. Hedonic goodness, it is claimed, is essentially related to the pleased subject: pleasure is by nature good for the person that has it in a way it is not for others. 132 Chapter 5 Analyzing pleasantness This chapter introduces the reductionist axiological theory of pleasure and defends it against the view that hedonic goodness should be left undefined. After presenting the reductionist axiological theory of pleasure and its main motivation (5.1), I cast some doubt on the idea that hedonic goodness, and more generally thick values, can be considered as primitive forms of goodness (5.2). 5.1 The Reductionist Axiological Theory of Pleasure (RATP) I have argued that pleasantness is a value: hedonic goodness. The ATP, as it stands, is compatible with many different accounts of hedonic goodness. One might take it to be a brute or primitive thick value, one might attempt to reduce it to a thin value (i.e. good) together with some specifying property, or one might attempt to reduce it to some non-axiological, natural, properties. I shall here be interested only in the second kind of reduction: the question to be considered in this chapter is whether the thick value of hedonic goodness is a primitive form of goodness, not to be defined further, or whether it can be defined in terms of a thin value plus some specifying clause. The reduction involved is axiological, taking place inside the value realm: a reduction of thick values to thin values plus some natural properties. I shall not be interested in the reduction of hedonic values to natural properties. There are two reasons for this: • First, as argued in 3.4 page 90, the ATP might indeed jeopardize some of the most plausible analyses of values in terms of natural properties. 133 134 CHAPTER 5. ANALYZING PLEASANTNESS • Second, the question of the reduction of thick values to thin ones is conceptually prior to the question of the reduction of value(s) to natural properties. Any naturalist about values has to be clear on whether thick values boil down to thin values (plus something else,) or, on the contrary, whether thin values boil down to thick values (plus something else), or neither. Otherwise one does not know what to naturalize. Suppose Paul is a naturalist and wonders whether his proposed naturalist reduction of hedonic value is true. In order to assess his reduction he needs to be clear about what hedonic values are supposed to be: it will makes a crucial difference whether they are primitive thick values, or thin values plus something else. Let us focus then on the question of whether or not hedonic goodness can be analyzed in term of goodness tout court, i.e. of thin value. By claiming that hedonic goodness is a thick value, I just mean that it is one value among others. Unless one assumes the strong axiological hedonist thesis that hedonic goodness is the only form of goodness (a view which I shall assume to be false, see p. 3.4.1 page 90), pleasantness is not the only value. Hedonic goodness is a form of goodness. In addition to hedonic values, one finds aesthetic values, epistemic values, moral values, political value, religious values, vital values, economic values, professional values, sporting values, etc. One might take thick values to be primitive, and refuse to analyze them further, which would lead to the following primitivist version of the ATP: Primitivist Axiological Theory of Pleasure: x is a pleasure=df x is a mental episode that exemplifies a primitive thick value: hedonic goodness. I shall, on the contrary, defend a reductionist analysis of hedonic goodness. According to it, hedonic goodness is the final and personal value of mental episodes. I therefore subscribe to the following reductionist version of the ATP: Reductionist Axiological Theory of Pleasure (RATP): x is a pleasure of a person P =df x is a mental episode of P which is finally good for P. The reduction of hedonic goodness to the final and personal value of mental episodes is indeed suggested by the way pleasure's value is usually construed. Most philosophers who agree that pleasure is necessarily good (even if not essentially so) are inclined to say that pleasure is both finally and personally good. As a first approximation, pleasure is finally good to the extent that its goodness does not consist in its being conducive to something of more fundamental value; and pleasure is personally good to the extent that a pleasure is good for the person that has it in a way it is not for the other persons. Prima facie, the idea that pleasure is of final and personal value should have some intuitive appeal. 5.2. AGAINST PRIMITIVE THICK VALUES 135 What the RATP adds to this fairly common view about pleasure's goodness is that it is an essential property of pleasure. Pleasure's final and personal value does not supervene on its nature but is part of its nature. 5.2 Against primitive thick values Why should hedonic goodness ever be reduced? Why not consider it as a primitive form of goodness? In this section I reject the view that thick values, including hedonic goodness, can be taken as primitive forms of goodness. The overall argument has the following structure: P1 Either thick values are determinates of thin values, or thick values are species of thin values. P2 Thick values cannot be determinates of thin values C1 Thick values are species of thin values. P3 Species are analysable in terms genus plus some differentia. C2 Thick values are analysable in terms of thin values plus some differentia. Thick values have to be analyzed in term of thin values together with some specifying clause. I first introduce the two main models for capturing the relation between thick and thin values: either thick values are determinates of thin values, or they are species of thin values (5.2.1). I then reply to one objection against the view that thin values are species of thin values (5.2.2). The three next subsections present objections to the view that thick values are determinates of thin values. Subsection 5.2.3 points out that there is no single resemblance order covering all thick values. Subsection 5.2.4 argues that while determinates falling under a same determinable apply to the same category of bearers, there is no categorial homogeneity among the bearers of thick values. Subsection 5.2.5 argues that contrary to having a determinable property, having a thin value does not always entail having some thick one. 5.2.1 Determinates vs. species of thin values Is the thick value of hedonic goodness a primitive form of goodness, or is it analysable in terms of mere goodness together with some non-axiological differentiating feature? To claim that pleasantness is a determinate of goodness is a natural way to go for primitivists about hedonic values. The reason why determinate properties allow 136 CHAPTER 5. ANALYZING PLEASANTNESS for thick values primitivism is that determinate properties are not analysable in terms of determinable ones: they are not determinable properties to which some differentia is added. What unifies different determinate properties is not their having a common constituent. Determinate properties can be simple: they do not hang together in virtue of sharing some sui generis determinable property –there are no such things, see 2.3.2 page 60. What makes determinate properties fall under the same determinable is their forming a resemblance order (see again 2.3.2 page 60). The unity-maker and the difference-maker of determinate properties falling under the same determinable are one and the same: inexact resemblance between them. Contrary to determinates properties falling under a determinable, the different species falling under the same genus do not have to be ordered. This is due to the fact, stressed by Prior (1949) and Searle (1959; 1967), that one gets species from genera by adding some specific differentia. From the genus animal we get the species 'human' by adding some differentia (whatever it is: being rational, able to laugh, having some biological property...) By contrast, one does not get the property of being red by adding some differentia to the property of being colored (quite the contrary: we get the property of being colored by ordering being red, blue, green etc.). As a result, the reason why different species of the same genus hang together is that they share some common property or constituent. And the reason why they are distinct is that they do not share their differentia. The unity-maker and the difference maker of species of a same genus are distinct: the genus is the unity-maker, the differentia is the difference-maker. Considering these characterizations of the determinate/determinable and the genus/species distinctions, it becomes clear that the determinate/determinable distinction is tailor-made for primitivists about thick values, while the species/genus distinction is well suited for reductionists about thick values. Claiming that thick values are determinates of goodness is the best option for the primitivist about thick values: positive thick values can be positive without having to contain thin goodness as a shared constituent. Reductionism about thick value, on the other hand, should claim that thick values are species of thin values: thick values amount to thin values plus some differentia. Note that the debate can be expressed in terms of priority: if thick values are determinates of thin ones, then thick values are more fundamental that thin ones. If thick values are species of thin ones, thin values are more fundamental that thick ones. This follows from the fact that species stem from genera (plus differentia), whereas determinables are built up from determinates and their internal resemblance relations. One potential problem here is that the genus/species distinction is standardly applied to substances, and that values are properties. It might however be reas5.2. AGAINST PRIMITIVE THICK VALUES 137 onably assumed than the distinction can be applied to properties as well (such as values) as well (see Tappolet, 2004 for a similar assumption). One should not conflate the distinction between trees of different categories of nodes (there are trees for names/substances, adjectives/properties, and also trees for verbs/episodes –see Cruse, 1995, chap. 6) and the (orthogonal) distinction between trees of different subsumptive relations between nodes. When contrasting the determinates/determinable relation with the species/genus relation, I am here interested in the latter kind of distinction. The point is not that these two distinctions apply standardly to different categories of entities, but that they provide different principled ways of grouping several entities, whatever their category, under a same type. The view that thick values are determinates rather than species of thin values is suggested by Mulligan (1998a, p. 164) and endorsed by Hurley (1992, pp. 11 sqq.) and Tappolet (2004, with some qualifications). The view that thick values are species of values is also called the two-components analysis of thick values. As noted by Elstein and Hurka (2010) this view appears to have been assumed by authors such as Sidgwick, Moore, Ross or Broad. Upholders of those reductionist views about thick values often reduce thin values in turn to some positive attitude, but we need not be concerned here with thin values reductionism1. Bracketing this issue, proponent of two-components analyses of thick values include Gibbard (1992), Burton (1992), Blackburn (1992), Elstein and Hurka (2010). I shall here argue that hedonic goodness, like epistemic goodness or aesthetic goodness, is a species of goodness rather than a determinate of it. 5.2.2 Species of goodness The kind of analysis of thick evaluative concepts I subscribe to has been clearly spelled out by Burton (1992). Tappolet (2004) summarizes it this way: x is courageous iff x has a particular instance of F and x is good pro tanto, and x is good pro tanto in virtue of this particular instance of F.23 1In fact a substantial part of the debate between thick values primitivists and reductionists originated in the context of the dispute between cognitivists and non-cognitivists. See Kirchin, 2010 for a presentation and Elstein and Hurka (2010) for the claim that cognitivists are not committed to thick value primitivism and for the claim that the debate between cognitivism and non-cognitivism is incidental with respect to the issue of thick value reductionism. 2See also Roberts (2011, p. 499). 3Note that, on this view, the natural property constitutive of evaluative thick value is necessary but not sufficient for that value to be exemplified. The other condition is that a thin value is exemplified. As noted by Roberts (2011), this is one reason why such reductions of thick value are 138 CHAPTER 5. ANALYZING PLEASANTNESS A substantial part of the recent discussions about thick values has focussed on the "disentangling" or "shapelessness" objection to this kind of thick-values reductionism. Very roughly, the objection holds that the two components that reductionists see in thick values are so intermingled that they can never be separated. Trying to disentangle the descriptive component from the evaluative one, one ends up with a deeply elusive, shapeless descriptive component. It is indeed not easy to get at a precise formulation of this objection (see e.g. Kirchin, 2010 and Roberts, 2011 and see Elstein and Hurka, 2010 for a detailed answer to this – these? – objection(s)). One version of this "shapelessness" objection against this idea that thick values are complexes of thin values exemplified in virtue of descriptive properties is that in many cases we do not see what such descriptive properties might be. This objection is hinted at by Williams (2006, pp. 141 sqq.) and Tappolet (2004) presents it that way: one might object that [Burton's analysis] falsely presupposes that having some descriptive property is a necessary condition for the possession of some thick value. And whatever the way F is specified, it can be denied that being F constitutes a necessary condition for having the thick value in question. Thus, it might be claimed that some courageous actions are not done in spite of danger and do not involve the overcoming of fear. Speaking up at a meeting to denounce an injustice may well be courageous, even though no danger is at hand and no fear has to be overcome. At most, there might be some sort of risk, such as the risk of social sanction, and one might be aware of such a risk without feeling an emotion of fear. More generally, what is striking is the wide variety of actions that can count as courageous – saving a person from a fire as well as getting up in the morning can manifest courage. Thus, it seems quite debatable that all courageous actions have to be Fs, whatever the specification of F. What descriptive property is involved seems to be a contestable matter, so that we might conclude with Allan Gibbard that "[p]ratice [...] attaches no sharp descriptive property to the terms [corresponding to thick concepts]"(Tappolet, 2004, p. 215) I shall not attempt here to provide a definition of courage, but what is missing in Tappolet's argument is a clear reason to think that it is impossible. Tappolet raises important difficulties for simple definitions of courage such as a (good) disposition to overcome one's fear. What is not clear is why such counterexamples should put an not vulnerable to the version of the "disentangling" objection according to which the extension of thick concepts cannot be determined solely on the basis of natural properties. 5.2. AGAINST PRIMITIVE THICK VALUES 139 end to the project of defining courage rather than set its agenda. (Indeed, Tappolet's remark that fear is not required but that "At most, there might be some sort of risk" falls short of the definition of courage proposed by Walton, 19864). At the risk of missing the gist of the objection, worries of this kind boil down to the claim that analyses of thick values are not immediately to hand and some work is required to get at them. This hardly shows that they are impossible. The best way to answer such worries is to provide analyses of thick values in terms of thin values together with some non-axiological properties. This is what I shall do later in this chapter with respect to hedonic goodness. Not only do the objections to the view that thick values are species of thin ones appear unconvincing, but there are in addition at least three reasons to think that thick values are not determinates of thin ones. 5.2.3 No resemblance order between thick values A first difficulty for thick value primitivists is that thick values do not appear to form a resemblance order (The argument against primitive thick values is here analogous to the argument against irreducible qualities of pleasantness advanced above, 1.3.2). Are aesthetic values more like epistemic values or political values? Is hedonic goodness more like moral goodness or religious goodness? Where does comic stands with respect to fair, clever, holy, polite in the putative value-space? We are left without answers. This is not to claim that there no determinable-determinate relation in the value realm. It is indeed very likely that once a type of thick value has been identified, the different degrees of that thick-value type are determinates of it. For instance, if elegance is one thick value, and courage another,high elegance is a determinate of elegance, and extreme courage a determinate of courage. The point however is that even if high elegance is a determinate of elegance, elegance is not in turn a determinate of goodness5. Intuitively, the transition from good to elegant is 4See Elstein and Hurka (2010) for the claim that courageous actions are to be defined not only as exemplifying a positive thin value, but also as aiming at some good greater that the badness of the risk: x is good, and x involves an agent's accepting harm or the risk of harm for himself for the sake of goods greater than the evil of that harm, where this property makes any act that has it good (Elstein and Hurka, 2010, p. 527) 5Besides, elegance has not only different determinates (high elegance...) but it has also different sub-species: sartorial elegance, verbal elegance, etc... The relation of 'highly elegant' to 'elegant' is clearly distinct from the relation of 'verbally elegant' to 'elegant'. High elegance, I suggest, is a determinate of elegance, while verbal elegance is a species of elegance. 140 CHAPTER 5. ANALYZING PLEASANTNESS of a distinct category than the transition from elegant to very elegant6. One might reply that this objection to the view that thick values are determinates is no better than the objection against the view that thick values are species of thin values addressed above. The present objection would show nothing more than that the value-space is difficult to construct (ordering colors, likewise, is difficult). But it does not provide any reason to think that there is no such resemblance order. Here is a rejoinder. As difficult as the definitions of thick values might be, we are arguably closer to such definitions than we are to the construction of a value space. Courage is difficult to define, no doubt. But we have at least some suggestions to start with (e.g. an action is courageous if it is good in virtue of being accomplished by overcoming one's fear), that we might correct and improve upon with the hope of arriving at better ones. But we are left with absolutely no clue about how we should start to construe the value space. Certainly, we can distinguish positive from negative values, intense from less intense ones, but all this is of no help if we are to order the following (admittedly) maximally thick values: very cute, very courageous, very graceful, very just, very clever, very useful, very comic, and so on. Note that it will not do to appeal to heights of value here. The crucial thing about determinates falling under the same determinable is that their differencemaker is also their unity-maker: inexact resemblance and inexact dissemblance are janus-faced ( 2.3.2 page 60). Justice might be a higher value than politeness, but this difference in height is certainly not what essentially distinguishes justice from politeness. What distinguishes them is rather some non-evaluative aspect. The point is not that difference in height does not matter inside the value realm. It does. As argued in Appendix B.3, pleasantness itself, considered as a value might vary not only in intensity but also in height. Accordingly, some sub-forms of goodness might be considered as determinates of goodness: i.e. goodnesses of different heights. But the point is that all the thick values envisaged so far are not only goodnesses of a given height. It is hopeless to identify elegance, injustice or kitsch with goodnesses of different heights. Even if thick values all had different heights (a controversial point), they would still not be only higher or lower goodnesses. Some material, non-evaluative, characterisation of thick values is missing in such a picture. That we are left puzzled when asked to order values such as comic, health, jollity, generosity, pleasantness, liberty, is a reason to think that we not only face a difficult task, but an impossible one. Not enough resemblances flow from thick values to give rise to a unique order. There is no value-space analogous to color-space. P1 Determinates falling under the same determinable form a resemblance 6I am here assuming that very elegant is a token of elegant, which has no degree. 5.2. AGAINST PRIMITIVE THICK VALUES 141 order. P2 Thick values do not form a resemblance order. C Thick values are not determinates of goodness/badness. 5.2.4 Essential links between values and their bearers Aside from the probably insuperable difficulty of building a value-space, one clue that thick values are not determinates of goodness is that there exist some essential links between values and their bearers (Scheler, 1973a, pp. 85 sqq.). Moral goodness does not attach to stones, perceptions or fictitious entities. Only entities bearing meaning can be clear or confused. Only mental episodes can be pleasant. Such links are grounded, as Scheler insists, in the essence of value. Given the nature of moral value, they cannot attach to stones (but only to persons, actions, intentions, tryings... depending on our standpoint in normative ethics). No such constraint is apparent in the color realm, nor with any other non-controversial examples of determinates falling under the same determinable. Surely, given what colors are, they can only attach to certain kinds of things (extended things for instance). But those constraints apply uniformly to all colors. There is no a priori law such as 'green, contrary to blue, can only attach to vegetables'. The argument is then the following: P1 Determinates falling under the same determinable attach to the same category of bearers. P2 Thick values do not all attach to the same category of bearers. C Thick values are not determinates of goodness/badness. P2 naturally raises the following suggestion: the reason why different thick values are often reserved for certain types of bearers, is that those bearers are part of the essence of such thick values. Parts of what it is to be a moral value, is to apply to actions (say). Part of what it is to be an hedonic value, is to apply to mental episodes. This paves the way for a third argument against thick values as determinates. 5.2.5 Non-specifiable goodness A third and final objection to the view that thick values are determinates of goodness is this. In some cases at least, the thickness of a value boils down to the type of bearer it has. Consider the intrinsic value of knowledge. Note first that this value 142 CHAPTER 5. ANALYZING PLEASANTNESS seems to lack any thick name. True, the thick/thin distinction, as understood here, is a distinction among values, not about value-predicates. It might well be that some thick values lack predicates7. Still, the fact that some thick values are referred to by complex expressions made of thin-value terms plus a non-axiological term (the value of knowlege, the value of life, the value of pleasure), constitutes a reason, though a weak one, to think that those thick values at least are species rather than determinates of goodness. The second point is more compelling: claiming that knowledge is intrinsically good, or non-derivatively good, does not entail that knowledge possesses some further determinate value aside from its intrinsic goodness. If goodness were a determinable property, this would be the case: if Jeanne's dress is colored, it is either red, blue, green...But now if knowledge is intrinsically good, it is not the case that it is either morally good, aesthetically good, politically good... The same appears to hold for pleasure: the intrinsic goodness of pleasure is not specifiable further: it is just goodness simpliciter, exemplified or possessed by pleasure. Thus Mulligan (1989) suggests that goodness is non-specifiable when applied to psychological bearers. The phenomenon might be even more general: the value of life for instance, might not be specifiable further. Likewise, the value of people, in virtue of which even vicious people are valuable, qua people, might not be specifiable. Some claim that diversity or difference are fundamentally valuable. If true, this is again a value that does not appear to subsume further thicker values (apart from degree variations). The same holds for the value of coherence or truth, if again these are fundamentally valuable. Tappolet (2004, p. 211) argues in reply that knowledge and pleasure do have further thick values for they are desirable or admirable, and that desirability and admirability are thick values (though not maximally thick ones). This is puzzling. It is admittedly true that some episodes of knowledge are desirable or admirable, and it might be granted that these are thick values. But what has to be shown is that such values of knowledge are determinations of the goodness of knowledge. One might doubt this for two reasons. First, it does not seem that its goodness entails that knowledge is either desirable, or admirable or... One can certainly conceive of knowledge episodes that are just good, without having any other values. Second, particular instances of knowledge might be desirable because they are pleasant or empowering, they might be admirable because they require a lot of effort to get them. But then it is not knowledge qua knowledge that is admired or desired, but accidental features of such knowledge. Likewise, that a beautiful painting proves to be useful to protect somebody from the rain does not make usefulness a determinate 7Aristotle made a closely related point when he insisted on the existence of nameless virtues (see Nicomachean Ethics 1127a10-16) . 5.2. AGAINST PRIMITIVE THICK VALUES 143 of beauty. Desirability and admirability are therefore not determinates of the value of knowledge. It will not do either to answer that the intrinsic thin goodness of knowledge entails that knowledge possesses a thick epistemic value, for it is not as if its intrinsic value could be either epistemic, moral, aesthetic, or political. Its intrinsic value does not just happen to be epistemic. There is no difference between the intrinsic value of knowledge and its intrinsic epistemic value. The value of knowledge is epistemic just because it is the value of knowledge. It is entirely specified by its bearer. True, other values might happen to be exemplified in tokens of knowledge: a given state of knowledge might have bad consequences, or may possess some aesthetic values as well. But such values do not trump the value of knowledge, which remains there alongside the other accidental values of knowledge (whereas determinates are usually incompatible with each other). Arguably the non-epistemic values that belong to episodes of knowledge are either non-intrinsic to it, or, if they are intrinsic, do not belong to the very essential properties of these episodes. P1 If x exemplifies a determinable property, then x exemplifies a determinate property falling under that determinable property. P2 x 's being good does not always entail x 's exemplifying any thick value. C Being good is not a determinable property 5.2.6 A third way beyond determinates and species? Thick values are therefore not determinates of thin ones. In order to conclude from this that thick values are species of thin ones, one needs to show that the determinable/determinable and the genus/species distinctions exhaust the possibilities: thick value primitivists have to endorse the view that thick values are determinates of thin values; thick values reductionists have to endorse the view that thin values are species of thin values. (Tappolet, 2004 makes this assumption). But is that true? Couldn't there be a third way to subsume thick values under the thin-value type? This is suggested by Von Wright. Von Wright (1963b, p. 13) rejects the idea that forms of goodness are species of it, but he also rejects the idea that forms of goodness belong to the same resemblance order or family. (Von Wright, 1963b, p15-16). He concludes: What I have ventured to say in this and the preceding section about the Varieties of Goodness are essentially negative things. The unity in the variety, if there is one, is not that which a genus gives to the species 144 CHAPTER 5. ANALYZING PLEASANTNESS falling under it. Nor does it appear to be a unity of the sort, for which analogy or family-resemblance can be held responsible. (Von Wright, 1963b, p. 17)8 Von Wright however does not go beyond this negative conclusion and concedes that more work has to be done. Though Aristotle arrives at a related negative conclusion (Nicomachean Ethics, 1096b30), he hesitantly suggests a way of unifying all values that has recently been revived and developed by Wiggins (2009). Aristotle asks, among other suggestions: Can it be that all the things that answer to "good" contribute in some way or other to some single thing or derive from a single thing? (Nicomachean Ethics, 1096b28) Wiggins elaborates on this proposal. According to what he calls the "focal strategy", all forms of goodness derive from a single form of goodness: the good of a being. What links together the different thick values, according to that hypothesis, is neither that they share some common constituents (as the species hypothesis has it), nor that they belong to the same resemblance order (as the determinates hypothesis has it), but that they all bear relations to a single fundamental value: the goodness of a being. Wiggins explicitly rejects any analysis or definition of forms of goodness, but stresses that for each form of goodness there is a "non-gratuitous circuit through the idea of the good of a being" (Wiggins, 2009, p. 187). This proposal, however, has to be rejected as an answer to the general problem of explaining what makes all thick values, values. A first minor point is that Aristotle's tentative suggestion is a suggestion about goods rather than values. As mentioned above, Aristotle does not appear to pay attention to values proper (see note 8 page 74). This is only a minor point however, for in the same way that we have assumed that the species/genus distinction can be extended from substances to properties, one might here assume that Aristotle's proposal can be extended from goods to values. But there is a more important problem. Though the varieties of derivative values is indeed plausibly greater than often thought (see below, 6.3 page 152), it seems quite doubtful whether all forms of goodness can be considered as deriving from a single one. Indeed, any value pluralist is happy to insist that there are several thick values that are what they are independently of each other (and on which distinct derivative values depend in turn). Value 8Likewise, Williams (2006, pp. 141 sqq.) explicitly rejects the view that thick value concepts can be analyzed in terms of complexes of descriptive and evaluative (thin) concepts, and insists on the priority of thick values. But he never explicitly appeals to the determinable/determinate distinction to account for the relation between thin and thick values. 5.2. AGAINST PRIMITIVE THICK VALUES 145 pluralism amounts to the claim that there are several non-derivative values. If the "focal hypothesis" is right however, value pluralism is doomed to failure for it cannot account for the unity in the diversity of values. It would certainly be better to find a way to unify values that does not commit us to reject such an axiological option. Ideally we want a meta-axiological solution to the problem of the unity of thick values that does not commit us to any particular, monist, axiology. Wiggins indeed acknowledges that his focal hypothesis does not easily account for all forms of values, and consequently restricts the scope of his proposal. Some pleasures, he first noticed, do not immediately appear to derive from the good of the person they are pleasures of. But more importantly, aesthetic or epistemic values do not derive from the good of beings, but quite the contrary, affect human beings from the outside: The interesting or beguiling or beautiful nourishes the good of human beings, but precisely by coming to us from without. It is an antecedent sort of goodness which impinges upon us. It will be topsy-turvy for the focalist to try to trace this antecedent goodness itself to the good of a being.(Wiggins, 2009, p. 200) As finally granted by Wiggins, the focal hypothesis can at best account for the unity of human values. But then our initial problem, the unity in the diversity of all values, remains unsolved. Let me summarize. Any account of thick values has to explain what makes them all values: it has to explain the unity in the diversity of thick values. Three possibilities have been envisaged here: 1. Thick values are all values because they share some thin-value constituent. (= the species hypothesis) 2. Thick values are all values because they form a resemblance order. (=the determinates hypothesis) 3. Thick values are all values because they derive from a single fundamental value. (=the focal hypothesis) At this point it seems hard to conceive of any other way to unite thick values. What else could unite them if not their sharing a constituent, their inexactly resembling each other, or their being related to a same external entity? I have argued that 2. and 3. are compatible with the view that thick values are not reducible to thin ones, and that any attempt to do so faces insuperable difficulties. 146 CHAPTER 5. ANALYZING PLEASANTNESS 1. is the only sound option to explain the unity of thick values. I conclude that thick values are species of goodness rather than determinates or derivatives of it. This is why the primitivist version of the ATP has to be rejected: hedonic goodness is a species of goodness, not a determinate of it, nor a derivative of it. One should not be content with the idea of brute hedonic goodness: one should rather try to give an analysis of it in terms of thin goodness. This is what I shall do now. Hedonic goodness is to be analyzed in terms of the final and personal value of mental episodes. Let us first try to get clear about what final values are. Chapter 6 Pleasantness as a final value The goal of this chapter is to get clear about the concept of final value involved in the RATP. The claim that pleasure is finally good is meant to capture the intuition that pleasure is good in itself, not because it leads us to any other things of value. However, final values have to fulfil that task in a way that does not exclude an important kind of pleasures, namely, the pleasures that owe their hedonic goodness to the value of their objects (such as the pleasure taken in a good wine). In order to be of any help to the RATP, final values should be such that they: 1. Allow the RATP to dismiss mental episodes which are good in virtue of the value of their consequences. 2. Allow the RATP to welcome certain mental episodes which are good in virtue of the value of their object. I first present the second constraint and the pressure it puts on the concept of final value in more detail later (6.1). I then introduce the concept of intrinsic value, which is not to be conflated with the concept of final value, but which is to be put to one side here for it plays no important role in the formulation and assessment of the RATP (6.2). I then introduce the more relevant distinction between basic and derivative values and propose a typology of derivative values (6.3). On the basis of this typology, I finally put forward a definition of final values and show how it satisfies the two constraints above (6.4). 6.1 The problem of evaluative pleasures If the RATP is to be maintained, final values should not be too inclusive, nor too exclusive. First, final values should not include the values that attach to mental 147 148 CHAPTER 6. PLEASANTNESS AS A FINAL VALUE episodes in virtue of them leading to other episodes of value. For instance, Paul's decision to buy chocolate is good for him (assuming he will get chocolate, and then pleasure thanks to it), but the decision is not itself (necessarily) a pleasure. The same holds true for Paul's perception of the chocolate shop. The first role that final values play in the context of RATP is to exclude such cases: Paul's decision to buy chocolate, and Paul's perception of the chocolate shop are non-finally good for him. This is why they are not by nature pleasures of Paul. One the other hand, final values should not exclude cases in which pleasures derive their value from the value of the object we take pleasure in. This worry stems from the fact that some pleasures owe parts of their pleasantness to the value of their objects. Paul's pleasure in eating a piece of chocolate might depend crucially on the value of that chocolate, made from a very rare and well brewed Ecuadorian cocoa bean. In short, the pleasantness of Paul's pleasure depends on the value of the chocolate. The more one refines one's taste in a domain, the more one learns to feel a certain kind of value, the more we are prone to get such pleasures. Let us call evaluative pleasures those pleasures we have because of the values of their objects. evaluative pleasure: x is an evaluative pleasure=df x is pleasant because its object is/has a value. Two possible misunderstandings are worth dismissing here: • Evaluative pleasures include pleasures taken in good things, but also pleasures taken in values themselves. Enjoying a good wine and enjoying the goodness of a wine might not be the same thing. • Not all pleasures are necessarily evaluative. First because one cannot assume that all pleasures are intentional (though I shall argue that they are in chapter 10). Second because even among intentional pleasures, some might not be evaluative. While we sometimes enjoy things in virtue of their value, it is also possible to enjoy something independently of any value ascription. As urged by Perry (1967, pp. 214-6), while some pleasures (expressed by the locution 'being pleased') depend on some evaluation or appreciation of their objects, some others, which he calls enjoyments do not. We might take pleasure in things we do not value, or in things we even disvalue. True, every pleasure's object has the property of being pleasing (i.e. of giving pleasure, cf. 1.1.1), and arguably pleasingness is itself an instrumental value, the value of giving pleasure. But it is not the case that the pleasantness of a pleasure depends on its pleasingness. The reverse holds: pleasures are not what they are because their objects are pleasing, but their objects are pleasing because pleasures are 6.1. THE PROBLEM OF EVALUATIVE PLEASURES 149 what they are (pleasingness, if a value, is what I shall call a consecutive or constitutive value, see 6.3 page 152). So it does not follows from the fact every pleasure's object has the value of being pleasing that every pleasure is evaluative. The worry raised by evaluative pleasures for the RATP is the following. If the pleasantness of Paul's pleasure depends on the value of chocolate and the fact that this pleasantness is a value, then the value of pleasures sometimes depends on the value of their objects. Paul's pleasure is then good, because the chocolate is good. If pleasantness is a value, as the ATP has it, then this value derives from the value of the evaluative pleasure's object. This puts some heavy constraints on an axiological analysis of pleasantness. On the one hand, we need to reject, in our definitions of pleasure, mental episodes that are good only in virtue of the value of their consequences (Paul's decision to eat chocolate); but on the other hand we need to accept some mental episodes which are good in virtue of the value of their object. Note that the present worry about evaluative pleasures is not that the correctness (fittingness, appropriateness) of pleasures depends on the value of their objects. This is probably true and raises other problems for the RATP to be addressed later on ( 8.4 page 214). What is at issue here is that pleasantness, which is a value according to the ATP, sometimes depends on the value of the pleasing objects. Even if fittingness is/has a value, hedonic goodness is not hedonic fittingness. Unfitting pleasures are still pleasant. The worry raised by evaluative pleasures for the RATP is only this: if the pleasantness of evaluative pleasures is a final value, then some final values have to be derivative, grounded on other values. In short, the RATP needs the value that mental episodes have in virtue of the values of their object, but not the value that mental episodes have in virtue of their effects, to count as final values. Otherwise the RATP would be forced to count as pleasures episodes that are clearly not pleasures, and to discount as pleasures episodes which clearly are. This is a tricky point: the RATP relies on a concept of final values that countenances some derivative values (the value of evaluative pleasure) but not others (the instrumental value of Paul's decision to eat chocolate). We need to finetune the RATP so that pleasantness might be a derivative value in one sense, but not in another. I have to show that there is a concept of final value according to which Paul's enjoying the chocolate in virtue of its goodness, but not Paul's good decision to eat that chocolate, has a final value for Paul. In order to avoid any charge of ad hocness, the RATP needs to isolate that concept independently of any consideration about pleasure. I shall argue there is such a concept of final value, and that it is indeed the one that recent value theorists have been after. The main (and legitimate) 150 CHAPTER 6. PLEASANTNESS AS A FINAL VALUE worry of defenders of final values, up to now, has been to distinguish final values from intrinsic values, by arguing that some final values are extrinsic (see especially Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen, 2000; a typical example of final extrinsic value is the value of Lady Diana's dress). I shall here stress another point: final values should be distinguished from non-derivative values as well. Some final values derive from other values. One tends to overlook this point if one assumes that instrumental values are the only kinds of derivative values. If this were so, final values would indeed be necessarily non-derivative. But this is not so: there are many ways in which values might derive from each other. Instrumental values are just one kind of derivative values among other. Some of those other kinds of derivative values are final, and belong, among other things, to evaluative pleasures. This is what I shall now argue for. 6.2 Intrinsic vs. extrinsic values Let us start by looking at intrinsic value, strictly speaking. The standard definition goes as follows: intrinsic value1 : x has an intrinsic value V =df x 's value, V, supervenes on x 's natural intrinsic properties.1 To speak of natural properties in this way is neither to exclude abundant properties (to avoid confusion, I have called such natural properties in this sense bona fide properties, see page 12), nor to exclude psychological or abstract properties: "natural properties" just means non-axiological properties. Some abstract entities, like demonstrations, may exemplify values in virtue of, say, their coherence. Coherence is here understood as a natural property on which value might supervene. Likewise, aesthetic properties might supervene on so-called qualia or phenomenal properties, even if these are construed as non-physical, or even non-existent properties. natural property: a property which is not a value property. 1Moore proposed a stronger definition of intrinsic value: To say that a kind of value is 'intrinsic' means merely that the question whether a thing possesses it, and in what degree it possesses it, depends solely on the intrinsic nature of the thing in question. (Moore, 1993, p. 286) It is arguably better however to allow also for intrinsic values that supervene on the natural and accidental properties of their bearers (Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen, 2000, p. 117; Dancy, 2006, p. 170). 6.2. INTRINSIC VS. EXTRINSIC VALUES 151 This definition of intrinsic values relies on the assumption that values are supervenient properties. But those who challenge this assumption might still need to speak of intrinsic values. A more general and straightforward way of defining intrinsic values is to subsume them under the wider concept of intrinsic properties: intrinsic value2: x as an intrinsic value V =dfx has an intrinsic property V, which is is a value. Presumably, if V is an intrinsic value in the first sense, it is an intrinsic value in the second. But the reverse does not hold: it is possible in principle –though unlikely– that V is an intrinsic value of x without supervening on any of its properties: V could just directly attach to x, as x 's natural properties are supposed to do. In both cases a definition of intrinsic properties is needed. I will not attempt to provide such a definition here, a notoriously intricate matter. Suffice it to say that an intrinsic property of x is roughly a property that x has independently of any y wholly distinct from x. The concept of intrinsic value will not play any important role for the present project of analyzing hedonic goodness in terms of the final and personal goodness of mental episodes. It might be that this concept is not even particularly interesting as a normative concept (see Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen, 2000; Kagan, 2005). One reason to think that the concept of intrinsic value is not the one we need most in axiology comes from subjectivism about values. If things are good in virtue of some external pro-attitudes directed towards them, then nothing is intrinsically good. Some might see in this a devastating problem for subjectivism, but I take it that such an objection would miss the point of subjectivism. What is at issue, in the subjectivist analyses of values, is not intrinsic values, but final ones. Though I have not defined final values yet, it should be clear that subjectivism has no problem in principle in distinguishing between the values that something has in virtue of being desired for itself, and the value that something has in virtue of being desired qua leading to another thing desired for itself. Though none of these values is intrinsic (both depend on attitudes external to their bearers), it seems that the distinction of importance for value theory is captured here. Though subjectivism is incompatible with intrinsic value, it can make the distinction between things that are good in themselves and things that are good thanks to their relations to other things of value. More relevantly here, anti-realist theories of pleasures (see page 34) that define pleasures as liked or desired mental episodes entail that pleasures are not intrinsically good. Contrary to Rachels (2000), I do not think that this is a problem for those theories: this rather points towards the fact that the concept of intrinsic 152 CHAPTER 6. PLEASANTNESS AS A FINAL VALUE value is not relevant here2. Hedonic anti-realists can easily bite the bullet and grant that pleasures are not of intrinsic value, but insist that the crucial thing is that pleasures are still of final value. Final values, as they will be defined, do not amount to intrinsic values. They might be extrinsic. That some things might be good in themselves, for their own sake, though not intrinsically good, was made clear by Shand, who anticipated the contemporary concept of final value: In what sense, then, can external things be held to have "intrinsic"value if their value is not wholly contained within themselves? There must be some sense in which we do so value them; for we say of someone we love that we value him for himself alone. We mean that we do not value him for his use to us in subserving our interests [. . . ] The intrinsic value of an external thing does not therefore mean that its value is wholly self-contained. (Shand, 1918, p. 221) What Shand calls "intrinsic value" in the last sentence, amounts to the final value we are after. In order to get at this concept of final value, the concept of intrinsic value is therefore not of great help. However, the distinction between fundamental and derivative values, now to be introduced, will prove to be essential. 6.3 Fundamental vs. derivative values A derivative value is the value that an entity exemplifies or possesses in virtue of the value of another entity. Entities of derivative value have their value because some distinct entities have some value. Derivative values are to be contrasted with fundamental or basic values: the values that entities have independently of the values of other entities. derivative value: x has a derivative value relative to y=df x is (dis)valuable because y is (dis)valuable (x 6=y). fundamental value: x has a fundamental value relative to y=df x is not (dis)valuable because y is (dis)valuable (x 6=y). Some derivative values are more fundamental than others. If good chocolate cakes are good in virtue of giving pleasure, and if a recipe is good in virtue of leading to a 2See however Feldman (1997a) for an attempt to reconcile anti-realist views of pleasure with the view that pleasures are of intrinsic value. 6.3. FUNDAMENTAL VS. DERIVATIVE VALUES 153 good chocolate cake, the derivative value of the chocolate cake is more fundamental than the derivative value of the recipe. The most discussed type of derivative value is instrumental value. Clear cases of instrumental values are the values that causes possess in virtue of the value of their effects. Some might be willing to define instrumental values in that narrow causal way. But we shall here be interested in a broader concept of instrumental value. First, things may have instrumental value even if they do not actually cause some effect, but could do so (a knife remains instrumentally good when it does not actually cut, see Rønnow-Rasmussen, 2002b, pp. 29-30). The relation of conduciveness is often introduced to widen the concept of causation in that way: conduciveness is not an actual causal relationship but is a dispositional property, so that entities that are not actually causing value-exemplifications might still retain some instrumental value. An instrumental value is then defined as the value that an entity has in virtue of being conducive to other valuable entities3. This is better, but still too narrow for our present purpose. Some things might have instrumental value, in the broad sense, even if they do not enter into any actual or possible causal relationship with things of more fundamental value. A formal method might be good in virtue of the validity of its results, a political procedure might be good in virtue of the goodness of the decision it leads to, a declaration of war might be good in virtue of the goodness of the war it leads to, a reason might be good in virtue of the goodness of the action it leads to, some extended area might be good in virtue of the beauty of the colors that fill it, etc. Such relations are not causal relations, but they share two important features with causal relations: 1. their first relatum enjoys some ontological priority over the second: the result depends on the method, the decision depends on the procedure, the war depends on the declaration, the action depends on the reason, the color depends on the extension. 2. their relata are wholly distinct from each other: the methods and the result, the procedure and the decision, the war and the declaration, the reason and the action, the extended area and the color, do not share any part or constituent. We have here some kind of external determination relation, which I shall call external ontological dependence. As specified in Appendix A.2.2, x externally depends on y if and only if x ontologically depends on y and x and y are wholly distinct. Causation 3Note that the value of the entity to which the instrumentally good or bad entities are conducive is not itself necessarily a fundamental value. The knife sharpener is instrumentally good in virtue of being conducive to the instrumentally good knife. 154 CHAPTER 6. PLEASANTNESS AS A FINAL VALUE is only one species of ontological dependence between wholly distinct entities. The result of a method is not part of the method (nor is the method part of the result), but the result depends on the method. The war that ensues from a declaration is not part of the declaration, but it depends on the declaration. My reason to go swimming does not overlap with my swimming, but my swimming depends on my reason, etc. We have here a very generic relation of ontological priority or grounding. I propose to define the generic concept of instrumental value in terms of this: instrumental value: x has a instrumental value relative to y=df x is (dis)valuable because (i) y is (dis)valuable (x 6=y) (ii) y is externally dependent on x.4 As a result, this definition of instrumental value is very wide. One might quarrel with the use of the term "instrumental" which is sometimes used to refer to only some sub-types of what I call "instrumental value" here, but the concept itself should hopefully not be too controversial. In his appendix on extrinsic values, Zimmerman (2001) puts forward fine-grained distinctions inside that generic concept. As far as the explanation of the value of pleasure is concerned, we do not need to go into the details here and can rest content with the generic concept of instrumental value. What we shall need, however, are other types of derivative values, which are not instrumental. Though instrumental values are by far the most discussed type of derivative values, and legitimately so, there are three other types of derivative values based on determination relations between their bearers. The second type of derivative value refers to the type of value that a part has in virtue of the value of the whole of which it is part. The typical example is the value of a single note of a nice melody. One standardly speaks here of contributory value (Lemos, 1995, pp. 41 sqq.; Tappolet, 2000, p. 24). It is not sufficient to define contributory value as the value that a part has in virtue of the value of the whole it is part of. Consider a beautiful mosaic. Suppose one insignificant tile near the corner could be removed without the mosaic ceasing to be the beautiful mosaic it is. That tile does not seem to have any 4Instrumental values are often defined in terms of existence (Moore, 1993, §15 RønnowRasmussen, 2002b). Entities would be instrumentally good in virtue of externally grounding the existence of entities of (more) fundamental value. I see no reason to limit instrumental values in that way. It seems to me that fictitious entities, such as Sherlock Holmes' pipe, might have instrumental value, even if the valuable things they ground do not exist (Sherlock Holmes' pleasure). What fictitious entities lack is only existence, not properties, including axiological and instrumental ones. Given that ontological dependence includes both essential and existential dependence (Appendix A.2 page 286), my definition of instrumental value is compatible with the instrumental value of things grounding good fictitious entities. 6.3. FUNDAMENTAL VS. DERIVATIVE VALUES 155 contributory value, though it is a part of a beautiful mosaic5. Such non-valuable parts might be excluded if we define contributory values in terms of ontological dependence: what distinguishes the tiles that have contributory value from the tiles that do not, is that the beauty of the mosaic depends on the former , but not on the latter. We have here again a relation of ontological dependence, but this time the relation is internal. y internally depends on x iff y depends on x and x is a part of y (see again Appendix A.2.2 page 288). contributory value : x has a contributory value relative to y=df x is (dis)valuable because (i) y is (dis)valuable (x 6=y) (ii) y is internally dependent on x. While external dependency is a determination relation between wholly distinct entities, internal dependency is a determination relation between entities that are not wholly distinct. Dependency is not a symmetrical relation. Can there be values which entities possess not in virtue of other entities of value depending on them, but in virtue of their depending on other entities of value? The answer, I submit, is positive. This is of some importance, because a failure to consider those other kinds of derivative values might lead us to wrongly equate final values with fundamental values. A third type of derivative value is the value that entities have in virtue of the values of the wholly distinct entities they depend on. An example is the value that might attach to an effect in virtue of the value of its cause: some effects might be good because their causes are good. Likewise, it is sometimes claimed that things created by God are good in virtue of the goodness of God; or that things created by an artist, whatever they are, are good in virtue of the genius of this artist. Let us call this kind of value consecutive value: consecutive value: x has a consecutive value relative to y=df x is (dis)valuable because (i) y is (dis)valuable (x 6=y) (ii) x is externally dependent on y. Consecutive values are more than a mere logical possibility only manifested in some exotic cases. Consecutive values play a central role in important ethical and political theories. Here are four examples of non-exotic consecutive values. 1. Reading "virtuous" as a value, standard virtue ethics holds that actions are virtuous in virtue of being performed by virtuous agents. The fundamental moral value is here the virtue of the agent (including his character traits), and actions are good because they externally depend on virtuous agents: actions are then consecutively good. 5It might acquire, however, a fetishist value, see 1 page 157. 156 CHAPTER 6. PLEASANTNESS AS A FINAL VALUE 2. Likewise, Kantian ethics, on some readings, has it that actions are (morally) good in virtue of resulting from the (morally) good will. The goodness of an action is, likewise understood as having consecutive value: actions are good because they externally depend on good will. 6 3. The concept of consecutive value is sometimes used with respect to justiceinjustice. One central thread of Hayek's criticism of social justice (Von Hayek, 1973, bk 2) is that justice, as a fundamental value, applies to people or behavior, and can only derivatively qualify situations that result from just/unjust person or behaviors. Situations that result from unjust behaviors (such as robbery) are consecutively unjust. It is therefore meaningless, Hayek argues, to speak of the injustice of situations that do not result from unjust people or behavior. 4. symbolic value is the value that attaches, for instance, to a flag symbolizing a country. The value of the flag derives from the value of the country it symbolizes and the flag depends on the country it symbolizes. If the flag is not a part of the country, or the reverse, the flag's symbolic value is a kind of consecutive value. (see Scheler, 1973a, p. 104 for a defense of realism about symbolic values). As is apparent, consecutive values are seldom mentioned in typologies of values, despite the fact that they play a central role in important normative theories. A tentative explanation of this omission is the following. Note, first, that the very idiom "consecutive value" is tentatively read as synonymous with "derivative value". This is the way Scheler (1973a, p. 103) uses it, meaning by "consecutive value" what I have called here derivative value. After all, derivation and consecutiveness appear to be akin to each other. It is important to see why expressions such as "consecutive value" might be misleading. Let us assume that derivation and consecutiveness are kinds of dependence relations. One should clearly distinguish derivationor consecution-relations between values, on the one hand, from derivationconsecutionrelations between bearers of values on the other. One assumption of the typology I am proposing is that (some) derivation relations between values are grounded on derivation relations between bearers of value. In other words, some values depend on each other because their bearers depend on each other. Dependences between values depend on dependences between value-bearers. When Scheler speaks of consecutive value, he has in mind the dependence relation between values. When I speak of consecutive value, I have in mind the dependence relations between value-bearers. In the case of instrumental values, the two relations are naturally distinguished for 6Note that if the agent or the will is included among the constituent parts of the action, the value of the action is no longer a consecutive but a constitutive value, as will be discussed below. 6.3. FUNDAMENTAL VS. DERIVATIVE VALUES 157 some 'dependency-chiasmus' takes place: the value of the cause depends on the value of the effect because the effect depends on the cause. The distinction between the dependency relation between values and the dependency relation between valuebearers is patent because they have opposite senses. But with consecutive values (in my sense), the two relations have the same sense: the value of the effect depends on the value of the cause, because the effect depends on the cause. This might give the impression that consecutive values are not new kinds of derivative value, but just a restatement of what derivative values are. Maybe this is why consecutive values are often overlooked. The last category of derivative value to be mentioned here is the converse of contributory value: wholes sometimes have values in virtue of the values of their constituents. An alloy of gold and lead might be precious in virtue of the gold it contains. Following Ehrenfels (see Smith, 1986) one might speak here of constitutive value (see also Schroeder, 2008). It might prove useful to understand the concept of parthood broadly enough, so as to include in it constitutive the values that accrue to conjunctive states of affairs in virtue of the values of the conjuncts (see Feldman, 2004, p. 173 on such derivative values). constitutive value: x has a constitutive value relative to y=df x is (dis)valuable because (i) y is (dis)valuable (x 6=y) (ii) x is internally dependent on y. In summary, instrumental, contributory, consecutive values and constitutive values are all derivative values that are grounded in ontological dependence relations between their bearers. Instrumental and contributory values are grounded in the dependence of their bearers upon bearers of (more) fundamental value. Consecutive and constitutive values are grounded upon the dependence of bearers of (more) fundamental values upon their bearers. Instrumental and consecutive values are grounded in relations of dependence between wholly distinct entities. Contributory and constitutive values are grounded in dependence relations between overlapping entities. These four different kinds of derivative values are presented in table 6.1 page suivante. Let me urge that this classification of derivative values is not intended to be exhaustive. This classification is exhaustive only with respect to a certain kind of derivative values, namely derivative values that are grounded in dependence relations between value bearers: either external dependence relations, such as causality; or internal ones, such as parthood. One can think of two other kinds of derivative values that are not grounded in any dependence relations between their bearers. 1. The first kind of derived value that is not grounded in determination relations among value-bearers might be called fetishist value. This is the value that, 158 CHAPTER 6. PLEASANTNESS AS A FINAL VALUE relations between x and y, y being of basic value x wholly distinct from y x overlaps y y depends on x x has instrumental value with respect to y x has contributory value with respect to y x depends on y x has consecutive value with respect to y x has constitutive value with respect to y Table 6.1: Derivative values grounded in dependence relation between their bearers according to some, pertains to things that have been in the proximity of some other things of value without determining them or being determined by them in any way. Put something neutral in contact with something good, and it acquires a fetishist value. The value of Lady Diana's dress might be an example. The dress does not appear to depend on Lady Diana: it could have existed, and be the dress it is, without having been the dress of Lady Diana. Still, just having been worn by Lady Diana confers some value on the dress. 2. The second kind of derivative value not grounded in dependence relations among value bearers is the case of the overall value of a value-bearer that has several values of different kinds (Zimmerman, 2001, p. 258). Overall value is not to be confused with the total constitutive value of a whole. First, simple things that have no parts lack constitutive values, but might have overall value. Second, things that have constitutive values, might also have other types of values: instrumental, contributory, etc., that should enter in the overall value. They might also have fundamental value of different kinds: something might have both a fundamental aesthetic value and a fundamental moral value. It should be noted that the distinction between derivative and non-derivative values and the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic values are orthogonal ones. In particular: • Some derivative values are intrinsic. This is probably the case for many constitutive values. If the value of a ring derives from the value of the diamond setting, and the value of the diamond is intrinsic to the ring, then the value of the ring is an intrinsic derivative value. Its value derives from the intrinsic value of one of its parts7. 7Zimmerman (2001, p. 251) claims, on the contrary, that all derivative values are extrinsic but 6.3. FU N D A M E N TA L V S.D E R IVAT IV E VA LU E S 159 values fundamental derivative not grounded on dependence relations between value-bearers fetishist overall ... grounded on dependence relations between value-bearers dependent on something good consecutive effect of good cause constitutive whole with good part on which something good depends instrumental cause of good effect contributory part of good whole Figure 6.1: Fundamental and derivative values 160 CHAPTER 6. PLEASANTNESS AS A FINAL VALUE • Some fundamental values are extrinsic. Depending on the value of a wholly distinct entity, this is only one of the ways in which a value can be extrinsic. The value of an entity might also depend on natural properties of wholly distinct entities. As long as it does not depend on another entity's values, it is an extrinsic and fundamental value. Suppose that Paul becomes cruel under the full moon. Being cruel is a fundamental disvalue of Paul that depends on factors extrinsic to Paul (the full moon). Or suppose that shapes are not intrinsic, contrary to ordinary intuition (Skow, 2007): the aesthetic value of the Venus de Milo, assuming it supervenes on its shape, would be a fundamental extrinsic value. Finally, some subjectivist theories about the nature of value have it that something is good, by definition, if and only if it is intrinsically liked or desired (i.e. liked or desired for its own sake). According to such theories, all fundamental values become extrinsic (Kagan, 2005, pp. 101-2). 6.4 Final vs. non-final values In recent literature on value theory, the concept of final value has come to play a central role. It is insisted that final values are not intrinsic values, for some final values can be extrinsic. But how should they be understood more positively? The answer is not straightforward partly because there is no agreement on the way final values are typically expressed in ordinary language. Final values are sometimes said to be final because they qualify things that are valuable as ends. Though speaking about ends might put us on the right track, it might also be misleading. First because this suggests that final values are final to the extent that they are the target, goal, objective or end of some (fitting) conative attitudes. But ideally, our understanding of final value should not bar naïve axiological realism, nor any other theory that does not analyze value in terms of conative attitudes. Second, as noted by Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen (2000), ends, or objectives, are usually states, while final values might in principle apply as well to things, properties, mental acts, etc (see 3.1.4 page 76). Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen (2000) claim that final values are better expressed through the locution 'for their own sake': a final value would be a value that a thing has for its own sake. However, if speaking of things valuable as ends might be too restrictive, speaking of the value that things have for their own sake might be too permissive here. The main problem is that this locution might as well be used to express intrinsic value. Moore (1993) sometimes uses it that way. Relatedly, he fails to consider constitutive values as a kind of derivative values. 6.4. FINAL VS. NON-FINAL VALUES 161 the best way to translate "for its own sake" in French is to say "by/in itself" [par/en elle-même] or "intrinsically" [intrinsèquement ]. Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen (2000), themselves, who favor that way of expressing final values, note that "sake" has the same origin as Sache in German, or Sak in Swedish, i.e. thing. If so, the expression "for its own sake" appears to boil down to "for what it is", "for that thing, qua the thing it is", "in its nature" or something along these lines. This suggests that the expression can also be used to pick out intrinsic values instead of final ones, and that its meaning is not crucially different from "in itself". In response, Kagan (2005) and Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen (2000) suggest that instead of lacking ordinary expressions to express final values, we might be lacking ordinary expressions to express intrinsic values. It might be that expressions such as "the value that x has in itself" primarily means the final value of x, rather than its intrinsic value. This would be due to the fact that intrinsic value, on the whole, is not an especially remarkable normative concept (see page 151). This sounds plausible to me, but it remains unsatisfying if one is to pick out the distinction between intrinsic and final values. The clearest way to pick out the concept of final value, it seems to me, if it is not totally idiomatic, is proposed by Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen (2000) and Rønnow-Rasmussen (2011, p. 62): final values are final in the sense of being end-point values, or ultimate values, i.e. values that things possess not in virtue of leading to other things of value. This entails that fundamental values are final, but also that derivative values that stand at the end of the axiological derivation chains are final as well. This is the case of consecutive, constitutive, or fetishist values: things that have such derivative values are not good in virtue of leading to other things of more fundamental value. If you are given an autograph of Marilyn Monroe you can be happy with it and have it framed. If you are given a voucher for a gift, there is no point in hanging it on your wall. Both the autograph and the voucher, though, owe their value to something else, but only the autograph has a value which does not rely on another thing of value depending on it. Defining final values as non-derivative values, as is sometimes done , therefore leads to an overly narrow conception of final values. Defining final values as noninstrumental values, on the other hand, leads to an overly broad conception of final values. Contributory values are clearly not 'end point values' (if you are given one tile that is part of a possible superb mosaic, you should not be happy with it either). The right definition of final value, I submit, is this: final values are values which are neither instrumental nor contributory, i.e. values which are not grounded on the fact that their bearers ground some other entities of more fundamental value. final value: value which is neither an instrumental nor a contributory value, i.e. 162 CHAPTER 6. PLEASANTNESS AS A FINAL VALUE value that an entity has independently of whether some other entity of (more) fundamental value depends on it. What exactly final and non-final values encompass respectively is represented in figure 6.2. Defenders of final values often insist that instrumental values might be finally valuable, in virtue of their usefulness (Korsgaard, 2005, Kagan, 2005). Defining final values negatively, purely in terms of non-instrumentality does not exclude such claims. To claim that a watch is beautiful (partly) in virtue of its instrumental value, does not entail that its instrumental value is its beauty. Instrumental values might ground final values, they might be (part of) their bearers, but the point is that instrumental values are never final values. The reverse might also hold: final value might ground instrumental value. The instrumental value of a gold coin might be grounded in the final value of the gold that constitutes it. But still the final value of the gold is not its instrumental value.8 We are now in a position to solve the problem raised by evaluative pleasures for the RATP. In order to defend the RATP, we were looking for a concept of final value according to which Paul's enjoyment of the chocolate thanks to the chocolate's goodness, but not Paul's decision to eat chocolate, is finally valuable. Final values, as defined above, fit the bill. The value of Paul's decision to eat the chocolate is not final but instrumental: that decision is good for Paul because it might help him to get pleasure, which is finally good for him. This is why Paul's decision is not essentially a pleasure. That hedonic goodness is not an instrumental value does not however exclude it from being a derivative value. The pleasure that Paul takes in the good chocolate, or the pleasure that Mark takes in the Château Margaux 1982, thanks to his oenological expertise, derives from the (felt) value of the wine. But their pleasures are not (essentially) instrumentally good. The goodness of Paul and Mark's pleasures is derivative but not instrumental. Nor is it contributory. What is good in Paul's 8To that extent, Rønnow-Rasmussen (2002b) is, I think, wrong to claim that some instrumental values are final values. In a nutshell, what the many examples he appeals to show, it seems to me, is that final values sometimes depend on instrumental values (such a dependence of some final values on some instrumental values is clearly spelled out by Kagan, 2005–see notably n. 6). The distinction between instrumental values strictly speaking and final values dependent on them is admittedly not easy to capture: definitions of instrumental value tend to conflate it (this is possibly the case of the definition of instrumental value I proposed, and is also the case with the definition of strong instrumental value proposed by Rønnow-Rasmussen). But even if this distinction between final instrumental values on the one hand, and final values grounded on instrumental values on the other is not easy to capture, it is still clear enough, and abandoning it considerably blurs the concept of final value. 6.4. FIN A L V S.N O N -FIN A L VA LU E S 163 Figure 6.2: Final vs. non-final values 164 CHAPTER 6. PLEASANTNESS AS A FINAL VALUE and Mark's pleasures is not that they lead them to other things of more fundamental value. The derivative goodness of their evaluative pleasures is either a constitutive or a consecutive value. According to the view I endorsed in the third part, the pleasure's intentional objects are parts of those pleasures (see fig. 8.1 page 202), so that value of Paul and Mark's pleasures is constitutive: their pleasure is good (partly) in virtue of having a valuable part (the value of the Ecuadorian chocolate, the value of the Château Margaux they are enjoying). The value of their pleasures internally depends on the value of their objects. Some might be willing to claim that the good chocolate enjoyed by Paul and the good wine enjoyed by Mark are not parts of their enjoyments, but are external to them. I disagree, but if this were true, the value of Paul's and Mark's pleasures would no longer be a constitutive but a consecutive value, which is still compatible with the RATP: Paul and Mark's pleasures are valuable in that case (partly) because they externally depend on something good, namely, their objects. In either case, the value of Paul's and Mark's pleasures is final. To sum up: once final values are properly understood as including some derivative values, the view that pleasures are finally good mental episodes allows us to exclude mental episodes that are only instrumentally good from our definitions of pleasure and to include evaluative pleasures. Chapter 7 Pleasantness as a personal value The goal of this chapter is to get clear about the concept of personal value involved in the RATP. The claim that pleasures are personally good, i.e. good for their subjects, is meant to capture the intuition that Paul's pleasure is good for him in a way it is not for Mary. This is a fairly standard idea that most defenders of the view that pleasures are necessarily but not essentially good appear to share. The RATP reinforces this intuition by claiming that it is indeed in the nature of pleasures to be of personal value. Personal values play an important role inside the RATP for they allow the theory to dismiss a second set of potential counterexamples (besides evaluative pleasures): mental episodes which, though finally good, are not pleasures. This is the case, for instance of moral intentions. Section 7.1 presents the problem which such finally good mental episodes raise for the RATP. Section 7.2 gives a positive characterisation of personal values, while section 7.3 clarifies what personal values are not. Section 7.4 shows how personal values, thus characterised, help the RATP to deal with the problem of non-pleasant finally good mental episodes. Finally, section 7.5 argues that personal values attach to their bearers independently of our attitudes towards them. 7.1 The problem of good non-pleasant mental episodes The claim that pleasantness is a personal value is meant to help the RATP to dismiss an important set of potential counterexamples. Some mental episodes are finally good without being pleasures. Here are three kinds of troublemakers: 165 166 CHAPTER 7. PLEASANTNESS AS A PERSONAL VALUE 1. Knowledge episodes. If knowledge is finally valuable, so are knowledge episodes. Some knowledge episodes are pleasures, such as (normally) the knowledge that one won the lottery. But not all knowledge episodes are pleasures. Some are indolences, such as (normally) the knowledge that 3 is an odd number. Some are unpleasures, such as (normally) the knowledge that one has been cheated. 2. Moral intentions. Intentions or acts of will can, according to some, be finally valuable. Intentions, according to this approach, are sometimes good neither in virtue of the value of their consequences, nor in virtue of being parts of some virtuous agent, but finally. Such moral intentions are not all pleasures however. Some severe moralists even claim that intentions could not be morally good if they were pleasant. 3. Correct emotions. Emotions might be correct or incorrect, fitting or unfitting. It is correct to fear what is dangerous, incorrect to fear what is not dangerous. It is correct to admire what is admirable, incorrect to admire what is not admirable. Arguably, it is better for an emotion to be correct than to be incorrect. On one view, correctness has a positive final value, on another view, correctness is a positive final value (see Mulligan, 2009c, Tappolet, to appear). On both views, correct mental episodes are finally valuable. Not all correct emotions are pleasures however. Negative emotions can be correct and are unpleasurable ( 1.1.2 page 24). It is therefore not sufficient, for a mental episode, to be finally valuable in order to be a pleasure. This raises a worry about the general project of analyzing hedonic goodness in terms of the final goodness of mental episodes1. A bold strategy for those sympathetic to that project would be to deny that finally valuable episodes of knowledge, intentions or correct emotions can ever be non pleasant. An even rasher strategy would be to deny that finally valuable knowledge episodes, intentions and correct emotions are mental episodes. The RATP defended here grants, on the contrary, that some finally good mental episodes are not pleasures. However, it insists that those episodes are not personally good, good for the person that has them. The claim that pleasure is of personal value, therefore, not only echoes the common intuition that one's pleasure is good for one in a way it is not for others, it also allows the RATP to demarcate, among finally good mental episodes, those that are 1Note that the primitivist version of the ATP ( 5.1 page 133) does not face this worry: hedonic values, according to it, are just a sui generis kind of values, distinct from the values of knowledge episodes, good intentions or correct emotions. 7.2. WHAT PERSONAL VALUES ARE 167 pleasures from those that are not. As for final values, the RATP needs to rely on a concept of personal value which is not tailor-made for the exclusion of troublemakers, on pain of becoming ad hoc. In order to cope with that suspicion of ad hocness, I shall try to isolate personal values independently of any consideration about pleasure, in order to argue afterwards that pleasures, but not knowledge episodes, moral intentions or correct emotions are of personal values. 7.2 What personal values are 7.2.1 Picking out personal values Personal values have been of particular interest to recent value theory (see e.g. Sumner, 1996, pp. 20 sqq., Darwall, 2002, Feldman (2004, pp. 135-6), RønnowRasmussen, 2007, 2011, Rosati, 2006, 2008, Zimmerman, 2009). Various analyses of personal values have been proposed. The RATP does not need to take a stance on the analysability of personal values, nor on which analysis is the best one, but it needs to be clear on what the concept "good for" expresses in "a pleasure is a mental episode which is finally good for its subject". What I intend to do here is to pick out the concept of personal value, the explanadum common to the various analyses proposed. Whether personal values can be further analyzed and how so need not bother us here (I shall however in the end suggest that personal values might not by analysable, but nothing crucial hangs on this as far as the RATP is concerned.) As it happens, philosophers putting forward analyses of personal value often express the worry that their different analyses, instead of being fully rival accounts, might target different concepts of personal values, some being broader than others (Zimmerman, 2009, Rønnow-Rasmussen, 2007, Rønnow-Rasmussen, 2011, 7.5). It is not always easy to disentangle heterogeneity of explananda, from disagreement about explanans. The problem here partly stems from the fact that the prototypical expressions for personal values exhibit various ambiguities. As a first approximation, personal values accrue to things that are good for certain people. Personal values are opposed to impersonal values or values simpliciter (one sometimes also contrasts what is good for a person with what is good for the world, Feldman, 2004, pp. 135-6). Unfortunately, as we shall see in the next section 7.3 "good for " is not only used to express final values. Before dismissing those irrelevant readings of "good for", let us try to give some positive characterization of personal values. To begin with, here are some examples of things of personal value in the sense intended here: • positive personal values : the value of children for their parents, the value of a 168 CHAPTER 7. PLEASANTNESS AS A PERSONAL VALUE compliment for the complimented, the value of medicine for the sick person, the value of the victory for the winner, the value of a person's health for that person, the value of the satisfaction of a desire for the desirer, the value of a person's life for that person, the value of a state for its citizens. • negative personal values : the disvalue of one's death, the disvalue, for us, of the death of our friends, the disvalue of danger for the endangered, the disvalue of the offence for the offended, the disvalue of the insult for the insulted, the disvalue of a person's illness for herself, the disvalue of a punishment for the punished person. The central intuition underlying these examples is that some things (facts, episodes, substances...) are valuable for some people in ways they are not for other persons. Mary's recovery is good for her in a way it is not for Paul. Note that personal values are not to be limited from the start to things that constitute our own identity. To be good for P does not entail being part of the nature of P. Things might be good for us that are not essential to us, such as our children and people with whom we have close ties (Parfit, 2011, vol. 1, p. 136), or our health. Beside this list of examples, one can propose two different tests to help us pick out personal values. The first one is proposed by Feldman (2004), which he calls the "crib test": Imagine that you are filled with love as you look into the crib, checking on your newly arrived firstborn child. The infant is sleeping peacefully. You might think of various ways in which the baby's life could turn out. What schools will he attend? What career will he choose? What sort of personality and intellect will he have? Will he someday have children of his own? Your concern for the baby might express itself in the hope that, whatever he does, things will turn out well for him. You might hope that this baby gets a good life-a life good in itself for him. That hope-the hope for a life good in itself for the one who lives it-is a hope about the topic of this book. (Feldman, 2004, pp. 8-9) As I see it, these are two different scales of evaluation for lives. On the one hand, we can inquire into the value of a certain life for the one who lives it. When we do this, we inquire into the pure "quality of life" for that individual. Suppose you have a newborn baby. Suppose you are filled with love and hope for that baby. Suppose you want things to turn out well for her. Your hope, in this case, concerns the baby's welfare. You might, in addition, also hope that your baby will grow up to be someone 7.2. WHAT PERSONAL VALUES ARE 169 whose life adds value for the world. But, fearing that making the world better might not be maximally advantageous for your baby, you might just stick with the earlier hope. In this case, you are thinking about the value of a life for the one who lives it. (Feldman, 2004, pp. 135-6) Feldman's crib test is intended to get clear only about the personal value of one's life, by contrast to its value for the world. Feldman is interested in what make a life worth living for the person who has it. But his crib test might be extended to pick out personal values in general, in the following way: x is of personal value to P if x helps P to get a life which is "good in itself for him", in the sense picked out by Feldman's crib story. That is, x helps P to have the kind of life that his parents looking into the crib were hoping for him. Here is a second test, call it the egoist test : consider a complete egoist, caring only about himself. All the things that such an egoist pursues as ends are things that appear to him to be personally good for him. Personal values are those values the exclusive pursuit of which amounts to egoism. More precisely, x is of apparent personal value for P, if it would be egoistic for P to pursue x only. The restriction on apparent personal value is needed, for P might be engaged in the exclusive pursuit of what he thinks to be good for him, but which is indeed good simpliciter. Though P is still in some sense a (failed) egoist, what he is actually pursuing is not good for him but good simpliciter. On the other hand, suppose that P pursues only what appears to him to be good simpliciter, but that what he pursues is indeed only good for him. For instance, suppose Paul pursues only his own pleasure qua pleasure, because he is convinced, wrongly, that his pleasure is good simpliciter rather than good for him. Intuitively, Paul is not an egoist, but rather a failed non-egoist. To be an egoist, one has to pursue only what appears good for us, not what is good for us. Two remarks are worth making about these tests: 1. It should be urged that these are only tests intended to help us to pick out the concept of personal value intended here, but in no way definitions of personal values. The very story of Feldman contains the "good for" locution and it would be presumably circular to define personal value on its basis. And assuming there is an equivalence between egoism and the exclusive pursuit of things that appear to be of personal value, one has yet to decide whether this should count as a definition of apparent personal values in terms of egoism, or of egoism in terms of apparent personal values. The second option sounds far more natural indeed: to be an egoist is to pursue exclusively what appears to be personally good for us. No proper definition of personal values is to be found here. 2. Beside, these two tests do not lead to exactly the same results. Consider 170 CHAPTER 7. PLEASANTNESS AS A PERSONAL VALUE posthumous fame (Sidgwick, 2000, p. 52): such fame has a personal value for the famous person, according to the egoism test (those who pursue only their posthumous fame are egoist) but not according to the crib test (posthumous fame does not make one's life better for us). Feldman's crib test is appropriate to Feldman's purpose: Feldman is interested in the good life or welfare of a person, and tries to exclude cases in which a life can be good without being personally good for the person that has it. Even if we extend this test so as to include all the things that contribute to the good life of a person, we still miss some personal values. If one focuses on personal values in general, one should not assume that only things related to our life (including our life itself) might be of personal value. To this extent, the egoism test picks out a wider concept than the crib test which is too narrow for our present purpose. Posthumous fame is not the only example of something possibly good for a person without contributing to its welfare or good life. The satisfaction of people's will about what should happen to their body or goods after their death is good for them, though it does not make their life better. That some criminal is proved to be guilty after his death, is bad for him, but does not make his life worse. Such personal values or disvalues do not pass the crib test, but they pass the egoist test. Paul, who obsessively wants to make sure that his body won't be burned after his death, and cares about nothing else, is an egoist. The same is true for Julie, whose only goal in life is to conceal all the evidence that could reveal her wrongdoings after her death. One might think that some other things pass the crib test, but fail the egoist test: we might wish, in the interest of our baby, that his friends will be happy in life. Happy friends are of personal value to our baby according to the crib test. On the other hand, one might think that if P pursues only the happiness of his friends, he is not an egoist, but an altruist. But there is a way to pursue one's friend's happiness which is egoistic (see page 184), namely because you thinks that your friend's happiness is good for you. If this is the only reason why you pursue that happiness, you are an egoist. Whatever passes the crib test passes the egoist test, but not the reverse: the egoist test picks out a broader concept of personal value than the crib test, this is the broad concept that we should rely on here. Hopefully, together with the examples above, the crib test and the egoist test give some rough idea about the concept of personal value at plays in the RATP. 7.2. WHAT PERSONAL VALUES ARE 171 7.2.2 Primitive personal values Aside from the examples above, the crib test and the egoist test, it might be useful, so as to secure the concept of personal value we have located, to mention two analyses of this concept. Let me say from the start that I suspect that these analyses are circular, and more generally that personal values cannot be analyzed, for a reason close to Moore's open question argument about value simpliciter. For any analysans of personal values, it is possible to ask whether is it personally good or not. If it is, the definition is viciously circular, if it is not, the definition loses most of its intuitive appeal. Still, the proposed analyses of personal value remain interesting: even if they do not spell out the nature of such value, they clearly help us to get at personal values. The first analysis to be envisaged is proposed by Zimmerman (2009). Zimmerman purports to analyze the concept of personal values in terms of benefit or welfare. He proposes: x is good for P=df. x is of benefit to P x is good for P =df. x is to P 's benefit.(Zimmerman, 2009) I agree with Zimmerman that there is an equivalence here. In particular, if one understands the concept of benefit sufficiently widely, Paul's posthumous fame is of benefit to him. But I disagree about the order of explanation: it is not obviously the case that x is good for P because x is of benefit P. It is indeed not clear that one can grasp the concept of benefit apart from any concept of personal value. When asked what the benefit of a person is, one natural answer is that it is something good for that person. Nor am I claiming that the right explanation is the reverse, that we should define benefit in terms of personal values. Rather, we might have here two expressions that have the same meaning, that are synonymous. Zimmerman concedes that the very etymology of the term benefit –bene facere, do good (to)– suggests some circularity here. He grants that we might have here a truism, but insists that this truism is enlightening. But if this is so, instead of a definition, we face an insightful reformulation of our explanandum. If "to be of benefit to P " and "to be good for P " mean the same thing, then it is not the case that the right hand side has any priority over the left hand side. Such a rephrasing of personal value does help us to get "some insight into the nature of goodness-for" (Zimmerman, 2009, p. 433), but not by providing us with an analysis of personal values; instead it helps us to look in the right direction. Another proposed definition of personal value is the buck-passing analysis of personal value along the lines of Darwall (2002, p. 8) and Rønnow-Rasmussen (2007, 2011). The idea is to define positive personal values thanks to a special kind of 172 CHAPTER 7. PLEASANTNESS AS A PERSONAL VALUE pro-attitudes: for someone's sake pro-attitudes. Ignoring some important differences between Darwall and Rønnow-Rasmussen2, the general proposal goes along these lines: x is good for P=df. one ought to favor x for P 's sake. The core point of such analyses is the introduction of "for someone's sake" attitudes3. I agree with Rønnow-Rasmussen (2011, chap. 5) that such attitudes makes sense, and that there is a important distinction between the two following " for x 's own sake" locution: 1. Paul favors liberty for its own sake. 2. Paul favors liberty for his own sake. In the first case, we are saying that Paul favors liberty for what it is, intrinsically, not in virtue of its leading to other goods. In the second case, we are saying that Paul favors liberty, in favor of himself, to his benefit. Bracketing for the moment any issue about the order of explanation, 1. and 2. are equivalent, respectively, to: 1'. Paul favors liberty because he thinks it is finally good. 2'. Paul favors liberty because he thinks it is good for him. The expression "for x 's own sake" has therefore both a final and a personal reading. In 1., it is naturally given a final reading, and in 2., a personal one. As a result, one might express that Paul finally desires liberty because it is of personal value to him in the following cumbersome way: 3. Paul favors liberty for its own sake, for his own sake. One pragmatic rule seems to be that if x is a person, one goes for a personal reading, and that if x is a thing (or any non-person), one goes by default for a final reading. But this is not always so. Consider: 4. Paul favors Mary for her own sake, for her own sake. 2See Rønnow-Rasmussen (2004) on this point. 3Though he uses the expression "for a person's sake", Darwall's main emphasis is rather on the attitude of care or concern. But the same worry that is to be raised against for-one's-sake attitudes applies here: caring about somebody, in the sense relevant here, means something like to 'attaching importance to what is good for that person'. 7.2. WHAT PERSONAL VALUES ARE 173 Here the pragmatic rule above is trumped by the rule of avoiding redundant readings. 4. is now redundant if the first "for her own sake" is given a final reading, and the second a personal one. One is in that case saying that Paul favors Mary for what she is in herself, to her benefit. In agreement with Rønnow-Rasmussen we face here two different kinds of attitudes, which one might call 'final' and 'personal'. My worry is that I fail to see how one can make sense of the personal attitudes, as distinct from final ones (e.g. of 2. as distinct from 1.) without relying on the very concept of personal values that personal attitudes were intended to elucidate. When asked what distinguishes the personal reading of "for P 's sake" from its final reading, it seems hard, if not impossible, not to appeal to equivalences such as: • to favor x for P 's sake $ to favor x to P 's benefit • to favor x for P 's sake $to favor x for P 's own good". • to favor x for P 's sake $ to favor something because x is (thought of to be) good for P This suggests that the very concept of personal values is engrained in the concept of for one's sake attitudes. If so, analyzing personal values in terms of for one's sake attitudes is circular. Note that the circularity here is distinct from the one raised above against buck-passing analysis of value in general (pp. 90 sqq.). The problem here is no longer that favoring, qua pro-attitude, is evaluative. The problem is that favoring for one's sake, qua personal-attitude is an evaluative concept that entails the concept of personal value. Even if buck-passing were to succeed in analyzing values in general, it would still face the problem that the personal character of personal values is not reducible, without circularity, to the for-someone's-sakeness of attitudes. The worry therefore, is that "for x 's own sake", in 2. and in other personal reading of the expression, has an evaluative meaning. I am not sure which part of the expression, if any, wears the trousers in this evaluation: arguably "sake" might well means "personal goodness", "interest", "benefit", "welfare" in that context; and/or "for" might means "in favor of", "to the benefit of". Be that as it may, if "for someone's sake", in its personal reading, is not axiologically neutral, it cannot be a reduction basis for personal values. As previously mentioned, the RATP does not need to take any stance on the analyzability of the concept of personal value. But the circularity of Zimmerman's and Rønnow-Rasmussen's analyses suggests that we might face here a primitive species of value that is not further analyzable. Personal values might just be a species of value, whose differentia is to be personal, and that is it. There is nothing much to 174 CHAPTER 7. PLEASANTNESS AS A PERSONAL VALUE be done once the concept of personal value has been properly picked out. Still, however, the following equivalence that can be drawn from Zimmerman's and RønnowRasmussen's analyses together is of great help in picking out the right concept of personal values: x is personally good for P $ x is of benefit to P $ x 's ought to be favored for P 's own sake In order to guarantee that we are really getting some grip on the right kind of values, the last important thing to be done is to dismiss other kinds of values which, though they can be expressed through the "good for" locution, are not relevant to our present concern. 7.3 What personal values are not To further secure the notion of personal values we have picked out, it will prove useful to distinguish that concept of personal values from other ones that might happen to be conflated with it. Though personal values are best expressed through the locution 'x is good for P ' (where P refers to a person), some uses of this locution do not express personal values in the sense I am interested in here. Here are some of them. 7.3.1 Personal values are not subjective values 'x is good for P' sometimes means 'x is good according to P '. "Raising taxes is good for Paul", "Homeopathy is good for Denise". Following such a use, something has a value for someone, if and only if that person holds that thing to have a value. There are many ways a person can attribute a value to something: she might declare that x is good, judge that x is good, think that x is good, feel that x is good, etc. The essential point is that not only x, but x 's goodness, figures in the content of the person's attitude. In the same way, one could say that x has a 'personal' color for P if and only if P ascribes (judgmentally, perceptually...) that color to x. Maybe x has this color, maybe not: a personal color is just an ascribed color. In order to reserve the term "personal value" for the concept needed for the definition of pleasure, I shall not speak of personal values in those cases, but of appreciative values (I am assuming that appreciation is not a pro-attitude but a neutral attitude whose content ascribes a value to an object. See below p. 300 and Perry, 1967, p. 199. Appreciation in that sense is sometimes called valuation or appraisal): 7.3. WHAT PERSONAL VALUES ARE NOT 175 appreciative value: x is appreciatively good for P=df P holds x to be good. (That "holding" might be a belief, a thought, a judgment, a declaration, a perception, a feeling, etc., that x is V ). Alternatively, 'x is good for P' sometimes also means 'x is liked by P '. "Purcell is good for Mary", "Camellia are good for Denise". The idea here is that something is good for a person if that person has any pro-attitude directed towards it. Liking is one possible pro-attitude, so are desiring, admiring, enjoying, etc. Contrary to appreciative values, such kinds of values for the person do not figure in the content of the attitudes: Mary likes Purcell, she does not like Purcell's being good. I shall here speak of affective values: affective value: x is affectively good for P=df P has a pro-attitude directed towards x. (Pro-attitudes might be conative –desire, will, wish...– or non-conative –love, respect, admiration...). Appreciative and affective values are defined through attitudes directed towards their bearers. Such values, to this extent, are not real. Note however that the definition of both kinds of values are not circular: neither appreciative value nor affective value appear in their definiens (there is indeed a value in the definiens of appreciative values, but it is not appreciative). Given that both appreciative and affective values satisfy some weak kind of anti-realism (see 1.2.4), those two kinds of attitudesdependent values might be subsumed under the more general and standard label of 'subjective values': subjective value: x is subjectively good for P=df x has an appreciative or affective value for P. What subjective values have in common is that their nature depends on some attitude directed towards their bearers. Are personal values only subjective values? One first reason to think that they are not is this: spinach might be good for Martha even if she attributes no values to it or does not like it. Likewise, dogs might be dangerous for her even she values and likes them. Paternalistic judgments typically appeal to personal values that are not subjective: "This is good for you even if you do not know that it is good for/even if you do not like it". Unfortunately, it is not that easy to distinguish personal values from subjective ones. The above argument is vulnerable to the following reply. One might grant that x being dangerous for P does not depend on any of P (or other persons)'s attitudes towards x, but insist that "dangerous" in such claims does not really express a value. 176 CHAPTER 7. PLEASANTNESS AS A PERSONAL VALUE Claiming that x is dangerous for P, one means that x is likely to cause P 's death or disease. P 's death, or P 's disease are arguably things that are indeed bad for P. But it is less clear that they are bad for P independently of P 's attitudes towards them. Such fundamental values-for might plausibly be understood in terms of appreciative or affective values: P 's death is bad for P just means that P ascribes negative value to his death or that P does not want to die. The proposal I have to resist, on the whole, is this: • Instrumental personal values, on the one hand – like danger – are indeed attitude-independent, but they are not values • Non-instrumental personal values, one the other hand – like the value of one's life for oneself – are indeed values, but they come down to subjective values. This argument for the reduction of personal values to subjective values might be spell out as follows: P1 Personal values are either instrumental values or non-instrumental. P2 Personal instrumental values are not axiological properties but causal ones: the properties of being conducive to things of non-instrumental personal value4. C1 There are no instrumental personal values. P3 Non-instrumental personal values are subjective values. C2 Personal values are subjective values. P1 has to be granted. There might be good reason to reject P2, and more generally the claim that instrumental values are not really values (see Rønnow-Rasmussen, 2002b), but this is not the strategy I shall pursue here. The reason is this: even if instrumental values can be shown to be values rather than natural properties of being conducive to value, they will presumably not be personal values as long as the non-instrumental values they lead to are not themselves personal. For there to be sui generis personal instrumental values, there has to be sui generis personal non-instrumental values. Therefore P3, in any event, has to be rejected. This, I take it, is here the hard task for the defender of personal values: he has to show that the values of one's children, of one's life, of one's health, or of one's 4See p. 154 for a wider definition of instrumental values, which does not jeopardize the present argument. 7.3. WHAT PERSONAL VALUES ARE NOT 177 pleasure, for oneself (assuming these are non-instrumental values) do not amount (i) to one's ascribing value to one's children, life, health or pleasure; or (ii) to one's loving one's children, life, health or pleasure. My argument for the irreducibility of (fundamental) personal values to subjective values is the following. Consider appreciative values first. There is a distinction between holding something to be of personal value and holding something to be of impersonal value. Attributing some value to some object does not entail attributing to it a personal value. Sometimes one might even attribute goodness simpliciter to an object that is bad for us. More simply put: each time somebody holds something to be of value, it makes perfect sense to ask him whether he holds that thing to be personally good for him, or good simpliciter. Suppose some murderer declares that the judge's sentence about his case is good. Does he means that it is good for him, or that it is good tout court? The question makes sense. If the murderer has just been acquitted, he probably means that the judge's sentence is good for him, and he might agree in the end that the sentence is not good simpliciter (he should have been found guilty, given that he is). If, on the other hand, the judge's sentence is that he is guilty, he is probably saying that the sentence is good simpliciter, though not good for him. Consider now affective values. As urged above, liking is not attributing a value, though it might depend on such attributions. As a consequence, I cannot straightforwardly push forward the argument that the value appearing in the analysans of affective values might be either personal or not. Still, an analogous argument applies. There is a distinction between liking something for one's own sake, and liking it simpliciter. Such a distinction is of particular interest to buck-passing analyses of personal values (see p. 172). This time, say our murderer declares that he likes the sentence of the judge. If the judge declared him guilty, our murderer presumably does not like the sentence for his own sake, but, so to speak, for the sake of the world. If the judge declared him not guilty, then our murder likes this sentence for his own sake, though not for the sake of the world. The upshot is that the distinction between subjective and non-subjective values on the one hand, and the distinction between personal and non-personal values on the other are orthogonal. For every subjective value, one might wonder meaningfully whether it is a personal subjective value or an impersonal one. Personal values are not equivalent to subjective values. 178 CHAPTER 7. PLEASANTNESS AS A PERSONAL VALUE 7.3.2 Personal values are not ownership values Moore is sceptical about personal values. "x is good for me", he thinks, does not express anything else but the fact (i) that the thing I possess is good simpliciter or (ii) that my possession of this thing is good simpliciter. In what sense can a thing be good for me? It is obvious, if we reflect, that the only thing which can belong to me, which can be mine, is something which is good, and not the fact that it is good. When therefore, I talk of anything I get as 'my own good' I must mean either that the thing I get is good, or that my possessing it is good. In both cases it is only the thing or the possession of it which is mine, and not the goodness of that thing or that possession. (Moore, 1993, p. 150) Let us call "ownership values", the following kind of values: ownership value: x has an ownership value for P=df x belongs to P and is good simpliciter, or x 's belonging to P is good simpliciter. Moore's claim is that there are no personal values, apart from ownership values. One first worry with Moore's contention is this. Moore assumes in his argument that defenders of personal values have no choice but to claim that personal values are possessed or owned by the person they are values for. He takes the expression "x is good for me" to be equivalent in meaning to the expression "x is my own good", and then goes on to argue that what one possesses, strictly speaking, is the thing which is good, not its goodness. This sounds questionable. To claim that something is of personal value to Paul, is not to claim that Paul owns or possesses the goodness of that thing. The 'for' in 'good for Paul' does not literally express any possession, belonging, or ownership of the goodness by Paul. Likewise, the 'own' in 'x 's own good' does not express any possession of x 's goodness but rather something peculiar about it. "Paul makes his own cooking" does not mean that Paul is the owner of his cooking. Moore is here forcing advocates of personal values to make a claim that is not theirs: in order to take personal values seriously, one does not need to subscribe to the view that they are values possessed by individuals. Indeed, friends of personal values even have to reject the claim that Moore attributes to them. For if 'x good for P ' means 'x 's goodness belongs to P' then personal values are just a kind of value simpliciter. According to that proposal, a personal value, is a value simpliciter that is owned by a person. It might be that this reduction of personal values to values simpliciter is less plausible that the ones proposed by Moore, but on the whole, all these proposals amount to reducing personal value 7.3. WHAT PERSONAL VALUES ARE NOT 179 in terms of value simpliciter and ownership. Moore proposes to reduce personal values to the value simpliciter of what one owns, or to the value simpliciter of our ownership of it. The present proposal, which he rejects, reduces personal values to value simpliciter that one owns. In all cases, including the last one, personal values come down to species of value simpliciter. As it appears, Moore is not only tilting at windmills, but also tilting at windmills which are indeed on his side. The main worry with Moore's positive proposal is that ownership values fail to capture the specificity of personal values. This is shown by the fact that the distinction between personal values and values simpliciter might be applied to things with ownership values. For anything that has such an ownership value, it makes sense to ask whether it is personally good or not for the person who owns it. Take Moore's first proposal: x is good for P iff x belongs to P and x is good. It is indeed always possible to ask whether the x that belongs to P is good simpliciter or good for P. To illustrate this, suppose Jean-Jacques is offered the original manuscript of the Anti-Rousseau of François Gacon, and that this manuscript is of great (economic, satiric...) value. Though Rousseau owns that manuscript of value simpliciter, this does not make the manuscript good for him. To be of ownership value to P is not sufficient in order to be of personal value to P. It is not necessary either. Suppose Voltaire wanted to get that manuscript, which is of personal value for him not only because he hates Rousseau, but also because it outshines Gacon's other satires against himself. The manuscript is of personal value to Voltaire, but is still in Rousseau's possession. Take Moore's second proposal: x is good for P iff x 's belonging to P is good. Here again, it is a meaningful question to ask whether x 's belonging to P is good for him, or only good simpliciter. The possession of some good is sometimes bad for its owners. It is good simpliciter that a nice castle is owned by somebody: otherwise it would fall into ruins. But it might not be good for its owner to own that castle, because of the upkeep costs. On the whole, the distinction between personal and impersonal values, on the one hand, and the distinction between ownership and non-ownership values, on the other, are orthogonal. Personal values do not amount to ownership values. 7.3.3 Personal values are not private values 'x is good for P' sometimes means 'only P can access x 's goodness'. "This wine is good for oenologists", "This demonstration is good for logicians". One is here asserting that the thing evaluated is indeed of value, but that the access to that value is reserved for certain persons. Expertise is only one possible ground for such 180 CHAPTER 7. PLEASANTNESS AS A PERSONAL VALUE privileged access. The privacy of the value-bearer is another. Bach may have thought of a suite of great value he never wrote. One might call such values private values: private value: x is privately good for P =df only P can access x 's value. Personal values do not amount to private values. A first argument is that not all personal values are private. Paul's relatives might all know that Paul's addiction is bad for him, without Paul himself knowing it. Some personal values might even be private to persons different from the persons they are values for. The detective following her might be the only one to know that Mary is in danger. One might, however, reply that although personal values might be descriptively known by another person, only the person for whom they are values can be acquainted with them. The disvalue of a loss might only be revealed to the loser. The personal value of a compliment might only be felt by the complimented. I am not sure of this: Paul might feel that John's compliment to Mary is good for her, without her feeling it. Be that as it may, there is another, more compelling reason not to equate personal values with private ones. This reason is that considering all the values that a person has privileged access to, one is still willing to make a distinction between personal ones and non-personal ones. Paul is the only one who knows (feels the disvalue) of a terrible murder. He is also the only one who knows (feels the disvalue) of his headache. The headache is still bad for him in ways the murder is not. A solitary archeologist just discovered an antique masterpiece: he is the only one to access (to feel) its aesthetic value. He is also the only one who has access to(feels) the value of the pleasure he has in contemplating it. There is yet a final 'good-for-ness' in its pleasure that is not to be found in the masterpiece. To be of a private value is not sufficient for being of a personal value. Private values are defined in terms of values privately accessed. It makes sense to wonder whether such privately accessed values are values simpliciter or personal values. Here again, we reach the conclusion that the distinction between private/nonprivate values on the one hand, and personal/impersonal values on the other are orthogonal. Personal values do not amount to private ones. 7.3.4 Personal values are not edifying values 'x is good for P' sometimes means 'P is better thanks to x '. "Learning German is good for Paul", "It would be good for Mary to be less egoistic". According to such a perfectionist use, the person is itself the ultimate object of evaluation and what edifies her, i.e. what helps improve the persons's value, is considered as good for this 7.3. WHAT PERSONAL VALUES ARE NOT 181 person. To that extent, 'x is good for P ' is a shorthand for 'x is improves P 's overall value'. What makes the value personal in that case, is no more that it is ascribed by a person to a bearer, but that its bearer conditions the value of a person. I shall not speak of personal value either in that case and shall prefer the term edifying value: edifying value: x is edifyingly good for P=df P 's overall value is increased by x. Note that though 'x is good for P' might be understood in terms of edifying value, this is not so clearly the case for 'x is valuable for P ' or 'x has a positive value for P '. Are personal values edifying values? Not necessarily. Some things are personally good for a person without necessarily improving her overall value. Even when a compliment renders a person complacent there is still a sense in which the compliment is good for the person: namely the compliment is personally good for her. Being of edifying value for a person is not even sufficient for being of personal value to her. When it is said that something makes someone better, we might wonder whether that thing makes that person better for herself, or better tout court. A person might be a good person on the whole, without being good for herself. A person laying down their life for some good cause for instance, might have overall value simpliciter, but an overall personal disvalue. Here again, the values that appear in the definiens of edifying values might be read either as personal values, or as impersonal ones. There are consequently two kinds of edifying values: personal ones, and impersonal ones. The concepts of edifying values and of personal values are therefore distinct and independent, though they might occasionally overlap. Rønnow-Rasmussen (2007) however endorses a broader concept of personal values, which includes personal values in the narrow sense defended here together with edifying values: Personal values, I shall say, consist of two fundamental categories of values, one of which holds those values-for the realization of which are welfare enhancing or preserving values (i.e., that enhances or preserves the kind of bearers of what is typically regarded as carrying welfare). The second category contains a related but nonetheless different kind of value-for. Objects carrying these other kinds of values are what we ought to favour for a's sake without it being necessarily the case that this somehow contributes to a's welfare, even if welfare here is understood in quite a broad enough sense. In other words, ''sake'' here does not mean ''person-welfare-sake.''(Rønnow-Rasmussen, 2007, p. 422) 182 CHAPTER 7. PLEASANTNESS AS A PERSONAL VALUE Those latter personal values (in the broad sense), which are good for somebody without being 'person-welfare-good' amount to what I have called here non-personal edifying values: For instance, a person may live an immoral (or inauthentic or irrational, etc.) life, and we might well desire that some states of affairs should obtain that would make his life moral (or authentic, etc.) despite the negative impact it would have on his welfare. We would still be favouring it for this person's sake. (Rønnow-Rasmussen, 2007, pp. 424-5)5 There is no principled objection to the introduction of such a broad concept of personal value, that encompasses personal values in the narrow sense and edifying values. But if the conclusions we have reached so far are right, such a concept, it should be urged, will not express any bona fide property. The only thing that makes such a wide axiological property hang together is that it is expressed by the locution "good for P " or "correctly favored for P 's own sake". But such expressions are ambiguous. For instance, "favoring x for P 's sake" has a completely different meaning when used to express edifying values and when used to express personal values, in the narrow sense. Given that personal values in the narrow sense and edifying values accrue to their bearers independently of each other, two things might be truly said to good for P –or to be rightly favored for P 's sake– without sharing any bona fide property. Rønnow-Rasmussen's broad concept of personal values is a disjunctive, fiat one. 7.3.5 Personal values are not agent-relative values Personal values are not to be confused with yet another kind of values that have been of interest to normative ethics: so-called agent-relative values (Darwall, 2002, p. 45, Brown, 2004, Schroeder, 2007, pp. 272-3, Zimmerman, 2009, p. 435 , Wallace, 2010, p. 524 – it is unclear whether personal value can be expressed with the 5Likewise, Rosati (2008) sometimes seem to include edifying value in her concept of personal value: The property of being good for a person, as I have characterised it, well matches the normative role of judgments about what is good for a person. Whether from the firstperson or third-person standpoint, our focus in making these judgments is on the person herself and what preserves and advances her, presupposing her value and attending to the particulars of her nature and circumstances. (Rosati, 2008, p. 346) 7.3. WHAT PERSONAL VALUES ARE NOT 183 'good for' locution). Agent-relative values have been introduced to help consequentialism to account for so-called constraints or special obligations (see e.g. Portmore, 2001,Louise, 2004). Traditional consequentialism faces the two following objections: • If Paul's lie can avoid two other lies, one from Mary and one from John, then according to standard consequentialism, Paul should lie. This is counterintuitive, many think: we incur a special obligation not to lie ourselves. • Second, we appear to incur some special obligation with respect to our relatives: Mark has an obligation to feed and educate his daughter Fanny, an obligation he does not incur with respect to all other babies. According to standard consequentialism, however, this is not the case: in order for it be the case that Paul has those obligations towards Fanny but not the other babies, Fanny would have to be of more value than the other babies, which is not the case. Agent-relative values are supposed to get the consequentialist out of this tricky situation. Roughly, the reason why Paul should not lie himself in order to avoid two other lies from Mary and John, is that Paul's lie is worse relative to him that Mary's and John's ones. As for Mark, the reason why he has to feed Fanny but not the other babies is that feeding Fanny has a value relative to him, and that feeding the other babies does not have such a value. For our present purpose, we do not need to inquire further about what exactly agent-relative values are, if there are such values. One might be content with the following functional definition of agent-relative values, in terms of what they are suppose to do: agent-relative value: x is good relative to an agent A =df x 's goodness grounds some special obligation incurred by A either: (i) to himself favor x (accomplish, bring about, preserve, protect...) rather than seeing to it that others favor x ; or: (ii) to favor x's which are close to him rather that favoring other y 's intrinsically similar to x but farther from him. Whatever the merits and feebleness of such an escape for consequentialism, it has to be urged that personal values and agent-relative values amount to very different things. First, claiming that Paul's lie is bad relative to him does not amount to saying that Paul's lie is personally bad for him. Suppose Paul enjoys lying: one would naturally say that lying is good for Paul, but bad of him, i.e. Paul's lying is personally good for Paul, though not agent-relatively good of him. 184 CHAPTER 7. PLEASANTNESS AS A PERSONAL VALUE The difference between personal and agent-relative values can still be cashed out in the following way. The idea that we ought to pursue only agent-relative values, is a kind of altruism, that Smith (2003), following Broad (1942) calls "self-referential altruism". The idea that we ought to pursue only personal values is, as we have seen, a kind of egoism. This is true even if one pursues exclusively the value that our friends have for us (see p. 2): in that case we get a form of "other-referential egoism". Compare: • Paul only pursues the well-being of his friends, because they are good relative to him as an agent. • Mark only pursues the well-being of his friends, because their well-being is something good for him. Arguably, both Mark and Paul deserved to be blamed for not taking into account any neutral values, or values simpliciter, in their action. Both aim only at values that are relative to them: agent-relative values for Paul, personal values for Mark. But each of them does so in a very different way: Paul is an altruist, Mark is an egoist. Finally, the core reason why personal values are not agent-relative values is that the special obligations grounded by agent-relative values come in two kinds: our special obligations to favor thing that are good simpliciter are distinct from our special obligations to promote things that are personally good for us. For instance, our special obligations towards our children are of two types. First, to the extent that our children are good for us, we incur an agent-relative personal obligation to protect them, to feed them, to educate them, etc. It would be wrong of us not to do this because this would in the end be bad for us. Second, we also incur agent-relative obligations to protect, feed or educate our children, even if they happen not to be good for us anymore. If Mary's son hates her, he (might become bad for Mary, even bad for her in virtue of being her son (being hated by one's children is presumably worse for one than being hated by unknown people). But Mary might still incur the agent-relative impersonal obligation to protect, feed, and educated him. (I shall come back to these two kinds of personal/impersonal obligation on p. 194). The point is therefore, here again, that the definiens of agent-relative values admits of two readings: a personal reading, and an impersonal one, depending on the variety of obligation involved. Agent-relative values and agent-neural values, on the one hand, and personal and impersonal values on the other, are orthogonal distinctions. 7.3. WHAT PERSONAL VALUES ARE NOT 185 7.3.6 Personal values are not (all) vocational values Finally, a last category of value which are not to be conflated with personal values in the sense aimed at here, are vocational values, the values that people's vocations have. Maurice's vocation is to become a doctor, Mary's vocation is to write music, Paul's vocation is to become an entomologist. One's vocation, as stressed by Mulligan (2009b)'s realist account, is something one has and that one can discover, most often negatively: Paul becomes aware that philosophy is not for him, Mary discovers that selling cars is not for her, Paul comes to know that botany is not for him. Multiplying such discoveries might be our best hope to get at our vocation(s), if we have one. Intuitively, vocations are of final personal value for the persons they are vocations of: becoming a doctor is personally good for Maurice, writing music is personally good for Mary, entomology is personally good for Paul. Note that vocations need not be actual or fulfilled in order to be of personal value: being a doctor is good for Maurice even if he is not actually a doctor. This is precisely the reason why actually becoming a doctor is good for him, and the reason why never becoming a doctor is bad for him. Contrary to the other species of subject-related values envisaged in this section, personal values and vocational values are not different for the reason that the distinctions between personal/non-personal values, on the one hand, and vocational/nonvocational values, on the other, would be orthogonal to one another. Rather, vocational and personal values are distinct because vocational values are only one subgroup of personal values. There are two main reasons why not all personal values are vocational values. The first is that the value of our vocation for us is not only personal, but, so to speak, deeply personal. Vocations are closely linked to what constitutes a person's own identity, what makes her the person she is, what is sometimes called her "core self". On an axiological conception of such a "core self", what a person is, is determined by the values she has (see e.g. Deonna and Teroni, 2009). Now, some personal values might be very marginal with respect to a person's identity. This is indeed the case for the value of many of the pleasures one gets. Maurice's vocation is to become a doctor, but he also occasionally takes pleasure in taking a hot bath. Though such sensory pleasures are not part of Maurice's (core) personal identity, they still are of personal value for him. Maurice's becoming a doctor, and Maurice's enjoying a hot bath are both good for Maurice in a way they are not for Denise. But only the actualization of the first episode would help Maurice to "become himself". The second reason why some personal values are not vocational values, is that vocational values inhere only in activities or becomings of the subject for whom they are values. The bearers of vocational values are always episodes in which the subject 186 CHAPTER 7. PLEASANTNESS AS A PERSONAL VALUE is a participant. True, one sometimes say that John's vocation is the preservation of the Romanesque Churches of the Cantal, as if John's vocation was entirely independent from John. But this is a loose way of speaking: one should say that John's vocation is to preserve those churches (i.e. that he himself preserve churches). Suppose somebody else managed to preserve all this churches before John ever started to do it. John would not have fulfilled his vocation. Some personal values, on the other hand, belong to bearers in which the subject is neither part nor participant. Children are good for their parents, but cannot be their vocation, strictly speaking (making children, having children, making one's children happy, etc., can be vocations, not children tout court). Personal values are therefore wider that vocational values: they need not constitute the person's core identity, and they might apply to other things than the activities or becomings of a person. 7.4 Solving the problem of good non-pleasant episodes Now that personal values have, hopefully, been properly picked out, we are in a position to come back to our initial problem: how can the RATP handle cases of finally good mental episodes, such as knowledge episodes, morally good intentions, or correct emotions? The hypothesis is this: non pleasant instances of knowledge, intentions or emotions which are good are not personally good for the person that has them. They are good simpliciter. Consider our three troublemakers: knowledge episodes, moral intentions, and correct emotions. Do they pass Feldman's crib test? Surely they might, but they do not necessarily do so. Suppose the child is going to live in a terrible world, full of vice, cruelty, theft, lie, murder... The parents might well hope, for their child's own sake, that he will never learn about all the terrible things happening in that world; that he won't be too soft but on the contrary that he will be able to form some morally bad intentions, necessary in that context; that he will not be too sensitive to the misfortunes of this world, and that it would even be better for him if he could enjoy them. That is, in order for their child to have a good life, they might wish for him that he not have (too many) moral intentions, knowledge episodes, or correct emotions. Thanks to this, they might think, he probably won't be the most virtuous guy on earth, but at least he could survive longer and be happier. Epistemic, moral, and fittingness values do not necessarily pass the crib test. What about the egoist test? Would somebody whose only goal in life is to know, 7.4. SOLVING THE PROBLEM OF GOOD NON-PLEASANT EPISODES 187 to form morally good intentions, or to have correct emotions necessarily be an egoist? Intuitively not. His conduct might well display other defects, but it is not the case that he cares only about himself. The exclusive pursuit of epistemic, moral or fittingness value does not amount to egoism: those values do not pass the egoist test either. That moral values are not personal values is made very clear by Hartmann and Von Wright: Moral value in the conduct of person – at least as such – does not exist "for" a subject, whether for one's self or for another. It adheres simply to the person, or to the act of the person, as a quality.[. . . ] The moral worth of a person does not consist in its being valuable "for" another person (Hartmann, 1932, vol. 1, p. 210) Phrases such as 'morally good for me' of 'morally bad for him' must be dismissed as nonsensical. The fact that an act does harm to somebody may be relevantly connected with the moral badness of the act. But if this act is morally bad, then it is bad simpliciter– and not for some subject, as opposed to others. And similarly for moral goodness. (Von Wright, 1963b, p. 119) What is true of moral values is also true, I submit, of the value of knowledge and the value of correct emotions. Knowledge is not by nature good "for" some person, but good simpliciter. The same holds for the correctness of an emotion. That an emotion is incorrect is impersonally and finally bad. It is not finally bad for some, and finally good or neutral for others, that Mary's emotion is incorrect. This claim should not be conflated with three others: • Mary's incorrect fear might indeed be non-finally bad for her. Maybe she was led to some behavior which is bad for her because of the incorrectness of her fear. But that her fear's incorrectness might be of personal non-final disvalue to her, is distinct and compatible with the fact that it is of impersonal and final disvalue. • Mary's incorrect fear is indeed finally bad for her in ways it is not bad for Paul. But the personal disvalue involved here is not the value of the incorrectness of Mary's fear, but the disvalue of fear itself. This personal disvalue is nothing but the negative hedonic valence of fear, and is readily compatible with the RATP. The valence of emotion is a personal value (see 3.4 page 90 for the view that hedonic valence of emotions is an evaluative property). But the correctness or 188 CHAPTER 7. PLEASANTNESS AS A PERSONAL VALUE incorrectness of any emotions, either is or has an impersonal value. Pleasant (i.e. personally good) emotions might therefore be incorrect (impersonally bad –I shall come back to the issue of malicious pleasures in 8.4 page 214). • Mary likes the bicycle of her childhood for her sake. Such for-one's-sake emotions are made correct by personal values (see pp. 172; 2). Mary for-her-sake's liking is correct because the bicycle is indeed of personal value for her. Though we have here a personal emotion made correct by a personal value, the correctness of Mary's liking is not itself a/of personal value. The way the RATP deals with knowledge episodes, moral intentions and correct emotions and other troublemakers of this ilk is therefore to grant that episodes are finally good, but to deny that they are personally good. Knowledge episodes, moral intentions, and correct emotions are finally good simpliciter. I am not sure how to argue for this claim, nor whether it should be argued for: following Hartmann and Von Wright, it seems to be an obvious fact about moral values, but also about epistemic and fittingness values that they are not personal values. Intuitions to the contrary, I suspect, come from the fact that personal values have not properly been picked out and end up being conflated with subjective, ownership, private, edifying, or agent-neutral values. Let me therefore dispel those possible misunderstandings. • Knowledge, moral intentions, and correct emotions might rightly be said to be good for some person, if by this we mean a subjective value. To say that her knowledge is good for Mary, in that sense, means either that Mary attributes some value to her knowledge (appreciative value) or likes her knowledge (affective value). But this does not mean that her knowledge is personally good for her, for subjective values are not necessarily personal values (see p. 174). Finally and subjectively good mental episodes are therefore not necessarily pleasures according to the RATP. Mary can think that her intention not to go to the party in order to avoid hurting Peter is a paragon of virtue, even if that intention is unpleasant to her. And Mary can also be, for this reason, very proud of her intention, even if it is very frustrating for her. (Her pride might be a pleasure, but the intention towards which it is directed remains an unpleasure). • Knowledge, moral intentions, and correct emotions might rightly be said to be good for some person, if by this we mean an ownership value. To say that Paul's moral intention is good for him, in that sense, amounts to saying that Paul has an intention, which is good. This does not mean that this moral intention 7.4. SOLVING THE PROBLEM OF GOOD NON-PLEASANT EPISODES 189 is personally good for Paul, for ownership values are not necessarily personal values (see p. 178). Mental episodes that have a final ownership value are therefore not necessarily pleasures according to the RATP. Paul's intention to sacrifice himself for some good cause, as his good intention, has some ownership value. It might still be very unpleasant for Paul. Note, that though some mental episodes of ownership values are not pleasures, the reverse does not holds: all pleasures are of ownership value. The reason is that pleasures are, according to the RATP, mental episodes of their subject. The value of pleasure is therefore an ownership value. But it is not only that: what distinguishes pleasures from other episodes of final ownership value, is that the values of pleasures are personal. • Knowledge, moral intentions, and correct emotions might rightly be said to be good for some person, if by this we mean that they have some private value for this person. To say that John's knowledge episodes are good for him, in that sense, amounts to saying that only John can access the epistemic value of that episode. This does not mean that John's knowledge is personally good for him, for personal values are not necessarily private values (see p. 7.3.4). Mental episodes that have a final private value are therefore not necessarily pleasures according to the RATP.6 Mary might be the only one to access the value of her knowledge that the world will end tomorrow without that knowledge being pleasant. • Knowledge, moral intentions, and correct emotions might rightly be said to be good for some person, if by this we mean that they have some edifying value for this person. Mary's moral intention makes her a better person on the whole, but not necessarily a better person for herself, in the sense of personal value. For edifying values are not necessarily personal values (7.3.4). Mental episodes 6Mendola, one of the few recent defenders of the ATP, claims that the disvalue of pain is private: My claim is that phenomenal properties in general are objective properties in the sense relevant here, that when some red sense datum is given to someone then it is objectively red in the relevant sense: It is an objective fact, true for all, that it is red, even if its redness can only be epistemically accessed by the person to whom it is given. And my claim is that among phenomenal properties of this sort are value properties, which are objective in exactly the same sense. It is an objective fact, true for all, that Philip's experience was bad, even if its badness cannot be felt by us.(Mendola, 1990) Even if this is true, it has to be urged that this privacy of the unpleasure's disvalue has nothing to do with its personal character. Note that it might not be true that only the subject of pleasure can access its badness for him: maybe Mary can access the badness of Paul's experience for him, as directly as Paul himself does. A close view was defended by Scheler (see Mulligan, 2001). 190 CHAPTER 7. PLEASANTNESS AS A PERSONAL VALUE that are of final edifying value are therefore not necessarily pleasures according to the RATP. Mary might have become a better epistemic subject by having learnt that Paul cheated her, but this does not necessarily improve her overall value for herself, in the personal sense. • Knowledge, moral intentions, and correct emotions might have some agentrelative value without being personally good for the agent in question. Mary can be under the obligation to herself form a moral intention without that intention being personally good for her. Agent-relative values are not necessarily personal values (7.3.5). Mental episodes that have some final agent-relative values are therefore not necessarily pleasures according to the RATP. Andy promised he would concentrate on his homework for the next 10 minutes. His promise-keeping is a mental episode (concentration on his homework), which is finally good relative to him as a promise-maker. But it is a real pain. Properly picking out personal values makes plain, I hope, that moral, epistemic, and "fittingness" values are not personal values. One might conclude, qualifying Von Wright's initial claim, that when good for expresses a personal value (which might well be its primary meaning) it is a nonsense to speak, not only of an intention that is morally good for a person, but also of an episode of knowledge which is epistemically good for a person, or of an emotion which is correct for a person. The moral, epistemic, and "fittingness" values are values simpliciter. For this reason, knowledge episodes, moral intentions, and correct emotions are not, by nature, pleasures. 7.5 Real personal values I shall here defend the view that personal values are real in the sense of being existentially independent from any attitudes directed towards them or their bearers. This has not been shown so far. All that I have claimed up to now, is that the nature of personal values is independent from attitudes directed towards them or their bearers. This was the claim that personal values are not by nature subjective values. Of course if personal values were by nature subjective values, they would be existentially dependent on attitudes. Essential dependence entails existential dependence, but the reverse does not hold (see Appendix A.2): personal values might be what they are independently of any attitude directed at them, but still depend on such attitudes for their existence. The most promising version of anti-realism about personal values, it seems to me, is to grant that they are not essentially dependent on attitudes, but are nevertheless existentially dependent on them: it is not part of 7.5. REAL PERSONAL VALUES 191 the nature of personal values to be the object of some attitudes, but it is part of their existence. To rephrase: what it is to be a personal value does not involve any attitudes directed at such a value or at its bearers; but what it is to be exemplified (and consequently, to exist –see p. 93 sqq.) for a personal value, is partly to be the object of some attitude. Personal values may be like unicorns in that they might be defined without any reference to attitudes directed towards them, but they cannot exist without such attitudes. However, even that weaker anti-realism about personal values is wrong, I shall now argue. Before presenting the arguments in favor of personal value realism, let me make clear what the issue is here as far as pleasures are concerned. If the existence of personal values were dependent on our attitudes towards them or their bearers, we could never actually be the bearers or participants of an episode of pleasure without having some attitude towards this episode or its hedonic goodness. In order for one's actual episode to be a pleasure, we would have either to "personally appreciate" that episode, i.e. to ascribe personal value to it, or to love it for our own sake. In the first case, existing pleasures would be essentially appreciated; in the second they would be essentially liked. Neither claim is true however, as I shall argue in 8.3 page 209. Some pleasures are neither appreciated nor liked, and some might even be non-conscious. The only way for RATP to allow for such non-appreciated, non-liked, and non-conscious pleasures, is to embrace realism about personal values: personal values might be exemplified independently of any attitudes directed towards them or their bearers. Realism about personal values is not unprecedented. Nicolai Hartmann, one of the main defenders of personal values, insists that personal values are not to be conflated with subjective values, thus paving the way for realism about personal value. In his terminology, personal values, though related to a subject, are not relative to a subject, that is, are not subjective values: The relatedness to a personal subject...is not what one means by the relativity of values. It does not bar out the objective character of values but evidently implies it. A person cannot change the fact that a thing is good for him. The fact that it is so is not relative to his estimate of values nor to him as an appraising subject, but to him as a person. Conversely, an estimate of values is relative to the valuableness of the goods for the subject. In this «for», the subject does not play the part of a determiner or giver of values; his rôle is that of a point of reference in the relation appertaining to the valuational contents. It is the same «for» which is interwoven with so many categorical structures. In the fact that geometrical laws hold good only «for» spatial figures, mechanical laws 192 CHAPTER 7. PLEASANTNESS AS A PERSONAL VALUE only «for real bodies», physiological laws only «for» organisms–in this fact no one sees any relativity as regards the categorical import of these laws. [. . . ] the relation of goods to a personal subject -for example, their agreeableness- is not at all a relativity of their value as such, but is a relation which is contained in the valuational material and exists before and independently of any consciousness of it(Hartmann, 1932, vol. 1, pp. 207-8) The reason why we tend to think that personal values depend on our attitudes towards them or their bearers, according to Hartman, is that we conflate the dependence of an entity upon an attitude directed toward it, with the dependence of an entity upon a person or subject as a whole: In short, the relatedness of these values for a human subject is not relativity to the subject's opinion of them or to his appraisement of them, but to the subject's existence, including his entire categorial constitution. (Hartmann, 1932, vol. 1, p. 208) I concur with Hartman, except for the minor point that according to him personal values depend on the subject's existence. It seems to me sufficient to say that they depend on the subject as a whole, tout court. First, because there is no reason to reject the idea that fictional entities might have some personal values for fictional characters (Sherlock's Holmes' pipe). Second, because some existing thing might hold some personal value for people who no longer exist (posthumous fame). The crucial point remains that x 's depending on a subject is not the same as x 's depending on attitudes directed towards it, so that realism about personal value is in no way inconsistent. Hartman is a naïve realist about values. But the point that personal values are existentially independent from actual attitudes directed towards them or their bearers can be accepted by buck-passers as well. This is indeed Rønnow-Rasmussen's position: In fact, we might even think that something can be of great value to a person even if it plays no actual role at all in that person's life. I am inclined to believe that it is at least an open question what to think about a case like the following: unknown to you, you have a living child (either because you never realized you were a parent, or because a child you thought had died is in fact alive). I imagine that, in many people's eyes, an unknown child would nevertheless be of value to its oblivious 7.5. REAL PERSONAL VALUES 193 parent. There are certain patterns of behaviour, and certain attitudes, that we would expect the parent to display as a matter of what is 'fitting', or of what one has reason to do, when one learns of the existence of a child of one's own. So the impact of an object, or person, in one's life is not necessarily (or so we may suspect) a measure of the value the object actually has for someone. (Rønnow-Rasmussen, 2011, p. vi; see also Rønnow-Rasmussen, 2007, pp. 416, 426) Rønnow-Rasmussen's argument in favor of realism about personal values is that even if we are not aware of certain things, it might still be that one ought to have some for-one's-own-sake attitudes towards those things. I agree with Rønnow-Rasmussen central claim and strategy here. However, as a buck-passer, Rønnow-Rasmussen thinks that things are of personal value because we ought to have certain kinds of attitudes towards them, which seems to me to reverse the natural order of explanation (see n. 24 page 95). I shall follow Rønnow-Rasmussen by relying on the distinction between correct and incorrect for-one's-sake-attitudes in order to argue in favor of realism about personal values. I shall, however, do so in a way more in tune with naïve value realism. Let us assume that a person's children, life, health and pleasures are things that are of final and personal value to her. Should we say that for those things to exemplify personal values is for the person they are good for to appreciate or love them? Here are four reasons why personal values, even final ones, are existentially independent of our attitudes towards them. 1. One might discover one's personal values. For instance, Mary might discover that Paul is valuable for her, or that a job is not for her. 2. Personal values ground the truth/falsity of some of our personal value judgments or personal appreciations (to recall, appreciation includes judgments, beliefs, feelings, perceptions...that x is good/of x as good, see p. 174). One might go wrong in our ascription of personal values. True personal value-judgements are true because some personal value makes them true. False personal value judgements are false because they lack personal values as truth-makers (Buckpassers might agree – they just make a step further and analyze such truthmakers in terms of fitting pro-attitudes).7 Personal appreciations involve ascriptions of personal values. There is a distinction between "Mary thinks that the wine is good simpliciter ", and "Many thinks 7This truthmaker argument in favor of personal values owes much to Armstrong (1993, 85-88), who introduced this kind of argument against the Rylean view of disposition. 194 CHAPTER 7. PLEASANTNESS AS A PERSONAL VALUE that the wine is good for her ". The truth conditions of these two thoughts are not the same. What sustains realism about personal values is that appreciations of the second kind are sometimes true, sometimes not, and that something has to make them true when they are. 3. Personal values ground the correctness/incorrectness of some of our for-one'ssake-pro-/con-attitudes or emotions. One's love might be incorrect. Correct for-one's-sake-emotions are correct because the objects they are directed at have some personal values. Incorrect for-one's-sake-emotions, on the other hand, are incorrect because they lack personal values as correctness-makers (Buck-passers disagree: emotions are brutally correct.) In the same way that there are two kinds of appreciations, there are two kinds of pro-attitudes: pro-attitudes simpliciter and for-one's-sake-pro-attitudes (in the personal rather than final sense of 'for one's sake', see p. 172 sqq.). Let us focus on non-conative for-one's-sake-pro-attitudes, i.e. on for-one's-sakeemotions. Some emotions are made correct by values simpliciter. Indignation is correct if its object is unjust. Injustice is not a personal value. Not all emotions, however, aim at impersonal values. Love –sentimental love– is not made correct by the impersonal values of the beloved. If it were, and if indifference to the valuable is incorrect, then not only Romeo, but everybody, ought to love Juliet. So Romeo's love is not made correct by Juliet's goodness tout court, but by Juliet's goodness for him. As a consequence, is it not incorrect for Paul not to love Juliet. If correctness, like truth, is not a free-floating property of correctness-bearers (pace buck-passers), it has to be grounded in some correctness-makers. The correctness-makers of personal emotions are personal values. 4. Personal values ground some personal obligations. One might fail to do what one ought to do with respect to things of personal values. Personal obligations are grounded on personal values. (Buck-passers might agree). Personal obligations are not (only) obligations that are incurred by some person only, but obligations that some person incur in virtue of what is good for them. Thus preserving what is good for us (our children, our life...) is something one ought to do, ceteris paribus. Of course, one might also incur some special obligation to sacrifice what is good for us in order to pursue some other good. The point here is only that if no higher values trump our personal ones, we have to promote such personal values. One might be blamed for not having done what is good for us, one might feel guilty about not having done what is 7.5. REAL PERSONAL VALUES 195 good for us. The appeal of these truth-makerand correctness-maker-arguments in favor of real personal values relies on the assumption that our personal appreciations and forone's-sake attitudes can go wrong. If this were not the case, the need for such truthand correctness-makers would be more controversial (for the same reason that truthmakers for analytic truths are more controversial than truth-makers for synthetic ones). Here are some examples of cases in which personal appreciations and forone's-sake attitudes go wrong. 1. Suppose Paul desires to have unpleasure in the following way. First, Paul wants to have unpleasure not instrumentally, but for its own sake: his desires for pleasure is intrinsic. In addition, Paul want to get unpleasure for his own sake: his desire for pleasure is personal. Intuitively, there is something incorrect about Paul's intrinsic and personal desire for unpleasure. This is not due to the fact that such an unpleasure might harm other people, or might have other bad consequences for Paul. The reason why it is incorrect to intrinsically desire one's unpleasure for one's own sake is that one's pleasure is good for us. The same holds for Denise's life: she might dislike it for its own sake, and desire to put an end to it, for her own sake. But one might still think that these attitudes are incorrect. They are not incorrect because life in general is good, or because Denise's death would hurt her relatives. But incorrect because Denise's life, unbeknownst to her, is good for her. Denise's herself might come to agree with this in the end: she finally might come to know that her life is good for her. One might fail to see that something is intrinsically valuable for us. 2. Mary finds in an antique shop the very bicycle she used to ride when she was young and had been unfortunately stolen from her. Though it is in a very poor condition and she has no use for it, she buys it. She used to truly like her bicycle and is really happy to have found it again. As it happens, however, and unbeknownst to Mary, this bicycle is not hers (i.e. it is not the bicycle she used to ride). What shall we say about Mary's appreciation or love of the bicycle she bought? Surely both are wrong or misguided. And the reason they are is that this bicycle, not being the bicycle of her childhood, is not really of personal value to her. To hammer the point home, suppose Mary comes to discover after a while that the bicycle she bought was not the bicycle that was stolen from her a long time ago. Assuming she is rational, she will stop appreciating and liking the bicycle she bought. More importantly, she will also think, quite correctly, that she was wrong all this time to appreciate and like 196 CHAPTER 7. PLEASANTNESS AS A PERSONAL VALUE that bicycle. Not because the bicycle is of no value simpliciter. That she knew from the beginning. But because the bicycle was indeed of no personal value to her.8 Given that personal appreciations and for-one's-sake attitudes can go wrong, the need for truth-makers and correctness-makers for them is more urgent. To conclude, personal values ground the truth of personal appreciations, the correctness of personal pro-attitudes, and the incurring of some personal obligations. Personal values, therefore, are not only essentially independent from attitudes towards them, but also existentially so. As a consequence, the RATP is not committed to the view that pleasures are necessarily appreciated, liked, or even conscious. 8Incidentally, Mary realizes that she made a bad deal. Realism about personal values allows the introduction of a distinction between personally good economic exchanges and personally bad ones. Austrian economists use to embrace subjectivism about values to explain both the motivation and the value of bartering, but as a result appear unable to explain what make certain deals personally bad. The need for subjective value is not to be questioned: if everybody were to agree on the value of things there would be no point in exchanging them. Suppose Mary and Paul agree than Paul's bike is worth 10 pounds. Why should they proceed to make an exchange? Only because the 10 pounds are, on the one hand, less valuable for Mary than the bicycle is according to her, and on the other hand, more valuable for Paul than the bicycle is according to him (Von Mises, chap. 4, Scheler, 1973a, p. 242). Subjective values are required for explaining exchanges. Still, one might be willing to explain why Mary's deal was a bad deal for her. Welcoming personal values allows to claim that all bartering though subjectively good for the barterers is not necessarily personally good for them. The 10 pounds are less valuable than the bicycle for Mary, according to Mary. But she is wrong in her appreciation: those 10 pounds are actually more valuable for her than the bicycle. Part IV Pleasures and their objects

The Axiological Theory of Pleasure claims that pleasures are hedonically good mental episodes. The Reductionist Axiological Theory of Pleasure defended in the preceding part analyzes hedonic goodness by claiming that pleasures are finally and personally good mental episodes. While final and personal values have been characterized, nothing has been said so far however about what mental episodes amount to. Though the ATP as it stands is not committed to any particular view of the mental, it relies on the assumption that being mental is a bona fide property, and not a fiat or disjunctive property9. If being mental was a fiat property, pleasures would split into several heterogeneous phenomena, and the ATP would be a version of hedonic pluralism. The real issue here is therefore the unity of pleasure. In order to avoid such a dispersal of pleasure, I shall in this chapter endorse an intentionalist view of the mental: mental episodes are intentional episodes. Chapter 8 introduces the Intentionalist Axiological Theory of pleasure (IATP) and addresses some of its problems. Chapter 9 argues that at least some pleasures are intentional. The target here is the distinctive-feeling view of pleasure according to which no pleasure is intentional. Chapter 10 completes the defence of the IATP by arguing that all pleasures are intentional. The target here is hedonic dualism, the view that pleasures of the mind are intentional while pleasures of the body are non-intentional sensory qualities. 9See note 2 page 12 on the fiat/bona fide opposition. 200 Chapter 8 Intentional pleasures This chapter introduces the IATP, the view that pleasures are hedonically good intentional episodes, and examines some of its main implications. Section 8.1 frames the IATP. Chapter 8.2 spell out the claim that pleasures (all of them) are attitudes and argues that such attitudes cannot be considered as primitive. Chapter 8.3 addresses the issue of the attitude that we have towards pleasures, in contradistinction to the attitudes that pleasures are. Chapter 8.4 addresses a worry raised by the intentionality of pleasures for the ATP: if pleasures are personally good attitudes, how come that malicious pleasures are bad? Note that the aim of this chapter is not yet to argue in favor of this IATP: it is only to give a precise formulation of it and to answer the problem that malicious pleasures might raised against it. Providing a proper defence of the IATP will be the task of the two next chapters (9 and 10). 8.1 The Intentionalist Axiological Theory of Pleasure (IATP) Mental episodes, I shall assume, are intentional episodes, i.e. episodes constituted by a mental act directed towards an object distinct from itself. mental act: x is a mental act =df x is intentionally directed towards some object distinct from itself. mental episode: x is a mental episode =df x is constituted, at least, by a mental act and an object, the mental act being intentionally directed towards the object. 201 202 CHAPTER 8. INTENTIONAL PLEASURES A question that arises once intentionality is introduced into the picture, is whether pleasantness is a property of the mental act only, or of the whole mental episode (the act directed toward the object). Are pleasures pleasant mental acts or pleasant episodes? Do pleasures have the structure represented in fig. 8.1, or do they rather have the structure represented in fig. 8.2? Figure 8.1: Pleasures as mental acts Figure 8.2: Pleasures as mental episodes I think the last answer is the right one. Pleasures are pleasant mental episodes (I have indeed implicitly assumed such a view when I have insisted that qualities of pleasures do not entail qualities of pleasantness, on the ground that pleasures might differ in virtue of their non-hedonic qualities, see p. 38). If pleasures were merely pleasant mental acts, they could differ from each other only in virtue of the intensity and quality of their pleasantness, of their duration, and (sometimes) location. This is not enough: something else distinguishes the pleasure of listening to Purcell from the pleasure of reading Proust: they have different objects. The ATP holds that pleasantness is an hedonic value. This hedonic value itself is not intentional, but it is the non-intentional property of an intentional episode. The intentionalist version of the ATP is defined as follows: 8.1. THE INTENTIONALIST AXIOLOGICAL THEORY OF PLEASURE (IATP)203 Intentionalist Axiological Theory of Pleasure (IATP): x is a pleasure=df x is an intentional episode that exemplifies an hedonic value. The structure of a pleasure according to the IATP is represented in fig. 8.3. Figure 8.3: A pleasure according to the IATP The last cumbersome designation to be introduced here corresponds to the combination of the RATP defended in the preceding part together with the IAPT just defined: Reductionist Intentionalist Axiological Theory of Pleasure (RIATP): x is a pleasure of a person P =df x is an intentional episode of P which is finally good for P. This is the definition of pleasure I ultimately endorse. The structure of a pleasure, according to the RIATP, is represented in fig. 8.4. Figure 8.4: A pleasure according to the RIATPP 204 CHAPTER 8. INTENTIONAL PLEASURES 8.2 Pleasures as attitudes 8.2.1 Attitudinal pleasures Pleasures, according to the IATP, are pro-attitudes. What makes pleasures proattitudes is their possessing a positive value (3.4.2). For the same reason, pleasures are said to be positively valenced. The IATP is very liberal with respect to the possible objects of pleasures. By comparison, Feldman's view of attitudinal pleasures imposes two constraints on the object of attitudinal pleasures that the IATP does not retain (Feldman's theory of pleasure is assessed in more details in 10.1 page 241): • First, Feldman (2004, p. 59) thinks that attitudinal pleasures, though not factive or truth-entailing, still entail the belief in the truth of their object. One cannot take attitudinal pleasure in things one thinks to be false, or does not think true. The IATP does not entail this. Desires, Brentano's presentations, Frege's grasping, assumptions, imaginings or make-believe attitudes do not entail beliefs in the truth of their contents but might be pleasures according to the IATP. • Second, Feldman claims that attitudinal pleasures are propositional attitudes (he first called them propositional pleasures) that are necessarily directed at states of affairs. The IATP, on the other hand, includes non-propositional pleasures as well. Hedonic attitudes might in principle be directed at intentional objects of any category: substances, states of affairs, facts, properties, relations, episodes, actions, boundaries, holes, shadows, values, norms, groups, abstract entities, functors...The IATP does not impose any constraint on the kind of things that can be the objects of our pleasures. In particular, it does not require that the intentional objects of our pleasures have to be expressed through a "that..." clause. Now, which kinds of pro-attitudes do pleasures consist in? Conative pro-attitudes can be excluded, for it does not seem that desire is essentially pleasant – some have even claimed that desire is essentially unpleasant1. Pleasure is a non-conative pro-attitude. Is there any verbal expression corresponding to this generic hedonic attitude ? 1. One might refer to attitudinal pleasure by using the terms covering all forms of non-conative pro-attitudes. Pleasures will then be equated with lovings, likings, or, using a neologism, positive emotings. 1See note 14 page 110. 8.2. PLEASURES AS ATTITUDES 205 2. One might refer to pleasure by using terms expressing specific hedonic proattitude such as enjoying, taking pleasure in, or being pleased about. None of these proposals is entirely satisfying. The main argument in favor of the first proposal is that we are after the generic concept of pleasure, and that therefore, any more specific term for pleasure is too narrow to cover the multifariousness of pleasure. Despite this, I shall reject that proposal since it ends up with too wide a conception of pleasure. Assuming that love has a generic sense encompassing all non-conative pro-attitudes2, and that non-conative pro-attitudes are proin virtue of some hedonic constituent, it still does not follow that all lovings are pleasures. For some non-conative pro-attitudes might be complex and include pleasures as proper parts, without being themselves pleasures. To use the terminology introduced on page 24, such lovings might be pleasurable without being pleasant. Not all positive emotings are necessarily pleasures. For instance, some theories of emotions claim that in addition to the appraisal of the object, emotions involve essentially bodily feelings and action-tendencies. Even if one assumes that the "appraisal" is to be construed as a pleasure, the whole emotion (fear, excitement, shame...) contains a (un)pleasure as an essential constituent, but also contains other constituents. This whole is not itself a pleasure. Shall we then equate pleasures with some specific non-conative pro-attitudes such as taking pleasure in, being pleased about/at/that/with, or enjoying ? Each proposal raises issues of its own. One problem with "taking pleasure in" is that it might not express an hedonic attitude: what is intentional in such an expression is the taking, whose pleasure is only the intentional object. The use of "Being pleased about" might be overly narrow in scope. When delighted by a meal or enjoying a concert, we do not naturally say that we are pleased about it. Enjoyment is another option which deserves closer consideration. Some philosophers indeed consider enjoyments as corresponding to pleasures in the generic sense (Goldstein, 1985, Crisp, 2006, pp. 101-2): all pleasures would be enjoyments (the converse is not controversial, I assume). But many reasons have been advanced in favor of the view that enjoyment is only one type of hedonic phenomena, and that "enjoyment" cannot be used to cover all of them (Taylor, 1963, Penelhum, 1964, Perry, 1967). Here are some of them: • Enjoyment is typically a non-propositional attitude, directed at episodes, but some pleasures are plausibly directed at facts (to be pleased that p, to be 2As suggested by Brentano, though he conceives of love as encompassing not only all non-conative pro-attitudes, but also conative ones (Brentano, 1995, Bk II, chap. VIII). 206 CHAPTER 8. INTENTIONAL PLEASURES thrilled that p...), at substances (delighting in a good curry) or at properties (taking pleasure in the color of the trees). • Enjoyment is typically related to some activity of ours, although one might be pleased about things one does not make or do: about the result of one's child's exams, about the victory of G. Bush, about the weather, etc. (Taylor, 1963, p. 7)3. • Enjoyment is non-evaluative, while being pleased is evaluative. Being pleased at something entails representing it as good, not so with enjoyment (Perry, 1967, 215-217). One can wonder about the reason why one is pleased about something, but one can only inquire about the causes of one's enjoyment (Taylor, 1963, p. 11). • The objects of enjoyment are typically contemporary to it, but one might take retrospective pleasure in past episodes, and anticipatory pleasure in future ones. (Perry, 1967, p. 215) • Enjoyment has no polar opposites, while pleasure has (Mulligan, 1998b, 2004b, 2011, following Geiger).4 I shall therefore consider that if enjoyment is indeed a type of pleasure-attitudes, not all hedonic attitudes are enjoyments. Verbal expressions for generic pro-attitudes are too generic, and verbal expressions for specific pro-attitudes are too specific for expressing attitudinal pleasures. There does not seem to be any single verb that unambiguously expresses the intentionality of pleasure. This does not show of course that hedonic intentionality is not a bona fide mode of intentional reference. Following the IATP, enjoying something, taking pleasure in it, being pleased about something, delighting in something etc., all involve having an hedonically good mental episode directed toward that thing. To summarize, according to the IATP, all pleasures are intentional. This amounts to say that pleasures are hedonic attitudes. An hedonic attitude, or a pleasure, is an 3This might be mistaken: true, the verb enjoy is standardly followed by a verb in the present continuous. But not all verbs in the present continuous denote activity of their subject. Paul might enjoy being in Venice, Henry might enjoy being admired, Roger might enjoy being Swiss, Natalia might enjoy having a car, etc. 4This is controversial. One might think that the polar opposite of enjoyment is suffering. This view is suggested by Scheler (1973a, p. 257 n.23) who equates enjoyment and suffering with contrary modes of feeling, on either side of a feeling of a "zero point". Mulligan (2008b) also suggests that ordinary language might be misleading here and accepts the opposition between enjoyment and suffering. Feldman (2004, p. 84) uses "to disenjoy" to express the opposite of "to enjoy". 8.2. PLEASURES AS ATTITUDES 207 intentional episode exemplifying an hedonic value. I shall now argue that hedonic attitudes, in the same way that thick values (see 5.2 page 135), have to be analyzed: this is precisely what the IATP does. 8.2.2 Against primitive hedonic attitudes Hedonic attitudes, according to the IATP, are analyzed in terms of intentional episodes plus some non-intentional differentia, namely an hedonic value. This definition stands in opposition to the thesis that hedonic attitudes are primitive, i.e. that there is a primitive mode of hedonic reference. The view that there are primitive hedonic modes of intentional reference is subscribed to, in various ways by Brentano, Husserl, Stumpf, Scheler and Feldman5. My argument against primitive attitudinal pleasures echoes the arguments presented above against primitive thick values ( 5.2.3 page 139, see also page 293 below for a similar argument – this time rejected – against primitive qualities of pleasantness). One has to explain both what makes the attitude of pleasure a kind of intentional mode among others, and what makes it distinct from other kinds of intentional modes (believing, perceiving, judging, wishing, remembering, expecting, assuming, pretending, considering, feeling, imagining...). Let us call that in virtue of which different modes of reference are all modes of reference, their unity-maker ; and what makes them qualitatively distinct from each other their difference-maker. The argument in favor of the analysis of modes of reference proceeds as follows: P1 Either the unity-maker and the difference-maker of diverse intentional modes (including the hedonic one) are one and the same thing, or they are not. P2 If they are, modes of references are determinates of the determinable intentional reference. (2.3.2) P3 If they are not, modes of reference are species of the genus intentional reference. P4 Modes of references are not determinates of intentional reference because there is no single resemblance order among the diverse modes of intentional reference. C1 Modes of references are species of intentional reference. 5Note that, apart from Brentano, none of these philosophers claims that all pleasures are intentional (see chapter 10 page 239 and Appendix D page 305). 208 CHAPTER 8. INTENTIONAL PLEASURES P5 Species are analyzable in term of genus + differentia. C2 Modes of intentional reference (including the hedonic mode of reference) are analyzable in terms of intentional reference + some differentia. P2 relies on an essential feature of determinates falling under the same determinable: what makes them alike is also what makes them dissimilar. This is due to the fact that such determinates of a same determinable enter into internal, primitive and inexact resemblance relations with each other, and that inexact resemblance and inexact dissemblance are two faces of the same coin (2.3.2). One consideration in favor of P4 is that despite the profusion of classifications of the kinds of intentional reference, no "intentional space" analogous to the "color space" has been proposed for all intentional modes so far, and that it seems very unlikely that it can be. Is judgment closer to feeling or to anticipation? Does admiration lie in between vision and assumption? Such questions appear pointless. Note that the view that modes of intentional reference are not determinates of intentional reference is compatible with the view that some, even all, species of intentional reference are in turn determinables of other sub-forms of intentional reference. The present point is only that the first sub-form of intentional reference is not ordered along a resemblance order: its members are not determinates of intentional references, but they might still be determinables of sub-modes of intentional references. For instance, while desiring is not a determinate of being directed towards, urgently desiring is arguably a determinate of desiring. It has to be stressed that the differentia appealed to in P5 might well itself be a primitive, undefinable property. But the crucial point is that it cannot be a primitive mode of intentional reference. If enjoyments are distinct from perceptions this is not in virtue of their intentional reference, but in virtue of some other nonintentional feature –their hedonic goodness according to the IATP. We should not introduce primitive modes of reference without accounting for their being modes of reference among others. This unity in the diversity can only be accounted for by some shared constituent (such as intentional reference simpliciter) or by brute inexact resemblance. This latter option sounds like a dead end for intentional modes. 6 6A second argument in favor of the analyzability of enjoyment is analogous to another argument proposed above against primitive thick values (5.2.4): in the same way that there are essential links between values and their bearers, there are essential links between intentional modes and intentional objects. Remembering can only be about the past, perception can only be about concrete entities, desiring can only be about what appears to be non-actual ( 4.2.1 page 109)...If intentional modes of reference were determinates of intentional reference, they should presumably all have the same category of intentional objects (in the same way that all colors have the same category of bearers). 8.3. ATTITUDES TOWARDS PLEASURES 209 8.3 Attitudes towards pleasures The preceding section argued that pleasures are hedonic attitudes, which are not primitive but analyzable in terms of (non-hedonic) attitudes that exemplify a hedonic value. The (true) view that all pleasures are attitudes directed towards objects should not be conflated with the (false) view that all pleasures are objects of some attitudes. This section addresses the issue of the kind of attitudes that can latch on to pleasures. 8.3.1 Non-pleasing pleasures Not all pleasures are enjoyed. Some pleasures are just not conscious, or remain in the background of attention (Scheler, 1973a, p. 257 n.23, p. 339, Berridge, 2003, Rachels, 2004, Feldman, 2004, p. 58, Haybron, 2008, p. 222, Mulligan, 2009b). Some pleasures are even intrinsically suffered. Here are three main examples: 1. Shameful pleasures. One might "take unpleasure in" (be displeased by) a pleasure because of its (apparent) incorrectness (and conversely take pleasure in an unpleasure because of its correctness). John suffers from enjoying torturing cats because he thinks it is wrong to do so. 2. Masochist. Radical masochists, one might assume, not only take intrinsic pleasures in unpleasures, but also intrinsic unpleasures in pleasures. They do so not because of the correctness or incorrectness of their pleasures and unpleasures (not because, for instance, they think they deserve to suffer7). They do so just because pleasures and unpleasures are what they are, i.e. they suffer pleasures just because pleasures are good for them. Some kind of perversion is involved here (Feldman, 2004, p. 87). A third troublesome case, that shall only be addressed later (see 10.2.1 page 254) can already be mentioned here: 3. Anhedonia. Some people feel bodily pleasures but do not enjoy them. Cases of pain asymbolia, or reactive dissociation are now well documented (Grahek, 2007), and similar cases of anhedonia, where people experience an orgasm but do not enjoy it are also known. 7I am here following Feldman (2004, p. 88) against Goldstein (1983) who thinks that masochists enjoy pain because they think they deserve it. One refined view of masochism has it that masochists enjoy not unpleasures per se but some complex including their own unpleasures together with their own passivity. 210 CHAPTER 8. INTENTIONAL PLEASURES Do such cases threaten the IATP? I think not. Impressions to the contrary might derive from a confusion between the view that pleasures are enjoyments, as the IATP has it, and the view that pleasures are essentially enjoyed, a view that the IATP rejects. What are enjoyed according to the IATP, are the objects of the intentional episodes to which pleasantness accrues, not those mental episodes. The IATP is not the view that pleasures are essentially liked or enjoyed mental episodes. To have a pleasant experience of an Aloxe-Corton is to savour the Aloxe-Corton, it is not to savour the experience of it. The pleasure is not the experience of the wine, but the attitude directed towards it. Likewise, to enjoy playing tennis is to have a pleasant intentional episode directed at a game we play. What one enjoys in that case, is playing tennis, not the intentional episode (whatever it is) directed at our playing tennis. The same is true for other hedonic attitudes: we take pleasure in the victory, not in the representation of the victory. We are pleased about a compliment, not about our hearing a compliment. To repeat: what is pleasant (i.e. hedonically good) are the mental episodes. What is pleasing, i.e. what we take pleasure in, are the objects of these episodes ( 1.1.1 page 19). To be in a pleasant mental episode is not to enjoy it, but to enjoy its object. Enjoyments are not essentially enjoyed; we do not essentially take pleasure in pleasures; we are not essentially pleased about our pleasures. What we enjoy, take pleasure in, are pleased about, are the objects of our pleasures: journeys, books, activities, sensory qualities, and so on. Pleasures are the attitudes, not the objects. They are essentially likings, but they are not essentially liked. Pleasures are not even essentially conscious. There is indeed some consciousness essentially involved in each pleasure, but it is the consciousness of the object of the pleasure. Admittedly, one cannot enjoy something without being aware of it (still, one might be unable to say what one enjoys, and our awareness of the enjoyed object might nevertheless stay in the background of attention. But even in such cases in which the enjoyed object appears faint, it it still conscious in some minimal sense). But though we are aware of what we take pleasure in, we are not necessarily aware of our taking pleasure in it. In Feldman's terms: A person can be pleased about something without being fully aware of the fact that he is pleased about it.(Feldman, 2004, p. 58) 8.3.2 Feeling pleasure What is then required to feel, enjoy or suffer a pleasure? We first need a secondorder attitude directed towards that pleasure. What is this attitude? We access our own pleasure by feeling them. Feeling pleasures acquaints us with the nature of 8.3. ATTITUDES TOWARDS PLEASURES 211 pleasures. Pleasures are of course not the only things that can be felt: feelings are even more varied than pleasures (Ryle, 1951). We can feel pains, tickles, shivers, we can feel happy, ill, ashamed, we can feel that Paul is sad, maybe we can feel Paul's sadness, we can feel that something is about to happen, that there is something wrong, we can feel pressures, temperatures, contact, etc. Finally, we can feel values, such as the delicacy of a vase or the injustice of a decision (Scheler, 1973a, Mulligan, 2008b)8. As a result, to say that pleasures can be felt does not amount to saying that pleasures can only be felt in the same ways as tickles or itches. The episode of feeling is not limited to our body. Indeed, that the verb "feel" is used both for denoting our acquaintance with pleasures and our acquaintance with values is no doubt good news for the ATP. As a result of being felt, pleasures might be called feelings. It is important to note that the expression "a feeling of pleasure" is ambiguous. Both terms "feeling" and "of" display important ambiguities here9: • "A feeling", first, (like "a sensation") displays an act-object ambiguity: a feeling is either our act of feeling or the thing we feel. One might wonder why it is so, for gerunds formed from intentional verbs typically do not exhibit any actobject ambiguity. Thus "a hearing", "a thinking", "an intending", etc. invariably refer to intentional acts. The explanation might be that contrary to most (all?) intentional verbs, "feeling" is both a right hand side and a wrong hand side intentional verb (see p. 4.3.3). Possibly, when the gerund is formed from the right hand side use of to feel ("Paul feels a pleasure"), it denotes an intentional act. But when the gerund is formed from the wrong hand side use of to feel ("This wine feels corked"), it denotes an intentional object. • The preposition "of" does not dispel the ambiguity of "feeling" in "a feeling of pleasure", for this preposition is itself ambiguous. There is an intentional "of" 8Whether there is only one sense of feeling used in all those cases is a matter of dispute. Ryle (1951) argues that such different uses are only genetically connected. It is at least tempting to think that the verb to feel is a rag-bag for expressing all the acquaintance relations for which we do not have any noun (by acquaintance I mean here cognitive intentional relations that reveal to us the nature of their object: such as perceptions and intuitions). We do not say that we feel colors because we name the presentation of colors 'seeing '. But we say that we feel pressures, temperatures, pains, and so on, because we lack specific names for designating presentations of this type of objects. 9 'Feeling' is the most ambiguous of all the words in our psychological vocabulary, Armstrong (1993, p. 176) 212 CHAPTER 8. INTENTIONAL PLEASURES (as in "the perception of a dog") and a non-intentional, specificatory "of" (as in "an episode of shame")10. Because of this conjoined ambiguity of the terms "feeling" and "of", there are two main readings of the expression "a feeling of pleasure": 1. a feeling of pleasure = an intentional feeling-act directed towards a pleasure 2. a feeling of pleasure = an intentionally felt-object of the pleasure type.11 The locution "a feeling of pleasure" means either that the feeling is a feeling-act that has pleasures as its object, or that the feeling is a felt episode of the pleasure-type. In both cases, the underlying metaphysics is the same: there is a pleasure episode and a feeling-act, distinct from the pleasure episode and directed towards it. This is what feeling pleasure amounts to: a second-order mental act directed towards a first-order pleasure. Are pleasures essentially felt according to the IATP? I have rejected the view that personal values depend for their nature and for their existence on attitudes directed towards them (7.3.1;7.5). If pleasures are necessarily felt, this is neither in virtue of their distinctive nature, nor in virtue of the nature of their existence: pleasures are not what they are thanks to our feeling them, nor do they exist thanks to our feeling them. Though, as mentioned above, I think there are some unfelt, unconscious pleasures, it might be worth noting that this is not entailed by the IATP. All that the IATP rules out is that the necessity for pleasures to be felt, if there is one, flows from the distinctive nature of pleasures or from their existence. Still a supporter of the IATP might argue that pleasures are necessarily felt on the following grounds: 1. First, he might endorse a Brentanian conception of intentionality, according to which mental episodes do not only have a primary object distinct from themselves, but also have themselves as secondary objects (see Appendix D for more 10There are at least two kinds of specificatory "of": 1. Subsumptive "of": "a feeling of pleasure"is read in a same way than "a species of mammals", the "of" tells us to what type does the feeling belongs to. It is a feeling of the type pleasure. 2. Constitutive "of". "a feeling of pleasure" is read in the same way than "an amount of gold", "a piece of cake", "cube of ice". The pleasure is the stuff of which the feeling is made. 11A third, more far-fetched, interpretation has it that while "feeling" refers to an intentional act, the "of" is specificatory rather than intentional, so that "of pleasure" refers not to the object of the feeling, but specifies its mode. Expression of this kind are " a perception of hearing": 3. a feeling of pleasure: an intentional act of the pleasure mode directed at something else, i.e. a feeling of pleasure of an object. 8.3. ATTITUDES TOWARDS PLEASURES 213 on Brentano's conception of intentionality). This is not the line I shall pursue here: not every mental episode is self-reflexive. But if Brentano is right, then pleasures are essentially conscious as every mental episode is. Pleasures, however, are still not essentially conscious in virtue of their distinctive nature: their being personally good mental episodes plays no role in their being necessarily conscious. 2. Second, the defender of the IATP willing to save the view that pleasures are necessarily felt might grant that this necessity does not flow from their nature at all (distinctive or not), but flows from the nature of feeling, consciousness, or attention. Such faculties might be essentially "pleasure-attracted" so that each time a pleasure occurs in us, they latch on to it. If so, pleasures are necessarily conscious, but not essentially so. The IATP is therefore compatible with some version of the view that pleasures are necessarily felt, even if it should be said that such a view sounds quite dubious. 8.3.3 Enjoying and suffering pleasure How does the IATP deal with our three initial cases of pleasures which are suffered or endured, such as shameful pleasures and masochist pleasures? It deals with such cases in the same way that it accounts for our feeling pleasure. Assuming enjoyment and suffering are modes of feeling (Scheler, 1973a, p. 257 n. 23), one can feel pleasure indifferently, pleasantly, or unpleasantly. Feeling a pleasure pleasantly amounts to have two pleasures: a first-order pleasure embedded in a second-order one directed at it (the first-order pleasure is embedded in the second-order one, given that the IATP claims that the objects of pleasures are parts of them, see pp. 8.1sqq.). Feeling a pleasure unpleasantly, amounts to having a first-order pleasure embedded in a second-order unpleasure directed at it. And feeling a pleasure neutrally, amounts to having a first-order pleasure embedded in a second-order indolence directed at it (note that feeling a pleasure indolently is distinct from feeling a pleasure). In this way, the IATP can deal with the potentially troubling cases in which pleasures are intrinsically disliked or suffered. Such cases are troublemakers for the desired-episode theory and for the liked-episodes theories of pleasures, but the IATP sees no problem here. Consider shameful pleasures. Filippa, an austere Protestant, cannot help enjoying turtle soup. She takes a second-order unpleasure in her firstorder pleasure because she takes this first order pleasure to be unfitting. Consider masochist pleasures. George, a dyed-in-the-wool masochist, also enjoys turtle soup. But he takes intrinsic unpleasure in his enjoying the soup, not because he thinks this 214 CHAPTER 8. INTENTIONAL PLEASURES first-order pleasure is disvaluable in any way, but, on the contrary, because he feels this pleasures is good for him. This is why his unpleasure is perverse: George suffers from something good, because it is good. 8.4 Malicious pleasures I have argued that pleasures are intentional attitudes, and are accidentally the objects of further intentional attitudes. The claim that pleasures are intentional represents a potential threat for the ATP. Once intentionality is introduced into the picture, some pleasures directed at bad objects appear to be bad. This raises two independent problems for the ATP. First, malicious pleasures' badness appears to clash straightforwardly with the claim that pleasures are essentially good, good and bad being incompatible properties. Second, malicious pleasures threaten the view the pleasures are essentially good in a more indirect way: malicious pleasures' overall badness, it is claimed, is incompatible with malicious pleasures' goodness together with the view that the value of a whole is equal to the sum of the values of its parts. This section deals with these two problems raised by such malicious pleasures for the IATP in turn. 8.4.1 Are malicious pleasures bad and good at once? Martha enjoys torturing cats for fun. According to the IATP Martha's enjoyments are finally good. But our moral intuitions also tell us that Martha's enjoyments are finally bad. How are we to reconcile these two claims? There are two options. One might claim that the goodness and badness involved are of different kinds, so that they are not incompatible. Alternatively, one might claim that the goodness and badness involved do not have the same bearer, so that it is not the case that one and the same thing is good and bad at once. As it happens, both options are true, though redundant with respect to the present problem. First, Martha's pleasures are not good and bad in the same way: they are good for Martha, but are bad simpliciter. Second, the bearer of the hedonic goodness is, say, [Martha's awareness that she is torturing cats]. But the bearer of badness is [(Martha's awareness that she is torturing cats) being hedonically good ]. Let me explain these two claims in turn. 1. Personal goodness vs. impersonal badness. As explained above (see chap. 7), the final goodness of pleasures is personal ; while the unfittingness of pleasure is or has an impersonal value, a value simpliciter. Personal values and values 8.4. MALICIOUS PLEASURES 215 simpliciter are not incompatible. Goldstein (2003) makes substantially the same claim, by distinguishing the moral offensiveness of malicious pleasures from their personal benefit. So does Zimmerman as we shall see on page 217. Martha's pleasures are good for her. But they are bad simpliciter. 2. Good mental episodes vs. bad incorrect mental episodes. Are the bearers of malicious pleasures' badness exactly the same as the bearers of their goodness? One might try to answer negatively by saying that the badness is exemplified by the pleasures' objects, while the goodness is exemplified by the whole pleasures. Torturing cats is bad. But enjoying torturing cats is good. Malicious pleasures are good things which have bad parts. This would maybe solve our present worry but would certainly miss the point. Malicious pleasures are doubly bad: they are not only constitutively bad, in virtue of having a bad proper part – their object. They also take on some badness in virtue of being unfitting. What we need, therefore, is to show that the bearer of the unfittingness-disvalue is not exactly the same as the bearer of the personal value. Let us assume, for the sake of simplicity, that unfittingness is a disvalue, rather than has disvalue (nothing crucial depends on this here). Apparently, both the hedonic goodness and the unfittingness have one and the same bearer: Martha's pleasure. But such an impression relies on a equivocation in the meaning of the "is". The "is", here, might express either accidental or essential having. As we have seen, these two kinds of property possession are deeply heterogeneous ( 3.1.2 page 72). Essential having of a property has been called "containment", while the term "exemplification" has been reserved for the accidental having of a property. Now the point is that Martha's pleasures in torturing cats contains hedonic goodness, but only exemplifies unfittingness. It is not part of what such pleasures are to be unfitting. It make sense to ask whether Martha's pleasures in torturing cats are fitting or not, and one might conceive of axiologically inverted worlds, though maybe with some resistance, in which such pleasures would be fitting. Relatedly, the bearer of hedonic goodness is the bare mental episode, not the whole pleasure. But the bearer of unfittingness is the whole pleasure. What exemplifies (hedonic) goodness is Martha's awareness that she is torturing cats. And what exemplifies badness (unfittingness) is the pleasure, i.e. Martha's hedonically good awareness that she is torturing cats. Hedonic goodness is part of the bearer of malicious pleasure's unfittingness. The structure of a malicious pleasure is represented in figure 8.5 page suivante (the signs +/stand for positive and negative values). As this picture makes clear, badness and goodness do not have the same bearer. So their being 216 CHAPTER 8. INTENTIONAL PLEASURES Figure 8.5: Malicious pleasure exemplified at the same time is no threat to their contrariety. Malicious pleasures' badness, to conclude, is of a different kind, and has different bearers, than malicious pleasures' goodness. There is therefore no inconsistency in claiming that malicious pleasures are good and bad at the same time. 8.4.2 Malicious pleasures and organic unities A more elaborate objection can be raised against the view that pleasures are essentially good on the basis of malicious pleasures. According to this objection, if malicious were good in a way, then their overall badness would not be fixed by the addition of the values of their parts. Take a bad thing, add some pleasure taken in it: though we have added something good to something bad, the resulting episode is worse that the one we started with (Moore, 1993, §128). This suggests that the value of a malicious pleasure on the whole is not a mere addition of the value of its parts. Martha's unpleasures are worse, on the whole, than the addition of the goodness of her pleasures with the badness of their objects. Such organicity, in itself, represents no threat to the view that pleasures are finally good. However, some philosophers are willing to reject organic unities so as to save the additivity of values. In order to ensure that the overall value of malicious pleasures equals the addition of the values of their parts, one might be led to reject the view that pleasures are finally good. There are two main ways of doing this. 8.4. MALICIOUS PLEASURES 217 The first is to deny that, in alleged organic unity cases, there is any part that actually has some value. This is the view endorsed by Zimmerman (1999). Though he grants that parts of malicious pleasures have virtual values, he insists that they actually lack any positive values. There is no sense in which malicious pleasures are finally ('intrinsic' in his terminology) good according to Zimmerman (see also Zimmerman, 1980, p. 36). Pleasures, by themselves, have no final value. Pleasures are good or bad only in so far as they are appropriate or inappropriate to their objects. The main objection to this view is that pleasure in the bad would not be bad if it was not good in any way. The reason why it is bad to take pleasure in the bad, is precisely that pleasure is good. Suppose pleasure had no final positive value apart from its appropriateness/inappropriateness, what would be wrong with Schadenfreude? Conversely, if unpleasure is not finally bad, what is the problem with envy? As Zimmerman recalls, this point is put forward by Lemos (1994, pp. 43-4) and Goldstein (1989, p. 269; see also Goldstein, 1983)12. This is an important problem: the overall disvalue of a malicious pleasure is grounded on the positive value of some of its parts: rejecting the positive value of these parts amounts to rejecting our very explanandum. Zimmerman answers by granting that pleasure indeed has some kind of value, but that this value is personal: When a wicked man prospers, he benefits undeservedly, and that is what seems so offensive. And it is not just he who sees his prosperity as 12Rachels (2004) agrees that malicious pleasures are still good, but rejects the present argument according to which such pleasures could not be bad if they were not good. This argument, however, is ineffective; those who deny that ''there is good even here'' will say: ''I don't denounce the villain's pleasures because they're good. I denounce them because he enjoys them; and, for that reason, they're not good.'' Here we have a standoff.(Rachels, 2004) Rachels here distinguishes the pleasures from the enjoyment of them. Let me first consider a simplified version of his objection. The simplified version says that one denounces pleasures in the bad, not because they are good, but because they are pleasures. The answer is easy: if pleasures in the bad were not good in any sense for their subjects, then they would not be bad. Suppose that pleasures in the bad are even bad for their subjects: wouldn't it be appropriate, then, to take such bad pleasures in bad objects? On the refined version of Rachels, pleasures in the bad are bad not because they are good for their subject, but because their subjects enjoy them. But if this is so, what is bad is not the pleasure per se, but the enjoyment of the pleasure in the bad. Now the question recurs: why is enjoyment of a pleasure in the bad bad? And the right answer is: because this enjoyment is good for its subject. If this enjoyment were bad for its subject, there would be nothing bad in enjoying a pleasure in the bad. Lemos and Goldstein are right, Rachels is wrong: malicious pleasures are bad because they are good. 218 CHAPTER 8. INTENTIONAL PLEASURES being beneficial to him; we do too. But I think we should resist saying that there is anything intrinsically good involved in this benefit. His prosperity, being beneficial to him, might be said to be good for him; but it doesn't follow that it is good simpliciter. (Zimmerman, 1999) It seems to me that, terminology of 'intrinsic' aside, many defenders of the intrinsic or final value of pleasure will be happy with that claim13. At least I am: the value of pleasure is indeed a personal value, not an impersonal one, as we saw ( 8.4.1 page 214). This personal value of pleasures is not virtual at all, even in malicious pleasures. Note that, to some extent, this concession undermines Zimmerman's dismissal of organic unities (or at least strongly restricts its scope). For once the personal goodness of malicious pleasure is taken into account in the axiological calculus, we are left with a new kind of organic unity: the overall value of the malicious pleasures is not equal to the sum of the personal and impersonal values of the parts (though it depends on them). Surely, this is something that we are willing to explain, and on which Zimmerman's theory of virtual values remains silent. The second way of rescuing the additivity of values from the organic threat is to claim that parts do not retain their values depending on the context or whole in which they figure. The same thing might be more or less good depending on the context (Olson, 2004, Dancy, 2005, Dancy, 2006, chap. 10; see Brown, 2007 for a criticism of that way of dealing with organic unities in general). How should this strategy be applied to malicious pleasures? Consider separately an intense pleasure of Paul (of value +5 say), and a bad wine (of disvalue -5). Suppose now that Paul's intense pleasure is taken in the bad wine. This pleasure, directed at the wine, is bad on the whole, let us assume, because it is inappropriate to take pleasure in bad things. Let us admit also that Paul's pleasure directed at the bad wine has an overall disvalue of -2. If the additivity of values and the invariability of values across contexts were to hold, the overall value of Paul's pleasure in the bad wine should have a null value. This is not the case. According to the present view, one should give up invariability instead of additivity. One might claim, for instance, that the wine is worse when pleasure is taken in it (its disvalue raises to -7), that the pleasure 13 Of course, if 'intrinsic' means 'supervening on the intrinsic properties of its bearers', or 'exemplified by its bearers independently of any other wholly distinct entities' (see pp. 150 sqq.), it is not true that pleasure is intrinsically good. For the person for whom the pleasure is good is not part of the pleasure (though the reverse plausibly holds) though it is part of the supervenience basis of the personal value of pleasure. But the claim that pleasure is intrinsically good usually aims at something else: that pleasure is finally good. In that sense of 'intrinsic', there is no incompatibility between intrinsic (=final) and personal goodness. 8.4. MALICIOUS PLEASURES 219 is less good when taken in bad wine (its value decreases to 3), or a mix of the two. In such cases, this strategy decreases the positive value of pleasures in the context of some bad object; but in other cases, it cancels or even reverses the polarity of such a value. Cases in which the very positive value of pleasures are threatened are cases in which pleasures in bad company lose all positive value, getting a null value or a negative value (0 for the pleasure, -2 for the wine, for instance). Such an option faces the very same objection that was raised against Zimmerman's proposal: whether pleasure never has value independently of its fittingness/unfittingness (as Zimmerman has it) or whether it loses all value when it becomes inappropriate (as the rejection of the invariability of value in some cases has it), we are undermining the very ground of unfittingness' disvalue. Malicious pleasures, again, would not be bad if they were not good in some way. Let me sum up. The overall disvalue of malicious pleasures is not, prima facie, equal to the sum of the values of their parts. One can accept this as a brute fact that shows that values are not additive, as Moore did. Or one can attempt to save the additivity of values by revising the alleged values of the malicious pleasures' parts. The latter option threatens the view that pleasures are intrinsically (noninstrumentally) good, for, in some versions of it, pleasures are denied any positive value. But such attempts to save the additivity of values fail for they undermine the explanation for the overall negative value of malicious pleasures that they had set out to buttress. If there is nothing good in malicious pleasures, then there is nothing bad about them either. In the end, the badness of malicious pleasures is not only compatible with the view that all pleasures are good for their subject, but indeed relies on it. This chapter introduced the IATP, the view that pleasures are hedonically good intentional attitudes and closed the Pandora's box that malicious pleasures represent for the view that pleasures are essentially good. The IATP has been defended against this potential threat, but has not yet been positively sustained yet. Why should we ever grant that all pleasures are intentional? Arguing for that view is the task of the two last chapters. The next chapter argues that at least some pleasures are essentially intentional, and chapter 10 extends this conclusion to all pleasures, including bodily pleasures. 220 CHAPTER 8. INTENTIONAL PLEASURES Chapter 9 Some pleasures are intentional This chapter argues that some pleasures at least are intentional. It is hardly deniable that some pleasures are prima facie intentional. Paul's enjoying a book, Mary's taking pleasure in a conversation, Maurice's being pleased by a compliment. One once influential theory of pleasure however, the distinctive-feeling view, denies that such apparently intentional pleasures really are what they seem. According to this view, no pleasure is ever intentional. Appearances to the contrary, the distinctivefeeling theory claims, rely on a confusion between the non-intentional pleasures, and the intentional episodes their are associated with. Section 9.1 introduces the distinctive-feeling view of pleasure. Section 9.2 casts some doubts on the consistency of the concept of non-intentional mental feelings it relies on. Section 9.3 argues that mere association between pleasures and intentional states is not strong enough to account for prima facie intentional pleasures, and that such pleasures are essentially dependent on intentional states. 9.1 The distinctive-feeling view of pleasure The strongest way to oppose to the view that pleasures are intentional is to claim that no pleasure is intentional nor essentially dependent on any other intentional episode. Pleasures are a kind of mental substance: they refer to nothing beyond themselves and are what they are independently of any other mental episodes. Such non-intentional and substantial mental elements are called distinctive-feelings. Accordingly the view equating pleasures with some of these distinctive-feelings is called 221 222 CHAPTER 9. SOME PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL the "distinctive-feeling view".1 distinctive-feeling: a mental episode which is neither intentional nor dependent on any other mental episode. distinctive-feeling theory of pleasure: pleasures are non-intentional mental episodes existentially independent from any other mental episode. The distinctive-feeling theory of pleasure should not be conflated with the hedonictone theory. Hedonic tones are sometimes called feelings as well, but they are essentially dependent feelings. Contrary to distinctive-feelings, hedonic tones are existentially dependent on other mental episodes. Consider in particular the parasite version of the hedonic tone theory ( 1.2.2 page 29). Together with the distinctive-feelings view, it holds that pleasure is a non-intentional mental episode. The crucial difference between those two theories however, is that the parasite-hedonic-tone theory holds that pleasures are existentially dependent on other intentional episodes, while the distinctive-feeling theory of pleasure rejects such an existential dependence.2 What makes distinctive-feelings mental episodes, given that intentionality is out? One Cartesian criterion of the mental is that mental episodes do not exist in space, but such a criterion would be unfortunate in this context: defenders of the distinctivefeeling view are willing to claim that at least some distinctive-feelings, bodily pleasures, are localized in the body. The natural and indeed standard move for the distinctive-feeling view is to claim that distinctive-feelings are mental in virtue of being self-conscious.3 They are not directed at anything beyond themselves, but they are still directed towards themselves only. They are their own objects, and only objects. There is not, on the one hand, what is felt, and, on the other, what feels it. The felt-object and the feeling-act are one and the same thing. How is the distinctive-feeling view to deal with prima facie intentional pleasures? What does the theory says about cases in which we take pleasure in or enjoy something? According to this theory, to enjoy something is to be intentionally related to 1Alston (1967) calls it the theory of "pleasure as nonlocalized sensation". 2Bramble (2011) purports to defend the distinctive-feelings view of pleasure. However, he remains unclear on the exact relation that such distinctive-feelings have to intentional episodes. On the one hand, he rejects the hedonic tone theory but still claims that intentional experiences are "permeated by" or "include" distinctive-feelings. This appears to me to blur the distinction between the distinctive-feeling and the hedonic-tone theory. 3A less common view, defended by by Scheler, is that feelings are mental in virtue of being the possible objects of inner perception, construed as a higher-order sui generis faculty. I shall reject this option latter on, see 10.3.1 page 265. 9.2. THE INTENTIONALITY OF MENTAL FEELINGS 223 it (to see it, to think about it, etc.) and to have a distinctive-feeling alongside this non-hedonic intentional episode. To enjoy a movie, is to watch it and to have at the same time some non-intentional pleasant feelings. The distinctive-feeling view of pleasure is vulnerable to two objections. According to the first, the very concept of distinctive-feeling is inconsistent. According to the second, it fails to give any convincing account of the way pleasures relate to their objects. 9.2 The intentionality of mental feelings The distinctive-feelings view equates pleasures with non-intentional feelings. It therefore crucially relies on the tenability of non-intentional mental and self-conscious mental episodes. Such kinds of episodes might be questioned on linguistic and/or conceptual ground. I shall argue that though the linguistic challenge is not fatal to non-intentional feelings, the conceptual one is. 9.2.1 Linguistic objections to non-intentional feelings On the face of it, the non-intentional view about feelings of pleasures clashes with the linguistic data that suggests that feelings are intentional: 1. One distinguishes feelings from each other by using apparently the same preposition "of" that we use to describe intentional phenomena: "The perception of a dog" vs. "The perception of a cat"/ "The feeling of a hot bath" vs. "The feeling of a cold blow". 2. One distinguishes feelings from each other by using the transitivity of the verb to feel: "To feel an itch" vs. "To feel a pain". In order to accommodate the first point, champions of the distinctive-feeling view should claim that in expressions such as "a feeling of fear", "a feeling of pain", "a feeling of pleasure", the term feeling refers neither to an intentional act nor to an intentional object, but to a reflexive mental episode, and that the "of" is not intentional either, but specificatory : it gives us the kind of the feeling in question, not its object (see Searle, 1983, p. 39 n.1 and 8.3.2 page 210 on specificatory 'of'). Likewise, in "a feeling of pleasure", there would be no question of distinguishing the pleasure from the feeling, because pleasure would be the feeling. The second point deserves more detailed consideration. The noun "feeling" is deverbal, it comes from the transitive verb "to feel". Such a transitivity suggests that 224 CHAPTER 9. SOME PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL there is a difference between the act of feeling and its object: when we feel pleasure, the verb refers to the intentional act, and the pleasure to the intentional object. Defenders of the non-intentional view about feelings might however accommodate this remark by claiming that, in "Paul feels a pleasure", "pleasure" is a cognate accusative of the verb "feels", such as in "Paul is thinking a thought". According to this hypothesis, in "Paul feels a pleasure", "feels" and "pleasure" function appositively: they express the same thing. This strategy goes back to Reid at least: The same mode of expression is used to denote sensation and perception; and therefore we are apt to look upon them as things of the same nature. Thus, I feel a pain; I see a tree: the first denotes a sensation, the last a perception. The grammatical analysis of both expressions is the same: for both consist of an active verb and an object. But, if we attend to the things signified by these expressions, we shall find, that in the first, the distinction between the act and the object is not real but grammatical; in the second, the distinction is not only grammatical but real. The form of the expression, I feel pain, might seem to imply that the feeling is something distinct from the pain felt; yet, in reality, there is no distinction. As thinking a thought is an expression which could signify no more than thinking, so feeling a pain signifies no more than being pained. (Reid, 2000, pp. 167-8, my italics) Reid's idea that feelings are non-intentional is taken up by Hamilton (1882, vol. , p. 432), Reid's editor (Hamilton is one of the main target of Brentano in his defence of the intentionality of psychological phenomena): In the phaenomena of Feeling,–the phaenomena of Pleasure and Pain,–on the contrary, consciousness does not place the mental modification or state before itself; it does not contemplate it apart,–as separate from itself, but is, as it were, fused into one. The peculiarity of Feeling, therefore, is that there is nothing but what is subjectively subjective; there is no object different from self, –no objectification of any mode of self. (Hamilton, 1882, vol. 2, p. 432)4 4See also: Pleasure is a feeling, and a feeling is a merely subjective state, that is, a state which has no reference to anything beyond itself, -which exists only as we are conscious of its existence. (Hamilton, 1882, vol. 2, p. 463 ) 9.2. THE INTENTIONALITY OF MENTAL FEELINGS 225 Finally, Ryle himself, though deeply hostile to the distinctive-feeling view of pleasure, notes that, in some uses of the verb, "to feel" denotes non-intentional episodes, and explicitly introduces the idiom of "cognate accusative" to deal with the transitivity of "to feel": In 'feel a tickle' and 'strike a blow', 'tickle' and 'blow' are cognate accusatives to the verbs 'feel' and 'strike'. The verb and its accusative are two expressions for the same thing, as are the verbs and their accusatives in 'I dreamt a dream' and 'I asked a question'. (Ryle, 1990, p. 98) Pace Reid and Ryle, I do not think it is that obvious that the dreaming and the dream, the asking and the question, the thinking and the thought stands for the same things in such expressions (see Twardowski, 1999 for a similar worry in the domain of action verbs and nouns). Let us grant however, for the sake of the argument, that such a "cognate accusative" strategy on behalf of the distinctive-feelings view is sound. Thanks to the specificatory reading of the "of" in "feelings of pleasure", and to the cognate accusative reading of "pleasure" in "to feel a pleasure", the distinctive-feelings view of pleasure can maintain that the expression "feelings of pleasures" denotes episodes which are both non-intentional and self-reflexive. 9.2.2 A conceptual objection to to non-intentional feelings Rather than relying on the transitivity of the verb "to feel" in order to rebut nonintentionalism about feelings, one might look for conceptual inconsistencies in the very idea of non-intentional feelings. The objection I want to raise relies on the assumption that non-intentional feelings are self-conscious. Such a view is indeed standardly shared, as we have seen, by the partisans of the distinctive-feeling view (what else could make non-intentional feelings mental, if not their reflexivity?). Nonintentional reflexive feelings face the following dilemma: • either a feeling is nothing but a presentation of itself. But trying to make sense of that proposal soon produces vertigo: there would be nothing to be presented in a feeling but the fact that it presents itself to itself. Feelings would be empty loops5. It is first very doubtful, to say the least, that feelings feel like this. But even if they did, what on earth would distinguish a pleasure-feeling from a pain-feeling or a tickle-feeling? How can empty loops be qualitatively distinct? 5A possibly related objection is raised by Brentano (1995, p. 91) against Hamilton's claim that feeling is "subjectively subjective". He writes: "Where you cannot speak of an object, you cannot speak of a subject either." 226 CHAPTER 9. SOME PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL • or a feeling is only partly a presentation of itself. There is a part of the feeling which is not dedicated to the task of self-presentation. Thanks to such a part, feelings are no longer empty loops and acquire some material content that distinguishes feelings of different types from each other. But let us ask then what the relation is between the reflexive part of the feeling and its material part? We face here another embedded dilemma: – either the reflexive part reflects egocentrically only on itself, and the reflexive part and the material part are only juxtaposed in the feeling. But in that case, we come back to the first horn of our general dilemma: the reflexive part becomes an empty loop, and the material part plays no role in the phenomenology of the feeling: it is there in the feeling, but is not felt or presented. If so, the way pains feel should be the same as the way pleasures feel, and it is on the whole obscure why the material part is considered as a part of the feeling. – or the reflexive part presents not only itself to itself, but also presents the material part of the feeling. But then we find inside the feeling the very intentional schema that defenders of the view that feelings are not intentional sought to rebut. What is called the "self-presentation of the feeling" boils down to the presentation of its material part together with the reflexive presentation of that presentation itself. Such a picture matches in every respect the Brentanian schema of intentionality: instead of eliminating the distinction between the feeling-act and the feeling-object, it vindicates it. In sum, either non-intentional feelings are pure reflexions, but they are then empty loops. Or feelings have some kind of material, non-reflexive part. But then each feeling is composed of a feeling-act directed towards its material part (and towards itself) and intentionality is embedded inside the feeling itself. I conclude that there is no way of avoiding the intentionality of feelings construed as mental episodes: one has to distinguish between our acts of feeling and the felt objects towards which they are directed. There are no distinctive-feelings. 9.3 The intentional dependency of pleasure Even if one grants that distinctive-feelings are tenable, the distinctive-feelings view of pleasures faces a second important objection: it cannot properly link pleasures that 9.3. THE INTENTIONAL DEPENDENCY OF PLEASURE 227 appear to be intentional with their apparent objects. I here present this objection and detail the only way out: pleasures essentially depend on intentional episodes. 9.3.1 The objection: the binding problem Some pleasures at least appear to be closely linked with their objects: the pleasure of looking at a picture, of tasting a Vosne-Romanée, of reading Céline, etc. Such pleasures are important troublemakers for the distinctive-feelings view. When asked what the pleasure of looking at a picture consists in, the distinctive-feelings theorist answers that it consists in a distinctive-feeling of pleasure that co-occurs with the visual perception of the picture. But co-occurrence is an overly loose connexion there. Feelings of pleasure being, ex hypothesis, independent mental episodes, one should be able to conceive of having such distinctive-feelings without their accompaniments. It is far from obvious that we can. Mill asked: it is open to question whether the pleasure or pain, especially the pleasure, is not something added to the sensation, and capable of being detached from it, rather than merely a particular aspect or quality of the sensation. (Mill, 1869, chap. 17, n.36) Berkeley already hinted at a negative answer: Philonous: Or can you form an idea of sensible pain or pleasure in general, abstracted from every particular idea of heat, cold, tastes, smells, etc.? Hylas : I don't find that I can. (Berkeley, 1998, First dialogue) Indeed, can we really make sense of the feeling of pleasure of looking at a picture if one abstracts the visual experience? The answer appears to be negative. In order to show that the mere co-occurrence of distinctive-feelings with mental episodes is not enough, Alston (1967) proposes the following argument. Suppose, that Paul both feels sad that the holidays are over and happy because he just came across some good news. The distinctive-feelings view describes Paul's psychological situation this way. Paul has four mental episodes, co-occurring and independent from each other: (i) a cognition that the holidays are over (ii) a cognition of the good news (iii) a pleasant distinctive-feeling (iv) an unpleasant distinctive-feeling. Now, why not describe the case as a case in which Paul enjoys the end of the holidays, and feel sad about the good news? Or even as a case in which Paul enjoys his sadness, or is sad about his pleasant feelings? Co-occurrence being commutative, all those possibilities, and further ones, remain open. Here is the way Alston puts this binding problem: 228 CHAPTER 9. SOME PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL According to the theory, to enjoy something is to have the pleasure sensation in conjunction with that something. But if "in conjunction with" means merely "in consciousness at the same time as", we are faced with the following difficulty. Let us suppose that while enjoying playing tennis at a given moment I am aware not only of playing tennis but also of oppressive humidity in the atmosphere and of a plane flying overhead. The pleasure sensation occurs in consciousness at the same time as all these cognitions. Therefore the sensation theory implies that I must be enjoying the oppressive humidity and the plane just as much as I am enjoying playing tennis. But this is contrary to the facts. (Alston, 1967) As an answer, the distinctive-feeling theorists could claim that pleasures, though essentially independent from the intentional episodes they are linked with, are still causally dependent on these episodes. But this would not solve the present worry as long as causal relations are accidental (with respect to their relata). That the pleasure we take in playing tennis could have been caused by our eating a florentin, or by some brain episode totally inaccessible to us, hardly makes sense. A similar objection is addressed by Arnauld (1687) to Malebranche6. Malebranche (1721, Book I, chap. 10), and Bayle following him, rejects the intentionality of pleasures7: what distinguishes different kinds of pleasures, such as pleasures of the mind and pleasures of the body, according to them, is that they have different occasional causes. But the real causes of pleasures, Arnauld replies, are brain events unknown to us. So if different kinds of pleasures were only distinct in virtue of their extrinsic causes, we could never distinguish the pleasure of drinking wine from the pleasure of eating figs: les vraies causes occasionnelles de ces plaisirs nous étant inconnues, nous ne pourrions distinguer le plaisir de boire du vin d'avec le plaisir de manger une figue, s'ils n'était différents entre eux que par une dénomination extrinsèque prise de leur cause occasionnelle (Arnauld, 1687, p. 119) 6See Nadler (1989) and Moreau (2000) for presentations of the overall controversy between Arnauld and Malebranche. 7For Malebranche, pleasures are non-intentional sensations, that do not represent anything external to the mind, contrary to other ideas. Malebranche's sensations are neither external objects of the mind, nor internal ones, such as sense-data, but modifications of the mind. The direction of the mind towards pleasures is therefore reflexive: the soul perceived itself, innerly, to be modified in some way (Nadler, 1989, p. 64). Malebranche's sensations are therefore akin to what are here called distinctive-feelings, which owe their mental character to their reflexivity. 9.3. THE INTENTIONAL DEPENDENCY OF PLEASURE 229 (the real occasional causes of those pleasures being unknown to us, we could never distinguish the pleasure of drinking wine from the pleasure of eating a fig, if their only distinction was an external denomination derived from their occasional cause) If the pleasures of drinking wine can be distinguished from the pleasure of eating a fig, this is because, pace Malebranche and the distinctive-feelings view, such pleasures have an essential link to their object: Il est essentiel [au plaisir de manger un fruit], selon l'intuition de la nature, d'avoir rapport à ce fruit. (Arnauld, 1687, p. 122) (It is is essential [to the pleasure of eating a fruit], following the intuition of nature, to be in some relation with this fruit.) The relation at play here is explicitly not a causal relation, which is contingent, but an intentional one. The objects of some pleasures at least, appear to be part of their nature (Arnauld thinks indeed that this is true of all pleasures, a generalization that shall be defended in next chapter). This essential link between pleasures and their objects is precisely what the distinctive-feelings view has to reject, and what raises insuperable difficulties for it. I shall now narrow in on what such an essential link might consists in, by distinguishing the different ways in which pleasures might be essentially connected with their objects. 9.3.2 Intentional dependency to the rescue The solution to the binding problem, already suggested by Berkeley and Arnauld above, is to attach pleasure to their intentional objects, no longer by an accidental relation of co-occurrence or causation, but by an essential relation of ontological dependence. One might attach directly the pleasure to its object, or one might attach the pleasure to its object by attaching it first to another intentional episode which is itself essentially linked to the object. In both cases, the claim is that pleasures are essentially dependent on a relation of intentional reference (that relation might, or might not, be part of the pleasures themselves). The general proposal is therefore that pleasures taken in some objects (qualities, things, substances, activities...) are founded upon intentional episodes directed at such objects. Such grounding intentional episodes are sometimes called the cognitive bases of pleasures. The hedonic tones theorists are often keen on insisting on such an intentional dependency, but they have no privilege. To the extent (i) that most of the monistic theories of pleasure considered so far define pleasure in terms of some non-hedonic 230 CHAPTER 9. SOME PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL mental episode exemplifying pleasantness ( 1.2.1 page 26) and (ii) that these mental episodes are often construed as intentional episodes, most theories of pleasure envisaged so far can be read as subscribing to intentional dependency of pleasure. Except, of course, the distinctive-feeling theory. Brentano (1995, pp. 144 sqq.), who is himself one of the leading defenders of the intentional dependency of pleasures view (every pleasure depends on a presentation, see appendix D), notices that this dependency of pleasures on non-hedonic mental episodes was held by Aristotle, J. Mill, J.S. Mill, Bain, Domrich, Nahlowsky, Drobish, Zimmerman, Wundt. Further adherents of the intentional dependency of pleasures includes Arnauld (1687, see quote on page 229), Lotze (1888, Bk V, chap. V, p. 694), Ebbinghaus (1902), Stumpf (1928b, for intentional pleasures), Husserl (1970, V, §15, vol. 2, p. 108, for intentional pleasures), Duncker (1941, see quote on page 29) or Johansson (2001). To the extent that intentional pleasures are equated with emotions (see page 239), the intentional dependency of pleasure belongs to an even wider view according to which emotions all have a cognitive/intentional basis. Here are some relevant quotes plucked at random: pleasure in itself is an incomplete thought so long as we are not also told what it is that is enjoyed. I do not refer to the external impression from which it arises, but to the specific content of the pleasure itself when it has arisen. Just as it is impossible to feel in general without feeling something...so it is out of the question to talk of pleasure which is simply pure enjoyment, and not the enjoyment of something, of pleasure which is merely greater or less in amount, merely more or less evanescent, but without qualitative content. (Lotze, 1888, Bk V, chap. V, p. 694) pleasure and displeasure never occur by themselves and in isolation, they are always attached to a sensation or an idea that constitutes the feeling's basis or content (Ebbinghaus, 1902, quoted by Schimmack and Colcombe, 2000) the specific essence of pleasure demands a relation to something pleasing. (Husserl, 1970, V, §15, vol. 2, p. 108) Pleasure without cognition is impossible, whereas cognition without pleasure (or displeasure) is possible. [...] Pleasure can never exist in and of itself; it is always fused with something else; there are no self-sufficient feelings of pleasure.(Johansson, 2001) Note that some of these authors, in particular Husserl, claim that only some pleasures depend on intentional episodes (Husserl thinks that there are also non-intentional 9.3. THE INTENTIONAL DEPENDENCY OF PLEASURE 231 pleasures, and therefore embraces hedonic pluralism, see below page 241 and page 252). Since we are only interested here in rebutting the distinctive-feelings view, according to which no pleasure is intentional, those who insist that only some pleasures are intentional are still our allies at this time. As we shall see, the idea that (some) pleasures depend on intentional episodes comes in many versions. The generic version of it might be defined as follows: intentional dependency of pleasures: each pleasure P taken in an object O essentially depends on an intentional episode directed at O (O 6=P). Two clarifications: 1. The requirement that O 6=P is meant to exclude the various versions of hedonic anti-realism considered in 1.2.4 page 34: it is clearly of no help to claim that pleasure depends on some attitude directed towards itself if one is to solve the above binding problem. The intentional dependency of pleasure, on the other hand, easily solved the binding problem. The reason why Paul is sad that the holidays are over and not about the good news he just learnt, is that his sadness essentially depends on his cognition that the holidays are over, and not on his cognition of the good news. 2. To say that a pleasure essentially depends on some intentional episode amounts to saying that a pleasure is what it is, has the nature it has, partly thanks to that episode (see Appendix A.2 page 286 for a presentation of the distinction between essential and existential dependence and of their relation). The idea is therefore that pleasures taken in objects are what they are partly in virtue of some non-hedonic intentional episodes they depend on. No pleasure in O would be the pleasure it is without some perception of O, presentation of O, belief in O, desire that O is the case, knowledge of O, feeling of O, memory of O, expectation of O... . Pleasures taken in objects are essentially tied to an intentional episode, which is not necessarily a pleasure, to which they owe their intentionality.8 8Note that the view that pleasures depend on intentional episodes is distinct from the view that pleasantness depends on intentional episodes. As I argued earlier ( 1.2.2 page 29), the thesis that pleasantness is a dependent property of mental episodes is trivially true, given that properties depend on their bearers. But the thesis that pleasure is dependent on distinct mental episodes is a substantial thesis. Therefore one cannot infer the dependency of pleasure from the dependency of pleasantness. Defenders of the distinctive-feelings view for instance agree that pleasantness is dependent on mental episodes, namely, distinctive-feelings. But what they disagree on is whether pleasures depend on other mental episodes. 232 CHAPTER 9. SOME PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL Such a view is almost trivial: it says, basically, that pleasures that appear to be intentional are indeed as they appear. The intentional dependency of pleasure is not however totally trivial, for the distinctive-feeling theory of pleasures rejects it. This rejection leads to the binding problem just presented. The intentional dependency of pleasure is the best and only remedy to this problem. The pleasure of playing tennis is attached to the tennis game because its essentially tied to some intentional episode directed at the game. I now want to make clear what exactly this intentional dependency of pleasures amounts to in distinguishing the main versions of it. Four versions of the intentional dependency of pleasures might be distinguished relying on two orthogonal distinctions: • One might claim that the intentional episode on which the pleasure depends is a part of pleasure, or one might deny it. • One might claim that all the intentional work is done by the intentional episode on which the pleasure depends or one might claim that the dependent pleasure has an intentionality of its own, distinct from – though dependent on – the intentionality of the grounding intentional episode. Let us envisage those two distinctions in more details. The first one flows from the distinction between parasiteand host-theories of pleasure ( 1.2.2 page 29) together with an intentionalist conception of the mental. Take the hedonic tone theory. Parasite-versions equate pleasures with the hedonic tone of intentional episodes, while hostversions equate pleasure with hedonically toned mental episodes. Hedonic tone theorists of the parasite brand will claim that what links the pleasure of looking at a picture with the visual experience of the picture is that the pleasure depends "from the outside" on that experience. The reason why Paul enjoys the good news but not the end of the holidays is that his sadness depends "externally" on the cognition of the good news and not on the cognition of this end of the holidays. The dependence at play is an external dependence, i.e. an essential dependence between wholly different entities (see again Appendix A.2 for the distinction between external and internal ontological dependence). Hedonic tone theorists of the host brand, by contrast, will claim that the pleasure of looking at a picture contains as an essential constituent the visual experience of the picture. The reason why Paul enjoys the good news but not the end of the holidays is that his pleasures contain as an essential part the cognition of the good news, but not the cognitions of the end of the holidays. The dependency at play is an internal dependence. 9.3. THE INTENTIONAL DEPENDENCY OF PLEASURE 233 Figure 9.1: Pleasures externally depending on intentional episodes Figure 9.2: Pleasure internally depending on intentional episode Accordingly, the intentional dependency of pleasures comes in two versions. On one view, each pleasure depends on a non-hedonic intentional episode in an external way: pleasures are external parasites of intentional episodes (see fig. 9.1). On the other view, pleasures depend internally on such non-hedonic intentional episodes: each pleasure has a non-hedonic mental episode as an essential part (see fig. 9.2). I favor the second approach, following Thalberg (1977, pp. 30 sqq.)9. My main reason for doing so is that the concept of external and essential dependence sounds dubious to me: if x depends for its essence on y, then y should be a part of x (as essential mereologism has it; see page 73 and Appendix A.2). I consequently endorse the following view: intentional internal dependency of pleasure: each pleasure P taken in an object O essentially contains as an essential proper part an intentional episode directed at O (O 6=P). 9Thalberg does not speak of pleasure but of emotions, and does not speak of part, but of component. His view is that the cognitive basis of an emotion is a component of that emotion. In his terminology, I am claiming that the cognitive basis of a pleasure is a component of that pleasure. 234 CHAPTER 9. SOME PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL Consider now the second distinction above: either the pleasure grounded on an (non-hedonic) intentional episode itself exhibits a new kind of intentionality or it does not. When Camille takes pleasure in listening to Bach's mass in B, is there only one intentional act –her listening– exemplifying non-intentional, hedonic-making properties, or are there at least two distinct intentional acts: the one of her listening to the music on the top of which comes a second (dependent) intentional act of enjoying it? Brentano (see appendix D), and Husserl following him, advocate the latter view: not only are all pleasures grounded on presentation, but they also exhibit some new intentionality of their own: [intentional pleasure, conviction, desire] are all intentions, genuine acts in our sense. They all 'owe' their intentional relation to certain underlying presentations. but it is part of what we mean by such 'owing' that they themselves really now have what they owe to something else.(Husserl, 1970, V, §15, vol. 2, p. 108) On Husserl's view, pleasures are mental acts dependent on some presentations. There are two intentional references: a presentational, and an hedonic one, the second one essentially depending on the first. The contrast between single-intentionality and double-intentionality views appears when comparing fig. 9.2 with fig. 9.3.10 I favor the single-intentionality view. The double-intentionality view tends to assume (and maybe has to) that there is a primitive mode of hedonic reference, aside from the one of the intentional bases of pleasures. But I have rejected such primitive modes of intentional reference, and have argued that an analysis is required (8.2.2). The single intentionality view, by contrast, allows for an analysis of hedonic reference: the only mode of intentional reference at play in each pleasure is non-hedonic (perception, desire, belief, memory...): hedonicity comes from a non-intentional property of intentional episodes. Besides, Husserl's argument in favor of the double-intentionality view appears to be flawed. He writes: 10One worry. Fig. 9.3 represents the dependency between pleasures and the underlying presentation as essential. However, once the pleasure is claimed to have an intentionality of its own, this relation of essential dependence might be replaced by a relation of mere existential dependence without any loss. According to such a revised double-intentionality view, intentional pleasures would be essentially dependent on their objects, as any intentional phenomenon is, and they would be existentially, but not essentially, dependent on the underlying presentations. Such a view sounds more plausible to me for it is in accordance with the essential mereologism defended above. As for Husserl, I am not sure whether he subscribes to the view that pleasures are essentially dependent on presentations, or only existentially so. 9.3. THE INTENTIONAL DEPENDENCY OF PLEASURE 235 Figure 9.3: Husserl's double-intentionality view We do not merely have a presentation, with an added feeling associatively tacked on to it, and not intrinsically related to it, but pleasure or distaste direct themselves to the presented object, and could not exist without such a direction. (Husserl, 1970, V, §15, vol. 2, p. 108) Husserl targets here the distinctive-feeling view. To take pleasure in something, he argues, is not to have a representation of that thing, to which a distinctive pleasurefeeling is associated. This is right. But where Husserl goes wrong is in suggesting that once one rejects the view that feelings are non-intentional episodes associated with intentional ones, all that is left is the view that feelings are intrinsically intentional episodes dependent on other intentional episodes. Husserl fails to consider the possibility that feelings might be non-intentional episodes that are dependent on intentional ones –rather than associated with them. He overlooks the first columns in table 9.1, writing as if the only choice was between non-intentional feelings merely associated with intentional episodes, or intentional feelings dependent on other intentional episodes. But there is clearly a third possibility: non-intentional feelings dependent on intentional episodes. The IATP builds on this possibility, and so does the hedonic tone theory in his standard intentional version: pleasantness is a non-intentional property of intentional episodes. As a property, it depends on its bearers. But it does not add a second act of intentional reference to the intentional episodes that exemplifiy it. It however colors that act of reference, transforming presentations, judgements, perceptions, remembrances, etc... into pleasures taken in presented, judged, perceived, remembered objects. Those four ways of defending the intentional dependency of pleasure are reviewed in table 9.1 page suivante. As a result, the IATP defended here belongs to the lower left corner: pleasures do not introduce new instances of intentional reference in addition to the intentional episodes they internally depend on. To repeat, the double motivation for this com236 CHAPTER 9. SOME PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL Intentional dependency of pleasure Single intentionality view D ouble intentionality view E xternal dependency (= parasite theory of pleasure) Internal dependency (= host theory of pleasure) Table 9.1: Varieties ofhedonic dependency 9.3. THE INTENTIONAL DEPENDENCY OF PLEASURE 237 bination of internal dependency and single intentionality view is first, the plausibility of essential mereologism, the view that whatever is essential to x, is part of x ; second, the necessity of analyzing hedonic reference instead equating it with a primitive mode of intentional reference. To conclude this section, the distinctive-feelings theory of pleasure, according to which no pleasure is intentional, is false. It is false first, because the very concept of mental and non-intentional feeling is defective: if feelings are mental, they are intentional. It is false, secondly, because some pleasures are essentially tied to intentional objects, an essential connection that the distinctive-feeling view is committed to denying. What remains to be shown now, in order to complete the defence of the IATP, is that all pleasures are intentional. Note that neither of the two objections raised above against the distinctive-feelings view of pleasure vindicates such a claim: 1. The objection to the effect that the concept of non-intentional feelings is inconsistent ( 9.2 page 223) only shows that such feelings are untenable if they are held to be mental. There might still be some non-intentional non-mental feelings. 2. The objection to the effect that the distinctive-feelings view cannot properly bind pleasures to their objects ( 9.3 page 226) only shows that pleasures that are prima facie intentional really are intentional. But there might still be pleasures which do not even appear to be intentional. The possibility that has yet to be excluded then is that, while some pleasures are intentional, some others are not, namely, non-mental pleasures. This is indeed the central tenet of hedonic dualism, the view to be assessed in the last chapter. 238 CHAPTER 9. SOME PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL Chapter 10 All pleasures are intentional The thesis to be defended in this chapter is that all pleasures are intentional. Intentional dependency, the view that pleasures essentially depend on some intentional episodes (see 9.3.2 page 229), is not reserved for pleasures that are prima facie intentional, i.e. for pleasures that we naturally describe by mentioning their objects. Intentional dependency generalizes to all pleasures. Brentano is, here again, the leading proponent of this view: Pleasure and pain, therefore, are genuine affects to which many others must be added, such as longing, feeling, hoping, fearing, anger, and the like. (Brentano, 1981, p. 59) Brentano here implicitly links the view that pleasures are intentional with the view that pleasures are emotions, emotions being intentional episodes. While the hedonic theory of emotions claims that all positive emotions are pleasures (see page 24), the emotional theory of pleasures claims that all pleasures are positive emotions: emotional theory of pleasures: theory according to which all pleasures are positive emotions. Together, these two theories entail that pleasures and positive emotions are one and the same thing. This thesis sounds attractive to me, as long as "pleasure" is understood in its generic sense (see p. 11). I will not try however to defend it here. In order to do so, one would need to show not only that all pleasures are intentional, but also that all emotions are nothing but intentional pleasures (for instance that they are not complexes of pleasures plus desires or action-tendencies). There is no need to venture in that area here. I shall stick with the question "Are all pleasures intentional ?". If they are, the emotional theory of pleasure is more likely to be 239 240 CHAPTER 10. ALL PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL true, but is not yet established. This view is however worth mentioning for it is often implicitly assumed, so that the claim that pleasures are emotions often stands for the claim that pleasures are intentional (and conversely, the claim that not all pleasures are emotions stands for the claim that not all pleasures are intentional). Let us call hedonic intentionalism the view that all pleasures are intentional episodes: hedonic intentionalism: theory according to which all pleasures are intentional episodes. The IATP defended here is a version of hedonic intentionalism. Hedonic intentionalism faces the objection that some pleasures do not appear to have objects. The main troublemakers here are bodily pleasures, on which I shall focus in this chapter. But it should be mentioned that there are others. Here are some of them, together with some suggestions about the ways they could be dealt with within an intentionalist framework: • good moods do not appear to be intentional. One first strategy on behalf of hedonic intentionalism is to deny that good moods are pleasures in the generic sense, on the ground that good moods are dispositions to get pleasures but are not themselves pleasure episodes. A second strategy is to grant that moods are pleasures but to insist that they do have intentional objects. Only, their intentional objects are very general. To be cheerful would be to enjoy everything. Some pleasures, then, would be directed towards the world in general (see e.g. Solomon, 1976, pp. 172 sqq., Crane, 1998, Goldie, 2002a, pp. 143 sqq. for such intentionalist accounts of moods1). • feelings of the lived body/vital feelings, as Scheler (1973a, p. 338) calls them, such as feeling energetic, healthy, vigorous might be thought to be non-intentional. The best strategy here for the hedonic intentionalist, is to distinguish the feeling-acts from their objects and to insist that pleasures are to be equated with the feeling-acts, not with their objects. Being energetic, healthy or vigorous are not pleasures but states of our body or of our life. On the other hand, feeling pleasantly that one is energetic or healthy, is a pleasure (see Scheler, 1973a, p. 340 sqq. on the intentionality of vital feelings. Scheler equates the intentional objects of such feelings with the life of individuals). 1Fish (2005) puts forward a constructive critic of the proposal to draw the distinction between moods and emotions in terms of the generality of their object). 10.1. HEDONIC DUALISM 241 • happiness, welfare, felicity, bliss do not seem to be intentional. A first way to deal with such cases for the hedonic intentionalist is to deny that they are indeed pleasures, by insisting that they are just sums of pleasures and unpleasures, algedonic balances of individuals, as hedonist theories of happiness have it (see Feldman, 2010 for a recent proposal of this kind, and see Appendix F on algedonic balance and resultant pleasures). A second way to deal with such cases is to grant that they are pleasures but to claim that they do have intentional objects: namely the whole world, or the whole person (as suggested by Scheler, 1973a, pp. 343-4). A proper defense of the intentionality of pleasures would require a closer examination of those cases, and possibly others. At least the strategies just sketched give us some reason not to be too pessimistic here. The rest of the present chapter is only dedicated to arguing in favor of the intentionality of bodily pleasures. In order to do so, I shall contrast hedonic intentionalism with hedonic dualism, the theory according to which bodily pleasures, by contrast to pleasures of the mind, are non-intentional sensory qualities. Hedonic dualism, I take it, is the main rival of hedonic intentionalism. Section 10.1 introduces hedonic dualism. Section 10.2 distinguishes three versions of hedonic dualism, according to the way they define non-intentional bodily pleasures, and argues that the version that equates bodily pleasures with personally good sensory qualities is the most likely to be true. Section 10.3 raises objections against hedonic dualism, even in its more promising version. Section 10.4 argues that the intentional objects of bodily pleasures are precisely the sui generis kind of sensory qualities that hedonic dualists rightly introduce (but wrongly equate with pleasures rather than with objects of pleasures). 10.1 Hedonic dualism 10.1.1 Presentation There is an intuitive distinction between pleasures of the mind on the one hand, and pleasures of the body on the other. Pleasures of the body include the pleasures of scratching when it itches, of having an orgasm, of entering a hot bath, of putting one's painful finger under cold water, of being massaged, of stretching one's limb. Pleasures of the mind include the pleasures of reading a good novel, of receiving a gift, of torturing cats, of being complimented, together with (more controversially) the pleasure of looking at the Alps from the Jura, of playing a badminton game, of 242 CHAPTER 10. ALL PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL winning a badminton game. An important tradition in the philosophy of pleasure happily grants that some pleasures are essentially intentional, but insists that some others are essentially nonintentional. Philosophers of that tradition subscribe to a promising variety of hedonic pluralism which I shall dub hedonic dualism. According to hedonic dualism the fiat class of pleasures divides into two bona fide classes: intentional pleasures, on the one hand, and non-intentional pleasures, on the other: • Intentional pleasures are equated to pleasures of the mind above. Such hedonic attitudes are often accounted for in terms of a primitive intentional mode of enjoyment or taking pleasure in (along the lines of definition 16). But hedonic dualism, as I understand it, is not committed to such a primitivism about intentional pleasures. A hedonic dualist could accept for instance the IATP's claim that attitudinal pleasures come down to hedonically good mental episodes. Hedonic dualists though, would urge that such an analysis could only be true for pleasures of the mind, but is doomed to failure as far as bodily pleasures are concerned. For such pleasures, they think, are not attitudinal. • Non-intentional pleasures are equated to pleasures of the body. They are strongly heterogeneous to pleasures of the mind: they are not intentional and are located in the body. They are not unrelated to pleasures of the mind however, since they are claimed to be (essentially or accidentally depending on the version of hedonic dualism) objects of intentional pleasures. One might take a mind-pleasure in a bodily pleasure. The reverse is of course impossible: bodily pleasures being non-intentional, they cannot be directed at pleasures of the mind. The ancestor of hedonic dualism is Stumpf (1928b), a pupil of Brentano2. Stumpf's views on pleasure were quite influential. They were taken up (with some qualifications to be introduced below) by Husserl (1962), Scheler (1973a) and more recently Mulligan (1988, 1998b, 2008b, 2009a)3. Moreover, Feldman (1997b, 2004)'s influential theory of pleasure, without explicitly mentioning Stumpf, displays some clear 2Stumpf's works on pleasure have not been translated in English. One might find useful presentations of them, or hints at them in Titchener (1908, chap. III), Titchener (1917), Allen (1930, p. 5), Katkov (1939), Chisholm (1987), Chisholm (1986, p. 24 sqq.), Reisenzein and Schönpflug (1992), Mulligan (1988, 2008b,a). 3Classifying Scheler among hedonic dualists is an understatement. Scheler indeed recognises four basic forms of algedonic feelings. (1) sensible feelings, or "feelings of sensation" (Carl Stumpf), (2) feelings of the lived body (as states) and feelings of life (as functions), (3) pure psychic feelings (pure feelings of the ego), and (4) spiritual feelings (feelings of the personality). (Scheler, 10.1. HEDONIC DUALISM 243 affinities with his views.4 All these authors agree that there are at least two kinds of pleasures: intentional pleasures of the mind and non-intentional pleasures of the body. And all insist, as good hedonic pluralists, that those two kinds of pleasures are so heterogeneous that they might not even be of the same type. Here are some quotes in a jumble (in the quote in which it appear, the term "emotion" stands for "intentional pleasure"): Mögen Gemütsbewegungen sich an alle Sinneseindrücke knüpfen können oder nicht an alle: die sinlliche Annehmlichkeit oder Unannehmlichkeit in sich selbst is noch keine Gemügbewegung, sondern eine Empfindungsqualität. Das war die These [of Stumpf, 1928a's treatise über Gefühlsempfindungen]. (Stumpf, 1928a, p. 107) 1973a, p. 332) See Mulligan (2008a) and Zaborowski (2011) for presentations of Scheler's conception of the stratification of emotional life and Appendix B.3 page 296 on Scheler's views about heights of pleasures. 4This list of hedonic dualists is not intended to be exhaustive. Ryle is not strictly speaking an hedonic dualist but comes close to such a view. Like hedonic dualists, Ryle distinguishes non-intentional pleasures, which correspond to moods or agitations, from intentional ones, which correspond to enjoyments. He differs from traditional hedonic dualists, however, for non-intentional pleasures are neither equated to bodily pleasures, nor to any types of feeling or sensations, but to agitations: We see then that 'pleasure' can be used to signify at least two quite different types of things. (1) There is the sense in which it is commonly replaced by the verbs 'enjoys' and 'like'. To say that a person has been enjoying digging is not to say that he has been both digging and doing or experiencing something else as a concomitant or effect of the digging; it is to say that he dug with his whole heart in his task, i.e. that he dug, wanting to dig and not wanting to do anything else (or nothing) instead. His digging was a propensity-fulfilment. His digging was his pleasure, and not a vehicle of his pleasure. (2) There is the sense of 'pleasure' in which it is commonly replaced by such words as 'delight', 'transport', 'rapture', exultation, and 'joy'. These are names of moods signifying agitations. 'Too delighted to talk coherently' and 'crazy with joy' are legitimate expressions. Connected with such moods, there exist certain feelings which are commonly described as 'thrills of pleasure', 'glows of pleasure', and so forth. It should be noticed that though we speak of thrills of pleasure coursing through us, or of glows of pleasure warming our hearts, we do not ordinarily speak of pleasures or of pleasure coursing through us or warming our hearts. Only theorists are misguided enough to classify either delight or enjoyment with feelings. That this classification is misguided is shown by the fact (1) that enjoying digging is not both digging and having a (pleasant) feeling; and (2) that delights, amusement, etc., are moods, and that moods are not feelings.Ryle (1990, pp. 104-5) 244 CHAPTER 10. ALL PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL [Whether the emotions latch on to all the impressions of the senses or only to some of them, the sensory pleasantness or unpleasantness is by itself no emotion yet, but a sensory quality. This was the thesis.] Time will come when the difference in principle between emotions and sensations, including affective sensations, will be regarded as being just as evident as is, already today, the difference between sensations and thoughts (Stumpf, 1928b, translated by Reisenzein and Schönpflug, 1992, p. 40). We are led to doubt, then, whether two such sorts of 'feelings' really form a single class. We spoke previously of liking and dislike, of approval and disapproval, of valuation and disvaluation - experiences obviously akin to theoretical acts of assent and rejection, of taking something to be probable or improbable, or to deliberative acts of judgemental or voluntary decision etc. Here we have a kind, a plain unity of essence, which included nothing but acts, where such sensations of pain and pleasure have no place: descriptively the latter belong, in virtue of their specific essence, among tactual, gustatory, olfactory and other sensations. ....In both cases of course, we speak of 'feelings', i.e. in the case of the abovementioned acts of liking as in the case of the above-mentioned sensations. This fact need not perplex, any more than our ordinary talk of 'feeling', in the sense of touching, need lead us astray in the case of tactile sensations. (Husserl, 1970, LI, §15, (b)) Hence, feeling-states and feeling are totally different. The former belong to contents and appearances; the latter, to the functions of reception. All specifically sensible feelings are, by their nature, states. They may be "connected" with objects through the simple content of sensing, representing, or perceiving; or the may be more or less "objectless". Whenever there is such a connection, it is always mediate. The subsequent acts of relating which follow from the givenness of a feeling connect feelings with objects [...] The feeling itself is not originally related to an object. However the connection between intentional feeling and what is therein felt is entirely different from the above connection. ... There is here an original relatedness, a directedness of feeling toward something objective, namely, values. [. . . ] It is not externally brought together with an object [. . . ]. On the contrary, feeling originally intends its own kind of objects, namely "values."(Scheler, 1973a, pp. 256-8) On the present view there is a sharp distinction between feelings or 10.1. HEDONIC DUALISM 245 emotional sensations, which require no perceptions or thoughts, and emotions which do.(Mulligan, 1998b) The distinction between sensory pleasure and attitudinal pleasure is ancient, though often overlooked or misunderstood. I suspect that Epicurus might have been sensitive to it. A person experiences sensory pleasure at a time if he feels pleasurable sensations then. If you like the tastes of champagne and caviar, you might experience sensory pleasure as you sip a cool glass of your favorite and nibble on caviar. I more often get my sensory pleasures from cold beer and salty peanuts. The point here, however, is that sensory pleasures are 'feelings' -things relevantly like feelings of heat and cold; feelings of pressure, tickles, and itches; the feeling you get in your back when getting a massage. Attitudinal pleasures are different. A person takes attitudinal pleasure in some state of affairs if he enjoys it, is pleased about it, is glad that it is happening, is delighted by it. So for example, suppose that you are a peace-loving person. Suppose you take note of the fact that there are no wars going on. The world is at peace. Suppose you are pleased about this. You are glad that the world is at peace. Then you have taken attitudinal pleasure in a certain fact-the fact that the world is at peace. Attitudinal pleasures are always directed onto objects, just as beliefs and hopes and fears are directed onto objects. This is one respect in which they are different from sensory pleasures. (Feldman, 2002) Despite significant differences, all these philosophers subscribe to the view that there are two disjunctive, heterogeneous, sorts of pleasures; intentional pleasures of the mind and non-intentional pleasures of the body. The first ones are positive attitudes, the second ones are positive sensations or feelings. Table 10.1 recaps the different terms used by hedonic dualists to mark this distinction. Following Titchener (1908, p. 338), and as suggested by Stumpf (1928b, p. 68, n. 1) himself, I shall use the term 'algedonic sensations', rather the 'feeling-sensations', 'affective sensations' or 'sensory pleasures', to translate Gefühlsempfindungen (see page 53 on the term "algedonic"). 10.1.2 The location of bodily pleasures Hedonic dualists insist that pleasures of the body are not intentional, and that they are located in the body, contrary to pleasures of the mind which are intentional and not located in the body (see e.g. Stumpf, 1928b, p. 67, Scheler, 1973a, p. 333). How do these two claims about bodily location and non-intentionality connect with each 246 CHAPTER 10. ALL PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL Pleasures of the Mind of the Body (intentional episodes) (non-intentional sensations or feelings) Stumpf (1928b) Feeling-act (Gefühlsakt)/ emotion (Gemütbewegung) Algedonic sensations (Gefühlsempfindung) Husserl (1970) Feeling-act (Gefühlsakt) Feeling-sensation (Gefühlsempfindung) Scheler (1973a) Intentional feelings (intentionalen Fühlen) Sensory feeling-states (sinnliche Gefühlzustände) Mulligan (1998b) Emotions Emotional sensations Feldman (2004) Attitudinal pleasures Sensory pleasures Table 10.1: Hedonic dualists other? Hedonic dualists suggest that bodily pleasures are not intentional because they are located in the body. It is not always clear however why bodily location and intentionality should be incompatible. The argument, most often lurking in the background, appears to be the following: P1 Pleasures of the body appear to be entirely located in the body. P2 Intentional episodes appear to be not entirely located in the body. P3 The appearances of pleasures and intentional episodes are not always deceptive: bodily pleasures, sometimes at least, appear to be where they are; intentional pleasures, sometimes at least, appear to be as they are: i.e. partly non-located. C Bodily pleasures are not intentional episodes. Examples of located bodily pleasures supporting P1 are the pleasant frisson that we feel on our face when the wind refreshes it on a hot day, the pleasant sensation that we feel on our head when the hairdresser washes our hair, the pleasure we get when we scratch an itch, the pleasure we get when we have an orgasm, the pleasure we get when we put our cold hands under hot water, the pleasures we get when we are 10.1. HEDONIC DUALISM 247 softly caressed, and other Kitzelempfidungen (pleasant sensations). Such pleasures are naturally described as being located in parts of our body, or in the whole of it. This does not mean that this location is precisely given: it might be more or less diffuse, we might have difficulty in saying where exactly a pleasure is located in our body. But it remains located somewhere in a more or less vague area of it. This is not to say either that such bodily pleasures are not accompanied, by intentional pleasures, which might cause them, which might be directed at them, or which they might themselves cause. P2 on the other hand, is supported by the fact that our judgments, desires, thoughts, likings, appreciations, convictions, and so on, are not presented as having any bodily location. It does not make sense to ask "Where is it that you believe in God?", "Where is your liking Brahms apparently located?", "Where are you enjoying that discussion?". The reason for this is that though some intentional objects are located in or outside our body, intentional acts, arguably, do not have any apparent location. This echoes the traditional thesis that mental episodes are temporally, but not spatially extended. If intentional episodes are not only the intentional acts, but include the objects of those acts, as I am using the term (see p. 201), then intentional episodes might have some partial location, namely that of their object, when this object has a spatial location. But they are never entirely located in space, for the act of such episodes, according to the present claim, has no location. Mental episodes have, it is claimed, an essentially non-spatial component: the intentional act. P3 is plausibly the most controversial premise here. Some naturalists will claim that both the apparent location of bodily pleasures and the apparent non-location of intentional episodes are deceptive. The pleasure that Julie feels on her neck, they might argue, is indeed in her brain. And so is her belief that the euro will soon disappear. We mislocate bodily pleasures in the body; and we get the wrong impression that intentional acts are not located at all. All those episodes are in our brains. One problem for such an error-theory, aside from the Moorean worry it is an error -theory, is that it has to grant that the phenomenology of pleasure is sometimes non-deceptive about at least some other, non-spatial, features of pleasures. It is hard to see how any purely physicalist theory of pleasures could ever claim to be explaining pleasures if it rejected as illusory all of our ordinary impressions about pleasures (such a theory would just change the subject, it would no longer be a theory about what we call "pleasures"). So the error-theorist about the spatial-phenomenology of pleasures has to take at face value at least some other aspects of its phenomenology. There is a risk of ad hocness here: why should we dismiss some of the ways pleasures appears (the spatial ones) and not others (the temporal ones for instance)? Be that as it may, I shall here assume, for the sake of the argument, that such an error-theory 248 CHAPTER 10. ALL PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL about the location of pleasures and intentional episodes is wrong. (Note that even if it is right, some important asymmetry would remain between bodily pleasures and intentional episodes: mislocating an entity is a different mistake from considering a located entity to be non-located. At least these two types of spatial error should receive different explanations). Let us grant accordingly, and for the time being, that the above argument from apparent bodily location to non-intentionality is correct. Bodily pleasures are not intentional because they are located in our body. The location of bodily pleasures gives some prima facie support to hedonic dualism. What remains to be seen is how such bodily pleasures are to be accounted for by the hedonic dualist, given that he denies their intentionality. 10.1.3 Bodily feelings as localized sensory qualities By rejecting the intentionality of bodily pleasures, one might worry that the hedonic dualists are led to a distinctive-feelings view of bodily pleasures: bodily pleasures would be self-conscious non-intentional feelings. If hedonic dualists were to go that way, they would be vulnerable to the objection raised in 9.2 page 223 to the effect that such self-conscious non-intentional feelings are conceptually untenable. But this is fortunately not the option they endorse, as we shall now see. Hedonic dualists repeatedly insist that algedonic sensations, i.e. bodily pleasures, are feelings or sensations akin to the sensations of the traditional senses. They compare bodily pleasures with sensation of heat and cold, of pressure, which might be puzzling at first sight. Isn't a sensation of cold an intentional act directed at some coldness at its intentional object?5 If so, bodily pleasures should be intentional as well. How should we then understand the claim that bodily pleasures are nonintentional episodes akin to the sensation of heat? The expressions "feeling of x " and "sensation of x " are indeed very ambiguous. They might be read in three incompatible ways (see also 8.3.2 page 210): 1. feeling of x/sensation of x = a feeling-act, or a sensation-act, directed towards x (= x is the intentional object of the sensation or feeling). A sensation of red, on this reading, is the presentation of a red quality. Feelings and sensations are intentional acts. They are essentially mental. 2. feeling of x/sensation of x = a felt or sensed objet of the x -type. A sensation of red, in this reading, is the red quality that is sensed. This reading is made 5See notably Russell (2001, chap. 1) for the distinction between sensations (acts) and sense-data (objects). 10.1. HEDONIC DUALISM 249 possible by the fact that the preposition "of", as noted in 8.3.2 page 210, has not only an intentional reading (as in "the perception of a dog"), but also a non-intentional, specificatory one (as in "an episode of shame"). This is why the "of" locution does not disambiguate the terms "feeling" and "sensation" in expressions such as "a feeling of x ", "a sensation of x ". According to this reading, feelings and sensations are intentional objects. They are not essentially mental. 3. feeling of x/sensation of x = a self-reflexive feeling or sensation of the x -type. These are the distinctive-feelings that have been considered, and rejected, in chapter 9. Such alleged self-reflexive, "subjectively subjective", sensations or feelings are neither essentially intentional acts (they are not directed at anything beyond themselves) nor intentional objects (they are self-sufficient: their being conscious does not depend on any distinct intentional act directed at them). Feelings and sensations are self-conscious and non-intentional. They are essentially mental. Hedonic dualists clearly reject 1. the view that algedonic sensations are intentional acts: bodily pleasures are non-intentional sensations. There remains then two possibilities: either bodily pleasures are sensory qualities, e.g. non-mental intentional objects (as in 2.); or they are self-conscious feelings, i.e. mental and non-intentional episodes (as in 3.). Hedonic dualists, fortunately, pursue the second line of thought. Algedonic sensations are sensory-qualities, they are not mental. Bodily pleasures are intentional objects, not intentional acts. Stumpf is peculiarly explicit on this point. Algedonic sensations are akin to sensory qualities : they are like colors, sounds, or tastes. Stumpf distinguishes two kinds of algedonic sensations. Some are cutaneous and organic pains and pleasures, which are peripherally initiated (Stumpf, 1928b, §2 (a)): they exist independently of other sensations. Some other algedonic sensations are parasitic on other sensory qualities: such dependent algedonic sensations give an affective tone (Gefühlsbetonung) to colors, sounds, tastes, etc. (Stumpf, 1928b, §3 (b)). In both cases, the algedonic sensations, dependent or not, are intentional objects, physical phenomena in Brentano's sense. The same is true, for Husserl, though his views on this matter are complicated by his claim that algedonic sensations and sensory qualities such as phenomenal colors and sounds, are not intentional objects but intentional contents.6 Scheler also follows Stumpf, and so does Mulligan: algedonic sensations are felt, presented, they 6On Husserl's view, such contents stands between the act and they object: they need to be interpreted in order to get at the object (Husserl, 1970, V, §14). This is true for algedonic sensation as well: 250 CHAPTER 10. ALL PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL are themselves neither presentations (though they might be used as intermediary our sensations are here functioning as presentative contents in perceptual acts, or... our sensations here receive an objective 'interpretation' or 'taking-up'. They themselves are not acts, but acts are constituted through them, wherever, that is, intentional characters like a perceptual interpretation lay hold of them, and as it were animate them. In just this manner it seems that a burning, piercing, boring pain, fused as it is from the start with certain tactual sensations, must itself count as a sensation. It functions at least as other sensations do, in providing a foothold for empirical, objective interpretations. (Husserl, 1970, V, §15, (b), pp. 109-10) However, Husserl grants that algedonic sensations are not essentially interpreted. They might remain uninterpreted. Non-interpreted algedonic sensations are no longer contents. They cannot be acts ex hypothesis. So they have to be either non-intentional mental episodes, or intentional objects, as our initial alternative has it. Husserl appears grants this alternative and at some points appears undecided: When the facts which provoke pleasure sink into the background... and perhaps cease to be intentional objects at all, the pleasurable excitement may linger on for a while: it may itself be felt as agreeable. Instead of representing a pleasant property of the object, it is referred merely to the feeling-subject, or is itself presented and pleases. (Husserl, 1970, V, §15, (b), p. 111, italics are mine.). If the uninterpreted algedonic sensations is referred "merely to the feeling-subject", we go back to Hamilton's "subjectively subjective" feelings that we have rejected as inconsistent. Besides, such a strategy would sounds absurd for non-affective sensations: how could the red sensory quality be a non-intentional mental state referred to the subject ? (there is no hint that Husserl intends to treat differently affective and non-affective sensations to this respect) If, on the other hand, the uninterpreted algedonic sensations are presented, they are intentional objects and are no more mental: they belong to what is presented to us, not to the presentation of it. Husserl, I think, favors this second option, and rightly so if subjective feelings are indeed inconsistent. Though they are usually as props to get at other intentional objects, algedonic sensations are akin to intermediary intentional objects, to become full or direct intentional object when they remain uninterpreted. Husserl indeed agrees that uninterpreted sensations loose any «psychic» feature: A real being deprived of such experiences [i.e psychic acts], merely having1 contents inside it such as the experiences of sensation, but unable to interpret these objectively, or otherwise use them use them to make objects present to itself, quite incapable, therefore, of referring to objects in further acts of judgement, joy, grief, love, hatred, desire and loathing – such a being would not be called 'psychical' by anyone. 1 We could not say 'experiencing contents', since the concept of 'experience' has its prime source in the field of 'psychic acts'. Even if this concept has been widened to include non-acts, these for us stand connected with, ranged beside and attached to acts, in a unity of consciousness so essential that, were it to fall away, talk of 'experiencing' would lose its point.(Husserl, 1970, V, §9) 10.1. HEDONIC DUALISM 251 props to get at mediate intentional objects), nor reflexive feelings. Feldman (2004, p. 56) also denies that sensory feelings are directed onto objects. Though he compares them to sensations of hot and cold. He is using here "of" in its specificatory rather than intentional sense (see p. 2) for he also compares sensory pleasures to smells and tastes simpliciter. He therefore conceives of them in terms of sensory qualities, of intentional objects, rather than in terms self-reflexive feelings. For hedonic dualists therefore, algedonic sensations fall on the object (or content) side: they are not acts, neither are they self-reflexive feelings. They are sensory qualities, together with sounds, colors and smells. This entails that they are not mental in any substantial sense: they neither refer to something else, nor to themselves. Even if sensory qualities are construed in an anti-realist way, as sense data dependent on their apprehension, they remain intentional objects, they are before the mind, not constitutive of it. They are at best mind-dependent objects, but they are not mental in the sense in which mental episodes such as perceptions, desires, beliefs or wishes are mental. Hedonic dualism, on the whole, amounts to the claim that some pleasures are intentional acts, and that some others are sensory qualities. hedonic dualism: version of hedonic pluralism according to which pleasures of the body and pleasures of the mind belong to two distinct and heterogeneous natural kinds: pleasures of the mind are pro-attitudes, pleasures of the body are non-intentional sensory qualities. Though there are many versions of hedonic pluralism, hedonic dualism is certainly the most developed and forceful version of it to date7. If hedonic dualism is true, the One can therefore safely conclude that for Husserl, algedonic sensations are essentially nonintentional and non-mental episodes. Husserl does not conceived of algedonic sensations in terms of non-intentional mental episodes. 7Another version of hedonic pluralism worth mentioning is the one defended by Perry (1967). According to him, a pleasure is either something that one enjoys, or something that one is pleased about. x is pleasant=df x the object of enjoyment or x is the object of the attitude of being pleased about. The main difference between those two attitudes, Perry argues, is that enjoyment is not an evaluative attitude, while being pleased by something entails that one believes or judges that the object of our pleasure is valuable. One can enjoy a movie without believing that it has any positive value, but we always ascribe a positive value to what pleases us. Perry believes enjoyment and being pleased about something are so different that they do not fall under the head of any single bona fide property. 252 CHAPTER 10. ALL PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL IATP is false. Not all pleasures are intentional. Some pleasures are just sui generis sensory qualities. Before raising objections against hedonic dualism, I shall distinguish three versions of it and argue that the best of them is the one equating the pleasantness of bodily pleasures with a personal value. 10.2 Three versions of hedonic dualism Though they agree on those core claims, hedonic dualists part ways with each other about the pleasantness of algedonic sensations. What makes such sensory qualities pleasures? A first distinction opposes hedonic dualists who think that algedonic sensations are intrinsically alike, to those who think that they are alike only thanks to their being liked or desired. Stumpf, Husserl, Scheler and Mulligan hold algedonic sensations to be intrinsically alike. According to them, bodily pleasures share some monadic property of pleasantness. Feldman, by contrast, claims that sensory pleasures are alike only in virtue of being the object of attitudinal pleasures (Feldman, 1997b, pp. 96-104; Feldman, 2004, pp. 57, 808). A sensory quality is a pleasure in No general definition of pleasure will be attempted, for even though the notions of enjoyment and being pleased about can both be expressed by the same forms of words containing the term "pleasure" they are radically different concepts. (Perry, 1967, p. 192) These notions are so radically different. . . that it would appear futile to try to formulate a general definition of pleasure that would cover these ideas yet distinguish them from other pro-attitudes.(Perry, 1967, p. 217) Note that since Perry defines pleasure, in the first sense, as the object of enjoyment, he is also committed to the claim that enjoyment itself, i.e. the attitude, is a third kind of hedonic phenomena. And the same for "being pleased by". In the end, Perry seems to be committed to the existence of four heterogeneous kinds of things that are called "pleasure" in the generic sense: (i) enjoyment (ii) object of enjoyment (iii) being pleased about (iv) the object about which we are pleased. See Goldstein (1985) for a monistic answer to this kind of proposals. 8Feldman's final definition of sensory pleasures is however a bit more complicated. A sensory pleasure is defined in the end not in terms of a sensory quality in which one takes attitudinal pleasure, but in terms of a sensory quality which is the object of a feeling, that feeling-act being in turn the object of intrinsic attitudinal pleasure. SP: A feeling, F, is a sensory pain (pleasure) for S at t if and only if S takes intrinsic attitudinal pain (pleasure) in the fact that he himself is feeling F at t. (Feldman, 2004, p. 90) What we enjoy is not the bodily feeling, i.e. the sensory quality located in our body, but the feeling directed towards that feeling: the feeling-act. The pleasure (F) is not what we intrinsically enjoy, but the object of what we intrinsically enjoy. F is a pleasure in virtue of the fact that we enjoy 10.2. THREE VERSIONS OF HEDONIC DUALISM 253 algedonic sensations relational pleasantness Feldman monadic pleasantness non-axiological pleasantness Stumpf, Husserl axiological pleasantness Scheler, Mulligan Figure 10.1: Hedonic dualists on bodily pleasures (i.e. algedonic sensations) virtue of the relational property of being liked, enjoyed, i.e. of one taking intrinsic pleasure in it. A second distinction is found among hedonic dualists who agree that the pleasantness of algedonic sensations is a monadic property of them. Stumpf and Husserl appear to assume that this intrinsic feature is not axiological. They conceive of it as a natural (i.e. non axiological) property. Scheler and Mulligan on the other hand, claim that the pleasantness of algedonic sensations is an axiological property. In other words, Stumpf, Husserl, Scheler and Mulligan agree, contrary to Feldman, that algedonic sensations are essentially alike, independently of any attitudes directed towards them, in virtue of being intrinsically agreeable or disagreeable. But according to Scheler, and Mulligan following him, agreeableness and disagreeableness are value-properties: The values ranging from the agreeable to the disagreeable represent a sharply delineated value-modality. (Scheler, 1973a, p. 105) What all bodily feelings have in common, according to Scheler and Mulligan, is to be good in a way. These three versions of hedonic dualism are represented in fig. 10.1. It will be useful to label those three versions of hedonic dualism as follows: feeling F (not in virtue of the fact that we enjoy F, as Feldman's first formulation has it). One potential problem with this refinement is that it entails that sensory pleasures can only be had by creatures able to form second order mental episodes: they should not only be able to feel bodily sensations, but to enjoy feeling them. 254 CHAPTER 10. ALL PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL relational hedonic dualism: version of hedonic dualism according to which pleasures of the body are intrinsically enjoyed sensory qualities. (Feldman) natural hedonic dualism: version of hedonic dualism according to which pleasures of the body are monadic sui generis non-axiological sensory qualities. (Stumpf, Husserl) axiological hedonic dualism: version of hedonic dualism according to which pleasures of the body are monadic sui generis axiological sensory qualities. (Scheler, Mulligan) Because relational hedonic dualism claims that the pleasantness of bodily pleasures is dependent on an attitude directed towards them, it is a version of (weak) hedonic anti-realism about bodily pleasures (see 1.2.4 page 34). Natural and axiological hedonic dualism, on the other hand, claim that bodily pleasures are pleasant independently of any attitudes directed towards them: they are belong to hedonic realism with respect to bodily pleasures. Before objecting to hedonic dualism in general, I would like to give some support to the axiological version of it, which appears to me to be the most promising variant. I first advance three arguments in favor of the view that algedonic sensations are intrinsically alike, thus rejecting relational hedonic dualism. I then put forward two other arguments in favor of the view that algedonic sensations are intrinsically alike in virtue of some axiological property, thus rejecting natural hedonic dualism. 10.2.1 Relational hedonic dualism Feldman is an anti-realist about sensory pleasures9: such pleasures are pleasures only because they are objects of attitudinal pleasures directed at them (Feldman 1997b, p. 101; 2004, p. 80). Feldman's relational account of sensory pleasures is, I submit, open to the four following problems. A first problem for Feldman's relational account of sensory pleasures and unpleasures is raised by the dissociative syndrome called pain asymbolia (see Grahek, 2007). Some subjects, though they claim to be in pain, also claim not to be bothered by it. Taking those subject's reports at face value, one is led to the conclusion that pains are not essentially unpleasant, in the sense of disliked (as also argued by Von Wright, 1963b, pp. 57, Hall, 1989, Johansson, 2001, Grahek, 2007, Tye, 2008, Mulligan, 2008b). Faced with such cases, Feldman, on the other hand, has to dismiss the reports of the subjects who claim that they feel pain but do not suffer it. 9See 1.2.4 page 34 on hedonic anti-realism. 10.2. THREE VERSIONS OF HEDONIC DUALISM 255 what happens in such cases [in which people experience pain but do not mind] is that the individual experiences a sensation that any normal person would find painful–perhaps the individual himself formerly found similar experiences painful, or would find them painful were it not for the drugs or hypnosis or whatever is affecting him. Thus, there is some justification for calling the sensations 'pains'. [...] But because of the unusual circumstances, the person does not take intrinsic attitudinal pain in his feelings. Thus the feelings (as felt by him on that occasion) are not strictly pains. [. . . ] we call them 'pains', but on the proposed analysis they are not.(Feldman, 2004, pp. 81-3) Such a strategy was already suggested by Armstrong (who however does not subscribe to hedonic dualism): Once we see that the concept of physical pain is a portmanteau concept, involving both impression and reaction to impression, the possibility at once arises that the bodily feeling could occur without the usual reaction. [. . . ] But the possibility of of separating impression and reaction may explain what is happening in those situations where people report 'pain', but also report that they are quite unworried by the pain. Perhaps we can construe such extraordinary reports as implying that they feel something take place in their body, a feeling which they recognize would ordinarily evoke the pain-reaction, but which is not doing so in this case. The reaction is abolished, but not the impression.(Armstrong, 1962, pp. 107-108) Other things being equal, it would be better not to have to dismiss as false reiterated reports of psychological subjects whose understanding of the concept of pain is not obviously defective. Second, Feldman's account of sensory pleasures is open to the same Euthyphro problem as the one encountered by desired-episode theories (see page 115). Intuitively, we like our bodily sensations because they are (or seem) pleasant. According to Feldman bodily sensations are pleasant because we like them (take intrinsic pleasure in them). Feldman's theory of sensory pleasures is strongly revisionary to this extent: common sense realism about sensory pleasures is misguided. The third, and related, point against Feldman's anti-realism about sensory pleasures is that it entails that our intrinsic attitudinal pleasures directed at sensory qualities lack any correctness conditions. Proand con-attitudes directed at bodily feelings can never be incorrect. Any sensory quality can be liked or disliked without 256 CHAPTER 10. ALL PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL any of those two attitudes being more appropriate than the other. Intuitively however, our proand con-attitudes directed at some sensory qualities, in the same way as our proand con-attitudes directed at some external objects, have correctness conditions. Some sensory qualities are such that they should be enjoyed, some others such that they should be suffered. There seems to be something in the nature of some sensory qualities that requires that we like or dislike them. On Feldman's account, our bodily likings and dislikings might alight freely on any kind of sensory qualities. A fourth problem with Feldman's account of sensory pleasure it that, in the same way as the desired-episode theory (see p. 116), it is committed to a metaphysics that takes monadic reductions seriously10. A sensory pleasure is said to be a liked sensation. A liked sensation is the derelativization of the relational episode of S liking a bodily sensation. This is a liking relation between two entities: a subject and a sensory quality. But as argued above, derelativizations occur only at the representational level. All there is in reality is the relation exemplified by its two relata. This relational state of affairs might indeed be described in three ways: (i) from the point of view of the object (ii) from the point of view of the subject. (iii) neutrally. But such a variety of descriptions does not correspond to any variety in the world. A "liked-by-a-subject sensation", is different neither from a "liking-thesensation subject", nor from a "Subject liking a sensation". These are just three phrasings expressing the very same relational episode or state of affairs11. Liked episodes are just not there in the world, qua distinct from the liking episodes. They are not available to any theory of pleasure. 10.2.2 Natural hedonic dualism Natural hedonic dualism and axiological hedonic dualism avoid these four worries by equating pleasantness with a sui generis monadic property of bodily pleasures: 1. First, natural and axiological hedonic dualisms easily account for pain asymbolia. If bodily pain is a sui generis sensory quality, such a reactive dissociation is explained as follows: what subjects access is the sensory quality of pain (a 10...and relatedly, to a metaphysics which rejects essential mereologism (see page 73 and Appendix A.2), the view that if x is essential to y, then x is a part of y. The liking defines the sensory pleasure, but is not part of it. 11Granted, one might use the expression "a liked-by-a-subject sensation" to refer to a given sensation rather than to another. But what one then refers to is the simple sensation, not the whole state of affairs of this sensation exemplifying the property of being liked by a subject. We just use that property to pick out a sensation, which is what it is independently of that property. 10.2. THREE VERSIONS OF HEDONIC DUALISM 257 type of unpleasantness) localized in their body. The subject's reports that they feel pain are therefore true. What such subjects lack, is not pain, but the standard aversive reaction to pain. Pain asymbolia was not known at the time of Stumpf but it was clearly conceivable to him: Sicherlich ist selten, vielleicht niemals, ein lebhafterer sinnlicher Schmerz und eine sinnliche Lust vorhanden ohne eine gewisse gemütliche Stellungnahme dazu(Stumpf, 1928b, p. 68) Equating pain with real sensory qualities localized in the body allows natural and axiological hedonic dualists to take at face value the reports of people "suffering" from pain asymbolia when they claim that they are in pain, but do not mind. 2. Second, natural and axiological hedonic dualists get the explanation in the right order. The reason why we take attitudinal pleasures in sensory pleasures, is that sensory pleasures share some common property (natural or axiological), not the reverse. We like them because of what they are, they are not what they are because we like them. 3. Third, the realist version of hedonic dualism provides us equally with a way of grounding the correctness or incorrectness of our bodily likings and dislikings. According to axiological hedonic dualism, what makes bodily likings correct is the very nature of the algedonic sensations they are directed at. It is correct to like certain bodily feelings, because they possess some essential hedonic goodness. According to natural hedonic dualism, what makes a bodily liking correct is not directly the nature of the liked sensation, but the hedonic goodness that supervenes on its nature (I am here assuming that natural hedonic dualists subscribe to the standard view of the value of pleasure, see p. 77 sqq.). What all sensory pleasures have in common is a non-axiological sensory quality. This common sensory quality is the supervenience basis of the value of sensory pleasures. On the whole, realist versions of hedonic dualism can say that enjoying sensory pleasures is correct, because sensory pleasures exemplify or contain an hedonic value (see 3.1.2 page 72 on the exemplification/containment distinction). 4. Fourth, natural and axiological hedonic dualisms are not committed to a metaphysics of monadic reductions: a sensory quality is a pleasure when it exemplifies a sui generis monadic property of pleasantness, i.e. hedonic value (or is an instance of such a property). 258 CHAPTER 10. ALL PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL Realism about the pleasantness of algedonic sensations is therefore in a better position than Feldman's anti-realism when confronted with these four worries. Let us now focus on the first version of realist hedonic dualism: natural hedonic dualism. Despite these advantages, natural hedonic dualism faces two important problems: the ownership problem and the heterogeneity problem. The ownership problem Stumpf's natural hedonic dualism makes unpleasantness and pleasantness qualities that are phenomenologically on a par with colors, sounds and shapes. But those latter qualities are intuitively "farther away from the subject" than pleasantness and unpleasantness are. Bodily pleasures are not like colors: when they are presented to us, they are presented to us as being ours in a very intimate way: they are not ours in the way our bicycle or even our parents are ours, but rather in the way in which our body, our beliefs, or our memories appear to be ours. Our pleasures are presented as being dependent on us. 12. Colors, smells, and sounds, on the other hand are not presented as depending on us nor as being ours in the above sense. There is no feeling of ownership essentially attached to the perception of colors, smells or sounds. One standard claim is even that colors, smells and sounds are presented as existing independently from us. Our pleasures do not appear to us to be part of the external world that will continue to exist after we depart. Colors do. An important worry for natural hedonic dualism is therefore that it implausibly "objectifies" bodily pains and pleasures. Bodily pleasantness, if it really were a natural sensory quality, should be presented to us in a more mundane way –see Dokic, 2000, 2003 for a very similar objection to intentionalist accounts of pain in terms of (perceptions of) bodily damages, and see Appendix C.1 page 299 on such theories. It should be stressed that the ownership problem is phenomenological and not primarily metaphysical. The point is not that colors, sounds, tastes and smells are indeed independent from us, contrary to pleasures. Stumpf thinks on the contrary that colors, sounds, smells, etc. do not exist independently of us any more than sensory pleasures and pains do (Stumpf, 1928a, p. 111). All sensory qualities, including algedonic ones, are metaphysically on a par for him: they are all secondary qualities. But even so, the point remains that there is a phenomenological difference between algedonic bodily qualities, on the one hand, and other sensory qualities on the other. The former exhibit some essential relation to us that the latter fail to show. 12That bodily pleasure and unpleasure have something essentially subjective about their phenomenology is even at the core of one theory of self-awareness, that Fréchette (to appear) names "emotivism about self awareness" (see his paper for an exposition and history of this theory). 10.2. THREE VERSIONS OF HEDONIC DUALISM 259 To repeat: bodily pleasures appear to us to be ours, to be dependent on us; not so with colors, sounds, pressures, tastes etc. It is this phenomenological difference that natural hedonic dualism fails to capture. To put it yet another way, one often speaks, in the context of genetic psychology, of the self-world dualism problem, i.e. of the question of explaining why, from a first person perspective, the subject distinguishes himself from the external world (see notably Russell, 1995b). The problem is that, intuitively, pleasures (including bodily ones) fall on the self side. Hedonic dualism, by stressing the analogy between bodily pleasures and colors, makes them fall on the world side. There are at least three ways in which the natural hedonic dualist might try to answer this ownership problem, i.e., to account for the fact that pleasures are felt to be ours, unlike other sensory qualities such as colors. I shall argue that all fail. 1. The natural hedonic dualist might claim that the phenomenal difference between bodily pleasures and colors boils down to the fact that bodily pleasures are necessarily felt, while colors are not necessarily seen (see Dokic, 2003 for a refined version of this view). It is far from certain that there are no unfelt bodily pleasures (see 8.3.2 page 210). But let us grant that this is the case. The wanted asymmetry would still not be captured: being necessarily conscious is not sufficient for being subjective in the sense pleasures are subjective. Consider the tip of your nose, whose color is necessarily seen, or imagine that some red flag attached to your head alway stands in the middle of your visual field. That wouldn't make the color of you nose, nor the color of the flag subjective in the way bodily pleasures are. Or consider again the noise that crisp food makes in your mouth, that you hear thanks to your internal ears. Arguably such noises are necessarily heard by normal subjects. Still, the pain we feel when we bite our tongue has something more subjective to it. Though both the noise and the pain are, ex hypothesis, necessarily conscious, only the latter is presented as being ours. Our bodily pleasures and pains are ours, not the colors and sounds we are necessarily aware of. The phenomenal ownership of pleasures is not exhausted by their being necessarily felt, if they are. 2. Another way to capture the ownership of bodily pleasures would be to insist that they are private, only accessed by the subject for whom they are pleasures, contrary to colors or sounds which are public objects. But here again, even if this were true, we would not get the wanted ownership feeling. Mary is the only person hearing the music playing in her headphones: the music does not however appear to her to be hers in the way bodily pleasures appear to be. 3. A third way to account for this distinctive subjectivity of bodily pleasures is 260 CHAPTER 10. ALL PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL to insist that bodily pleasures are necessarily felt as being located in our body, unlike colors, sounds and other sensory qualities. Bodily pleasures would be presented as being ours, because they would be presented in places that are ours: namely, parts of own body. There are two worries with such a proposal. It should indeed be granted that if a pleasure is felt somewhere, then that place appears to be within one's own body. Algedonic sensations are only felt in places which are given to subjects as being parts of their own body (Armstrong, 1962, p. 48, Dokic, 2000, 2003). We can, by contrast, see colors in places which are not presented as being parts of our body. However, that this is so does not yet show that bodily pleasures appear to be ours because they appear to be present in our body. One might here worry about the order of explanation: is a bodily pleasure presented as mine because it is presented as located in a part of my body? Or is a given location presented as a part of my body, because a bodily pleasure is presented in it? The latter option might sound more plausible. It is confirmed by the second worry. Not every sensory quality that is presented as located in our body is presented as ours in the sense in which our pleasures are ours. Looking at our hand on the grass, there is no visual difference, as far as ownership is concerned, between the color that my hand is presented as having, and the color that the grass is presented as having. Switching from the color of the one to the color of the other, no ownership feeling goes "on" and "off". Ownership is not a dimension of variation of phenomenal colors. Likewise, compare the noise that we make during applause with the one that our neighbour makes. It is not the case that our handclap sounds as ours, in contrast to that of our neighbour. Yet our handclap is heard as occurring in our hands. Ownership is not a dimension of variation of phenomenal sounds. Therefore, even when they are presented as being located in our body, sensory qualities are not yet perceived as ours in the way our bodily pleasures are presented as being. To recap, colors, sounds, tastes on the one hand, and bodily pains and pleasures on the other, exhibit a sharp phenomenal disanalogy: the later, but not the former, are presented as ours. By emphasizing the analogy between colors and algedonic sensations, Stumpf is led to smoothe over that salient difference This ownership problem is the first problem for natural hedonic dualism13. 13Note that Feldman's relational hedonic dualism might avoid this problem. Feldman might say that bodily pleasures, contrary to simple colors or sounds, are presented to us as being liked by us. 10.2. THREE VERSIONS OF HEDONIC DUALISM 261 The heterogeneity problem Feldman would stress that the price to pay in order to avoid the four worries above (page 1 sqq.) is too high: one has to introduce a sui generis kind of monadic property, shared by all sensory pleasures. The positing of such a sensory hedonic tone is precisely what Feldman intends to avoid by appealing to the relational property of being intrinsically liked : Consider the warm, dry, slightly drowsy feeling of pleasure that you get while sunbathing on a quiet beach. By way of contrast, consider the cool, wet, invigorating feeling of pleasure that you get when drinking some cold, refreshing beer on a hot day. Each of these experiences involves a feeling of pleasure -a sensory pleasure in my terminology- yet they do not feel at all alike. After many years of careful research on this question, I have come to the conclusion that they have just about nothing in common phenomenologically. Yet they are both pleasures. (Feldman, 2004, p. 78) That there is such a sui generis kind of sensory qualities, to which all bodily pleasures belong, is indeed at the heart of Stumpf's theory. Aside from colors, sounds, and smell, there is another quality, or pair of qualities, to be found in the sensory realm: pleasantness-unpleasantness. There is an additional sense, that Stumpf calls the Gefühlssinn, whose objects are those sensory qualities varying on the pleasantness-unpleasantness dimension. But how is this to solve Feldman's heterogeneity worry about sensory pleasures? Is there really such a unique determinable quality of pleasantness-unpleasantness shared by all bodily pleasures and unpleasures? (Titchener, 1908, p. 93 already raises this worry against Stumpf). This is certainly an important problem for natural hedonic dualism: sensory pleasures are phenomenologically so varied that introducing a sui generis natural property that they all share might appear entirely ad hoc. Here are two additional reasons, in addition to the phenomenal elusiveness of such purported bodily hedonic tones, to think that Stumpf's natural hedonic dualism does not properly solve the heterogeneity problem about bodily pleasures. First, Stumpf's theory mostly stems from descriptive psychology. Ordinary sensory qualities do not exhaust all the qualities we can perceive or feel. Ticklings, itchings, shivers, tingles, pains, prickings, and the like, are hardly reducible to pressures, tensions, hotnesses, coldnesses or complexes thereof. This certainly has to be granted. But that some sensory qualities have been forgotten does not mean that they all are of the same type. What we need to know is what, if anything, all these qualities have in common. Stipulating that they all are determinates of pleasantness/unpleasantness, again, would be ad hoc. 262 CHAPTER 10. ALL PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL Second, though Stumpf's view that pleasantness-unpleasantness as a kind of sensory quality is mainly motivated by phenomenological remarks, Stumpf (1928a, p. 66) notes that his view is supported by Von Frey's discovery of "pain spots" in the skin. According to Von Frey, pain is a fourth separate cutaneous modality, beside pressure, cold and warm (see voir Boring, 1942, pp. 468 sqq. for a presentation). Such an empirical discovery however, as urged by Titchener (1908, pp. 96 sqq.), offers only partial support to Stumpf's view: the pleasantness/unpleasantness of certain colors or smells does not correspond to any pain spot in the skin but is a kind of algedonic sensation according to Stumpf. Stumpf here speculates that future psychophysics may well discover some sui generis channel dedicated to the perception of this kind of algedonic sensations. But here again, such a stipulation sounds ad hoc. To conclude, natural hedonic realism, though it avoids the four main worries faced by relational hedonic dualism, itself has to confront two important problems as far as bodily pleasures are concerned: the ownership problem and the heterogeneity problem. Natural hedonic dualism fails to explain why bodily pleasures appear to be ours contrary to other sensory qualities; and it fails to give a convincing account of the natural property that all bodily pleasures share. On the whole the hedonic dualist who does not equate bodily pleasantness with a value faces the following dilemma: • either bodily pleasures are alike in virtue of sharing some relational property of being liked or enjoyed. But in that case, hedonic dualism (i) has to reject the reports of individuals who claim to be in pain without suffering it, (ii) has to reverse the natural order of explanation, (iii) fails to provide for any conditions of correction for emotions directed at bodily pleasures and (iv) is committed to an odd metaphysics of derelativized properties. • or bodily pleasures share some natural monadic property. But then hedonic dualism (i) cannot account for the specific feeling of ownership of bodily pleasures and (ii) is committed to some very elusive hedonic tone common to all bodily pleasures. Axiological hedonic dualism, as we shall now see, avoids all the aforementioned difficulties. 10.2.3 Axiological hedonic dualism According to Scheler and Mulligan, the pleasantness of our bodily pleasures consists neither in a relational property nor in a monadic natural property, but in a monadic axiological property. As a realist view about bodily pleasantness, this view, 10.2. THREE VERSIONS OF HEDONIC DUALISM 263 like natural hedonic dualism, avoids the four problems encountered by relational hedonic dualism ( 10.2.1 page 254). I shall now argue that it also avoids the two main problems encountered by natural hedonic dualism: the ownership problem and the heterogeneity problem. It does so, however, on one condition: that the pleasantness/unpleasantness of algedonic sensations is construed not only as a value, but as a personal value (neither Scheler nor Mulligan explicitly claim that pleasantness of bodily pleasures is a personal value, but they might have this idea in mind)14. If so, the ownership and the heterogeneity problems faced by natural hedonic dualism might be solved that way: 1. The reason why axiological hedonic dualism solves the heterogeneity problem encountered by natural hedonic dualism is reminiscent of arguments to be found in the discussion of the hedonic tone theory ( page 102). Feldman rejects the view that algedonic sensations are intrinsically alike on the grounds that there are no common phenomenological qualities to be found in our experiences of sensory pleasures. Algedonic sensations are strongly heterogeneous. It seems that Feldman's heterogeneity objection is on the right track as long as one is looking for a non-axiological property of sensory feelings. But if the pleasantness of algedonic sensations is understood as a value, such an heterogeneity objection loses most of its force: all the algedonic sensations are presented to their subjects as being good or bad for them. A bodily pleasure, according to this approach is the exemplification of a (final) personal value by a bodily part of the subject. Feeling a bodily pleasure amounts to feeling that something there in my body is good for me. Feeling a bodily unpleasure amounts to feeling that something there in my body is bad for me. This is fully compatible with pain asymbolia: feeling a value is not necessarily suffering it (neither suffering its exemplification, nor its bearer –see pp. 210 sqq.). People having such a dissociative syndrome feel that something bad for them is happening in their body, but they do not mind nor suffer it. One might object that this misconstrues the dissociative syndrome in question: such people are neither depressed, indifferent to themselves, nor irrational. If they really feel that bodily unpleasures are bad for them, they should care. One answer is that they do standardly care, but that the the kind of care or dislike that they lack is of a more non-reflexive kind. Indeed, when feeling a 14I am here assuming that x is good for P is a monadic property, but construing it in terms of a relation does not affect the present point. (One reason why x is good for P is a monadic property of x rather than a relation, is that it exhibits the same structure as x is bent at t, which is standardly construed as a monadic property of x.) 264 CHAPTER 10. ALL PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL bodily sensation as being bad for them (such as a burning sensation), they often know, reflexively, that they have to remove their hand from the fire. But what they lack is the kind of spontaneous, immediate, non-conceptual care, disliking, or taking displeasure in, that would allow them to remove their hand without such an amount of reflexion. 2. The axiological hedonic dualist who equates the pleasantness-unpleasantness of algedonic sensations with personal (dis)values is also in a position to solve the ownership problem. The reason why algedonic sensations, though they are sensory qualities, are more subjective than other sensory qualities such as sounds or colors, is that they essentially have personal values, or disvalues. Their subject-dependence is embedded in their nature: bodily pleasures are non-intentional, non-mental episodes that are essentially good for their subject, and presented as such. This is not the case with colors, sounds or smells: the ladybird is presented to us as being red, not red for us. This, at least, is a promising way to get the asymmetry between the objectivity of colors and the subjectivity of bodily pleasures. Our bodily pleasures are ours, because it is for us that they are good. The view that bodily pleasures – algedonic sensations – are alike in virtue of their goodness for their subject is therefore, I submit, the best option for the hedonic dualist. One might worry that regarding such values as located in the body sounds odd. One should not. Consider the perceptualist theories of bodily pains, such as the ones defended by Armstrong (1962), Pitcher (1970), Dretske (1995), or Tye, 2000, 2006, 2008 (see Appendix C.1 for further assessment). Very roughly such theories hold that pains are perceptions/representations of tissue damages, bodily disturbances or lesions. But damages, disturbances, and lesions are clearly evaluative concepts (perceptualists about pain being usually motivated by naturalistic worries, they have in turn to reduce such values to non-values). If it does not sound odd that one perceives, feels, or represents damage to one's body, it should not sound odd to say that one feels values in our body. To conclude. Hedonic dualists construe bodily pleasures as sensory qualities: they are neither intentional acts nor reflexive feelings. They are intentional objects. They disagree on the essential property shared by all those bodily pleasures. Some claim that they share the extrinsic property of being enjoyed. Some others that they share some non-axiological property. Yet still others claim that they share some axiological property. Only the last can account for the relevant set of facts: 1. that one might sometimes feel bodily pleasures without enjoying them; 10.3. AGAINST HEDONIC DUALISM 265 2. that one enjoys bodily pleasures, when one does, because they are pleasures (and not the reverse); 3. that one's liking/disliking of bodily pleasures might be correct or incorrect; 4. that derelativized properties such as being liked or being enjoyed are not real properties; 5. that the property shared by all bodily pleasures is not an elusive hedonic tone but a plain personal value; 6. that bodily pleasures, being of personal value for us, are ours in a way colors and sounds are not. 10.3 Against hedonic dualism Though axiological hedonic dualism sounds like the most plausible version of hedonic dualism, I shall argue in this section that even it fails in the end to give a proper account of the nature of bodily pleasures. The first difficulty is that all forms of hedonic dualism, including the axiological one, have to claim that bodily pleasures are non-mental (10.3.1). The second difficulty is that hedonic dualism cannot explain what makes pleasures of the mind and pleasures of the body all pleasures (10.3.2). 10.3.1 Non-mental pleasures Hedonic dualism claims that bodily pleasures are neither intentional, nor self-reflexive feelings. This appears to entail that bodily pleasures are not mental. This is a strongly counter-intuitive claim. No color can ever be a pleasure. How come some other sensory qualities akin to colors, are pleasures? Construing bodily pleasantness in terms of personal values does not solve this worry: many entities of final personal value, such as one's friends, can never be pleasures. Why is it that, among the non-mental things that are of final personal value, some of them are pleasures, some others not? One first possible answer to the worry that sensory qualities, not being mental, can never be pleasures, is the following. There is a metonymical use of "pleasure" (and of many other emotions' terms) according to which non-mental entities can be said to be pleasures, in virtue of being the objects of intentional pleasures. A dinner might be said to be a pleasure, a Provençal stew may be said to be a delight, or a person might said to be an amusement (see page 21). One way to make sense 266 CHAPTER 10. ALL PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL of the hedonic dualist's claim that non-intentional, non-self-conscious episodes are pleasures is to understand the term "pleasure" in this metonymical sense. However, if so, hedonic dualism comes down to the very modest claim, indeed compatible with hedonic monism, that sensory qualities might rightly be said to be pleasures in the derived sense of the term. Bodily pleasures would be pleasures in the sense in which nice dinners are pleasures. Though Feldman's hedonic dualism might perhaps be read in such a way, this is clearly not the view that the hedonic dualists standardly have in mind. If it were the case, the hedonic dualist, by parity of reasoning, should also endorse shame dualism. Shame dualism claims that there is, on the one hand, the attitudinal shame, which is directed towards some object, and, on the other hand, non-attitudinal shame which is (essentially or accidentally, depending on the version of shame-dualism) the object of attitudinal shame. If Michel is ashamed of the last song he wrote, there are two shames according to shame dualism: the attitudinal shame of Michel, and the song, which is a nonattitudinal shame. Shame dualism, I take it, is an absurd position. It relies on a confusion between shameful objets, and proper shame episodes. Hedonic dualism, read as claiming that bodily pleasures are pleasures in the metonymical sense, is absurd for the very same reason. It relies on a confusion between pleasing objects, and pleasant episodes, i.e. pleasures in the strict sense (see 1.1.1 page 19 on the pleasant/pleasing distinction). The hedonic dualist is therefore torn between two equally untenable claims: the claim that bodily pleasures are only pleasures in the sense in which a nice dinner is a pleasure; and the claim that bodily pleasures are pleasures in the strongest sense, but are nevertheless not mental. The present objection against hedonic dualism relies however on an assumption that might be challenged. The assumption is the following: If x is mental, then either x is intentional or x is self-conscious.15 The hedonic dualist could reply that, though bodily pleasures are neither intentional nor self-conscious, they are mental in a third sense. This is the option endorsed by Scheler (1973a). On his view, an episode is mental (psychological) if and only if it is a possible object of inner perception. Inner perception is conceived as a sui generis second-order faculty. we cannot conceive of the unity of the "mental" except by looking at the particular way in which we perceive it, which was just now called 15Such an assumption was also made on page 9.1, while arguing against the distinctive-feelings view of pleasure. 10.3. AGAINST HEDONIC DUALISM 267 "inner perception". Inner perception, therefore, is not the perception of the "mental" which has already been established independently of this mode of perception and defined as a generic unity of objects. "Mental" is a meaning which is fulfilled when we strike out in the particular direction which the act of an "inner perception" takes and, so to speak, follow it up. "Mental" is that which comes to light through inner perception.(Scheler, 1973b, p. 31)16 Thanks to this conception of the mental as an object of inner perception, the hedonic dualist can maintain that bodily pleasures are mental by claiming they are perceived through inner perception, contrary to colors or sounds. The two main problems with this proposal appear to be the following. First we are here defining the nature of the mental thanks to the epistemology of the mental. This puts the cart before the horse. Mental episodes should be what they are independently of the way they are perceived or can be perceived. Second, one might ask what inner perception is: what makes inner perception inner perception, rather than outer perception? According to Scheler, inner and outer perceptions are primitive ways of perceiving, they are not to be defined thanks to the type of their object (Scheler, 1973b, pp. 24-5). Such a primitivist answer is to be rejected however, for, as argued above, attitudes (in the same way as thick values) are species rather determinates of intentional reference (see 8.2.2 page 207). There has to be some differentia of internal perception. The natural answer seems to be that internal perception is internal, because it is directed at mental episodes. If true, it is hopeless to define the property of being mental (or psychological) by appealing to inner perception. 10.3.2 The broad heterogeneity problem The second problem for hedonic dualism is precisely that it is a version of hedonic pluralism: pleasures of the mind and pleasures of the body share no bona fide property. 16See also: The only thing which deserves to be called "mental" is not any sort of object of a "consciousness of something," of an intentional act; the real astronomical sun is such an object, as are the numbers 3 and 4, which are not mental. Only such objects are mental as are given as lived-experiences of an experiencing ego [Erlebnis-Ich] and to whose givenness a special direction and form of "consciousness of something" or of intentional act essentially belong. This is the direction and form of "inner perception". Scheler (1973c, p. 146) 268 CHAPTER 10. ALL PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL Feldman (1997b, chap. 5) restricts the heterogeneity problem (i.e. what is the essential property shared by all pleasures?) to sensory pleasures only, and claims that the main issue concerning both sensory and attitudinal (or propositional) pleasures is the linkage problem: what is the metaphysical relation between sensory and attitudinal pleasures. Though the linkage problem is a perfectly legitimate question, it should not conceal the fact that the restriction of the heterogeneity problem to sensory pleasures has something ad hoc to it. Given that sensory and attitudinal pleasures are all pleasures, the first question to ask is not: "How are they related?", but: "What do they have in common?". Is there any property that sensory and attitudinal pleasures share, in virtue of which both kinds of episodes are pleasures? Feldman's answer, despite his positive answer to the linkage question, is negative. For hedonic monists, the claim that sensory pleasures are essentially the objects of attitudinal ones is at best a consolation prize. Monistic worries about the scattering of pleasures entailed by hedonic dualism were soon raised against Stumpf's theory. This was one of the three main bones of contention between Brentano and Stumpf on pleasures17: Für Stumpf sind sinnliche Lust und sinnlicher Schmerz selbst Sinnesqualitäten, wie die Farben, Töne, Geschmäcke usw., Für mich sind sie Affekte, Emotionen.(Brentano, 1979, p. 237) (According to Stumpf sensory pleasures and pain are themselves sensory qualities, to the same extent as colors, sounds, tastes, etc. According to me, they are affects, emotions.) Titchener and Duncker agree with Brentano's monistic intuition: One can hardly resist the impression, in spite of Stumpf's denial, that affective acts and algedonic sensations are somehow like each other, and that there is a qualitative resemblance between Lust and Lustempfindung, between Unlust and sinnliche Unannehmlichkeit.(Titchener, 1917, p. 265) Stumpf in claiming that sensory pleasures and pain are "Gefühlsempfindungen" i.e., of the nature of sensation, seems to have overlooked the universality of pleasantness and unpleasantness, which surely extend beyond the realm of sensation. (Duncker, 1941, p. 408) To insist: according to the hedonic dualist those two kinds of pleasures are indeed linked in some way: bodily pleasures are (essentially or not) intentional objects of 17Brentano's critique of Stumpf's theory is to be found in Brentano (1979, pp. 235-240); and Stumpf's answer to Brentano is to be found in Stumpf (1928a). 10.3. AGAINST HEDONIC DUALISM 269 non-bodily pleasures. But such a linkage does not ground any property-sharing, or similarity, between bodily and non-bodily pleasures. (The property of 'being relata of the same intentional relation' is a spurious one). One possible answer on behalf of axiological hedonic dualism is that both bodily pleasures and intentional pleasures contain the same essential property: hedonic goodness. Hedonic goodness could be had by intentional episodes and by nonintentional ones. But what makes hedonic values hedonic? As argued above ( 5.2 page 135), it is not open to the hedonic dualist to claim that hedonic values are primitive thick values. Thick values are species of thin values, which means that the hedonic dualist has to say something about the differentia of hedonic values. The problem is, that since the hedonic dualist denies that bodily pleasures are mental in any substantial sense, it cannot explain the differentia of hedonic values by appealing to the fact that their bearers are mental episodes. According to the RATP, hedonic values are the final and personal values of mental episodes (chapter III). Such an analysis however is not open to the hedonic dualist, for he has to deny that bodily pleasures are mental ( 10.3.1 page 265). It is hard to see how hedonic goodness could be defined without appealing to the fact that it is a property of mental episodes. Faced with such monistic intuitions, hedonic dualists have therefore to bite the bullet. They have to grant that, contrary to our commonsensical intuitions, bodily pleasures and pleasures of the mind are not of the same kind. This revisionary claim is not the only bullet that hedonic dualists have to bite. As urged by Goldstein (1985), any version of hedonic pluralism comes with costs. If hedonic pluralism is true, then not only pleasures, but all the things and theories defined by appealing to pleasures split into scattered pieces. To take three examples: 1. Psychological hedonism is the view that only pleasures can be intrinsically desired ( 1.2.4 page 37). If hedonic dualism is true, psychological hedonism turns out to be the view that at least two heterogeneous kinds of things can be intrinsically desired: bodily pleasures, on the one hand; and intentional pleasures, on the other. This certainly diminishes the allure of the theory. 2. Axiological hedonism is the view that only pleasures have intrinsic value ( 3.4.1 page 90). If hedonic dualism is true, axiological hedonism turns out to be the view that two kinds of things have intrinsic value. Axiological hedonism then loses most of its initial appeal. In particular, one main selling point for axiological hedonism, according to its supporters, is that it is a monistic view about intrinsic (or final) value: only one kind of thing is of intrinsic (or final) value, namely pleasures. If hedonic dualism is true, axiological hedonism is no longer a monistic view about intrinsic value. 270 CHAPTER 10. ALL PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL 3. The valence of emotions is often construed in hedonic terms ( 1.1.2 page 24). If one scatters pleasures, one runs the risk of scattering emotions as well. The hedonic valence of emotions might spread out into two heterogeneous valences, such as bodily valence and non-bodily one. the point is not only that positive emotions will not be pleasurable in the same way: this is something that an hedonic monist can grant, if he accepts qualities of pleasures or qualities of pleasantness (see Appendix B page 291). The problem is, more crucially, that positive emotions will not be positive in the same sense. Suppose that there are some bodily emotions whose valence is accounted for in terms of bodily pleasures, and some non-bodily ones whose valence is accounted for in terms of non-bodily pleasures. Bodily emotions could include for instance delectation and disgust (the valence of such emotions consists in their containing some bodily pleasures/unpleasures). Non-bodily emotions could include, for instance pride and shame (the valence of such emotions consists in their containing some non-bodily pleasures/unpleasures). If so the pleasurableness of delectation has nothing to do with the pleasurableness of pride. The pair (delectation, pride) is no more natural than the pair (delectation, shame), for such hedonic valences are essentially distinct and therefore incommensurable. Intuitively however, delectation shares something with pride that it does not share with shame: namely, its positivity. But there is no unitary positivity to be found here according to hedonic dualism: delectation and pride are positive in very different senses. Hedonic dualism, together with an hedonic construal of emotional valence, and the acceptance of bodily and non-bodily emotions, entail that there is no ground for grouping all the positive emotions together against the negative ones. There is nothing that all positive emotions have in common. This is certainly bizarre per se, but it also entails some other oddities: how is it, for instance, that other things being equal, we prefer positive emotions to negative ones? Such a regularity in our preferences turns out to be utterly ungrounded. (Note that it is not open to the hedonic dualist to claim that pleasurable emotions are pleasurable in virtue of being preferred to unpleasurable ones: this would amount to giving up hedonic dualism in favor of some anti-realist version of hedonic monism, see 1.2.4 page 34.) In answer to that third point, it should be mentioned, however, that most traditional hedonic dualists would merely reject the claim that there are purely bodily emotions, i.e. emotions whose valence consists in bodily pleasures only. Emotions might happen to be accompanied by bodily pleasures/unpleasures, but what accounts for their essential valence is their being (constituted by) intentional pleasures. Emotions do not owe their hedonic valence to the bodily 10.4. THE INTENTIONALITY OF BODILY PLEASURES 271 pleasures/unpleasures that go along with them. Emotional valence is a matter of attitudinal pleasures, not of bodily ones. If true, scattering pleasures does not entail scattering emotions. To recap, hedonic dualism is a doubly revisionary view about pleasures: it entails first, that not all pleasures are mental episodes; and second, that there is no common feature that all pleasures share. The IATP defended here, by contrast, accommodates both intuitions: pleasures are mental episodes because they are intentional, and all pleasures share the property of being finally and personally good mental episodes. What remains to be seen is how the IATP accounts for the intentional objects and location of bodily pleasures. 10.4 The intentionality of bodily pleasures Let me first summarize the overall argument advanced so far in favor of the view that all pleasures are intentional. It amounts to a reductio of the claim that some pleasures are non-intentional. P1 Non-intentional pleasures are either purely self-reflexive feelings or nonmental intentional objects. P2 Self-reflexive feelings are inconsistent. (9.2) P3 Pleasures are not non-mental intentional objects. (10.3) C There are no non-intentional pleasures It therefore seems that pleasures have to be intentional. The view that all pleasures are intentional accounts for the fact that all pleasures are mental together with the fact that all pleasures are of the same kind. The view that all pleasures are intentional however, faces one main difficulty. What exactly the intentional objects of bodily pleasures can be, is at first blush very mysterious. The phenomenology of bodily pleasures, it has to be granted, is not obviously intentional. While we have no problem in saying what the object of our enjoyment of a nice dinner is, it is far from clear what the object of one's pleasant sensation on the neck could be. The difficulty of finding intentional objects for bodily pleasures has indeed been one important motivation in favor of hedonic dualism. It is partly because of Brentano's unconvincing account of the intentionality of pleasures (see D page 305), that Stumpf was led to his sophisticated hedonic dualism. Given that bodily pleasures are prima facie not intentional, the task of the hedonic intentionalist is twofold: 272 CHAPTER 10. ALL PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL • It has first to make clear what the intentional objects of bodily pleasures are. • It has second to explain why such intentional objects are so elusive. The first problem is addressed in subsection 10.4.1, the second one is addressed in subsection 10.4.2. Finally, subsection 10.4.3 tackles the problem of the location of bodily pleasures for the hedonic intentionalist. 10.4.1 The objects of bodily pleasures While the lack of intentional objects for bodily pleasures is one of the main motivations behind hedonic dualism, hedonic dualism ironically provides in return some natural candidates for their role. Stumpf insisted that there is a class of forgotten sensory qualities, in addition to the standard sounds, colors, tastes, smells, pressures, hot and cold, and he equated bodily pleasures with these algedonic sensations. These are two independent claims. I propose to accept the former and to reject the later. There is indeed a class of sensations (i.e. of possibly sensed objects), typically located in the body, that the classical distinction between the proper objects of the five senses fails to notice. Such algedonic sensations include for instance orgasms, itches, shivers, prickles, irritations, thrills, tingles, shivers, thorns, burning sensations, hunger sensations, thirst sensations, sensations one gets when one stretch one's muscle, pins and needles, etc (see also page 10.1.2 for other examples of positive algedonic sensations). Stumpf was right to claim that such sensations are on a par with other sensory qualities such as sounds, colors, pressures or smells: they are sui generis intentional objects. But he was wrong to equate such algedonic sensations with pleasures. These sensations are the objects of our bodily pleasures and unpleasures. These are the entities we take bodily pleasures or displeasures in. Bodily pleasures, according the version of hedonic intentionalism defended here, are precisely the pleasures that are directed at algedonic sensations. bodily pleasures: pleasures whose objects are algedonic sensations. Once this new class of sensory qualities is introduced into the picture, the intentionalist about pleasure is in a position to find proper intentional objects for bodily pleasures. A thrill is not a pleasure by itself. The enjoyment of the thrill is. The thrill is only one part of the pleasure, its intentional object. Having a thrill without enjoying it is not having any pleasure. Relatedly, feeling a thrill without enjoying it, is not feeling any pleasure. In order to feel the pleasure of a thrill, one needs to feel one's enjoyment of the thrill ( 8.3 page 209). Such second-order mental episodes are however not needed in order to enjoy the thrill: taking pleasure in a thrill does not 10.4. THE INTENTIONALITY OF BODILY PLEASURES 273 require that we feel the pleasure we take in the thrill. It only requires that we feel the thrill. One nice thing about the view that algedonic sensations are the object of bodily pleasures, therefore, is that it straightforwardly explains orgasm anhedonia (people who claim they feel orgasms but do not enjoy them) or pain asymbolia (people who claim they feel pain but do not suffer it, see also page 254). Such people are presented with some algedonic sensations, which are normally enjoyed or suffers, but not essentially so (pace Feldman). They feel the orgasm and the pain that occur in their body, in the same way that they might see some color in the world, and they do not mind either way: they do not have any pleasures or unpleasures, be they bodily ones (pace hedonic dualists) or not. Their introspective reports are literally true. Such a literal account of pain asymbolia relies on the assumption that pain is not an unpleasure, but a kind of algedonic sensation. Relatedly, and following Von Wright (1963b, p. 70), pain and pleasure are not contraries because they belong to different categories (see 2.1.1 page 45 on the categorial homogeneity of contraries): pains are sensory qualities –algedonic sensations–, while pleasures are mental episodes. That pleasure and pain are not contradictories is trivial. Not trivial, however, is that the two, because of their logical 'asymmetry', are not even contraries in any of the senses of 'contraries' which logicians distinguish. 'Pleasant' and 'unpleasant' denote contraries, likewise 'pleasant and 'painful' and, when used in the hedonic sense, 'good' and 'bad'. (Von Wright, 1963b, p. 70)18 Unpleasures are essentially unpleasant, unlike pains. Pains even cannot be unpleasant, because unpleasantness is a property of mental episodes. Pains can only be unpleasing, in the sense defined in 1.1.1 page 19, i.e., pains can produce unpleasures, be the objects of bodily unpleasures, but they can never be unpleasures. When subjects with pain asymbolia report being in pain without suffering it, they are right. What cannot happen however, is being in a state of pleasure/unpleasure without enjoying/suffering anything. One can indeed be in a state of pleasure without liking it, for pleasures, though they might be equated with likings, are not themselves essentially liked (pp. 204 sqq.). What can also happen, is the having of a kind of algedonic sensation, which is typically enjoyed, without enjoying it. This is the counterpart of pain asymbolia in the pleasure realm, called anhedonia. Some subjects feel their own orgasms, but do not enjoy them, in the very same way as some subject feel their own pain, but do not suffer them. But orgasms are no more pleasures 18Note that though Von Wright claims that "pain" is not a contrary of "pleasure", he still grants that "painful "is a contrary of "pleasant". 274 CHAPTER 10. ALL PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL than pains are unpleasures. They are, again, the objects of our bodily pleasures and unpleasures, what we normally enjoy or suffer. According to the IATP, so construed, all bodily pleasures and unpleasures are hedonically good attitudes, directed at (real or apparent) algedonic qualities. One worry is that the list of the algedonic sensations given above include very heterogeneous sensations. These algedonic sensations seem so diverse that the category of bodily pleasures might in the end be a fiat one. Do the pleasures of stretching one's limbs and the pleasure of a nice thrill on the neck have something in common that make them both bodily pleasures? Note that a negative answer would not in any way threatens the IATP: the IATP is not committed to the claim that bodily pleasures are a bona fide kind of pleasures. Still, one might want to secure the unity of algedonic sensations, and consequently, of the bodily pleasures/unpleasures directed at them. There are two compatible ways of doing this. First, algedonic sensations are sensory properties than can only be exemplified in living bodies: there are no ticklings in stones. The reason this is the case might be that the location of such properties is dependent on a body schema (De Vignemont, 2010). Second, algedonic sensations might be all axiological bodily properties. This is suggested by the three following considerations. 1. First, all algedonic sensations appear to be either positive or negative. 2. Perceptualist account about pain equates pains with perceptions of bodily damages. According to the present theory such a view is wrong, since pains are not intentional, they are not unpleasures. What is more likely to be true however, is that pains are (kinds of) bodily damages. Now, as noted above, 'bodily damage' is an evaluative concept (see page 264). A bodily damage is a kind of bodily happening or episode which is bad for the body of the subject, or for some part of it. If unpleasures involve the presentations of some (apparent) bodily disvalues, pleasures should involve the presentations of some (apparent) bodily values. 3. Finally, that the objects of bodily pleasures have to be construed in evaluative terms, is suggested by the once influential view that pleasures are perceptions of our own goods (see Appendix C.1 page 299). One rare recent defense of this view is Tye (2008), who argues that orgasms are representations of bodily changes as good for one. What is wrong with this view, according to the IATP, is that mere perception or representation of some personal good is not enough to have pleasure, for perception of a good might be neutral, indifferent, indolent. One has to enjoy the goodness of one's bodily episodes in order to be 10.4. THE INTENTIONALITY OF BODILY PLEASURES 275 in a state of bodily pleasure, i.e., on has to perceive or feel them pleasantly (the value of the pleasure, its pleasantness, should not be conflated with the value of its object, an – apparent – bodily goodness). What remains true however, in such perceptualist accounts of pleasures, is that the objects of pleasures are goods, evaluative entities. One suggestion, therefore, is that algedonic sensations are axiological sensations, namely, bodily episodes which are good or bad for the body of the subject. algedonic sensations: bodily episodes which are (i) non-mental (ii) possibly felt or sensed (iii) good or bad for the body of the subject. If true, then bodily pleasures are all evaluative pleasures ( 6.1 page 147): one takes pleasure in a bodily sensation because it is (or appears to be) good for our body. As a consequence, bodily pleasures not only have intentionality, but they also have correctness conditions: taking pleasure in an algedonic sensation which is bad for our body is an incorrect bodily pleasure. To sum up: in accordance with realist hedonic dualists, there is a bona fide class of bodily sensations, the algedonic sensations, that are non-intentional sensory qualities distinct from traditional sensory qualities such as smells, colors or tastes. Identifying these algedonic sensations with bodily pleasures, as hedonic dualists do, is however a category mistake. Algedonic sensations are rather the intentional objects of bodily pleasures. To have a bodily pleasures, is to take pleasure in a bodily sensation of this kind. More precisely, the IATP has it that bodily pleasures are hedonically good mental episodes directed at algedonic sensations. 10.4.2 Why bodily pleasures seem non-intentional If the objects of bodily pleasures are that common and so easily accessed, how is it that bodily pleasures have often been thought to be non-intentional? Here are three possible, and compatible, explanations of this mistake. First, one might have been misled by the metonymical use of the word "pleasure" (see pages 1, 10.3.1). Algedonic sensations might be non-incorrectly said to be pleasures in the sense in which a good cup of coffee might be said to be a pleasure. But we are here using the word "pleasure" in its derivative sense, in which objects of pleasures might be said, by metonymy, to be themselves pleasures. This way of speaking is indeed encouraged by the fact that algedonic sensations, due to their bodily values or disvalues, are normally either enjoyed or suffered (in the same way 276 CHAPTER 10. ALL PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL that good coffee is normally enjoyed). We naturally tend to call pleasures, by extension, what normally bring us pleasure, what we are normally pleased about. But it should be kept in mind that this a only a derivative use of the word. The second reason why algedonic sensations are not spontaneously recognised as the objects of our bodily pleasures might be due to the epistemology of (sensory) intentionality. Traditionally, intentionality in the sensory realm has been thought of on the basis of visual perception, and visual intentionality has often been in turn understood thanks to the visual distance or depth between the subject and the object (Smith, 2000). Intentionality strictly speaking is of course not a spatial relation, but a reference relation between a subject and a object. However, the presence of a seen (or co-seen, see Husserl, 1989, p. 308) distance between the subject and the object certainly helps to diagnose intentionality. The distinction between the subject and the object is in such cases plain to see. When a spatial distance between the subject and the object is lacking, however, one is sometimes led to overlook the distinction between the subject and the object, and relatedly, to overlook the intentionality of the phenomena under consideration. Thus, tactile perception, bringing us most often in contact with its objects, has often been claimed to be non-intentional (see e.g. Warnock, 1953, p. 47). The distinction for instance, between our feeling a pressure on our skin, on the one hand, and the felt pressure, on the other, is less salient than the distinction between our seeing the color of the moon and the moon. In the same way as tactile sensations, algedonic sensations are not presented as distant from the subject. There is no presented distance between our thrill and our enjoyment of it. This might be a second reason why the bodily pleasures and their object have not always been sharply distinguished. The third and last reason why the intentionality of bodily pleasures might have been overlooked stems from the recurrent observation that the more intense a bodily pleasure is, the more attention focusses on its pleasantness and distracts itself from the pleasing object. Here as some statements of this view: In pains caused by disturbances of the internal organs, or by violent irritations of the skin, all distinctness of sensory content gives way to the intensity of the suffering and becomes perceptible again – then even but faintly – only on the abatement of the irritation. (Lotze, 1888, Bk V, chap. II, p. 569) When one plunges into a very hot bath, the feeling experienced is so overwhelming that the knowledge that it is a hot bath, and that it is myself who am taking the bath, occupies a very slight degree of consciousness. [...] In a case of severe toothache, also, what we really have predominating in consciousness is not knowledge, but feeling [...] Hamilton 10.4. THE INTENTIONALITY OF BODILY PLEASURES 277 announced the law, already anticipated by Kant, that the two elements vary in inverse ratio. (Baldwin, 1893, p. 84) If we now look at the sensations of feeling, we find, [. . . ] that their phenomena are usually linked with another sort of sensation, and when the excitation is very strong these other sensations sink into insignificance beside them. (Brentano, 1995, p. 84) As far as bodily pleasures are concerned, the more their are intense, the more we are, so to speak, "blinded by pleasure". If this is true, and if the study of bodily pleasures, because of some epistemological bias, tends to focus on intense bodily pleasures, one might be led to the wrong conclusion that bodily pleasures lack intentional objects. 10.4.3 Locating bodily pleasures The last worry to be addressed is that of the location of bodily pleasures. Such a location is one of the main arguments in favor of hedonic dualism (10.1.2). Are bodily pleasures in the mind or in the body? Usually, hedonic intentionalists answer: "in the mind", for intentional episodes cannot be located in the body. Hedonic dualists, on the other hand, answer: "in the body", for algedonic qualities can be located in the body. This disagreement might be best captured by considering the following inconsistent triad: P1 Bodily pleasures are located in the body. P2 No mental episodes is located in the body. P3 Bodily pleasures are mental episodes. The modus tollens of hedonic dualists, is the modus ponens of hedonic intentionalists: hedonic dualists give up P3 in order to save P1. Brentanian intentionalists give up P1 in order to save P3 (see Brentano, 1995, pp. 82-3). Each has to revise some fairly intuitive claim. They disagree on which revision is the easier to swallow: should we give up the idea that pleasures are always mental episodes? Or should we give up the idea bodily pleasures are located in our body? The above-mentioned distinction between bodily pleasures proper, and the sui generis algedonic qualities they are directed at, arguably gives further support to the rejection of P1: what is located in the body, one might argue in a Brentanian fashion, is not the bodily pleasure itself, but its sui generis object. This is a sound proposal, which would secure the IATP. 278 CHAPTER 10. ALL PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL Note that the upholder of the IATP might also consider a more heterodox option: namely to reject P2. If intentional episodes can be located in the body, we can have our cake and eat it: bodily pleasures are both located and intentional. Why should we prefer this option to the rejection of P1 just mentioned? One motivation is phenomenological. When having a pleasing frisson on our neck, it seems that not only the sui generis algedonic quality of the frisson is located on our neck, but also the very pleasantness of the experience of the frisson. We take pleasure in a sensory quality which is located on our neck. But our very taking pleasure in it is also, possibly, located in our neck. Two things would then happen in our neck: an algedonic episode of frisson, and a pro-attitude directed at it. Such localized enjoyments would allow us to understand the fact noticed above, that bodily pleasures are always felt to be located in what appears to us to be part of our own body: the ownership of the body could be grounded on the ownership of mental episodes and of their location (for those that are located). Besides, localized enjoyments being co-localized with their object, one might then be in an even better position to explain the wrong intuition that bodily pleasures are not intentional. As mentioned above, intentionality is often thought of on a visual model, as implying a distance between the act and the object. In the case of bodily pleasures there would be no such distance between the pleasant act and the pleasing object, because both would occur at the very same place. This might help to explain why the two are easily conflated. The main worry with this proposal, however, is that if mental episodes have a location, that location has to be in the brain. One the other hand, it might be that our spontaneous intuitions are here infected here by our scientific knowledge about the functions of the brain. It is not clear that a being deprived of any scientific informations about the inner functioning of his body and about the role of his brain therein, would consider as obvious that mental episodes are never located in the body. Banging one's knee on a post, one might well spontaneously and truly say, that one suffers in one's knee. Be it as it may, the IATP has two options here: either it claims that bodily pleasures are not strictly speaking located in our body (only their objects are); or it claims that bodily pleasures are localized intentional acts. In both cases, the intentionality of bodily pleasures is secured. Hedonic intentionalism, therefore, is a very sound option. First, hedonic dualism – the main way of rejecting the intentionality of bodily pleasures – encounters important difficulties. Second, thanks to the discoveries of hedonic dualists, the IATP has at its disposal a fairly plausible way of accounting for the intentionality of bodily pleasures. Bodily pleasures are directed at algedonic sensations, such as orgasms, nice thrills, or pleasing frissons. Consequently, bodily pleasures represent no obstacle 10.4. THE INTENTIONALITY OF BODILY PLEASURES 279 to the claim that all pleasures are intentional. This vindicates the IATP: all pleasures are hedonically good intentional episodes. According to the RATP, hedonic goodness is the final and personal value of mental episodes. We are now in a position to put together these two views: pleasures are intentional episodes which are personally and finally good for their subjects. 280 CHAPTER 10. ALL PLEASURES ARE INTENTIONAL Appendices

Appendix A Episodes and ontological dependence A.1 Episodes A.1.1 Kinds of episodes Episodes are particular (=non-repeatable) and existentially dependent entities: they depend for their existence on some substances, i.e. their participants. The bang of the door depends on the door. Moreover, contrary to properties, episodes have essentially a temporal mode of being (Simons, 1987, p. 130): episode: existentially dependent entity whose mode of being is temporal. Following Mulligan (2000, 2008c), episodes include events, processes, and states. Events are punctual episodes that have no temporal extension. Processes and states extend over a temporal stretch, and both have temporal parts (contrary to enduring substances).1 I assume that events are the temporal boundaries of processes and states (beginnings, endings), and are therefore dependent on them (Chisholm, 1980, Von Wright, 1963a, p. 27; Mulligan, 2008c, p. 240). What distinguishes processes from states is that while adjacent parts of states are qualitatively identical, adjacent parts of processes are not. Beginning to grow is an event. Growing is a process. Staying the same size is a state. 1I am here assuming that not only processes, but also states have temporal parts, which is a controversial issue. Simons (1987, p. 129; Simons, 2003, p. 379) and Mulligan (2000, p. 15) claim that it is so. Mulligan (2008c, p. 239) claims on the other hand that states endure and have no temporal parts. 283 284 APPENDIX A. EPISODES AND ONTOLOGICAL DEPENDENCE event: punctual episode which is the boundary of a process or a state. process: temporally extended episode whose adjacent parts are qualitatively distinct. state: temporally extended episode whose adjacent parts are qualitatively identical. That events are the boundaries of processes and states leads to a distinction between closed (or bounded) states and processes, and open (or unbounded) ones. Bounded processes and states include their temporal boundaries as parts. That is, they include their beginnings and endings. Unbounded ones do not include such events. The conceptual distinction between open and closed states and processes is not controversial per se. What is controversial is which of those episodes exist. Some, inspired by Whitehead, claim that actually all processes and states are open; others, following Brentano (1988), claim that actually all processes and states are closed; yet some others, following Bolzano, claim that actually some processes and states are open and other closed2. I subscribe to the Brentanian view that all processes and states are closed. This view should not be understood, I submit, as denying the existence of open processes. It is best understood as claiming that open processes are existentially dependent on their boundaries. Every actually existing process is closed, but one can easily conceive of an open process by thinking about a closed one and abstracting its boundaries (anybody who can make sense of dependent entities –like the defenders of closed states– has to accept such a kind of abstraction). Every states and processes have beginnings and endings. A.1.2 Pleasure's episodes The above assumptions about the general metaphysics of episodes, together with the assumption that particular pleasures are episodes, lead to the following claims about pleasures: 1. Pleasures depend on their participants. I assume that the participant of pleasure are persons. The pleasure of Paul depends on Paul. 2. Pleasures essentially exist in time. 2See Zimmerman (1996) for a presentation of these topological options. A.1. EPISODES 285 ep is od es te m po ra lly pu nc tu al ev en ts st ar ts /s to ps gr ow in g te m po ra lly ex te nd ed he te ro ge ne ou s pr oc es se s op en is gr ow in g cl os ed ha s gr ow n fr om t1 to t2 ho m og en eo us st at es op en is ke ep in g th e sa m e siz e cl os ed ha s ke pt th e sa m e siz e fr om t1 to t2 Fi gu re A .1 : ep iso de s 286 APPENDIX A. EPISODES AND ONTOLOGICAL DEPENDENCE 3. Pleasures are either closed states or closed processes. Beginnings of pleasure, endings of pleasures, and open spans of pleasure are not themselves pleasures but essential constituents of pleasures. A pleasure is constituted by (i) a beginning of pleasure (ii) an open span of pleasure and (iii) an ending of pleasure. Each beginning of pleasure existentially depends on some open span of pleasure and vice versa. The open span of a pleasure existentially depends on some ending of pleasure, and vice versa. (by transitivity of existential dependence, the beginnings of a pleasure existentially depends on some ending of pleasure, and vice versa). 4. All pleasures have temporal parts. Some of those parts are not temporally extended (e.g. beginnings and endings of pleasure), some are (e.g. the first half of a pleasure). A.2 Ontological dependence x might depend on y for its existence, or x might depend on y for its essence: i.e. x 's existence might require y, or x 's nature might require y. This is a first distinction between kinds of ontological dependence: existential vs. essential dependence. A second orthogonal distinction is this: x might ontologically depend on y and x be a part or constituent of y. Or x might ontological depend on y, but y be wholly distinct from x. The first kind on ontological dependence might be called internal, and the second external. Let us review those two distinctions in turn and their relations. A.2.1 Essential vs. Existential dependance "x essentially depends on y" means "x depends for its essence on y", "x depends by definition on y", "x 's nature depends on y", "x 's identity depends on y". essential dependence: x essentially depends on y =df x 's nature depends on y Nature being distinct from existence, essential dependence is distinct from existential dependence (Correia, 2008): existential dependence: x existentially depends on y=df x 's existence depends on y. Depending of something for one's essence is different from depending on something for one's existence. One plausible entailment is this: A.2. ONTOLOGICAL DEPENDENCE 287 if x essentially depends on y, then x 's existentially depends on y But the reverse, I submit, does not hold: not (if x existentially depends on y, then x 's essentially depends on y) Lowe (2001, p. 147) claims on the contrary that existential dependence entails identity-dependence (i.e. what I call here essential dependence). My reason for rejecting this claim is the following. Colors depend existentially on extension, and they also depend existentially on hues. But there is an intuitive difference between these two dependences, which appears to be this: colors depend essentially on hues, and therefore also existentially on them. However, colors depend existentially on extension, but not essentially on it. Extension is not part of the nature of color (building the color solid, one does not take into account the extension of colors). Hues are parts of what the colors are. Extension is not. I shall not rely on any further analyses of these two kinds of ontological dependence here, nor on any other relation between them. Yet a worry has to be addressed. In order to escape the difficulties raised by modal conceptions of existential dependence, Fine, 1995; Lowe, 2001; Correia, 2006 have proposed various strategies for grounding existential dependence on the nature of the dependent entities. Such an essential grounding of existential dependence might threaten the above claim that existential dependence does not entail essential dependence, e.g. that colors depend existentially, but not essentially on extension. If existential dependence is grounded on the nature of the dependent entity, it seems that we should say that colors essentially depend on extension. That conclusion can be avoided without giving up the project of grounding existential dependence on essence. The existential dependency of colors on extension has its source not in the the nature of colors, but in the nature of the existence of colors. Colors existentially depend on extension, because the nature of color's existence requires some extension. Once modes of existence are taken into account, speaking of the nature of the existence of x proves necessary. The question: "what is x?" has to be sharply distinguished from the question: "how does x exist?" (see pp. 93 sqq. for analogous claim about the mode of existence of properties). The dependence relations between colors and hues are part of the answer to the first question. The dependence relations between colors and extension are part of the answer to the second. 288 APPENDIX A. EPISODES AND ONTOLOGICAL DEPENDENCE Ontological dependence x/y Existential Essential Internal x existentially depends on y and y is part of x. e.g. colors/hues x essentially depends on y and y is part of x. (= y is an essential part of x ). e.g. colors/hues External x essentially depends on y and y is not a part of x. e.g. colors/extension x essentially depends on y and y is not a part of x. e.g. ?? Table A.1: Species of ontological dependence A.2.2 Internal vs. External dependence Echoing the distinction between internal and external metaphysical necessity ( 3.2.2 page 82), one finds a distinction between two kinds of essential dependence. internal ontological dependence: x internally depends on y=df x ontologically depends on y and y is part of x. external ontological dependence: x externally depends on y=df x ontologically depends on y and y is not a part of x. Ontological dependence coming in two kinds, existential and essential, the following four combinations ensue: Arguably, existential dependence comes in internal and external versions, but all essential dependence is internal. The lower right corner of the table is an empty possibility. This at least is entailed by the counterpart to mereological essentialism introduced on page 73: essential mereologism: if x is essential to y then x is a part of y Once the mereological talk is allowed in the realm of essence, this sounds like a very plausible thesis. Nothing can be essentially connected with anything completely outside it. One might possibly argue in favor of essential mereologism along these lines: P1 If x is wholly distinct from y, then x can be conceived of in complete abstraction from y (even if x depends on y). (One can conceive of colors in abstraction from extension.) A.2. ONTOLOGICAL DEPENDENCE 289 P2 If y is essential to x, then x cannot be conceived of in complete abstraction from y. (If hues are essential to colors, one cannot conceive of colors in abstraction from hues.) C If y is essential to x, then x is not wholly distinct from y. To conclude: 1. Though all ontological dependence is grounded on essence, there is still a distinction between essential and existential dependence: essential dependance flows from the nature the dependent entity, existential dependence flows from the nature of the existence of the dependent entity (which is not trivial given the difference between modes of existence). 2. x cannot depend for its essence on y without y being a part of x. 290 APPENDIX A. EPISODES AND ONTOLOGICAL DEPENDENCE Appendix B In defence of qualities of pleasantness The view that pleasantness varies not only in intensity but also in qualities is compatible with hedonic monism, the view that pleasantness is a bona fide property ( 1.3.2 page 38). But is it really the case that there are qualities of pleasantness, that do not boil down to qualities of pleasure? I here argue that rightly understood, there might well be qualities of pleasantness. I first present two objections against such brute difference in qualities of pleasantness. According to the first one ( B.1), qualities of pleasantness would be superfluous. According to the second one ( B.2 page 293) there could be no unity in such a diversity of qualities, for qualities of pleasantness do not form a resemblance order. I then present an answer to that latter objection: if qualities of pleasantness are equated with heights of pleasantness, then they do form a resemblance order ( B.3 page 296). B.1 The objection from superfluity Are there pleasures that are exactly alike with respect to all their intentional properties (same intentional object, same content, same non-hedonic mode of intentional reference...), that have the same intensities, the same spatial properties (location, shape, extension –if they have some) the same temporal duration, but that still are not exactly alike? Are there pleasures which differ in nothing but in the quality of their pleasantness? Duncker answers negatively: The postulation of different qualities of pleasure becomes completely non-sensical if pleasure is recognized to be only an aspect or tone of a 291 292 APPENDIX B. IN DEFENCE OF QUALITIES OF PLEASANTNESS more comprehensive experience. (Duncker, 1941, p. 407)1 Note that Duncker is here using "pleasure" in the sense in which I am using "pleasantness" (i.e. the essential property of pleasures; see page 29). Terminological issues aside, the point is this: if pleasures are complex episodes whose pleasantness is only one proper part or aspect, the variety of pleasures might be explained by relying on the other parts or aspects of pleasures. Pleasures might then differ by something else than by the quality of their pleasantnesses, which might render qualities of pleasantness superfluous. On the whole, the qualitative difference between pleasures might boil down to: • differences in their intensities, and/or • differences in their durations, and/or • differences in their locations (if they have any)2, and/or • differences in their intentional objects (if they have some), and/or • differences in their intentional contents (if one grants the object/content distinction), and/or • differences in their non-hedonic modes of intentional reference (desire, perception, belief, memory...–raw difference between hedonic modes of references –enjoyment/amusement/delectation– would amount to differences among qualities pleasantnesses) The present objection against qualities of pleasantness is therefore that once all the dimensions of variations of pleasures above are taken into account, there is no need to introduce a further dimension or variation of the pleasantness in order to account for the diversity of pleasures. 1See also Külpe: we have no choice but to adopt the view that the feelings possess no more than two different qualities [pleasantness and unpleasantness], and that other differences must be referred to changes in duration, intensity, or concomitant sensations. (Külpe, 1895, §36, p. 242, see also §34 p. 229) 2Duration and location are not dimensions of variation of pleasantness (no more than location is a dimension of variation of color). And they are not intentional properties of pleasures either. One might take a very long pleasure in a punctual event. And when one takes pleasure in contemplating a picture, the location of the picture is not to be equated with the location of the pleasure (if there is any). B.2. THE OBJECTION FROM THE LACK OF RESEMBLANCE ORDER 293 Defenders of qualities of pleasantness can answer in two ways. First they might try to put forward cases in which all the dimensions introduced above do not suffice to capture the difference between the pleasures at stake. One might be amused by a book, they might urge, without enjoying it. This suggest that the pleasantness of amusement differs qualitatively from the pleasantness of enjoyment. Opponents to qualities of pleasantness might reply that these are not the same parts or aspects of the book that are amusing and enjoyable. (The debate presents here a strong analogy with the debate opposing qualophiles and intentionalists). Alternatively, defenders of qualities of pleasantness might grant that no two pleasures can differ solely in virtue of the quality of their pleasantness, but insist that such a redundancy of qualities of pleasantness upon non-hedonic properties of pleasures does not show that such qualities do not exist. B.2 The objection from the lack of resemblance order Qualities of pleasantness are regularly compared with colors. They are to this extent conceived of as determinate properties of the determinable property of pleasantness. However, the examples advanced of purported qualities of pleasantness suggest instead that qualities of pleasantness are species of pleasantness rather than determinates of it (see 5.2.1 on the species/determinate distinction). Von Wright (1963b, pp. 64-5) distinguishes three types of pleasantness: the pleasantness ascribed to sensation, the pleasantness ascribed to activity, and the pleasantness ascribed to desire's satisfaction. Mulligan (2009a) suggests that the pleasantness of love is distinct from the pleasantness of skiing. Two things suggest that such qualities of pleasantness are species rather than determinates of pleasantness. First, they does not seem to be numerous enough. Determinates of a determinable are usually infinitely many: they are, plausibly, infinitely many weights, colors, temperatures, etc. The point is not that there can always be a bigger weight or higher temperature, but rather that for any two weights, colors, or temperatures there is at least one further one that lies between them. This allows determinables to form continua. But it does not seems to be the case that between two purported qualities of pleasantness there always is a third one: what quality of pleasantness lies between the pleasantness of sensation and the pleasantness of activity for instance? Defenders of qualities of pleasantness might reply that such a density of properties is just an ordinary feature of determinable property, but not an essential one: there can be in principle determinable properties under which only 294 APPENDIX B. IN DEFENCE OF QUALITIES OF PLEASANTNESS a finite number of determinates fall: pleasantness would be one of them. Even if this is granted, a second problem appears: qualities of pleasantness, whether or not they are limited in number, should still enter into a resemblance order. This is an essential feature of determinables: determinables spread out from the internal resemblance relations between determinates. Determinables are even, according to a plausible theory, nothing but resemblance orders between determinate properties (see 2.3.2 page 60). If pleasantness were to vary not only in quantity, but also in quality, there should not only be a great number of qualities of pleasantness, but also a resemblance order between them. This does not seem to be the case. Is the pleasantness of skiing more like the pleasantness of love or more like the pleasantness of drinking a Figeac? Is the pleasantness of sensation more like the pleasantness of activity or more like the pleasantness of desire's satisfaction? If qualities of pleasantness were like colors, such questions should be easily answered: yellow is more like orange than like red. But they are not. One possible reply is that this impression of a lack of ressemblance order among qualities of pleasantness is only due to the choice of the example. There is arguably no obvious answer either to the question "Is cyan more like magenta than it is like dark brown?". This is true, but even if the answer is not obvious, it still flows from the ordering of determinate colors in a single color space. Considering such a color solid, the relative distances between, on the one hand, cyan and magenta, and, on the other, cyan and dark brown are easily compared. Therefore what the defender of pleasantness has to show is that there is such a pleasantness solid, which contains not only one dimension of variation for intensity, but at least another one for qualities. It seems fair to press them to give us more details about such a dimension, for as it appears, the scattered and unordered qualities of pleasantness given in the examples above look more like heterogeneous species of pleasantness. One of the rare explicit attempts to make sense of the idea that qualities of pleasantness are ordered is to be found in Johansson (2001). Johansson (2001, §4, §6) distinguishes four main types of pleasantness corresponding to (i) sensory pleasure in objects (ii) non-sensory pleasure in objects (ii) sensory pleasure in activities (iv) non-sensory pleasures in activities. Johansson suggests that the distinction between sensory and non-sensory pleasures might be a distinction of degrees: "sensoriness" might be one dimension of variation of pleasantness apart from intensity. To take up his example, tactile pleasures are "more sensory" than visual pleasures, the pleasure of looking at good art is "more sensory" than the pleasure of reading a book. Likewise, he suggests later on that the distinction between active and passive pleasure might be a matter of degree: some pleasures are "more active" than others: I said that sensory and non-sensory pleasures can be ranked according B.2. THE OBJECTION FROM THE LACK OF RESEMBLANCE ORDER 295 to "sensoriness", but that there nonetheless is a non-conventional line which separates them. Something similar may be true of the distinction between pleasure in objects, events, and states of affairs and pleasure in activities and accomplishments. The pleasures which may supervene upon the havings of taste sensations and smell sensations and upon the event or achievement of seeing something, should be kept distinct from the corresponding pleasures involved in the activities of tasting, sniffing, and observing. However, these activities may perhaps be regarded as "less active" than for instance sports activities. (Johansson, 2001, §6) Johansson presents these suggestions tentatively. It is questionable however that "sensory" is gradable: it sounds weird to say some pleasures are more sensory than others. This is maybe less problematic for "being active". In any event, it seems to me that the dimensions of variation hinted at by Johansson are naturally understood as characterizing not pleasantness itself, but either: 1. the apparent location of pleasures: more or less sensory= more or less clearly located in the body. or: 2. the intentional objects of pleasures: more or less active = whose object is closer to an action or to a mere happening. I therefore doubt that Johansson's innovative suggestions can work out if intended to order qualities of pleasantness rather than qualities of pleasure. This lack or ordering among purported qualities of pleasantness strongly speaks in favor of the view that such qualities are species of pleasantness rather that determinates of it3. If qualities of pleasantness are species rather than determinates of pleasantness, then they can be defined in terms of the conjunction of pleasantness with some differentia. This differentia, whatever it is, is not part of pleasantness itself. If so, what we call qualities of pleasantness do not refer to intrinsically different pleasantnesses, but to complexes of pleasantness, as an uni-dimensional property, plus some differentia. It is hard to see what the differentia of pleasantnesses could be apart from the non-hedonic features of pleasures, such as their duration, their location, their intentional mode or their intentional object. For instance, what distinguishes 3The category of species is usually applied to substances, I am here assuming that it can be applied to properties (such as pleasantness) as well (see Tappolet, 2004 for a similar suggestion about species of values). 296 APPENDIX B. IN DEFENCE OF QUALITIES OF PLEASANTNESS bodily pleasantness from non-bodily pleasantness could be that only the first one is located in the body, or that only the first one attaches to intentional acts directed at algedonic bodily qualities. What distinguishes active pleasantness from passive pleasantness is arguably that the one attaches to activities of the subject, unlike the other. What distinguishes the pleasantness of skiing from the pleasantness of reading is that the first one is exemplified by our awareness of the activity of skiing, while the second is exemplified by our awareness of the activity of reading. And so on. The present argument against irreducible qualities of pleasantness may be summed up as follows –I have used the same line of argument to argue that hedonic value is not an irreducible thick value ( 5.2.3 page 139) and that enjoyment is not an irreducible attitude ( 8.2.2 page 207). P1 Either qualities of pleasantness are determinates of pleasantnesses, or they are species of pleasantness. P2 Qualities of pleasantness are not determinates of pleasantness for they are not ordered. C1 Qualities of pleasantness are species of pleasantness. P3 Species of pleasantness are generic pleasantness plus some differentia. P4 The differentia of pleasantnesses consist in the non-hedonic features of pleasures. C2 Differences betweens qualities of pleasantness boil down to differences among the non-hedonic features of pleasures. In other words: qualities of pleasantness are nothing else than qualities of pleasure. If true, there are no qualities of pleasantness distinct from qualities of pleasures. Pleasantness is a determinable property that has only one intrinsic dimension of variation: intensity. Can this conclusion be resisted? B.3 Heights of pleasantness Here is a tentative proposal. The overall idea is to claim that pleasantness can vary in intensity and in height or depth: there are qualities of pleasantness to the extent that there are heights of pleasantness. The idea can be introduced by coming back to qualitative hedonism. B.3. HEIGHTS OF PLEASANTNESS 297 It is questionable that qualitative hedonists are speaking of qualities of pleasantness rather than qualities of pleasures, but in any event they probably should speak of qualities of pleasantness (those two points have been argued in 1.3.2). So let us assume, for the sake of the argument, that Mill indeed had in mind qualities of pleasantness. Thanks to such qualities, he intended to rebut the "philosophy for swine" objection against standard axiological hedonism by claiming that some pleasures are higher than others, and that they should be pursued in priority. The general idea is that the different heights of pleasures belong to different qualities of pleasures. Height is a normative concept, quality, in this context, is not. Some pleasures are higher than others, because the quality of their pleasantness is higher than the quality of the pleasantness of these others pleasures. Pleasure's height is grounded on pleasures qualities. One such an account, the height of pleasantness cannot be appealed to defend qualities of pleasantness, because such heights presuppose qualities of pleasantness. Pleasures are of different heights, because pleasantnesses differ in qualities. Though such a theory is of no help in order to defend qualities of pleasantness (since it presupposes them), it paves the way for a more promising proposal. The suggestion is this: could it be that two pleasures differ in nothing but their height? Could it be that differences in hedonic heights are self-sufficient, ungrounded in differences in some other hedonic qualities? Such a move is not unfamiliar now that the ATP has been introduced: in the same way that the ATP denies that hedonic goodness supervenes on pleasantness and claims that hedonic goodness is identical with pleasantness, the present suggestion is that heights of pleasantness do not supervene on qualities of pleasantness but are such qualities. Some pleasures are in brute fashion higher than others – not in virtue of their non hedonic properties, nor in virtue of their intensities, nor because of the way they feel, are desired, etc., but just primitively. Hedonic goodness can vary in intensity and in height. Two pleasures of the same intensity, duration, location and intentional object could be of different heights. The plausibility of such a proposal depends heavily on the example that can be given of such brute differences in heights. The closest proponent of such a theory is Scheler. Scheler, to recall, recognizes four basic forms of algedonic feelings4. (1) sensible feelings, or "feelings of sensation" (Carl Stumpf), (2) feelings of the lived body (as states) and feelings of life (as functions), (3) pure psychic feelings (pure feelings of the ego), and (4) spiritual feelings (feelings of the personality). (Scheler, 1973a, p. 332) 4See Mulligan (2008a) and Zaborowski (2011) for presentations of Scheler's conception of the stratification of emotional life. 298 APPENDIX B. IN DEFENCE OF QUALITIES OF PLEASANTNESS According to Scheler, such feelings are of different depths. The level of depth of a feeling is a function of its "relatedness to the ego". Scheler conceives of spiritual feelings as being closer, or more intimate to the ego than psychic ones; and so on. One might complain that this concept of closeness to the ego does not really illuminate the idea of affective depths ( Zaborowski, 2011 raises a close worry). One proposal on behalf of Scheler is precisely to explain the depth of the feeling thanks to the height of their value. That such feelings are not only directed at values, but also bearers of value is made explicit by Scheler (Scheler, 1973a, p. 92, see also 3.1.4 page 76). And Scheler claims also that values come in different heights (Scheler, 1973a, pp. 86 sqq.). The idea is therefore this: the higher the value of a feeling is, the deeper it is. What about the "relatedness to the ego" ? This rather vague intuition is nicely explained by the RATP: the value of feelings are personal values. What it means to say that deeper feelings are closer to the ego is just that they are of higher value for us. Pleasantness, to conclude, is a value that can vary both in intensity and in height. The concept of height of pleasantness derived from Scheler's idea of a stratification of the emotional life. Some algedonic episodes are higher than others. A final worry. I have been using Scheler's theory of the stratification of the emotional to defend the idea that pleasantness can vary in intensity and in height. Scheler however, is an hedonic pluralist, while I intend such qualities of pleasantness to be compatible with hedonic monism (see p. 41). I think however that Scheler's core intuition about the stratification of emotional life can be maintained even if one drops his hedonic pluralism. More precisely, in order to make Scheler's theory compatible with hedonic monism – the view that pleasantness and mentality are bona fide properties – one has to drop two of his assumptions. First, the claim that sensible feelings are not intentional. Second, the claim that algedonic feelings of different strata are compatible with each other. For Scheler, it is possible to feel sad (a psychic feeling) and blissful (a spiritual feeling) about the very same thing, under the very same aspect, at the very same time (see page 316), because both feelings belong to different strata. According to the present suggestion, this is impossible. We have here two heights of pleasantness that, qua determinates of pleasantness, are incompatible with each other. Appendix C Some other views on pleasure C.1 Perceptualist theories of pleasure C.1.1 Presentation Perceptualist theories of pleasure have been defined as follows ( page 27): perceptualist theory of pleasure: x is a pleasure =df x is the perception, intuition, apprehension, feeling... of a positive value or of something of positive value. Views of this kind have been endorsed by Hobbes, Descartes, and Spinoza: Pleasure therefore, or delight, is the appearance or sense of good. (Hobbes, quoted by Perry, 1967, p. 200) la consideration du bien présent excite en nous de la joie [...] lorsque c'est un bien [...] qui nous est représenté comme nous appartenant (Descartes, 1988, p. 193) All our pleasure is nothing more than the consciousness of some one or other of our perfections" (Descartes, Lettre à Elisabeth, also quoted by Hamilton, 1882, Vol II, Lect. XLIII, pp. 460 ff. ). Knowledge of good or evil is nothing but an affect of joy or sorrow in so far as we are conscious of it" (Spinoza, Ethic, Pt. II, Prop. LIX, Def. II, also quoted by Perry, 1967, p. 200) Note that Descartes here vacillates between the the view that pleasure is the consciousness of a personal good and the view that pleasure is excited or caused by such a consciousness (see p. 32). Wolff (1738, §511, 518) has developed Descartes' views. 299 300 APPENDIX C. SOME OTHER VIEWS ON PLEASURE He defines pleasures as the intuitive knowledge of a real or apparent perfection (see Vidal, 2008) Contrary to Descartes, Wolff claims that the intuited perfections do not have to be ours (see Sulzer, 1767, p. 331). Descartes' theory was also defended by Bertrand (1777), and, according to Hamilton (1882, Vol II, Lect. XLIII, pp. 460 ff. )'s interpretation by Malebranche, Spinoza and Leibniz. Lotze (1888, bk II, chap. V, p. 240 ; bk V, chap. V p. 695) also claims that pleasure is the consciousness of the "enhanced value" of soul and its powers: pleasure itself is rather the light in which existing reality first shows forth all its objective excellence and beauty.(Lotze, 1888, bk V, chap. V p. 695 . See also bk II, chap. V, p. 240 ) Given both its historical importance and contemporary concerns, it is surprising that this view of pleasure has nowadays very few defenders. The only one, to my knowledge, is Tye (2008), who argues that orgasms are representations of bodily changes as good for one. That such a view of pleasure is neglected stands in sharp contrast with the popularity of: 1. perceptualist theories of emotions, equating emotions with perceptions or apprehensions of value (Tappolet, 2000, Goldie, 2002a,b, 2007, Deonna, 2006, Döring, 2007, Tye, 2008, Deonna and Teroni, 2008); 2. perceptualist or representationalist views of pain, equating pains with perceptions or representations of bodily damages (Pitcher, 1970, Armstrong, 1962, Dretske, 1995,Tye, 2000, Tye, 2006). C.1.2 Objection One problem with such a view, I submit, is that it equates pleasures which are essentially positively valenced mental episodes with presentations, apprehensions, intuitions, consciousnesses of, feelings of or acquaintances, which are not essentially so (see Mulligan, 2011 for a similar argument against the James-Lange theory of emotion). As an answer, defenders of perceptualist theories of pleasure might claim that for a perception, presentation or apprehension to have a positive valence is nothing more than for it to bear on a positive value. Positively valenced episodes would be episodes bearing on positive values. But: • Not all pro-and con-attitudes bear on values nor on things qua valuable. Proand conattitudes often bear on objects which happen to have value, but whose C.2. NO-PAIN THEORIES OF PLEASURE 301 value does not occur in the content of those attitudes. Julie fears the dog, not the danger of the dog; Paul admires Julie, not necessarily the value of Julie. Values make such attitudes correct or incorrect, but they do not make them true or veridical. • Not all feelings/apprehensions/perception... of values are pleasures/unpleasures nor positive/negative emotions. It is both a conceptual and psychological possibility to feel a positive value indifferently. There might be unconcerned, indolent, emotionless value-feelers (Mulligan, 2008b, 2009b). Appreciation, evaluations, appraisals, etc are one thing; Emotions, pleasures, lovings, etc are quite another (see also p. 174). In the first cases, the values essential to the attitudes stand on the object-side. In the second cases, it stands on the act-side. C.2 No-pain theories of pleasure C.2.1 Presentation An important set of theories of pleasures define them by opposition to pains, taken as the fundamental phenomena. Pains are, of course, held to be contrary of pleasures in that context (I view which I have rejected, see 10.4.1 page 272, but which I shall grant here for the sake of the argument). Such views were first defended by Plato. They took over from the perceptualist theories that dominated the XVIIe and XVIIIe modern philosophy since the treatise of Verri (1781), which influenced Kant's view of pleasure (Kant, 2006, Bk II)1. There are three main ways to do define pleasure by opposition to pain: a pleasure might be equated to (i) the end of pain (Von Frey, 1894 quoted by Titchener, 1908, p. 822). (ii) the absence of a pain (iii) the recovering from a pain. The last view is the more popular, and is indeed more promising for reasons presented below. It has been notably endorsed by Plato (1993), Verri (1781) and Kant (2006, Bk II, pp. 125 sqq, for bodily pleasures). end of pain theory of pleasure: x is pleasant =df x is the end of a pain. 1In his autobiography De vita propria (1575), G. Cardama mentions his habit of inflicting pain to himself in order to get pleasure of relief. 2Von Frey equates pleasure with this 'Aufhebung' of pain, i.e. with the abolition or cancellation of pain, which I assume here to be an event, see Appendix A.1 page 283. 302 APPENDIX C. SOME OTHER VIEWS ON PLEASURE absence of pain theory of pleasure: x is pleasant =df x is the absence of any pain. recovering from pain theory of pleasure: x is pleasant =df x is the decrease of a pain. According to the first theory, pleasure is an event, according to the second one, it is a state, and according to the third one, it is a process (see Appendix A.1 page 283 for this threefold distinction). No-pain theories of pleasures are reductionist views of pleasure, to the extent that they analyze pleasures in non-hedonic terms, namely, in terms of pain. However pain, if not an hedonic phenomena, is still an algedonic one. Contrary-to-pain views of pleasure then come in two kinds. Some of them attempt to reduce pain in turn to non-algedonic phenomena, so that in the end all algedonic phenomena will prove conceptually reducible to non-algedonic ones. Kant holds a view of this kind: bodily pleasures (that he called enjoyments) are equated to ends of pain, and pain is reduced to the feeling of the hindrance of life (Kant, 2006, Bk II, pp. 230 sqq, for bodily pleasures –"Hindrance of life" might be understood as the view that pain is a frustrated desire, or as the view that pain is an impeded activity, see 1.2.1 page 26 on corresponding theories of pleasures). One should therefore distinguish between (i) the view that pleasures might be reduced to things which are not pleasures (see 1.2.3 page 33), (ii) the view that unpleasures might be reduced to things which are not unpleasures, and (iii) the view that all pleasures and unpleasures might be reduced to things which are neither pleasures nor unpleasures. hedonic reductionism: pleasures might be defined without appealing to pleasures. algesic reductionism: unpleasures might be defined without appealing to unpleasures. algedonic reductionism: pleasures and unpleasures might be defined without appealing to pleasures nor to unpleasures. No-pain theories of pleasures subscribe to hedonic reductionism, but are not committed to algesic reductionism (neither therefore to algedonic reductionism). They can take pain to be primitive or not. Note finally that on the opposite to no-pain theories of pleasure one finds, though they are more exotic, no-pleasure theories of pain. Bouillier (1877, chap. XII) rejects C.2. NO-PAIN THEORIES OF PLEASURE 303 the definition of pleasure in terms of pain and claims that, on the contrary, pain is dependent on pleasure. Pain, he claims, is caused by the end of an activity, which is pleasant by nature. Pleasure comes first. C.2.2 Objections As mentioned at the beginning, a superficial problem for the no-pain views is that pain is not a contrary of pleasure ( 10.4.1 page 272). This problem is superficial. No-pain theories can still define pleasure by opposition to its real polar opposite, namely unpleasure. The two first no-pain theories of pleasures encounter the following objections: 1. End-of-pain theories can only account for instantaneous pleasure, to the extent that ends are events, i.e. punctual episodes (see again Appendix A.1 page 283). The theory entails that no pleasure can last, unless someone has some dense series of successive pains ending up the one after the other. 2. Absence-of-pain theories, on the other hand, avoid this problem, for absences might last. But lasting pleasures are then bought at the price of giving up the distinction between pleasures and indolences ( 2.3 page 55): such states of hedonic indifference become impossible (a worry raised by Marshall, 1889, 433-4). If pleasure is equated with the contradiction of pain, then pleasure is no longer a polar opposite of unpleasure. The third view, going back to Plato, according to which pleasure is the recovering, replenishment or restoration of a pain seems therefore to be the most promising: it ensures both that pleasures have some temporal extension, and they a distinct from indolences. Finally, one main problem encountered by the three theories here is that they seem to exclude pure pleasures (as Plato, 1993 called them), i.e. pleasures that do succeed to previous unpleasures3. 3Ortolani (1803, p. 3) raises this objection against Verri's theory. See also Bain (1859, p. 344). 304 APPENDIX C. SOME OTHER VIEWS ON PLEASURE Appendix D Brentano's hedonic monism The RIATP defended here presents some important affinities, but also dissimilitudes, with Brentano's theory of pleasure. The crucial affinity is the view that all pleasures, be they sensory or non-sensory are intentional: pleasures are pro-attitudes. Brentano is an hedonic monist and an hedonic intentionalist. He is however an hedonic primitivist and takes the attitude of loving, and its sub-species of taking pleasure in, to be a primitive intentional mode of reference. One the whole, the most important points of disagreement between the RIATP and Brentano's theory of pleasure are these: 1. Brentano takes the hedonic attitude to be unanalyzable: it is a kind of love, which is itself unanalyzable, and Brentano does not appear to have any analysis in mind of this sub-kind of love itself. The RIATP, on the other hand, proposes an analysis of enjoyment. 2. Brentano does not think that the hedonic attitudes are non-conative, because he denies that there is a distinction of nature between conative and nonconative pro-attitudes (Brentano, 1995, chap. VIII). According to the RIATP, pleasure is a non-conative pro-attitude, strongly heterogeneous to any conative attitude. 3. Brentano thinks that pleasure is essentially conscious for he thinks that all mental acts are conscious of themselves as secondary objects. The RIATP rejects such a self-reflexivity and is compatible with unconscious pleasures. 4. Brentano thinks, or is inclined to think, that the only things we take pleasures in are in the end mental acts. The RIATP is compatible with pleasures directed at non-mental objects. 305 306 APPENDIX D. BRENTANO'S HEDONIC MONISM I shall here first present and defend the affinity between the IATP and Brentano's theory of pleasure as far as the homogeneity of sensory and non-sensory pleasures is concerned (D.1). I shall then focus on the fourth point above and argue that fixing the nature of the (primary) objects of pleasures is one important troublemaker for Brentano's theory (D.2). D.1 Brentano's hedonic monism For Brentano, all pleasures, including sensory ones, are intentional pro-attitudes. To feel pleasure or delight is an emotional act, a taking pleasure or a loving; it always has an object, is necessarily a pleasure in something which we perceive or imagine, have an idea of. For example, sensual pleasure has a certain localised sense quality as its object. (Brentano, 2009a, p. 113) Accordingly, Brentano is an hedonic monist: there is no essential difference between sensory and non-sensory pleasures. This last point is controversial however. Chisholm (1986, 1987) followed by Feldman (1997b, pp. 93-5), contends that for Brentano nonsensory pleasures are essentially directed at sensory ones. Chisholm's interpretation takes its departure from Brentano's repeated claim that sensory pleasures redound from non-sensory ones. Chisholm makes sense of this claim as follows. One has first an attitude of love with respect to an object and a belief that this object exists. Together these two attitudes cause us to have some sensory pleasure (which are themselves some third attitudes directed towards sense qualities). The non-sensory pleasure consists then in yet a fourth attitude: it is neither the initial act of love, nor the belief, nor the second act of sensory love, but a new act of love directed at the contemplating of the object of the belief and of the sensory pleasure: What Brentano calls the nonsensory pleasure is not the sensory pleasure itself, nor is it the love or approval that is directed upon the object of the belief. The nonsensory pleasure consists in the love or approval one then has for the combined experience –that of contemplating the intentional object of the belief and having the resultant sensory pleasure. (Chisholm, 1986, p. 30) Though Chisholm's reading grants that for Brentano all pleasures are intentional, it ends up with a strong heterogeneity between sensory-pleasures and displeasures akin to hedonic pluralism. D.1. BRENTANO'S HEDONIC MONISM 307 Olson (to appear)'s has recently objected, correctly I think, that such an interpretation overcomplicates Brentano's view and that a simpler one fits better with textual evidences. Olson argues that Brentano does not see any essential difference between sensory pleasures and non-sensory ones: both differ only with respect to their intentional objects. What Brentano means by saying, repeatedly, that sensory pleasures redound on non-sensory ones, is just that they are sometimes caused by such pleasures. It is not, that sensory pleasures are in any sense essentially parts or objects of non-sensory ones. Besides the quotes he himself gives, the two following quotes confirm, it seems to me, Olson's interpretation of Brentano. One sometimes uses the expression "intensive" in connexion with intellectual or spiritual pleasures and displeasures. But this is proper only when sensuous pleasure or displeasure thus redounds from these higher activities; for what is intensive must be such that it is either itself continuous and extended in space or an object that is continuous and extended in space. (Brentano, 2009b, p. 104, §25) What here confirms Olson's interpretation is this: Brentano claims here that spiritual pleasures and displeasures can be said to be intensive only when sensuous pleasure or displeasure redounds on them. This presupposes that there might be (non-intensive) spiritual pleasures and displeasures without any sensory pleasure or displeasure redounding from them. The second passage on behalf of Olson's interpretation is this: Aristotle thought that the connection between these two types of pleasure was so intimate that, if the awareness of a certain truth gives us sensuous pleasure, then we should experience the pleasure every time we contemplate that truth; if we do not, he said, it is because our powers of concentration are not sufficiently strong and the knowledge or awareness forsakes us. But this assertion is disconfirmed by our experience of pleasure and displeasure on hearing music, when repetition influences now more, nor less, and may even cause our pleasure to turn into pain. What fails us when we thus cease to feel pleasure would seem to be, not our powers of concentration or our knowledge and awareness, but our capacity for experiencing the sensuous pleasure that may accompany this knowledge or awareness. (Brentano, 2009b, p. 105, §26a) In this passage, Brentano attributes to Aristotle a theory very close to the one Chisholm attributes to him, and explicitly rejects it. Brentano denies here that the 308 APPENDIX D. BRENTANO'S HEDONIC MONISM connection between non-sensory and sensory pleasure it intimate, i.e. essential, as Aristotle has it. Olson's finally suggests that Brentano theory of pleasure is closer to Feldman's one than expected, for both theories insist that pleasure is essentially intentional/attitudinal. Though I concur with Olson's reading of Brentano, it seems to me that this latter suggestion smoothes one crucial difference between Brentano and Feldman. For Brentano sensory pleasures are intentional, for Feldman, they are not. Brentano is an hedonic monist, all pleasure are intentional. Feldman is an hedonic dualist: non-sensory pleasures are intentional, sensory ones are not. Feldman is closer to Stumpf than to Brentano (see 10.1 page 241). Brentano is a clear hedonic monist, and strongly objects to Stumpf's hedonic dualism (see 10.3.2 page 267). On this crucial point, the IATP follows Brentano's lead. D.2 A problem for Brentano: the objects of pleasures Let us now focus on the fourth difference between the IATP and Brentano theory mentioned on page 305, i.e. Brentano's tendency to think that most if not all pleasures are pleasures taken in mental acts. This point, I submit, raises an important difficulty for Brentano's theory of pleasure. According to Brentano, every mental act is directed at a physical object –its primary object– and directed at itself as its own secondary object. All mental acts have both primary and secondary objects distinct from each other. There are three modes of intentional reference: presentation, judgement, and love and hate. Judgments are grounded on presentation, and acts of love are grounded on judgments. Those modes of intentional references apply equally to the primary and secondary objects, they are modes of intentional reference both for internal and external perception. That is, each act of love is directed towards an external object (its primary object) and towards itself as its secondary object. Pleasures being kinds of acts of love, they should be directed at some physical object as their primary object, and at themselves as their secondary object. For instance, when Paul takes pleasure in a symphony, the symphony should be the primary object of his pleasure, and his act of hearing the symphony should be the secondary object of its pleasure. The most straightforward thing to say about pleasures, for Brentano's theory, is that they have physical objects as their primary objects, and themselves as mental acts of love as their secondary objects. Brentano however is reluctant to agree that pleasure is typically taken in physical D.2. A PROBLEM FOR BRENTANO: THE OBJECTS OF PLEASURES 309 objects. The typical objects of pleasures, it seems to him, are often mental acts: One thing certainly has to be admitted; the object to which a feeling refers is not always an external object. Even in cases where I feel a harmonious sound, the pleasure which I feel is not actually pleasure in the sound but pleasure in the hearing. (Brentano, 1995, p. 90) A few pages later Brentano tends to generalize this view by suggesting that the objects of pleasures are always mental acts: often the act of hearing a sound is obviously accompanied not only by a presentation and a cognition of this act of hearing, but by an emotion as well. It may be either pleasure, as when we hear a soft, pure young voice, or displeasure, as when we hear the scratching of a violin badly played. On the basis of our previous discussions, this feeling, too, has an object to which it refers. [This object is not the physical phenomenon of sound, but the mental phenomenon of hearing, for obviously it is not really the sound which is agreeable and pleasant or which torments us, but the hearing of the sound.](Brentano, 1995, pp. 143-4–the editor reports the sentence into bracket to have been modified lately by Brentano.) This last modification is explicitly endorsed later on by Brentano about sensory pleasures: they are, he says, directed not at sensory qualities or objects, but at sensory acts: sensory pleasure is an agreeing, sensory pain a disagreeing, which are directed towards a sensory act to which they themselves belong. (Brentano, 1979, p. 237, translated by Mulligan, 2004a, p. 84) It is not clear why exactly Brentano is reluctant to say that we can take pleasure in physical objects. This is one of the criticisms that Stumpf addresses to him. Stumpf claims that one can take pleasure not only in seeing, but also in colors, not only in hearing, but also in sounds, not only in tasting, but also in tastes, etc. (Stumpf, 1928a, p. 110). Mulligan (2004a, p. 84) suggests one explanation of Brentano's reluctance. Brentano might be driven here by the intuition that most pleasures appear to be directed at activities : we enjoy listening to Purcell, reading a book, looking at the Alps from the Jura, etc. This might encourage the view that the primary objects of our pleasures are mental acts. Wherever Brentano's reluctance to admit pleasures directed at physical object comes from, his very insistence that pleasures are directed mainly at mental acts raises an important problem for Brentano's theory of pleasure. The best way to 310 APPENDIX D. BRENTANO'S HEDONIC MONISM account for such pleasures taken in mental acts, as it appears, would be to "go secondorder": to enjoy hearing a sounds is to have a second-order mental act of love directed at the first-order hearing as its primary objects, and towards itself as its secondary object. But Brentano rejects second-order mental acts: only physical objects can be apprehended externally. Mental acts can never be introspected or observed, they can only be known through inner perception, i.e. as their own secondary object (Brentano, 1995, chap. II). Mental acts can never be primary objects (Brentano, 1995, p. 129). When we take pleasure in hearing a sound, therefore, it is not the case that we have a second-order mental act of love directed at our first-order hearing (Brentano, 1995, p. 144). To repeat: if we take pleasure not in sounds, but in hearing sounds, and if pleasures are intentional, then pleasures should be second-order mental acts. But there are no such acts, Brentano claims. So how are we to enjoy hearings? Brentano thinks that most if not all pleasures are taken in mental phenomena rather than in physical ones; but he arguably cannot afford pleasures taken in mental phenomena. A symptom of this problem, I submit, is Brentano's evasiveness about the primary objects of pleasures. When speaking about pleasures, Brentano only mentions the secondary object of pleasures, as if pleasures could be their own secondary object without having any primary objects: Experience shows that there exist in us not only a presentation and a judgment, but frequently a third kind of consciousness of the mental act, namely a feeling which refers to this act, pleasure or displeasure which we feel toward this act. (Brentano, 1995, p. 143) But if pleasure is a kind of love, and if it is intentional anyway, it should be directed at a physical object distinct from itself. Brentano saves an appearance of intentionality for pleasure by claiming that, being grounded on presentation, pleasures are always tied to some presented object. But this begs the question: we are not after a presented object essentially tied to a pleasure. We are after an enjoyed object, an object towards which the act of love –not the act on presentation on which it is grounded– is directed. Pleasures appear to lack any primary objects. Brentano's hesitation about pleasures' primary objects appears not only in the way he speaks of pleasures as being directed only on mental acts, but in his equating pleasures with accompanying feelings of mental acts (see e.g. Brentano, 1995, p. 83). This way of speaking is quite close to the way hedonic tone theorists express themselves: as it appears, such feelings-tones, are coloring the presentation they depend on, but they are not themselves intentional. If so, taking pleasure in, or feeling, is not a mode of intentional reference, as Brentano officially has it, but a D.2. A PROBLEM FOR BRENTANO: THE OBJECTS OF PLEASURES 311 quale, as he strongly suggests, nolens volens (see Hossack, 2006, p. 49 for a similar claim about Brentano's commitment to hedonic qualia). Indeed, the various writers that Brentano mentions in favor of the idea that pleasure is dependent on presentation (see page 230) are most often hedonic tone theorists and Brentano does not distance himself from them on this particular point. There is however an important difference between the view that pleasures are intentional mental acts depending on presentations, and the view that pleasures are hedonic tone or quale depending on presentations. Brentano's official position is the first one, but in front of the above dilemma, he tends to go towards the second one. To conclude, Brentano's theory of pleasure appears committed to the following inconsistent triad: 1. Every mental act has a primary object distinct from itself. 2. No mental act is a primary object. 3. Some (all?) pleasures are directed at mental acts only. 312 APPENDIX D. BRENTANO'S HEDONIC MONISM Appendix E Mixed feelings (1): the co-occurrence problem E.1 The co-occurrence problem Some mixed feelings occur when a same subject has both pleasure and unpleasure at the same time. For instance, eating a chocolate cake while having headache, feeling sad but taking pleasure in scenting a lilac, feeling both happy and sad of the victory of a friend in a game in which we participated (Greenspan, 1980), having a cramp during an orgasm, feeling nostalgia (joyful sadness of remembering a happy time), enjoying a tragedy, feeling ashamed of taking pleasure in listening to Michel Sardou, delighting in a very hot curry, feeling relief at the death of a suffering relative, to have fun in roller-coaster, being touched to receive a gift that we don't like, enjoying endurance sports, feeling a pain decreasing. In the sense I shall use the term here, mixed feelings occur not only when a subject undergoes both pleasure and unpleasure at the same time, but when he has different pleasures at the same time, when he has different unpleasures at the same time, when he has pleasure and indolence at the same time, and when he has indolence and unpleasure at the same time. For instance, to moderately enjoy a conversation while intensively enjoying the wine, or being displeased about the color of a room while being indifferent to its smell are mixed feelings. mixed feeling: occurrence of several algedonic episodes in a same subject at the same time. Importantly, mixed feelings occur in a same subject: taking pleasure in somebody 313 314APPENDIX E. MIXED FEELINGS (1): THE CO-OCCURRENCE PROBLEM else's unpleasure is not a case of mixed feeling, for pleasure and displeasure do not occur in the same subject. On the face of it, mixed feelings contradict the view that pleasure and unpleasure are contraries. Nobody can be both sitting and standing at once, but one can be pleased and displeased at the same time. Mixed feelings threaten the contrariety of pleasure and unpleasure. The following claims appear incompatible: P1 Mixed feelings consists in the co-occurrence of pleasure and unpleasures in the same subject at the same time. P2 Pleasures are unpleasures are contraries, i.e., cannot be found in the same subject at the same time.1 P3 Mixed feelings do occur. The truth of any of these two claims appears to entail the falsity of the third. The first claim has to be accepted to the extent that it is just a stipulative definition of a theoretical term. We could change the definition of mixed feelings in order to make their occurrence compatible with the contrariety of pleasantness and unpleasantness. But nothing would be gained: we would just have changed the subject-matter. So P1 has to be granted. We have either to deny P2, that pleasures and unpleasures are contraries, or P3, that mixed feelings occur. Let us call this the co-occurrence problem of mixed feelings. I first reject the strategy that consists in giving up P2: I maintain that pleasures and unpleasures are indeed contraries (E.2). I then reject the second strategy that rejects P3: I maintain that mixed feelings do exist, and are indeed widespread ( E.3 page 318). I finally argue that the co-occurrence problem of mixed feelings, though it appears to have impressed a significant number of psychologists and philosophers, is not indeed a real problem but relies on a equivocation (E.4). E.2 Rejecting the contrariety of pleasure and unpleasure A first reaction to the above argument consists in rejecting the contrariety of pleasures and unpleasures in order to secure mixed feelings. 1I am here narrowing the definition of mixed feelings to co-occurrence of pleasures and unpleasures for the sake of simplicity. But it should be kept in mind that other mixed feelings made up of different pleasures, of differents unpleasures, or or pleasures and indolences are possible. E.2. REJECTING THE CONTRARIETY OF PLEASURE AND UNPLEASURE315 A first radical way of doing this is to claim that all pleasures and unpleasures are compatible. According to this strategy, pleasure and unpleasure are not contraries, but rather two independent dimensions of variation of experience. In the same way that colors vary along hue, saturation and brightness, algedonic experiences would vary along the distinct dimensions of pleasure and unpleasure. The same experience can be both pleasant and unpleasant, pleasantness and unpleasantness being orthogonal dimensions. This position was endorsed by Rehmke2, and versions of it have been endorsed by some recent psychologists (Diener and Emmons, 1984, Watson and Tellegen, 1985, Cacioppo and Berntson, 1994, Watson, 2000, pp. 26-33, 44-54). Accepting the compatibility and heterogeneity of all pleasures and unpleasures does ensure the possibility of mixed feelings. Nevertheless, such a solution implies a quite radical conceptual revision. The contrariety of pleasure and unpleasure might be one of those hinge propositions grounding some important part of our conceptual scheme. For instance, to accept that pleasure and unpleasure are not contraries leads one to reject other well-accepted contrarieties. Ceteris paribus, we desire to have pleasant experience and we are averse to unpleasant experience (some even claim that being desired is the essence of pleasures, a position a criticised in 4.2.1 page 107). In the case of mixed feelings, if pleasantness and unpleasantness are not contraries, we should then desire and be averse to the same experience at the same time, which would implies that desire and aversion are not contraries either. A more moderate way to give up the contrariety of pleasures and unpleasures goes as follows. Only pleasures and unpleasures of the same type are contraries. But one should give up the contrariety of pleasures and unpleasures of different types. As mentioned above, some deny that pleasures and pains are contraries on the ground that they belong to different categories. The present proposal is a generalization of such a strategy: as soon as pleasure and unpleasure are found to co-occur in a subject at a time, it is necessary that they belong to different kinds of algedonic phenomena. The polar opposition between pleasure and unpleasure is relativized to types of pleasures and unpleasures. Among the same type of algedonic phenomena, this opposition remains; outside it, it is lost. While many philosophers and psychologists have subscribed to the view that there are various qualities of pleasures (see 1.3.2 page 38), only Scheler seems to have used this distinction in order to explain mixed feelings . The possible co-existence of different feelings, he urges, entails that such feelings differ more than in quality: 2 Lust und Unlust sind 'incommensurable Grössen', wie Ton und Farbe es sind (Rehmke, quoted by Titchener, 1908, p. 56). 316APPENDIX E. MIXED FEELINGS (1): THE CO-OCCURRENCE PROBLEM they are, he says "of different levels of depth": Of course, woefulness is qualitatively distinct from sadness; but there is quite a difference between sadness (or woefulness) and a painful feeling on the skin, and in this sense the difference is not one of quality. It appears to me that the special kind of difference is made evident by the fact that both types of feeling can coexist in one and the same act and moment of consciousness, and this most clearly when the possess different, i. e., both positive and negative characters. This is most clear in extreme cases. A human being can be blissful while suffering from bodily pain; indeed, for a true martyr, in his conviction of faith, this suffering may itself be a blissful suffering. ...One can also drink a glass of wine while being unhappy and still enjoy the bouquet of the wine. In these and similar cases the feelingstates involved do not constitute a rapidly changing sequence -as in the case if one takes different value-aspects of an event into consideration- for these feeling-states are given at the same time. But they do not blend into the unity of a total feeling-state. Nor are they different from each other merely by virtue of differences among their objective correlates. (Scheler, 1973a, p. 330) Scheler's view is that whenever feelings are of the same kind and occur together, they blend into one feeling, rendering mixed feelings impossible. Such a blending or fusion can be avoided only if the two feelings differ in kind. However, Scheler is here ambiguous. On the one hand, he appears to be willing to claim that one same intentional act, directed at the same object, under the same aspect can be at once sad and blissful. But all the examples he gives are cases in which different intentional acts can occur at the same time, some pleasant and some unpleasant, provided these pleasantnesses/unpleasantness belong to different strata. A first problem with Scheler's solution to the problem of mixed feelings is that it commits us to hedonic pluralism. As urged by Scheler, the fact that pleasures and unpleasures of different kinds are not even incompatible suggests that they are strongly heterogeneous. The assumption lying behind this claim is that properties of a same kind, or properties falling under a same determinable, are mutually incompatible. It has even been suggested that the incompatibilities of different determinate properties falling under a determinable is what unifies them3. If this is true, then 3Sanford (2006) attributes this view to Johnson (1964, pp. 176, 181). True, Johnson says that what grounds the grouping of different determinates together is a special kind of difference. He also says that determinates falling under a same determinable are incompatible. But he never says that the difference grounding the grouping together of the determinable is itself a kind of incompatibility. E.2. REJECTING THE CONTRARIETY OF PLEASURE AND UNPLEASURE317 mixed feelings do occur, but are nothing other than the co-occurrence of fully heterogeneous episodes. the present point is not that hedonic pluralism is false. It is rather that we should prefer a way to deal with the problem of mixed feelings that does not commit us to such a substantial theory of pleasure. The solution I have sketched above and will detail below has the advantage of neutrality. The second objection to Scheler's proposal is that it still entails that some mixed feelings are impossible, namely mixed feelings in which pleasures and unpleasures are of the same kind. But this does not seem to be the case. There appears to exist 'homogeneous' mixed feelings: one might suffer from a pain in one's foot, and feel the pleasure caused by a caress on our hand4; one might enjoy the conversation while regretting that Nathalie did not come; one might admire the coherence of a demonstration while despising the absurdity of the premisses. In such cases, as it appears, the co-occurrent pleasures and unpleasures are not of different kinds. Such homogeneous mixed feelings appears perfectly possible, but Scheler's has to deny them: "It is impossible, he writes, to be simultaneously woeful and sad: one feeling is always the result" (Scheler (1973a, p. 331) In the end, either one claims that pleasure and unpleasure are never contraries, but this entails an extreme conceptual revision just for the sake of saving the possibility of mixed feelings. Or one claims that pleasures and unpleasures are sometimes not contraries, but one only partially salvages mixed feelings: homogeneous mixed feelings are still impossible. Apart from this scholarship issue, one problem for the claim that determinates belong to a same determinables because they are contraries is that the very definition of contrariety, as we have seen, already supposes that contraries belong to a same type type of range (2.1 –relying on the mere concept of incompatibility would not provide a sufficient ground for such groupings of determinates). A second worry for the view that determinates are grouped together thanks to their incompatibility, is that one might doubt, contra Johnson, that determinates falling under the same determinable are necessarily incompatible (see Armstrong, 1978, p. 113 for such a suggestion). 4Scheler indeed concedes that in the case of sensory pleasures and unpleasures, mixed feelings of the same kind are possible. The reason is that the bodily locations of such feelings ensures their differentiation, and avoids their blending: It is only with sensible feelings that feelings remain differentiated in virtue of their localization and extension (Scheler, 1973a, p. 331, n. 113) 318APPENDIX E. MIXED FEELINGS (1): THE CO-OCCURRENCE PROBLEM E.3 Rejecting mixed feelings Instead of giving up the contrariety of pleasure and unpleasure, the other way to deal with the problem of mixed feelings is to reject mixed feelings themselves. Unlike Plato, Epicurus adopted the view that mixed feelings are impossible: Wherever pleasure is present, as long as it is there, pain or distress or their combination is absent. (Epicurus, Key Doctrines, 3-4, in Long and Sedley, 1987, vol. 1, p. 115) The main problem for this view is to provide an account of putative mixed feelings: what proponents of this view have to show is that what we might be tempted to consider as mixed feelings are indeed not co-occurrence of pleasures and unpleasures. Various strategies have been proposed to this effect. E.3.1 Alternation between pleasure and unpleasure According to one theory, what grounds the incompatibility of pleasure and unpleasure is their link to attention. Pleasures and unpleasures, it is said, are both necessarily attended to, and absorb all of our attention. The incompatibility of pleasure and unpleasure would derive from the following premises: P1 There is no sub-attentional pleasure (or unpleasure): every pleasure and unpleasure is necessarily attended to. P2 Pleasure and unpleasure exhaust one's attention. It is impossible to focus one's attention on two different algedonic episodes at once. C Pleasure and unpleasure can never occur together in the same subject. I reject both premisses. The first premiss is often connected with the supposedly obvious claim that pleasure is essentially conscious. But even if this were true, one would still have to admit that being conscious of something entails attending to it in order to derive the first premiss. More crucially, it is not clear that subattentional or background pleasure is impossible. After a certain time on a chair, I can become aware that the chair was hurting me. As pointed out by Rachels (2004) other convincing examples of background pleasure or unpleasure are long lasting states such as happiness or good mood: we are still in a positive affective state even if we do not attend to such states. Interestingly, a common claim is even that attending to pleasure is impossible: E.3. REJECTING MIXED FEELINGS 319 It is a familiar fact that contemplation of the feelings, the devotion of special attention to them, lessens their intensity and prevents their natural expression. This diminution of intensity [consists] in a tendency of the affective contents to disappear altogether, to make way for the state of indifference. It would seem that attention never transforms an unpleasantness into a pleasantness. Such, at least, is the author's experience. Attention, then, is adverse to the feelings, when concentrated directly upon them(Külpe, 1895, p. 258-9) Attention to an affection is impossible. If it is attempted, the pleasantness or unpleasantness at once eludes us and disappears, and we find ourselves attending to some obstrusive sensation or idea that e had not the slightest desire to observe (Titchener, 1908, p. 69) I conclude, then that there is a real danger of diminishing pleasure by the attempt to observe and estimate it. But the danger seems only to arise in the case of very intense pleasures, and only if the attempt is made at the moment of actual ejoyment. (Sidgwick, 1981, p. 140) There is no need to go that far here: the existence of some unattented pleasures is sufficient for rejecting the first premise. The second premiss has certainly some appeal to it. Duncker writes: The unpleasantness of a toothache and the pleasantness of a beautiful view are not likely to coexist [. . . ] The pain so "absorbs me" that I cannot give myself over to the view enough really to enjoy it, or, on the other hand, the view may absorb me away from the pain (Duncker, 1941, p. 409) People subscribing to P2 usually re-describe putative cases mixed feelings in terms of a quick oscillation of attention between pleasure and unpleasure, so that both are never attended together at once. This explanation was for instance put forward by Alechsieff (1907) and is alluded to in Scheler's quote on page 316. Arnold (1960) compares the case of mixed feeling to the visual case of the duck-rabbit: one can never attend to pleasure and displeasure at the same time. One problem is that together with P1, P2 entails that the quick oscillation between pleasure and unpleasure (that is supposed to account for putative mixed feelings), amounts to a quick creation/annihilation/re-creation/re-annihilation... of pleasures and unpleasures. It is not as if both were on the table, available to our attention. Switching our attention from the one to the other, alternatively destroys the first one and creates the second. It it questionable that the concept of attention 320APPENDIX E. MIXED FEELINGS (1): THE CO-OCCURRENCE PROBLEM is compatible with such a generative role: if the attention creates its objects, how can it still play any epistemic role? At the very least, the concept of attention at play in P2, if P1 is true, is radically distinct from the one at play in usual claims of attentional switch, where the attended objects are assumed to exist independently of the attention directed on them. Yet another problem with P2, independently of P1, is that it seems far too strong. That in some case pleasures or unpleasures absorb all of our attention does not entail that this is always the case. Indeed, it is often remarked that they do so only when they are very intense (see 10.4.2). For moderate pleasures and unpleasures, divided attention does not sound impossible at all. E.3.2 Dismissing one of the two feelings The second type of strategy in order to reject the reality of mixed feelings is to grant the simultaneity of the two feelings, but to deny the reality or authenticity of one of the two feelings. This can be done in at least three ways. On might claim (1) that one of the two feelings is only a "make-believe" feeling (2) that it is only an extrinsic feeling (3) that it is not a feeling at all. 1. One can claim that one of the two feelings is an "as if" or a "make-believe" feeling (Duncker, 1941). Such as solution nicely accounts for the following cases: while the pleasure we take in looking at a tragedy is real, the displeasure we have in the fate of its protagonists is merely an "as if" feeling. We are not really displeased by the fate of Oedipus, because we know that Oedipus is not a real character. In the same way, one can claim that in nostalgia, the pleasure in remembering a happy time is a pretence, while the displeasure we take in the awareness that this time is over is real. Arguably, the same kind of account may be given for mixed feelings that arise from anticipatory (dis)pleasures, or empathic (dis) pleasures. 2. One can claim that one of the two feelings is only extrinsic. On can here rely on Feldman (1997b, pp. 100 sqq.) distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic attitudinal pleasures (see 10.2.1 page 254 on Feldman's theory of pleasure). The only intuitive distinction we need at this stage is the distinction between enjoying something for itself, and enjoying something for the sake of something else. We can take pleasure in something for its own sake, or take pleasure in something because we take pleasure in another. For instance, we might take pleasure in seeing the waiter coming because we take pleasure in drinking beer. A possible proposal concerning mixed feelings goes as follows: one of E.3. REJECTING MIXED FEELINGS 321 the co-occurrent feelings is not intrinsic, but extrinsic. Only intrinsic pleasures and unpleasures are contraries. But extrinsic pleasures, being only derived, are not incompatible with intrinsic unpleasures. Armstrong (1962, p. 91) uses a close strategy to explain masochism and the case of the neurotic who 'seek punishment'. In the later case, he claims, the subject takes intrinsic unpleasures in the pain he has, but extrinsic pleasures in it because he thinks he deserve that pain. He has therefore two intrinsic algedonic states: an intrinsic unpleasure in the pain; an intrinsic pleasure in his punishment; and one extrinsic pleasure: a pleasure in the pain because it is a punishment. The present strategy does not explain how the two intrinsic algedonic states can co-occur, but only how the intrinsic unpleasure and the extrinsic pleasure can. This is still worthwhile for one might plausibly argue (as I will) that pleasure in one thing and unpleasure in another one are not incompatible. What remains puzzling is how one and the same thing can be both enjoyed and suffered. Claiming that it is intrinsically suffered but extrinsically enjoyed might solve this puzzle. 3. A third way of dismissing one of the two feelings is to claim that it is not an algedonic feeling at all, but just the indifferent cognition that this object is usually a source of pleasure. This hypothesis was proposed by Young (1918) in his detailed study of mixed feelings. As we have seen in section 1.1 page 19 the term pleasant is ambiguous between a mental and an objectual sense: I reserved the term pleasant for the first sense, and proposed to use pleasing for the second. In ordinary language, we use the term 'pleasant' to refer to hedonic property of affective experiences, or to refer to property of the object that typically causes pleasant experiences. Relatedly, the terms pleasures and unpleasures are sometimes used to refer not to pleasures themselves, but to what usually causes pleasure. It may be that when subjects report the occurrence of pleasantness and unpleasantness at the same time, or of pleasure and unpleasure, they are using one of them in the objectual sense, the other in the mental sense. E.3.3 Objection: dependent mixed feelings I agree that these two types of strategies (alternation between pleasure and displeasure and dismissal of one of the two feelings) can account for some important cases of putative mixed feelings. It is not to be claimed here that all putative cases of mixed feelings are real cases of mixed feelings. What I want to maintain, nevertheless, is that such strategies cannot deal with all putative cases of mixed feelings. One important type of mixed feelings, which I shall call dependent mixed feelings, include cases in which the pleasure is existentially dependent on the unpleasure and 322APPENDIX E. MIXED FEELINGS (1): THE CO-OCCURRENCE PROBLEM the reverse cases in which the unpleasure is existentially dependent on the pleasure (Duncker, 1941, p. 410). dependent mixed feeling: occurrence of several contrary algedonic episodes in the same subject at the same time, the ones being existentially dependent on the others. It is sometimes essential for pleasure (or unpleasure) to occur that unpleasure (or pleasure) occur. One sometimes experiences pleasure (or unpleasure) because one experiences unpleasure (or pleasure). Here are five types of dependent mixed feelings. 1. Masochism. In masochism, unpleasure and pleasure are not only conjoined, but the one grounds the other: the masochist is pleased because he is unpleased. The masochist takes pleasures in his unpleasure (I am not interested here in the kind of masochism, if it is one, in which one take pleasures in a pain or painlike sensation which, though usually unpleasant, happens not to be unpleasant in that case. The good masochist takes pleasures in unpleasant pains). It is hard to see how the strategies of oscillations of dismissal could account for such cases. Surely, the pleasure of the masochist is a real one, and not only an "as if" or "extrinsic" one. And the same must be true of its unpleasure: a good masochist is not pretending to be in pain, he enjoys the unpleasantness of one real pain (it may be that the unpleasantness should be reasonably moderate to be enjoyed, which would not affect the point). It doesn't seem either that the masochist alternates between pleasure and displeasure: he is at once pleased and unpleased, because he take pleasure in its very actual unpleasure. Though masochism is narrowly construed the sexual enjoyment of unpleasant episodes, one might think of it in a more inclusive way. Arguably the enjoyment of a fizzy drink or hot chili involves some kind of masochism in the wide sense: the pleasure taken in not necessarily of a sexual kind. The unpleasure is not necessarily a bodily one in the same ways. In the enjoyment of dangerous sports or adventures, the fear enjoyed is not a purely bodily unpleasure. Likewise, in melancholia the unpleasure enjoyed is not a bodily pain but a mental sadness (Ribot, 1896 defines it as the "complacent delight for sadness"). 2. One might also takes pleasure in the (believed or felt) correctness of one's unpleasure. One can be proud to feel guilty for instance.5 This case is distinct 5As noted above (page 320), one might arguably claim that in such cases some extrinsic attiE.3. REJECTING MIXED FEELINGS 323 from the case of the masochist. The masochist's pleasure, I submit, is a-rational to the extent that the masochist does not enjoy his pain because he believes (or feels) it to be correct, appropriate or deserved6. Quite the contrary, it is the pain's unpleasantness he enjoys. The present case is quite different: it is the pain (apparent)'s correctness that is enjoyed. To this extent, this pleasure is directed toward something positive, the positive extrinsic value of the unpleasure. True, the reason for considering the unpleasure to be correct might be irrational (the neurotic who thinks he deserves all pain). But it is then the axiological belief (or feeling) in the correctness of the unpleasure that is irrational, not the pleasure that this belief grounds. A symmetrical case of dependent mixed feelings occurs when one takes unpleasure in the (believed of felt) incorrectness of one's pleasure. Malicious pleasures, the pleasures we take in the unpleasure of other people are not mixed feelings. However, in some case they give rise to a simultaneous emotion of shame. One may feel ashamed to experience Schadenfreude. Shameful pleasures are clear cases of mixed feeling, since we experience at once a (malicious) pleasure and the unpleasurability of shame. This mixed feeling is again a dependent one: we experience unpleasure because we experience pleasure. 3. One might also takes pleasure in one's ability to endure pain. This kind of pleasure is distinct from masochism: this is not the pain's unpleasantness that is intrinsically enjoyed, but one's ability to endure it. The cyclist might enjoy the ways he endures physical effort. Such pleasure is also distinct from the pleasure taken in the apparent correctness of one's unpleasure: this is not the pain that is represented as valuable here, nor the having of pain, but one's endurance or ability to endure it. Indeed the pain proudly endured might well be felt or believed to inappropriate or undeserved. The prisoner might take pleasure in his resisting the torture. This is again a dependent kind of mixed feeling: in order to be proud of one's way to enduring pain, one has to endure pain.7 tudinal pleasures enter in the picture. There would be in that case three co-occurrent algedonic phenomena: (i) the intrinsic attitudinal unpleasure one takes in something (such as feeling guilty about one's wrongdoings). (ii) the extrinsic attitudinal pleasure one takes in that unpleasure for the reason that it grounds (iii) the intrinsic attitudinal pleasure one takes in the correctness of one's intrinsic first-order unpleasure. 6A close point is made by Feldman (2004, p. 88) against Goldstein (1983). 7Descartes is hinting at something close the that kind of pleasure in the the following passage: Young people often take pleasure in attempting difficult tasks and exposing themselves to great dangers even though they do not hope thereby to gain any profit or glory. 324APPENDIX E. MIXED FEELINGS (1): THE CO-OCCURRENCE PROBLEM 4. One might takes pleasure in a pain's decrease or unpleasure in a pain's increase. Plato even came close to the idea that all pleasures were due the the decrease of a pain (see C.2 page 301), which led him to believe that mixed feelings are ubiquitous: ...there are combinations of pleasure and pain in lamentations, and in tragedy and comedy, not only on the stage, but on the greater stage of human life; and so in endless other cases. (Plato, Philebus, 50b) Without going so far here, it is sufficient to note that the pleasure of relief is not always the pleasure of the end of an unpleasure, but sometimes the pleasure of the decrease of a pain. Such partial reliefs are certainly pleasant, co-occurrent with unpleasure, and dependent of this unpleasure's decrease. 5. Finally, a widespread type of pleasure is pleasure in activity. We enjoy playing even if we finally lose the game. Good examples of pleasure in activity are play or creative work. Pleasures in activity are distinct from both pleasure of satisfaction or attainment, and of pleasures of anticipation. Pleasures in activity are the pleasures we sometimes take in pursuing a goal, iin contrast to the pleasure of attaining this goal. If all activity is effortful and all effort unpleasant, then every pleasure in activity is a dependent mixed feeling. However the connection between pleasure and the effort is more obvious and intimate in some specific types of activities. Games that are too easy are boring. The more we encounter resistance or adversity, the more we enjoy the game. This difficulty of the game amounts to an effort of the player, and such efforts are, at least often, intrinsically unpleasant. The existence of a wide varieties of dependent mixed feelings should give pause to any attempt to analyze putative mixed feelings in terms of alternation between pleasure and pain, or as combination between a real pleasure or unpleasure with a pseudo-pleasure or pseudo-unpleasure. This pleasure arises in the following way. The thought that the undertaking is difficult forms an impression in their brain which, when joined with the impression they could form if they were to think that it is a good thing to feel sufficiently courageous, happy, skillful, or strong to dare to take such risks, causes them to take pleasure in doing so. And the satisfaction which old people feel in recollecting the evils they have suffered results from their thinking that it is a good thing to have been able to survive in spite of them. (Descartes, 1989, art. 95) E.4. DISMISSING THE CO-OCCURRENCE PROBLEM 325 The situation we arrived at is this: on the one hand, rejecting the contrariety of pleasure and unpleasure is either too radical or if relativized to type of pleasures, has to reject the possibility homogenous mixed feelings. On the other hand, rejecting the very existence mixed feelings sounds doomed to failure in view of the ubiquity of dependent mixed feelings. The only option then is that the co-occurence problem of mixed feelings, as sketched in E.1 page 313, is a fake one, and that the contrariety of pleasures and unpleasures is compatible with the existence of mixed feelings. E.4 Dismissing the co-occurrence problem E.4.1 The solution I believe that mixed feelings do occur, and are indeed ubiquitous, even more obviously once the mixed feelings of the same pole, the mixed feelings containing indolences are taken into consideration. I also believe that pleasures and unpleasures, different degrees or pleasures or unpleasures, and pleasures and indolences, are contraries ( 2 page 45). I therefore reject the view that the problem of mixed feelings is a genuine one. To recall, the problem consists in the alleged inconsistency of those three claims: P1 Mixed feelings consist in the co-occurrence of pleasure and unpleasure in a same subject at the same time. P2 Pleasantness are unpleasantness are contraries, i.e., cannot be found in the same subject at the same time. P3 Mixed feelings do occur. This problem relies on a double equivocation on the terms "in" and "subject". In P1, "subject" means the sentient being, the person, and "in" means that this sentient being has some pleasant and unpleasant episodes. In P2, "subject" means the bearer of pleasantness and unpleasantness, and "in" means that this bearer is a pleasure or an unpleasure. Given that no sentient being is a pleasure, the bearers of pleasantness and unpleasantness are not sentient beings. Pleasures and unpleasures are not sentient being, but mental episodes of sentient beings. As long as the mental episodes that are pleasant are not the same as the mental episodes that are unpleasant, the contrariety of pleasure and unpleasure is safe. It remain of course to be shown in each particular case of mixed feeling, that this is not exactly the same mental episode that is both pleasant and unpleasant. 326APPENDIX E. MIXED FEELINGS (1): THE CO-OCCURRENCE PROBLEM Suppose that pleasures are intentional states, and that intentional states are to be individuated by their objects. Since for instance, the object of our guilt (say, one bad action of ours) is not the same as the object of our co-occurrent pleasure (the appropriate character of our feeling of guilt), no single mental episode is both pleasant and unpleasant at once. Concretely, the way to dispel the contrariety in each particular case of mixed feelings, will depend on the specific theory of pleasure and of the individuation of mental episodes one adopts. The general suggestion is that while the same subject (sentient being) might have pleasure and unpleasure at the same time, it is never the same mental episode of his that is both pleasant and unpleasant. In a nutshell, co-occurent feelings are no more problematic than the presence of different incompatible color on a same shirt. The shirt has different spatial parts, and its being yellow and blue would violate colorincompatibility only if the very same part were both blue and yellow all over. The same is true for sentient beings: they would violate the incompatibility of pleasure and unpleasure only if the very same mental episodes of them were both pleasant and unpleasant at the same time. This, I submit, cannot happen. What can happen nevertheless, is that one pleasant and one unpleasant mental state occur at the same time in a same sentient being. The co-occurrence problem of mixed feelings has impressed such a great number of important philosophers and psychologists that this answer might be too good to be true. It indeed relies on a controversial assumption: namely that each pleasure depends on a mental episode which is not itself a pleasure. Appendix F Mixed feelings (2): the summation problem F.1 The summation problem F.1.1 Algedonic balance Having mixed feelings, it is quite common to wonder how one is on the whole, whether one's algedonic balance is positive or negative. Let us define one's algedonic balance as follows: algedonic balance: result of the summation of the (positive) intensities of all the pleasures and of the (negative) intensities of all the unpleasures of an individual at a time. When one has more pleasure than unpleasure, one's algedonic balance is positive. When one has more unpleasure than pleasure, one's algedonic is negative. When one has both pleasure and unpleasure in the same amount, one's algedonic balance is null. The algedonic balance, so understood, is an abstract entity: it is just a number resulting from the algebraic addition of the positive and negative numbers representing the intensities of co-occurrent pleasures and unpleasures. Anybody who agrees that pleasures and unpleasures are polar opposites and come in determinate degrees should agree that there is in principle such a balance. Note that the concept of algedonic balance is noncommittal in the two following respects: 327 328 APPENDIX F. MIXED FEELINGS (2): THE SUMMATION PROBLEM 1. To claim that for each individual at each time there is an algedonic balance of him is not to say that such a balance can always be determined: there might be epistemological worries about the measures of the intensities of the pleasures/unpleasures for instance (see Rachels, 2004 for other epistemological worries about the hedonic calculus). But this is beside the present point: even if the algedonic balance is difficult or even impossible to know, it does not mean that there is no such balance. 2. More importantly, speaking of the algedonic balance of an individual at a time does not commit us to any particular view about whether or not such an abstract entity corresponds to some new psychological reality. The algedonic balance is just a number, which results from the addition of other numbers representing the intensities of the co-occurrent pleasures/unpleasures. Whether this number represents something, and what it represents, is not settled by speaking of algedonic balance. F.1.2 Resultant pleasures? That latter point is precisely the point that I want to treat in this Appendix. What, if anything, does the algedonic balance of an individual at a time correspond to? I shall call this question the summation problem of mixed feelings. The co-occurrence problem discussed in the preceding Appendix and the summation problem of mixed feelings are not always clearly distinguished. Some theories which purport to answer to the summation problem are sometimes assessed as if they were answers to the co-occurrence problem (this seems to be the case, for instance, with Bain's theory that I shall present in F.3 page 337). The distinction between the co-occurrence and the summation problem of mixed feelings was clearly noted by Young at the beginning of his important study on mixed feelings: The term 'mixed feelings' may be used in a psychophysical or in a psychological sense. A psychophysical mixture is a mixture of conditions resulting in a single feeling, a Totalgefühl, just as the mixture red and green results in a single color or brightness. A psychological mixture is the strict coexistence of two feelings, just as red and green can be experienced side by side in the same visual field. (Young, 1918) What Young calls a psychophysical mixture, or a Totalgefühl, corresponds to a particular view about the empirical counterpart of the (abstract) algedonic balance: the algedonic balance corresponds, following his approach, to a real feeling in the F.1. THE SUMMATION PROBLEM 329 subject. Such "psychophysical mixtures" are dependent on "psychological mixtures", i.e., one can ask about the nature of resultant algedonic episodes only if there are mixed feelings. The question is no longer whether mixed feelings can occur without violating the contrariety of pleasure and unpleasure (the co-occurrence problem). The question now is, given that mixed feelings do occur, whether there are some further algedonic episodes that correspond to their algedonic balance. If yes, what exactly do these episodes consist in? By speaking of a resulting single feeling, Young suggests that the algedonic balance does find some counterpart in the subject. This view, as well as the term 'Totalgefühl' was introduced by Wundt (1897, sec. 12). Wundt endorses the "principle of the unity of the affective state" according to which co-occurrent feelings always combine with each other in order to give rise to a total feeling: This principle we will call that of the unity of the affective state. It may be formulated as follows: in a given moment only one total feeling is possible, or in other words, all the partial feelings present at a given moment unite, in every case, to form a single total feeling (Wundt, 1897, II, sec. 12, §12)1 Wundt's central claim is that the resultant feelings correspond to something more than the mere aggregate of all the component feelings. There is something more in a pleased and unpleased subject than a mere scattered mereological sum of pleasures and unpleasures. There is a genuine unitary whole: As a matter of fact, the common feeling consists of a number of partial feelings. But it is not the mere sum of these feelings; it is rather a resultant total feeling of unitary character. (Wundt, 1897, II, sec. 12, §4a)2 1Titchener gives the following translation: All the affective elements present in consciousness at a given moment connect to form an unitary affective resultant. (Wundt, quoted by Titchener, 1908, p. 46) 2Wundt is contrasting partial and total feelings on the one hand, and component feelings and resultant feelings, on the other hand (Wundt, 1897, II, sec.12, §3). Those two oppositions are related, but distinct. Though every total feeling is a resultant feeling, not all resultant feelings are total feelings: some resultant feelings are just intermediary sums of components feelings. If Paul has three simple feelings, a, b, c, he might have three resultant feelings (the first one being the unity of a and b, the second one the unity of a and c, and the third one the unity of b and c). But he will have only one total feeling, the unity of a, b, and c, in addition to the three resultant feelings just mentioned. Resultant feelings are always made up of component feelings, but might 330 APPENDIX F. MIXED FEELINGS (2): THE SUMMATION PROBLEM I shall here assume that Wundt uses 'feeling' in the sense in which I use 'algedonic episodes' (see 2.2.1 page 53): feelings are pleasures and unpleasures3. A resultant feelings or algedonic episode might then be defined as follows: resultant algedonic episode: sui generis algedonic episode corresponding to the algedonic balance of a subject; i.e. an algedonic episode of S occuring at t, resulting necessarily from all the co-occurrent algedonic episodes of S at t, and being distinct from them. Restricted to pleasures and unpleasures, Wundt's principle of the unity of the affective states amounts to the following: all the pleasures and unpleasures present at a given moment in a subject unite to form a unitary resultant algedonic episode. Let us call this the thesis of the unity of algedonic episodes. thesis of the unity of algedonic episodes: all the pleasures and unpleasures present at a time in a subject unite to form a unitary resultant algedonic episode. still be partial feelings. I here ignore this complication and speak of resultant and total feeling interchangeably. 3This is indeed not the case. While "feelings" or "affective state" are often used to refer to pleasures and unpleasures (see e.g. Külpe, 1895, §36 p. 239 for a defence of this use), Wundt uses the terms in a much wider sense. Feelings are equated with all the "subjective psychical elements", and contrasted with sensations, which are equated with objective content (Wundt, 1897, I, sec. 5, §1). As a result there are not only hedonic feelings, but also visual, auditory... ones. We are here only interested in what happens when pleasures and/or unpleasures occur together. To the extent that he uses "feeling" in that very general sense, Wundt's "principle of the unity of the affective state" falls shorts of Bayne and Chalmers (2003) and Bayne (2010)'s more recent thesis of the unity of consciousness: Unity Thesis: Necessarily, for any conscious subject of experience (S ) and any time (t), the simultaneous conscious states that S has at t will be subsumed by a single conscious state-the subject's total conscious state. Bayne and Chalmers (2003) The unity thesis of consciousness might be true even if the unity thesis of algedonic episodes is false. The simultaneous pleasures and unpleasures might not be subsumed under a single pleasure or unpleasure, but might still be subsumed under a single conscious state. F.2. THE CASE FOR RESULTANT PLEASURES 331 The aim is to assess this thesis. Before proceeding, it should be urged that the unity involved in the thesis of the unity of algedonic episodes is not a gestalt unity4. The summation problem addressed here is not the problem of understanding why some mixed feelings sometimes happen to exhibit some distinctive unitary feel. Nostalgia, for instance, appear to have some kind of specific overall feel, which does not boil down to mere co-occurrence of the pleasure of remembering the past together with the sadness that it is over. While all mixed feelings give rise to an algedonic balance, and potentially, to a resultant algedonic episode, only some mixed feelings give rise to the kind of gestalt unity exhibited by nostalgia. The co-occurrence of an unpleasant sensation in the left little toe while listening to Bach hardly exhibits any gestalt-unity. But it still gives rise to some hedonic balance which, on the presently assessed hypothesis, corresponds to a resultant algedonic episode. Relatedly, while the gestalt exhibited by some mixed feelings might concern only some of the pleasures or unpleasures had by an individual at a time, the resultant algedonic episode necessarily subsumes all of those co-occurrent feelings. One the whole, the two main answers to the summation problem are these: • According to the first one, the unity thesis of algedonic episodes, the algedonic balance does correspond to a sui generis resultant algedonic episode. • According to the second one, the algedonic balance corresponds to nothing new in the subject. The only psychological counterpart that might be found to this mathematical fiction is the set, conjunction or mereological sum of all the pleasures and unpleasures present in a subject at a time, however heterogeneous and scattered. I shall defend the second view: there are no resultant algedonic episodes over and above the different pleasures and unpleasures experienced by a subject at a time. F.2 The case for resultant pleasures One can think of two main arguments in favor of the existence of resultant algedonic episodes. I here present them and reject them in turn. 4See Bayne and Chalmers (2003) for a similar claim with respect to the unity of consciousness thesis. 332 APPENDIX F. MIXED FEELINGS (2): THE SUMMATION PROBLEM F.2.1 The contrastive argument Presentation First, in the same way that one can sum the intensities of the pleasures/unpleasures of an individual at a time, one can sum the intensities of the pleasures/unpleasures of different individuals at a time. Arguing against utilitarianism, Broad stresses that inter-individual arithmetic sums of pleasures do not represent "any kind of adjunction in rerum natura"(Broad, 1959, pp. 249). His remark might be read as an indirect argument in favor of resultant algedonic episodes. The point is this: there is an intuitive difference between the algedonic balance of one individual and the algedonic balance of several individuals. What accounts for this difference, Broad suggests, is the fact the algedonic balance of an individual, but not the algedonic balance of a collection of individuals, corresponds to some bona fide episode. While it seems acceptable to say that the individual is in a positive overall algedonic state, it sounds far-fetched to claim that the plurality of individuals is in a positive algedonic state. While resultant algedonic episodes are naturally attributed to the individual of which the pleasures are summed, no such episodes are naturally ascribed to pluralities of individuals. To put it another way, once the algedonic calculus has been made, one can say at best, in the case of many individuals, that there is more pleasure than unpleasure in that collectivity. But the result of such an algedonic calculus, when the intensities of co-occurrent pleasures/unpleasures of a single individual are added, is not only describable in terms of "there is more pleasure than unpleasure in Paul". One also naturally refers in such a case to some positive overall state of this individual. This resultant state is naturally called the happiness of the individual at that time. Assume this is not a misnomer. While it is correct to say that an individual is happy at a time in virtue of the pleasures and unpleasures he has at that time, it would be a blatant category mistake to claim that a plurality of individuals is happy in virtue of the pleasures and unpleasures of the individuals it contains. As Broad (1959, pp. 248-9) puts it, "It is plain that a collection cannot literally be happy or unhappy". Happiness and unhappiness are the privilege of individuals5. The algedonic balance in one single individual corresponds to something more than a scattered whole of its pleasures and unpleasures: it correspond to the happiness of the individual at that time. This is not the case with the algebraic sum of pleasures and unpleasures of many individuals. So goes the argument. One might maybe quarrel with the unmotivated introduction of the term "hap5One might claim that there are plural individuals, exhibiting strong collective intentionality, and who can be happy or unhappy. Even if true, this is no objection to the present point. Plurality of individuals, which do not constitute plural individual, still cannot be happy or unhappy. F.2. THE CASE FOR RESULTANT PLEASURES 333 piness" here: not everybody agree that happiness is a mere algebraic function of the pleasures and unpleasures of individuals. But the main point is independent of this: there is an intuitive asymmetry between the intra-individual and the inter-individual cases which can only be captured if one accepts that some resultant algedonic episode occurs in the former case but not in the later. A similar argument can be made if one contrasts, in an individual, his algedonic balance at a time, and his algedonic balance across time. Suppose Paul strongly enjoys reading a novel, and then slightly suffers from headache. Suppose now that Paul enjoys reading a novel while suffering from a slight headache. It seems natural to say that in the first case, though its diachronic algedonic balance is positive in the end, Paul was never in a mildly positive resultant state. In the second case however, we naturally describe Paul as being in an overall mildly positive state. Something peculiar seems to happen in the synchronic case that does not happen in the diachronic one. If the resultant algedonic balance corresponds to nothing apart from the scattered mereological sum of pleasures/unpleasures, this difference cannot be captured. One the whole, the contrastive argument in favor of resultant algedonic episodes has the following structure: P1 The hedonic balance of an individual at a time is intuitively less artificial than the hedonic balance of several individuals at a time, or that of one and the same individual across time. P2 This difference of artificiality can only consist in the first kind of hedonic balance corresponding to resultant algedonic episodes, the later having no such counterpart. C There are resultant algedonic episodes. Answer P2 is questionable. The reason why the hedonic balance of an individual at a time sounds more natural than the hedonic balance of several individuals across time, might just be that an individual at a time is more natural than a plurality of individuals across time. Relatedly, that the measure of the wealth of a person sounds less factitious than the measure the wealth of all the persons whose first name is of three or seven letters is not due to that fact that the wealth of a person is something more real that the wealth of an heterogenous collection of persons. It is only that a person is more natural (i.e. bona fide, see note 2 page 12) than an heterogenous collection of people. 334 APPENDIX F. MIXED FEELINGS (2): THE SUMMATION PROBLEM F.2.2 The phenomenological argument Presentation The second argument in favor of the reality of algedonic resultant episodes is phenomenological. One can sometimes, it is argued, feel such resultant algedonic episodes. There is a way one feels on the whole, which we express by saying that we feel well, or that we feel good (or bad). Relying on the reflexive construction that such an expression has in French or German ('je me sens bien', 'Ich fühle mich wohl') helps us clarifying the meaning of the expression. When we say that we feel good, we mean that we feel ourselves (to be) good on the whole. Such feelings of our own wellness are, it is argued, directed at our resultant algedonic episode at that time. Feeling good does not amount to feeling that the addition of our scattered pleasures and unpleasures is positive. Feeling good amounts rather to feeling one is in a positive and simple overall episode. That such feelings of our resultant algedonic episodes occur finds corroboration in the following remarks. 1. When asked "How are you?" or "How do you feel?", we can sometimes correctly and readily answer without entering into a long and tedious algebraic calculation (nor do we have a faculty of internal perception that would allow us to instantaneously subitize the intensities all our pleasures and unpleasures). The best explanation of the ease with which we can answer is that we can just feel, or be acquainted, with our overall resultant algedonic state. 2. When having several pleasures/unpleasures at once, we not only answer the "how are you?" question, we also often easily determine whether we desire to continue being in the same algedonic balance. To take an example from Bain (1859, p. 442), when the charm of a landscape overpowers our feelings of hunger and fatigue, we do not have to wonder whether on the whole the intensity of our pleasure is greater than the sum of the intensities of our unpleasures to decide to stay put. Our desires or aversions with respect to our own overall algedonic state could not be so spontaneous if this state were nothing but the complex algebraic computation of the intensities of all our pleasures and unpleasures. 3. We can sometimes easily compare different algedonic balances of ours across time, as when we say that we are now worse off, or better off, than before. The key attitude here is preferring, and no longer that of feeling or desiring: we prefer the present algedonic balance to the former one. Following Scheler (1973a, pp. 87, 260), preferring is not the conative act of choosing, but the cognitive attitude through which we access the relative heights of values. The F.2. THE CASE FOR RESULTANT PLEASURES 335 argument is here again that when we wonder whether we are now better or worse off than before, the answer is often so easily available than it cannot depend on any algebraic calculation. Answer The worry raised by this phenomenological argument in favor of resultant algedonic episodes is that the feelings it relies on are not obviously feelings of resultant algedonic episodes. Consider the possible answers to the question "How do you feel?": • "I feel tired/depressed/vigorous/ill..." Such feelings are not feelings of resultant algedonic episodes but rather what Ryle (1951) calls feelings of our "general condition". Such general algedonic episodes are not to be conflated with total or resultant feelings. General pleasures or unpleasures are general to the extent that they permeate our whole body or our whole mind. But they are not total in the sense that they do not by nature exhaust all of the pleasures and unpleasures we have at a time. On the contrary, general pleasures and unpleasures might appear in mixed feelings: in such cases they are just component algedonic episodes among others. Their intensities have to be summed in order to get the algedonic balance of an individual at a time. Thus one might be depressed and enjoy a good bier. • "I feel bad, I have a terrible headache" is another possible answer to the question: "How are you ?". Here again, the answer does not express one's algedonic balance, but only the most salient of our pleasures and unpleasures. It might be correct to give such an answer even if our overall algedonic balance is positive. This happens for instance when a strong unpleasure is outweighed by many small pleasures, too small and numerous to be salient to our attention. Such salient algedonic episodes might co-occur with other pleasures/unpleasures. Like feelings of our general condition, there are component algedonic episodes, not resultant ones. Neither general pleasures (or unpleasures) nor salient pleasures (or unpleasures) are resultant pleasures (or unpleasures). But at least in many cases, they are what we mean when we say that we feel good. Relatedly, they also often ground our desire to continue to be in our present state or not, as well as our assessment of whether we are better or worse off at t than at t'. The case for the phenomenology of resultant algedonic episodes is therefore not conclusive. Indeed, once general and salient algedonic episodes are excluded as irrelevant, it is not clear that there is anything more to be felt. Consider: 336 APPENDIX F. MIXED FEELINGS (2): THE SUMMATION PROBLEM Paul: How are you? Julie: Very well, I am drinking one of the best Port wines ever. (= a salient feeling) Paul: But how are you, more generally ? Julie: Well, not so good, I am quite tired. (= a general feeling) Paul: So how are you now, all in all ? Julie: Well, not bad I suppose. The point is that though Julie might easily feel her most salient pleasure (i.e. feel her enjoyment of the Port wine), or her general condition, she can only guess how she is, all things considered. While we can usually easily say whether our most salient mental episode is pleasant, unpleasant or neither; or whether our general bodily condition is pleasant, unpleasant, or neither; we quite often hesitate when trying to decide when on the whole we have more pleasure than unpleasure. Such a hesitation would hardly occur if resultant algedonic episodes were felt or known by immediate acquaintance. One plausible explanation of this hesitation is that the intensities of different algedonic episodes are often hard to compare. This is especially clear when we compare pleasures and unpleasures of different species: was the tennis game more pleasing that the compliment, the compliment more pleasing that the hot bath, the hot bath more pleasing than the Château-Margaux? There is often no obvious answer. But algedonic comparisons are also difficult even with pleasures and unpleasures of the same species, as Sidgwick pointed out: Suppose I am enjoying a good dinner: if I ask myself whether one kind of dish or wine gives me more pleasure than another, sometimes I can decide, but very often not. [. . . ] even when the causes and quality of the feelings compared as similar, it is only when the differences in pleasantness are great, that hedonistic comparison seems to yield any definite result.(Sidgwick, 1981, p. 143) Our difficulty in determining whether we have more pleasure than unpleasure comes not (only) from the complexity of algebra: it comes (also) from the complexity of comparing the intensities of different pleasures/unpleasures. Wherever it comes from, this difficulty in itself strongly suggests that no feeling presents us with the correlate of our algedonic balance. At the very least it is not prima facie obvious that there is something there to be felt, and the onus is on the defenders of resultant algedonic episodes. F.3. AGAINST RESULTANT PLEASURES 337 F.3 Against resultant pleasures Not only are the reasons in favor of resultant algedonic episodes inconclusive, but the very admission of such total pleasure/unpleasure leads to insuperable difficulties. One can think of three main ways of conceiving such resultant algedonic episodes. The most intuitive one, suggested by Wundt's theory of Totalgefühl, is to equate resultant algedonic episodes with the pleasure or unpleasure that emerges on the basis of component pleasures/unpleasures, without being reducible to them. According to a second interpretation, resultant algedonic episodes are the pleasure (or unpleasure) that remains once pleasure and unpleasure have neutralized each other. According to a last interpretation, the resultant algedonic episode is the blending or fusion of the different co-occurrent pleasures and unpleasures. We shall now see that none of those option is tenable. F.3.1 The emergence model According to the first approach, resultant algedonic episodes are emergent pleasures that emerge on top of the underlying component pleasure, without being reducible to them. When Paul has the intense pleasure of reading a good novel concurrent with the unpleasure of having a slight headache, he has at the same time a third resultant pleasure, moderately intense, corresponding to his positive algedonic balance. This approach faces the following objection: if the resultant algedonic episode is itself yet another co-occurrent pleasure, it has to be included in the algedonic balance in turn, leading to a regress. When Paul has two pleasures, a and b, that result in a third pleasure c, he must also, according to the theory, have a fourth pleasure d, resulting from the addition of a, b, and c. This pleasure d should be in turn included in the algedonic balance, leading to the introduction of a pleasure e, etc. As long as resultant algedonic episodes are equated with pleasures (or unpleasures) numerically distinct from the component pleasures and unpleasures, such a paradox cannot be avoided. The only option left is to claim that resultant algedonic episodes are not wholly distinct from component ones. There are two main ways of doing this. One might claim first, that the resultant algedonic episodes are the pleasures (or unpleasures) that remain once all the other pleasures/unpleasures have destroyed each other. This theory, which I shall call the remainder model has been proposed by Alexander Bain. Second, one might claim the resultant algedonic episode is the pleasure or unpleasure that results from the fusion, coalescence, merging, or blend of what were initially numerically distinct pleasures/unpleasures. I shall call this the fusion model. Let us now consider these two models in turn. 338 APPENDIX F. MIXED FEELINGS (2): THE SUMMATION PROBLEM F.3.2 The remainder model One theory to the effect that resultant algedonic episodes are pleasures or unpleasures identifies such algedonic episodes with the pleasure or unpleasure that is left once the addition of all the pleasures and unpleasure has been made. The idea is that the contrariety between pleasures and unpleasures consists in a kind of material opposition by which co-occurrent pleasures and unpleasures destroy each other. Once pleasures and unpleasures have neutralized each other that way, the surviving pleasures (or unpleasures) are to be equated with the resultant algedonic episode. The clearest proponent of this view, is Bain, who compares pleasure and and unpleasure with basic and acid, or heat and cold6: Pleasure and Pain are opposites in the strongest form of Contrariety; like heat and cold, they destroy or neutralize each other. (Bain, 1875, pp. 12-13) When two states of feeling, viewed merely as emotions, come together, if they are of the same nature, we have a sum total-as when the occurrence of two pleasures gives a greater pleasure. When a pain concurs with a pleasure, we find as a matter of fact that the one can neutralize the other. An agreeable relish, in the shape of some sweet taste, soothes the infant's irritated mind; and all through life we apply the grateful to submerge the disagreeable. This is one phase of the opposition of the two cardinal states of our consciousness. Each of them has a distinct substantive existence, like black and white, light and heavy, with this further relation, that the presence of the one destroys the property of the other, as an acid neutralizes an alkali. [. . . ] In the conflict of the two, therefore; one will be lost and the other lowered in its efficacy; the first being pronounced the weaker, and the second the stronger. (Bain, 1859, p. 441) It should be stressed that Bain's theory might be a solution to the summation problem of mixed feelings, but cannot be a solution to the co-occurrence problem. Bain's theory is sometimes presented as claiming that mixed feelings are impossible for the reason that co-occurrent feelings always neutralizes each other (see for instance 6Such comparisons, as well as the core of Bain's theory, are already to be found inHume (2000, Bk II, Part III, sec. 9). However, Hume himself does not subscribe without restriction to a remainder theory à la Bain. According to Hume, such a theory is true only of pleasures and unpleasures we have with respect to different aspects of the same object, such as when one and the same entity is found both to be beautiful under one aspect and ugly under another. F.3. AGAINST RESULTANT PLEASURES 339 Schimmack and Colcombe, 2000). This mistake goes back to Hume at least, when he writes: it sometimes happens, that both the passions [. . . ] destroy each other, and neither of them takes place. (Hume, 2000, Bk II, Part III, sec. 9). This cannot be so: two episodes cannot destroy each other if they never take place together. If pleasures and unpleasures add up or neutralize each other, it is that they first exist together. A non-actual pleasure cannot add up with, and even less neutralize, another pleasure. If there is a summation, there are things that are summed. Rather than forbidding the co-occurrence of pleasures and unpleasures, Bain's theory assumes such a co-occurrence. The best that such a theory can show, with respect to the co-occurrence problem, is not that mixed feelings cannot occur, but that they cannot last : once pleasures and unpleasures enter the vicinity of each other, i.e., when they occur in a same subject at the same time, they start destroying each other so that in the end, only pleasure, only unpleasure, or only indolence is left. Now, what is exactly the answer to the summation problem according to the remainder model? According to it, the resultant algedonic episode is one of the component pleasures and unpleasures, the one that is not to be destroyed by other pleasures, or unpleasures. One might worry that such an answer changes the subject to the extent that the resultant algedonic episode only occurs after to co-occurrent first order feelings, once the battle is over. But this is not the case: the future survivors are on the battlefield. At the time of the mixed feelings, the resultant algedonic episode is the pleasure or unpleasure that will not be destroyed later. Objections Such a remainder model however suffers from important drawbacks. First, this theory leaves open which of the pleasures/unpleasures will survive. Suppose Paul has at time t exactly two pleasures of intensity n, and one unpleasure of intensity minus-n. For instance he takes pleasure in looking at a landscape, and in feeling the wind on his neck, and he takes unpleasure in being hungry. The remainder model predicts that in the end, Paul will have only one pleasure of intensity n. But which one? Will he end up with the single pleasure of enjoying the landscape, or with the single pleasure of feeling the wind on his neck? The theory appears to be indeterminate on this point. It also appears to be implausible: why should only one of the two initial pleasures remain and the other be destroyed? Second, although Bain's remainder model is naturally applied to cases in which the co-occurrent feelings are polar opposites, mixed feeling also includes cases in 340 APPENDIX F. MIXED FEELINGS (2): THE SUMMATION PROBLEM which one has several pleasures at once (see page 313). Bain acknowledges in the quotation above that "two pleasures give a greater pleasure". But while he has an explanation of the "gives" in "One pleasure and one unpleasure of the same intensity give an indolence" –namely, by mutually destroying each other; Bain does not present any theory about the meaning of the "give" when two pleasures are involved. What do pleasures do with respect to each other? Assuming they do not destroy each other, they might well just stay apart, without interacting in any sense. The remainder model provides us with no explanation of the resultant episodes that follow from the co-occurrence of different pleasures (or of different unpleasures). Third, and relatedly, the resultant algedonic episodes might be made of several pleasures (or several unpleasures) according to the remainder model. For instance, if Paul has three pleasures and one unpleasure of the same intensity, he will in the end have two pleasures. But we are looking for a single resultant unitary algedonic episode. If we are left with two disjoint pleasures, we still have no answer to the summation problem. Defenders of the remainder view could bite the bullet and claim that only pleasures and unpleasures add up, by mutually destroying each other, while different pleasures just stay apart. They would join in this position the anti-realists about resultant algedonic episodes, but only as far as co-occurrent pleasures (or co-occurrent unpleasures) are concerned. This would indeed answer the second and third worry. Such a move sounds however completely ad hoc, and is certainly not in the spirit of Bain's initial proposal. Fourth, suppose Paul has just one pleasure of intensity n+1 and one unpleasure of intensity minus -n . His algedonic balance will be of intensity 1. The remainder model predicts that this algedonic balance corresponds to a pleasure of intensity 1 that was present in Paul's original mixed feelings. However, Paul's co-occurrent feelings contained no such pleasure, but only a pleasure of intensity n+1. Where then does the remaining pleasure comes from, and what is the other pleasure that has been destroyed by the -1 unpleasure? Defenders of the remainder model could claim that the n+1 pleasure is made up of two pleasures: a pleasure of intensity n and another pleasure of intensity 1. The first pleasure is the one to be destroyed, the second, the one that will survive. This is a controversial claim about intensities: it is not obvious that entities of an higher intensity always contain entities of a lower intensity as parts7. Let us grant it. The 7Armstrong (1978, 1997, chap. 4)'s theory of determinables in terms of partial identities between determinates is close to this kind of view (see Fales, 1990, p. 230 for objections). One objection coming from phenomenology is that intense pleasure does not appear to be composed of less intense ones. If this is nevertheless the way they are, then the phenomenology of pleasures is systematically F.3. AGAINST RESULTANT PLEASURES 341 main point is that even if the pleasure of intensity n+1 is made up of one pleasure of intensity n and one other pleasure of intensity 1, the remainder model, again, tells us nothing about the unity of the n+1 pleasure. This time it is impossible to bite the bullet by denying the unity of this initial pleasure. For it was, ex hypothesis, a single unitary pleasure, rather than a conjunction, or scattered mereological sum, of two pleasures. In the end, the remainder model answers the summation problem only in a very limited number of cases; namely, the cases in which the same number of pleasures and unpleasures (plus or minus one) of the same intensity (bracketing polarity) cooccur. Even in such rare cases, the determination of the single surviving pleasure (or unpleasure) appears entirely arbitrary. In other cases, in which co-occurrent feelings are all pleasures or all unpleasures of different intensities, or in which the the difference between the number of pleasures and the number of unpleasures is of more than one, the remainder model proves unable to offer an account of how feelings of a same pole unite in order to give a new feeling. F.3.3 The fusion model The remainder model fails to explain the summation of different pleasures or different unpleasures. It paves the way, however, for a close and more powerful model for resultant algedonic episodes, the fusion model. According to the fusion model, when several pleasures and/or unpleasures co-occur they fuse, blend or coalesce into one single pleasure or unpleasure8. The remainder model and the fusion model have been conflated. Hume (2000, Bk II, Part III, sec. 9) equates the mutual destruction of co-occurrent passions with their mingling, and Bain himself speaks in other places of the coalescence of feelings (Bain, 1872, p. 226). There is indeed some affinity between the two models, but they should be kept sharply distinct for the following reason. The relevant metaphor for understanding the fusion model is not that of soldiers on a battlefield, but that of hot and cold water put in the same vessel, giving rise to luke-warm water. There is in the end no longer any hot or cold water in the vessel (while, according to the remainder model, some pleasures/soldiers survive). One might say, in a pinch, that the hot and cold water have mutually destroyed each other, as the remainder model holds. But the crucial difference with the remainder mistaken in presenting them to us as simple episodes, not composed of other pleasures. 8I have not been able to find any explicit defence of that theory, but this blending of two feelings into one is regularly mentioned in the literature. See e.g. Scheler (1973a, p. 331); Sidgwick (1981, p. 141); Mulligan (1998b, §6). 342 APPENDIX F. MIXED FEELINGS (2): THE SUMMATION PROBLEM model is that the warm water that we get in the end was not present at the first stage. The warm water is not the only survivor, it is rather a new kind of water that was not present from the start. One might call it a mixture, and distinguish it both from the initial pleasure/unpleasure ingredients and from the episode of mixing from which it results9. One might also call it a fusion, and distinguish it both from the fused initial pleasures/unpleasures, and from the episode of fusing that yielded it. Those two words, "fusion" and "mixture", are however open to misguided readings that have to be dispelled. A fusion is often equated with a mereological sum, however scattered. If this were the sense of "fusion" used by the fusion model, that model would just be a version of anti-realism about resultant algedonic episodes. The sense in which I am using here the term "fusion" is the sense in which, when two terms fuse with each other, they strictly speaking cease to be two. They lose their numerical identity: the only thing that is one in the end is the entity which results from their fusion. The term mixture is ambiguous in another way. The metaphysical nature of mixture is an important metaphysical puzzle. One of the main issues is whether the mixture contains the original ingredients that have been mixed together. If it does not, it is not clear in what sense we still have a genuine mixture. If it does, then those ingredients must have remained unaltered in the mixture, and we do not seem to have a true mixture either. When I say that the resulting pleasure is, according to the present theory, a mixture or blend or one of the original ingredients, I mean that this resultant pleasure (or unpleasure) does not contain the former pleasures/unpleasures as parts. I am therefore assuming that resultant pleasures, i.e. mixtures of component pleasures and unpleasures, do not contain these component pleasures and unpleasures as parts or constituents: they are either pure pleasures or pure unpleasures. The fusion answer to the summation problem of mixed feelings is therefore the following: mixed feelings (i.e. co-occurrent feelings) mix or fuse with each other and give rise to new mixtures of fusions. The episode of mixing or fusing together consists in the ceasing to be of the co-occurrent pleasures/unpleasures and in the coming into being of a new simple pleasure or unpleasure. Before assessing that fusion model, it is worth stressing that, exactly like the remainder model, it does not provide any answer to the co-occurrence problem of mixed feelings address in the previous Appendix. Claims to the contrary have been common. Speaking of the blending of feeling, Scheler writes for instance: It is impossible to be simultaneously woeful and sad: one feeling is 9 The distinction between the process of mixing and the resulting mixture is due to Fine (1998). F.3. AGAINST RESULTANT PLEASURES 343 always the result. (Scheler, 1973a, p. 331) But if woefulness and sadness are to "blend into the unity of a total feeling-state", as Scheler has it, they should first exist together. Blending or fusion, in the same way than mutual destruction, is existence-entailing: what fuses or blends has to exist. This sounds paradoxical because fusion and blending are also, in another sense, nonexistence entailing: what has fused or blended with something else no longer exists individually. This apparent paradox is easily dispelled: blending and fusion are kinds of ceasing to be, of annihilation. To this extent they entail that something first exists. The also entail than it then does not exist any longer. The fusion model, in the same way as the remainder model, can only be an answer to the summation problem of mixed feelings. With respect to the co-occurrence of contrary pleasures/unpleasures, it has to assume that such co-occurrence is possible, pace Scheler. Is this fusion model satisfying? It easily answers the main worries that were raised against the remainder problem: given that different pleasures can fuse together in the same way that pleasures and unpleasures can, we can now deal with summation of feelings of the same pole. The positive algedonic balance of Paul when he has two co-occurent pleasures corresponds to the unique pleasure that results from the blending of its two pleasures. Moreover, given that this resultant pleasure was not one of the two initial pleasures, one does not face the problem of having to choose arbitrarily the pleasure that will survive. Objections However, the relative advantage of the fusion model with respect to the remainder model constitutes also its main weakness. The remainder model has an answer to the question "What does the algedonic balance correspond to at the moment of the co-occurrence to the feelings?". This algedonic balance corresponds to the pleasure or unpleasure that will survive (see page 339). But there is, ex hypothesis, no such future survivor on the battlefield according to the fusion model: this is the price to pay if one is to explain the summations of different pleasures, of or pleasures and unpleasures of different intensities. The fusion model, therefore, appears to change the subject: the only resultant algedonic episode that it provides us with, is an episode that occurs after the co-occurrent feelings. But we were looking for an episode corresponding to their algedonic balance during their occurrence. The fusion model is then committed, willy-nilly, to anti-realism about resultant algedonic episodes. Adherents of the fusion model have to deny that any resultant algedonic episodes co-occur with the co-occurrent first-order pleasures/unpleasures. 344 APPENDIX F. MIXED FEELINGS (2): THE SUMMATION PROBLEM To conclude, resultant algedonic episodes not only lack strong arguments in their favor, but also raise insuperable difficulties as soon as we try to get clear about what they are. Either they are distinct from the component algedonic episodes, but they should then be counted in the hedonic balance, thus leading to paradoxes. Or they are not distinct from component pleasures and unpleasures, but we then fail to find a convincing account of the way they result from component pleasures and unpleasures (mutual destruction and fusion both fail). One might therefore conclude that the algedonic balance is a mathematical artefact with no psychological counterparts. Glossary absence of pain theory of pleasure: x is pleasant =df x is the absence of any pain. affective value: x is affectively good for P=dfP has a pro-attitude directed towards x. (Pro-attitudes might be conative –desire, will, wish...– or non-conative –love, respect, admiration...). agent-relative value: x is good relative to an agent A =df x's goodness grounds some special obligation incurring to A either: (i) to himself favour x (accomplish, bring about, preserve, protect...) rather than seeing to it that others favour x; or: (ii) to favour x's which are close to him rather that favouring other y's intrinsically similar to x but farther to him. algedonic balance: result of the summation of the (positive) intensities of all the pleasures and of the (negative) intensities of all the unpleasures of an individual at a time. algedonic episode: episode which is either a pleasure or an unpleasure. algedonic reductionism: unpleasures might be defined without appealing to unpleasures. algedonic sensations: bodily episodes which are (i) non-mental (ii) possibly felt or sensed (iii) good or bad for the body of the subject. algedonic theory of emotions: theory according to which all emotions are pleasures or unpleasures. 345 346 APPENDIX F. MIXED FEELINGS (2): THE SUMMATION PROBLEM algesic reductionism: unpleasures might be defined without appealing to unpleasures. appreciative value: x is appreciatively good for P=df P holds x to be good. (That "holding" might be a belief, a thought, a judgment, a declaration, a perception, a feeling, etc. that x is V). axiological hedonic dualism: version of hedonic dualism according to which pleasures of the body are monadic sui generis axiological sensory qualities. (Scheler, Mulligan) axiological hedonism: thesis according to which pleasure is the only thing of intrinsic value. axiological immanent realism: all values depend existentially and generically on some bearer(s), which might, or might not, actually exist. axiological theory of pleasure (ATP): x is a pleasure=df x is a mental episode that exemplifies an hedonic value. bodily pleasures: pleasures whose objects are algedonic sensations. consecutive value: x has a consecutive value relative to y=df x is (dis)valuable because (i) y is (dis)valuable (x 6=y) (ii) x is externally dependent on y. constitutive value: x has a constitutive value relative to y=df x is (dis)valuable because (i) y is (dis)valuable (x 6=y) (ii) x is internally dependent on y. containment: the relation between a thing and its essential properties. contradiction: two predicates are contradictory iff (i) they are contrary and (ii) if one is not true of a subject at a time, the other is true of that subject at that time. contrariety: two predicates are contrary iff they have the same range and are incompatible. contributory value: x has a contributory value relative to y=df x is (dis)valuable because (i) y is (dis)valuable (x 6=y) (ii) y is internally dependent on x. conventional polar opposition: type of pseudo polar opposition introduced conventionally by the assignation of a zero or neutral value to an inner point of an continuum. F.3. AGAINST RESULTANT PLEASURES 347 dependent mixed feelings: occurrence of several contrary algedonic episodes in a same subject at the same time, the ones being existentially dependent on the others. derivative value: x has a derivative value relative to y=df x is (dis)valuable because y is (dis)valuable (x 6=y). desired episode theory of pleasure: x is a pleasure of S=df x is a mental episode of S and S intrinsically desires that x occurs. desired episode theory of pleasure (1): x is a pleasure of S=df x is a mental episode of S occurring at t and S intrinsically desires at t that x occurs at t. desired episode theory of pleasure (2): x is a pleasure of S=df x is a mental episode of S occurring at t, and S intrinsically desires at t that x continues to occur after t. distinctive-feeling: mental episode which is neither intentional nor dependent on any other mental episode. distinctive-feeling view of pleasure: pleasures are non-intentional mental episodes essentially independent from any other mental episode. edifying value: x is edifyingly good for P=df P's overall value is increased by x. end of pain theory of pleasure: x is pleasant =df x is the end of a pain. episode: existentially dependent entity whose mode of being is temporal. essential dependence: x essentially depends on y =df x's nature depends on y essential mereologism: if x is essential to y, then x is a part of y. evaluative pleasure: x is an evaluative pleasure=df x is pleasant because its object is or has a value. event: punctual episode which is the boundary of a process or a state. exemplification: the relation between a thing and its accidental properties. existential dependence: x existentially depends on y=df x's existence depends on y. 348 APPENDIX F. MIXED FEELINGS (2): THE SUMMATION PROBLEM external metaphysical necessity: x is F as a matter of external metaphysical necessity=df x is F in virtue of its essence and F is not part of the essence of x. external ontological dependence: x externally depends on y=df x ontologically depends on y and y is not a part of x. extreme scalar opposition: contrariety between predicates which bound an order. final value: value which is neither an instrumental nor a contributory value, i.e. value that accrues to an entity not because some other entity of (more) fundamental value depends on it. fundamental value: x has a fundamental value relative to y=df x is not (dis)valuable because y is (dis)valuable (x 6=y). hedonic anti-realism: pleasures are by definition episodes towards which some intentional act distinct from themselves is directed. hedonic dualism: version of hedonic pluralism according to which pleasures of the body and pleasures of the mind belong to two distinct and heterogeneous natural kinds: pleasures of the mind are pro-attitudes, pleasures of the body are non-intentional sensory qualities. hedonic intentionalism: theory according to which all pleasures are intentional episodes. hedonic monism: view according to which all pleasures share a common bona fide essential property. hedonic pluralism: view according to which not all pleasures share a common bona fide essential property. hedonic realism: pleasures are episodes which are not by definition episodes towards which some intentional act distinct from themselves is directed.(= pleasures are episodes which are by nature independent of any intentional acts that takes them as their object). hedonic reductionism: pleasures might be defined without appealing to pleasures. hedonic strong anti-realism: pleasures are by definition pleasure-episodes towards which some intentional act is directed. F.3. AGAINST RESULTANT PLEASURES 349 hedonic theory of emotions: theory according to which all positive emotions are pleasures. hedonic tone host theory of pleasure: x is a pleasure =df x is a mental episode that exemplifies a primitive phenomenological quality, the hedonic tone. hedonic tone parasite theory of pleasure: x is a pleasure =df x is a primitive phenomenological quality, the hedonic tone, of a mental episode. hedonic tone: monadic, intrinsic and simple property whose bearers are mental episodes, which is either positive or negative, which can vary in intensity, with which one can be acquainted, which is neither intentional nor axiological. hedonic weak anti-realism: pleasures are by definition episodes which are not pleasures towards which some intentional act distinct from themselves is directed. host-theories of pleasures: pleasures are complete and complex mental episodes, composed of (i) an incomplete hedonic-making episode or property (hedonic tone, hedonic goodness...) and (ii) a non-hedonic mental episode on which the hedonic-making episode depends ontologically. incompatibility: two predicates are incompatible iff they cannot be true of the same subject at the same time. indolence: x is an indolence =df x is neither pleasant nor unpleasant and x is of the category of things that could be pleasant or unpleasant. instrumental value: x has a instrumental value relative to y=df x is (dis)valuable because (i) y is (dis)valuable (x 6=y) (ii) y is externally dependent on x. intentional dependency of pleasure: each pleasure P essentially depends on an intentional episode (i) which is not a pleasure (ii) whose object is distinct from P. intentional internal dependency of pleasure: each pleasure P taken in an object O essentially contains as an essential proper part an intentional episode directed at O (O 6=P). intentionalist axiological theory of pleasure (IATP): x is a pleasure=df x is an intentional episode that exemplifies an hedonic value. 350 APPENDIX F. MIXED FEELINGS (2): THE SUMMATION PROBLEM internal metaphysical necessity: x is F as a matter of internal metaphysical necessity=df x is F in virtue of its essence and F is part of the essence of x. internal ontological dependence: x internally depends on y=df x ontologically depends on y and y is part of x. intrinsic desire: S intrinsically desires that x occurs=df S desires that x occurs and S does not desire that x occurs only because [S desires that y occurs (x 6=y) and S thinks (feels, expects...) that the occurrence of y depends on the occurrence of x]. intrinsic value (1): x has an intrinsic value V=df x's value, V, supervenes on x's natural intrinsic properties. intrinsic value (2): x as an intrinsic value V=df x has an intrinsic property V, which is is a value. lexical polar opposition: type of pseudo polar opposition introduced by the existence in the lexicon of a predicative or functorial simple expression B( ) substitutable for the predicative or functorial complex expression A non-( ). mental act: x is a mental act =df x is intentionally directed towards some object distinct from itself. mental episode: x is a mental episode =df x is constituted, at least, by a mental act and an object, the mental act being intentionally directed towards the object. mereological essentialism: if x is a part of y, then x is essential to y. mixed feelings: occurrence of several contrary algedonic episodes in a same subject at the same time. natural hedonic dualism: version of hedonic dualism according to which pleasures of the body are monadic sui generis non-axiological sensory qualities. (Stumpf, Husserl) natural property: a property which is not a value property. neutral opposition: contrariety between a predicate of negative or positive sign and a neutral predicate. F.3. AGAINST RESULTANT PLEASURES 351 opposition: two predicates are opposites iff (i) they are contraries (ii) that are not contradictories. ownership value: x has an ownership value for P=df x belongs to P and is good simpliciter, or x's belonging to P is good simpliciter. parasite-theories of pleasures: pleasures are incomplete episodes, that ontologically depend on (non-hedonic) mental episodes wholly distinct from the pleasures. perceptualist theory of pleasure: x is a pleasure =df x is the perception, intuition, apprehension, feeling... of a positive value or of something of positive value. phenomenal (1): x is phenomenal=df x's nature is revealed in our experience of it. phenomenal (2): x is phenomenal=df (i) x's nature is revealed in our experience of it (ii) x is necessarily experienced as a matter of external necessity (i.e. x is necessarily experienced in virtue of its nature, but it is not part of x's nature to be experienced). phenomenal (3): x is phenomenal=df (part of) x's nature is to be experienced. pleasant: that is a pleasure (=pleasure-making) pleasantness: the property (whatever it is) in virtue of which its bearer is a pleasure pleasing: that gives pleasure (=pleasure-giving) pleasingness: the property of giving pleasure pleasurable: which has a pleasure as a part. pleasurableness: property of having a pleasant part. polar opposition: contrariety between predicates of opposed signs (+/-), in between which a predicate of null value is found. primitivist axiological theory of pleasure: x is a pleasure=df x is a mental episode that exemplifies a primitive thick value: hedonic goodness. private value: x is privately good for P =df only P can access x's value. 352 APPENDIX F. MIXED FEELINGS (2): THE SUMMATION PROBLEM process: temporally extended episode whose adjacent parts are qualitatively distinct. pseudo-polar opposition: contrariety between predicates of opposed signs (+/-), (i) in between which a predicate of null value is found, and (ii) which does not correspond to any such contrariety between the properties expressed by those predicates. psychological hedonism: theory according to which pleasure is the only thing that humans can intrinsically desire. quality of pleasantness: two determinate pleasantnesses differ in quality if they differ in something else than in their intensity. real-polar opposition: contrariety between predicates of opposed signs (+/-), (i) in between which a predicate of null value is found, and (ii) which does correspond to an analogous contrariety between the properties expressed by those predicates. recovering from pain theory of pleasure: x is pleasant =df x is the decrease of a pain. reductionist axiological theory of pleasure (RATP): x is a pleasure of a person P=df x is a mental episode of P which is finally good for P. reductionist intentionalist axiological theory of pleasure (RIATP): x is a pleasure of person P=df x x is an intentional episode of P which is finally good for P. relational hedonic dualism: version of hedonic dualism according to which pleasures of the body are intrinsically enjoyed sensory qualities. (Feldman) resultant algedonic episode: sui generis algedonic episode corresponding to the algedonic balance of a subject; i.e. an algedonic episode of S occuring at t, resulting necessarily from all the co-occurrent algedonic episodes of S at t, and being distinct from them. right-side intentional verbs: verbs take the intending subject as their grammatical subject, and the intended object as their direct object (e.g.: "S sees O."). scalar opposition: contrariety between predicates that belong to a same order. F.3. AGAINST RESULTANT PLEASURES 353 standard view about the value of pleasures: the final value of pleasures supervenes on their pleasantness, which is a natural (=non-axiological) property. 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