Abstract
What makes it the case that a given experience is pleasurable? According to the felt-quality theory, each pleasurable experience is pleasurable because of the way that it feels—its “qualitative character” or “felt-quality”. According to the attitudinal theory, each pleasurable experience is pleasurable because the experiencer takes certain attitudes towards it. These two theories of pleasure are typically framed as rivals, but it could be that they are both partly right. It could be that pleasure is partly a matter of felt-quality, and partly a matter of attitudes. It could be that a hybrid theory is true. In this paper, I aim to advance the cause of hybrid theories of pleasure. I do this in two ways. I begin by examining the challenges which motivate the search for a hybrid theory. I call these the HONEST challenges: Heterogeneity, Oppositeness, Normativity, Euthyphro, Separateness, and Togetherness. The first three challenges—HON—are challenges for the felt-quality theory. The second three challenges—EST—are challenges for the attitudinal theory. Having established the HONEST challenges, I then describe and motivate a particular cluster of hybrid theories which I will call dispositional hybrid theories. According to these theories, pleasurable experiences are all and only those experiences which dispose us to desire them in virtue of feeling the way that they do. The dispositional theories deliver on the promise of hybrid theories: because they appeal to both felt-qualities and attitudes, they have the resources to avoid most, if not all, of the HONEST challenges.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The distinctive feeling theory is sometimes conflated with the pure monist theory. But these are different theories. Ben Bramble clearly denies that all pleasurable experiences feel exactly alike (2013, p. 202). He affirms that there is a distinctive feeling of pleasure, but he does not insist that pleasures are all and only instances of that very feeling. Rather, he argues that all and only pleasures "include" or "involve" that feeling.
These representationalist theories are not generally classified as versions of the felt-quality theory, but it’s not obvious why they are not so classified. David Bain is an exception—he recognizes that his preferred representationalist theory is as much a "phenomenological theory" or "feeling theory" as are traditional felt-quality theories (2017, p. 41). It is a theory on which pleasures are pleasurable because in virtue of their felt-qualities.
The particularist theory seems unsatisfying; it seems to be a radically disunified theory of pleasure. Still, it's worth noting that the particularist theory is another theory in the logical space of felt-quality theories.
We often talk as if pain is the opposite of pleasure, but that's not quite right. “Pleasure" can be used as a synonym for "pleasurable experience". But "pain" is not a synonym for "unpleasurable experience". There are unpleasurable experiences which are not painful; for example: nausea, itchiness, and vertigo. So "pleasure" picks out a broader category of experience than does "pain". For more on the relationship between unpleasure, pleasure, and pain, see Rachels (2004).
Ultimately, Heathwood is concerned with felt-quality theories of unpleasure, not pain (2007b, pp. 41–43). He takes unpleasure, not pain, to be the opposite of pleasure. His reasons mirror my own—see n.4.
The claim that all pleasures make you better-off is consistent with the claim that some pleasures also make you worse-off. Perhaps you do not deserve to feel pleasure, and you are made worse-off to the extent that you get something you do not deserve. In that case, it your pleasure might make you both better- and worse-off. It makes you better-off because it is pleasurable, and it makes you worse-off because it is underserved. So even if we claim that some pleasures make you worse-off, we could also claim that all pleasure make you better-off.
This is a somewhat loose way of talking. Strictly speaking, on Heathwood's theory, the object of my desire is not the experience as such. Rather, I desire of the experience that it be occurring. For the sake of readability—and following Heathwood—I will continue to talk in a loose way about desiring experiences. This should be understood as a shorthand for talking about desiring that certain experiences be occurring.
Jessica Moss provides a helpful exploration of Aristotle’s views on desire and the so-called guise of the good. See Moss (2010).
These arguments involve some refinements of Heathwood's theory as I have described it. But these refinements don't matter much for our purposes. So I'll continue to use contemporaneous de re non-derivative desire as a proxy for whichever attitude is implicated in the best version of the attitudinal theory.
For what it's worth, I rank the forcefulness of the six challenges as follows, from most forceful to least forceful: (1) Heterogeneity, (2) Togetherness, (3) Normativity, (4) Euthyphro, (5) Separateness, (6) Oppositeness. Taken together, I consider the challenges for felt-quality theories to be about as forceful as the challenges for attitudinal theories.
The conjunctive theory entails E2; it entails that the fact that my chocolate-experience e(Qc) is a pleasure for me because I desire e(Qc). So, if we accept the conjunctive theory, we cannot accept E1. We cannot accept that I desire e(Qc) for the reason that e(Qc) is pleasurable. However, conjunctive theorists can say something very much in the ballpark of E1. They can say that I desire e(Qc) for the reason that it involves the distinctive feeling of pleasure.
There is some room to debate whether or not the conjunctive theory avoids the Oppositeness challenge. One might claim that it does avoid the Oppositeness challenge, on the grounds that—according to the conjunctive theory—pleasure and unpleasure essentially involve attitudes which are opposites of each other. But I do not think it is so easy for the conjunctive theory to escape the Oppositeness challenge. The theory posits that there are distinctive feelings of pleasure and unpleasure. Proponents of the theory ought to explain the sense in which these feelings are opposites. In this respect, they are in the same position as proponents of the distinctive feeling theory of pleasure. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for raising this point.
The disjunctive theory does not allow that there be experiences which are desired, but which are not pleasures. It does allow that there be experiences which are pleasures, but which are not desired.
Eden Lin addresses the Heterogeneity challenge at some length. He grants that an experience of eating salty peanuts feels nothing like an experience of sunbathing. But he denies that those experiences are pleasures. Instead, on the composite theory, those experiences are partly constitutive of pleasures. The peanut-experience partly constitutes a peanut-pleasure; the sunbathing-experience partly constitutes a sunbathing-pleasure. And those pleasures do feel alike. Speaking for myself, I am not sure how to take Lin's proposal. Setting aside theory for a moment: I know what it's like to eat peanuts, and I know what it's like to sunbathe. Those experiences are pleasurable, and they seem to feel nothing alike. So it seems to me that the composite theory is on a par with the distinctive feeling theory. According to the distinctive feeling theory, there is a distinctive feeling of pleasure which partly constitutes all pleasures. On the composite theory, there is a distinctive attitudinal feeling which partly constitutes all pleasures. I don't see why a distinctive attitudinal feeling should be any less problematic than a distinctive feeling of pleasure. So it's not clear to me how Lin's proposal addresses the Heterogeneity challenge.
One might worry that the weak dispositional theory gets the wrong results in some of the Separateness cases. Recall Aaron Smuts’ case, in which he watches Two Scenes from a Marriage. Smuts finds the experience crushing—and not at all pleasurable—but he intrinsically desires it. Presumably, he is robustly disposed to react to the movie in this way. Doesn’t the dispositional theory entail—erroneously—that his experience is pleasant? I don’t think so. Smuts might be disposed to desire the experiences he gets from watching Two Scenes from a Marriage, but he is not disposed to desire experiences of crushing sadness. He desires those experiences only in very specific circumstances: when he watching a film and is poised for aesthetic appreciation. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for raising this point.
For more on the sociology of Hume’s Dictum, as well as a thorough examination of the thesis, see Wilson (2010).
The necessitation theory has a spiritual predecessor in the theory of pleasure described by Thomas Sprigge. On Sprigge's view, pleasurable experiences are pleasurable because they feel the way that they do. But Sprigge urges that we “not be afraid of the idea that pleasures and pains are of their very nature liable to affect behavior in certain directions” (1987, pp. 131–132).
References
Alston, W. P. (1967). Pleasure. In P. Edwards (Ed.), The encyclopedia of philosophy (pp. 6–341). New York: Macmillan.
Aydede, M. (2018). A contemporary account of sensory pleasure. In L. Shapiro (Ed.), Pleasure: A history. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bain, D. (2013). What makes pains unpleasant? Philosophical Studies, 166(1), 69–89.
Bain, D. (2017). Evaluativist accounts of pain’s unpleasantness. In J. Corns (Ed.), The routledge hand-book of the philosophy of pain (pp. 40–50). London: Routledge.
Bramble, B. (2013). The distinctive feeling theory of pleasure. Philosophical Studies, 162(2), 201–217.
Bramble, B. (2018). The role of pleasure in well-being. In G. Fletcher (Ed.), Routledge handbook of the philosophy of well-being. Abingdon: Routledge.
Brandt, R. B. (1979). A theory of the good and the right. Buffalo: Prometheus Books.
Carson, T. L. (2000). Value and the good life. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Crisp, R. (2006). Reasons and the good. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Cutter, B., & Tye, M. (2011). Tracking representationalism and the painfulness of pain. Philosophical Issues, 21(1), 90–109.
Cutter, B., & Tye, M. (2014). Pains and reasons: Why it is rational to kill the messenger. Philosophical Quarterly, 64(256), 423–433.
Feldman, F. (1988). Two questions about pleasure. In D. F. Austin (Ed.), Philosophical analysis (pp. 59–81). Berlin: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Feldman, F. (2001). Hedonism. In L. C. Becker & C. B. Becker (Eds.), The encyclopedia of ethics (pp. 662–669). New York: Routledge.
Feldman, F. (2004). Pleasure and the good life: Concerning the nature, varieties, and plausibility of hedonism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Feldman, F. (2018). Unconscious pleasures and pains: A problem for attitudinal theories? Utilitas, 30(4), 472–482.
Goldstein, I. (1980). Why people prefer pleasure to pain. Philosophy, 55(July), 349–362.
Goldstein, I. (1989). Pleasure and pain: Unconditional intrinsic values. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 50(December), 255–276.
Hall, R. J. (1989). Are pains necessarily unpleasant? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 49(June), 643–659.
Hawthorne, J. (2004). Why Humeans are out of their minds. Noûs, 38(2), 351–358.
Heathwood, C. (2007a). Review of roger crisp, Reasons and the Good. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2007(7). http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=10363.
Heathwood, C. (2007b). The reduction of sensory pleasure to desire. Philosophical Studies, 133(1), 23–44.
Heathwood, C. (2011). Desire-based theories of reasons, pleasure, and welfare. Oxford Studies in Metaethics, 6, 79–106.
Heathwood, C. (2018). Unconscious pleasures and attitudinal theories of pleasure. Utilitas, 30(2), 219–227.
Kagan, S. (1992). The limits of well-being. Social Philosophy and Policy, 9(2), 169–189.
Kahane, G. (2009). Pain, dislike and experience. Utilitas, 21(3), 327–336.
Kahane, G. (2016). Pain, experience, and well-being. In G. Fletcher (Ed.), The routledge handbook of philosophy of well-being. Abingdon: Routledge.
Klocksiem, J. (2010). Pleasure, desire and oppositeness. Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 2, 1–7.
Lin, E. (2018b). Attitudinal and phenomenological theories of pleasure. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. https://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.12558.
Martínez, M. (2011). Imperative content and the painfulness of pain. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 10(1), 67–90.
Millikan, R. (2005). Language: A biological model. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Moen, O. M. (2013). The unity and commensurability of pleasures and pains. Philosophia, 41(2), 527–543.
Moore, G. E., & Baldwin, T. (1993). Principia ethica (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mørch, H. H. (2014). Panpsychism and causation: A new argument and a solution to the combination problem. Dissertation, Oslo.
Moss, J. (2010). Aristotle’s non-trivial non-insane, view that everyone always desires things under the guise of the good. In S. Tenenbaum (Ed.), Desire, practical reason, and the good (p. 65). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Oddie, G. (2005). Value, reality, and desire. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Papineau, D. (1984). Representation and explanation. Philosophy of Science, 51(December), 550–572.
Parfit, D. (2011). On what matters: Two-volume set. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rachels, S. (2000). Is unpleasantness intrinsic to unpleasant experiences? Philosophical Studies, 99(2), 187–210.
Rachels, S. (2004). Six theses about pleasure. Philosophical Perspectives, 18(1), 247–267.
Scanlon, T. (1998). What we owe to each other. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Schroeder, M. (2007). Slaves of the passions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sidgwick, H. (1981). The methods of ethics. Lomdon: Hackett.
Smuts, A. (2011). The feels good theory of pleasure. Philosophical Studies, 155(2), 241–265.
Sobel, D. (2002). Varieties of hedonism. Journal of Social Philosophy, 33(2), 240–256.
Sobel, D. (2005). Pain for objectivists: The case of matters of mere taste. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 8(4), 437–457.
Sprigge, T. L. S. (1987). The rational foundations of ethics. Abingdon: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Stampe, D. W. (1987). The authority of desire. Philosophical Review, 96(July), 335–381.
Wilson, J. (2010). What is Hume’s Dictum, and why believe it? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 80(3), 595–637.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Pallies, D. An honest look at hybrid theories of pleasure. Philos Stud 178, 887–907 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01464-5
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01464-5