essay on nature as a source of happiness and pleasure

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How nature can make you kinder, happier, and more creative, we are spending more time indoors and online. but recent studies suggest that nature can help our brains and bodies to stay healthy..

I’ve been an avid hiker my whole life. From the time I first strapped on a backpack and headed into the Sierra Nevada Mountains, I was hooked on the experience, loving the way being in nature cleared my mind and helped me to feel more grounded and peaceful.

But, even though I’ve always believed that hiking in nature had many psychological benefits, I’ve never had much science to back me up…until now, that is. Scientists are beginning to find evidence that being in nature has a profound impact on our brains and our behavior, helping us to reduce anxiety, brooding, and stress, and increase our attention capacity, creativity, and our ability to connect with other people.

“People have been discussing their profound experiences in nature for the last several 100 years—from Thoreau to John Muir to many other writers,” says researcher David Strayer, of the University of Utah. “Now we are seeing changes in the brain and changes in the body that suggest we are physically and mentally more healthy when we are interacting with nature.”

While he and other scientists may believe nature benefits our well-being, we live in a society where people spend more and more time indoors and online—especially children. Findings on how nature improves our brains brings added legitimacy to the call for preserving natural spaces—both urban and wild—and for spending more time in nature in order to lead healthier, happier, and more creative lives.

Here are some of the ways that science is showing how being in nature affects our brains and bodies.

1. Being in nature decreases stress

It’s clear that hiking—and any physical activity—can reduce stress and anxiety. But, there’s something about being in nature that may augment those impacts.

In one recent experiment conducted in Japan, participants were assigned to walk either in a forest or in an urban center (taking walks of equal length and difficulty) while having their heart rate variability, heart rate, and blood pressure measured. The participants also filled out questionnaires about their moods, stress levels, and other psychological measures.

Results showed that those who walked in forests had significantly lower heart rates and higher heart rate variability (indicating more relaxation and less stress), and reported better moods and less anxiety, than those who walked in urban settings. The researchers concluded that there’s something about being in nature that had a beneficial effect on stress reduction, above and beyond what exercise alone might have produced.

In another study , researchers in Finland found that urban dwellers who strolled for as little as 20 minutes through an urban park or woodland reported significantly more stress relief than those who strolled in a city center.

The reasons for this effect are unclear; but scientists believe that we evolved to be more relaxed in natural spaces. In a now-classic laboratory experiment by Roger Ulrich of Texas A&M University and colleagues, participants who first viewed a stress-inducing movie, and were then exposed to color/sound videotapes depicting natural scenes, showed much quicker, more complete recovery from stress than those who’d been exposed to videos of urban settings.

These studies and others provide evidence that being in natural spaces— or even just looking out of a window onto a natural scene—somehow soothes us and relieves stress.

2. Nature makes you happier and less brooding

I’ve always found that hiking in nature makes me feel happier, and of course decreased stress may be a big part of the reason why. But, Gregory Bratman, of Stanford University, has found evidence that nature may impact our mood in other ways, too.

In one 2015 study , he and his colleagues randomly assigned 60 participants to a 50-minute walk in either a natural setting (oak woodlands) or an urban setting (along a four-lane road). Before and after the walk, the participants were assessed on their emotional state and on cognitive measures, such as how well they could perform tasks requiring short-term memory. Results showed that those who walked in nature experienced less anxiety, rumination (focused attention on negative aspects of oneself), and negative affect, as well as more positive emotions, in comparison to the urban walkers. They also improved their performance on the memory tasks.

In another study, he and his colleagues extended these findings by zeroing in on how walking in nature affects rumination—which has been associated with the onset of depression and anxiety—while also using fMRI technology to look at brain activity. Participants who took a 90-minute walk in either a natural setting or an urban setting had their brains scanned before and after their walks and were surveyed on self-reported rumination levels (as well as other psychological markers). The researchers controlled for many potential factors that might influence rumination or brain activity—for example, physical exertion levels as measured by heart rates and pulmonary functions.

Even so, participants who walked in a natural setting versus an urban setting reported decreased rumination after the walk, and they showed increased activity in the subgenual prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain whose deactivation is affiliated with depression and anxiety—a finding that suggests nature may have important impacts on mood.

Bratman believes results like these need to reach city planners and others whose policies impact our natural spaces. “Ecosystem services are being incorporated into decision making at all levels of public policy, land use planning, and urban design, and it’s very important to be sure to incorporate empirical findings from psychology into these decisions,” he says.

3. Nature relieves attention fatigue and increases creativity.

Today, we live with ubiquitous technology designed to constantly pull for our attention. But many scientists believe our brains were not made for this kind of information bombardment, and that it can lead to mental fatigue, overwhelm, and burnout, requiring “attention restoration” to get back to a normal, healthy state.

Strayer is one of those researchers. He believes that being in nature restores depleted attention circuits, which can then help us be more open to creativity and problem-solving.

“When you use your cell phone to talk, text, shoot photos, or whatever else you can do with your cell phone, you’re tapping the prefrontal cortex and causing reductions in cognitive resources,” he says.

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In a 2012 study , he and his colleagues showed that hikers on a four-day backpacking trip could solve significantly more puzzles requiring creativity when compared to a control group of people waiting to take the same hike—in fact, 47 percent more. Although other factors may account for his results—for example, the exercise or the camaraderie of being out together—prior studies have suggested that nature itself may play an important role. One in Psychological Science found that the impact of nature on attention restoration is what accounted for improved scores on cognitive tests for the study participants.

This phenomenon may be due to differences in brain activation when viewing natural scenes versus more built-up scenes—even for those who normally live in an urban environment. In a recent study conducted by Peter Aspinall at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, and colleagues, participants who had their brains monitored continuously using mobile electroencephalogram (EEG) while they walked through an urban green space had brain EEG readings indicating lower frustration, engagement, and arousal, and higher meditation levels while in the green area, and higher engagement levels when moving out of the green area. This lower engagement and arousal may be what allows for attention restoration, encouraging a more open, meditative mindset.

It’s this kind of brain activity—sometimes referred to as “the brain default network”—that is tied to creative thinking , says Strayer. He is currently repeating his earlier 2012 study with a new group of hikers and recording their EEG activity and salivary cortisol levels before, during, and after a three-day hike. Early analyses of EEG readings support the theory that hiking in nature seems to rest people’s attention networks and to engage their default networks.

Strayer and colleagues are also specifically looking at the effects of technology by monitoring people’s EEG readings while they walk in an arboretum, either while talking on their cell phone or not. So far, they’ve found that participants with cell phones appear to have EEG readings consistent with attention overload, and can recall only half as many details of the arboretum they just passed through, compared to those who were not on a cell phone.

Though Strayer’s findings are preliminary, they are consistent with other people’s findings on the importance of nature to attention restoration and creativity.

“If you’ve been using your brain to multitask—as most of us do most of the day—and then you set that aside and go on a walk, without all of the gadgets, you’ve let the prefrontal cortex recover,” says Strayer. “And that’s when we see these bursts in creativity, problem-solving, and feelings of well-being.”

4. Nature may help you to be kind and generous

Whenever I go to places like Yosemite or the Big Sur Coast of California, I seem to return to my home life ready to be more kind and generous to those around me—just ask my husband and kids! Now some new studies may shed light on why that is.

In a series of experiments published in 2014, Juyoung Lee, GGSC director Dacher Keltner, and other researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, studied the potential impact of nature on the willingness to be generous, trusting, and helpful toward others, while considering what factors might influence that relationship.

As part of their study, the researchers exposed participants to more or less subjectively beautiful nature scenes (whose beauty levels were rated independently) and then observed how participants behaved playing two economics games—the Dictator Game and the Trust Game—that measure generosity and trust, respectively. After being exposed to the more beautiful nature scenes, participants acted more generously and more trusting in the games than those who saw less beautiful scenes, and the effects appeared to be due to corresponding increases in positive emotion.

In another part of the study, the researchers asked people to fill out a survey about their emotions while sitting at a table where more or less beautiful plants were placed. Afterwards, the participants were told that the experiment was over and they could leave, but that if they wanted to they could volunteer to make paper cranes for a relief effort program in Japan. The number of cranes they made (or didn’t make) was used as a measure of their “prosociality” or willingness to help.

Results showed that the presence of more beautiful plants significantly increased the number of cranes made by participants, and that this increase was, again, mediated by positive emotion elicited by natural beauty. The researchers concluded that experiencing the beauty of nature increases positive emotion—perhaps by inspiring awe, a feeling akin to wonder, with the sense of being part of something bigger than oneself—which then leads to prosocial behaviors.

Support for this theory comes from an experiment conducted by Paul Piff of the University of California, Irvine, and colleagues, in which participants staring up a grove of very tall trees for as little as one minute experienced measurable increases in awe, and demonstrated more helpful behavior and approached moral dilemmas more ethically, than participants who spent the same amount of time looking up at a high building.

5. Nature makes you “feel more alive”

With all of these benefits to being out in nature, it’s probably no surprise that something about nature makes us feel more alive and vital . Being outdoors gives us energy, makes us happier, helps us to relieve the everyday stresses of our overscheduled lives, opens the door to creativity, and helps us to be kind to others.

No one knows if there is an ideal amount of nature exposure, though Strayer says that longtime backpackers suggest a minimum of three days to really unplug from our everyday lives. Nor can anyone say for sure how nature compares to other forms of stress relief or attention restoration, such as sleep or meditation. Both Strayer and Bratman say we need a lot more careful research to tease out these effects before we come to any definitive conclusions.

Still, the research does suggest there’s something about nature that keeps us psychologically healthy, and that’s good to know…especially since nature is a resource that’s free and that many of us can access by just walking outside our door. Results like these should encourage us as a society to consider more carefully how we preserve our wilderness spaces and our urban parks.

And while the research may not be conclusive, Strayer is optimistic that science will eventually catch up to what people like me have intuited all along—that there’s something about nature that renews us, allowing us to feel better, to think better, and to deepen our understanding of ourselves and others.

“You can’t have centuries of people writing about this and not have something going on,” says Strayer. “If you are constantly on a device or in front of a screen, you’re missing out on something that’s pretty spectacular: the real world.”

About the Author

Jill Suttie

Jill Suttie, Psy.D. , is Greater Good ’s former book review editor and now serves as a staff writer and contributing editor for the magazine. She received her doctorate of psychology from the University of San Francisco in 1998 and was a psychologist in private practice before coming to Greater Good .

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1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology

Philosophy, One Thousand Words at a Time

Happiness: What is it to be Happy?

Author: Kiki Berk Category: Ethics , Phenomenology and Existentialism Words: 992

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Do you want to be happy? If you’re like most people, then yes, you do.

But what is happiness? What does it mean to be “happy”? [1]

This essay discusses four major philosophical theories of happiness. [2]

1. Hedonism

According to hedonism, happiness is simply the experience of pleasure. [3] A happy person has a lot more pleasure than displeasure (pain) in her life. To be happy, then, is just to feel good. In other words, there’s no difference between being happy and feeling happy.

Famous hedonists include the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus and the modern English philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. [4] These philosophers all took happiness to include intellectual pleasures (such as reading a book) in addition to physical pleasures (such as having sex).

Although we associate being happy with feeling good, many philosophers think that hedonism is mistaken.

First, it’s possible to be happy without feeling good (such as when a happy person has a toothache), and it’s also possible to feel good without being happy (such as when an unhappy person gets a massage). Since happiness and pleasure can come apart, they can’t be the same thing.

Second, happiness and pleasure seem to have different properties. Pleasures are often fleeting, simple, and superficial (think of the pleasure involved in eating ice cream), whereas happiness is supposed to be lasting, complex, and profound. Things with different properties can’t be identical, so happiness can’t be the same thing as pleasure.

These arguments suggest that happiness and pleasure aren’t identical. That being said, it’s hard to imagine a happy person who never feels good. So, perhaps happiness involves pleasure without being identical to it.

2. Virtue Theory

According to virtue theory, happiness is the result of cultivating the virtues—both moral and intellectual—such as wisdom, courage, temperance, and patience. A happy person must be sufficiently virtuous. To be happy, then, is to cultivate excellence and to flourish as a result. This view is famously held by Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. [5]

Linking happiness to virtue has the advantage of treating happiness as a lasting, complex, and profound phenomenon. It also explains how happiness and pleasure can come apart, since a person can be virtuous without feeling good, and a person can feel good without being virtuous.

In spite of these advantages, however, virtue theory is questionable. An important part of being virtuous is being morally good. But are immoral people always unhappy? Arguably not. Many bad people seem happy in spite of—or even because of—their unsavory actions. And a similar point can be made about intellectual virtue: unwise or irrational people aren’t always unhappy, either. In fact, some of these people seem happy as a direct result of their intellectual deficiencies. “Ignorance is bliss,” the saying goes!

But virtue theorists have a response here. Maybe some immoral people seem happy, on the surface; but that doesn’t mean that they are truly happy, at some deeper level. And the same thing can be said about people who lack the intellectual virtues: ignorance may lead to bliss, but that bliss isn’t true happiness. So, there seems to be some room for debate on these issues.

3. Desire Satisfaction Theory

According to the desire satisfaction theory, happiness consists in getting what you want—whatever that happens to be. A happy person has many of her desires satisfied; and the more her desires are satisfied, the happier she is.

Even though getting what you want can be a source of happiness, identifying happiness with desire satisfaction is problematic.

To start, this implies that the only way to become happier is by satisfying a desire. This seems wrong. Sometimes our happiness is increased by getting something we didn’t previously want—such as a surprise birthday party or getting stuck taking care of a neighbor’s cat. This implies that desire satisfaction is not necessary for happiness.

Desire satisfaction is not always sufficient for happiness, either. Unfortunately, it is common for people to feel disappointed when they get what they want. Many accomplishments, such as earning a degree or winning a tournament, simply don’t bring the long-lasting happiness that we expect. [6]

So, even if getting what we want sometimes makes us happy, these counterexamples suggest that happiness does not consist in desire satisfaction. [7]

4. Life Satisfaction Theory

According to the life satisfaction theory, happiness consists in being satisfied with your life. A happy person has a positive impression of her life in general, even though she might not be happy about every single aspect of it. To be happy, then, means to be content with your life as a whole.

It’s controversial whether life satisfaction is affective (a feeling) or cognitive (a belief). On the one hand, life satisfaction certainly comes with positive feelings. On the other hand, it’s possible to step back, reflect on your life, and realize that it’s good, even when you’re feeling down. [8]  

One problem for this theory is that it’s difficult for people to distinguish how they feel in the moment from how they feel about their lives overall. Studies have shown that people report feeling more satisfied with their lives when the weather is good, even though this shouldn’t make that much of a difference. But measuring life satisfaction is complicated, so perhaps such studies should be taken with a grain of salt. [9]

5. Conclusion

Understanding what happiness is should enable you to become happier.

First, decide which theory of happiness you think is true, based on the arguments.

Second, pursue whatever happiness is according to that theory: seek pleasure and try to avoid pain (hedonism), cultivate moral and intellectual virtue (virtue theory), decide what you really want and do your best to get it (desire satisfaction theory), or change your life (or your attitude about it) so you feel (or believe) that it’s going well (life satisfaction theory).

And if you’re not sure which theory of happiness is true, then you could always try pursuing all of these things. 😊

[1] This might seem like an empirical (scientific) question rather than a philosophical one. However, this essay asks the conceptual question of what happiness is, and conceptual questions belong to philosophy, not to science.

[2] Happiness is commonly distinguished from “well-being,” i.e., the state of a life that is worth living. Whether or not happiness is the same thing as well-being is an open question, but most philosophers think it isn’t. See, for example, Haybron (2020).

[3] The word “hedonism” has different uses in philosophy. In this paper, it means that happiness is the same thing as pleasure (hedonism about happiness). But sometimes it is used to mean that happiness is the only thing that has intrinsic value (hedonism about value) or that humans are always and only motivated by pleasure (psychological hedonism). It’s important not to confuse these different uses of the word.

[4] For more on Epicurus and happiness, see Konstan (2018). For more on Bentham and Mill on happiness, see Driver (2014), as well as John Stuart Mill on The Good Life: Higher-Quality Pleasures by Dale E. Miller and Consequentialism by Shane Gronholz

[5] For more on Plato and happiness, see Frede (2017); for more on Aristotle and happiness, see Kraut (2018), and on the Stoics and happiness, see Baltzly (2019).

[6] For a discussion of the phenomenon of disappointment in this context see, for example, Ben Shahar (2007).

[7] For more objections to the desire satisfaction theory, see Shafer-Landau (2018) and Vitrano (2013).

[8] If happiness is life satisfaction, then happiness seems to be “subjective” in the sense that a person cannot be mistaken about whether or not she is happy. Whether happiness is subjective in this sense is controversial, and a person who thinks that a person can be mistaken about whether or not she is happy will probably favor a different theory of happiness.

[9] See Weimann, Knabe and Schob (2015) and Berk (2018).

Baltzly, Dirk, “Stoicism”,  The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy  (Spring 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/stoicism/>.

Berk, Kiki (2018). “Does Money Make Us Happy? The Prospects and Problems of Happiness Research in Economics,” in Journal of Happiness Studies, 19, 1241-1245.

Ben-Shahar, Tal (2007). Happier . New York: McGraw-Hill.

Driver, Julia, “The History of Utilitarianism”,  The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy  (Winter 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/utilitarianism-history/>.

Frede, Dorothea, “Plato’s Ethics: An Overview”,  The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy  (Winter 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/plato-ethics/>.

Haybron, Dan, “Happiness”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy  (Summer 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/happiness/>.

Konstan, David, “Epicurus”,  The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy  (Summer 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/epicurus/>.

Kraut, Richard, “Aristotle’s Ethics”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/aristotle-ethics/>.

Shafer-Landau, Russ (2018). The Ethical Life: Fundamental Readings in Ethics and Moral Problems. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Vitrano, Christine (2013). The Nature and Value of Happiness. Boulder: Westview Press.

Weimann, Joachim, Andreas Knabe, and Ronnie Schob (2015). Measuring Happiness . Cambridge: The MIT Press.

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About the Author

Dr. Kiki Berk is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Southern New Hampshire University. She received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from the VU University Amsterdam in 2010. Her research focuses on Beauvoir’s and Sartre’s philosophies of death and meaning in life.

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The Philosophy of Happiness in Life (+ Aristotle’s View)

We all hope to be happy and live a ‘good life’– whatever that means! Do you wonder, what does it actually mean?

The basic role of ‘philosophy’ is to ask questions, and think about the nature of human thought and the universe. Thus, a discussion of the philosophy of happiness in life can be seen as an examination of the very nature of happiness and what it means for the universe.

Philosophers have been inquiring about happiness since ancient times. Aristotle, when he asked ‘ what is the ultimate purpose of human existence ’ alluded to the fact that purpose was what he argued to be ‘happiness’. He termed this eudaimonia – “ activity expressing virtue ”. This will all be explained shortly.

The purpose of this article is to explore the philosophy of happiness in life, including taking a closer look at Aristotle’s philosophy and answering some of those “big” questions about happiness and living a ‘good life’. In this article, you will also find some practical tips that hopefully you can put in place in your own life. Enjoy!

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Happiness & Subjective Wellbeing Exercises for free . These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients identify sources of authentic happiness and strategies to boost wellbeing.

This Article Contains:

A look at the philosophy of happiness, aristotle on happiness, what is real happiness, the value and importance of having true happiness in life, the biggest causes that bring true happiness in life, 15 ways to create happy moments in life, five reasons to be happy from a philosophical perspective, finding happiness in family life, a look at happiness and productivity, how does loneliness affect life satisfaction, 6 recommended books, a take-home message.

Happiness. It is a term that is taken for granted in this modern age. However, since the dawn of time, philosophers have been pursuing the inquiry of happiness… after all, the purpose of life is not just to live, but to live ‘well’.

Philosophers ask some key questions about happiness: can people be happy? If so, do they want to? If people have both a desire to be happy and the ability to be happy, does this mean that they should, therefore, pursue happiness for themselves and others? If they can, they want to, and they ought to be happy, but how do they achieve this goal?

To explore the philosophy of happiness in life, first, the history of happiness will be examined.

Democritus, a philosopher from Ancient Greece, was the first philosopher in the western world to examine the nature of happiness (Kesebir & Diener, 2008). He put forth a suggestion that, unlike it was previously thought, happiness does not result from ‘favorable fate’ (i.e. good luck) or other external circumstances (Kesebir & Diener, 2008).

Democritus contended that happiness was a ‘case of mind’, introducing a subjectivist view as to what happiness is (Kesebir & Diener, 2008).

A more objective view of happiness was introduced by Socrates, and his student, Plato.

They put forth the notion that happiness was “ secure enjoyment of what is good and beautiful ” (Plato, 1999, p. 80). Plato developed the idea that the best life is one whereby a person is either pursuing pleasure of exercising intellectual virtues… an argument which, the next key figure in the development of the philosophy of happiness – Aristotle – disagreed with (Waterman, 1993).

The philosophy of Aristotle will be explored in depth in the next section of this article.

Hellenic history (i.e. ancient Greek times) was largely dominated by the prominent theory of hedonism (Kesebir & Diener, 2008).

Hedonism is, to put it simply, the pursuit of pleasure as the only intrinsic good (Waterman, 1993). This was the Cyrenaic view of happiness. It was thought that a good life was denoted by seeking pleasure, and satisfying physical, intellectual/social needs (Kashdan, Biswas-Diener & King, 2008).

Kraut (1979, p. 178) describes hedonic happiness as “ the belief that one is getting the important things one wants, as well as certain pleasant affects that normally go along with this belief ” (Waterman, 1993).

In ancient times, it was also thought that it is not possible to live a good life without living in accordance with reason and morality (Kesebir & Diener, 2008). Epicurus, whose work was dominated by hedonism, contended that in fact, virtue (living according to values) and pleasure are interdependent (Kesebir & Diener, 2008).

In the middle ages, Christian philosophers said that whilst virtue is essential for a good life, that virtue alone is not sufficient for happiness (Kesebir & Diener, 2008).

According to the Christian philosophers, happiness is in the hands of God. Even though the Christians believed that earthly happiness was imperfect, they embraced the idea that Heaven promised eternal happiness (Kesebir & Diener, 2008).

A more secular explanation of happiness was introduced in the Age of Enlightenment.

At this time, in the western world pleasure was regarded as the path to, or even the same thing as, happiness (Kesebir & Diener, 2008). From the early nineteenth century, happiness was seen as a value which is derived from maximum pleasure.

Utilitarians, such as the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham, suggested the following: “ maximum surplus of pleasure over pain as the cardinal goal of human striving ” (Kesebir & Diener, 2008). Utilitarians believe that morals and legislation should be based on whatever will achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

In the modern era, happiness is something we take for granted. It is assumed that humans are entitled to pursue and attain happiness (Kesebir & Diener, 2008). This is evidenced by the fact that in the US declaration of independence, the pursuit of happiness is protected as a fundamental human right! (Conkle, 2008).

Go into any book store and large sections are dedicated to the wide range of ‘self-help’ books all promoting happiness.

What is This Thing Called Happiness?

It is incredibly challenging to define happiness . Modern psychology describes happiness as subjective wellbeing, or “ people’s evaluations of their lives and encompasses both cognitive judgments of satisfaction and affective appraisals of moods and emotions ” (Kesebir & Diener, 2008, p. 118).

The key components of subjective wellbeing are:

• Life satisfaction
• Satisfaction with important aspects of one’s life (for example work, relationships, health)
• The presence of positive affect
• Low levels of negative affect

These four components have featured in philosophical material on happiness since ancient times.

Subjective life satisfaction is a crucial aspect of happiness, which is consistent with the work of contemporary philosopher Wayne Sumner, who described happiness as ‘ a response by a subject to her life conditions as she sees them ’ (1999, p. 156).

Thus, if happiness is ‘a thing’ how is it measured?

Some contemporary philosophers and psychologists question self-report as an appropriate measure of happiness. However, many studies have found that self-report measures of ‘happiness’ (subjective wellbeing) are valid and reliable (Kesebir & Diener, 2008).

Two other accounts of happiness in modern psychology are firstly, the concept of psychological wellbeing (Ryff & Singer, 1996) and secondly, self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000).

Both of these theories are more consistent with the eudaemonist theories of ‘ flourishing ’ (including Aristotle’s ideas) because they describe the phenomenon of needs (such as autonomy, self-acceptance, and mastery) being met (Kesebir & Diener, 2008).

Eudaimonia will be explained in detail in the next section of the article (keep reading!) but for now, it suffices to say that eudaemonist theories of happiness define ‘happiness’ (eudaimonia) as a state in which an individual strives for the highest human good.

These days, most empirical psychological research puts forward the theory of subjective wellbeing rather than happiness as defined in a eudaimonic sense (Kesebir & Diener, 2008).

Although the terms eudaimonia and subjectivewellbeing are not necessarily interchangeable, Kesebir and Diener (2008) argue that subjective wellbeing can be used to describe wellbeing, even if it may not be an absolutely perfect definition!

Can People be Happy?

In order to adequately address this question, it is necessary to differentiate between ‘ideal’ happiness and ‘actual’ happiness.

‘Ideal’ happiness implies a way of being that is complete, lasting and altogether perfect… probably outside of anyone’s reach! (Kesebir & Diener, 2008). However, despite this, people can actually experience mostly positive emotions and report overall satisfaction with their lives and therefore be deemed ‘happy’.

In fact, most people are happy. In a study conducted by the Pew Research Center in the US (2006), 84% of Americans see themselves as either “very happy” or “pretty happy” (Kesebir & Diener, 2008).

Happiness also has an adaptive function. How is happiness adaptive? Well, positivity and wellbeing are also associated with people being confident enough to explore their environments and approach new goals, which increases the likelihood of them collecting resources.

The fact that most people report being happy, and happiness having an adaptive function, leads Kesebir and Diener (2008) to conclude that yes people can, in fact, be happy.

Do People Want to be Happy?

The overwhelming answer is yes! Research has shown that being happy is desirable. Whilst being happy is certainly not the only goal in life, nonetheless, it is necessary for a good life (Kesebir & Diener, 2008).

A study by King and Napa (1998) showed that Americans view happiness as more relevant to the judgment of what constitutes a good life, rather than either wealth or ‘moral goodness’.

Should People be Happy?

Another way of putting this, is happiness justifiable? Happiness is not just the result of positive outcomes, such as better health, improved work performance, more ethical behavior, and better social relationships (Kesebir & Diener, 2008). It actually precedes and causes these outcomes!

Happiness leads to better health. For example, research undertaken by Danner, Snowdon & Friesen in 2001 examined the content of handwritten autobiographies of Catholic sisters. They found that expression in the writing that was characterized by positive affect predicted longevity 60 years later!

Achievement

Happiness is derived not from pursuing pleasure, but by working towards goals which are reflected in one’s values (Kesebir & Diener, 2008).

Happiness can be predicted not merely by pleasure but by having a sense of meaning , purpose, and fulfillment. Happiness is also associated with better performance in professional life/work.

Social relationships and prosocial behavior

Happiness brings out the best in people… people who are happier are more social, cooperative and ethical (Kesebir & Diener, 2008).

Happy individuals have also been shown to evaluate others more positively, show greater interest in interacting with others socially, and even be more likely to engage in self-disclosure (Kesebir & Diener, 2008).

Happy individuals are also more likely to behave ethically (for example, choosing not to buy something because it is known to be stolen) (Kesebir & Diener, 2008).

How to be happy?

The conditions and sources of happiness will be explored later on, so do keep reading… briefly in the meantime, happiness is caused by wealth, friends and social relationships, religion, and personality. These factors predict happiness.

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Chances are, you have heard of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. Are you aware that it was Aristotle who introduced the ‘science of happiness’? (Pursuit of Happiness, 2018).

Founder of Lyceum, the first scientific institute in Athens, Aristotle delivered a series of lectures termed Nicomachean Ethics to present his theory of happiness (Pursuit of Happiness, 2018).

Aristotle asked, “ what is the ultimate purpose of human existence? ”. He thought that a worthwhile goal should be to pursue “ that which is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else ” (Pursuit of Happiness, 2018).

However, Aristotle disagreed with the Cyrenaic view that the only intrinsic good is pleasure (Waterman, 1993).

In developing his theory of ‘happiness’, Aristotle drew upon his knowledge about nature. He contended that what separates man from animal is rational capacity – arguing that a human’s unique function is to reason. He went on to say that pleasure alone cannot result in happiness because animals are driven by the pursuit of pleasure and according to Aristotle man has greater capacities than animals (Pursuit of Happiness, 2018).

Instead, he put forward the term ‘ eudaimonia ’.

To explain simply, eudaimonia is defined as ‘ activity expressing virtue ’ or what Aristotle conceived as happiness. Aristotle’s theory of happiness was as follows:

‘the function of man is to live a certain kind of life, and this activity implies a rational principle, and the function of a good man is the good and noble performance of these, and if any action is well performed it is performed in accord with the appropriate excellence: if this is the case, then happiness turns out to be an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue’

(Aristotle, 2004).

A key component of Aristotle’s theory of happiness is the factor of virtue. He contended that in aiming for happiness, the most important factor is to have ‘complete virtue’ or – in other words – good moral character (Pursuit of Happiness, 2008).

Aristotle identified friendship as being one of the most important virtues in achieving the goal of eudaimonia (Pursuit of Happiness, 2008). In fact, he valued friendship very highly, and described a ‘virtuous’ friendship as the most enjoyable, combining both pleasure and virtue.

Aristotle went on to put forward his belief that happiness involves, through the course of an entire life, choosing the ‘greater good’ not necessarily that which brings immediate, short term pleasure (Pursuit of Happiness, 2008).

Thus, according to Aristotle, happiness can only be achieved at the life-end: it is a goal, not a temporary state of being (Pursuit of Happiness, 2008). Aristotle believed that happiness is not short-lived:

‘for as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy’

Happiness (eudaimonia), to Aristotle, meant attaining the ‘daimon’ or perfect self (Waterman, 1990). Reaching the ‘ultimate perfection of our natures’, as Aristotle meant by happiness, includes rational reflection (Pursuit of Happiness, 2008).

He argued that education was the embodiment of character refinement (Pursuit of Happiness, 2008). Striving for the daimon (perfect self) gives life meaning and direction (Waterman, 1990). Having a meaningful, purposeful life is valuable.

Efforts that the individual puts in to strive for the daimon are termed ‘ personally expressive ’ (Waterman, 1990).

Personal expressiveness involves intense involvement in an activity, a sense of fulfillment when engaged in an activity, and having a sense of acting in accordance with one’s purpose (Waterman, 1990). It refers to putting in effort, feeling challenged and competent, having clear goals and concentrating (Waterman, 1993).

According to Aristotle, eudaimonia and hedonic enjoyment are separate and distinguishable (Waterman, 1993). However, in a study of university students, personal expressiveness (which is, after all a component of eudaimonia) was found to be positively correlated with hedonic enjoyment (Waterman, 1993).

Telfer (1980), on the other hand, claimed that eudaimonia is a sufficient but not a necessary condition for achieving hedonic enjoyment (Waterman, 1993). How are eudaimonia and hedonic enjoyment different?

Well, personal expressiveness (from striving for eudaimonia) is associated with successfully achieving self-realization, while hedonic enjoyment does not (Waterman, 1993).

Thus, Aristotle identified the best possible life goal and the achievement of the highest level of meeting one’s needs, self-realization many, many years before Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs!

Results from Waterman’s 1993 study provide empirical support for the association between ‘personal expressiveness’ and what was described by Csikszentimikalyi (1975) as “flow” (Waterman, 1993).

Flow , conceptualized as a cognitive-affective state, is an experience whereby the challenge a task presents to a person is aligned with the skills that individual has to deal with such challenges.

Understanding that flow is a distinctive cognitive-affective state combines hedonic enjoyment and personal expressiveness (Waterman, 1993).

Aristotle’s work Nicomachean Ethics contributed a great deal to the understanding of what happiness is. To summarise from Pursuit of Happiness (2018), according to Aristotle, the purpose and ultimate goal in life is to achieve eudaimonia (‘happiness’). He believed that eudaimonia was not simply virtue, nor pleasure, but rather it was the exercise of virtue.

According to Aristotle, eudaimonia is a lifelong goal and depends on rational reflection. To achieve a balance between excess and deficiency (‘temperance’) one displays virtues – for example, generosity, justice, friendship, and citizenship. Eudaimonia requires intellectual contemplation, in order to meet our rational capacities.

To answer Aristotle’s question of “ what is the ultimate purpose of human existence ” is not a simple task, but perhaps the best answer is that the ultimate goal for human beings is to strive for ‘eudaimonia’ (happiness).

Aristotle & virtue theory – CrashCourse

What does ‘true’ happiness look like? Is it landing the dream job? Having a child ? Graduating from university? Whilst happiness is certainly associated with these ‘external’ factors, true happiness is quite different.

To be truly happy, a person’s sense of contentment with their life needs to come from within (Puff, 2018). In other words, real happiness is internal.

There are a few features that characterize ‘true’ (or real) happiness. The first is acceptance . A truly happy individual accepts reality for what it is, and what’s more, they actually come to love ‘what is’ (Puff, 2018).

This acceptance allows a person to feel content. As well as accepting the true state of affairs, real happiness involves accepting the fact that change is inevitable (Puff, 2018). Being willing to accept change as part of life means that truly happy people are in a position to be adaptive.

A state of real happiness is also reflected by a person having an understanding of the transience of life (Puff, 2018). This is important because understanding that in life, both good and ‘bad’ are only short-lived means that truly happy individuals have an understanding that ‘this too shall pass’.

Finally, another aspect of real happiness is an appreciation of the people in an individual’s life. (Puff, 2018). Strong relationships characterize people who are truly ‘flourishing’.

Most people would say that, if they could, they would like to be happy. As well as being desirable, happiness is both important and valuable.

Happy people have better social and work relationships (Conkle, 2008).

In terms of career, happy individuals are more likely to complete college, secure employment, receive positive work evaluations from their superiors, earn higher incomes, and are less likely to lose their job – and, in case of being laid off, people who are happy are re-employed more quickly (Kesebir & Diener, 2008).

Positive emotions also precede and promote career success (Lyubomirsky, 2018). Happy workers are less likely to burn out, be absent from work and quit their job (Lyubomirsky, 2018). Further on in this article, the relationship between happiness and productivity will be explored more thoroughly.

It has also been found that people who are happy contribute more to society (Conkle, 2008). There is also an association between happiness and cooperation – those who are happy are more cooperative (Kesebir & Diener, 2008). They are also more likely to display ethical behavior (Kesebir & Diener, 2008).

Perhaps the most important reason to have true happiness in life is that it is linked to longevity. True happiness is a significant predictor of a longer, healthier life (Conkle, 2008).

It is not only the effects of happiness that benefit individuals. Whole countries can flourish too – according to research, nations that are rated as happier also score more highly on generalized trust, volunteerism and democratic attitudes (Kesebir & Diener, 2008).

However, as well as these objective reasons why happiness is important, happiness also brings with it some positive experiences and feelings. For example, true happiness is related to feelings of meaning and purpose (Kesebir & Diener, 2008).

It is also associated with a sense of fulfillment, plus a feeling of achievement that is attained through actively striving for, and making progress towards, valuable goals (Kesebir & Diener, 2008).

Interestingly, objective life circumstances (demographic details) only account for 8% – 15% of the variance in happiness (Kesebir & Diener, 2008). So what causes true happiness? Kesebir and Diener (2008) identified five sources of happiness:

Wealth is the first cause of happiness. Studies have shown a significant positive correlation between wealth and happiness. It is the case that having enough (i.e. adequate) money is necessary for happiness but is not sufficient to cause happiness. Money gives people freedom, and having enough money enables individuals to meet their needs – e.g. housing, food, and health-care.

Satisfaction with income has been shown to be related to happiness (Diener, 1984). However, money is not the guarantee of happiness – consider lottery winners. Whilst it is necessary to have sufficient money this alone will not cause happiness. So, what else is a source of happiness?

Having friends and social relationships has been shown to be a leading cause of happiness. Humans are primarily social beings and have a need for social connection.

A sense of community is associated with life satisfaction (Diener, 1984). Making and keeping friends is positively correlated with wellbeing. Aristotle (2000) stated that “no one would choose to live without friends, even if he had all the other goods” (p. 143).

In fact, the association between friendship/social support and happiness has been supported by empirical research. Furthermore, being satisfied with family life and marriage is the key to subjective wellbeing (Diener, 1984).

Another source of happiness is religion . While not true universally, religion has been associated with greater happiness. Positive effects have been found with taking part in religious services.

Having a strong religious affiliation has also been shown to be of benefit. Engaging in prayer, and having a relationship with God is also related to greater happiness.

Finally, a large determinant of happiness is personality . Research supports the fact that individual differences in how a person responds both to events and also to other people have an impact on the levels of a person’s happiness.

Lykken & Tellegen (1996) found that stable temperamental tendencies (those that are inherited genetically) contribute up to 50% in the total variability in happiness. This research found that many personality factors – extraversion, neuroticism – as well as self-esteem , optimism , trust , agreeableness, repressive defensiveness, a desire for control, and hardiness all play a part in how happy a person is.

We can, to a certain extent, determine how happy we feel. Kane (2017) has come up with 15 ways in which happiness can be increased:

1. Find joy in the little things

Savoring ordinary moments in everyday life is a skill that can be learned (Tartarkovsky, 2016). For most of us, we spend so much time thinking about things we’re not currently even doing! This can make us unhappy.

Happiness can, in fact, be predicted by where our minds wander to when we’re not focused on the present. By appreciating the simple things in life, we foster positive emotions…from admiring a beautiful flower to enjoying a cup of tea, finding joy in the little things is associated with increased happiness.

2. Start each day with a smile

It sounds easy, but smiling is associated with feeling happy. Beginning the day on a positive note can vastly improve wellbeing.

3. Connect with others

As mentioned in the previous section, having friendship and social support is definitely a source of happiness. So, to create more happy moments in life, step away from the desk and initiate a conversation with a work colleague, or send an SMS to someone you have not seen for a while. Take opportunities to interact with other people as they arise.

4. Do what you’re most passionate about

Using your strengths and finding an activity to engage in which leads to ‘flow’ has been identified as an enduring pathway to happiness. Being completely engaged in an activity is termed ‘flow’. What constitutes an experience of flow?

To begin with, the task needs to require skill but not be too challenging (Tartarkovsky, 2016). It should have clear goals and allow you to completely immerse yourself in what you’re doing so your mind doesn’t wander (Tartarkovsky, 2016). It should completely absorb your attention and give a sense of being ‘in the zone’ (Tartarkovsky, 2016). Perhaps the easiest way to identify a flow experience is that you lose track of time.

By doing what you’re most passionate about, you are more likely to use your strengths and find a sense of flow .

5. Count your blessings and be thankful

Gratitude is known to increase happiness. Gratitude has been defined as having an appreciation for what you have, and being able to reflect on that (Tartarkovsky, 2016). Gratitude creates positive emotions, enhances relationships and is associated with better health (Tartarkovsky, 2016).

Examples of ways to engage in gratitude include writing a gratitude journal, or express appreciation – such as, send a ‘thank you’ card to someone.

6. Choose to be positive and see the best in every situation

Taking a ‘glass half full’ attitude to life can certainly enhance feelings of happiness. Finding the positives in even difficult situations helps to foster positive affect. As one psychologist from Harvard Medical School, Siegel, said “relatively small changes in our attitudes can yield relatively big changes in our sense of wellbeing” (Tartarkovsky, 2016).

7. Take steps to enrich your life

A great way to develop a happier life is to learn something new. By being mentally active and developing new skills, this can promote happiness. For example, learn a musical instrument, or a foreign language, the sky’s the limit!

8. Create goals and plans to achieve what you want most

Striving for things we really want can make us feel happy, provided the goals are realistic. Having goals gives life purpose and direction, and a sense of achievement.

9. Live in the moment

Though easier said than done, a helpful way to create happy moments in life is to live for the moment – not to ruminate about the past, or to focus on the future. Staying in the ‘here and now’ can help us feel happier.

10. Be good to yourself

Treat yourself as well as you would treat a person whom you love and care about. Showing self-compassion can lead to happy moments and improve overall wellbeing.

11. Ask for help when you need it

Seeking help may not immediately come to mind when considering how to create happy moments. However, reaching out for support is one way to achieve happiness. As the old adage says “a problem shared is a problem halved”.

Having someone help you is not a sign of weakness. Rather, by asking for help, you are reducing the burden of a problem on yourself.

12. Let go of sadness and disappointment

Negative emotions can compromise one’s sense of happiness, especially if a person ruminates about what ‘could have been’. Whilst everyone feels such emotions at times, holding onto feelings of sadness and disappointment can really weigh a person down and prevent them from feeling happy and content.

13. Practice mindfulness

The positive effects of practicing mindfulness are widespread and numerous, including increasing levels of happiness. There is lots of material on this blog about mindfulness and its’ positive effects. Mindfulness is a skill and, like any skill, it can be learned. Learning to be mindful can help a person become happier.

14. Walk in nature

Exercise is known to release endorphins, and as such engaging in physical activity is one way to lift mood and create happy moments. Even more beneficial than simply walking is to walk in nature, which has been shown to increase happiness.

15. Laugh, and make time to play

Laughter really is the best medicine! Having a laugh is associated with feeling better. Also, it is beneficial for the sense of wellbeing not to take life too seriously. Just as children find joy in simple pleasures, they also love to play. Engaging in ‘play’ – activities done purely for fun – is associated with increased happiness.

Philosophers believe that happiness is not by itself sufficient to achieve a state of wellbeing, but at the same time, they agree that it is one of the primary factors found in individuals who lead a ‘good life’ (Haybron, 2011).

What then, are reasons to be happy from a philosophical perspective… what contributes to a person living a ‘good life’? This can also be understood as a person having ‘psychosocial prosperity’ (Haybron, 2011).

• One reason why a person can feel a sense of happiness is if they have been treated with respect in the last day (Haybron, 2011). How we are treated by others contributes to our overall wellbeing. Being treated with respect helps us develop a sense of self-worth.
• Another reason to feel happy is if one has family and friends they can rely on and count on in times of need (Haybron, 2011). Having a strong social network is an important component of happiness.
• Perhaps a person has learned something new. They may take this for granted, however, learning something new actually contributes to our psychosocial prosperity (Haybron, 2011).
• From a philosophical perspective, a reason to be happy is a person having the opportunity to do what they do best (Haybron, 2011). Using strengths for the greater good is one key to a more meaningful life (Tartarkovsky, 2016). As an example, a musician can derive happiness by creating music and a sports-person can feel happy by training or participating in competitions. Meeting our potential also contributes to wellbeing.
• A final reason to be happy from a philosophical perspective is a person having the liberty to choose how they spend their time (Haybron, 2011). This is a freedom to be celebrated. Being autonomous can contribute to a person living their best life.

Many of us spend a lot of time with our families. However, as much we love our partners, children, siblings, and extended families, at times family relationships can be fraught with challenges and problems. Nonetheless, it is possible for us to find happiness in family life by doing some simple, yet effective things suggested by Mann (2007):

• Enjoy your family’s company
• Exchange stories – for example, about what your day was like in the evening
• Make your marriage, or relationship, the priority
• Take time to eat meals together as a family
• Enjoy simply having fun with one another
• Make sure that your family and its needs come before your friends
• Limit number of extra-curricular activities
• Develop family traditions and honor rituals
• Aim to make your home a calm place to spend time
• Don’t argue in front of children
• Don’t work excessively
• Encourage siblings to get along with one another
• Have family ‘in-jokes’
• Be adaptable
• Communicate, including active listening

Take time to appreciate your family, and focus on the little things you can do to find happiness in family life.

The aim of any workplace is to have productive employees. This leads to the question – can happiness increase productivity? The results are unequivocal!

Researchers Boehm and Lyubomirsky define a ‘happy worker’ as one who frequently experiences positive emotions such as joy, satisfaction, contentment, enthusiasm, and interest (Oswald, Proto & Sgroi, 2009).

They conducted longitudinal as well as experimental studies, and their research clearly showed that people who could be classified as ‘happy’ were more likely to succeed in their careers. Amabile et al. (2005) also found that happiness results in greater creativity.

Why are happy workers more productive?

It has been suggested that the link between positive mood and work appears to be mediated by intrinsic motivation (that is, performing a task due to internal inspiration rather than external reasons) (Oswald et al., 2009). This makes sense because if one is feeling more joyful, the person is more likely to find their work meaningful and intrinsically rewarding.

It has been found by some experimental studies that happiness raises productivity. For example, research has shown that the experience of positive affect means that individuals change their allocation of time to completing more interesting tasks, but still manage to maintain their performance for the less interesting tasks (Oswald et al., 2009).

Other research has reported that positive affect influences memory recall and the likelihood of altruistic actions. However, much of this research has taken place in laboratory sessions where participation was unpaid. Which certainly leads to the obvious question… does happiness actually increase productivity in a true employment situation?

Oswald and colleagues (2009) did some research with very clear results on the relationship between happiness and productivity. They conducted two separate experiments.

The first experiment included 182 participants from the University of Warwick. The study involved some participants watching a short video clip designed to try and increase levels of happiness, and then completing a task which they were paid for in terms of both questions answered and accuracy. The participants who watched the video showed significantly greater productivity.

Most interestingly, however, 16 individuals did not display increased happiness after watching the movie clip, and these people did not show the same increase in productivity! Thus, this experiment certainly supported the notion that an increase in productivity can be linked to happiness.

Oswald and colleagues also conducted a second study which involved a further 179 participants who had not taken part in the first experiment. These individuals reported their level of happiness and were subsequently asked whether they had experienced a ‘bad life event’ (which was defined as bereavement or illness in the family) in the last two years.

A statistically significant effect was found… experiencing a bad life event, which was classified by the experts as ‘happiness shocks’ was related to lower levels of performance on the task.

Examining the evidence certainly makes one thing clear: happiness is certainly related to productivity both in unpaid and paid tasks. This has tremendous implications for the work-force and provides an impetus for working towards happier employees.

According to the Belonging Hypothesis put forth by psychologists Baumeister and Leary in 1995, human beings have an almost universal, fundamental human need to have a certain degree of interaction with others and to form relationships.

Indeed, people who are lonely have an unmet need to belong (Mellor, Stokes, Firth, Hayashi & Cummins, 2008). Loneliness has been found in a plethora of research to have a very negative effect on psychological wellbeing, and also health (Kim, 1997).

What about ‘happiness’? In other words, can loneliness also have an impact on life satisfaction?

There is evidence to suggest that loneliness does affect life satisfaction. Gray, Ventis, and Hayslip (1992) conducted a study of 60 elderly people living in the community. Their findings were clear: the aged person’s sense of isolation, and loneliness , explained the variation in life satisfaction (Gray et al., 1992).

Clearly, lonely older persons were less satisfied with their lives overall. In other research, Mellor and colleagues (2008) found that individuals who were less lonely had higher ratings of life satisfaction.

It may be assumed that only older people are prone to feeling isolated and lonely, however, an interesting study by Neto (1995) looked at satisfaction with life among second-generation migrants.

The researchers studied 519 Portuguese youth who was actually born in France. The study found that loneliness had a clear negative correlation with the satisfaction with life expressed by the young people (Neto, 1995). Indeed, along with the perceived state of health, loneliness was the strongest predictor of satisfaction with life (Neto, 1995).

Therefore, yes, loneliness affects life satisfaction. Loneliness is associated with feeling less satisfied with one’s life, and, presumably, less happy overall.

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Perhaps you have a desire to understand this topic further… great! Here are some books that you can read to further your understanding:

• Exploring Happiness: From Aristotle to brain science – S. Bok (2010) ( Amazon )
• Nicomachean ethics – Aristotle (2000). R Crisp, ed. ( Amazon )
• What is this thing called happiness? – F. Feldman (2010) ( Amazon )
• Authentic happiness: Using the new Positive Psychology to realize your potential for lasting fulfillment – M. Seligman (2004) ( Amazon )
• Philosophy of happiness: A theoretical and practical examination – M. Janello (2014) ( Amazon )
• Happiness: A Philosopher’s guide – F. Lenoir (2015) ( Amazon )

I don’t know about you but, whilst exploring the philosophy of happiness is fascinating, it can be incredibly overwhelming too. I hope that I have managed to simplify some of the ideas about happiness so that you have a better understanding of the nature of happiness and what it means to live a ‘good life’.

Philosophy can be complex, but if you can take one message from this article it is that it is important and worthwhile for humans to strive for wellbeing and ‘true happiness’. Whilst Aristotle argued that ‘eudaimonia’ (happiness) cannot be achieved until the end of one’s life, tips in this article show that each of us has the capacity to create happy moments each and every day.

What can you do today to embrace the ‘good life’? What ideas do you have about happiness – what does real happiness look like for you? What are your opinions as to what the philosophy of happiness in life means?

This article can provide a helpful resource for understanding more about the nature of happiness, so feel free to look back at it down the track. I would love to hear your thoughts on this fascinating topic!

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Happiness Exercises for free .

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• Mann, D. (2007). 15 secrets of happy families. Web MD. Retrieved from https://www.webmd.com/parenting/features/15-secrets-to-have-a-happy-family
• Mellor, D., Stokes, M., Firth, L., Hayashi, Y. & Cummins, R. (2008). Need for belonging, relationship satisfaction, loneliness and life satisfaction. Personality and Individual Differences, 45 , 213 – 218.
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• Oswald, A. J., Proto, E., & Sgroi, D. (2009). Happiness and productivity, IZA Discussion Papers, No. 4645, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10419/35451
• Plato (1999). The Symposium . Walter Hamilton (ed). London: Penguin Classics
• Puff, R. (2018). The pitfalls to pursuing happiness. Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/meditation-modern-life/201809/the-pitfalls-pursuing-happiness
• Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development and wellbeing. American Psychologist, 55 , 68 – 78.
• Ryff, C. D., & Singer, B. (1996). Psychological wellbeing: meaning, measurement, and implications for psychotherapy research. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 65 , 14 – 23.
• Tartarkovsky, M. (2016). Five pathways to happiness. Psych Central. Retrieved from https://psychcentral.com/lib/five-pathways-to-happiness
• The Pursuit of Happiness (2018). Aristotle. Retrieved from https://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/aristotle
• Waterman, A. S. (1990). The relevance of Aristotle’s conception of eudaimonia for the psychological study of happiness. Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 10 , 39 – 44
• Waterman, A. S. (1993). Two conceptions of happiness: Contrasts of personal expressiveness (eudaimonia) and hedonic enjoyment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64 , 678 – 691.

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Pleasure, in the inclusive usages important in thought about well-being, experience, and mind, includes the affective positivity of all joy, gladness, liking, and enjoyment – all our feeling good or happy. It is often contrasted with the similarly inclusive pain , or suffering, of all our feeling bad. [ 1 ] Nowadays “ happiness ” is often used similarly, which leads to confusion with older uses signifying overall good fortune or success in life that figure in self-reports of happiness and in ‘happiness studies’ of the diverse sources of these.

Pleasure presents as good and attractive – itself, when it comes to our notice, and all else that appears aglow in its light. This suggests simple explanations both of why people pursue pleasure and why there are reasons to do so. That we may prefer and choose something for its pleasure suggests that there are facts about pleasure that make some such choices better than others. Philosophers, taking this suggestion further, have sometimes taken pleasure to be a single simple (feature of) experience that makes experiences good and attractive to the extent it is present . This simple picture has often been associated with more sweeping normative and psychological claims, all ambiguously called “ hedonism ”. These take pleasure’s goodness and attractiveness (and pain’s badness and aversiveness) to (between them) explain all of human value, normative practical reasons, and motivation. Pleasure and pain would, if views of all three kinds were true, be the only ultimately good- and bad-making features of human (and relevantly similar animal) life and also both the only actual ultimate ends and the only justified ultimate ends of all our voluntary pursuit and avoidance. The simple picture and related hedonistic claims and explanations were especially prominent in the psychology, economics, and philosophy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries but were widely rejected in the twentieth.

Contemporary science partly restores pleasure’s importance but also suggests that pleasure’s relations to awareness and motivational attraction are more variable than many hedonists and much ordinary thinking supposed. Contemporary philosophers continue to debate what pleasure is but are only beginning to address scientific advances that are slowly filling out what age-old use of psychoactive substances to enhance mood and newer drug therapies for depression already presupposed – pleasure is a biological phenomenon.

Guide to the Contents : Notes should be omitted by the typical reader; see the advice that precedes these. §1 discusses the simple picture (boldface, two paragraphs above). §1.3 suggests how the objections earlier considered may be mitigated sufficiently to save the simple picture’s experiential core as a live theoretical possibility. The difficulty and fallibility of introspection and perhaps especially of introspecting affective states is appealed to. §2.3.2 discusses the recent attitudinal approach in the form developed by Fred Feldman. Its difficulties are discussed at length and both neoAristotelian and more simple-picture-like alternatives (§2.3.3) suggested. More complex medieval accounts of pleasure’s intentional relations are also noted (§2.3.1) and likewise contrasted with more nondual views. §3, especially, aims to integrate philosophical and scientific, historical and contemporary contributions.

1.1 Pleasure as a Simple but Powerful Feeling

1.2 rejections of the simple picture, 1.3 more modest roles for experience, 2.1 seeking a universal account, 2.2.1 plato: noticing different restorations to life’s natural state, 2.2.2 aristotle: perfecting different activities, 2.2.3 epicurus: savoring the activity of life’s natural state, 2.3.1 liking, loving, savoring, 2.3.2 a content-involving attitude, like belief, 2.3.3 welcoming-whatever-comes that may float free, 2.3.4 intentionality, subjectivity, and consciousness, 3.1 motivation-based analyses and their problems, 3.2 is pleasure’s goodness independent of motivation, 3.3 dividing pleasure or finding true pleasure, 4. conclusion: looking inward, looking forward, canonical religious texts, by tradition, references, by author, other internet resources, related entries, 1. a feature of momentary experience.

Pleasure seems obvious and even intimate in a friend’s smile, posture, or manner and when we notice we are having a good time and enjoying ourselves. To some in the grip of the simple picture (¶2 above) it has seemed introspectively obvious that pleasure is a simple feeling we know directly in momentary conscious experience and almost as obvious that it is something we often do, and should, pursue. But Gilbert Ryle, writing when behaviorism ruled psychology, maintained that pleasure is never any episode of conscious experience at all (1949, IV, 6) and Fred Feldman (2004, discussed in §2.3.2 below) maintains that it is a pure propositional attitude of which feeling is no essential part. Other opponents of the simple picture maintained that pleasure requires a much larger cognitive context than, on the simple picture, it does. Elizabeth Anscombe thereby helped refocus philosophers’ attention on the foundational question that uncritical acceptance of the simple picture had led many modern philosophers to neglect, What is pleasure?

Pleasure most commonly backgrounds the experience of someone cheerful by temperament or in a good mood. Such baseline affect and small deviations from it cumulatively matter most to the affective quality of life (Watson 2000; Diener, Sandvik, and Pavot  1991; cf. Coan and Allen 2003, Rachels 2004). That pleasure includes these has been prominently noted (e.g.: Duncker, 1941, 404; Alston, 1967, 341; Gosling, 1969, 135 ff.) but often slips from mind. Exclusive focus on salient episodes with acute onset caused by typically pleasant stimulation, as from sweets and caresses, may mislead one to think such episodes or sensations are the main topic of hedonic discussion or to misread others as making this mistake.

Pleasure neither easily fits, nor has been widely thought by theorists to fit, the standard paradigms of sensation, whether of qualities of outward things or of those of either localized or diffuse bodily sensation, since it seems any typically pleasant sensory state or quality may be enjoyed less or even not at all on occasions, while its sensory quality and intensity remain much the same (Ryle 1949, p. 109; 1954a, p. 58; 1954b, p. 136). The pleasantness of tastes is modulated by nutritional state and experience (Young 1959, Cabanac 1971, Bolles 1991). And differences in mood, temperament, personal history, and how one feels toward a particular person in a specific social context may make all the difference between feeling great pleasure or great distress from what seems the same sensation of touch (cf. Helm 2000 pp. 93–94; 2002, pp. 23–24). Both science and reflection on everyday experience thus distinguish mere sensation proper from hedonic reaction (cf. Aydede 2000). Allowing that there may be ‘sensations of pleasure’, its occasionally accompanying somatic symptoms, is consistent with this distinction between sensation, narrowly conceived, and affective response. John Locke’s (1700/1979, II, xx, 1) picture of pleasure and pain as “simple ideas” learned and understood “only by experience” of “what we feel in ourselves”, distinguishable from any “sensation barely in itself” they may accompany, seems consistent with this distinction between affective feeling and sensation proper made more prominently later. [ 2 ]

Locke and many of his time and tradition seem to have held views close to the simple picture of pleasure (of this entry’s second introductory paragraph), joined to an empiricist picture of our concepts of pleasure and good as similarly simple because acquired from the simple experience of pleasure. Their view that pleasure is an (at least cognitively) isolable conscious event or feature has counterparts among those ancient hedonist materialist philosophers who thought of pleasure as some smooth or gentle stimulation, motion, or physiological change (see Gosling and Taylor 1982, pp. 41, 394) and also among those nowadays who regard it as some short-term activity of the brain. Hedonist views that explain human value, motivation, and concepts of good and evil in terms of such supposedly simple affective feelings of pleasure and pain (e.g., Locke 1700/1979, Essay II, xx and xxi, 31 ff.) were also widespread, especially among writers in English, in the following two centuries. Pleasure was widely taken for granted as foundational in this way by the nascent behavioral and social sciences, until more demanding standards, first for stricter introspection and later for more objective (in this use: not based in experimental subjects’ judgments on the topic) methods, were adopted. [ 3 ]

The last great nineteenth century utilitarian moral philosopher, Henry Sidgwick, failed to find any constant felt feature in his experience of pleasure. He therefore proposed that “pleasure” picks out momentary experiences not by any specific introspected quality but rather by their intrinsic desirability, as may be cognitively apprehended at the time of experiencing (Sidgwick 1907, pp. 125–31, 111–5). He thus took the concept of pleasure to be irreducibly evaluative and normative, but still to apply to experience; experience is pleasant to the extent it wholly grounds reasons to desire, seek, or actualize it merely in how it feels. Mid-twentieth-century British and American philosophers departed still farther from the simple picture and associated empiricist traditions, influenced in part by behaviorism in psychology.

Gilbert Ryle (1949, 1954a, 1954b) accordingly argued that “pleasure” designates no occurrent experiences at all, but (in a central use) heedfully performed activities fulfilling unopposed dispositional inclinations and (in others) equally dispositional disturbances of, or else liabilities to, such dispositions. [ 4 ] The preferred first of these was a near transposition of Aristotle’s account of pleasure (in NE VII) as the unimpeded conduct of activities into the language of dispositions to behavior or action (since heed, or attention, was also taken dispositionally). Ryle’s logical dispositionalism was soon rejected (Nowell-Smith 1954, Penelhum 1957, Armstrong 1968, Lyons 1980). His constructive suggestion that pleasure be understood as a form of heed, attention, or interest builds on Aristotle’s observation that pleasure strengthens specific activities in competition with others and his arguing from this that pleasure varies in kind with the different activities on which it depends, each being strengthened by its own pleasures but weakened by others and also weakened by its own pains ( NE X, 5:1175b1–24). On Ryle’s view, this is because to do something with pleasure just is to do it wholeheartedly and with one’s absorption in it undistracted by other activities or by feelings of any kind.

Justin Gosling, insightfully appraising the Ryle-inspired literature toward the end of its run, argued that it had largely missed the ethical and psychological importance of pleasure by neglecting the conceptually central cases of positive emotion and mood. (For a forthright denial of pleasant occurrent mood, see Taylor 1963.) He concluded that our being pleased in these ways shows pleasure to be, in a relaxed way of speaking, a feeling, after all, and that the concept is extended from these cases to include enjoyments that may please one at the time or else cause or dispose one to be pleased later. Wanting things for their own sake, which hedonists often seek to explain in terms of their being pleasant, is actually connected to the central cases through its often being caused by being pleased at some prospect. While Gosling used such distinctions to block some arguments for hedonist theses, he also defended the importance of pleasure in both moral psychology and ethics (1969, chapters 9 and 10).

Elizabeth Anscombe, like Ryle and his followers, rejected any account on which pleasure is a context-independent ‘internal impression’, whether affective or sensory. But while Ryle substituted a neoAristotelian account of enjoyments to fit his ‘anti-Cartesian’ philosophy of mind, her main reason was that any such feeling or sensation would be quite beside what she took to be the concept’s explanatory and reason-implying use. She influentially judged the concept so obscure and problematic that theories placing weight upon it, such as hedonistic utilitarianism, should be rejected out of hand. John Rawls, quoting her even more influentially, did just that, abandoning utilitarianism for a more constructivist and less realist approach to ethics. [ 5 ]

Anscombe (interpreting and expanding on her very brief remarks on pleasure, guided by the larger context of her 1963/1957 and also by her later 1981d/1978) reasoned that since ascribing pleasure gives a reason for action, and reasons for action are intelligible only given a context of intelligible evaluation and motivation that no feeling of the moment could supply, pleasure cannot be anything picked out only by how it feels in the moment and regardless of its larger context. Attributing pleasure to a subject, rather, involves understanding what it is for a subject to regard and behave toward something as good (however nonconceptually represented) and this in turn involves background knowledge of the ways something may intelligibly be considered good and an object of voluntary pursuit. Thus the possession of the concept of pleasure presupposes the presence of a rich and contextually embedded concept of the good that no mere momentary qualitative experience could supply. Therefore no such experience could serve as the origin of our concept of pleasure or of our concept of good, as empiricists aiming to account for these concepts as acquired from a feeling of pleasure had supposed.

Bennett Helm, beginning in the 1990s, developed a positive view much in the spirit of Anscombe’s sparse critical remarks, although perhaps different in detail. [ 6 ] For Helm (2002), pleasures and pains alike are ‘felt evaluations’ that impress themselves on our feeling (in contrast to our activity in evaluative judgment) by virtue of larger patterns of evaluation, emotion, and motivation they partially constitute. Our feeling pleasure or pain is just our having our attention and motivation directed in this way (1994, 2001a, 2001b, 2009).

While Helm’s view of pleasure and pain accommodates Anscombe’s constraint that pleasure provide holistically intelligible reasons for action and also fits his larger agenda, it implausibly makes a kitten’s or an infant’s hurting from a bruised limb or deriving pleasure from nursing depend on their having appropriate large patterns of background concerns including, as he tells us, in cases of bodily pain, background concerns for the integrity of their bodies (2002, pp. 24–27). If such a larger pattern of concern for one’s body is necessary for the affective component of pain, both should together fade away in, for example, a terminally ill patient who now wants mainly a speedy natural death, rather than the continuance of whatever bodily integrity remains. To the extent that someone has predominantly such a pattern of desire and emotion, it would seem, on this view, that sensory pain (or, as Helm has it, the stimulation that would otherwise have been painful) must, as signaling the approach of the desired end, be if not purely then at least on balance pleasant. And in the unconflicted limiting case, we need not offer palliative analgesia for relief of pain, since experiencing pain is supposedly unintelligible lacking an appropriate larger pattern of desires and emotions. Lacking this, as Helm claims in renewing the ancient Stoic claim about the sage under torture, one’s writhing and screaming fail to signify that one is suffering pain (2002, p. 24). No need for morphine to palliate any such seeming pain of our patient, it seems. And Richard Moran would add that morphine should be equally useless for providing the solace of pleasure, as this similarly always depends on appropriately connecting with a patient’s cognitively complex normative space of skills and reasons (Moran 2002, pp. 209–14). Such views may have testable consequences. They may predict that broad attitude changes accompany effective antidepresssant therapy and, less plausibly, all transient enjoyments and lightening of mood.

But as Helm perhaps halfway acknowledges by deferring in passing to biological constraints, we may not be as unitary and governed by a coherent pattern of feelings, desires, and evaluative judgments as he seems officially to propose. Pleasure and pain sometimes seem to impose themselves on us absent any connection with any large pattern of evaluations we can identify with, but rather from below, out of proportion to any plausible role in larger patterns of preexisting concerns and standing desires, as when we spontaneously take pleasure in a fragrance, sunset, or landscape –or just find ourselves, unaccountably, in a good mood. In such cases, at least, it seems plausible that our relevant concerns and practical reasons are small and local, centered on the pleasure and perhaps a perception (Sidgwick 1907, 127-31, 110-113; Goldstein 1980, 1989, 2002) or appearance (Plato and Aristotle, according to Jessica Moss 2012) of its goodness, rather than necessarily embedded in a much larger package deal. Even if pleasure is or involves a functional role of some kind, this may be a relatively small and local one of a kind shared with simpler animals, constituted by intrinsic functions of brain and mind. [ 7 ]

Hedonists in the grip of the simple picture regard pleasure-seeking as uniquely intelligible and demand that all motivated action and all reasons for action be fitted to this mold. Opponents who privilege a holistic model of evaluation and deliberation may demand, instead, that all feeling be made intelligible in its terms. We should be equally skeptical of both demands and also of the claims for special and exclusive intelligibility on which they trade. It appears that affective experience is present in infants who have as yet no large pattern of desires and concerns and also in dying people who have lost any relevant ones or even the capacity for them. The default presumption seems to be that in many cases such as these and of ordinary ‘simple pleasures’ and of elevated mood as well no relevant large integrated pattern of evaluative attitudes or of aesthetic aptitudes need obtain. We thus have some reason to return to something closer to the simple picture that retains its momentary experiential core.

The child acquiring the ability to refer to pleasure has more to go on than the concept empiricist’s untutored inward recognition when learning to sort together sweets, hugs, and play and to name something common these typically cause or sustain. The great medieval lyric poet Walther von der Vogelweide paraphrases joy as “dancing, laughing, singing”. [ 8 ] And Darwin writes, “I heard a child a little under four years old, when asked what was meant by being in good spirits, answer, ‘It is laughing, talking, and kissing.’ It would be difficult to give a truer and more practical definition.” [ 9 ] As Darwin also observes, “[W]ith all races of man, the expression of good spirits appears to be the same, and is easily recognized.” [ 10 ] The contrast with the negative affects develops very early in the expressive behavior of the child and is also early and easily perceived. While a mature conception will distinguish behavioral expression from its inward cause (as Walther does, in lines 28–29, quoted in note 8), the very young child may possess a less differentiated conception in which the salient contrasts between smiling or laughing and crying (Walther, line 29), and generally between the external expressions of the positive and negative affects, are prominent. Labeling and reporting one’s own hedonic states presumably develop alongside attribution to others, from innately prepared capacities for affective feeling, expression, and perception that must work together early to facilitate early emotional communication and bonding between infant and parent and, later, mutual understanding with others. [ 11 ] To a slightly older child, pleasure may signify at once feeling that is good and behavior expressing it and goodness of life no more than these. From such a liberalized Lockean basis, not based solely or mainly in phenomenal similarity but not arrived at without experience, a child may progress to a more mature conception of good and thence to the common adult conception of pleasure as feeling that is good (Sidgwick, discussed in §1.2, ¶1; §2.3.1, ¶1; n. 5, ¶4; and n. 18) or at least naturally presents as such (Aristotle according to Moss, n. 7 above), with hedonic experience having had some place among these concepts’ sources.

Saving the core of the simple picture, pleasure as a relatively unmediated momentary experience, in some such way, however, may abandon the obviousness of pleasure’s nature, goodness, and role in motivation that complete introspective transparency and intelligibility was supposed to provide. Experience of pleasure may thus play a role in allowing direct reference to pleasure and also in forming our concept of the good without its giving us any deep knowledge or justified confidence about either. Even whether there actually is such a kind as pleasure, as there appears to be, is open to refutation by new science. But if introspection is thus fallible, then Sidgwick’s failing to find a single feeling of pleasure, Ryle’s finding it a behavioral disposition, and Feldman a pure propositional attitude like belief (§2.3.2) separable from having any feeling at all, are not decisive objections to pleasure feeling like something or at least some things (Labukt 2012). The immediacy of phenomenal experience may not make for obviousness to cognition §2.3.4, ¶2), as on the full-blooded empiricist construal of the simple picture. (For recent defenses of aspects of such an experiential approach to pleasure, see, e.g., Crisp 2006, Labukt 2012, and Bramble 2013).

There may be reason, moreover, to believe introspection of affective, as opposed to, for example, sensory, experience, to be especially prone to errors of omission. Focal awareness of specific information content and the experience of affect have long been thought to compete with each other – and not merely as different sensory or cognitive contents do. Competitive alternation between the two modes of experience was a commonplace of past psychology and is receiving increasing confirmation. [ 12 ] Ongoing research initiated by Marcus Raichle and his collaborators indicates default, resting state, or monitoring modes of brain activity, perhaps including representations of one’s current hedonic state, that are typically turned down by attention-demanding tasks (Gusnard et al 2001, Gusnard and Raichle 2004, Fox et al 2005), perhaps even by some ways of attempting to introspect one’s current affective state. If so, the very focusing of introspective scrutiny on pleasure provoked by the demand to accurately report it, may, thus, sometimes turn down the gain on systems involved in representing it. If this is so, it may explain some of the inconsistency of views mentioned in the previous paragraph and those of the 1930s introspectionist psychological laboratories (n. 3) as well. However that may be, pleasure seems generally to attach attention and motivation to salient stimuli and especially toward ends it is pleasant to envision, rather than to itself (e.g., Schlick 1930/1939, Ch. II, §§4–10, pp. 36–55). Such a perspective may answer the objection to experiential views of pleasure that if pleasure were felt, it would divert our attention from what we are enjoying, such as music, to itself (Ryle 1954a, Madell (2002, pp. 90–93). Pleasure may typically be easier to notice sideways than straight on. And as task demands increase, these may degrade our ability to even cognitively notice our affective state, so that the pleasure we phenomenally experience is out of (the limited-capacity cognitive awareness of our) mind (cf. §2.3.4, ¶2).

From a contemporary fallibilist perspective on introspection, we should not then be surprised at its failures or take them to be decisive against pleasure’s being a single experiential kind, as Sidgwick did. And even if it is not, the possibility of its containing a limited heterogeneity remains (Labukt 2012, §3.3 below). Neither should it be surprising that introspectionist psychologists (n. 3, ¶ 3) and philosophers failed to agree on whether pleasure has one phenomenal feel, a diversity, or none at all and that bodily sensations (which are not similarly resistant to inspection) may show up instead. If diligent introspection of some kinds tends to make momentary feeling cognitively inaccessible, then such introspection will often be a worse guide than untutored experience about it. Rather than relying exclusively on introspection (and unknowingly on the naive or trained intuitions and prejudices that may shape reports of it) we should bring the totality of our evidence to bear, drawing on psychology and biology as well as direct experience, as the best philosophers before the heyday of modern empiricism and introspectionism did.

2. Finding Unity in Heterogeneity

There are four chief pleasures, a saying among Afghan men goes: of the hot bath, of a youth with his friends, of a man with a woman, and of seeing one’s son grown to manhood. What might these share, not only with each other, but also with otherwise gendered social and sexual pleasures and with the horror movie goer’s joyous thrill in frights and those of hot spice, as well?

On the simple picture, pleasure itself is always the same; when it is bound up with the different pleasures of sweets or philosophy it is only caused (however cognitively, reciprocally, or recurrently) in different ways. Philosophers have often aimed to respect, more equally with pleasure’s obscurely felt unity, also the diversity manifest in its occasions. Thus Plato speculated that pleasure is a sensing, perceiving, or awareness of improvement, in varying respects, in one’s condition; Aristotle, that it arises in the unimpeded functional fulfillment of varying life capacities in their characteristically different activities (e.g.; perceiving particular things, theoretically contemplating their natures); and contemporary writers that it is a welcoming attitude (had toward different contents) or some underlying stance of openness to experience generally that may waver between different objects and having none at all. Such questions have been explicitly contested at least since Plato had his Socrates suggest that pleasure is so extremely heterogeneous that no simple generalizations about it will hold, such as the hedonist’s claim that all pleasure is good, especially given the very large differences between the things that very different sorts of people enjoy ( Philebus 12C–13B).

2.2 Classical Accounts: Functional Unity with Difference

Plato and Aristotle aimed to understand pleasure’s value, biology, and place in psychology and experience in an integrated way, in the context of the science of their day.

Plato built on the ancient common sense that connected pleasure with the satisfaction of felt longing, or appetitive desire ( epithumia ), and also on early scientific speculation equating pleasure with the fulfillment of bodily needs. He observed that simple personal-report level motivational accounts fail because we may experience pleasure without any previously felt distress, desire, or noticed need, as sometimes when looking, listening, smelling, or learning, and also that one may fulfill physiological needs without experiencing pleasure in the process of so doing ( Philebus 51A–52C). He therefore refined and generalized the current physiologically-influenced account of pleasure as restoration of bodily imbalance or deficiency, on the model of hunger and thirst, to make it instead the sensation, perception, or consciousness (all aisthēsis in Greek) of return from a (possibly unnoticed) state of deficiency to a naturally healthy state. [ 13 ] The ‘pure’ (‘unmixed with pain’) pleasures of knowing and perceiving were apparently construed as signaling the satisfaction of needs we are unaware of, and so not pained by, acquiring or having. A unified account of all pleasure was thus achieved, as awareness of processes of fulfilling very diverse needs , systematically accounting for both pleasure’s unity and diversity. Pleasure could be accorded a place in the best life attainable for beings like ourselves, imperfect enough to have recurrent needs but sometimes aware of their however partial and temporary satisfaction. But the absolutely best life would be a divine one of permanent perfect knowing without the possibility of further learning or any other improvement, and in which there would therefore be no pleasure at all – and presumably we would do well, insofar as we are able, to approximate to this ( Philebus 33B). Descartes’ views of the function or content of pleasure and Spinoza’s official definitions of pleasure as an affect of transition to greater perfection are close to Plato’s, as also are one of Kant’s characterizations, [ 14 ] one of Elijah Millgram’s (2000, pp. 122–26), and Timothy Schroeder’s (2001, 2004, discussed in §3.1). Such Improvement Indicator Views may account for diversity within pleasure by the different species of improvements indicated. But they need not attribute explicit awareness of needs or of their fulfillments as such to the experiencing subject. A modern version might attribute only biological functions, without requiring any explicit representation of departures from or restorations to one’s natural state at either personal or subpersonal levels.

Aristotle rejected Plato’s assimilation of enjoying sights, sounds, smells, and intellectual activity to the satisfaction of homeostasis-serving appetites and also his view of the best, divine, changeless life we should aspire to approximate to as one of pleasureless cognition. Yet he adopted as his own the project of finding a unitary account of pleasure that would fit the teleological metaphysics and intellectualist value theory he inherited from Plato – and also Plato’s strategy of giving a generic formal account that allows for specific variation. He thus rejected Plato’s restoration process account totally to substitute his own equally general account of pleasure as arising rather from the activities of animals, or of their parts or faculties, when these are already, at least in part, in good condition.

Aristotle’s account of life as a teleologically and hierarchically unified system of biological capacities allowed him to give a unified account of pleasure while discriminating systematically among different kinds and instances according to their ranks in his value-laden hierarchy of life capacities and their functionings. Each activity, when unimpeded and perfected, on his view, gives rise to its own specific ‘supervenient’ (arising from a preexisting ground) pleasure, differentiated in kind from those belonging to other kinds of activity ( NE X, 5). The different pleasures thus have a generic unity, as belonging to perfected activities of developed life capacities – a unity ultimately deriving from the generic unity of life itself. The differing causal powers of different kinds of pleasure, each supporting engagement in its own specific activity, but interfering with others, could thus be accounted for, and their higher-level functional and felt similarity as well, by regarding instances of pleasure as experiences of the success of one’s life’s, or soul’s, fulfillment in particular activities of its constitutive perfected activity – but in different activities that, according to the differing teleological ranks of their life capacities and objects, have correspondingly differing degrees of pleasure and value. Pleasure is thus no accidental addition to life; it naturally reflects and tracks success in living and its value. This value is teleologically explanatory of our biological development and of the lower animal desires in which we share, but also gives to human life and rational human action their own characteristic higher ultimate goal and point. Living a life that brings its biologically highest constitutive capacities to their complete development and then exercises them without impediment upon their naturally best and most suitable objects is success in life and brings the most pleasant pleasure with it. Trivial or ignoble pleasures are sought instead by those who are stunted in their capacities for higher activities, having failed to develop the intellectual and moral virtues needed to use these well, and consequently fall short of the highest natural human fulfillment and goal. That is the fully human happiness which consists in using reason well, which at its best approximates to the best and pleasantest life form of all, the changeless purely intellectual activity of God. Our pleasure tracks the perfection of our current activities and thus our proximity to this, life at its cognitively clearest, most awake, and best ( Protrepticus B87–B91, 1984, p. 2414; Nicomachean Ethics VII, 11–14 and X, 1–6).

Aristotle’s theory, which we may call a Perfection in Functioning View , accommodates both pleasure’s generic unity and specific diversity by making pleasure and its value vary together, with the varying nature and value of animals’ various life activities, and these, in turn, with those of their objects or ends. It has had a deservedly great influence on later accounts, from later antiquity to recent philosophy and welfare economics. [ 15 ] Recently the prolific social psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s studies mainly of self-reports of the ‘flow experience’ of engaged absorption in activities have provided some empirical support for flow’s connection with enjoyment, but also, perhaps, for its not, despite its advertising, being the very same thing – as he, like Aristotle, in his improving exhortation, sometimes seems to want it to be. [ 16 ]

John Stuart Mill followed Aristotle in endorsing a rational preference for ‘higher’ pleasures over those we share with ‘lower’ animals, but objected to Aristotle’s tying pleasure to objective functional standards. He and more recent writers have posed simple counterexamples to these being even sufficient or necessary conditions for pleasure, using perceptual examples such as Aristotle used in expounding his theory. Mill’s objection may be interpreted and expanded upon as follows. Aristotle’s theory implies that, other things equal, the more precise and informative of two perceptions or cognitions must be the more pleasant. But this, it seems, may be the worse of two bad smells. The excellent acuity of the olfactory system and even its unimpeded operation and the mutual suitability of faculty and object ( NE X, 4:1174b14–1175a3) seem not to exclude this. So Aristotle’s conditions seems insufficient for pleasure, if excellence of object is filled out in cognitive or functional rather than in hedonic terms. (Neither is any such condition necessary for pleasure, as in a relaxed and lazy mood.) Of course, we might downgrade or upgrade sensory interactions ad hoc, counting those we enjoy as excellent, but then we move in a small circle and offer no independent characterization of pleasure. [ 17 ] Perhaps a quasi-neoAristotelian might acknowledge all this and abandon the claims that led to the falsified predictions, while still believing pleasure is some way activities are performed (to be filled out empirically). But whether any plausible way can be found remains to be shown. The same holds all the more for Aristotle’s ambition of explaining pleasure’s value by some more basic independently defined value in biological functioning.

Epicurus took a less elitist and less intellectualist view of pleasure according to which it is available to its greatest extent to any animal free from bodily and emotional pain (Cooper 1999a), with no highly developed distinctively human capacity or functioning in principle required. Epicureans cultivated philosophy, however, to free people from groundless fears of afterlife suffering and death, and inculcated habits of living enabling one to live simply and thus securely because not needing, and thus not fearing loss of, luxuries. Varying pleasant activities was also recommended, perhaps because this is needed to maintain requisite awareness of our stable natural state’s unimpeded life activity by varying its expression (cp. Gosling and Taylor, 1982, 374 and Erler and Schofield, 1999, 653 and further references cited there; for further references supporting a variety of interpretations see n. 30 below). While emphasizing his differences with Epicurus, as he interpreted him (1790/1976, 294–300, 307), Adam Smith rather similarly believed that someone “who is in health, who is out of debt, and has a clear conscience” is in “the natural and ordinary state of mankind” to the widespread happiness typical of which nothing important can be added (45).

2.3 A Kind of Directedness toward Objects or Contents?

Many ordinary mental states recognized by common sense, such as particular beliefs and desires, are essentially directed upon their object or content. Could pleasure’s unity be that of such a kind, and its diversity derive from from that of its intentional contents or objects? If not always of Aristotelian activities we enjoy. or real people or things, perhaps prospects or propositions or impossibilities that are abstracta or have their being as objects of thought alone? According to a Christian philosophical tradition, pleasure constitutively depends on a mental act of willing or loving that may be directed toward different cognitively presented things. And according to the contemporary analytic philosopher Fred Feldman, pleasure itself is a single propositional attitude, like belief, that, similarly, may be directed toward diverse propositional contents. The tenability of such accounts concerns not only philosophers primarily interested in pleasure but also those more generally concerned with the nature of mind. Brentano claimed that all mentality is intentional and some recent analytic philosophers that the phenomenal character of experience is constituted by its representational content (e.g., Lycan 2005). If there are representationally contentless but phenomenally conscious pleasant moods, such claims and theories cannot be correct.

The lack of a precise account of pleasure’s nature presented no scandal so long as pleasure was thought of as an experience, however variable and generic, typical causes of which might be roughly characterized but for which no verbally explicit real definition was to be expected (Locke and Kant, cited in n. 2; Mill 1872/1979, p. 430). Perhaps this is all an account short on biological or computational detail, and on the deep functional insight these might offer, can provide. However, taking introspection to be a source of scientific knowledge led to disquiet when introspectors failed to agree about what, if any, distinctive introspectible item they had found in experiencing pleasure. Even before this method had run its course in psychology (see n. 3 above), the philosopher Henry Sidgwick had failed to find any distinctive uniform quality in his own experience of pleasure. His normative account of pleasure, as “feeling, apprehended as desirable by the sentient individual at the time of feeling it” (1907, p. 129; see n. 5, ¶4 above), led C.D. Broad to suggest, in passing, that the pleasant experiences might be just those we like. [ 18 ] Ambiguity in academic use of this colloquial language of “liking” has led to equivocation in the literature. Some authors use it for an intrinsically hedonic state distinguished from wanting or desiring but not from pleasure. Others use it instead for an attitude (such as desire) they suppose either to constitute from within, or else to pick out and thus unify from outside, experiences of pleasure as such and sometimes to insist wrongly that their opponents, by using the same language, have conceded their view. (Problems with such language were flagged by Zink 1962, 90–2; Trigg 1970, 52–3, 116–19; Katz 2008, 414–17; Tanyi 2010; and Labukt 2012, 158 but still afflict the ethics literature. This issue is also often run together with that of whether the related reasons are value- or desire-based, but distinguished from it by Heathwood 2011.)

Franz Brentano, Sidgwick’s close contemporary, brought explicit concern with such intentional (act/object or attitude/content) structure to the attention of Western philosophers outside the continuing Catholic intellectual tradition. The involvement of pleasure and emotions with beliefs and desires had been a starting point for discussions in Plato ( Philebus 36ff.) and Aristotle ( Rhetoric II, 2–11). In the following tradition pleasure was often regarded as, in part, a bodily phenomenon not belonging to our true, nonbodily, self or true good. [ 19 ] Scholastic philosophers of the Western Christian high middle ages accordingly regarded bodily pleasure as occurring in a sensory soul or power, caused directly by sensory awareness. They debated competing views concerning the causation and intentionality of thought-mediated pleasure, regarded as occurring in the intellectual soul or power. On William of Ockham’s account, such pleasure causally depends directly on the will’s loving acceptance, as good in itself, of an object intellectually presented. For Ockham, this pleasure is distinct from the loving acceptance on which it depends, as is shown by the example (used similarly earlier by John Duns Scotus) of a cognitively pleased scholar in a depressed mood, in which the normally resulting pleasure fails to occur. Others denied these two were distinct. Some of them allowed, however, a distinct second-order loving taking the original loving as its object and thus as that of its pleasure; another thought this higher-order loving and pleasure might be included in the original act of loving. [ 20 ] Descartes rejected this dualism, regarding all pleasure (as all else mental) as essentially thought (and, specifically, as at least often involving thinking that some good pertains to oneself) and sensory, or bodily, pleasure as pleasing the immaterial thinking mind by informing it of its body’s sufficiency to withstand the mild challenge to its integrity that the sensory stimulation presents (see n. 2, ¶2, for references). For Brentano, sensory pleasure takes as its intentional content, rather, the sensuous experiencing of sensory qualities. It is a loving directed toward a sensory act. In intellectually-caused pleasure, our purely spiritual (nonbodily) loving (as it seems: nonaffective liking, approving of, or being pleased by) the content of a thought causes us to affectively love a sensory experiencing – i.e., to experience bodily sensory pleasure . [ 21 ] Brentano seems in these views to have followed his medieval Scholastic models, without taking on board the standard modern notion of affective consciousness that is neither conative nor sensory nor coldly intellectual (Kant 1790/2000 and its Bibliography note).

Caution is required when appropriating the medieval language of intentionality in contemporary non-Scholastic use. In the older deployments considered above, in the context of an Aristotelian teleological metaphysics of mind and nature in which minds and natural forms were made for each other and their moving toward perfected acts of knowing did explanatory work, naive realism about content ascriptions had a fundamental place. In contemporary cognitive sciences and analytic philosophy, they are sometimes understood more instrumentally than as expressing precise ground-level truths. [ 22 ] It’s often not clear what ascribing a content or object to, say, pleasure involves. There’s also no standard single use of attitude language in academic Philosophy. Uses predominant in the analytic philosophy of language and thereby in the philosophy of mind usually involve relations to propositions, about which there is much literature but no standard account of what they are or what ascribing relations to them involves. Belief is standard example. A different or narrower use more influenced by psychology and common in ethics involves being motivationally, affectively, or evaluatively (rather than cognitively) for or against (e.g., Nowell-Smith 1954, 111–115, the source of the term “pro-attitude” and of classifying pleasure as one of these).

Fred Feldman identifies pleasure (in the relevant inclusive use) with an occurrent propositional attitude comparable to Brentano’s loving. [ 23 ] If an act/object analysis applies uniformly to all pleasure , and if we must then choose between the objects and how we take them , then opting thus, for how we take them, would seem the correct choice . Accordingly, on Feldman’s view, the act or attitude type, rather than its diverse objects or contents, would be what all episodes of pleasure have in common and makes them such, while its objects, including instances of ‘sensory pleasure’ (in use 2 of n. 1, ¶8), are brought together and unified only by way of their relation to it, so that this attitude is, in the important sense, what pleasure is (cf. Feldman 1997a, 2004).

Unlike Brentano, for whom even human intellectual pleasure turns out, in the end, to be sensory, bodily, and affective, Feldman, in attempting a similarly unifying account, moves in the opposite direction; his attitudinal pleasure is not supposed ever to essentially involve as such any feeling at all. (For this reason, his saying it is an attitude like belief communicates his intention more clearly than his going on sometimes to add hope and fear, without making explicit that he intends these latter, also, to be pure propositional attitudes not essentially or centrally involving feeling, as he perhaps, like the Stoics, does.) Friends of the simple picture’s experiential core, of pleasure conceived as involving felt momentary affective experience, will want to resist this denial of the centrality of feeling in pleasure. But there are also other grounds for skepticism about the uniform attitude approach, since an act/object or attitude/content account, again, seems not to fit the phenomenology of someone enjoying a pleasant nap, daydream, or diffuse good mood, as it must if it is to be an account of inclusive pleasure – as must be intended given Feldman’s larger aim of formulating hedonism as a view of ‘the good life’ in ethical theory. Taking all pleasure to be a single special kind of propositional or de se (directly attributing a property to oneself) attitude, as in Feldman 1997c/1988, in all human and animal pleasure alike, also strains intuitive plausibility by requiring cognitive powers of propositional representation or self-reference even in young children and animals (as in Feldman 2002, p. 607), if these are not to be denied pleasure. And the belief we must choose between pleasure feeling like something and its having intentionality also seems questionable. Bennett Helm, as we have seen (§1.2), and also other contemporary philosophers, including Geoffrey Madell (2002, chs. 5 and 6) and Timothy Schroeder (§3.1), reject this exclusive disjunction of the two in proposing accounts on which both belong to pleasure, as did many medievals and, following them, Brentano.

The single uniform attitude approach also faces a problematic tension between its intuitive motivation and its technical adequacy. The natural and intuitive assignment of contents that makes plausible construing pleasure sometimes as an attitude with propositional content runs into problems when it is extended to a uniform propositional attitude theory of all pleasure, as Anscombe (1981c/1967) first observed. To use and develop further her line of reasoning using her original example: her enjoying riding with someone is different and separable from her enjoying reflecting then on the fact that she is (and, if the latter is distinct from that, also from her being pleased then that this is the case). But on a single uniform attitude analysis, applied in what seems the natural and intuitive way, it seems these should consist in her directing the same attitude on the same proposition (or, alternatively, on her self-attributing the same property). But this doesn’t seem to allow that she might enjoy one but not the other, as she surely may. A technical problem may have a technical fix. Perhaps one may thus regard the activity of reflecting as a different mode of presentation (or the like) of the same propositional content that Anscombe more directly enjoys to the same attitude, while retaining something of the approach’s intuitive motivation. However, it seems more natural and intuitive to say the attitude is directed, instead, primarily toward these different activities, including some naturally described as themselves taking propositional or de se (property-self-attributing) contents, such as Anscombe‘s reflecting that she is riding with someone, but also to others that don’t, such as her just riding .

Anscombe’s earlier work, apparently provoked by proposals similar to Feldman’s, suggests such a way out. As she noted, cases described as enjoying a proposition or fact seem to involve our thinking about it or being in some state or the like (1981c/1967). These seem to be activities or experiencings that we may (following Aristotle) regard as activities, at least for present purposes. We may, then, let the different activities make the needed distinctions, by saying that enjoying riding is one thing and enjoying reflecting that one is riding is another. Such an approach also handles the pleasure of prancing puppies and of suckling babies without seeming to ascribe to them the general and logically combinatorial representational capacities that may be involved in having attitudes toward propositions, attributing properties to oneself, or the like – capacities that puppies and babies may lack and that even human adults may not always exercise when enjoying a nap or a warm bath. The most natural and uniform attitudinal view of pleasure would thus seem to be not Feldman’s propositional view but rather one on which to enjoy a sensation is just to enjoy sensing it and that similarly to enjoy any cognitive content or object of thought as such is just to enjoy thinking about it or the like – and that these are all actual activities. But this seems at least very close to an ‘adverbial’ (activity-dependent) neoAristotelian view on which particular instances of pleasure are modes of their activities (without the need for any special single kind of attitude).

Feldman, in an encyclopedia treatment that perhaps presents the attitudinal approach to pleasure more broadly than the works cited above presenting his own propositional version, allows attitudinal pleasure to take among its objects or contents activities and sensations as well as facts (2001, p. 667). Elsewhere he allows nonactual states of affairs among the objects of attitudinal propositional pleasure (2002, p. 608). Presumably he will need distinct impossible propositions, so that Hobbes’ pleasure in contemplating the (supposed) geometrical fact (actually, a mathematical impossibility) that the circle can be squared may be distinguished from his pleasure in his having (equally impossibly) discovered this. (Surely the magnitude of his taking pleasure in these two may change in opposite directions, as his focus shifts, as he first loses all thought of himself in the mathematics, but later swells with self-regarding pride.) Whether there are such distinct impossible states of affairs or propositions (between which Feldman may not distinguish) seems especially controversial. Feldman tells us that pleasure is an attitude like belief, so it may seem we may rest content to have pleasure no worse off than belief and leave it to theorists of belief to solve such shared problems generally. But pleasure must be even more general than belief if, as in Feldman 2001, it takes as its objects not only the contents of belief (often thought of as abstract entities, which as we have seen need to at least represent, if not include, nonactual and even impossible objects) but also sensations and activities that, for us to enjoy them, must be not only actual and concrete but also present and our own . The supposedly single attitude of pleasure thus seems to come apart along this line, in part corresponding to one between sensory and intellectual pleasure that many medievals and Brentano respected, by complicating their theories at this point, as Feldman does not. The move from Locke’s distinctive feeling of pleasure to Feldman’s stipulated distinctive attitude does not obviously help with the unity problem for pleasure that he supposes it to solve; similar doubts arise about pleasure’s unity and, it seems, more besides.

Further, pleasure differs from belief and similar nonaffective propositional attitudes in seeming to be more locally biological and less broadly functional. It often seems to spill over promiscuously from one object to another as belief logically cannot; it is generally suppressed by depressed mood, as belief in general is not; a diminished capacity for pleasure may be restored by antidepressant drugs and other therapies, while there are neither specific deficits affecting all and only beliefs (but not other attitudes taking a similar range of contents) nor specific remedies for them. Belief and the like are thus plausibly thought of, at least in large part, as broadly functional states neither simply localized in any single discrete neural system nor susceptible to being capable of being similarly caused directly by similar chemical interventions in all physiologically similar individuals. If psychological realism and parsimony are to constrain our theory, the evidence would seem to favor an account more like Ockham’s on which objects presented by thought may be loved consequently, with pleasure often resulting. We may thus more plausibly theorize that sophisticated intentionality belongs primarily to the cognitively representational powers of mind, also to the loving that uses these in referring to and acting toward its objects, but is ascribed to pleasure only derivatively through functionally appropriate causal connections by way of these and the like. Then we can distinguish Hobbes’ two pleasures in thinking of different impossibilities and also Anscombe’s in riding and reflecting on it derivatively, by way of the differences in the relevant activities, whatever view we take about thinking and its contents.

On the other hand, if something in the spirit of Feldman’s welcoming attitude were freed from the requirement of always taking a content or object, and might obtain on its own, then it could capture not only all of the above but also cases in which we seem to have pleasure when doing nothing at all and attitudinizing toward nothing at all. Perhaps, then, pleasure is a stance (for lack of a better place-holding term) of affective openness, welcoming, or immediate liking with which we may wholeheartedly engage in the activities and experiences we enjoy, from thinking to swimming to just lying about and ‘doing nothing’, but that may also (unlike ordinary propositional attitudes or de se [reflexively-centered] attitudes) obtain without having any object or content at all. Like many experiential features and mental processes, it might be sometimes integrated and bound with others, but sometimes not, and the same episodic instance might survive as the variable binding and integration develops, decays, and shifts over time (perhaps varying without increasing the pleasure, as the Epicureans said) while the underlying mood or stance of readiness for pleasant engagement remains, rather than being individuated in term of its contents or objects as particular intentional mental acts are. Rather than being an attitude of taking pleasure in some specific or particular content or other, pleasure itself could be a central state independent of such attitudes from which they arise and perhaps include as their common inner ground.

Empirical evidence that affect can exist separated from what under normal conditions would have been its object supports thinking of it in such less object-bound ways. In experiments the nonconscious mechanisms that bind pleasure to objects can be fooled about the pleasure’s source (which presumably they evolved to track), resulting in personal-level ignorance or error about this and even the unconscious formation of arbitrary new preferences through experimental manipulations. For example, experimental subjects may be caused to like a beverage better by initial exposure to it after a photograph of a smiling face under conditions in which there is no awareness of the face being seen or of the affective response it caused. This presumably works by pleasantness being ‘misattributed’ by unconscious cognitive mechanisms that, ignorant of any more appropriate cause for the positive affect, attribute pleasantness to the next salient stimulus they find, with an enduring liking for the beverage resulting from this. Similar spillover of affect from unattended sources, for example, of unattended physical discomfort leading to anger at a salient target, seems common in everyday life. Such phenomenona are all presumably explained by affective processes being detachable from what would have been their objects under more cognitively optimal conditions. [ 24 ]

On the basis of this and other science (e.g., Shizgal 1997, 1999) it seems that affect, may, like color and many other features, be processed separately in the brain from representations of any objects to which the feature in question (e.g., color or pleasantness) really belongs or is later assigned. Such assignment presumably requires active binding to object representations, however fused with these in our experience of liking or hope our affect may often seem. Cases of objectless ‘diffuse’ mood in which, rather than the binding of affect being displaced to an object that did not cause it, the affect rather remains objectless and unbound (if only for lack of a suitable cognitively accessible object), seem clear and common enough not only in unusual experiences but also in everyday dreamy life to establish object-independence at the personal level, even if the experimental evidence for misplaced affect is rejected. That positive affect is often diffuse (objectless) seems uncontroversial in the psychology of mood (Watson 2000; Thayer 1989, 1996). That pleasure is in itself objectless is sometimes supposed in theorizing in behavioral neuroscience, as well (e.g., Robinson and Berridge, 1993, pp. 261ff.). The same assumption is the basis for the psychologist and emotion specialist James Russell’s notion of core affect, which places an in-itself objectless feeling good at the ground level of the construction of more complex positive emotion (Russell 2003).

We may call all views sharing the general approach on which pleasure is either a welcoming attitude (with instances individuated, in part, by their contents or objects) or a potentially freestanding welcoming stance, Welcoming Views  – and only those latter, on which it is such a stance that can float free, Welcoming-Whatever-Comes Views . [ 25 ] The latter capture something of the connections biologists and psychologists have made with approach behavior, and past philosophers and common sense with desire, while still allowing pleasure to be sometimes a freestanding welcoming mood and nonintentional, but with the potential for becoming bound to representational states and presenting objects as good then. Such a stance could be unified and recognized in part by way of an experiential core.

Brentano influentially claimed that all mental phenomena exhibit intentionality as their distinctive mark (Jacob 2014). (The ancient roots of the philosophical concepts of mind and consciousness on which Brentano drew were cognitive.) Contemporary philosophers seeking a unified account of all phenomena covered by the inclusive modern Western notion of mind often follow Brentano in hoping to do this in representational terms and to account in this way for consciousness. In this they may turn for support and guidance to neuroscientific accounts of the remapping of information from peripheral receptors to the brain and from one brain region to another. Thus Michael Tye, in discussing mood, appeals to Antonio Damasio’s account of feelings as representing conditions of the body (Damasio 1994, 1999, 2003; Tye 1995, pp. 128–30; Craig 2002, 2009, 2015).

Intentional structure has also been motivated by a subject/object duality that may seem metaphysically necessary or even given in subjective awareness itself. Pleasure has often been thought of as immediately, essentially, and even wholly conscious in itself. However, some philosophers have distinguished pleasure from consciousness of pleasure. And this may introduce a layer of intentional structure otherwise not found in pleasure itself. Seventh century India saw Nyāya and Vaiśesika criticisms of the views of some self-denying Buddhists that all awareness, and therefore all pleasure, is self-disclosing, without any need for a higher-order cognitive act of an ulterior self. And G. E. Moore, following Plato, argued that we must decide whether pleasure or cognitive awareness (or, as Moore put it, “consciousness of pleasure”) is the locus of hedonic value and that this is properly located in the consciousness of pleasure rather than in bare pleasure itself. [ 26 ] Perhaps our concept of consciousness comes apart at this juncture and pleasure may be immediately or ‘phenomenally’ experienced while unnoticed and without its being generally cognitively accessible. Someone sympathetic to the simple picture who applies this distinction of Block’s (Block 1995, 1997, 2002; Katz 2005b; cp. Haybron 2007) might locate hedonic value in bare pleasure, rather than in any cognitive awareness of it. Then we might mediate between the Buddhists and their opponents by allowing nondual phenomenal experience without insisting that it need be cognitively self-disclosing and respond to Moore by saying that hedonic experience, even when unmonitored, may be phenomenally conscious and valuable nonetheless. And indeed scientists increasingly regard pleasure, like many cognitive states and processes, as separable from awareness. [ 27 ]

3. Pleasure, Motivation, and the Brain

The simple picture of pleasure as valuable and attractive due to its own experiential nature may survive the objections considered so far, at least as theoretical possibility. However, looking more closely at our experience of pleasure, its long-noted but variable connections to motivation, and at the sciences studying these raises further questions. Pleasure itself, or at least pleasure and forms of motivation with which it is typically integrated and easily confused, may come apart, on closer analysis. The search for true pleasure that is really as good as it seems, beyond taint of compulsive craving or biological illusion, now continues in the studies of the brain. These give us reason to think that, if there is some single experience of true pleasure, its relations to motivation may be more heterogeneous, complex, and contingent than naive versions of the simple picture, hedonism, and common sense supposed. But perhaps the deeper philosophers and yogis knew this all along.

Pleasure has traditionally been connected with motivation, although traditions differ on how. Plato ( Charmides 167e1–3), Aristotle ( Rhetoric I, 11:1370a16–18; DA II, 3:414b2–6 and II, 9:4332b3–7; EE II, 7:1223a34–35), and the common sense for which they speak are pluralist about human motivation. For all these, while one salient kind of motive involves longing for pleasure or pleasant things, people also have other ultimate goals. They compete for honors and other purely competitive goods, seek revenge, and pursue and avoid other things as well. And sometimes they do so because of evaluative judgments based in ultimately nonhedonic grounds. Hedonists argued that spontaneous pleasure-seeking is evidence of pleasure’s unique status as our ultimate goal and good, as evidenced by the unenculturated and therefore uncorrupted appetites and values of infants. The ancient Stoics interpreted these phenomena so as to block this hedonist appeal to nature’s authority: pleasure is rather a by-product of the achievement of other ends, starting right from the infant’s innate impulses, not toward pleasure, but rather toward biological goods such as food, guided by a natural instinct directed toward its preservation, which rational motivation may later supersede (Long and Sedley, 1987, 65A3–4; Brunschwig 1986). Augustine influentially built on the Stoics in attributing pleasure to the will ( CD XIV,6); later Western Christian thought mainly followed him.

Modern Western philosophers, following Aristotle’s account of the unity of motivation ( DA 433a30–b13) and Augustine’s counting all motives as loves of the will (but often ignoring the pluralism about kinds of motive on which they and their traditions equally insisted), have often treated ‘desire’ as including all motivation and as of a single kind to be explained on the same pattern. Between 1600 and 1900 they often regarded desire as uniformly directed toward one’s own pleasure, along lines suggested by the simple picture. Joseph Butler (1726) responded to this view of human nature as hedonistically selfish by renewing the Stoic insistence on the priority of motivation to pleasure and also the related medieval view that pleasure always consists in the satisfaction of some appetite. He thereby could argue that pleasure-seeking without prior motivation would be impossible since pleasure always consists in the satisfaction of some motive (in his language, ‘passion’) and that altruistic motives are thus in principle as capable of leading to a high level of fulfilled desire, and thus of pleasure, as any others.

There are, however, prima facie counterexamples to taking desire satisfaction to be a necessary condition for pleasure, as Plato long ago pointed out ( Philebus 51A–52C): we often enjoy things such as sights, sounds, and fragrances that may surprise us without our having wanted them before, clinging to them when they are with us, or craving them after they are gone. But Butler presumably followed Plato and his medieval successors in implicitly understanding unconscious internally represented needs as of a kind with desires. Timothy Schroeder does similarly today (2001, 2004), but in an account on which pleasure does not require the actual existence of desires or their satisfaction, but is rather a defeasible sensing of an increase in their net satisfaction. However, the basis for such an informational interpretation in the neuroscience appealed to seems very slim (Katz 2005c). Older desire satisfaction accounts of pleasure were susceptible to counterexamples based in desires that expire before their satisfaction (Brandt 1982). Recent writers avoid these by proposing instead the satisfaction of current desires, such as affective desire for the continuation of one’s present experiences (Madell 2002, pp. 97–98). Other contemporary writers on pleasure, with analytic reductionist projects in folk psychology (Davis, 1981a, 1981b, 1982) and metaethics (Heathwood 2006, 2007), have claimed that pleasure is definable as believed satisfaction of current desire. However, we often don’t enjoy things that we continue to desire, at least for a time. And addiction offers salient cases of such cravings that hang around for a very long time without leading to pleasure when indulged. And distinguishing believing or sensing that we are now getting what we want from now actually getting it doesn’t generally solve this class of problem. So it appears that it won’t do to make either desire or its satisfaction or sensings or beliefs in that satisfaction sufficient for pleasure, let alone identical to it, as these philosophers have variously proposed.

One cannot help suspecting that the attraction of such desire satisfaction related views of pleasure owes something to unconscious equivocation between someone’s feeling satisfied and desires’ being satisfied (i.e., fulfilled) merely by their satisfaction conditions coming to pass, as they might long after the desirer is dead and gone. (This latter use is analogous to the way logicians speak of satisfaction, without any felt contentment or happiness of the linguistic objects considered being in question.) One may view someone’s success in a way that makes mere project fulfillment count toward it, but it is hard to see why anything like that, or sensing (Schroeder 2001, 2004) or believing (Davis and Heathwood) it, should figure directly in an account of someone’s pleasure even while alive. To adapt the example of Plato’s Socrates that scandalized his Callicles ( Gorgias 494A–495A) to apply to Madell, one may intensely and affectively desire to continue one’s experience of scratching one’s itch or rubbing oneself, which desire is simultaneously fulfilled, without oneself experiencing pleasure in so doing. Fulfilling compulsive or addictive cravings in their time need not be pleasant. And appropriately limiting the kind of desires, to avoid all such counterexamples, would seem to require building a relation to pleasure or the like into the desires, thus giving up the reductive project. Consonantly with the foregoing, decades of social psychological research using self-ratings of happiness (e.g., Strack, Argyle, and Schwarz 1991) indicates a hedonic component (or two, one for positive and one for negative affect) underlying such self-reports that tracks how good people feel but that is independent of the component tracking their beliefs about their achievement of desired or valued goals. People care about both, but for different reasons.

Problems also face analyzing pleasure in motivational terms other than “desire” more closely tied to behavior. Henry Sidgwick rejected simple relational accounts of pleasure as “a feeling we seek to bring into consciousness and retain there” or the “motive power” toward this as incapable of giving the correct ‘quantitative’ answers about degree of pleasure demanded of any serious definition. He argued that, while “pleasures of repose, a warm bath, etc.” might be handled by moving to an account in terms of motivational dispositions, excitement often adds motivation disproportionate to pleasure – an objection that applies to similar behavioral and motivational accounts current today. [ 28 ]

On the other hand, if there is no close connection between pleasure and motivation, why pleasure should be more likely to become an object of pursuit rather than of avoidance or indifference seems mysterious. Natural selection may explain why animals that already pursue pleasure and avoid pain should come to enjoy foods that are nutritious and to feel pain when they begin to be injured. But it’s not clear how it could explain why animals pursue pleasure and avoid pain rather than the other way around. Philosophers are well acquainted with the problem of evil in a world created by an all-knowing, all-powerful and all-good God or in any similarly good-directed teleological order. It’s hard to explain why there should be any evil in such a world. But on a completely nonteleological view of nature it seems as hard to see why animals especially pursue their own or any good (cf. Plato, Phaedo 97B8–99C6). Both problems depend on our having an independent grasp of the relevant normative notions. If evil were just whatever God won’t will, and an animal’s good or pleasure were just whatever it tends toward or has been naturally selected to pursue, both puzzles would dissolve.

This Problem of Good was, in the past century, raised specifically against views akin to the simple picture of pleasure, on which pleasure is valuable by virtue of its intrinsic nature, perhaps just because of the way it feels in its moment, and independently of our or other animals’ actually desiring or pursuing it. It was argued that such a picture of pleasure leaves our pursuit of pleasure an apparently miraculous conicidence crying out for explanation. This was urged not in favor of theology or teleology, but rather in arguing that pleasure must be connected to animal impulse or desire by its very nature (Alston 1967, pp. 345–46; Findlay 1961, pp. 175–78; McDougall, 1911, pp. 324–25.) It may help to see this puzzle as a human counterpart of Socrates’ question to Euthyphro, about which comes logically first, the righteousness of pious acts or Divine love of them (Plato, Euthyphro , 6E11–11B1). Which comes logically first, hedonic value or motivation? Perhaps science, by revealing the constitution of pleasure and of its enmeshment with motivation, will tell us which of these answers to give to this human Euthyphro question or else will suggest some third way out. Some value hedonists are inclined to answer that we and other animals simply respond to pleasure’s value by rationally apprehending, and accordingly pursuing, it (Goldstein 1980, 1989, 2002). While ancients and medievals inhabiting a teleological worldview (on which attraction toward the good required no further explanation) could answer thus, to that extent, it seems, they faced no Problem of Good, which arises to the extent one abandons unexplained teleology. In principle, however, nondebunking explanations seem possible. For example, perhaps brute identity or natural relations of pleasure and pain with good and bad nutritional or metabolic states provided a basis for natural selection, starting from feelings of energy and fatigue representing only themselves, to enable these to progressively connect with and represent more, and then entangled these representations with motivational reward systems, resulting in the biology discussed in the next section.

Plato and later Greek thinkers, as also many of ancient India, distinguished kinds of pleasure connected with craving kinds of desire from kinds of pleasure that involve no desire or need and hence none of the suffering, tension, or stress connected with these. Similar questions arise in interpreting the neuroscience of affect, motivation, and addiction today.

According to Adam Smith (1790/1976), “[h]appiness consists in tranquillity and enjoyment. Without tranquillity there can be no enjoyment; and where there is perfect tranquillity there is scarce any thing which is not capable of amusing.” (III, 3, 30, p. 149) And in Utilitarianism John Stuart Mill distinguishes between excitement and tranquillity as two sources of contentment, the first allowing us to tolerate pain and the second the absence of pleasure (1971, Ch. II, ¶13). [ 29 ] They thus draw on distinctions prominent in Hellenistic traditions, such as those of Epicurean and Stoic thought, [ 30 ] which (unlike Mill) advised against the more activated and desire-driven forms of pleasure and took the happiest life to be one of calm and tranquillity. (Cf. Haybron, 2008 on attunement and tranquillity, passim. ) Such advice had antecedents in Plato’s hostility to pleasure connected with strong desires and in Aristotle’s ranking the calm pleasure of reviewing already possessed knowledge over those of attaining and producing new knowledge, of competitive achievement, and of satisfying worldly desires. [ 31 ] Making such distinctions is consonant with Ivar Labukt’s recent suggestion (2012) that experiential views of pleasure may err not in being experiential but in neglecting the possibility that pleasure may be more than one kind of experience.

Indic traditions are rich not only in recommendations of nonattachment as a path to tranquillity but also in their long history of analysis of experiential states associated with traditional meditation practices. The Pali Canon of the Theravadin Buddhists, in passages that have parallels in other Buddhist traditions, describes progressively deeper stages of meditative concentration ( jhana ), passing through which one first stops initiating and sustaining thought, then ceases also activating joyful interest ( pīti ), and finally loses even the underlying feeling of (perhaps nonintentional) pleasure, bliss, or ease ( sukha , in a narrow sense), so that one then abides in a state of equanimous, all-accepting upekkha (etymologically, ‘looking on’), sometimes traditionally described as without pleasure ( sukha ) or pain ( dukkha ) but occasionally as pleasant ( sukha ). The difference between joyful interest and (mere) pleasure (traditionally classified as a feeling rather than with the predominantly intentional states such as joyful interest) is explained in the commentary tradition by the contrast between the state of a hot and weary desert traveler when first hearing of, and then seeing, a pool of water in a shady wood and the state of one actually enjoying, or resting after, using it. [ 32 ] The latter is said to be preferred by the meditator as less coarse, presumably because it is a purer and more restful pleasure in that it is less mixed with eager interest and motivation, which seem tainted with stress, strain, or pain. Similar distinctions, between appetitive states that prepare animals for anticipatory, preparatory, or instrumental action and functionally later consummatory states that end these and initiate consummatory behaviors and end in repose, have been used for at least the past century in the scientific studies of behavior and mind (Sherrington 1906/1947, pp. 329 ff.; W. Craig 1918; Davidson 1994).

In contemporary affective neuroscience, similar interpretative questions arise. Here also we find a condition of activated interest and motivation that many have been tempted to identify with pleasure. Activation of the brain’s mesolimbic dopamine system organizes many especially of the instrumental pursuits that bring our lives not only ulterior rewards but also meaning. However it seems also to drive our compulsions and the craving desire unrelieved by euphoria typical at times of withdrawn cocaine addicts. The apparent paradoxes facing a general pleasure interpretation of such dopaminergic activity have led many scientists studying these systems, including former advocates, to back off from that and similar interpretations (e.g., Wise 1994). The distinction between pleasure and pain may be made elsewhere in the brain.

The theoretically inclined affective neuroscientist Kent Berridge has for decades influentially argued that mesolimbic dopamine itself gives no true pleasure, but that a core neural basis for a state of ‘liking’ involved in conscious pleasure is mediated by other brain activity, including some involving opioid receptors and sometimes cannabinoid receptors as well. These seem to be involved in organizing the circuit and network activity that makes possible the savoring more prominent in the consummatory, satisfying, and relaxing phases of meals, sexual activity, and personal relations and, so far as we know, all other pleasure and enjoyment as well, even as mesolimbic dopamine ’wanting’ seems typically more prominent in the earlier and more exploratory, appetitive, instrumental, and approach phases of these. Berridge and his collaborators persuasively argue that without the participation of localized hedonic ’hotspot’ activity there is no true pleasure, with specific transmitter activity in these small areas always required. While so far as is known such results may apply with generality, the preponderance of evidence as of yet comes from invasive experiments on rodents, and therefore relies on expressive and voluntary behavior to indicate pleasure. (See Berridge references and his website linked below for new review articles, Kringelbach references, papers in their jointly edited 2010. For a complementary perspective on relevant opioid systems, see Depue and Morrone-Strupinksy 2005, especially §6.1.2, pp. 323–25). The emerging picture seems not one of ’pleasure centers’ or ’pleasure transmitters’ but of diverse neurons capable of behaving flexibly, in different modes, and thus able to collectively self-organize into different circuits and different networks with changing input and neuromodulation, some of which differences make the differences between feeling happy, so-so, or sad. But we must remember that this science is still very much a work in progress and that the picture is growing more, not less, complex at this time.

Perhaps the two normally functionally integrated modes of activity, Berridge’s ‘liking’ and ‘wanting’, organize fundamentally different affective, motivational, and experiential states that, however often they occur mixed or temporally intermeshed, should be considered distinct successors to our naive and undiscriminating common conception of pleasure. However, to the extent that the relevant concept of pleasure is a normative one, so too will this question of succession be. It is tempting to regard Berridge’s ‘liking’, when unmixed with ‘wanting’and pain, as the undriven, pure and true pleasure that contemplatives and philosophers have long been seeking, and to follow Berridge in regarding this ‘liking’ detachable from any object (cf. the stance of 3.3 above), as (true) pleasure – and dopaminergic ‘wanting’ as the fool’s pleasure dross from which it and we ideally should be freed to live like Epicurean gods. However, we may still, in practice, need to alternate between the preponderance of the two (cf. Mill, 1871, Ch. II,¶13). Pleasure may thus commonly arise as a relatively fragile and transient outgrowth of a larger biological syndrome of pursuit and temporary attainment, much as in Aristotle’s analogy of pleasure’s perfecting an activity with the bloom of youth ‘coming on top of’ biological maturation, using a term, epigignomenon , earlier applied in medicine to an aggravating symptom arising from a grounding and underlying diseased state ( NE X, 4:1174b31–33, Liddell and Scott, 1940, ad loc. epigignomai ).

Based on the scientific evidence, if pleasure comes apart, it will be along such lines, and not along those suggested by concern with intentional structure (between attitude and object) or between sensory pleasure, enjoyment of activities, and so-called propositional pleasure that armchair philosophical and linguistic analysis suggests. But this should come as no surprise. Mood disorders and their therapies do not discriminate along such a priori lines either (Millgram 1997, 124 citing Katz 1986, 119).

Perhaps there is only one true pleasure of blissful freedom from stress, present in all apparently diverse pleasures, including those of the hot bath, sexual consummation, youthful friendship, and freedom from responsibility for children which figured in the short Afghan list of §2.1 – and its impure mixtures with frights and with the burning pains of hot spice are only due to ways it can be caused due to our biology and past conditioning. Or perhaps there will be much more intrinsic, and not merely causally relational, diversity. How we and our hedonic experience are situated or constituted in our brains and organisms remains to be seen. And bringing normative wisdom to bear on emerging physiology will presumably be called for, at least to the extent that the concept of pleasure, at least in its primary use by naive experiencers (who seem to fix the reference of the term in part through pleasure presenting as good to them), is an evaluative and normative one, however legitimately this may bracketed by scientists and philosophers when theorizing about it. (Cf. Sidgwick 1907, 129, on the Stoics taking this appearance to be an always deceptive one, and not only, perhaps like Plato [Moss 2006] and Aristotle [Moss 2012], as an occasionally corrigible one.)

In doing so we may aim to capture much in earlier views while keeping in mind that pleasure is something biological, psychological, and experiential which remains in large part unknown, the nature or category of which it is inappropriate to stipulate a priori. Perhaps pleasure expresses the unimpeded functioning (Aristotle) of our Natural anxiety-free and pain-free State (Epicurus) by which we are able to reach outward from our hedonic core to engage with more representational brain processes – and through these, with love, to all the world (citations in n. 25). But perhaps pleasure has a more complex reflexive intentional structure, as suggested in some of the medieval literature mentioned in §2.3.1 and n. 20  ad loc. , and understanding the self-organization of recurrent neural activity will someday help us to introspect this better. Elements at least of these suggestions and others are compatible. Or perhaps pleasure divides in two, perhaps along the lines between the ‘wanting’ and ‘liking’ discussed in the preceding section, no one natural kind responding to all we intuitively seek, with dopaminergic reward needed to organize our exploratory pleasures of pursuit until we are ready for opioid bliss and repose. But we should also not forget more humble and basic biological facts: that mood varies with energy and thus with circadian rhythms affecting body temperature and also with the current availability of nutrients in the blood (Thayer 1989, 1996); that how much pleasure we experience also depends on getting enough, and good enough, sleep; that pleasure increases immune response (Rosenkranz et al , 2003), and that how we feel may grow in part out of monitoring bodily homeostasis (Craig 2002, 2009, 2015). These facts are telling about what may, perhaps, turn out to be more a syndrome of typically causally connected features than a simple or unified psychobiological phenomenon, such as would better fit philosophers’ penchant for simple kinds and simple explanations.

The prospects seem good for new and deep scientific understanding of pleasure and of how it is organized in the brain. We may have much to gain from the practical results of this new understanding – especially if, as Voznesensky says,

The main thing in living is human feeling: Are you happy? just fine? or sad? [ 33 ]

But pleasure should also be of special interest even to philosophers of mind not especially interested in value or affect, in part for the strong challenge that apparently contentless moods pose to representational accounts of mind. Deeply subjective or phenomenal aspects of our experience, that may more easily be ignored elsewhere in the philosophy of mind, seem to stare us in the face here, where what is at issue centrally seems no informational content or broad functional role but simply “whether you’re happy or sad”. However, appearances of bare intrinsic fact and simple pictures taken for firm foundations have often proved misleading in the studies of mind. As the sciences of mind and brain mature, they will offer new evidence about pleasure and its roles in our and kindred minds and about whether and how these roles may pull apart, perhaps making pleasure more than one natural kind. Real answers to major questions about the unity, diversity, and nature of pleasure and its relations to pain, motivation, awareness, and value must likely await further results of this new science and their scientifically informed and philosophically sensitive interpretation.

This will gradually be supplemented by linked lists of suggested readings divided by subject.

• Buddhist Canon (Theravadin, Pali in original), 1974 translation, (1st ed. this trans., 1900), A Buddhist Manual of Psychological Ethics, Being a Translation, now made for the First Time, from the Original Pali, of the First Book of the Abhidhamma Pitaka entitled Dhamma-sangani , Caroline A.F. Rhys Davids (ed.) and Introductory Essay and Notes, 3rd ed., London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul for the Pali Text Society.
• Buddhist Canon (Theravadin, Pali in original), 1995 translation, The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the Majjhima Nikāya , trans. Bhikkhu Ñānamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi, Boston: Wisdom Publications.
• Christian Bible.
• Hebrew Bible.
• Upanishads.
• Adolphs, Ralph and Damasio, Antonio, 2001, “The Interaction of Affect and Cognition: A Neurobiological Perspective”, in Forgas 2001, pp. 27–49.
• Algra, Keimpe; Barnes, Jonathan; Mansfield, Jaap; and Schofield, Malcolm, 1999, The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Alston, William, 1967, “Pleasure”, in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy , Paul Edwards (ed.), London and New York: Macmillan, Vol. 6, pp. 341–347. A clear and concise account of some reasons driving changes in philosophers’ and introspectionist psychologists’ views of pleasure through the preceding century and also of some main competing views and objections to them, as seen at the time of writing.
• Anscombe, G.E.M., 1963/1957, Intention , 2nd ed. (1st ed., 1957), Oxford: Blackwell. Seminal work in philosophy of action by a leading disciple of Wittgenstein. A very short but deep and influential discussion of pleasure leads up to a dismissal of ethical hedonism in particular, and perhaps of any appeal to pleasure in theory quite generally, on p. 77.
• Anscombe, G.E.M., 1981a, The Collected Papers of G.E.M. Anscombe , 3 vols., Oxford: Blackwell.
• Anscombe, G.E.M., 1981b/1958 “Modern Moral Philosophy”, in Anscombe, 1981a, Vol. III, pp. 26–42. A summary version of the relevant 1963/1957 passage is in this paper’s seventh paragraph at p. 27. Original publication: Philosophy , 33(124) (1958): 1–16.
• Anscombe, G.E.M., 1981c/1967, “On the Grammar of Enjoy”, in 1981a, Vol. II, pp. 94–100. Original publication: Journal of Philosophy , 64(19): 607–614.
• Anscombe, G.E.M., 1981d/1978, “Will and Emotion”, in 1981a, Vol. I, pp. 100–107. Original publication: Grazer Philosophische Studien , 5 (1978): 139–148.
• Aquinas, Thomas, 1975 (written 1268–71), Summa Theologiæ (‘ST’) 1a 2æ (first division of second part), questions 31–39. The Blackfriars edition, vol. 20, “Pleasure”, has the Latin text and an English translation of these by Eric D’Arcy. New York: McGraw-Hill and London: Eyre and Spottiswoode. Also relevant is question 11 in vol. 17, on fruitio , enjoyment in possession of something prized as ultimately valuable (correctly, only of God, as by the saints in Heaven, in their beatific vision of God), following Augustine (see n. 20, para. 4).
• Argyle, Michael, 2001 (1st ed., 1987), The Psychology of Happiness , 2d ed., New York: Taylor and Francis; Hove, East Sussex: Routledge. Chs. 2 and 3 are cited as especially relevant; its subject is broader than ours.
• Aristotle, 1984, The Complete Works of Aristotle , Jonathan Barnes (ed.), Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Aristotle, De Anima (‘DA’).
• Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics (‘EE’).
• Aristotle, Magna Moralia (‘MM’). II, 7.
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics . (‘NE’) VII, 11–14; X, 1–6.
• Aristotle, Politics .
• Aristotle, Protrepticus . Fragment B87 in its context, a reconstruction from quotations of this presumably relatively early popular work of Aristotle’s. B87 may be found in the 1984 Complete Works at p. 2414.
• Aristotle, Rhetoric I: 11 gives a version of the standard Platonic-Academic definition of pleasure rather than that of the ethical works listed just above. Book II: 1–11 discusses specific emotions, characterizing most as forms of pleasure and pain.
• Aristotle, Topica .
• Armstrong, D.M., 1968, A Materialist Theory of the Mind , London: Routledge and Kegan Paul and New York: The Humanities Press. Pp. 175–79 on pleasure and pp. 85–89 identifying dispositions with their categorical basis.
• Ashby, F. Gregory; Isen, Alice M; and Turken, And U., “A Neuropsychological Account of Positive Affect and Its Influence on Cognition”, Psychological Review , 106(3): 529–50. A dopamine-pleaure interpretation lies, in part, behind the title.
• Augustine, De Civitate Dei contra Paganos ( The City of God, ‘CD’ ). XIV,vi on pleasure as belonging to the Will and XIV,vii elaborating this ethically and theologically as a form of love (into which is packed not only all motivation but all natural motion and a tie to the Holy Spirit of Trinitarian theology as well). Augustine’s sparse remarks here and elsewhere were taken as authoritative in the ensuing Western medieval Christian tradition. There are many editions and translations.
• Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana ( On Christian Instruction/Doctrine/Teaching) .
• Augustine, 1963, De Trinitate , trans. Stephen McKenna, The Trinity , Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press. This translation is now available in a paperback edition from Cambridge University Press, 2002, with an editor’s note by Gareth Matthews on the merits and demerits of this and other English translations, p. xxxii.
• Aydede, Murat, 2000, “An Analysis of Pleasure Vis-à-Vis Pain”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , LXI(3): 537–70. Distinguishes affective reactions from sensory states in this discussion only of physical (bodily) pleasure, with reference especially to the 1949–1973 Anglo-American philosophical literature.
• Aydede, Murat, 2013, “Pain”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = < https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2013/entries/pain/ >. §§5 and 6.1 contain discussion of the distinction between pain sensation and pain affect discussed in n. 1; comprehensive pain bibliographies are linked to at that entry’s end.
• Bain, Alexander, 1876, The Emotions and the Will , 3rd ed., New York: D. Appleton and Co.
• Bargh, John A. and Deborah K. Apsley, 2002, Unraveling the Complexities of Social Life: A Festschrift in Honor of Robert B. Zajonc , Washington: American Psychological Association.
• Barrett, Lisa Feldman; Niedenthal, Paula M; and Winkielman, Piotr (eds.), 2005; Emotion and Consciousness , New York and London: The Guilford Press.
• Bartolic, E.I.; Basso, M. R.; Schefft, B.K.; Glauser, T.; Titanic-Schefft, M., 1999, “Effects of experimentally-induced emotional states on frontal lobe cognitive task performance”, Neuropsychologia , 37(6): 677–83.
• Beebe-Center, J.G., 1932 , The Psychology of Pleasantness and Unpleasantness , New York: Russell and Russell. Summarizes and discusses results and controversies in the introspectionist academic experimental psychology of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
• Beebe-Center, J.G., 1951, “Feeling and Emotion,” in Harry Helson (ed.), Theoretical Foundations of Psychology , New York: D Van Nostrand & Co., pp. 254–317.
• Berridge, Craig W.; España, Rodrigo A.; and Stalnaker, Thomas A., 2003, “Stress and Coping: Asymmetry of Dopamine Efferents within the Prefrontal Cortex”, in Hugdahl and Davidson 2003, pp. 69–103.
• Berridge, Kent C., 1996, “Food Reward: Brain Substrates of Wanting and Liking”, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews , 20(1): 1–25.
• Berridge, Kent C., 1999, “Pleasure, Pain, Desire and Dread”, in Kahneman, Diener and Schwarz, 1999, pp. 525–557. Excellent and accessible review emphasizing the distinction between consciously reportable affect and underlying ‘core processes’ that are supposedly in themselves unconscious. One wonders, however, whether Block’s (1995, 2002) phenomenal consciousness might be present in the activity of some of these.
• Berridge, Kent C., 2003a, “Comparing the Emotional Brains of Humans and other Animals,” in Davidson, Scherer, and Goldsmith 2003 ( Handbook ), pp. 25–51,
• Berridge, Kent C., 2003b, “Pleasures of the brain”, Brain and Cognition , 52: 106–128. Sophisticated review of the case for a distinction between ‘liking’ and ‘wanting’ within the supposedly unconscious ‘core processes’ of the brain.
• Berridge, Kent C., 2004, “Pleasure, Unfelt Affect, and Irrational Desire”, in Manstead, Frijda, and Fischer 2004, pp. 243–62.
• Berridge, Kent C. and Morten L. Kringelbach, 2015, “Pleasure Systems in the Brain”, Neuron 86:646–664.
• Berridge, Kent C. and Robinson, Terry E., 1998, “What is the role of dopamine in reward: hedonic impact, reward learning, or incentive salience?” Brain Research Reviews 28 ,3:309–69. After Robinson and Berridge 1993, perhaps still the best place for a rigorous statement of the theoretical approach behind the developing research program discussed in §3.3, last three paragraphs.
• Berridge, Kent C. and Robinson, Terry E., 2003, “Parsing Reward,” Trends in Neurosciences , 26(9): 507–13.
• Berridge, Kent C. and Winkielman, Piotr, 2003, “‘What is an unconscious emotion?’ (The case for unconscious ‘liking’)”, Cognition and Emotion , 17(2): 181–211.
• Block, Ned, 1995, “On a Confusion about a Function of Consciousness”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences , 18: 227–47. This is here followed by many peer commentaries and the author’s reply. Block’s paper is updated in Ned Block, Owen Flanagan, and Güven Güzeldere (eds.), The Nature of Consciousness: Philosophical Debates , Cambridge. Mass.: MIT Press, 1997.
• Block, Ned, 1997, “Biology versus computation in the study of consciousness”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences , 20: 159–65. Contains responses to additional commentaries.
• Block, Ned, 2002, “Concepts of Consciousness”, in David Chalmers (ed.), Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings , New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 206–18. Abridged and revised from Block 1995.
• Bolles, Robert C. (ed.), 1991, The Hedonics of Taste , Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Bourdon, 1893, “La Sensation de Plaisir”, Revue Philosophique de la France et de l’Étranger , 36: 225–37.
• Bramble, Ben, 2013, “The distinctive feeling of pleasure”, Philosophical Studies , 162: 201–17.
• Brandt, Richard B., 1979, A Theory of the Good and the Right , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Brandt, Richard B., 1982, “Two Concepts of Utility,” in Richard B. Brandt, 1992, Morality, Utilitarianism, and Rights , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 196–212. Original publication: Harlan B. Miller and William H. Williams, eds., Utilitarianism and Its Limits , Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982, pp. 169–85. An objection to desire-fulfillment views of pleasure is based in desires’ changing over time.
• Brandt, Richard B., 1993, “Comments on Sumner” in Brad Hooker (ed.), Rationality, Rules, and Utility: New Esssays on the Moral Philosophy of Richard B. Brandt , Boulder: Westview Press, pp. 229–32. A reply to objections in a volume with a useful bibliography and critical papers, among which that by L.W. Sumner, “The Evolution of Utility: A Philosophical Journey”, pp. 97–114, traces changes in, and appraises, Brandt’s views bearing on our subject.
• Brentano, Franz, 1907/1979, Untersuchungen zur Sinnespsychologie , 2nd ed., with additions, Roderick Chisholm and Reinhard Fabian (eds.), Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag (1st. ed.: Leipzig: von Duncker & Humblot, 1907). Note 39 on pp. 235–40 (pp. 119–25 of 1st ed.), referenced here, is key for a precise interpretation of Brentano’s views on pleasure and their divergence with those of his former protegé Karl Stumpf. The Brentano-Stumpf controversy obviously bears a close analogy and historical relation to medieval debates on pleasure such as those, mentioned in §2.3.1, ¶2 and in n. 20 ad loc. , discussed in McGrade 1987. Many of the same questions explicitly or implicitly arise: Is pleasure a distinct act? If not, what is its relation to the acts to which it belongs? What are its relations to sensation and thought? Does a conscious act always or sometimes take itself as an object (in a different way from any others it has) or is another act always required to reflect on or take pleasure in it?
• Brentano, Franz, 1921/1969, “Loving and Hating”, Appendix IX, in his The Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong , (Oskar Kraus, ed., 3rd German edition, 1934), Roderick Chisholm (ed.), Roderick Chisholm and Elizabeth H. Schneewind (trans.), London: Routledge and Kegan Paul and New York: Humanities Press, pp. 137–60. Original German publication: “Vom Lieben und Hassen”, Anhang, IX, in Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis , 2nd ed., Oskar Kraus, (ed.), Leipzig: Felix Meiner, 1921; this was dictated by Brentano in 1907. A source especially for Brentano’s view of bodily pleasure being involved even in cognitive pleasure, by being caused by one’s judgment or loving, exposited with further references in Chisholm 1987.
• Brentano, Franz, 1929/1981, Sensory and Noetic Consciousness: Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint III , Oskar Kraus (ed.), Margarete Schättle and Linda L. McAlister (trans. ed.), Linda L. McAlister (trans.), London and Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul and New York: Humanities Press. Original German publication: Vom sinnlichen und noetischen Bewußtein , Leipzig: Felix Meiner, 1929. Pp. 14, 16, 59 in Part I, iii, 5 & 7 and Part II, i, 28 are a source for Brentano’s complex intentional theory of pleasure as loving one’s loving of one’s experiencing and also that experiencing itself, exposited with further references in Chisholm 1986 and 1987.
• Brink, David O., 1989, Moral realism and the foundations of ethics , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Contains critical discussion of Moore’s naturalistic fallacy charge against value hedonism, at pp. 151–54.
• Broad, C.D., 1930, Five Types of Ethical Theory , London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
• Bruder, Gerard E., 2003, “Frontal and Parietal Asymmetries in Depressive Disorders: Behavioral, Electrophysiologic, and Neuroimaging Findings”, in Hugdahl and Davidson, 2003, pp. 719–42.
• Brunschwig, Jacques, 1986, “The Cradle Argument in Epicureanism and Stoicism,” in Malcolm Schofield and Gisela Striker (eds.), The Norms of Nature: Studies in Hellenistic Ethics , Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press; Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, pp. 113–44.
• Buddhaghosa (c. 400 CE Buddhist), 1920–21, The Expositor ( Atthasālīni: Buddhaghosa’s Commentary on the Dhammasangani, the First Book of the Abhidhamma Pitaka ), 2 vols., Maung Tin (trans.), Mrs. Rhys Davids (ed. and rev.), London: Oxford University Press, for the Pali Text Society.
• Buddhaghosa (c. 400 CE Buddhist), 1979, The Path of Purification ( Visuddhimagga ), tr., Ñâṇamoli, 4th ed., Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society.
• Butler, Joseph, 1726, Fifteen Sermons Preached in the Rolls Chapel . There have been full and partial reprintings of these sermons. Using the Augustinian language of love, he argues that self-interest (the object of self-love) is dependent on there being specific passions (i.e., desires, but perhaps in a richer than functionalist sense) to satisfy. Classic refutation of drawing selfish consequences from hedonistic egoism: satisfying altruistic desires may advance one’s happiness as much as any self-regarding project does.
• Cabanac, Michel, 1971, “Physiological role of pleasure”, Science , 173(2): 1103–1107.
• Cabib, Simona and Puglisi-Allegra, Stefano, 2004, “Opposite Responses of Mesolimbic Dopamine Neurons to Controllable and Uncontrollable Aversive Experiences”, The Journal of Neuroscience , 14(5): 3333–40.
• Cacioppo, John T., 1999, “Emotion”, Annual Review of Psychology , 50: 191–214.
• Campos, Belinda and Keltner, Dacher, 2014, “Shared and Differentiating Features of the Positive Emotion Domain”, in Gruber and Moskowitz 2014, 52-71.
• Caston, Victor, 2003, “Intentionality in Ancient Philosophy”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2003 Edition) , Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = < https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2003/entries/intentionality-ancient/ >.
• Chisholm, Roderick M., 1986, Brentano on Intrinsic Value , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ch. 3, pp. 17–32, is mainly a shorter, earlier version of his 1987; the rest provides context.
• Chisholm, Roderick M., 1987, “Brentano’s Theory of Pleasure and Pain”, Topoi , 6: 59–64. Accessible exposition of Brentano’s theory.
• Christiano, Thomas, 1992, “Sidgwick on desire, pleasure, and the good”, in Essays on Henry Sidgwick , Bart Schultz (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 261–78.
• Churchland, Paul M., 1979, Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Cicero, de finibus bonorum et malorum ( On Ultimate Goods and Ills ). A recent translation is entitled On Moral Ends , Julia Annas (ed.), Raphael Woolf (trans.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
• Clore, Gerald L. and Colcombe, Stanley, 2003, “The Parallel Worlds of Affective Concepts and Feelings”, in Musch and Klauer, 2003, pp. 335–69.
• Clore, Gerald L.; Gasper, Karen; and Garvin, Erika, “Affect as Information”, in Forgas 2001, pp. 121–44.
• Coan, James A. and Allen, John J.B., 2003, “The State and Trait Nature of Frontal EEG Asymmetry in Emotion”, in Hugdahl and Davidson, 2003, pp. 681–715.
• Cooper, John M., 1996a/1999, “An Aristotelian Theory of the Emotions”, in Essays in Aristotle’s Rhetoric , Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (ed.), Berkeley and London: University of California Press, pp. 238–57, repr. in Cooper 1999b, pp. 406–23.
• Cooper, John M., 1996b/1999, “Reason, Moral Virtue and Moral Value”, in Rationality in Greek Thought , Michael Frede and Gisela Striker, eds., Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 81–114, repr. in Cooper 1999b, pp. 253–80. See pp. 101–2/269–70 for citations on pleasure as an apparent good.
• Cooper, John M., 1998/1999, “Posidonius and the Emotions”, in The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy , Juha Sihvola and Troels Engberg-Pedersen, (eds.), Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 71–111; repr. in Cooper 1999b, pp. 449–84.
• Cooper, John M., 1999a, “Pleasure and Desire in Epicurus”, in 1999b, pp. 485–414.
• Cooper, John M., 1999b, Reason and Emotion: Essays on Ancient Moral Psychology and Ethical Theory , Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Craig, A.D., 2002,“How do you feel? Interoception: the sense of the physiological condition of the body”, Nature Reviews Neuroscience , 3: 655–666.
• Craig, A.D., 2009, “How do you feel – now? The anterior insula and human awareness“, Nature Reviews Neuroscience , 10(1): 1059–70.
• Craig, A.D., 2015 , How Do You Feel? An Interoceptive Moment with Your Neurobiological Self , Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Craig, Wallace, 1918, “Appetites as Constitutents of Instincts”, Biological Bulletin , 34: 91–107.
• Crisp, Roger, 2006, Reasons and the Good , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, 1990, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience , New York: Harper and Row.
• Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, 1996, Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention , New York: Harper Collins. A list of nine characteristics of ‘flow’, his longest I know of, is at pp. 123–24.
• Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, 1997, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life , New York: Harper Collins. Also published as: Living Well: The Psychology of Everyday Life , London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1997.
• Dalgleish, Tim and Mick J. Power (eds.), 1999, Handbook of Cognition and Emotion , Chichester, England and New York: Wiley.
• Damasio, Antonio R., 1994, Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain , New York: G.P. Putnam.
• Damasio, Antonio R., 1999, The feeling of what happens: body and emotion in the making of consciousness , New York: Harcourt Brace.
• Damasio, Antonio R., 2003, Looking for Spinoza: joy, sorrow, and the feeling brain , Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt.
• Darwall, Stephen; Gibbard, Allan; Railton, Peter, 1992, “Toward Fin de siècle Ethics: Some Trends”, Philosophical Review , 101(1): 115–189. Reprinted in: their (as editors) Moral Discourse and Practice: Some Philosophical Approaches , New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 3–47.
• Darwin, Charles, 1998, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals , 3rd ed., with Introduction, Afterword and Commentaries by Paul Ekman, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Now widely thought correct in its main direction, although of course dated in evidence and detail. But a great Darwin read! And Ekman brings the science almost up to date in his notes.
• Davidson, Richard J., 1994, “Asymmetric brain funtion, affective style and psychopathology: the role of early experience and plasticity”, Development and Psychopathology , 6: 741–758.
• Davidson, Richard J., 2000a, “Affective Style, Mood and Anxiety Disorders“, in Davidson 2000b, pp. 88–108.
• Davidson, Richard J. (ed.), 2000b, Anxiety, Depression and Emotion , New York: Oxford University Press.
• Davidson, Richard J., 2000c, “The Functional Neuroanatomy of Affective Style,” in Lane and Nadel, 2000, pp. 371–88.
• Davidson, Richard J., 2001, “Toward a Biology of Personality and Emotion”, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences , 935: 191–207.
• Davidson, Richard J., 2002, “Toward a Biology of Positive Affect and Compassion”, in Visions of Compassion: Western Scientists and Tibetan Buddhists Examine Human Nature , Richard J. Davidson and Anne Harrington, eds., New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 107–130.
• Davidson, Richard J., 2003, “Seven sins in the study of emotion: Correctives from affective neuroscience”, Brain and Cognition , 52(1): 129–32.
• Davidson, Richard J. and Irwin, William, 1999, “The functional neuroanatomy of emotion and affective style”, Trends in Cognitive Sciences , 3: 11–21.
• Davidson, Richard J.; Jackson, Daren C.; and Kalin, Ned H., 2000, “Emotion, Plasticity, Context, and Regulation: Perspectives From Affective Neuroscience,” Psychological Bulletin , 126(6): 890–909.
• Davidson, Richard J.; Pizzagalli, Diego; and Nitschke, Jack B., 2002, “Depression: Perspectives from Affective Neuroscience,” Annual Review of Psychology , 53: 545–74
• Davidson, Richard J.; Scherer, Klaus R. and Goldsmith, H. Hill, 2003, Handbook of Affective Sciences , New York: Oxford University Press. (‘ Handbook ’)
• Davidson, Richard J. and Sutton, Steven K., 1995, “Affective neuroscience: The emergence of a discipline”, Current Opinion in Neurobiology , 5: 217–24.
• Davis, Wayne, 1981a, “A Theory of Happiness,”, American Philosophical Quarterly , 18(2): 111–20. An analysis in terms of beliefs about the satisfaction of desires. However, while the self-report literature on subjective judgments of happiness often shows one component depending on beliefs about how well one’s life is objectively going, there are also other components reflecting how one feels that this analysis does not account for, and these others seem to be pain and pleasure (or feeling happy, where this is the same as experiencing pleasure). See Bibliography annotation to Strack, Argyle, and Schwarz 1991.
• Davis, Wayne, 1981b, “Pleasure and Happiness,” Philosophical Studies , 39: 305–17. (Identifies the two, so the analyses of the other papers, too, apply to our subject.)
• Davis, Wayne, 1982, “A Causal Theory of Enjoyment,” Mind , XCI: 240–56. Extends his 1981 to analyze enjoyment as experiences causing beliefs about the satisfaction of one’s desires.
• Depue, Richard and Paul F. Collins, 1999, with commentaries by others, “Neurobiology of the structure of personality: dopamine, foundations of incentive motivation and extraversion”, with extensive peer commentary, Behavioral and Brain Sciences , 22: 491–569. Defends a dopaminergic view of all these and, in part, of positive affect as well.
• Depue, Richard A. and Jeannine Morrone-Strupinsky, 2005, “A neurobehavioral model of affiliative bonding: implications for conceptualizing a human trait of affiliation”, with extensive peer commentary by many others, Behavioral and Brain Sciences , 28(3): 313–95. Defends a μ-opioid-system theory of the trait of affiliation, while suggesting, more tentatively, such a view of similar consummatory-phase pleasure more generally. (Typesetting errors resulted in “u-opiates” and the like here for “μ-opiates” and the like in most places.)
• Descartes, René, 1984–91, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes , John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and (also, for Vol. III) Anthony Kenny, trans., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 3 vols. (‘CSM’ in citations, where ‘AT’ precedes page numbers of the standard edition of the original French and Latin, often noted in the margins of this and other recent editions: Oeuvres de Descartes , Charles Adam & Paul Tannery, eds., J. Vrin, 1908–1957.)
• Diener, Ed; Sandvik, Ed and Pavot, William, 1991, “Happiness is the frequency, not the intensity, of positive versus negative affect”, in Strack et al. 1991, pp. 119–139.
• Diener, Ed (ed.), 1999, Special Section on the Structure of Emotion, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 76(5): 603–64.
• Drevets, Wayne C. and Raichle, Marcus E., 1998, “Reciprocal Suppression of Regional Cerebral Blood Flow during Emotional versus Higher Cognitive Processes: Implications for Interactions between Emotion and Cognition”, Cognition and Emotion , 12(3): 353–385.
• Duncker, Karl, 1941, “On Pleasure, Emotion and Striving,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 1(4): 391–430. Classic paper on the relations of pleasure and motivation, by a psychologist well-versed in the history of thought about this topic generally and especially in the traditions of introspectionist psychology and phenomenology. His many distinctions seldom connect obviously to later neuroscience; any validity may come at higher levels of brain/mind organization than this has yet reached. A source for some early twentieth century psychological literature in German. Through this paper this German literature may have influenced philosophers writing in English in the following decades, and what they found to be obvious in experience or in ordinary English.
• Edwards, Rem B., 1979, Pleasures and Pains: A Theory of Qualitative Hedonism , Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
• Ekman, Paul, 1999a, “Basic Emotions”, in Dalgleish and Power 1999, Ch. 3, pp. 45–60.
• Ekman, Paul, 1999b, “Facial Expressions”, in Dalgleish and Power 1999, Ch. 16, pp. 301–20.
• Ekman, Paul and Davidson, Richard J., eds., 1994, The Nature of Emotion: Fundamental Questions , New York: Oxford University Press. Question 8: “Can Emotion Be Nonconscious?”, pp. 283–318, affords a mix of empirical and conceptual considerations.
• Ellsworth, Phoebe C. and Klaus R. Scherer, 2003, “Appraisal Processes in Emotion”, in Davidson et al. 2003, Handbook , pp. 572–95.
• Emilsson, Eyójolfur Kjalar, 1998, “Plotinus on the Emotions”, in Juha Sihvola and Troels Engberg-Pedersen, (eds.), The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy , Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 339–63.
• Empedocles (c. 500 B.C.), Fragments , in Kirk, Raven and Schofield (1983). Fragment 17, cited here, and others may be found also in other collections including selections from the presocratic Greek philosophers‘ surviving writings and in editions of Empedocles.
• Epicurus (d. 300 B.C.E.), 1994, The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia , Inwood, Brad and L.P. Gerson, eds. and trans., Indianapolis and Cambridge, Mass.: Hackett Publishing Company.
• Erler, Michael and Malcolm Schofield, , 1999, “Epicurean Ethics”, in Kempe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfeld & Malcolm Schofield (eds.), Hellenistic Philosophy , Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999, 642–674.
• Feldman, Fred, 1997a, “On the Intrinsic Value of Pleasures”, in Feldman 1997c, pp. 125–47. Original publication: Ethics , 107 (April 1997): 448–466.
• Feldman, Fred, 1997b, ”Two Questions about Pleasure,“ reprinted in Feldman, 1997c, pp. 79–105. Original publication: Philosophical Analysis: A Defense by Example , David Austin (ed.), Dordrecht: Reidel, 1988, pp. 59–81. Clearly reviews some main kinds of account given by twentieth century philosophers and proposes that the central kind of pleasure is a special attitude and that others are its intentional objects.
• Feldman, Fred, 1997c, Utilitarianism, Hedonism and Desert: Essays in Moral Philosophy , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Feldman, Fred, 2001, “Hedonism”, in Lawrence C. Becker and Charlotte B. Becker (eds.), Encyclopedia of Ethics , 2d edition, 3 vols., New York: Routledge, Vol. II, pp. 662–669. Clearly reviews some kinds of twentieth century philosophers’ views of pleasure including his own ‘attitudinal’ view, before going on to expound versions of hedonism based on them.
• Feldman, Fred, 2002, “The Good Life: A Defense of Attitudinal Hedonism,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , LXV(3): 604–28. Part of a 2000 symposium at Brown University.
• Feldman, Fred, 2004, Pleasure and the Good Life: Concerning the Nature, Varieties, and Plausibility of Hedonism , New York: Oxford University Press.
• Findlay, J.N., 1961, Values and Intentions , New York: Macmillan. Pp. 175–78 argues against the mere feeling view of pleasure as nonexplanatory and running into what is here called ”the problem of good“. The argument is strongly reminiscent of one used by the psychologist William McDougall (e.g., in his 1911), on behalf of his Stoic-influenced hormic psychology, against the simple picture of pleasure.
• Forgas, Joseph P., ed., 2001, Handbook of Affect and Social Cognition , Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Fox, Michael D., Abraham Z. Snyder, Justin L. Vincent, Maurizio Corbetta, David C. Van Essen, and Marcus E. Raichle, 2005, “The human brain is intrinsically organized into dynamic, anticorrelated functional networks”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America , 102: 9673–9678.
• Fredrickson, Barbara, 1998, “What Good Are Positive Emotions?” Review of Positive Psychology , 2(3): 300–19. Claims there are many positive emotions, although not as well discriminated as negative ones; joy, interest contentment and love (as a complex of these and others) are mentioned. Plausible but vague view that positive emotions serve to broaden attention and cognitive style, which seems to fit a broader range of phenomena than cited. While repeated in later publications, the view seems not yet to have been worked out in greater detail.
• Frijda, Nico, 1993, “Moods, Emotion Episodes and Emotions”, in Handbook of Emotions , Michael Lewis and Jeannette M. Haviland, eds., New York and London: The Guilford Presss, pp. 381–403. Not in the 2nd ed. of this.
• Frijda, Nico, 1999, “Emotions and Hedonic Experience”, in Kahneman, Diener and Schwarz, 1999, pp. 190–210.
• Frijda, Nico, 2001, “The Nature of Pleasure”, in Bargh and Appley, 2001, pp. 71–94.
• Frijda, Nico and Marcel Zellenberg, 2003, in Appraisal Processes in Emotion: Theories, Methods, Research , Klaus R. Scherer, Angela Schorr and Tom Johnstone, eds., New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 141–55.
• Fuchs, Alan E., 1976, “The Production of Pleasure by Stimulation of the Brain: An Alleged Conflict between Science and Philosophy”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 36: 494–505.
• Gardiner, H.M., Ruth Clark Metcalf and John G. Beebe-Center, 1937, Feeling and Emotion: A History of Theories , New York: American Book Company. The most thorough historical account to date in English.
• Gardner, Eliot L. and James David, 1999a, “The Neuorobiology of Chemical Addiction”, in Getting Hooked: Rationality and Addiction , Jon Elster and Ole-dørgen Skog, eds., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 93–136.
• Gardner, Eliot L., 1999b, “The Neurobiology and Genetics of Addiction: Implications of the ‘Reward Deficiency Syndrome’ for Therapeutic Strategies in Chemical Dependency”, Addiction: Entries and Exits , Jon Elster (ed.), New York: Russell Sage Foundation, pp. 57–119.
• Gazzaniga, Michael (ed.), 2004, The Cogntive Neurosciences , 3rd ed., Cambridge, Mass. and London: MIT Press.
• Gibbard, Allan, 2003, Thinking how to live , Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2003. Ch. 2 has an excellent treatment of Moore’s criticism of value hedonism, distinguishing his well-supported claim for a conceptual distinction between pleasure and good from his further claim that these are distinct properties.
• Ginsborg, Hannah, 2014, “Kant’s Aesthetics and Teleology”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = < https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/kant-aesthetics/ >. §2.31 discusses aesthetic judgment’s relation to aesthetic pleasure and §2.33 whether, on Kant’s view of this, aesthetic pleasure is intentional. References to recent philosophical literature on these controversial questions are provided.
• Glare, P.G.W. (ed.), 1968–82, Oxford Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Good on etymology, too.
• Goldstein, Irwin, 1980, “Why People Prefer Pleasure to Pain”, Philosophy , 55: 349–62.
• Goldstein, Irwin, 1985, “Hedonic Pluralism”, Philosophical Studies , 48: 59–55.
• Goldstein, Irwin, 1989, “Pleasure and Pain: Unconditional Intrinsic Values”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 50(2): 255–276.
• Goldstein, Irwin, 2000, “Intersubjective Properties by Which We specify Pain, Pleasure and Other Kinds of Mental States,” Philosophy , 75: 89–104.
• Goldstein, Irwin, 2002, “The Good’s Magnetism and Ethical Realism”, Philosophical Studies , 108(1–2): 1–14.
• Gosling, Justin, 1998, “Hedonism”, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy , London: Routledge, ad loc .
• Gosling, J.C.B., 1969, Pleasure and Desire: The Case for Hedonism Reviewed , Oxford: Oxford University Press. The best introductory book on pleasure, too. Uncluttered and engagingly written, but with only a short select bibliography by way of references. The aim is to distinguish disparate uses and claims run together in the hedonist tradition, without denying the existence or importance of occurrent positive affect in our emotional or active lives. Distinctions made in the course of the twentieth century reaction against hedonism are used to dissect hedonist claims and arguments while excesses of the ordinary language literature (mentioned especially toward the end of n.1 above), then near the end of its run, are largely corrected. A work for undergraduates that wears its wisdom and scholarship lightly while attentive to the intuitive sources and motivations of hedonism in human life.
• Gosling, J.C.B. and Taylor, C.C.W., 1982, The Greeks on Pleasure , Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thorough and scholarly, but sometimes the interpretations are controversial.
• Gruber, June and Moskowitz, Judith Tedlie, 2014, Positive Emotion: Integrating the Light Sides and Dark Sides , New York:Oxford University Press.
• Gusnard, Debra A., Erbil Akbudak, Gordon L, Shulman, and Marcus E. Raichle, 2001, “Medial prefrontal cortex and self-referential mental activity: Relation to a default mode of brain function”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A. , 98: 4259–4264.
• Gusnard, Debra A., and Marcus E. Raichle, “Functional Imagery, Neurophysiology, and the Resting State of the Brain”, in Gazzaniga 2004, pp. 1267–80.
• Haber, Suzanne N., Julie L. Fudge, and Nikolaus R. McFarland, “Striatonigrostriatal Pathways in Primates Form an Ascending Spiral from the Shell to the Dorsolateral Striatum”, The Journal of Neuroscience , 20(6): 2369–2382.
• Haidt, Jonathan, 2003, “The Moral Emotions,” in Davidson, Scherer, and Goldsmith ( Handbook ), pp. 852–70. Claims there are distinct moral emotions reflected to differing extents in different enculturated moralities.
• Halbfass, Wilhelm, 1997, “Happiness: A Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika Perspective, in Mohanty, J.N. and Bilmoria, P., eds., Relativism, Suffering and Beyond: Essays in Memory of Bimal K. Matilal , Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 150–163.
• Hamlyn, David, 1978, “The Phenomena of Love and Hate”, Philosophy , 53: 5–20.
• Harkins, Jean and Anna Wierzbicka (eds.), 2001, Emotions in Crosslinguistic Perspective , Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
• Haybron, Daniel, 2001, “Happiness and Pleasure,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , LXII(3): 501–28.
• Haybron, Daniel, 2007, “Do We Know How Happy We Are? On Some Limits of Affective Introspection and Recall”, Noûs , 41(3): 394–428
• Haybron, Daniel, 2008, The Pursuit of Unhappiness: The Elusive Psychology of Well-Being , New York: Oxford University Press.
• Heathwood, Chris, 2006, “Desire satisfactionism and hedonism”, Philosophical Studies , 128: 539–63.
• Heathwood, Chris, 2007, “The reduction of sensory pleasure to desire“, Philosophical Studies , 133: 23–44.
• Heilman, Kenneth M., 2000, “Emotional Experience: A Neurological Model”, in Lane and Nadel, 2000, pp. 328–44. Well-informed hypotheses on where to look in brain systems’ activity for dimensions of affect, similar to Wundt’s (1896/1897).
• Hejmadi, Ahalya, Richard J. Davidson and Paul Rozin, 2000, “Exploring Hindu Indian Emotion Expressions: Evidence for Accurate Recognition by Americans and Indians”. Psychological Science , 11(3): 183–187. Suggests there are a plurality of basic positive affects. Requires corroboration by other methods, if additions are to be regarded as affects and as basic, rather than just as social signals; e.g, of submission, which may secondarily feel good to people who have been socialized to regard it as appropriate to their age, sex, class or caste status. The classical Sanskrit treatise on dramaturgy Nāṭyaśāstra , cited as a source, may not support the whole list of principal affects it is credited with here, at least in all versions; its Chapter Seven seems not to mention dhyana , contemplation or meditation, translated as “peace” in this paper. See Nāṭyaśāstra: English translation with Critical Notes , rev. ed., 1996 (1st ed., 1986), trans. and notes, Adya Ragacharya, New Delhi: Munishiram Manoharlal, pp. 66ff..
• Heller, Wendy; Koven, Nancy S.; and Miller, Gregory; 2003; “Regional Brain Activity in Anxiety and Depression”, in Hugdahl and Davidson, 2003, pp. 533–64.
• Helm, Bennett W., 1994, “The Significance of Emotions,” American Philosophical Quarterly , 31(4): 319–31.
• Helm, Bennett W., 2001a, Emotional Reason: Deliberation, Motivation and the Nature of Value , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Helm, Bennett W., 2001b, “Emotional and Practical Reason: Rethinking Evaluation and Motivation,” Noûs , 35(2): 190–213.
• Helm, Bennett W., 2002, “Felt Evaluations: A Theory of Pleasure and Pain,” American Philosophical Quarterly , 39(1): 13–30.
• Helm, Bennett W., 2009, “Emotions as Evaluative Feelings”, Emotion Review , 1(3): 248–55.
• Hirvonen, Vesa, 2004, Passions in William Ockham’s Philosophical Psychology , Dordrecht: Kluwer.
• Hobbes, Thomas 1651/1994, Leviathan: with selected variants from the Latin edition of 1668 , Edwin Curley (ed.), Indianapolis: Hackett.
• Hobbes, Thomas, 1658/1991, Charles T. Wood, T. S. K. Scott-Craig, and Bernard Gert, trans., De Homine (in part), in Man and Citizen: Thomas Hobbes’s De Homine and De Cive , Indianapolis: Hackett. Contains translation of De Homine , chs. x–xv, drafted 1641, published 1658.
• Hoebel, Bart; Rada, Pedro V.; Mark, Gregory P.; and Pothos, Emmanuel N., 1999, “Neural Systems for Reinforcement and Inhibition of Behavior; Relevance to Eating, Addiction and Depression” in Kahneman, Diener, and Schwarz 1999, pp. 558–77.
• Houk, James C.; Davis, Joel L., and Beiser, David G., 1995, Models of Information Processing in the Basal Ganglia , Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
• Hugdahl, Kenneth and Davidson, Richard J., eds., 2003, The Asymmetrical Brain , Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
• Hume, David, A Treatise of Human Nature .
• Hundert, E.J., 1994, The Enlightenment’s Fable: Bernard Mandeville and the Discovery of Society , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Hursthouse, Rosalind, 2002, “Emotional Reason: Deliberation, Motivation and the Nature of Value”, Mind , 111: 418–422. A review of Helm 2001a.
• Ikemoto, Satoshi and Jaak Panksepp, 1999,“The role of nucleus accumbens dopamine in motivated behavior: a unifying interpretation with special reference to reward-seeking”, Brain Research Reviews , 31: 6–41.
• Isen, Alice. M., 2002, “A Role for Neuropsychology in Understanding the Facilitating Influence of Positive Affect on Social Behavior and Cognitive Processes”, in Handbook of Positive Psychology , eds., C.R. Snyder and Shane J. Lopez, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 528–40.
• Ito, Tiffany A. and Cacioppo, John T., 1999, “The Psychophysiology of Utility Appraisals”, in Kahneman, Diener, and Schwarz 1999, pp. 470–88.
• Ito, Tiffany A. and Cacioppo, John T., 2001, “Affect and Attitudes: A Social Neuroscience Approach”, in Forgas 2001, pp. 51–74.
• Izard, Carroll E., 1991, The Psychology of Emotions , New York and London, Plenum.
• Jacob, Pierre, 2014, “Intentionality”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = < https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/intentionality/ >
• Johnston, Victor S., 1999, Why We Feel: The Science of Human Emotions , A review of some relevant science by a research psychologist written for a general audience. More daring in its interpretations and evolutionary speculation than the literature written for scientists.
• Kagan, Shelly, 1992, “The Limits of Well-being”, Social Philosophy and Policy , 9: 169–89. Also published, with identical pagination, in Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred D. Miller, Jr., and Jeffrey Paul (eds.); The Good Life and the Human Good , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 169–189. Section II, Hedonism, discusses well some options for relating pleasure and desire.
• Kahneman, Daniel, 1999, “Objective Happiness”, in Kahneman, Diener and Schwarz, 1999, pp. 3–25. A program for getting from momentary self-reports to somethingmore. Excellent and accessible. See §3.1, last ¶, n. 5 last ¶, and n. 28 on Kahneman’s motivational definition of “instant utility” (p. 4), which seems subject to the objections Sidgwick raised against its Victorian predecessors, 1907, p. 127.
• Kahneman, Daniel, 2000, “Experienced Utility and Objective Happiness: A Moment-Based Approach”, in Kahneman and Tversky, 2000, pp. 673–92.
• Kahneman, Daniel; Diener, Ed; and Schwarz, Norbert (eds.), 1999, Well-Being: The Foundations of Hedonic Psychology , New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Contains contributions from psychologists and others representing different subfields and literatures, generally more accessible than papers written for specialists. Probably the best single place to start reading scientfic literature on the subject.
• Kahneman, Daniel and Amos Tversky (eds.), 2000, Choices, Values, and Frames , New York: Russell Sage Foundation; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Kahneman, Daniel, Wakker, Peter P., and Sarin, Rakesh, 1997, “Back to Bentham? Explorations of experienced utility”, The Quarterly Journal of Economics 112 , 2: 375-406.
• Kant, Immanuel, 1790/2000, Kritik der Urteilskraft , trans. as Critique of the power of judgment , Paul Guyer (ed.); Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews (trans.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. See especially, with pages in the Academy edition, referenced in the entry just below, in parentheses: p. 33 (20: 231) from the First Introduction; pp. 105 (5: 220, 222) and Guyer’s notes at p. 361, n. 24 and p. 366, notes 3 and 4 for citations to other writings of Kant’s. For references to recent secondary literature on the relations of aesthetic judgment and aesthetic pleasure in Kant, and on the latter’s possible intentionality, see Ginsborg 2005. Kant’s First Introduction (which some editions follow Kant in omitting) gives his fullest account of the influential division of mind into Cognition, Conation or Desire, and Feeling (involving pleasure or pain). Adding the last of these formally to the medieval Intellect and Will may be new with him, although eighteenth century predecessors, perhaps especially J.G. Sulzer, came very close (Gardiner, Metcalf, and Beebe Center, 1937, ch. ix, pp. 244–75).
• Kant, Immanuel, 1800/1974 (first ed., 1798), Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht , English trans.: Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View , trans. Mary Gregor, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974. The relevant passage is on p. 100 there and at vol. VII, pp. 231–2 of the standard complete edition of Kant’s works, Gesammelte Schriften , Prussian/German Academy of Sciences, Berlin: G. Reimer/W. de Gruyter, 1902–    , the pagination of which is often included in the margins of later editions and translations.
• Kapur, Shitij, 2003, “Psychosis as a State of Aberrant Salience: A Framework Linking Biology, Phenomenology, and Pharmacology in Schizophrenia”, American Journal of Psychiatry , 160(1): 13–23.
• Katkov, G., 1940, “The Pleasant and the Beautiful”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society , XL (1939–40): 177–206. Pp. 179–87 may provide the account in English closest to Brentano’s intentions, based on the relevant passage of Brentano’s untranslated 1907 and other works that may yet be unpublished (Katkov’s note, pp. 178–79). The loving is itself part of the act of sensing at which it is directed. One suspects this may be all the reflexivity intended; Chisholm has a loving of a loving in his analysis, which seems a permissible, but not a mandatory, reading of other Brentano texts.
• Katz, Leonard D., 1982, “Hedonic arousal, memory and motivation,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences , 5(1): 60. A commentary on Wise 1982 by a philosopher, showing how to interpret and state Wise’s scientific views in a way friendly to elements of the simple picture of pleasure.
• Katz, Leonard D., 1986, Hedonism as Metaphysics of Mind and Value . Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, published and distributed through ProQuest/UMI (URL = http://www.umi.com/umi/dissertations). An attempt to revive and reform pleasure-centered theorizing in both areas, in the spirit of the simple picture of pleasure. Includes discussion of the ancients, utilitarians, and of neuroscience through 1985. The last is updated in §3 below. Some points are used and some improved upon or corrected here.
• Katz, Leonard D., 2005a, Review of Fred Feldman, Pleasure and the Good Life , Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews , 2005.03.02. [ Available online ]
• Katz, Leonard D., 2005b, “Opioid bliss as the felt hedonic core of mammalian prosociality – and of consummatory pleasure more generally?”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences , 28(3): 356. (Short commentary on Depue and Morrone-Strupinsky 2005 by a philosopher).
• Katz, Leonard D., 2005c, Review of Timothy Schroeder, Three Faces of Desire , Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews , 2005.09.09. [ Avaialble online ]
• Katz, Leonard D., 2008, “Hedonic Reasons as Ultimately Justifying and the Relevance of Neuroscience”, in Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (ed.), Moral Psychology , Vol. 3: The Neuroscience of Morality: Emotion, Brain Disorders and Development , Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, pp. 409–17.
• Kenny, Anthony, 1963, Action, Emotion and the Will , London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Ch. VI, pp. 127–50, is most relevant and includes a pithy statement of Anscombe’s central point.
• Kirk, G.S.; Raven, J.E.; and Schofield, M., 1983, The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with Selected Texts , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1st ed., 1957.
• Knuuttila, Simo, 2004, Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy , Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
• Kraye, Jill (ed.), 1997, Cambridge Translations of Renaissance Philosophical Texts , Vol. I, Moral Philosophy , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Part VI translates extracts from works of Petrarch, Filelfo, Raimondi, and Quevedo partially rehabilitating Epicurean hedonism in a Christian context.
• Kringelbach, Morten. L., 2009, The Pleasure Center: Trust Your Animal Instincts , New York: Oxford University Press.
• Kringelbach, Morten L. and Kent C. Berridge (eds.), 2010, Pleasures of the Brain , Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
• Kringelbach, Morten L. and Kent. C. Berridge, 2015, “Motivation and Pleasure in the Brain”, in Wilhelm Hofmann and Loran F. Nordgren (eds.), The Psychology of Desire , New York and London: The Guilford Press, 129–45.
• Labukt, Ivar, 2012, “Hedonic Tone and the Heterogeneity of Pleasure”, Utilitas , 24(2): 172–99.
• Lamme, Victor A. F., 2003, “Why Visual Attention and Awareness Are Different”, Trends in Cognitive Sciences , 7(1): 12–18.
• Lamme, Victor A. F., and P. R. Roelfsema, 2000, “The Distinct Modes of Vision Offered by Feedforward and Recurrent Processing” Trends in Neurosciences , 23(11): 571–579.
• Landfester, Manfred, 1966, Das griechische Nomen «philos» und seine Ableitungen , Hildesheim: Olms.
• Lane, Richard D., 2000, “Neural Corelates of Emotional Experience”, in Lane and Nadel, 2000, pp. 345–70.
• Lane, Richard D, and Nadel, Lynn, eds., 2000, Cognitive Neuroscience of Emotion , New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Lane, Richard D., Lynn Nadel and Alfred Kaszniak, “Epilogue: The Future of Emotion Research from the Perspective of Cognitive Neuroscience”, in Lane and Nadel, 2000, pp. 407–12.
• Larue, Gerald A., 1991, “Ancient Ethics”, in A Companion to Ethics , Peter Singer (ed.), Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 29– 40.
• LeDoux, Joseph, The Emotional Brain : The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life New York: Simon & Schuster.
• LeDoux, Joseph, 2002 The Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are , New York and London: Viking Penguin. Ch. 9, pp. 235–91 has further discussion and references on relevant neuroscience, especially of dopamine ‘reward’, by an affective neuroscientist who takes a fairly dim view of it – an eminent amygdala specialist who thinks that what pays off is studying specific emotion systems, such as that supposed to be specifically for fear conditioning in the amygdala. (Many now take a less specific view of amygdala function.)
• Liddell, Henry George and Robert Scott, rev. Henry Stuart Jones, 1940, 9th ed. (1st ed., 1843), A Greek-English Lexicon , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Lieh-tzu, 1960, The Book of Lieh-tzu: A Classic of the Tao , trans. A.C. Graham, New York: Columbia University Press. Reports of the naive libertine hedonism of Yang Chu, apparently rare in extant ancient Chinese prose, are in chapter 7.
• Locke, John, 1700/1979, reprinted with corrections from 1975 edition; following mainly 4th ed., 1700; 1st ed. 1689), An Essay concerning Human Understanding , Peter H. Nidditch (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press. II,xx and xxi are most relevant.
• Long, A.A. and Sedley, D.N. (eds., trans., commentary and notes), 1987, The Hellenistic Philosophers , 2 vols., Vol. I containing English translations and Vol. II containing Greek texts. Texts and notes in §21 (Epicurean) and in §§57 and 65 (Stoic), in both volumes, are relevant.
• Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus, 1st c. B.C.E.), De rerum natura . This exposition of Epicureanism in verse is available in many editions and translations.
• Lycan, William, 2015, “Representational Theories of Consciousness”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = < https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/consciousness-representational/ >.
• Lyons, William, 1980, Gilbert Ryle: An Introduction to his Philosophy , Brighton: Harvester and Atlantic Highlands, N.J: Humanities. Chapter 11 critically discusses Ryle 1954a and 1954b but overlooks the relevant chapter in his 1949.
• Madell, Geoffrey, 1996, “What Music Teaches about Emotion,” Philosophy , 71: 63–82.
• Madell, Geoffrey, 2002, Philosophy, Music and Emotion . 2002, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
• Manstead, Antony S. R.; Frijda, Nico and Fischer, Agneta (eds.), 2004, Feelings and Emotions: The Amsterdam Symposium , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Matilal, Bimal Krishna, 1986, Perception: An Essay in Classical Indian Theories of Knowledge , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.
• McDougall, William, 1911, Body and Mind , New York: Macmillan. There have been several identically paginated reprint editions.
• McGrade, Arthur Stephen, 1981, “Ockham on Enjoyment: Toward an Understanding of Fourteenth Century Philosophy and Psychology,” Review of Metaphysics 33 : 706–28. “Enjoyment” is the traditional but misleading translation of the technical use of “ fruitio ” and cognates in these medieval texts. In the text I prefer “valuing” for this act of the Will distinguishable from pleasure and arguably antecedent to and dissociable from it, as on Ockham’s own view.
• McGrade, Arthur Stephen, 1987, “Enjoyment at Oxford after Ockham,” in Anne Hudson and Michael Wilks, eds., From Ockham to Wyclif , Oxford: Blakwell, pp. 63–88. An excellent and clear discussion of the alternatives to Ockham’s view in the fourteenth century debates. But see note on his 1981 above.
• Merlan, Philip, 1960, “ Hēdonē in Epicurus and Aristotle ”, in his Studies in Epicurus and Aristotle (Klassich-Philologische Studien, Volume 22), Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, pp. 1–37.
• Mill, James, 1829/1869, Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind , 2nd ed., 1869, John Stuart Mill (ed. and annot.) (1st ed., London: Baldwin and Cradock, 1829), London: Longmans Green Reader & Dyer, 2 vols.
• Mill, John Stuart, 1872/1979 (1st ed., 1865), An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy and of the Principal Questions Discussed in his Writings , 1872 4th ed. text, J. M. Robson (ed.), Toronto: University of Toronto Press and London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979. Chapter XXV, pp. 430–436, is the classic rejoinder to Aristotelian views in a principal but now little-read work of Mill’s.
• Mill, John Stuart, 1871 (1st ed., 1861), Utilitarianism , 4th ed., London: Longmans Green Reader & Dyer. Many recent editions based on this are available.
• Millgram, Elijah, 1997, Practical Induction Princeton: Princeton University Press. Chapter 6, pp. 105–40, gives an indicator of well-being theory of pleasure.
• Millgram, Elijah, 2000, “What’s the Use of Utility?”, Philosophy and Public Affairs 29 ,2:114–36. An indicator of change for the better account of pleasure.
• Mitsis, Phillip, 1987, Epicurus’ Ethical Theory , Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
• Monier-Williams, Monier, 1899, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Etymologically and Philologically Arranged with special reference to Cognate European Languages , new ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press. This standard is available in both British and Indian reprints.
• Moore, George Edward (G.E.), 1903, Principia Ethica , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ch. III, “Hedonism”, pp. 59–109 and especially the distinction between pleasure and consciousness of pleasure at pp. 87–89, influenced by Plato’s discussion in Philebus 21A. Plato’s distinction there between pure pleasure and cognition, however, may differ from Moore’s in leaving what Block calls “phenomenal consciousness” on the pleasure side. Moore uses an undifferentiated concept of consciousness.
• Moran, Richard, 2002, “Frankfurt on Identification: Ambiguities of Activity in Mental Life”, in Sarah Buss and Lee Overton (eds.), Contours of Agency: Essays on Themes from Harry Frankfurt , pp. 189–217. Pp. 209–14 contain a sensitive discussion of ways pleasure may be regarded as norm-governed and active, much in the spirit of Aristotle and of Anscombe. A controversial inference that pleasure cannot be the sort of thing that could be directly caused by drug action is drawn.
• Morillo, Carolyn R., 1990, “The Reward Event and Motivation”, Journal of Philosophy , 87(4): 169–186. Material from this is included in her 1995.
• Morillo, Carolyn R., 1992, “Reward Event Systems: Reconceptualizing the Explanatory Roles of Motivation, Desire and Pleasure,” Philosophical Psychology , 5(1): 7–32. Material from this is included in her 1995.
• Morillo, Carolyn, 1995, Contingent Creatures: A Reward-Event Theory of Motivation and Value , Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. Includes material from her 1990 and 1992 in Chapter 2. Defends a hedonistic view of motivation and value (but an avowedly nonnormative and naturalist one) in the light of the brain reward and conditioning literature. Clearly develops a view of motivation like the motivation by pleasant thoughts view put forward by Schlick (1930/1939) and discussed by Gosling (1969), while also emphasizing that pleasure is itself intrinsic and nonrelational, as in her 1992.
• Moss, Jessica, 2006, “Pleasure and Illusion in Plato”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 72: 503-35,
• Moss, Jessica, 2012, Arisotle on the Apparent Good: Perception , Phantasia, Thought , & Desire , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Mulligan, Kevin, 2004, “Brentano on the mind”, in Dale Jaquette (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Brentano , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 66–97. Pp. 83–86 summarize and reference Brentano’s views on pleasure and pain – his earlier views as well as the mature ones discussed in §2.3.1, ¶2 and n. 21.
• Murphy, Sheila T., Jennifer L. Monahan and R.B. Zajonc, 1995, “Additivity of Nonconscious Affect: Combined Effects of Priming and Exposure”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 69(4): 589–602.
• Murphy, Sheila T. and R. B. Zajonc, 1993, “Affect, Cognition, and Awareness: Affective Priming With Optimal and Suboptimal Stimulus Exposures”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 64(5): 723–739.
• Murray, James Augustus Henry; Henry Bradley, William Alexander Craigie and Charles Talbut Onions (eds.), 1884–1928, The Oxford English Dictionary (original title: A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles ), Oxford: Oxford University Press. ‘OED’. A uniform corrected edition appeared in 1933, a 2d ed. in 1989.
• Musch, Jochen and Klauer, Karl Christoph, 2003, The Psychology of Motivation: Affective Processes in Cognition and Emotion , Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Nader, Karim; Bechara, Antoine; and van der Kooy, Derek, 1997, “Neurobiological Constraints on Behavioral Models of Motivation”, Annual Review of Psychology , 48: 85–114.
• Nettle, Daniel, 2005, Happiness: The Science behind Your Smile , Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
• Neumann, Roland; Förster, Jens; Strack, Fritz, 2003, “Motor Compatibility: The Bidirectional Link between Behavior and Evaluation”, in Musch and Klauer, 2003, pp. 371–391.
• Nichols, Herbert, 1892, “The Origin of Pleasure and Pain, I”, The Philosophical Review , 1(4): 403–432.
• Nowell-Smith, Patrick Horace, 1954, Ethics , Harmondsworth: Middlesex. Especially pp. 111–115 on ‘pro-attitudes’, including pleasure, as explanatory (i.e., involving conation of various kinds, as it seems) and pp. 127–32 on enjoyment. He seems thus to seek some middle way between Ryle’s dispositional view and older experiential episode views, but to leave any filling out of the details to psychology.
• Nussbaum, Martha C., 1994, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics , Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Nussbaum, Martha C., 2001, Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of the Emotions , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Nyanatiloka, 1980, Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines , 4th ed., Nyanaponika, Kandy (ed. and rev.), Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society Valuable for its doctrinal summaries and translation suggestions, such as “joyful interest” for pīti , p. 168, adopted here; the work of Theravadin Buddhist monks of German and German-Jewish origin, respectively, a teacher-student pair; the original version was done by Nyanatiloka during their World War II internment as enemy aliens in British India.
• Ockham, see William of Ockham.
• Olds, James, 1958, “Self-Stimulation of the Brain: Its Use to Study Local Effects of Hunger, Sex, and Drugs”, Science , 127: 315–24.
• Olds, James, 1965, “Pleasure Centers in the Brain”, Scientific American , 195: 105–16.
• Olds, James, 1977, Drives and Reinforcements: Behavioral Studies of Hypothalamic Functions , New York: Raven Press.
• Olds, James and Milner, Peter, 1954, “Positive reinforcement produced by electrical stimulation of septal area and other regions of rat brain”, Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology , 47: 419–27.
• Oliver, Alex, “Facts,” Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy , London and New York: Routledge, Vol. 3, pp. 535–37.
• Onions, C.T., 1966, The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Owen, G.E.L., 1971–72,“Aristotelian Pleasures,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society , 72: 135–52. Reprinted in his Logic, Science and Method: Collected Papers in Greek Philosophy , Martha Nussbaum (ed.), Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1996.
• Panksepp, Jaak, 1998, Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions , New York: Oxford University Press.
• Panksepp, Jaak, 2000a, “Emotions as Natural Kinds within the Mammalian Brain”, ch. 9, in Handbook of Emotions , 2nd ed., Michael Lewis and Jeannette M. Haviland-Jones (eds.), New York and London, The Guilford Press, pp. 137–156.
• Panksepp, Jaak, 2000b, “The Riddle of Laughter: Neural and Psychoevolutionary Wellsprings of Joy”, Current Directions in Psychological Science , 9(6): 183–186.
• Panksepp, Jaak, 2014, “Understanding the Neurobiology of Core Postive Emotions through Animal Models: Affective and Clinical Implications“, in Gruber and Moskowitz, 116-36.
• Panksepp, Jaak, Brian Knutson and Jeff Burgdorf, 2002, “The role of brain emotional systems in addictions: a neuro-evolutionary perspective and new ‘self-report’ animal model,” Addiction , 97: 450–469.
• Panksepp, Jaak, and Biven, Lucy, 2012, The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions , New York: Norton.
• Parfit, Derek, 1984, Reasons and Persons , New York: Oxford University Press.
• Peciña, Susana and Berridge, Kent C., 2000, “Opioid site in nucleus accumbens shell mediates eating and hedonic ‘liking’ for food: map based on microinjection Fos plumes”, Brain Research , 863: 71–86.
• Peciña, Susana; Cagniard, Barbara; Berridge, Kent C.; Aldridge, J. Wayne; and Zhuang, Xiaoxi, 2003, ”Hyperdopaminergic Mutant Mice Have Higher “Wanting” But Not “Liking“ for Sweet Rewards,” The Journal of Neuroscience , 23(28): 9395–9402.
• Penelhum, Terence, 1957, “The Logic of Pleasure”, Philosophy and Phenomenlogical Research , XVII: 488–23. Classic critical discussion of Ryle, accepting his positive account of enjoyment as a form of effortless attention but rejecting his claim that this is always a disposition rather than an episode.
• Perry, David L., 1967, The Concept of Pleasure , The Hague: Mouton. Uses the method of British ordinary language philosophy but often takes issue with predecessors in it, as well as with the earlier hedonist tradition.
• Pfaffmann, Carl, 1960, “The pleasures of sensation”, Psychological Review , 67: 753–68.
• Pizzagalli, Diego; Shackman, Alexander J.; and Davidson, Richard J.; 2003, “The Functional Imaging of Human Emotion: Asymmetric Contributions of Cortical and Subcortical Circuitry”, in Hugdahl and Davidson, 2003, pp. 511–32.
• Plato, 1997, Complete Works , trans. by many hands, with notes by John M. Cooper (ed.); D. S. Hutchinson (assoc ed.), Indianapolis and Cambridge, Mass.: Hackett Publishing Company.
• Plato, Definitions . Generally regarded as not by Plato himself, but a record of work done by those in his circle. It is included in the 1997 Complete Works in a translation by D.S. Hutchinson.
• Plato, Gorgias , in Plato 1997.
• Plato, Philebus , trans. with notes and commentary by J.C.B. Gosling, London: Oxford University Press, 1975. A large and ongoing secondary literature debating the interpretation of the section on false pleasures exists.
• Plato, Protagoras , 1991/1976, trans. and notes, C.C.W. Taylor, Oxford: Oxford University Press, rev. ed., 1991 (1st ed., 1976). 352B–357E apparently adopts a summative hedonism about individual welfare and prudential rationality in this supposedly relatively early work, but likely only for the purposes of the argument, ironically or to lead protreptically toward views defended later; this hedonism seems to be rejected in the Gorgias and most explicitly at Phaedo 68Ef. and also seems clearly inconsistent with what are thought to be Plato’s later writings. A large and continuing secondary literature exists on the interpretation of this latter section of the dialogue and on whether and how it can be reconciled with view defended inj other dialogues.
• Plato, Republic , in Plato 1997.
• Potter, Karl (ed.), 1977, Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies , Vol., II, Indian Metaphysics and Epistemology: The Tradition of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika up to Gaṇgeśa , Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass.
• Preston, Stephanie D. and Frans B.M. de Waal, 2002, “Empathy: Its ultimate and proximate bases”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences , 25: 1–72. With peer commentaries and the authors’ reply.
• Preuss, Peter, 1994, Epicurean Ethics: Katastematic Hedonism , Lewiston, New York; Queenston, Ontario; Lampeter, Wales: The Edwin Mellen Press. Ch. Six: Kinetic and Katastematic Pleasure, pp. 121–77, critically reviews earlier interpretations and presents his own at pp. 162–77.
• Prinz, Jesse, 2004, Gut Reactions: A Perceptual Theory of Emotion , New York: Oxford University Press.
• Provine, Robert J., 2000, Laughter: A Scientific Investigation , New York: Viking.
• Puccetti, Roland, 1969, “The Sensation of Pleasure”, The British Journal of the Philosophy of Science , 20(3): 239–245.
• Putnam, Hilary, 1975, Mind, Language and Reality (Philosophical Papers, Volume 2), London: Cambridge University Press.
• Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli and Moore, Charles A., eds., 1957, A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy , Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Rachels, Stuart, 2004, “Six Theses about Pleasure”, Philosophical Perspectives , 18: 247–67.
• Rainville, Pierre, 2002, “Brain mechanisms of pain affect and pain modulation,” Current Opinion in Neuorbiology , 12: 195–204.
• Rawls, John, 1999, A Theory of Justice , 2nd ed. (1st ed., 1971); Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. §84 is most directly relevant.
• Rhys Davids, T.W. and Stede, William, Pali-English Dictionary , Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1921–1925, repr. 1998. There are also other reprint edition, British and Indian, of this old standard; a new dictionary in progress has not yet reached the terms of most interest here.
• Rilling, James K., David A. Gutman, Thorsten R. Zeh, Giuseppe Pagnoni, Gregory S. Berns, and Clinton D. Kilts, 2002, “ A Neural Basis for Social Cooperation”, Neuron , 35(2): 395–405. A study purporting to show how cooperating in a seeming Prisoner’s Dilemma really pays off because it makes cooperators happier than defectors. Based on interpretation of functional brain imaging supported by subjects’ self-reports.
• Robinson, Terry E. and Kent C. Berridge, 1993, “The neural basis of drug craving: an incentive-sensitization theory of addiction”, Brain Research Reviews , 18(3): 247–91. Probably their most explicit and interesting to philosophers; a useful Glosssary clearly explains both the standard uses of relevant terms in their field and their innovations, pp. 279–81.
• Robinson, Terry E. and Kent C. Berridge, 2000, “The psychology and neurobiology of addiction: an incentive-sensitization view”, Addiction , 95 (Supplement 2): S91–S117.
• Robinson, Terry E. and Kent C. Berridge, 2001, “Incentive-sensitization and addiction”, Addiction , 96: 103–114. A shorter version of their 2000.
• Rolls, Edmund T., 1999, The Brain and Reward , New York: Oxford University Press. This book is not really about emotion, as conceived by philosophers or in ordinary language, but mainly about brain systems for reward (what an animal can be trained to perform an operant task in order to get) and motivation, thoroughly reviewed by a senior experimenter on the brains of nonhuman animals – roughly, in older psychological jargon, the territory of reinforcement and drive. Chapter 9 is on pleasure.
• Rolls, Edmund T., 2000, ”The Orbitofrontal Cortex and Reward,“ Cerebral Cortex , 40: 284–94.
• Rosenkranz, Melissa A., Daren C. Jackson, Kim M. Dalton, Isa Dolski, Carol D. Ryff, Burt H. Singer, Daniel Muller, Ned H. Kalin, and Richard J. Davidson, 2003, “Affective style and in vivo immune response: Neurobehavioral mechanisms”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A. , 100: 11148–11152.
• Russell, Bertrand, 1921, The Analysis of Mind , London: Unwin and New York: Macmillan. Pp. 69–72 are relevant; Russell defines pleasure behaviorally and, quoting the neurologist Henry Head, adopts his distinction between pain and ‘discomfort’, based on observations of soldiers wounded in World War I.
• Russell, Bertrand, 1930/1968, The Conquest of Happiness , New York: Liveright, 1930 (New York: Bantam Books reprint, 1980). Ostensibly written as a self-help book free of deep philosophy, it is still worth reading, not only for its wise practical advice, nonetheless.
• Russell, Daniel, 2005, Plato on Pleasure and the Good Life , Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
• Russell, James A., 1991, “Culture and the Categorization of Emotions”, Psychological Bulletin , 110(3): 426–50. Survey of wide array of evidence supporting positive/negative categorization of affect, by a major and sophisticated proponent. Wierzbicka’s later synthesis of the linguistic data (1999) should be more up-to-date on that.
• Russell, James A., 2003, “Core Affect and the Psychological Construction of Emotion,” Psychological Review , 110(1): 145–72. Russell’s core affect is supposed to be in itself objectless but always conscious, whereas Berridge’s core affective processes are supposed to be in themselves unconscious as well.
• Russell, James A. and Barrett, Lisa Feldman, 1999, “Core affect, prototypical emotional episodes, and other things called emotion: Dissecting the elephant”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 76(5): 805–819. A sophisticated attempt to show how apparently competing approaches to the classification of emotion, the dimensional approach to which Russell is a major contributor and the discrete emotions approach supported, for example, by Ekman and Panksepp, can fit together. This special journal section (Diener 1999), mainly on the dimensional approach, is a good place to see the state of play then on Russell’s ‘bipolar’ (positive vs. negative affect on the same dimension) approach.
• Ryle, Gilbert, 1949, The Concept of Mind , London: Hutchinson, 1949. Chapter IV, ”Emotion“, and especially its §6, “Enjoying and Wanting”, started the mid-century Anglo-American literature with its quasi-behaviorist strong denial that there are occurrent episodes of pleasure. Often in an assertive rhetorical tone.
• Ryle, Gilbert, 1951, “Feelings”, Philosophical Quarterly 1 ,3:193–205, repr. in his 1971, pp. 272–86.
• Ryle, Gilbert, 1954a, “Pleasure”, Ch. 4 in Dilemmas: The Tarner Lectures , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 54–67. His largest collection of considerations against the view that pleasure is an occurrence in experience, mainly at pp. 58–61. Some strong claims taken by followers to be obvious and based on ordinary English usage may, perhaps, be traced to other sources. That pleasure is inseparable from its object (p. 61) may derive (aside from grammatical transitivity) from the supposed results of intropectionist psychology reported in Duncker 1941 (see annotation there). The very strongly hedged claim, that pleasure is not an episode since it cannot be independently clocked and one cannot be pleased quickly (pp. 58–60), seems to draw a conclusion that pleasure is not an occurrent state in part from Aristotelian premises that do not, at least obviously, support it. The relevant Aristotelian view is that pleasure is not a process but an activity that, like seeing, is complete in each of its (experiential?) moments. E.g., at any moment of seeing or enjoying one can truly say that one has already seen or enjoyed oneself, while it is not generally true that when one is building a house that one has already built it (e.g., NE 1174a13–b14). It has not, apparently, been similarly argued on such grounds that there are no experiential episodes of seeing (an example of Aristotle’s which he sees as parallel to pleasure) or of tasting, or that a dispositionalist rather than an occurent state account of these is therefore true, although these would seem equally to follow. But Ryle may be more influenced by the difficulty of attending to describable features of pleasure (on which see §1.3, last two paragraphs) and by its consequences in introspectionist psychology.
• Ryle, Gilbert, 1954b, “Pleasure”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society , 28 (Supplementary Volume): 135–146; repr. in his 1971, pp. 325–35. Ryle’s most tentative yet most constructive treatment, emphasizing more than his other writings on pleasure his positive view that pleasure is a manner or kind of attention or interest. It is strongly reminiscent of Aristotle.
• Ryle, Gilbert, 1971, Collected Papers (Volume II: Collected Essays, 1929–1968 ), London: Hutchinson & Co.
• Scanlon, T.M., “Replies” Social Theory and Practice , 28(2): 337–58.
• Scherer, Klaus R., 2003, Introduction to “Cognitive Components of Emotion” section in Davidson, Scherer and Goldsmith 2003, ( Handbook ), pp. 141–55
• Schlick, Moritz, 1930/1939, Fragen der Ethik , Vienna: Springer, 1930. Trans. by David Rynin as Problems of Ethics , New York: Prentice-Hall, 1939. The classic statement of the motivation by pleasant thoughts variety of hedonist motivation psychology is in Ch. II.
• Schroeder, Timothy, 2001, “Pleasure, Displeasure and Representation,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy , 31(4): 507–30.
• Schroeder, Timothy, 2004, Three Faces of Desire , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Schultz, Wolfram, 2000, “Multiple Reward Signals in the Brain”, Nature Reviews Neuroscience , 1: 201–7.
• Schultz, Wolfram and Dickinson, Anthony, 2000, “Neuronal Coding of Prediction Errors,” Annual Review of Neuroscience , 23: 473–500. Leading scientists review the literature on how dopamine neurons serve as teachers or critics in learning and also show this function is not unique to dopamine neurons but is widespread.
• Scitovsky, Tibor, 1992/1976, The Joyless Economy: The Psychology of Human Satisfaction , rev. ed, New York: Oxford University Press. An economist’s case against what he takes to be the counterproductive contemporary pursuit of stable comfort at the expense of pleasure, which he takes to be felt transition toward optimal arousal level. The revised edition contains no updating of the old science. Kahneman 1999, pp. 13ff., provides some discussion and references toward updating the science and reappraising Scitovsky’s claims, discussed briefly in n. 31.
• Sen, Amartya, 1985, Commodities and Capabilities Amsterdam: North-Holland. An Aristotelian-type view of well-being is deployed to produce a measure of social distributive justice.
• Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, 1917–25 (1st century B.C.E.), Ad lucilium epistolae morales , with trans. by Richard M. Gummere, 3 vols., Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press and London: Heinemann. The influential Roman Stoic’s mature reflections on ethics in the form of letters to a young friend.
• Shackman, Alexander J., “Anterior Cerebral Asymmetry, Affect, and Psychopathology: Commentary on the Approach-Withdrawal Model”, in Davidson 2000b, pp. 104–32.
• Sherrington, Charles, 1906/1947, The Integrative Action of the Nervous System , New Haven, Yale University Press. (Original publication: New York: Scribner, 1906.) Later reprints follow the pagination of the 1947 edition, which prefixes a new author’s Foreword to the reset 1906 text.
• Shizgal, Peter, 1997, “Neural basis of utility estimation”, Current Opinion in Neurobiology , 7: 198–208.
• Shizgal, Peter, 1999, “On the Neural Computation of Utility: Implications from Studies of Brain Stimulation Reward”, in Kahneman, Diener and Schwarz, 1999, pp. 500–524.
• Sidgwick, Henry, 1907, Methods of Ethics , 7th ed., London: Macmillan; 1st ed. 1874. The culminating work of the British hedonistic utilitarian tradition and one of the all-time greats of moral philosophy. Book I, ch. iv and Book II are especially relevant.
• Siewert, Charles, 2011, “Consciousness and Intentionality”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = < https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/consciousness-intentionality/ >.
• Smith, Adam, 1790/1976, The Theory of Moral Sentiments , D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie, eds., London, Oxford University Press.
• Smart, J.J.C. and Williams, Bernard, 1973, Utilitarianism: for and against , London: Cambridge University Press.
• Smuts, Aaron, 2011, “The feels good theory of pleasure”, Philosophical Studies , 155: 241–65.
• Sobel, David, 1999, “Pleasure as a Mental State”, Utilitas , 11(2) (July 1999): 230–234. Criticism of Katz 1986 and Kagan 1992 from a desire-based standpoint on both pleasure and reasons.
• Solomon, Robert C. and Stone, Lori D., 2002, “On ‘Positive’ and ‘Negative’ Emotions”, Journal of the Theory of Social Behavior , 32(2): 417–35. While many of their complaints about failures to distinguish different psychological and evaluative distinctions in the softer psychological literature and about the misleading terminology (seeming to presuppose these are opposite poles or contraries) are well-placed, the seeming rejection of the centrality of a single distinction between positive and negative affect in the affective sciences is at least very premature. The harder evidence supporting it (e.g., opposite immune system effects, cerebral asymmetries in studies of mood, temperament [see Rosenkranz et al. 2003 for recent results and earlier references] and psychopathology [Davidson and Pizzagalli 2002]) is not even considered here.
• Sorabji, Richard, 2000, Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation: The Gifford Lectures , New York: Oxford University Press. Part I, Emotions as Judgments versus Irrational Forces, pp. 16–155, summarized in the Introduction at pp. 2–7, is a good discussion of whether all affect can be reduced to judgment. While Sorabji emphasizes the important ancient debate provoked by the claim of Chrysippus that emotions (including pleasure and joy) are judgments, there is some discussion of recent philosophical and scientific literature as well.
• Spinoza, Benedictus de (Baruch), 1677, Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata in Carl Gebhardt, 4 vols., Spinoza Opera , Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1925. Cited passages in Vol. II, pp. 148–49, 191. Of the recent English translators, Richard Shirley (Hackett, 1982) and G.H.R. Parkinson (Oxford, 2000) translate Spinoza’s “ laetitia ” by “pleasure”, but Edwin Curley by “joy”, following the “ joie ” of Descartes’ Les Passions de l’Âme (Princeton University Press, in Collected Works , Vol. I, 1985, pp. 500–501, 531; also in his A Spinoza Reader: The Ethics and Other Works , Princeton, 1994).
• Stocker, Michael with Hegeman, Elizabeth, 1996, Valuing Emotions , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Strack, Fritz; Argyle, Michael; and Schwarz, Norbert, eds., 1991, Subjective well-being: an interdisciplinary perspective , Oxford: Pergamon. Provides an entry into the social psychology self-report literature, some of which deals with pleasure. This literature tends to show subjects’ self-ratings of well-being or happiness are based partly on pleasure, partly on the absence of negative affect, and partly on their views of how well they are achieving the ends they regard as important in life (their ‘life satisfaction’). For new publications in this literature, check the Journal of Happiness Studies , (Kluwer, 2000+).
• Strick, Peter L., 2004, “Basal Ganglia and Cerebellar Circuits with the Cerebral Cortex”, in Gazzaniga 2004, pp. 453–61.
• Striker, Gisela, 1993, “Epicurean Hedonism”, in Passions and Perceptions; Studies in Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind; Proceedings of the Fifth Symposium Hellenisticum , Jacques Brunschwig and Martha Nussbaum (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 3–18. Reprinted in her Essays on Hellenistic Epistemology and Ethics , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 196–208.
• Sumner, L. W., 1996, Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics , Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ch. 4, “Hedonism”, pp. 81–112 defends an attitude view (of ‘enjoyment’) and opposes others on the way to theses in ethics.
• Sutton, Steven K. and Davidson, Richard J., 1997, “Prefrontal brain asymmetry: A biological substrate of the behavioral approach and inhibition systems”, Psychological Science , 8(3): 204–10.
• Sutton, Steven K. and Davidson, Richard J, 2000, “Prefrontal brain electrical asymmetry predicts the evaluation of affective stimuli”, Neuropsychologia , 38(13): 1723–1733.
• Tanyi, Attila, 2010, “Sobel on Pleasure, Reason, and Desire”, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice , 14: 101–15.
• Taylor, C.C.W., 1963, “Pleasure”, Analysis , 23 (Supplement): 3–19. Refines Ryle’s account of enjoyment while admitting other supposedly less central or important kinds of pleasure as well.
• Thayer, Robert E., 1989, The Biopsychology of Mood and Arousal , New York: Oxford University Press.
• Thayer, Robert E, 1996, The origin of everyday moods: understanding and managing energy and tension , New York: Oxford University Press.
• Titchener, Edward Bradford, 1908, Lectures on the Elementary Psychology of Feeling and Attention , New York: Macmillan. Ch. IV, “The Tridimensional Theory of Feeling and Emotion”, is a long, chatty, account of the evolution of Wundt’s writings and views, with extensive quotations in his original German, by the last major representative of the introspectionist school of early academic experimental psychology.
• Tomkins, Silvan S., 1962, Affect, Imagery, Consciousness , Vol. I: The Positive Affects , New York: Springer Publishing Company.
• Tracy, Jessica L. and Robins, Richard W., 2004, “Show Your Pride: Evidence for a Discrete Emotion Expression”, Psychological Science , 15(3): 194–97.
• Trigg, Roger, 1970, Pain and Emotion , Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ch. VI, “Is Pleasure a Sensation”, pp. 102–24, is most relevant. The most substantial contribution of the ordinary language tradition to the study of affect. An excellent, underread book, perhaps still the best philosophical discussion of the dissociation of emotional reactions from sensory pain, which neurologists and some philosophers became saliently aware of in result of reactions to battlefield injury and evacuation in World War I. What he says about pain seems mainly to be consistent with science to date.
• Tye, Michael, 1995, Ten Problems of Consciousness: A Representational Theory of the Phenomenal Mind , Cambridge, Mass. and London: MIT Press. Pp. 128–30 are on our topic.
• Urry, Heather L.; Nichols, Jack B; Dolski, Isa; Jackson, Daren C.; Dalton, Kim M.; Mueller, Corrina J.; Rosenkranz, Melissa A.; Ryff, Carol D., Singer, Burton H.; and Davidson, Richard J., “Making a Life Worth Living: Neural Correlates of Well-Being”, Psychological Science , 15(6): 367–71.
• Van Riel, Gerd, 1999, “Does a Perfect Activity Necessarily Yield Pleasure? An Evaluation of the Relation between Pleasure and Perfect Activity in Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VII and X”, International Journal of Philosophical Studies , 7(2): 211–24.
• Van Riel, Gerd, 2000a, Pleasure and the Good Life: Plato, Aristotle, and the Neoplatonists , Leiden: Brill, 2000. Especially pp. 7–37 on Plato and 43–78 on Aristotle. Concise account of the Epicureans and Stoics, too.
• Van Riel, Gerd, 2000b, “Aristotle’s Definition of Pleasure: a Refutation of the Platonic Account”, Ancient Philosophy , 20(1): 119–138.
• Vasubandhu (c. 400 C.E. Buddhist), 1923–31. L’abhidharmakośa de Vasubandhu , tr. and annotated in French by Louis de la Vallée Poussin, Paris and Louvain: Paul Geuthner, 1923–31, 6 vols., repr. Brussells: Institut Belge des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1971. A less satisfactory translation into English from this French translation, itself based mainly on an ancient Chinese translation from the original Sanskrit which has since been largely recovered, is that of L.M. Pruden, Abhidharmakośabhāṣyam , Berkeley, California: Asian Humanities Press, 1988–90.
• Vasubandhu (c. 400 C.E. Buddhist), 1984, “A Discourse of the Five Aggregates” ( Pañcaskandhaka ), in Stefan Anacker (trans. and ed.), Seven Works of Vasubandhu, The Buddhist Psychological Doctor , Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, pp. 65–82.
• Voruganti, Lakshmi; Slomka, Piotr;, Zabel, Pamela; Costa, Giuseppe; So, Aaron; Mattar, Adel; and Awad, George A., 2001, “Subjective Effects of AMPT-induced Dopamine Depletion in Schizophrenia: Correlation between Dysphoric Responses and Striatal D 2 Binding Ratios on SPECT Imaging”, Neuropsychopharmacology , 25(5): 642–50. Has relevant recent references. Supports the dopamine pleasure interpretation. Caution: Wise 1996 is reported in terms of pleasure, whereas he had by then abandoned such interpretation and uses there only the behavioral term “reward”. But in this study, with human patients, feeling bad when dopamine-depleted by anti-psychotic medication may be checked more directly than in Wise’s animal studies.
• Voznesensky, Andrei (1967/1966), “Oza”, in Antiworlds and the Fifth Ace: Poetry by Andrei Voznesensky: A Bilingual Edition , Patricia Blake and Max Hayward (eds.), New York: Basic Books.
• Wacker, Jan; Heldmann, Marcus; Stemmler, Gerhard, 2003, “Separating Emotion and Motivational Direction in Fear and Anger: Effects on Frontal Asymmetry”, Emotion , 3(2): 167–193.
• Walther von der Vogelweide, c. 1227, “Elegie”. There are many editions and reprintings in anthologies.
• Warner, Richard, 1987, Freedom, Enjoyment, and Happiness: An Essay in Moral Psychology , Ithaca and London: Cornell Univeristy Press. A cognitive definition of enjoyment, in terms of belief and desire, is at p. 129. Purports to develop a ‘Kantian’ approach, but this is an analysis in terms of belief and desire quite unlike Kant’s own treatment, which provides rough functional characterizations but no analysis because he took pleasure to be undefinable. See under Kant for citations.
• Watkins, Calvert rev. and ed., 2000, The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots , 2d ed. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. Much of its content is available as an appendix to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language .
• Watson, David, 2000, Mood and Temperament , New York and London: The Guilford Press. A very accessible summary of some of the easier relevant science.
• Wierzbicka, Anna, 1999, Emotions Across Languages and Cultures: Diversity and Universals , Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press; Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme.
• Wierzbicka, Anna and Jean Harkins, 2001, Introduction to Harkins and Wierzbicka, 2001, pp. 1–34.
• William of Ockham, 2001, (c. 1317–26), “Using and Enjoying”, trans. Stephen Arthur McGrade, in Arthur Stephen McGrade, John Kilcullen and Matthew Kempshall, eds., The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts , Vol. Two, Ethics and Political Philosophy , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 351–417. This translates Questions 1–4 and 6 of Distinction 1 of his Ordinatio , a commentary on the first book of the Sentences of Peter Lombard. Original Latin text: Guillelmi de Ockham (William of Ockham), Scriptum in librum primum Sententiarum Ordinatio , Gedeon Gál (ed. with the assistance of Stephen Brown), 4 vols., St. Bonaventure, New York: Franciscan Institute, 1967, Vol. I, Prologus et Distinctio Prima , pp. 371–447, 486–507. These are Vols. I-IV in their edition of Ockham’s Opera Theologica .
• Williams, Bernard, 1959, “Pleasure and Belief”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society , 73 (Supplement): 73–92; reprinted in Philosophy of Mind , Stuart Hampshire (ed.), Philosophy of Mind , New York: Harper and Row, 1966, pp. 225–42.
• Willner, Paul, 2002, “Dopamine and Depression”, in Gaetano Di Chiara (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology , Vol. 154/II: Dopamine in the CNS II , Berlin: Springer, 2002, pp. 387–416.
• Winkielman, Piotr; Berridge, Kent C. 2004; “Unconscious Emotion”, Current Directions in Psychological Science , 13(3): 120–23.
• Winkielman, Piotr; Berridge, Kent C; and Wilbarger, Julia L. 2005; “Emotion, Behavior, and Conscious Experience: Once More without Feeling”, in Barrett, Niedenthal, and Winkielman 2005, pp. 335–62.
• Wise, 1982, “Neuroleptics and operant behavior: the anhedonia hypothesis”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences , 5(1): 39–87. With peer commentaries. A case for the pleasure interpretation of activity in the midbrain dopamine projections. The bold interpretation is withdrawn in his 1994 and 1999, which give some reasons, but others still hold similar views and there seems to be at least some causal connection.
• Wise, Roy A., 1994, “A brief history of the anhedonia hypothesis”, in Appetite: Neural and Behavioral Bases , Charles R. Legg and David Booth (eds.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 243–63. A former leading advocate of the pleasure interpretation of the consequences of mesolimbic dopamine, in the 1980s, recants, with reasons, more of which may be found in his 1999.
• Wise, Roy A., 1999, “Cognitive factors in addiction and nucleus accumbens function: Some hints from rodent models”, Psychobiology , 27(2): 300–10. This journal issue has articles presenting various views on the functions of the mesolimbic dopamine system, none of which support the pleasure interpretation.
• Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1968, Philosophical Investigations , trans. G.E.M. Anscombe, 3rd ed., Oxford: Blackwell.
• Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1980, Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology , Vol. 1, G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright (eds.), Oxford: Blackwell. From his notebooks. Overlaps with material published as Zettel .
• Wolfsdorf, David, Pleasure in Ancient Greek Philosophy , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
• Wundt, Wilhelm, 1896/1897, Grundriß der Psychologie , 1896, Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann; Trans. as Outlines of Psychology , Charles Hubbard Judd, trans., Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1897. Many libraries have reprint editions. Later editions and other writings of Wundt’s are compared with this first edition’s original presentation of the tridimensional view of affect (in its §7; Judd trans., pp. 74–89, especially pp. 82–85) in Titchener, 1908, ch. IV.
• Young, Paul Thomas, 1959, “The role of affective processes in learning and motivation”, Psychological Bulletin , 66: 104–25. Distinguishes hedonic from sensory intensity.
• Zajonc, Robert B., 1980, “Feeling and Thinking: Preferences Need No Inferences”, American Psychologist , 35: 151–175.
• Zajonc, Robert B., 1984, “On the primacy of affect”, American Psychologist , 39: 117–124.
• Zajonc, Robert B., 1994, “Evidence for Nonconscious Emotions”, in The Nature of Emotion: Fundamental Questions , Paul Ekman and Richard J. Davidson, eds., New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 293–97. (This and the other short papers and the editors’ Afterword in the same section of this reader, Question 8: “Can Emotion Be Nonconscious?”, pp. 283–318, afford a mix of empirical and conceptual considerations. The term “nonconscious” is sometimes misleading in the work of Zajonc and his collaborators when what is clearly established in the experimental results referred to seems to be rather affect that is not firmly bound to an object when explicit awareness was earlier lacking either of the thing that fails to be the affect’s object or of its causing the affect. Cf. Zajonc 2000, pp. 47–48; Berridge and Winkielman 2003, pp. 185–86; Berridge 2002. Some phenomena Zajonc is concerned with seem to be only nonconscious causation, or conditioning, of future emotional memory or reactions. But Zajonc, whose major 1980s claim was about the independence of affect from (sophisticated) cognition, apparently wants to emphasize that point by calling this fast and automatic processing of stimuli without awareness of these or of their result “emotion”. Beyond this, it may be necessary to distinguish different uses of “nonconscious emotion”, corresponding to distinctions between phenomenal and cognitive concepts of consciousness made, for example, in Block 1995 and 2002. For an empirically-founded attempt to connect a related distinction to the neurobiology of the cingulate cortex, see Lane 2000, pp. 358–60. For perspectives on relevant observations, beyond those cited by Zajonc, see the discussion in Berridge 1999, 2004 and Shizgal 1999.
• Zajonc, Robert B., 1998, “Emotions”, in The Handbook of Social Psychology , 2 vols., 4th ed., eds., Daniel T. Gilbert, Susan T. Fiske and Gardner Lindzey, Boston: McGraw-Hill, Vol. 1, pp. 591–632. Good overall review of the evidence for the relative independence of affect systems from sophisticated cognition by an early advocate of this in an introduction to many aspects of the subject, including cultural influences and the differences these may make for affect.
• Zajonc, Robert B., 2000, “Feeling and Thinking: Closing the Debate Over the Independence of Affect”, in Feeling and Thinking: The Role of Affect in Social Cognition , Joseph P. Forgas (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, pp. 31–58.

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Kent C. Berridge, Affective Neuroscience and Biopsychology Lab, University of Michigan

Aristotle, General Topics: ethics | consciousness: and intentionality | consciousness: representational theories of | emotion | hedonism

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Ned Block, David Chalmers, and Daniel Stoljar for their suggestions during an earlier revision and to Arindam Chakrabarti and Arthur Stephen McGrade for the help acknowledged in notes 26 and 20, respectively.

Copyright © 2016 by Leonard D. Katz < ldkatz86 @ gmail . com >

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18 Introduction to Philosophical Approaches to Happiness

James O. Pawelski, University of Pennsylvania

• Published: 01 August 2013
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For at least 2500 years, philosophers in the East and West have debated the nature and cultivation of happiness, generating a rich historical collection of theories, definitions, and insights. Philosophers have also developed valuable methods that can be used effectively in the study of happiness. The chapters in this section explore some of the central ideas about happiness from the history of philosophy, as well as some of the key methodological contributions of philosophy to current debates about happiness. The historical chapters show that there has been widespread disagreement about happiness, point out the importance of avoiding presentism in its study, and raise questions regarding the ethical application of knowledge about happiness. The analytical chapters show how philosophy can help in the normative quest for more satisfactory theories of happiness and point to the importance of collaborating with empirical psychology and other disciplines in the study of happiness.

Happiness is one of the most central concerns of individual human experience and of collective human culture. It should come as no surprise, then, that it has been a perennial theme throughout the history of philosophical thought. For at least 2500 years, philosophers in the East and the West have paid considerable attention to the nature and cultivation of happiness. Most philosophers have agreed that happiness is an important part of human life, but they have disagreed widely on just what happiness is. Some have argued that happiness is pleasure, others that it is virtue, and still others that it is the fulfillment of human nature. Some have argued that happiness is our natural end; others, that it is something impossible for us to obtain. Some have argued that the pursuit of happiness should be our top priority; others, that we should not pursue happiness at all—and indeed that the pursuit of happiness is one of the greatest causes of human misery. With this long tradition of debate on the topic, philosophy has much to offer the contemporary study of happiness.

In addition to a rich collection of theories, definitions, and insights about happiness, philosophy also has much to contribute in the way of method. With its emphasis on clarity and precision, philosophical thinking can help us sort our way through the bewildering number of meanings happiness has taken on, and it may also help us develop more robust and satisfactory theories of happiness than are currently available.

This section on philosophical approaches to happiness is comprised of this introduction and seven other chapters. The following chapters are evenly balanced between historical and contemporary philosophical considerations, with the first chapters tending more toward historical topics and the later ones toward current philosophical analysis. Given the long history and conceptual complexity of philosophical investigations into happiness, this section can only hope, of course, to provide a sampling of some of this work.

In Chapter 19 , Darrin M. McMahon writes on “The Pursuit of Happiness in History,” presenting some key points in the intellectual history of the notion of happiness in Western culture. McMahon begins with an analysis of Ancient Greek perspectives on happiness, in which luck plays a key role. The happy person is one on whom fortune smiles. But given the reversibility of fortune, the truly happy person is one on whom fortune smiles over the course of the entire life span. With the rise of Classical Greek philosophy, McMahon points out, perspectives on happiness changed considerably. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and other philosophers argued that happiness is something noble souls can influence through their own efforts of philosophical reflection and virtuous activity. In the Christian era, attempts to achieve happiness on earth were often considered futile, or at best, reminders of our separation from the ultimate happiness that will be enjoyed only by the elect and only in the life to come. Later in the Christian era, thinkers like Aquinas saw earthly happiness as important in its own right but always as a very distant second to the joys of heaven. With the emphasis on reason and scientific investigation in the Enlightenment, perspectives on happiness shifted again, with the dominant view being that happiness is a right of all human beings, and that the proper kind of investigation and action will lead us to the full enjoyment of those rights. Indeed, in the United States Declaration of Independence, a document heavily influenced by the Enlightenment, the pursuit of happiness is identified as an inalienable right.

McMahon's analysis makes clear several important points about perspectives on happiness throughout history. First, these perspectives shift dramatically. What is taken for granted about happiness in one cultural context seems foreign in other cultural contexts. Second, because of these dramatic shifts, we must avoid the mistake of thinking that our current views on happiness necessarily hold true for cultural contexts different than our own. Third, these different perspectives can help us understand our own more deeply. Fourth, we must avoid mistakes others have made in the pursuit of happiness, mistakes like thinking that the attainment of happiness is easy, that we can force people to be happy, and that we can ignore paradoxes in the pursuit of happiness. Indeed, McMahon points out that, while there may be a dominant perspective in each cultural context, there are plenty of countervailing voices and paradoxical results of attempts to attain happiness. Perhaps the most obvious and the most tragic are the numerous post-Enlightenment revolutions that promised to bring happiness to the masses and instead brought widespread misery. McMahon concludes with a paradoxical claim from John Stuart Mill that perhaps the best way to achieve happiness is in the purposeful pursuit of something else.

While Chapter 19 concentrates on different cultural perspectives in Western thought, Chapter 20 shifts to an analysis of views of happiness in Eastern thought. Philip J. Ivanhoe writes about “Happiness in Early Chinese Thought,” focusing particularly on Confucianism and Daoism. (For an analysis of happiness in Hindu and Buddhist thought, see Chapters 27 , 28 , and 29 in this volume.) Ivanhoe focuses on the views of two of the founding figures of these traditions: Kongzi (also known as Confucius) and Zhuangzi. Both the Confucians, as represented by Kongzi, and the Daoists, as represented by Zhuangzi, critique the common search for happiness through such things as wealth, power, and prestige. Instead, they teach that happiness consists in following the Dao (the “Way”), the patterns and processes of Nature. People who follow the Dao, argued Kongzi and Zhuangzi, will experience a state of joy that includes both a freedom from common human concerns, fears, and anxieties and a sense of being a part of something larger than the self. Ivanhoe observes that, although this latter point seems to involve a loss of the self, it is really only the loss of the narrow, small view we often have of the self. Much as these thinkers agree, Ivanhoe observes, there are also significant differences in their understanding of the Dao and of how it can best be followed. Kongzi tended to emphasize the importance of friends, family, and culture; whereas Zhuangzi taught the importance of overcoming socialization in order to connect directly to what is most natural.

Chapter 21 explores the work of philosophers with much less sanguine views about happiness. In her piece entitled “Continental Contributions to our Understanding of Happiness and Suffering,” Emmy Van Deurzen explores the views of continental philosophers such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. For these thinkers, she argues, happiness is seen as an obstacle to the deeper goal of wisdom. To the extent that we try to focus on what is pleasant and easy, we ignore the realities of the human situation. It is only by facing up to these difficult realities and allowing ourselves to experience the attendant suffering that we can mature and become wise. This is certainly a devastating critique of forms of happiness that value unruffled pleasantness of experience over truth and wisdom, and it raises the question of how these continental philosophers might have responded to the more authentic, nuanced, and full-bodied conceptions of happiness explored in this volume.

In Chapter 22 , Raymond Angelo Belliotti begins to answer this question by considering what he calls “worthwhile happiness.” In his piece on “The Seductions of Happiness,” he argues that Schopenhauer's critique of happiness—that it is an illusion whose pursuit is futile—is misguided, but that the popular understanding of happiness as “an accurate self-report of a person's predominantly positive state of mind” is overrated. Through a series of illustrative cases, Belliotti argues that happiness so conceived is often at odds with the good. For happiness to be worthwhile, he contends, it must be attained in the right way and connected properly to higher values. He then considers various philosophical perspectives on the connection between happiness and values, concluding that defining happiness as an accurate positive self-appraisal is the most effective of these approaches. Finally, he argues that even worthwhile happiness is not the greatest good, since a robustly meaningful, valuable life is even better than a life of worthwhile happiness. All things considered, Belliotti concludes, it is best to have a life of both worthwhile happiness and robust meaning, but if one can have only one or the other one should choose the life of robust meaning.

Daniel M. Haybron agrees with Belliotti on this point. In Chapter 23 , “The Nature and Significance of Happiness,” Haybron argues that virtue and right action are more important than happiness. He is quick to point out, however, that this does not mean happiness is unimportant. Happiness is pleasant, certainly, but more than that it helps determine how we will live our lives. The trajectory of our individual lives is heavily influenced by the level of happiness we experience, and the trajectory of nations and societies is guided by the dominant definitions of happiness they hold. Haybron distinguishes between the well-being sense of happiness (including hedonism, desire satisfaction, and objectivist accounts) and the psychological sense of happiness (including life satisfaction accounts and emotional state accounts), choosing to focus on the latter in this chapter. He critiques life satisfaction accounts of happiness on the grounds that they are dependent, not just on how one's life is going, but on the standards one uses to assess it. If I have high expectations for my life, then I may have lower life satisfaction than someone with lower expectations—even if my life is actually closer to my ideal than the other person's life is to theirs. So satisfaction with life may tell us less about one's life than about one's expectations for that life. Haybron explores emotional state views of happiness in some detail, arguing that they go far beyond one's mere feeling states to a condition of what he calls “psychic flourishing.” Because of the complexity and nuances of different types of happiness, Haybron calls for more care in the measurement of happiness and implies that we may need more precise scales to measure these different types more accurately.

In Chapter 24 on “Philosophical methods in happiness research,” Valerie Tiberius takes up the question of what philosophy can uniquely contribute to the investigation of happiness. She argues that although many questions about happiness (questions like how people define happiness) are in the domain of empirical researchers, normative questions about happiness (questions about how people should define happiness) cannot be answered through empirical methods alone and require the help of philosophers. She explores in detail philosophical methods that are important for addressing normative questions and creating adequate theories about happiness. (Where Haybron focuses on the psychological sense of happiness, Tiberius focuses on its well-being sense.) Tiberius describes in detail the method of “reflective equilibrium,” which seeks to create theories that have both descriptive and normative adequacy by bringing into equilibrium ordinary judgments, putative normative principles, and background theories. In addition to discussing how this method is used in debates about theories of happiness, she also demonstrates the use of other specific methods as well, including thought experiments, intuition pumps, counter-examples, literary examples, and surveys. She concludes the chapter by emphasizing the importance of using philosophical and empirical methods in tandem, and thus of philosophers and psychologists continuing to work collaboratively in the ongoing study of happiness.

The final chapter in the section is “Happiness and its Opposites.” In this chapter, I examine what happiness is by looking at what it is not. I point out that, although we typically think of happiness and unhappiness as opposites, empirical research is showing that they are not—at least not on the commonsense understanding of what opposites are. Different definitions of happiness have different opposites, but underlying all of them is the important insight that happiness is not simply the absence of unhappiness. This has important implications for the pursuit of happiness, since happiness involves both the presence of certain states or conditions and the absence of others. I examine the importance of these points for understanding philosophical advice on the pursuit of happiness, focusing on the works of Epictetus and Boethius. I also point out the need for more empirical study on the proper balance between the pursuit of happiness and the avoidance of unhappiness.

Much important work remains to be done in the philosophical investigation of happiness. With the rich tradition of philosophical debate on this topic for the last two-and-a-half millennia, there is an ongoing need for scholars to continue to analyze and understand that work. Such effort is important because it gives us access to the best ideas of thoughtful scholars in times and places other than our own. It is also important because it can help us avoid the dangers of presentism, a kind of temporal ethnocentrism that assumes our own views on happiness to be identical both to the views that have been held by others in the past and to those that will be held by others in the future. The avoidance of presentism is especially important when individuals and governments make decisions and adopt policies intended to increase the happiness of future generations. It is critical that this happiness be of the sort that those future generations will actually value. Related to this concern is the question of how the new knowledge being created about happiness will be applied in our own day. History is fraught with cases where knowledge was used for immoral purposes, and this is especially true in the domain of happiness. There will be much ethical work for philosophers to do to make sure, for example, that knowledge about happiness is not used to oppress others.

In addition to work in the history of philosophy, there is much yet to be done on the continued development and application of the philosophical methods explored in this section. Philosophical analysis can continue to help us disambiguate various definitions of happiness, render more precise the various dimensions of happiness studied as empirical constructs, develop more satisfactory theories of happiness, and generate suggestions for further empirical research.

Philosophers have many historical and methodological contributions to make to the study of happiness. Collaboration with other scholars coming from different traditions and using different types of methods will enable important progress in the continued study of a subject so central to human experience.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Ilona Boniwell, Susan David, Daniel Haybron, and Valerie Tiberius for their suggestions on the overall plan for this section. I am especially indebted to Behdad Bozorgnia for help in making a variety of crucial editing decisions, and I am grateful to Xuan Gao for her keen eye in helping to prepare this section for publication.

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The Neuroscience of Happiness and Pleasure

The evolutionary imperatives of survival and procreation, and their associated rewards, are driving life as most animals know it. Perhaps uniquely, humans are able to consciously experience these pleasures and even contemplate the elusive prospect of happiness. The advanced human ability to consciously predict and anticipate the outcome of choices and actions confers on our species an evolutionary advantage, but this is a double-edged sword, as John Steinbeck pointed out as he wrote of “the tragic miracle of consciousness” and how our “species is not set, has not jelled, but is still in a state of becoming” ( Steinbeck and Ricketts 1941 ). While consciousness allows us to experience pleasures, desires, and perhaps even happiness, this is always accompanied by the certainty of the end.

Nevertheless, while life may ultimately meet a tragic end, one could argue that if this is as good as it gets, we might as well enjoy the ride and in particular to maximize happiness. Yet, it is also true that for many happiness is a rare companion due to the competing influences of anxiety and depression.

In order to help understand happiness and alleviate the suffering, neuroscientists and psychologists have started to investigate the brain states associated with happiness components and to consider the relation to well-being. While happiness is in principle difficult to define and study, psychologists have made substantial progress in mapping its empirical features, and neuroscientists have made comparable progress in investigating the functional neuroanatomy of pleasure, which contributes importantly to happiness and is central to our sense of well-being.

In this article we will try to map out some of the intricate links between pleasure and happiness. Our main contention is that a better understanding of the pleasures of the brain may offer a more general insight into happiness, into how brains work to produce it in daily life for the fortunate, how brains fail in the less fortunate, and hopefully into better ways to enhance the quality of life.

A SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS?

As shown by the other contributions to this volume, there are many possible definitions and approaches to investigating happiness. Many would agree that happiness has remained difficult to define and challenging to measure—partly due to its subjective nature. Is it possible to get a scientific handle on such a slippery concept? There are several aids to start us off.

Since Aristotle, happiness has been usefully thought of as consisting of at least two aspects: hedonia (pleasure) and eudaimonia (a life well lived). In contemporary psychology these aspects are usually referred to as pleasure and meaning, and positive psychologists have recently proposed to add a third distinct component of engagement related to feelings of commitment and participation in life ( Seligman et al. 2005 ).

Using these definitions, scientists have made substantial progress in defining and measuring happiness in the form of self-reports of subjective well-being, in identifying its distribution across people in the real world, and in identifying how well-being is influenced by various life factors that range from income to other people ( Kahneman 1999 ). This research shows that while there is clearly a sharp conceptual distinction between pleasure versus engagement-meaning components, hedonic and eudaimonic aspects empirically cohere together in happy people.

For example, in happiness surveys, over 80 percent of people rate their overall eudaimonic life satisfaction as “pretty to very happy,” and comparably, 80 percent also rate their current hedonic mood as positive (for example, positive 6–7 on a 10 point valence scale, where 5 is hedonically neutral) ( Kesebir and Diener 2008 ). A lucky few may even live consistently around a hedonic point of 8—although excessively higher hedonic scores may actually impede attainment of life success, as measured by wealth, education, or political participation ( Oishi et al. 2007 ).

While these surveys provide interesting indicators of mental well-being, they offer little evidence of the underlying neurobiology of happiness. That is the quest we set ourselves here. But to progress in this direction, it is first necessary to make a start using whatever evidence is both relevant to the topic of well-being and happiness, and in which neuroscience has relative strengths. Pleasure and its basis offers a window of opportunity.

In the following we will therefore focus on the substantial progress in understanding the psychology and neurobiology of sensory pleasure that has been made over the last decade ( Berridge and Kringelbach 2008 ; Kringelbach and Berridge 2010 ). These advances make the hedonic side of happiness most tractable to a scientific approach to the neural underpinnings of happiness. Supporting a hedonic approach, it has been suggested that the best measure of subjective well-being may be simply to ask people how they hedonically feel right now—again and again—so as to track their hedonic accumulation across daily life ( Kahneman 1999 ). Such repeated self-reports of hedonic states could also be used to identify more stable neurobiological hedonic brain traits that dispose particular individuals toward happiness. Further, a hedonic approach might even offer a toehold into identifying eudaimonic brain signatures of happiness, due to the empirical convergence between the two categories, even if pleasant mood is only half the happiness story ( Kringelbach and Berridge 2009 ).

It is important to note that our focus on the hedonia component of happiness should not be confused with hedonism, which is the pursuit of pleasure for pleasure’s own sake, and more akin to the addiction features we describe below. Also, to focus on hedonics does not deny that some ascetics may have found bliss through painful self-sacrifice, but simply reflects that positive hedonic tone is indispensable to most people seeking happiness.

A SCIENCE OF PLEASURE

The link between pleasure and happiness has a long history in psychology. For example, that link was stressed in the writings of Sigmund Freud when he posited that people “strive after happiness; they want to become happy and to remain so. This endeavor has two sides, a positive and a negative aim. It aims, on the one hand, at an absence of pain and displeasure, and, on the other, at the experiencing of strong feelings of pleasure” ( Freud and Riviere 1930 : 76). Emphasizing a positive balance of affect to be happy implies that studies of hedonic brain circuits can advance the neuroscience of both pleasure and happiness.

A related but slightly different view is that happiness depends most chiefly on eliminating negative “pain and displeasure” to free an individual to pursue engagement and meaning. Positive pleasure by this view is somewhat superfluous. This view may characterize the twentieth-century medical and clinical emphasis on alleviating negative psychopathology and strongly distressing emotions. It fits also with William James’s quip nearly a century ago that “happiness, I have lately discovered, is no positive feeling, but a negative condition of freedom from a number of restrictive sensations of which our organism usually seems the seat. When they are wiped out, the clearness and cleanness of the contrast is happiness. This is why anaesthetics make us so happy. But don’t you take to drink on that account” ( James 1920 : 158).

Focusing on eliminating negative distress seems to leave positive pleasure outside the boundary of happiness, perhaps as an extra bonus or even an irrelevancy for ordinary pursuit. In practice, many mixtures of positive affect and negative affect may occur in individuals and cultures may vary in the importance of positive versus negative affect for happiness. For example, positive emotions are linked most strongly to ratings of life satisfaction overall in nations that stress self-expression, but alleviation of negative emotions may become relatively more important in nations that value individualism ( Kuppens et al. 2008 ).

By either hedonic view, psychology seems to be moving away from the stoic notion that affect states such as pleasure are simply irrelevant to happiness. The growing evidence for the importance of affect in psychology and neuroscience shows that a scientific account will have to involve hedonic pleasures and/or displeasures. To move toward a neuroscience of happiness, a neurobiological understanding is required of how positive and negative affect are balanced in the brain.

Thus, pleasure is an important component of happiness, according to most modern viewpoints. Given the potential contributions of hedonics to happiness, we now survey developments in understanding the brain mechanisms of pleasure. The scientific study of pleasure and affect was foreshadowed by the pioneering ideas of Charles Darwin, who examined the evolution of emotions and affective expressions, and suggested that these are adaptive responses to environmental situations. In that vein, pleasure “liking” and displeasure reactions are prominent affective reactions in the behavior and brains of all mammals ( Steiner et al. 2001 ) and likely had important evolutionary functions ( Kringelbach 2009 ). Neural mechanisms for generating affective reactions are present and similar in most mammalian brains, and thus appear to have been selected for and conserved across species ( Kringelbach 2010 ). Indeed, both positive affect and negative affect are recognized today as having adaptive functions ( Nesse 2004 ), and positive affect in particular has consequences in daily life for planning and building cognitive and emotional resources ( Fredrickson et al. 2008 ).

Such functional perspectives are consistent with a thesis that is crucial to our aim of identifying the neurobiological bases of happiness: that affective reactions such as pleasure have objective features beyond their subjective ones. This idea is important, since progress in affective neuroscience has been made recently by identifying objective aspects of pleasure reactions and triangulating toward underlying brain substrates. This scientific strategy divides the concept of affect into two parts: the affective state , which has objective aspects in behavioral, physiological, and neural reactions; and conscious affective feelings , seen as the subjective experience of emotion ( Kringelbach 2004 ). Note that such a definition allows conscious feelings to play a central role in hedonic experiences, but holds that the affective essence of a pleasure reaction is more than a conscious feeling. That objective “something more” is especially tractable to neuroscience investigations that involve brain manipulations and can be studied regardless of the availability or accuracy of corresponding subjective reports.

The available evidence suggests that brain mechanisms involved in fundamental pleasures (food and sexual pleasures) overlap with those for higher-order pleasures (for example, monetary, artistic, musical, altruistic, and transcendent pleasures) ( Kringelbach 2010 ).

From sensory pleasures and drugs of abuse to monetary, aesthetic and musical delights, all pleasures seem to involve the same hedonic brain systems, even when linked to anticipation and memory. Pleasures important to happiness, such as socializing with friends, and related traits of positive hedonic mood are thus all likely to draw upon the same neurobiological roots that evolved for sensory pleasures. The neural overlap may offer a way to generalize from fundamental pleasures that are best understood and so infer larger hedonic brain principles likely to contribute to happiness.

We note the rewarding properties for all pleasures are likely to be generated by hedonic brain circuits that are distinct from the mediation of other features of the same events (for example, sensory, cognitive) ( Kringelbach 2005 ). Thus, pleasure is never merely a sensation or a thought, but is instead an additional hedonic gloss generated by the brain via dedicated systems ( Frijda 2010 ).

THE NEUROANATOMY OF PLEASURE

How does positive affect arise? Affective neuroscience research on sensory pleasure has revealed many networks of brain regions and neurotransmitters activated by pleasant events and states (see figures 1 and ​ and2). 2 ). Identification of hedonic substrates has been advanced by recognizing that pleasure or “liking” is but one component in the larger composite psychological process of reward, which also involves “wanting” and “learning” components ( Smith et al. 2010 ). Each component also has conscious and nonconscious elements that can be studied in humans—and at least the latter can also be probed in other animals.

Reward and pleasure are multifaceted psychological concepts. Major processes within reward (first column) consist of motivation or wanting (white), learning (light gray), and—most relevant to happiness—pleasure liking or affect (gray). Each of these contains explicit (top three rows) and implicit (bottom three rows) psychological components (second column) that constantly interact and require careful scientific experimentation to tease apart. Explicit processes are consciously experienced (for example, explicit pleasure and happiness, desire, or expectation), whereas implicit psychological processes are potentially unconscious in the sense that they can operate at a level not always directly accessible to conscious experience (implicit incentive salience, habits and “liking” reactions), and must be further translated by other mechanisms into subjective feelings. Measurements or behavioral procedures that are especially sensitive markers of the each of the processes are listed (third column). Examples of some of the brain regions and neurotransmitters are listed (fourth column), as well as specific examples of measurements (fifth column), such as an example of how highest subjective life satisfaction does not lead to the highest salaries (top) ( Haisken-De New and Frick 2005 ). Another example shows the incentive-sensitization model of addiction and how “wanting” to take drugs may grow over time independently of “liking” and “learning” drug pleasure as an individual becomes an addict (bottom) ( Robinson and Berridge 1993 ).

The schematic figure shows the approximate sensorimotor, pleasure, and social brain regions in the adult brain. (a) Processing linked to the identification of and interaction with stimuli is carried out in the sensorimotor regions of the brain, (b) which are separate from the valence processing in the pleasure regions of the brain. (c) In addition to this pleasure processing, there is further higher-order processing of social situations (such as theory of mind) in widespread cortical regions. (d) The hedonic mammalian brain circuitry can be revealed using behavioral and subjective measures of pleasures in rodents and humans ( Berridge and Kringelbach 2008 ).

HEDONIC HOTSPOTS

Despite having extensive distribution of reward-related circuitry, the brain appears rather frugal in “liking” mechanisms that cause pleasure reactions. Some hedonic mechanisms are found deep in the brain (nucleus accumbens, ventral pallidum, brainstem) and other candidates are in the cortex (orbitofrontal, cingulate, medial prefrontal and insular cortices). Pleasure-activated brain networks are widespread and provide evidence for highly distributed brain coding of hedonic states, but compelling evidence for pleasure causation (detected as increases in “liking” reactions consequent to brain manipulation) has so far been found for only a few hedonic hotspots in the subcortical structures. Each hotspot is merely a cubic millimeter or so in volume in the rodent brain (and should be a cubic centimeter or so in humans, if proportional to whole brain volume). Hotspots are capable of generating enhancements of “liking” reactions to a sensory pleasure such as sweetness, when stimulated with opioid, endocannabinoid, or other neurochemical modulators ( Smith et al. 2010 ).

Hotspots exist in the nucleus accumbens shell and ventral pallidum, and possibly other forebrain and limbic cortical regions, and also in deep brainstem regions, including the parabrachial nucleus in the pons (see figure 2d ). The pleasure-generating capacity of these hotspots has been revealed in part by studies in which micro-injections of drugs stimulated neurochemical receptors on neurons within a hotspot, and caused a doubling or tripling of the number of hedonic “liking” reactions normally elicited by a pleasant sucrose taste. Analogous to scattered islands that form a single archipelago, hedonic hotspots are anatomically distributed but interact to form a functional integrated circuit. The circuit obeys control rules that are largely hierarchical and organized into brain levels. Top levels function together as a cooperative heterarchy, so that, for example, multiple unanimous “votes” in favor from simultaneously participating hotspots in the nucleus accumbens and ventral pallidum are required for opioid stimulation in either forebrain site to enhance “liking” above normal.

In addition, as mentioned above, pleasure is translated into motivational processes in part by activating a second component of reward termed “wanting” or incentive salience, which makes stimuli attractive when attributed to them by mesolimbic brain systems ( Berridge and Robinson 2003 ). Incentive salience depends in particular on mesolimbic dopamine neurotransmission (though other neurotransmitters and structures also are involved).

Importantly, incentive salience is not hedonic impact or pleasure “liking” ( Berridge 2007 ). This is why an individual can “want” a reward without necessarily “liking” the same reward. Irrational “wanting” without liking can occur especially in addiction via incentive-sensitization of the mesolimbic dopamine system and connected structures. At extreme, the addict may come to “want” what is neither “liked” nor expected to be liked, a dissociation possible because “wanting” mechanisms are largely subcortical and separable from cortically mediated declarative expectation and conscious planning. This is a reason why addicts may compulsively “want” to take drugs even if, at a more cognitive and conscious level, they do not want to do so. That is surely a recipe for great unhappiness (see figure 2 , bottom right).

CORTICAL PLEASURE

In the cortex, hedonic evaluation of pleasure valence is anatomically distinguishable from precursor operations such as sensory computations, suggesting existence of a hedonic cortex proper ( figure 2 ). Hedonic cortex involves regions such as the orbitofrontal, insula, medial prefrontal and cingulate cortices, which a wealth of human neuroimaging studies have shown to code for hedonic evaluations (including anticipation, appraisal, experience, and memory of pleasurable stimuli) and have close anatomical links to subcortical hedonic hotspots. It is important, however, to again make a distinction between brain activity coding and causing pleasure. Neural coding is inferred in practice by measuring brain activity correlated to a pleasant stimulus, using human neuroimaging techniques, or electrophysiological or neurochemical activation measures in animals ( Aldridge and Berridge 2010 ). Causation is generally inferred on the basis of a change in pleasure as a consequence of a brain manipulation, such as a lesion or stimulation. Coding and causation often go together for the same substrate, but they may diverge so that coding occurs alone.

Pleasure encoding may reach an apex of cortical localization in a subregion that is midanterior and roughly midlateral within the orbitofrontal cortex of the prefrontal lobe, where neuroimaging activity correlates strongly to subjective pleasantness ratings of food varieties—and to other pleasures such as sexual orgasms, drugs, chocolate, and music. Most important, activity in this special midanterior zone of orbitofrontal cortex tracks changes in subjective pleasure, such as a decline in palatability when the reward value of one food was reduced by eating it to satiety (while remaining high to another food). The midanterior subregion of orbitofrontal cortex is thus a prime candidate for the coding of subjective experience of pleasure ( Kringelbach 2005 ).

Another potential coding site for positive hedonics in orbitofrontal cortex is along its medial edge that has activity related to the positive and negative valence of affective events ( Kringelbach and Rolls 2004 ), contrasted to lateral portions that have been suggested to code unpleasant events (although lateral activity may reflect a signal to escape the situation, rather than displeasure per se) ( O’Doherty et al. 2001 ). This medial–lateral hedonic gradient interacts with an abstraction–concreteness gradient in the posterior-anterior dimension, so that more complex or abstract reinforcers (such as monetary gain and loss) are represented more anteriorly in the orbitofrontal cortex than less complex sensory rewards (such as taste). The medial region that codes pleasant sensations does not, however, appear to change its activity with reinforcer devaluation, and so may not reflect the full dynamics of pleasure.

Still other cortical regions have been implicated by some studies in coding for pleasant stimuli, including parts of the mid-insular cortex that is buried deep within the lateral surface of the brain as well as parts of the anterior cingulate cortices on the medial surface of the cortex. As yet, however, pleasure coding is not as clear for those regions as for the orbitofrontal cortex, and it remains uncertain whether insular or anterior cingulate cortices specifically code pleasure or only emotion more generally. A related suggestion has emerged that the frontal left hemisphere plays a special lateralized role in positive affect more than the right hemisphere ( Davidson and Irwin 1999 ), though how to reconcile left-positive findings with many other findings of bilateral activations of orbitofrontal and related cortical regions during hedonic processing remains an ongoing puzzle ( Kringelbach 2005 ).

It remains still unknown, however, if even the midanterior pleasure-coding site of orbitofrontal cortex or medial orbitofrontal cortex or any other cortical region actually causes a positive pleasure state. Clearly, damage to the orbitofrontal cortex does impair pleasure-related decisions, including choices and context-related cognitions in humans, monkeys, and rats ( Anderson et al. 1999 ; Nauta 1971 ). But some caution regarding whether the cortex generates positive affect states per se is indicated by the consideration that patients with lesions to the orbitofrontal cortex do still react normally to many pleasures, although sometimes showing inappropriate emotions. Hedonic capacity after prefrontal damage has not, however, yet been studied in careful enough detail to draw firm conclusions about cortical causation (for example, using selective satiation paradigms), and it would be useful to have more information on the role of orbitofrontal cortex, insular cortex, and cingulate cortex in generating and modulating hedonic states.

Pleasure causation has been so far rather difficult to assess in humans given the limits of information from lesion studies, and the correlative nature of neuroimaging studies. A promising tool, however, is deep brain stimulation (DBS), which is a versatile and reversible technique that directly alters brain activity in a brain target and where the ensuing whole-brain activity can be measured with Magnetoencephalography (MEG) ) Kringelbach et al. 2007 ). Pertinent to a view of happiness as freedom from distress, at least pain relief can be obtained from DBS of periaqueductal grey in the brainstem in humans, where specific neural signatures of pain have been found ( Green et al. 2009 ), and where the pain relief is associated with activity in the midanterior orbitofrontal cortex, perhaps involving endogenous opioid release. Similarly, DBS may alleviate some unpleasant symptoms of depression, though without actually producing positive affect.

Famously, also, pleasure electrodes were reported to exist decades ago in animals and humans when implanted in subcortical structures, including the nucleus accumbens, septum and medial forebrain bundle ( Olds and Milner 1954 ; Heath 1972 ) ( figure 2c ). However, recently we and others have questioned whether most such electrodes truly caused pleasure, or instead, only a psychological process more akin to “wanting” without “liking” ( Berridge and Kringelbach 2008 ). In our view, it still remains unknown whether DBS causes true pleasure, or if so, where in the brain electrodes produce it.

LOSS OF PLEASURE

The lack of pleasure, anhedonia, is one of the most important symptoms of many mental illnesses, including depression. It is difficult to conceive of anyone reporting happiness or well-being while so deprived of pleasure. Thus anhedonia is another potential avenue of evidence for the link between pleasure and happiness.

The brain regions necessary for pleasure—but disrupted in anhedonia—are not yet fully clear. Core “liking” reactions to sensory pleasures appear relatively difficult to abolish absolutely in animals by a single brain lesion or drug, which may be very good in evolutionary terms. Only the ventral pallidum has emerged among brain hedonic hotspots as a site where damage fully abolishes the capacity for positive hedonic reaction in rodent studies, replacing even “liking” for sweetness with “disliking” gapes normally reserved for bitter or similarly noxious tastes, at least for a while ( Aldridge and Berridge 2010 ). Interestingly, there are extensive connections from the ventral pallidum to the medial orbitofrontal cortex.

On the basis of this evidence, the ventral pallidum might also be linked to human anhedonia. This brain region has not yet been directly surgically targeted by clinicians but there is anecdotal evidence that some patients with pallidotomies (of nearby globus pallidus, just above and behind the ventral pallidum) for Parkinson’s patients show flattened affect (Aziz, personal communication), and stimulation of globus pallidus internus may help with depression. A case study has also reported anhedonia following bilateral lesion to the ventral pallidum ( Miller et al. 2006 ).

Alternatively, core “liking” for fundamental pleasures might persist intact but unacknowledged in anhedonia, while instead only more cognitive construals, including retrospective or anticipatory savoring, becomes impaired. That is, fundamental pleasure may not be abolished in depression after all. Instead, what is called anhedonia might be secondary to motivational deficits and cognitive misap-praisals of rewards, or to an overlay of negative affective states. This may still disrupt life enjoyment, and perhaps render higher pleasures impossible.

Other potential regions targeted by DBS to help with depression and anhedonia include the nucleus accumbens and the subgenual cingulate cortex. In addition, lesions of the posterior part of the anterior cingulate cortex have been used for the treatment of depression with some success ( Steele et al. 2008 ).

BRIDGING PLEASURE TO MEANING

It is potentially interesting to note that all these structures either have close links with frontal cortical structures in the hedonic network (for example, nucleus accumbens and ventral pallidum) or belong to what has been termed the brain’s default network, which changes over early development ( Fransson et al. 2007 ; Fair et al. 2008 ).

Mention of the default network brings us back to the topic of eudaimonic happiness, and to potential interactions of hedonic brain circuits with circuits that assess meaningful relationships of self to social others. The default network is a steady state circuit of the brain, which becomes perturbed during cognitive tasks ( Gusnard and Raichle 2001 ). Most pertinent here is an emerging literature that has proposed the default network to carry representations of self ( Lou et al. 1999 ), internal modes of cognition ( Buckner et al. 2008 ), and perhaps even states of consciousness ( Laureys et al. 2004 ). Such functions might well be important to higher pleasures as well as meaningful aspects of happiness.

Although highly speculative, we wonder whether the default network might deserve further consideration for a role in connecting eudaimonic and hedonic happiness. At least, key regions of the frontal default network overlap with the hedonic network discussed above, such as the anterior cingulate and orbitofrontal cortices, and have a relatively high density of opiate receptors. And activity changes in the frontal default network, such as in the subgenual cingulate and orbitofrontal cortices, correlate to pathological changes in subjective hedonic experience, such as in depressed patients ( Drevets et al. 1997 ).

Pathological self-representations by the frontal default network could also provide a potential link between hedonic distortions of happiness that are accompanied by eudaimonic dissatisfaction, such as in cognitive rumination of depression. Conversely, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression, which aims to disengage from dysphoria-activated depressogenic thinking, might conceivably recruit default network circuitry to help mediate improvement in happiness via a linkage to hedonic circuitry.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

The most difficult questions facing pleasure and happiness research remain the nature of its subjective experience, the relation of hedonic components (pleasure or positive affect) to eudaimonic components (cognitive appraisals of meaning and life satisfaction), and the relation of each of these components to underlying brain systems. While some progress has been made in understanding brain hedonics, it is important not to over-interpret. In particular we have still not made substantial progress toward understanding the functional neuroanatomy of happiness.

In this article, we have identified a number of brain regions that are important in the brain’s hedonic networks, and speculated on the potential interaction of hedonics with eudaimonic networks. So far the most distinctive insights have come from studying sensory pleasures, but another challenge is to understand the how brain networks underlying fundamental pleasure relate to higher pleasures, such as music, dance, play, and flow to contribute to happiness. While it remains unclear how pleasure and happiness are exactly linked, it may be safe to say at least that the pathological lack of pleasure, in anhedonia or dysphoria, amounts to a formidable obstacle to happiness.

Further, in social animals like humans, it is worth noting that social interactions with conspecifics are fundamental and central to enhancing the other pleasures. Humans are intensely social, and data indicate that one of the most important factors for happiness is social relationships with other people. Social pleasures may still include vital sensory features such as visual faces, touch features of grooming and caress, as well as in humans more abstract and cognitive features of social reward and relationship evaluation. These may be important triggers for the brain’s hedonic networks in human beings.

In particular, adult pair bonds and attachment bonds between parents and infants are likely to be extremely important for the survival of the species ( Kringelbach et al. 2008 ). The breakdown of these bonds is all too common and can lead to great unhappiness. And even bond formation can potentially disrupt happiness, such as in transient parental depression after birth of an infant (in over 10 percent of mothers and approximately 3 percent of fathers [ Cooper and Murray 1998 ]). Progress in understanding the hedonics of social bonds could be useful in understanding happiness, and it will be important to map the developmental changes that occur over a lifespan. Fortunately, social neuroscience is beginning to unravel some of the complex dynamics of human social interactions and their relation to brain activations ( Parsons et al. 2010 ).

In conclusion, so far as positive affect contributes to happiness, then considerable progress has been made in understanding the neurobiology of pleasure in ways that might be relevant. For example, we can imagine several possibilities to relate happiness to particular hedonic psychological processes discussed above. Thus, one way to conceive of hedonic happiness is as “liking” without “wanting.” That is, a state of pleasure without disruptive desires, a state of contentment ( Kringelbach 2009 ). Another possibility is that moderate “wanting,” matched to positive “liking,” facilitates engagement with the world. A little incentive salience may add zest to the perception of life and perhaps even promote the construction of meaning, just as in some patients therapeutic deep brain stimulation may help lift the veil of depression by making life events more appealing. However, too much “wanting” can readily spiral into maladaptive patterns such as addiction, and is a direct route to great unhappiness. Finally, happiness of course springs not from any single component but from the interplay of higher pleasures, positive appraisals of life meaning and social connectedness, all combined and merged by interaction between the brain’s default networks and pleasure networks. Achieving the right hedonic balance in such ways may be crucial to keep one not just ticking over but actually happy.

Future scientific advances may provide a better sorting of psychological features of happiness and its underlying brain networks. If so, it remains a distinct possibility that more among us may be one day shifted into a better situation to enjoy daily events, to find life meaningful and worth living—and perhaps even to achieve a degree of bliss.

Acknowledgments

We thank Christopher Peterson, Eric Jackson, Kristine Rømer Thomsen, Christine Parsons, and Katie Young for helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. Our research has been supported by grants from the TrygFonden Charitable Foundation to Kringelbach and from the National Institute of Mental Health and National Institute on Drug Abuse to Berridge.

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The Aztecs on Happiness, Pleasure and the Good Life

Lynn Sebastian Purcell is the winner of the American Philosophical Association’s 2016 Essay Prize in Latin American Thought.  This post is adapted from the work for which he won, “Neltilitztli and the Good Life: On Aztec Ethics.”

There is a scene in Homer’s Odyssey where Odysseus makes what would appear to be an odd choice. It comes after Odysseus has been living on an island paradise with a goddess, Calypso, for seven years. Hermes appears and informs Calypso that the gods have taken pity on Odysseus and demand that she release him. Calypso accepts on one condition: that Odysseus must chose to go willingly. We next witness Odysseus seated across from Calypso and she offers him what anyone would seemingly want: immortality, agelessness, and a leisured existence on an island paradise with a beautiful goddess, provided he stays with her. He turns her down. Instead he chooses to venture onto the open waters on a rickety ship in search of his wife and child.

When I teach this passage, I ask my students whether they would have chosen something similar. “How many of you,” I venture, “would turn down ageless immortality, and a leisured, pleasurable existence on the condition that you would be unable to return to see your family and those you most cared about?” I’ve never once had anyone disagree with Odysseus’ choice.

The result is an important one for moral philosophers: we humans don’t seem to want pleasurable or “happy” lives. Instead, we want worthwhile ones. This insight, at base, is the one which informed the whole ethical outlook of the pre-Columbian Aztecs. What we are searching for, they held, is a “rooted” or worthwhile existence.

Although long overlooked by “Western” philosophy, we have ample textual evidence of what the Aztecs thought. The reason is that in the middle of the 16 th century, Spanish clergymen hurried about collecting and preserving as much as they could of a culture that was quickly being extinguished. The result is that we have now volumes and volumes of the recorded thoughts of Aztec philosophers compiled in codices, in the original Nahuatl: from common sayings, to moral exhortations, to philosophic poetry, to dialogues.

What one finds is that their philosophers maintained that humans faced a basic existential problem. It was captured in a common saying: “Slippery, slick is the earth.” What they meant is that despite our best intentions, our life on earth is one where people are prone to error, prone to fail in their goals, and so prone to “fall,” as if into the mud. Moreover, this earth is a place where joys only come mingled with pain and set back. In a passage where elders are admonishing their (grand) daughter, we read the following.

Hear well, O my daughter, O my child, the earth is not a good place. It is not a place of joy, it is not a place of contentment. It is merely said it is a place of joy with fatigue, of joy with pain on earth.

Finally, as we all recognize, the Aztec philosophers maintained that our lives here are brief ones. All that we love will too soon turn to dust and ash.

These observations were not, the Aztecs held, reasons for despair. Rather they set the conditions for leading a worthwhile existence. The solution, they urged, was to achieve rootedness, or “ neltiliztli .” The world is an abstract form of “ nelli ” and can also mean “truth.” The basic metaphor, however, is that of taking root, as a tree does, so that one can avoid sliding about on the earth. Such a life is a “true” one, and, because it is the highest end we seek, a reasonable candidate for what in the “West” we call the good life.

In looking over the Aztec texts and archaeological evidence, one finds that one was to take root in one’s body, one’s psyche, in society, and in teotl —the Aztec understanding of god as nature. From a number of collected figurines and textual descriptions of the body, we know that the Aztecs urged a daily regimen of bodily activities that closely resemble yoga practices: stretching and strengthening exercises. This was one of the ways, at least, that one was to take root in one’s body.

In one’s psyche, one’s personality, one was to become rooted by seeking to balance the relation between one’s “heart,” the seat of one’s longings and desires, and one’s “face,” or the seat of judgment. One accomplished this, they held, by cultivating virtues which enabled one to act at the mean. What follows is a mother’s exhortation to her daughter:

On earth it is a time for care, it is a place for caution. Behold the word; heed and guard it, and with it take your way of life, your works. On earth we live, we travel along a mountain peak. Over here there is an abyss, over there is an abyss. If thou goest over here, or if thou goest over there, thou wilt fall in. Only in the middle doth one go, doth one live.

A person with a balanced face and heart, a virtuous person, is one who is able to act at the mean. Rootedness in one’s person, then, enables one to lead a life by the middle way.

The Aztecs were, as anthropologists have noted, a sociocentric culture. Taking root by way of one’s involvement in society, then, was a central focus for the philosopher’s descriptions of good and bad actions. Specifically one takes root in society in two ways. The first was through one’s participation in social rites, which were not only a source of social cohesion, but were also a way to train one’s character. The second was through the execution of one’s social role: as a father, mother, feather worker, philosopher, king, warrior, and so on. Successful performance of these roles was a source of praise, failure a source of blame.

Finally, the Aztec philosophers seemed to hold that one could take root in the way things “are,” in teotl , who was the single and only being of existence. I write “are” in quotations because Nahuatl is an omnipredicative language, so that everything is a predicate, a “verb.” All reality was in process, and so to take root in teotl is to take root in the way that things change into each other. This was done primarily through the above three mentioned ways. But the Aztec philosophers also seemed to hold that there were other ways as well. One of them was by the composition of philosophic poetry, the beauty of which was thought to outlast most of the transient creations on our earth. These “direct” paths, then, complemented the other more indirect ways.

Lives rooted in these four ways, in one’s body, psyche, society and in nature were thought to be lives worth leading, worth sacrificing for, if necessary. “Happiness,” or pleasurable conscious states, could not qualify as a goal able to organize our lives on earth. Had the Aztecs known about Odysseus’ choice, like my students, they would have agreed. For Odysseus lacked on the island the specific social relations that made his life worthwhile, and he recognized this. If the study of ethics is for the sake of living better lives, then perhaps the Aztec approach might also help us to recognize the framework for making such insights in our own lives.

Lynn Sebastian Purcell

Lynn Sebastian Purcell is an Assistant Philosophy Professor at SUNY Cortland , where he specializes in Ancient Philosophy, Ethics, and Latin American Philosophy. He is also the Co-coordinator for Latino Latin-American Studies (LLAS) and the Treasurer for the Center for Ethics Peace and Social Justice. He received his PhD in philosophy from Boston College in 2011.

• ancient Greek ethics
• Aztec philosophy
• Editor: Nathan Eckstrand
• Latin American philosophy
• Virtue Ethics

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Hey, that picture is from Chichen Itza, a Mayan (not Aztec!) building.

Thanks for pointing out the error, Jorge. In my defense, the site where I found the picture (Pixbay) tags it as both Mayan and Aztec. If you know of a better picture that’s not under copyright, let me know and I’ll swap it in.

Hey Nathan,

This one would work: https://pixabay.com/en/teotihuacan-mexico-aztec-pyramids-1340799/

Though not built by the Aztecs themselves, the city was indeed occupied by them. More appropriate than the Mayan pyramid portrayed, but not entirely accurate either.

It is an educative piece.

Very good! Much insight to be gained.

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Pleasure and “Happiness” in Aristotle: A Key to Understanding the Tourist?

• First Online: 11 November 2023

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In ancient Greek thought, the final destination of humans’ life journey is eudaimonia , “happiness.” Aristotle follows this tradition in taking eudaimonia as the “goal” ( telos ) of human life. Eudaimonia , however, is not a momentary achievement or a means for attaining something else, nor is it identified with the chance “goods” of aristocracy, wealth, beauty, or political power. It is tied rather to the specific nature of human beings and depends on their particular function or “work” ( ergon ) as their proper condition throughout an entire lifetime. There is also a pleasure ( hêdonê ) which corresponds to this activity as the most essential and highest possible pleasure for human beings according to their nature. What is the proper activity for the human species and its proper pleasure? Which pleasure corresponds to a human being’s true nature? This paper explores the paramount importance of pleasure within the ethical/political framework of Aristotle’s philosophy and its association with the ultimate destination of human life – which is to fully realise our human potential and function according to our nature. As such, Aristotle’s view of pleasure and happiness may provide some key insights for understanding – and perhaps redirecting – the pursuits of the tourist.

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While in Homer, e.g., possessing great political power was the paragon of aretê , the pattern of the best possible way of life (cf. Iliad 6.476–478).

NE 1.12, 1102a5–6: ἐστὶν ἡ εὐδαιμονία ψυχῆς ἐνέργειά τις κατ’ ἀρετὴν τελείαν. Cf. NE 10.7, 1177a12. On this definition, see e.g. Purinton 1998 . Cf. Heinaman 2007 . On eudaimonia in Aristotle’s ethics, see e.g. Hardie 1965 ; Ackrill 1974 ; McDowell 1980 ; Kraut 1989 , esp.15–77; Kenny 1991 ; Lear 2004 , esp. 37–71; Irwin 2012 .

Cf. Wedin 1981 ; Whiting 1988 ; Gomez-Lobo 1991 ; Lawrence 2006 .

NE 1.7, 1098a10–11: προστιθεμένης τῆς κατὰ τὴν ἀρετὴν ὑπεροχῆς πρὸς τὸ ἔργον.

NE 1.7, 1098a18–20: ἔτι δ’ ἐν βίῳ τελείῳ. μία γὰρ χελιδὼν ἔαρ οὐ ποιεῖ, οὐδὲ μία ἡμέρα⋅ οὕτω δὲ οὐδὲ μακάριον καὶ εὐδαίμονα μία ἡμέρα οὐδ’ ὀλίγος χρόνος. Cf. 2.4, 1105a33.

Cf. also NE 10.6, 1176b18–19: οὐ γὰρ ἐν τῷ δυναστεύειν ἡ ἀρετὴ οὐδ’ ὁ νοῦς, ἀφ’ ὧν αἱ σπουδαῖαι ἐνέργειαι.

Cf. Liatsi 2022 . On ‘virtue’ in Aristotle’s ethics, see e.g. Hutchinson 1986 ; Sherman 1991 ; Gottlieb 2009 ; Lorenz 2009 .

Cf. NE 4.1, 1120a24–25: αἱ δὲ κατ’ ἀρετὴν πράξεις καλαὶ καὶ τοῦ καλοῦ ἕνεκα.

Cf. NE 2.6, 1106b21–23: τὸ δ’ ὅτε δεῖ καὶ ἐφ’ οἷς καὶ πρὸς οὓς καὶ οὗ ἕνεκα καὶ ὡς δεῖ, μέσον τε καὶ ἄριστον, ὅπερ ἐστὶ τῆς ἀρετῆς.

Cf. Hardie 1977 ; Urmson 1980 ; Wolf 2006 .

NE 2.4, 1105a32: προαιρούμενος δι’ αὐτά ( scil . τὰ κατὰ τὰς ἀρετὰς γινόμενα).

Merker 2016 ; cf. Charpenel 2017 , 186–208.

Russell 2014 . Cf. Cooper 1996 .

Cf. Flannery 2013 .

On the following views, see Liatsi 2020 .

Cf. NE 2.9, 1109a28–35.

Cf. NE 2.9, 1109b1–7: σκοπεῖν δὲ δεῖ πρὸς ἃ καὶ αὐτοὶ εὐκατάφοροί ἐσμεν⋅ ἄλλοι γὰρ πρὸς ἄλλα πεφύκαμεν⋅ τοῦτο δ’ ἔσται γνώριμον ἐκ τῆς ἡδονῆς καὶ τῆς λύπης τῆς γινομένης περὶ ἡμᾶς. εἰς τοὐναντίον δ’ ἑαυτοὺς ἀφέλκειν δεῖ⋅ πολὺ γὰρ ἀπάγοντες τοῦ ἁμαρτάνειν εἰς τὸ μέσον ἥξομεν, ὅπερ οἱ τὰ διεστραμμένα τῶν ξύλων ὀρθοῦντες ποιοῦσιν.

Cf. NE 2.3, 1105a7–9: ἔτι δὲ χαλεπώτερον ἡδονῇ μάχεσθαι ἢ θυμῷ, καθάπερ φησὶν Ἡράκλειτος, περὶ δὲ τὸ χαλεπώτερον ἀεὶ καὶ τέχνη γίνεται καὶ ἀρετή.

That is why Aristotle agrees with Plato that the right education consists of feeling joy or pity towards the right things. This, according to Aristotle, is how we must be raised from childhood onwards. The ἀρετή, appropriate education from an early age can teach people, as Aristotle points out, how important is to be pleased with the right activities and similarly how meaningful it is to be sorry in case they resort to unenviable activities. See NE 2.3, 1104b3–13, esp. 1104b11–13. Cf. Plato, Politeia 401 E – 402 A; Nomoi 653 A – C.

Cf. also Wolfsdorf 2013 , esp. 130–133.

The pleasures of the body are closely related to desires, to epithumiai . Aristotle does not reject them, but he disapproves of pleasures that exceed moderation and lead to excess ( hyperbole) . These are harmful and thus should be kept at bay since they destroy eudaimonia .

Cf. Met. Λ 9. 1074b16: δοκεῖ μὲν γὰρ εἶναι τῶν φαινομένων θειότατον.

On the different aspects of the relation between eudaimonia and theôria in Aristotle’s ethics, see Destrée and Zingano 2014 .

NE 10.7, 1177a16–18: ἡ τοῦ ( scil. τοῦ νοῦ) ἐνέργεια κατὰ τὴν οἰκείαν ἀρετὴν εἴη ἂν ἡ τελεία εὐδαιμονία. ὅτι δ῾ ἐστὶ θεωρητική, εἴρηται. / Cf. NE 10.8, 1178b32: ὥστ᾽ εἴη ἄν ἡ εὐδαιμονία θεωρία τις. Cf. Protreptikos fr. 87: “Complete and unimpeded activity contains within itself pleasure, so that the activity of theoretical intellect must be the most pleasant of all.”

Cf. Long 2011 .

NE 10.8, 1178b21–23: ἔτι δὲ μᾶλλον τοῦ ποιεῖν, τί λείπεται πλὴν θεωρία; ὥστε ἡ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐνέργεια, μακαριότητι διαφέρουσα, θεωρητικὴ ἂν εἴη: καὶ τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων δὴ ἡ ταύτῃ συγγενεστάτη εὐδαιμονικωτάτη.

Cf. Met . Λ 7, 1072b14–16: διαγωγὴ δ᾽ ἐστὶν οἵα ἡ ἀρίστη μικρὸν χρόνον ἡμῖν οὕτω γὰρ ἀεὶ ἐκεῖνο: ἡμῖν μὲν γὰρ ἀδύνατον, ἐπεὶ καὶ ἡδονὴ ἡ ἐνέργεια τούτου. See Liatsi 2016 .

NE 10.7, 1177a23–24: ἡδίστη δὲ τῶν κατ’ ἀρετὴν ἐνεργειῶν ἡ κατὰ τὴν σοφίαν.

NE 10.7, 1178a5–6: τὸ γὰρ οἰκεῖον ἑκάστῳ τῇ φύσει κράτιστον καὶ ἥδιστόν ἐστιν.

It is somehow the Aristotelian version of Plato’s “resemblance to God”, (ὁμοίωσις θεῷ, Theaitetos 176b1), as the way for human beings to reach eudaimonia in life. Cf. Sedley 2017 .

NE 10.7, 1177b33–34: ἐφ᾽ ὅσον ἐνδέχεται ἀθανατίζειν καὶ πάντα ποιεῖν πρὸς τὸ ζῆν κατὰ τὸ κράτιστον τῶν ἐν αὑτῷ.

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Liatsi, M. (2023). Pleasure and “Happiness” in Aristotle: A Key to Understanding the Tourist?. In: Zovko, MÉ., Dillon, J. (eds) Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36659-8_3

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Action, Contemplation, and Happiness: An Essay On Aristotle

C. D. C. Reeve, Action, Contemplation, and Happiness : An Essay On Aristotle , Harvard University Press, 2012, 299pp., $49.95 (hbk), ISBN 9780674063730.

Reviewed by Christiana Olfert, Tufts University

In  Action, Contemplation, and Happiness , C. D. C. Reeve presents an ambitious, three-hundred-page capsule of Aristotle's philosophy organized around the ideas of action, contemplation, and happiness. He aims to show that practical wisdom and theoretical wisdom are very similar virtues, and therefore, despite what scholars have often thought, there are few difficult questions about how virtuous action and theoretical contemplation are to be reconciled in a happy life.

One of the book's most novel features is its complex methodology. First, Reeve aims to discuss the notions of action, contemplation, and happiness from the perspective of Aristotle's thought as a whole. To do this, he covers a truly extraordinary range of topics from the corpus, and his highly integrative, multidisciplinary approach is to be applauded. Second, he plans to "think everything out afresh for myself, as if I were the first one to attempt the task." (ix) Because of this, he only rarely engages in detail with scholarly debates on major topics. Third, Reeve describes the structure of his text as a "map of the Aristotelian world," which proceeds through a "holism" of discussions that evolve as the book progresses. (ix-x) As such, readers should not expect a point-by-point argument about specific aspects of Aristotle's views about action, contemplation, and happiness that arise from his physical, metaphysical, and theological views. Nor should they always expect Reeve's first word on a subject to be the same as his last. For instance, in Chapter 2, he introduces the idea of "practical perception" as the simple experience of perceptual pleasure and pain; then in Chapter 5, he extends this idea to include a highly complex noetic activity that results from rational deliberation.

Finally, Reeve supplements his discussions with original translations of Aristotle, many of which are extensive excerpts set apart from the main text. These translations are comfortably clear and readable, which makes them accessible to readers of all levels. Specialists will notice that some translations of key terms are rather traditional (e.g., " aretê " is translated as "virtue" not "excellence," " meson " as "mean" not "intermediate," " ousia " as "substance" without comment, " eudaimonia " as "happiness" with some discussion), with a few notable exceptions (" athanatizein " in  NE  X.7 is literally rendered "to immortalize," and " poiêtikos nous " from  DA  III.5 is literally rendered "productive understanding," which unfortunately suggests the productive reasoning that is contrasted with practical and theoretical reasoning).

The first two chapters argue that we acquire our abilities to act and to contemplate in similar ways. Chapter 1, "The Transmission of Form," explains Aristotle's views about the material processes by which human beings come to be contemplators and rational agents. Since there is no bodily organ for rational understanding ( nous ), the material processes that generate the human body in sexual reproduction cannot generate our understanding. Instead, understanding, both practical and theoretical, enters the human organism "from the outside," which Reeve interprets to mean that it comes from the circular motions of the ether that accompany -- but are not part of -- the sperm when it fertilizes the menses.

Chapter 2, "Truth, Action, and Soul," explains the psychology of human agency and rational thought, the capacities of the soul that "control action and truth." Here, Reeve argues that our practical and contemplative activities share not only a material origin, but also a developmental starting-point: sense-perception. Because it is fallible, sense-perception is not sufficiently "controlling" of truth to be solely responsible for human agency and contemplation, but it does provide a foundation for inductive learning. In the theoretical or contemplative case, ordinary sense-perception is the foundation. In the case of action and practical thought, however, learning begins with what Reeve calls "practical perception," which is the experience of pleasure and pain in the perceptual part of the soul. Practical perception then serves two purposes: to give us an object to pursue or avoid with our appetitive desires, which also occur in the perceptual part of the soul, and to provide an inductive foundation for practical thought. (However, since practical perceptions are not themselves motivational states [41-43], Reeve could have been clearer about whether and in what sense this induction results in genuinely practical -- i.e., motivating -- understanding.)

The next three chapters argue for the importance of theoretical thought in the practical sphere. Chapter 3, "Theoretical Wisdom," argues that when we understand what scientific knowledge amounts to for Aristotle, we can see that his epistemology includes  ethical, political, and productive sciences  as well as natural, cosmological, and theological ones. All these sciences have the same demonstrative structure, and rely on universal, invariant principles. But in some sciences, their conclusions follow only "for the most part." To explain how this is possible, Reeve argues that all scientific truths express a universal, invariant, necessary, and really obtaining connection between universals. But in particular cases, "the indefiniteness of matter" can create exceptions to these absolutely universal and invariant truths. (82) Thus, Reeve claims, even ethical laws or rules can be absolutely universal and invariant, but still hold only for the most part, because the "matter" involved in a particular situation (rather than genuinely normative considerations, one assumes) can cause an exception without threatening the strictness of the law itself. This, in turn, makes it possible for us to conceive of an Aristotelian ethical science on the same model as natural sciences.

Chapter 4, "Virtue of Character," goes on to argue that Aristotle himself uses various sciences, including ethical and political ones, to define virtue of character as "a state concerned with deliberately choosing, in a mean in relation to us, defined by a reason, that is, the one by which the practically wise man would define it." (103, Reeve's translation) Like any scientific definition, Reeve claims, this one is stated in terms of genus and differentiae, so that "the mean in relation to us" is the genus of virtue of character. He then devotes most of the chapter to defending and explaining Aristotle's claim that virtue of character is a mean in relation to us. Compared to most scholarly discussions of these topics, Reeve focuses comparatively heavily on the idea that virtues of character are relative to one's political constitution and to one's status as a human being (man, woman, child, slave), and comparatively little on Aristotle's own explanation of the mean as relative to a particular time, place, agent, object, quantity, and so on. [1]

Chapter 5, "Practical Wisdom," explains practical wisdom in terms of the so-called "practical syllogism." On Reeve's view, practical reasons have two aspects or parts, which correspond to the two premises in a syllogism. All practical reasons aim at a target, which corresponds to the major premise of a syllogism that states a universal, invariant, scientific law, grasped through understanding ( nous ) -- in the most general case, a definition of human happiness. And our practical reasons also involve a definition or defining-mark telling us how to hit the target in a particular situation. This corresponds to the minor premise of a syllogism, and we grasp it through a different exercise of understanding which is a species of practical perception that Reeve calls "deliberative perception." (181-186) Together, these two premises generate an action, which corresponds to a description that is validly entailed by the two premises. From this analysis of the practical syllogism, we can see that practical wisdom directly involves various forms of theoretical knowledge, including knowledge of ethical science. But the combination of major and minor premises tells us that practical wisdom itself is not a science, and, in fact, Aristotle's conception of practical wisdom incorporates elements of both 'generalism' and 'particularism' about the normative status of universal ethical laws. According to Reeve, Aristotle's conception of practical wisdom is  generalist  insofar as universal, scientific ethical laws most basically justify practically wise action. But Aristotle also says that universal ethical laws cannot guide action without being applied, through a form of perception, to the specific features of a particular situation. So his view also incorporates some  particularist  insights, since the perception of particulars is the starting-point for learning and applying universal ethical laws, and ultimately particulars are the truth-makers for these laws.

The last three chapters of the book argue that, although for Aristotle complete  happiness  consists in contemplative activity, the completely happy human  life  includes many other valuable things, including different practical activities and virtues. Chapter 6, "Immortalizing Beings," explains what Reeve takes to be the main ethical prescription in the  Nicomachean Ethics : the best thing we can do is to "immortalize" ourselves. Reeve interprets this claim literally, as a prescription to make our own intellect identical with the immortal, pure activity that is God, by contemplating him just as he contemplates "his own otherwise blank self." (210)

Chapter 7, "Happiness," explains Aristotle's claims that theoretical wisdom is the best and most complete ( teleion ) human virtue, and that theoretical contemplation is the best and most complete form of happiness. On Reeve's view, these are teleological claims about theoretical wisdom and contemplation as final and complete ends, with practical virtues and activities aiming to "maximize" contemplation. (237) (The precise nature of this teleological relationship is not always clear: Reeve says that noble, non-final ends are " intrinsically choiceworthy  . . .  only as a means  to happiness," but also that achieving intermediate ends is " part  of achieving" the final end. [125, 234, my emphasis])

Chapter 8, "The Happiest Life," seeks to correct the impression that the completely happy contemplative life is nothing but a life devoted to completely happy contemplative activity. In fact, there are many different aspects of the completely happy human life,  as a happy human life , that are not reducible to contemplative activity itself. For instance, because a theoretically wise contemplator has a complex, incarnate nature, she may become bored with her contemplation of God. (268) So the happiest life will require the exercise of practical wisdom to provide the agent with stimulating contemplative alternatives from its own store of scientific knowledge. As such, even if the activities of practical wisdom and excellent character are not parts of the highest form of  happiness , they are integral, ongoing parts of the happiest contemplative  life , just as theoretical and scientific thought are integral, ongoing parts of the exercise of the practical virtues. In the happiest life, then, practical pursuits are not only compatible with theoretical ones, but the distinction between "practical" and "theoretical" nearly disappears.

This is a book of admirable breadth, detail, and complexity, but it also has some difficulties. One arises from Reeve's methodology. On the one hand, he attempts to re-think Aristotle's ethics for himself from the ground up. On the other hand, he clearly also hopes to resolve (or perhaps  prevent ) some famous debates in Aristotelian ethics, including the generalist-particularist debate and the inclusivism-exclusivism debate about the role of non-contemplative goods in complete happiness. The result is that, at times, Reeve seems to be pronouncing on these familiar debates without having directly addressed the central arguments and concerns of each side. So although he has important insights about these debates, some experts may find his solutions unsatisfying. For instance, as I have indicated, his comments about the teleological relationship between practical activities and contemplation may be less precise than parties to the inclusivist-exclusivist debate would want. And his description of Aristotle as an ethical generalist depends upon his own view about the role of ethical science in practical reasoning which, as we will see, is not unproblematic.

Reeve's notion of ethical science is an indispensable cornerstone in the book. [2]  He uses relatively little positive textual evidence to show that there is such a thing for Aristotle, instead relying substantially on arguments that Wittgenstein-inspired particularist readings and objections against the existence of universal ethical laws are misguided. [3]  On Reeve's view, Aristotle is simply "unperturbed" by questions about "how correctly to apply . . . universal principles in particular circumstances": deliberative perception, informed by one's character and upbringing,  literally sees  how unchanging, universal, and necessary principles apply to the changing, particular, and contingent circumstances of action. [4]  (193) Moreover, Reeve suggests that by positing an ethical  science , he will be able to resolve those aforementioned debates.

I am sympathetic to Reeve's strategy of refocusing these familiar debates. But there is also an older and more problematic context for the idea of ethical science. Reeve's invocation of ethical science leads to a rather Platonic interpretation of Aristotle that identifies the starting-points of practically wise reasoning as theoretical, unchanging, universal principles. The problem is that Aristotle objects to the Platonic conception of practical reasoning. One objection, stated in both the  NE  and the  EE , is that universal and unchanging principles like the Form of the Good cannot be practical -- knowing them cannot tell us what to  do . [5]  In part, they cannot tell us what to do because of important metaphysical and epistemological differences, even on Aristotle's view, between such principles and the changing, particular, and concrete facts about the circumstances in which we act. [6]  This objection suggests that Aristotle is indeed "perturbed" about how unchanging universals apply to changing particulars, and he must have developed his own theories of practical reasoning and practical wisdom with this problem in mind. But "deliberative perception" does not offer a solution here: it merely postulates a bridge between universals and particulars without showing how a bridge is possible.

A more charitable reading,  contra  Reeve, would be that Aristotle sought to avoid this Platonic problem by developing an innovative,  non -Platonic distinction in kind between practical thought on the one hand and scientific and theoretical thought on the other. In light of such considerations, we might worry that by making ethical science central to practical wisdom, Reeve has failed to preserve key differences between Aristotle's and Plato's theories of ethical thinking, and consequently has made Aristotle's conception of practical wisdom especially vulnerable to some old Platonic problems. Then, by making the practical syllogism the "organizing focus" of practical deliberation, he has perhaps even exacerbated these problems for Aristotle, since on his view practical wisdom must now bridge the gap between unchanging universals and changing particulars  each time it deliberates .

Another difficulty with Reeve's conception of ethical science concerns how it is learned. On Reeve's view, this begins with induction over practical perceptions -- basic experiences of pleasure and pain. I am sympathetic to several aspects of this proposal: it identifies experiences of pleasure and pain as starting-points in the cognitive development of practical wisdom, and it emphasizes deep analogies between the acquisition of practical and theoretical wisdom. However, there is a lacuna at the heart of Reeve's version of this proposal. Although he does not give us much detail about the universal and invariant "ethical laws" that supposedly make up this science, he does say that they include the definition of the human good, i.e., happiness. [7]  (172) So, in order to make plausible the idea that principles about the human good are acquired through a process of induction, we need to know how information about  goodness  makes its way into this process. This naturally raises the question: What is the content of experiences of pleasure and pain, such that they are the starting-points for inductively inferring a conclusion about  the good ? The most Reeve has to say about this point is that "pleasure . . . is woven into every good and pain into every bad," but unfortunately, this remark does not illuminate the matter. (43) Yet without a clear answer to this question, Reeve has not yet given us a convincing account of what ethical science is or how it is acquired. And without this account, the book's central argument is missing a cornerstone.

Bibliography

Aristotle.  Nicomachean Ethics , 2nd ed. Trans. Terence Irwin. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1999.

Broadie, Sarah. "Commentary" in  Nicomachean Ethics , Trans. Broadie and Rowe. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Gerson, Lloyd P.  Aristotle and Other Platonists . Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005.

Joachim, H. H.  Aristotle, the Nicomachean Ethics: a Commentary . Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951.

Reeve, C. D. C.  Practices of Reason . New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

[1]  See  Nicomachean Ethics  II.6.

[2]  For more on Reeve's contention that there is scientific ethical knowledge, readers could consult  Practices of Reason , pp. 22-30.

[3]  His main textual evidence from the ethical works comes from Aristotle's mention of  êthikê  in  NE  1094b10-11; an implication in  NE  V.10, 1106a29-b7; and Reeve's claim that  NE  I.1-2 argues for ethical science as one of the "choice-relevant sciences" (93, 79, and 228-34). But his interpretations of these passages are not decisive.

[4]  For instance, he rightly warns against particularist readings of Aristotle that confuse the question of whether there are universal ethical laws with the question of whether there is an algorithm for virtuous action (83-84, 150, 160-161, 192-4).

[5]  See  NE  1096b31-1097a13 and  EE  1217b23-25.

[6]  Scholars who agree that Aristotle's criticism of Plato at  NE  1096b31-1097a13 is motivated by the differences between unchanging, necessary universals and changing, contingent particulars include the following: Broadie comments that: "Even if it exists, the Platonic Form of good is not the chief good we are seeking because ( being part of the eternal structure of reality ) it is not doable or capable of being acquired" (Broadie 272, my emphasis). Irwin says: "elsewhere Aristotle gives a less one-sided view  of the role of Universal and Particular  in crafts" (Irwin 180, my emphasis). Joachim glosses Aristotle's criticism as follows: "an abstract ideal of this kind is of no use . . . the ideals which control production and action are  the determinate, special, concrete goods " (Joachim 47, my emphasis). Gerson suggests that Aristotle's complaint here is either that "theoretical knowledge is irrelevant to ethical practice" or that "those immersed in theory are not thereby able to direct ethical and political practices" (Gerson 262-3). For more on Aristotle's claim that the object of practical reason and practical wisdom is something practicable  as opposed to  something scientific, theoretical, or which cannot be otherwise, see e.g.  NE  1103b27-31, 1139a6-17, 1140a34-1140b4, and 1141b9-15.

[7]  He does, however, frequently speak about universal ethical  laws  in the plural (e.g., 79, 82, 186, 188). In  Practices of Reason  he names  eudaimonia  as a first principle in ethical science, as well as the claim that "we all aim at  eudaimonia  (or what we take to be  eudaimonia ) in all our actions"; he also says that "other psychological principles, such as those bearing on the division of the psyche into parts and faculties or those dealing with  akrasia  or weakness of will, may well count as first principles"; and he claims that the other "quintessentially ethical" first principles are the fine, the just, and the right (Reeve 1995, 27-28.)

Photo by Richard Kalvar/Magnum

The semi-satisfied life

Renowned for his pessimism, arthur schopenhauer was nonetheless a conoisseur of very distinctive kinds of happiness.

by David Bather Woods   + BIO

On 13 December 1807, in fashionable Weimar, Johanna Schopenhauer picked up her pen and wrote to her 19-year-old son Arthur: ‘It is necessary for my happiness to know that you are happy, but not to be a witness to it.’

Two years earlier, in Hamburg, Johanna’s husband Heinrich Floris had been discovered dead in the canal behind their family compound. It is possible that he slipped and fell, but Arthur suspected that his father jumped out of the warehouse loft into the icy waters below. Johanna did not disagree. Four months after the suicide, she had sold the house, soon to leave for Weimar where a successful career as a writer and saloniste awaited her. Arthur stayed behind with the intention of completing the merchant apprenticeship his father had arranged shortly before his death. It wasn’t long, however, before Arthur wanted out too.

In an exchange of letters throughout 1807, mother and son entered tense negotiations over the terms of Arthur’s release. Johanna would be supportive of Arthur’s decision to leave Hamburg in search of an intellectually fulfilling life – how could she not? – including using her connections to help pave the way for his university education. But on one condition: he must leave her alone. Certainly, he must not move to be near her in Weimar, and under no circumstances would she let him stay with her.

What her line of 13 December doesn’t reveal is that Johanna simply couldn’t tolerate Arthur: ‘All your good qualities,’ she wrote on 6 November, ‘become obscured by your super-cleverness and are made useless to the world merely because of your rage at wanting to know everything better than others … If you were less like you, you would only be ridiculous, but thus as you are, you are highly annoying.’ He was, in short, a boorish and tiresome know-it-all.

If people found Arthur Schopenhauer’s company intolerable, the feeling was mutual. He spent long depressive periods in self-imposed isolation, including the first two months of 1832 in his new rooms in Frankfurt, the city that became his adoptive home after a stint in Berlin. He defended himself against loneliness with the belief that solitude is the only fitting condition for a philosopher: ‘Were I a King,’ he said, ‘my prime command would be – Leave me alone.’ The subject of happiness, then, is not normally associated with Schopenhauer, neither as a person nor as a philosopher. Quite the opposite: he is normally associated with the deepest pessimism in the history of European philosophy.

Schopenhauer’s pessimism is based on two kinds of observation. The first is an inward-looking observation that we aren’t simply rational beings who seek to know and understand the world, but also desiring beings who strive to obtain things from the world. Behind every striving is a painful lack of something, Schopenhauer claims, yet obtaining this thing rarely makes us happy. For, even if we do manage to satisfy one desire, there are always several more unsatisfied ones ready to take its place. Or else we become bored, aware that a life with nothing to desire is dull and empty. If we are lucky enough to satisfy our basic needs, such as hunger and thirst, then in order to escape boredom we develop new needs for luxury items, such as alcohol, tobacco or fashionable clothing. At no point, Schopenhauer says, do we arrive at final and lasting satisfaction. Hence one of his well-known lines: ‘life swings back and forth like a pendulum between pain and boredom’.

Schopenhauer knew from his extensive studies of classical Indian philosophy that he wasn’t the first to observe that suffering is essential to life. The Buddhists have a word for this suffering, dukkha , which is acknowledged in the first of its Four Noble Truths. The fourth and final of these truths, magga , or the Noble Eightfold Path that leads to the cessation of dukkha , would also inspire large parts of his moral philosophy.

The second kind of observation is outward-looking. According to Schopenhauer, a glance at the world around us disproves the defining thesis of Gottfried Leibniz’s optimism that ours is the best of all possible worlds. On the contrary, Schopenhauer claims, if our world is ordered in any way, it is ordered to maximise pain and suffering. He gives the example of predatory animals that cannot but devour other animals in order to survive and so become ‘the living grave of thousands of others’. Nature as a whole is ‘red in tooth and claw’, as Alfred, Lord Tennyson later put it, pitting one creature against another, either as the devourer or the devoured, in a deadly fight for survival.

Civilisation doesn’t help much either. It adds so many sites of human suffering. In The World as Will and Representation (1818), Schopenhauer wrote:

if you led the most unrepentant optimist through the hospitals, military wards, and surgical theatres, through the prisons, torture chambers and slave stalls, through battlefields and places of judgment, and then open for him all the dark dwellings of misery that hide from cold curiosity, then he too would surely come to see the nature of this best of all possible worlds.

If you had to guess the world’s purpose just by looking at the results it achieves, you could only think it was a place of punishment.

These observations, the first on human nature and the second on nature itself, support Schopenhauer’s pessimistic claims that life is not worth living and the world should not exist. We are never given in advance the choice whether to exist or not but, if we were, it would be irrational to choose to exist in a world where we can’t profit from life but only lose. Or as Schopenhauer puts it in another key line: ‘life is a business that does not cover its costs’.

Is there a place for happiness in all this? There certainly should be. It can’t be ignored that happiness exists; too many people have experienced happiness for themselves and seen it in others. But once Schopenhauer admits that happiness exists, there is a risk that his pessimism will start to unravel. Even if it’s true that every living thing must encounter suffering, this suffering might be offset by finding some amount of happiness too. Some suffering might be the means to a happiness worth having or even a part of such happiness. If this is so, then Schopenhauer hasn’t yet given us a good reason not to want to exist. Happiness might make life worth living after all.

S chopenhauer doesn’t deny that happiness exists. He does, however, think that we are generally mistaken about what happiness is. According to him, happiness is no more than the absence of pain and suffering; the moment of relief occasionally felt between the fulfilment of one desire and the pursuit of the next. For example, imagine the satisfaction of buying your first home. What makes us happy here, Schopenhauer would say, is not the positive state of being a homeowner, but the negative state of relief from the worries that come with not owning your own home (as well as relief from the notoriously stressful process of buying property itself). This happiness, Schopenhauer would be quick to point out, is likely to be short-lived, as a host of new worries and stresses emerge, such as paying down the mortgage, or doing up the bathroom.

He reinforces his stance on the negative nature of happiness with some astute psychological observations. All of them highlight the difficulty of achieving and appreciating happiness. For example, we tend not to notice all the things that are going well for us, but instead we focus on the bad things, or as Schopenhauer puts it with his keen eye for an analogy: ‘we do not feel the health of our entire body but only the small place where the shoe pinches’. If we do manage to resolve whatever is bothering us, we tend quickly to take it for granted and shift our focus to the next problem: ‘it is like a bite of food we have enjoyed, which stops existing for our feeling the moment it is swallowed.’ Moreover, however small the next problem, we tend to magnify it to match the previous one: ‘it still knows how to puff itself up so that it seems to equal it in size, and so it can fill the whole throne as the main worry of the day.’ Consequently, we rarely feel the benefit of the things we have while we still have them: ‘We do not become aware of the three greatest goods in life as such – that is, health, youth and freedom – so long as we possess them, but only after we have lost them.’ Or as later immortalised in lyrics by Joni Mitchell: ‘You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.’

None of this is to say that no one ever feels happy. Again, this would fly in the face of the personal experience of countless people who have felt happy at some point in their lives. It does tell us, however, that happiness differs from pain and suffering in the way that it’s felt. Pain and suffering announce themselves whether we like it or not. They highlight that something is wrong and needs fixing. However small and trivial the problem might be, pain and suffering will make it our number-one priority. Happy feelings, on the other hand, don’t always announce themselves. We can have all the things that should make us feel happy and yet fail to feel happy. It could be because pain and suffering are tirelessly flagging up things not to feel happy about, but it could just be that – like the mouthful of food after it’s swallowed – we have forgotten all the things that are doing us good.

‘As Schadenfreude is simply theoretical cruelty, so cruelty is simply practical Schadenfreude ’

For this reason, Schopenhauer emphasises the essential role of recollection and reflection in generating feelings of happiness: ‘Our cognition of satisfaction and pleasure is only indirect, when we remember the sufferings and privations that preceded them and ceased when they appeared.’ To appreciate the benefit of having things, in other words, we must recall what it was like not to have them. The fact that this happiness is based on the cessation of previous suffering is not incompatible with intense feelings of pleasure. The intensity of the pleasure is proportionate to the intensity of the suffering that preceded it. Although far from happiness, Primo Levi gives a powerful example of the possibilities of profound relief in his book If This Is a Man (1947), his account of imprisonment at Auschwitz, when he reports on the brief moments between the labour tasks he was forced to complete: ‘When we reach the cylinder, we unload the tie on the ground, and I stand stiffly, my eyes vacant, mouth open, and arms dangling, sunk in the ephemeral and negative ecstasy of the cessation of pain.’

In fact, recalling our own actual suffering from the past is not our only option for feeling good about the present. We can instead reflect on all the suffering that was merely possible for us. This kind of reflection might be just as effective in generating feelings of relief, only about the limitless bad things that could have happened to us but fortunately never did. We might even reflect on the bad things that are happening or have happened to other people. In this respect, Levi’s painful recollections offer us another service: it is impossible for observers to read If This Is a Man without feeling extremely fortunate never to have encountered the scarcely imaginable hardships and indignities that Levi describes.

On the pleasure of avoiding another’s misfortune, Schopenhauer quotes Lucretius:

It is a joy to stand at the sea, when it is lashed by stormy winds, To stand at the shore and to see the skipper in distress, Not that we like to see another person in pain, But because it pleases us to know that we are free of this evil.

Schopenhauer wisely cautions us about this kind of pleasure because it ‘lies very near the source of true and positive malice’. He might have in mind its proximity to – or identity with – Schadenfreude , the attitude of taking joy in the suffering of others. Lucretius identifies the thin line that separates Schadenfreude from sadism: it is not that we enjoy someone else’s misfortune, but that their misfortune acts as a reminder of how fortunate we are, and enables us to feel pleased about it.

Sometimes, however, Schopenhauer condemns Schadenfreude in the strongest terms: ‘the worst trait in human nature is Schadenfreude ’. The difference between Schadenfreude and cruelty, he says, is merely the difference between attitude and action: ‘As Schadenfreude is simply theoretical cruelty, so cruelty is simply practical Schadenfreude .’ While attitudes such as envy – wanting someone else’s success for yourself – are flawed but merely human and therefore excusable, Schadenfreude is positively ‘devilish’.

O n Schopenhauer’s understanding of things, then, in order to be happy, we must aim to eliminate pain and suffering from our lives, and in order to feel happy, we must also take the time to reflect on their absence. In search of an ethical system based on similar insights, Schopenhauer turned not to the moral philosophers of his own day but instead to ancient Greek schools of thought. Of all of these schools, he suggests, his own views on happiness have the closest affinity with Stoicism: like him, he claims, the Stoic philosophers such as Stobaeus, Epictetus and Seneca identified a happy life with a painless existence.

In general, ancient Greece is a good place to start the search for a philosophy of happiness because, according to Schopenhauer, the Greeks agreed on one thing: the task of practical reason is to figure out the best kind of life and how it can be achieved. Furthermore, Schopenhauer says, with the exception of Plato, they all equated this task with providing a guide to a happy life. They cared only about how virtue can improve our earthly lives, and thought little about how it might relate to any life after death or otherworldly realm.

Thinking of happiness as the avoidance of suffering is the view that distinguishes Stoicism from other schools, according to Schopenhauer, as well as the one he shares with it. He identifies two functions of practical reason that the Stoics used in their quest for a painless existence. There is the indirect function, on the one hand, where careful planning and forethought allow the Stoic to pick out and follow the least painful path through life. On the other, there is the direct function, where instead of removing or avoiding obstacles in life’s path, the Stoic reconsiders these obstacles in a way that changes his feelings towards them. One is a change in practice, while the other a change in thinking.

Stoicism’s distinctive contribution to ethics lies in the nature of the change in thinking it recommends, according to Schopenhauer. First, the Stoic observes that painful feelings of privation ‘do not follow immediately and necessarily from not-having, but rather from wanting-to-have and yet not having’. It then becomes obvious that to avoid these painful feelings altogether, we must eliminate the wanting-to-have part. Furthermore, the bigger our ambitions about what we want to have and the higher our hopes of achieving them, the sharper the pain when we fail. If we cannot help wanting to have some things, then we should at least keep those wants within realistic and achievable proportions. Perhaps lapsing back into his own pessimism, Schopenhauer adds that we should become suspicious of ourselves if we begin to expect a great amount of happiness waiting for us in the future; we are almost certainly being unrealistic. ‘Every lively pleasure,’ he says, ‘is a delusion.’

‘The external motive for sadness plays the same role that a blister remedy does on the body’

Thus the Stoic aims for ataraxia , a state of inner calmness and serenity however turbulent the world outside might be. Schopenhauer believes his observations about the inevitability of suffering can help to achieve this aim if taken on as convictions. Pain and suffering sting all the more if we think they are accidental and could have been avoided. While it might be true of any particular suffering that it could have been avoided, suffering in general is unavoidable and universal. If we manage to take this on board, Schopenhauer thinks, we might worry less about encountering suffering, or at least worry about it in the way that we worry about other things we can’t avoid, such as old age (for most of us) and death.

The last thing we should do is believe the opposite: that we are destined to find happiness in life rather than encounter suffering. If we believe the world owes us happiness, we are bound to be sorely disappointed, not least because, when we do achieve whatever we think will make us happy, we will have new unfulfilled desires that will supersede the old ones. We are also bound to feel resentment towards the obstacles that stand between us and the happiness we feel entitled to. Some people, Schopenhauer observes, concentrate and externalise this resentment by setting a goal for a happy life that on some level they know is unachievable. Then, when it never materialises, they always have something other than themselves to point to and blame for why they aren’t happy. ‘In this respect,’ Schopenhauer says, ‘the external motive for sadness plays the same role that a blister remedy does on the body, drawing together all the bad humours that would have otherwise been scattered.’

While Schopenhauer does feel an affinity for the Stoic way of thinking, he doesn’t see eye to eye with Stoicism on every issue. In fact, he rejects the basic premise common to all the ancient Greek schools; a happy life is not even possible, according to Schopenhauer, because, remember, all life is suffering. Devising systems of morals to act as a guide to a happy life is, as far as Schopenhauer is concerned, a fool’s errand. The logical end of Stoicism is especially sticky, according to Schopenhauer, because it conceives the goal of happiness as the task of eliminating pain. If he is right that all life is suffering, then the only way really to eliminate suffering is to eliminate life itself. The ultimate end of Stoicism, then, would be suicide.

Instead, Schopenhauer gives us a different picture of a happy life, one that is not total happiness. While suffering can’t be excluded from life altogether, it can be reduced by making sure no kind of suffering goes on for too long. Going back to Schopenhauer’s image of the pendulum, a happy life would include enough success in fulfilling our desires that we are never in too much pain, but also enough failure to ensure that we are never too bored. It would be a ‘game of constantly passing from desire to satisfaction and from this to a new desire, a game whose rapid course is called happiness and slow course is called suffering.’ A well-paced oscillation between wish and fulfilment, which is at most a semi-satisfied life, is the best we can hope for as far as happiness is concerned.

I f a good life, conceived as a happy life, is a futile aim for ethics, this raises the question of what the real aim of ethics should be. The background of Schopenhauer’s pessimism is never far away from this question. It’s not obvious to Schopenhauer that the semi-satisfied life presented above is better than nonexistence. Such a life would still contain a preponderance of suffering, even if no kind of suffering would go on for too long.

Rather than trying to make the world into a happy home, then, Schopenhauer opts for an ethics that might save us from the world altogether. He endorses asceticism, the practice of severe self-denial exemplified in the saints and mystics of many world religions, over Stoicism:

How completely different they seem, next to the Stoic sage, those who the wisdom of India sets before us and has actually brought forth, those voluntary penitents who overcome the world; or even the Christian saviour … who, with perfect virtue, holiness and sublimity, nevertheless stands before us in a state of the utmost suffering.

Note that Schopenhauer’s otherworldly ascetics are not happy. They have entirely given up the game of a semi-satisfied life. Instead, they accept, and come to symbolise, the universality and inevitability of suffering, in order to transcend it. In relation to the ascetic, Schopenhauer is more likely to use words such as composure and peace than happiness and pleasure.

To say that Schopenhauer endorsed asceticism might appear to suggest that he practised it himself. Far from it. The most ascetic part of his daily routine in Frankfurt was the cold sponge bath he took between seven and eight every morning. After that, he made his own coffee and settled down to write for a few hours before receiving selected visitors, until his housekeeper appeared at noon, cuing them to leave. He played flute for half an hour each day – an activity that, according to Friedrich Nietzsche, belied the sincerity of his pessimism – and then made his way to his favourite spot to eat, the Hôtel d’Angleterre, for a hearty afternoon meal. After this he might make himself another coffee, take an hour’s nap, then read a little light literature before walking his dog, a white poodle called Atma, while smoking a cigar, all before settling in for his typical nine-hour sleep. The life of the Buddha it was not.

Schopenhauer’s endorsement of asceticism is more admiration than aspiration, then. In his defence, and again unlike the ancient Greeks, Schopenhauer thought that the theoretical study of ethics had little to do with living an ethical life, or vice versa: ‘it is just as unnecessary for the saint to be a philosopher as it is for a philosopher to be a saint,’ he wrote, ‘just as it is completely unnecessary for a perfectly beautiful person to be a great sculptor or a great sculptor to be beautiful.’ Only a small number of exceptional individuals achieve the ascetic life in which true salvation consists, he said. The rest of us have to make do with a semi-satisfied life at best. But if Schopenhauer’s way of living constitutes an example of such a life, it might not seem so bad after all.

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Aristotle’s Account of Pleasure Essay

Aristotle’s position on pleasure, critical evaluation of aristotle’s arguments.

The purpose of the Nicomachean Ethics is to understand the nature of human well-being and improve people’s lives. Aristotle considers ethical virtues, such as justice, friendship, and continence, to be central to everyone’s life. He believes that practical wisdom requires a combination of learning general rules and applying social and emotional skills in practice. The philosopher has devoted particular attention to the issue of pleasure, presented in book VII and book X. He provides two accounts that are quite similar in addressing the value of pleasure, the theory behind, and opposing views. This paper presents an overview of Aristotle’s consideration of pleasure, as well as its critical evaluation. It focuses on the main arguments the philosopher articulates and their critical assessment.

Aristotle’s principal concern is to find a place of pleasure in the life of a virtuous person. He wants to identify whether happiness involves enjoyment, as humans naturally tend to avoid pain and choose enjoyable actions. According to Aristotle, pleasure is an unimpeded exercise of a natural state (Ross, 2009). This position allows understanding why it has an intrinsic value that individuals seek. Three standard opposing views are that pleasure is not a good, either in itself or incidentally, pleasure is not the chief good, and most pleasures are evil (Ross, 2009). These views are trying to challenge the moral nature of pleasures because they hinder conscious thinking.

When discussing the first view that no pleasure is good, Aristotle points out to the dual meaning of a good itself. One specific thing can have inherent value but bring harm to a person, depending on his or her intent. Hence, there can be many things called pleasures, which, in reality, are not ones. He also gives an example of curing a patient that involves painful medical interventions. These interventions are not pleasing, but they will bring relief and improve health as an outcome. In his perspective, pleasures gain only instrumental value as they are restricted to specific processes. Furthermore, various activities, such as playing a musical instrument or just sleeping, lead to a different level of satisfaction. Thus, pleasure cannot be a measure of goodness because these activities’ relative values are not equal. As a counterargument to the third opposing view, Aristotle stresses that pleasures interfere with each other. He claims it is vital to determine and select those that are better.

Since Aristotle is trying to discern the goal of human life, he is inclined to think that pleasure is not a chief good. However, he points out that it is part of happiness that we choose for its inherent worth, not as a means for achieving something else. According to Aristotle, the ultimate human goal is Eudaimonia, which is not pure hedonistic pleasure. It reflects rational activity aimed at pursuing worthwhile sets of priorities. Eudaimonia encompasses an achievement of complete excellence or virtuousness when individuals aspire to high moral standards and perform corrective actions. The philosopher further develops the concept of pleasure in book X, stating that it has to accompany something, an activity, thought, or event (Ross, 2009). Experiencing pleasure activates and fosters an ability to excel specific skills or develop as a virtuous human being. Therefore, humans do not always pursue pleasure merely for its own sake.

Aristotle tries to set out arguments in a coherent way to offer the application of his thoughts in the realm of practical philosophy. The philosopher constructs the reasoning to discover the balance between pain and pleasure to reach Eudaimonia. I find it fair when he notes that what human beings desire is not always a good. Moreover, a good is not easy to define as it concerns various categories, including quantity, quality, substance, or even relationships. Aristotle rejects the idea of a good being strictly binary. Even though a good has boundaries, it possesses degrees too, because one person can be more courageous than the other. I believe Aristotle does not want to find a definite and straightforward description of pleasure.

On the opposite, he accepts the assumption that some pleasures can be more problematic than others. For example, wealth is desired by many people, but it can come from either noble or wicked sources. Therefore, depending on this source, the pleasure associated with wealth will have different characteristics. The deficiency of this claim is the lack of guidance on how to detect and select virtuous pleasures. The most significant premise of Aristotle’s account of the issue is the connection to action, which proves to be logical. Every pleasure arises from Energeia or activity; however, it is not a process of coming-into-being. Unlike movements, people do not describe pleasures as fast or slow. Senses, such as hearing or seeing, act in relation to its objects, and help individuals gain fulfillment. In this case, pleasures that follow excel these objects or actions. However, it is getting challenging to track where Aristotle’s arguments lead the reader.

The book X reveals that he is preoccupied with comprehending the nature of enjoyment as opposed to what people actually enjoy. Aristotle attempts to distinguish between the question of “What is enjoyable?” and “What is the nature of pleasure?” These questions require separate answers; at the same time, little is said about where to find the answers. I reckon the philosopher misses the fact that everyone can learn to appreciate the real pleasure, or develop a habit of defining what is truly enjoyable by nature. Nonetheless, I agree that sources of pleasure influence its relative value. Therefore, Eudaimonia can be reached when a person is motivated by honesty and reason. Seeking pleasure for its inherent worth is not a disreputable desire, but it may not lead to happiness. Receiving pleasure from teaching or making art does not have the same worth as the one coming from self-indulgence.

The Nicomachean Ethics is one of the core works of Aristotle that explores good action, which contributes to the prosperous human well-being. He wants to explain that virtue, pleasure, friendship, wealth, and justice fit together in a bigger life picture. According to Aristotle, the good and honorable man is the measure of things. Everyone has to develop a standard of value and pursue only virtuous activities. His arguments are built around the notion that pleasure stems from action that is neither dynamic nor static. Desire to achieve Eudaimonia, in turn, shapes one’s behavior and inspires humans to find the proper function. Even though Aristotle’s opinion on the essence of pleasure slightly changes, he manages to convince readers that it can exist in harmony with virtue. However, he pays little attention to the idea that it is vital to nurture social and emotional skills to appreciate the right pleasures.

Ross, D. (2009). Aristotle. The Nicomachean ethics . (L. Brown, Ed.). Oxford University Press.

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IvyPanda. (2024, March 26). Aristotle’s Account of Pleasure. https://ivypanda.com/essays/aristotles-account-of-pleasure/

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IvyPanda . 2024. "Aristotle’s Account of Pleasure." March 26, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/aristotles-account-of-pleasure/.

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Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Aristotle’s Account of Pleasure." March 26, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/aristotles-account-of-pleasure/.

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• Wellbeing: Hedonic and Eudaimonic Philosophies
• Virtue Theory, Utilitarianism and Deontological Ethics
• The Virtuous Life Importance
• Virtuous Behavior Constituents
• Epictetus’ Ideas in Philosophy
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• Karl Marx: Philosophical Views
• Francis Bacon and Stephen Jay Gould: The Natural Order and Human Morals
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Happiness vs. Pleasure: The Source of Our Discontent?

Pleasure is a trap..

Posted December 17, 2021 | Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano

• How Can I Manage My Anger?
• Find counselling to heal from anger
• We confuse pleasure and happiness because both feel good.
• Culture plays a major role in the confusion, urging us to search for one when we really want the other.
• Pleasure and happiness have different physiological underpinnings.
• Pleasure is fueled by dopamine and can give rise to addiction; happiness is linked to serotonin and connection.

Understanding our feelings can be challenging, but it is necessary for our health and wellness. Using language to describe the sensations and emotions we call feelings is limiting, as our feelings are so subjective and abstract in their nature.

However, neuroscience concepts offer a way to describe the differences in our feelings and ultimately a better understanding of our goals for health and wellness. Examining our feelings of happiness and pleasure can shed some light on how we can be happier and healthier as individuals and as a society.

Happiness and Neurotransmitters

Physiologically, happiness is distinct from pleasure, but the two are easily confused, as they both feel good. Happiness is primarily mediated by the neurotransmitter acetylcholine and the parasympathetic nervous system . Happiness can be associated with high levels of the neurotransmitters serotonin (connection) and gamma amino butyric acid (GABA, relaxation), as well.

Notably, happiness can occur in the absence of dopamine , the absence of the need to move, do and seek. Happiness occurs only in a state of safety. Satisfaction and contentment are better descriptors of happiness than pleasure.

Pleasure and Neurotransmitters

Pleasure, on the other hand, is primarily meditated by dopamine, a neurotransmitter most known for mobilization, approach, motivation , curiosity, and reward, goal and pleasure seeking. Dopamine is a major signaler in the sympathetic nervous system. In states of safety, dopamine can move us to confidence and connection. However, in states of threat, dopamine can move us to conflict and aggression .

If we achieve what we want in either of these physiologic states, then we get a little more dopamine and a little more pleasure. Our emotions and behaviors are reinforced; We will seek to replicate the strategies we deployed.

Sadness, Pain, and Neurotransmitters

Sadness is considered the opposite of happiness. Sadness has low levels of acetylcholine, serotonin, GABA and dopamine. Sadness occurs only in a state of threat.

Pain is often considered the opposite of pleasure. Pain has low levels of dopamine, too. In pain glutamate and noradrenaline are dominant while acetylcholine, serotonin and GABA are low. Pain, also, occurs only in a state of threat.

The profiles of sadness and pain look an awful lot alike—and they are. Pain and sadness are frequently experienced together, as they come from the same physiologic soup.

A Model of Addiction

What is most notable is that happiness occurs only in a state of safety (and pain and sadness only in a state of threat), but pleasure is contextual: It can occur in both a state of safety and a state of threat. This has great implications for each of us personally, but also for society as a whole.

We often confuse happiness and pleasure. Under conditions of safety the two are neurochemically similar, although not identical (dopamine having a more dominant role in pleasure than in happiness). This similarity can contribute to the confusion between happiness and pleasure. However, culture may contribute more to the confusion than do the neurochemical similarities. We have been marketed to and groomed to believe life is about pleasure and that to be happy we must seek and find what is most pleasing to us.

We are a culture of pleasure seekers. Within these narratives and constructs we have lost the ability to discern, to feel the differences between pleasure and happiness. We wind up pursuing pleasure thinking we are on the road to happiness. But this road can be dangerous. Pleasure-seeking, pleasure-craving and pleasure underpin addictions, whereas happiness contains no danger or threats.

The addictions we suffer are many—to novelty, thrill, travel, shopping, consuming, food, sugar, alcohol and other substances, and sex . That is all well known. What is not well described is our addiction to the pleasure of aggression. When aggression is a successful strategy, it is reinforced with dopamine and thus repeated.

Aggression is not just marked by our physical behavior, it is also marked by our emotional and social behaviors. Defeating someone with a punch in the nose can feel quite good to us, but so can defeating someone with an emotional or social punch in the gut.

Aggression, dopamine, and pleasure are found in taunting, demeaning, canceling, bullying , and abusing. Aggression, dopamine, and pleasure are also found in comparing, gossiping, judging, shaming , and blaming. Ultimately, aggression, dopamine, and pleasure are found in many of our negative and false narratives and constructs—our lies.

We can get great pleasure from aggressive thoughts and behaviors and we can become “addicts” to aggressive thoughts and behaviors. Because of the effect of dopamine, we are drawn again and again to these aggressive narratives, constructs, and behaviors even when they no longer work well for us, particularly if the adverse consequences are not immediate and obvious.

Behavior that persists despite recurrent negative consequences is addiction; this can apply to aggression.

Who are the pushers of this drug? Most of us.

Who are the addicts to this drug? Most of us.

There are segments of industries that benefit from the pleasurable side of aggression. Our craving for the pleasure of aggression becomes important to their bottom line. Our need for more is met with the production of more. We can see how this strategy has been used and amplified in aspects of social media , broadcast media, entertainment, video gaming, sports, and at this moment of history it has become particularly problematic in politics as well, with more conflict production than policy production. Aggression becomes an addiction.

“Please, sir, give me more of this perverse pleasure.”

To be addicted is to be trapped. It is when we are trapped that we suffer. “Addiction” to macro, micro, and passive-aggressive behaviors can thus trap us all in suffering. In this “addiction” to aggression we suffer from more physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual illness and disease than from all the other addictions combined. Indeed, our addiction to aggression and threat may be the root of all other addictions.

The Great Escape

The escape from this addiction is simple—seek satisfaction, contentment, and happiness, not pleasure; pleasure is two-faced and can easily become dangerous and threatening. Let pleasure come naturally, don’t avoid it, but don’t crave or seek it.

Happiness is found in safety. If we provide safety for ourselves and others we will find happiness. This practice should be a priority for individuals as well as institutions.

This isn’t to say that being angry and aggressive is wrong. Anger and aggression are part of our physiology. Anger and aggression help with our survival. It is good to protect ourselves and others. It is good to hold ourselves and others accountable for misdeeds. There is safety within protection and accountability. We do not need to become wimps to create safety in the world, but we also don’t need to use anger and aggression as a chronic source of pleasure, and a substitute for happiness, only to create more threat in the world.

When we are in safety, we naturally feel happy, crave less pleasure, and are less prone to demeaning, taunting, canceling, bullying, abusing, gossiping, judging, shaming, blaming, and lying , let alone punching someone in the nose. Our physiology dictates this—no restraints are required.

“Never look down on anybody else unless you are helping them up.” – Jesse Jackson

David Roger Clawson, M.D., is a Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation physician with an interest in natural prevention and healing strategies for health and wellness. Foundational to this practice is the understanding of threat and defensive physiology versus safety and restorative physiology.

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