An honest look at hybrid theories of pleasure

@article{Pallies2020AnHL,
  title={An honest look at hybrid theories of pleasure},
  author={Daniel Pallies},
  journal={Philosophical Studies},
  year={2020},
  volume={178},
  pages={887 - 907}
}
What makes it the case that a given experience is pleasurable? According to the felt-quality theory, each pleasurable experience is pleasurable because of the way that it feels—its “qualitative character” or “felt-quality”. According to the attitudinal theory, each pleasurable experience is pleasurable because the experiencer takes certain attitudes towards it. These two theories of pleasure are typically framed as rivals, but it could be that they are both partly right. It could be that… 

From the Heterogeneity Problem to a Natural‐Kind Approach to Pleasure

  • A. Broi
  • Economics
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly
  • 2022
The heterogeneity problem, which stems from the alleged difficulty of finding out what all pleasant experiences have in common, is largely considered as a substantial issue in the philosophy of

Normative explanation unchained

  • Pekka Väyrynen
  • Philosophy, Biology
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
  • 2020
It is argued that one important kind of normative explanations which first-order normative theories aim to formulate and defend can fail to transmit downward along chains of metaphysical determination of normative facts by non-normative facts.

The Metaphysics of Mind

The Metaphysics of Mind presents and discusses the major contemporary theories of the nature of mind, including Dualism, Physicalism, Role-Functionalism, Russellian Monism, Panpsychism, and

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 60 REFERENCES

The distinctive feeling theory of pleasure

In this article, I attempt to resuscitate the perennially unfashionable distinctive feeling theory of pleasure (and pain), according to which for an experience to be pleasant (or unpleasant) is just

The feels good theory of pleasure

Most philosophers since Sidgwick have thought that the various forms of pleasure differ so radically that one cannot find a common, distinctive feeling among them. This is known as the heterogeneity

The Unity and Commensurability of Pleasures and Pains

In this paper I seek to answer two interrelated questions about pleasures and pains: (i) The question of unity: Do all pleasures share a single quality that accounts for why these, and only these,

Six Theses About Pleasure

In this essay I defend six theses about pleasure: 1. 'Pleasure' has one English antonym: 'unpleasure'. 2. Pleasure is the most convincing example of an organic unity. 3. The " hedonic calculus " is a

Unconscious Pleasures and Pains: A Problem for Attitudinal Theories?

Ben Bramble, Dan Haybron and others have endorsed the idea that there are unconscious, or unfelt, pleasures and pains. These would be sensory experiences that are genuine pleasures or pains, but

Unknown pleasures

  • Ben Bramble
  • Philosophy, Psychology
    Philosophical Studies
  • 2019
According to attitudinal theories of (sensory) pleasure and pain, what makes a given sensation count as a pleasure or a pain is just the attitudes of the experiencing agent toward it. In a previous

Pleasure and pain: Unconditional intrinsic values

Pain and pleasure are among the strongest candidates for unconditional, intrinsic values, one phenomenon bad and another good in every instance. When pondering the problem of evil, theologians

A theory of the good and the right

What would any rational person believe to be worth wanting or working for? Viewed from the standpoint of ethics and empirical psychology, how would such a person define and explain the morally right

Evaluativist Accounts of Pain's Unpleasantness

Evaluativism is best thought of as a way of enriching a perceptual view of pain to account for pain’s unpleasantness or painfulness.2 Once it was common for philosophers to contrast pains with

The Limits of Well-Being

  • S. Kagan
  • Philosophy
    Social Philosophy and Policy
  • 1992
What are the limits of well-being? This question nicely captures one of the central debates concerning the nature of the individual human good. For rival theories differ as to what sort of facts
...