The distinctive feeling theory of pleasure

@article{Bramble2013TheDF,
  title={The distinctive feeling theory of pleasure},
  author={Ben Bramble},
  journal={Philosophical Studies},
  year={2013},
  volume={162},
  pages={201-217}
}
  • Ben Bramble
  • Published 2013
  • Philosophy
  • Philosophical Studies
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 for it to involve or contain a distinctive kind of feeling. I do this in two ways. First, by offering powerful new arguments against its two chief rivals: attitude theories, on the one hand, and the phenomenological theories of Roger Crisp, Shelly Kagan, and Aaron Smuts, on the other. Second, by… 
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References

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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…
Pleasure as a Mental State
Shelly Kagan and Leonard Katz have offered versions of hedonism that aspire to occupy a middle position between the view that pleasure is a unitary sensation and the view that pleasure is, as…
Desire-Based Theories of Reasons, Pleasure, and Welfare
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The Myth of Pain
Pain, although very common, is little understood. Worse still, according to Valerie Gray Hardcastle, both professional and lay definitions of pain are wrongheaded--with consequences for how pain and…
How Well Do We Know Our Own Conscious Experience? The Case of Visual Imagery
Philosophers tend to assume that we have excellent knowledge of our own current conscious experience or ‘phenomenology’. I argue that our knowledge of one aspect of our experience, the experience of…
Utilitarianism, Hedonism, and Desert: Essays in Moral Philosophy
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