Qualities of Pleasure

Lorenza C. D'Angelo (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)

The so-called “doctrine of swine” objection against hedonism rests on the idea that pleasure and pain are basic and primordial kinds of experience which can only vary quantitatively, i.e. in intensity and duration. Given this, claiming that they are the only measure of the good life, as the hedonist does, implies that a person can reduce to the most basic and primordial version of herself without significant loss to her well-being, and this implication seems false. In response to this objection, I argue that (i) intensity and duration are qualitative, rather than merely quantitative, properties; (ii) intensity and duration are not the only qualitative properties with respect to which pleasurable and painful experience varies; and thus (iii) they are not the only determinants of the prudential value of a pleasurable or painful experience. This allows the hedonist to explain in a principled way why some pleasures – notably those associated with aesthetic appreciation, scientific inquiry, moral and political activism, and loving relationships – may be experienced as of higher quality and therefore assigned greater prudential value, even though they are less intense than the pleasures of bodily satisfaction. It also explains why some of the corresponding forms of suffering – e.g. emotional and cognitive – may have a higher negative impact on our well-being than bodily pain.