Pleasure

human life are pleasure and the avoidance of pain, so that anything else is bound ultimately to turn in some way on these ends” (Mill 127). Essentially this means that Mill believes that pleasure and the avoidance of pain are the guiding source when it comes to making decisions regarding moral dilemmas. This claim also involves stating that utility is the ultimate source for decision making. Utility is used to guide choices by determining which decision will account for the most pleasure or the…

stating that all humans are self-centered, seeking to secure pleasures and avoid pain. In other words, everything that one does is simply for the sake of gaining pleasure. To Epicurus, pleasure is the only intrinsic good and it is the foundation for all human choices and all evaluation of things as good and bad. In this context, pleasure is good, resulting from getting what you want, and pain is bad, in which you do not. Thus, gaining pleasure means satisfying desires and freedom from: (1)…

at utility as pleasure, with the absence of pain. He presents utilitarianism as a view that utilitarians perceive to be the morally right action is the action that produces the most good. This is implied by the theory that the right action is accepted in terms of the consequences produced. Mill believes everything is derived from this desire for happiness, and it is the sole basis of morality. Derived from this…

conceived the idea that human actions are driven by the amount of pleasure one may feel by completing the action. Known as utilitarianism, it states that pleasure is the main motivational force of all actions. Ideally, a morally good action would yield an optimal amount of pleasure for the most amount of people. Bentham stated that pleasure is a product of good actions, and that the value of an action is based off of how much total pleasure it can create. He created a system that determines how…

There are many things in life that create pleasure, and everyone enjoys pleasurable things. So imagine that you are a spirit in heaven and are awaiting your turn for life on earth. You are standing in line, and when it is your turn to see the angel who gives you your life, you are faced with a question. The angel asks you to make a choice between the life of Haydn and the life of an oyster. The angel even says that he will make a bargain with you because he is desperate to get rid (I would use a…

happiness as pleasure in the absence of pain. Therefore, to be unhappy is to be in the presence of pain and “the privation of pleasure.” Mills believes that it is a person’s duty to promote the general happiness and in a way, despises human beings that rather satisfy their personal desires. But is it selfish to put yourself first or is it the smart thing to do? Mills way of answering this question is by…

reverse of this constitutes a “wrong” action. Here, happiness means pleasure which comes with the absence of pain, and unhappiness…

In his book, Pleasure and the Good Life, Fred Feldman introduces an idea known as Default Hedonism. Default hedonism can be broken down into three separate claims that tie together in a single formula. Before default hedonism is defined, Feldman shares that some assumptions about pleasure and pain should be made. The first two assumptions address pleasure. The first assumption is that pleasures are certain feelings or sensations that result in an “episode.” According to Feldman, “episodes” have…

However, if I had to pick out one aspect of More’s Utopian society that stuck out to me in an interesting fashion, it would be the Utopians’ definition of what pleasure truly means in their society, and, I have various reasons to think so in that regard. First of all, I found it interesting how the Utopians associated the term pleasure with the term of “happiness,” especially considering that the two terms do not appear to be very ambiguous with one another. However, they ground their reason…

any quandary to one question, what solutions preserves the most happiness and avoids the most pain to the greater number of people? Problem Bentham Addresses Bentham defines good as what is beneficial, and he defines bad as what is detrimental. Pleasure and happiness are synonymous to good, according to Bentham, as evil and pain relate to bad. Bentham’s Utilitarianism is defined as an obligation to promote the greater good to the most number of people, while at the same time, avoiding the bad…