Daniel Pallies

In recent years, a number of philosophers of well-being have given more attention to the topic of ill-being. In particular, increasing attention has been paid to the distinction between two kinds of attitudes: those whose objects are good for us and those whose objects are bad for us. I argue that the difference between positive and negative attitudes should be explained in terms of pleasure and displeasure. If one takes pleasure in something, then the object of one’s pleasure is good for one. If one takes displeasure in something, then the object of one’s displeasure is bad for one. The resulting view is hedonic subjectivism. It is hedonic in the sense that it gives a central role to pleasure and displeasure in the theory of well-being; it is a form of subjectivism because it tells us that the objects of our pleasant and unpleasant attitudes are good or bad for us, respectively, in a way that goes beyond the goodness or badness of the pleasure and displeasure themselves.

A number of philosophers have argued that pleasure and pain are asymmetrical with respect to their contributions to well-being: the degree to which an episode of pain is bad for one is greater than the degree to which an equal quantity of pleasure is good for one. In this paper I defend an explanation of the asymmetry. I argue that pains, and some pleasures, are instrumentally bad for us in the short term. Notably, this is because pains and some pleasures are partially self-defeating: they motivate us to pursue certain ends while at the same time distracting us from pursuing those ends. This may seem paradoxical, but I argue that being self-defeating is a nearly unavoidable feature of any system whose function is to alert us to problems and direct us to find solutions.

This chapter examines the relationship between pleasure and desire, with special attention to the possibility of reducing pleasure to desire, or desire to pleasure. There are plausible arguments for and against both reductive theories. Some of the arguments appeal to the normative roles of pleasure and desire, but there are also empirical findings from affective neuroscience that are relevant to both theories. One lesson from the discussion is that theorists of different backgrounds have different desiderata for a theory of pleasure or desire, and these competing desiderata push theorists to develop their theories in different directions.

Can something make your life go worse for you, even if you do not know about it? Many believe that facts unknown to us can indeed make our lives worse for us. But this raises an important practical problem: if we are ignorant of some important problems in our lives, then what can we do to ameliorate those problems? The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling presents us with a dramatic illustration of the problem. And through the actions of its two protagonists — the nameless journalist, and Jijingi — the story also illustrates some very different ways in which the problem might be solved.

The pessimistic hypothesis is the hypothesis that life is bad for us, in the sense that we are worse off for having come into existence. Suppose this hypothesis turns out to be correct — existence turns out to be more of a burden than a gift. A natural next thought is that we should stop having children. But I contend that this is a mistake; procreation would often be permissible even if the pessimistic hypothesis turned out to be correct. Roughly, this is because we are often in a position to know that future people will approve of having been created, and their approval will not be inappropriate even if they are worse off for having been created. And our respect for the attitudes of future people can permit us to create them.

In virtue of what do we enjoy episodes of pleasure? According to the phenomenological theory of pleasure, we enjoy pleasures in virtue of having certain kinds of phenomenal experiences. According to the attitude theory of pleasure, we enjoy pleasures in virtue of having a certain kind of pro-attitude. In this chapter, we show that the attitude theory faces a dilemma. The attitude that is relevant to pleasure—the desire, liking, or favoring—is either necessarily co-instantiated with certain phenomenology, or not. If the attitude theorist denies that the relevant attitudes are phenomenologically enriched in this sense, then their theory has the problematic implication that pleasure can come radically apart from phenomenology. This leads to a *problem of hedonic inversion*. If the attitude theorist instead affirms that the relevant attitudes are phenomenologically enriched, then they undermine their main objection to the phenomenological theory of pleasure. This is the so-called *heterogeneity problem*, according to which pleasures do not feel alike. Either way, the attitudinal theorist faces a difficult challenge in their ongoing debate with phenomenological theorists.

I argue that, insofar as we endorse the general idea that desires play an important role in well-being, we ought to believe that their significance for well-being is derived from a pair of more fundamental attitudes: attraction and aversion. Attraction has wholly positive significance for well-being, and aversion has wholly negative significance for well-being. Desire satisfaction and frustration have significance for well-being insofar as the relevant desires involve some combination of attraction and aversion. I defend these claims by illustrating how our desires can be asymmetrical. They can have greater positive than negative significance for well-being, or vice versa.

Some experiences—like the experience of eating cheesecake—are good experiences to have. But when we try to explain why they are good, we encounter a clash of intuitions. First, we have an objectivist intuition: plausibly, the experiences are good because they feel the way that they do. Second, we have a subjectivist intuition: if a person were indifferent to that kind of experience, then it might fail to be good for that person. Third, we have a possibility intuition: for any kind of experience, possibly there is a subject who is indifferent to that kind of experience. The pleasure problem is the problem we face in reconciling these three claims. I explain the problem and argue for a solution. I argue that we ought to reject the most common solutions: rejecting the objectivist or subjectivist intuitions. Instead, we ought to follow Timothy Sprigge in rejecting the possibility claim. We should embrace the view that experiences bear necessary connections to our attitudes.

My partner loves the experiences she gets from eating olives. I, on the other hand, hate the experiences I get from eating olives. We differ in tastes. But how exactly do we differ? In particular: do our taste experiences differ phenomenologically—that is, do my olive-experiences feel different than my partner’s olive-experiences? Some philosophers have assumed that the answer is “no,” and have advanced important arguments which turn on this assumption. I argue that, contrary to what these philosophers assume, ordinary taste differences do involve differences in phenomenology. My olive-experiences feel different than my partner’s olive-experiences. I argue for this phenomenal thesis in stages. First, I argue that there is a link between our attitudes and our pleasures; second, I argue that there is a link between our pleasures and our phenomenology. Together, my conclusions link our attitudes and phenomenology in a way that vindicates the phenomenal thesis. Along the way, I fend off various worries about what the phenomenal thesis might entail. I show that it does not entail any form if radical subjectivism, nor does it entail that there is a “distinctive feeling of pleasure.” I close by considering how opponents of the phenomenal thesis might retreat to a weaker thesis: one which concerns extraordinary taste differences, as opposed to ordinary taste differences. I argue that there are no obviously sound arguments for even this weaker thesis, which should make us all the more confident in the phenomenal thesis.

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 pleasure is partly a matter of felt-quality, and partly a matter of attitudes. It could be that a hybrid theory is true. In this paper, I aim to advance the cause of hybrid theories of pleasure. I do this in two ways. I begin by examining the challenges which motivate the search for a hybrid theory. I call these the HONEST challenges: Heterogeneity, Oppositeness, Normativity, Euthyphro, Separateness, and Togetherness. The first three challenges—HON—are challenges for the felt-quality theory. The second three challenges—EST—are challenges for the attitudinal theory. Having established the HONEST challenges, I then describe and motivate a particular cluster of hybrid theories which I will call dispositional hybrid theories. According to these theories, pleasurable experiences are all and only those experiences which dispose us to desire them in virtue of feeling the way that they do. The dispositional theories deliver on the promise of hybrid theories: because they appeal to both felt-qualities and attitudes, they have the resources to avoid most, if not all, of the HONEST challenges.

According to a view that goes by “Humeanism,” causal facts supervene on patterns of worldly entities. The simplest form of Humeanism is the constant conjunction theory: a particular type-F thing causes a particular type-G thing iff (i) that type-Fis conjoined with that type-G thing and (ii) all F’s are conjoined with G’s. The constant conjunction theory implies that all causation is extrinsic, in the following sense: for all positive causal facts pertaining to each possible region,it’s extrinsic to that region that those causal facts pertain to it. Actual Humeans don’t accept the constant conjunction theory; they accept more sophisticated versions of Humeanism. But I argue that they, too, are committed to the thesis that all causation is extrinsic. In arguing for this claim,I use a discussion from Brian Weatherson as a springboard. Weatherson argues that on a plausible Humean view, some regions are such that all of their possible duplicates have the same or similar natural laws. I show that this is false. If Humeanism is true, then for every possible region, there are possible duplicates of that region with utterly alien natural laws. As a consequence, no causal facts pertain intrinsically to any region.