Russaintank,
As have I, taking these concepts (which, is really just two parts of a single concept) in a broadly construed manner. I can imagine that if pleasure and pain did not exist, then how things are could not possibly matter to me, and hence I would never have a reason to take action to make things a certain way.
One thing worth noting, though, is that often pleasure is not the ultimate goal that we have in mind when we act. In some cases – mainly those where it’s sensual pleasure that’s sought – it is what’s directly intended, but often pleasure lies in the ‘background’ of something the agent finds meaningful. For example, when an NBA player is trying to score a game-winning basket, winning the basketball game is the ultimate goal of his conscious action, not receiving the pleasure that comes along with winning the basketball game. In the player’s mind, pleasure is implicitly constitutive of winning the game, but it is not made the explicit goal of his action.
In one sense, I agree with you on this. Human beings have a tendency to believe in goods and evils in ways that they are not grounded in the phenomenal, and this can lead us to act in ways that are not conducive to our happiness. For example, a man might learn that he could take anti-anxiety medication which would make him live more pleasurably, but then not choose to take the medication because he believes that there is somehow something wrong with such ‘unnatural’ ways of doing things. If we accept that only pleasure/pain can be of ultimate value/disvalue, then our rational thought about what we ought to do is more likely to overcome our irrational feelings about what’s valuable. Additionally, the unnecessary guilt that we sometimes feel from having acted in ways counter to our irrational feelings about value can also be overcome.
In another sense, I disagree with the above statement. I can imagine that if I were to make pleasure the ultimate goal of my life, then my life would seem “meaninglessâ€, which is not a very pleasurable kind of life. In order to live pleasurably, it is important to let the goal of pleasure lie in the ‘background’ of our consciously directed activity, pursuing instead something for which pleasure is implicitly constitutive (like, developing philosophical theories, writing computer software, winning basketball games, etc.).
Regarding whether pleasure and pain can be defined in any third-person terms, I don’t believe they can. Pleasure and pain are essentially concepts that refer only to first-person data. If someone claims to not understand talk about pleasure and pain, then I think he is either being insincere, or is not paying attention to his first-person data. One might claim that it’s not pleasure, but duty, that is of ultimate value, and the reason for his choosing to act as he does. In arguing against such a claim, I think the best we can do is to ask whether he would choose to act in accordance with duty if it were not for either the guilt (a type of painful state) experienced as a result of acting against duty, or the feeling of moral righteousness (a type of pleasurable state) experienced as a result of acting in accord with duty, and then hope that he would realize that, in fact, he would not.
It might be that pleasure and pain have a formal character. Frederick Ferre argues for this in his book “Living and Valueâ€. Briefly, he argues that a pleasurable experience is essentially a beholding of harmonized complexity, and that a painful experience is essentially a beholding of harmonized complexity being destroyed (he does not use the terms “pleasure†and “pain†much, but that is what he’s talking about). So, if Ferre is right, then we could say that achieving harmonized complexity is the ultimate goal of conscious entities, which is more precise than just saying that “pleasure†is the ultimate goal. However, it seems that I can imagine painful and pleasurable situations that have nothing to do with beholding harmonized complexity (or it being destroyed), so I doubt that harmonized complexity has anything essential to do with pleasure/pain.
I think it also makes sense to say that people ought to do what brings them the most pleasure. Not because of any duty to achieve pleasure, but just for the fact that pleasure itself is, by definition, good. Not only does it make sense, it is also useful. For while people are at bottom driven by a desire for pleasure, it’s not the case that people always know how to act in order to best obtain pleasure. So, when someone is acting in given way, and we know of another way the person can act which will be more conducive to his pleasure, we can say “you ought to stop doing Y, and do X insteadâ€.
While I am a relativist in the sense that I think that what brings pleasure to a particular conscious entity, and hence what the entity ought to do, is dependent upon that entity’s makeup (psychological and physical), this does not entail that some makeup’s are not better, in an absolute sense, than others. If having makeup X is generally more favorable to living pleasurably than having makeup Y, then it is better (period) to have makeup X than to have makeup Y. Consider that an entity’s makeup is never fixed, and in principle, could be altered to any other naturally possible makeup. Is this not grounds for a non-relativistic ethics? It entails that we ought to strive, as best we can, to cultivate a psychological and physical makeup (this can be either in terms of for ourselves, or for others) that is most favorable to living pleasurably. Of course, if we fail to cultivate a makeup that’s more conducive to living pleasurably, there is no reason to feel any sort of guilt or regret over it, for the consequence of such failure is just the lack of pleasure itself. There is no such thing as a duty to obtain pleasure, and to feel guilty (or upset in any way) over not having “made the most of things†is irrational.
I think the above paragraph is very Nietzschean. As a response to the death of God (that is, the death of the belief in God), and with it the abolishing of any meaning to life higher than living happily, Nietzsche proposed that we turn our strivings to “overcoming manâ€. Nietzsche thought that God was only needed in order for life to have meaning under a certain psychological condition, which human (“all-too-humanâ€) beings tend to have. If we can turn our strivings towards living well in this life, and overcome our all-too-human psychological traits that make us believe that some higher purpose is needed in order for life to have meaning, then the death of God will not give rise to nihilism. Nietzsche also thought that one should always take an attitude of ‘amor fati’ (“love of ones own fateâ€), rather than regretting one’s choices when it seems that other choices could have been made to make things turn out better.
I would agree that some of our moral beliefs are not grounded in reason, but are conditioned by our culture and/or evolution. However, I think morals regarding our relationships with others can also have a rational basis. When morality is rational, it’s based on the idea that an action is morally acceptable if it can be justified from an objective standpoint, that is, the standpoint where the fact that the acting agent is you is irrelevant. An action like punching a little girl because it makes you feel good is not morally acceptable because from an objective standpoint, it cannot be justified. If it’s ok for you to punch little girls – or in general, to act in ways that make you feel good at the expense of others – then you also have to accept that it’s ok for others to do things like punch little girls, steal money from banks, and in general to act in ways that make themselves feel good at the expense of others. What would the world be like for you if everyone were to act in such ways? Would it make for a more or less pleasurable life than the case where you, and others, refrain from acting in ways that make themselves feel good at the expense of others? If you say (as I would) that life would be less pleasurable, then you are rationally obligated to hold that it is wrong for you, or any other agent, to act in ways that make themselves feel good at the expense of others.
Human beings desire that their actions be justifiable from an objective standpoint. Even when one does something that cannot be so justified, one usually tries to invent some rational to justify it. Someone who wants to rob a bank might think to himself “I am in need of money, and the bank has plenty of it, hence it is ok for me [someone in my situation] to rob the bankâ€. I think it is rare that one acts immorally and doesn’t even try to come up with a reason that justifies his action from an objective standpoint. But why do human beings desire that their actions be objectively justifiable? Is this desire itself rational, that is, conducive to living a pleasurable life?
I think that the desire that our actions be morally acceptable (justifiable from an objective standpoint) results from a general desire to live in accordance with reason. If it is in fact better to live in accordance with reason than to not, then it’s also better to live with a desire that our actions be morally acceptable than to not (for that would entail living an irrational kind of life). Since reason is what enables us to cultivate an environment, and a human condition, that is more conducive to our happiness, I believe that it is indeed better to live in accordance with reason.
James Petts wrote an essay that deals more thoroughly with some of the ideas I’ve discussed here, and I think you would find it interesting. You can find it here: http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=143738&sid=8fe3abc811d6f749322d3a1195f6d35f. I disagree with his definition of value, and I explain why in my final response to him in that thread (he has not responded to it, however).
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. But seriously, a moral system is just a set of rules to be followed, and I personally choose egoism as such a rule. Since I don’t see egoism as wrong (and therefore don’t feel pain when following it) I find it the most logical rule to follow for maximum pleasure. We are all egoists on a subconcious level, but I choose to be one at a concious level as well.