The experience of pleasure, alongside pain, is a primary element of human life. It rules our instincts and desires for food, sex and avoiding various forms of harm. Crucial to psychological and social well-being, it has preoccupied philosophers from Aristotle to John Stuart Mill and plays a fundamental role in moral and ethical theory, especially utilitarianism. More recently, it has become a central subject for psychologists, biologists and neuroscientists.
Yet it remains an elusive and deceptively difficult concept. What is pleasure? How does it differ from happiness? Should we value pleasure? Should we value only pleasure? Which theories of pleasure are most plausible? In this rigorous and comprehensive introduction to the topic, Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek unpacks and assesses these questions and many more, including:
- The history of pleasure from ancient China, India and Greece to modern times
- Pleasure, sensation, feeling and consciousness
- What scientific research reveals about the nature of pleasure – can pleasure be measured scientifically?
- "Higher" and "lower" pleasures
- The relation between happiness and pleasure
- Pleasure and pain
- Pleasure and animals
- Pleasure as an ultimate good and the relation between pleasure and rationality.
The Philosophy of Pleasure: An Introduction is essential reading for students of ethics and political philosophy, and also suitable for those studying related disciplines such as psychology, politics and sociology.
Introduction
Part 1: Pleasure and well-being
1. Theorizing about pleasure: Some historical background
2. Hedonism
3. Happiness, measurement and time
Part 2: The philosophy of pleasure
4. What is pleasure?
5. The constitution of pleasure: Internalism versus externalism
Part 3: The science of pleasure
6. What is pleasure? A neuroscientific perspective
7. Animals’ pleasures
Conclusion.
Index
Biography
Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek is a professor at the Institute of Philosophy, University of Lodz, Poland. With Peter Singer she is author of The Point of View of the Universe: Sidgwick and Contemporary Ethics (2014) and Utilitarianism: A Very Short Introduction (2017), and is editor of the Norton Library edition of John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism (2021).
"Succeeds brilliantly as a clear and readable introduction, yet manages also to be a pioneering work that draws on neuroscience as well as philosophy to make real progress in our understanding of pleasure." - Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation, Practical Ethics and The Life You Can Save
"A joy to read. Well-written and informed by relevant literature. Original and interesting. This book skilfully connects the philosophical and neuroscientific literatures on pleasure." - Ben Bramble, Australian National University
