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The Pleasure Problem and the Spriggean Solution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2022

DANIEL PALLIES Open the ORCID record for DANIEL PALLIES [Opens in a new window]
DANIEL PALLIES*
Affiliation:
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA pallies@usc.edu
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Abstract

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.

Keywords

pleasurewell-beingobjectivismsubjectivism
Type
Article
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , Winter 2022 , pp. 665 - 684
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Philosophical Association

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Footnotes

For their very helpful comments and discussion, many thanks to Mark Schroeder, Janet Levin, John Hawthorne, Ralph Wedgwood, David Chalmers, Jennifer Foster, Alex Dietz, and two anonymous reviewers.

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