- Question
What is pleasure?
We all know the feeling of pleasure. Some would describe it as a feeling or sense of delight, happiness, gratification. But what is the sensation of pleasure and where does it come from?
Getting what you want
This position holds that pleasure is the satisfaction of desire: what makes an experience pleasant is that it gives a person something they wanted, which is why the very same event delights one person and leaves another indifferent.
Being amused or enjoying yourself
This position holds that pleasure is a matter of enjoyment rather than of getting anything: it is the quality an experience has while it is being had, which is why amusement and absorption can be pleasant without satisfying any want at all.
Getting sensual gratification
This position holds that pleasure is at root bodily, a form of sensual gratification registered through the senses, and that the richer pleasures of thought and achievement are extensions of that basic physical capacity rather than something separate from it.