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07-10-2017 | Research Paper

The Value of Heterogeneous Pleasures

Author: Andrew Alwood

Published in: Journal of Happiness Studies | Issue 8/2018

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Abstract

Pleasure is one of the most obvious candidates for directly improving wellbeing. Hedonists claim it is the only feature that can intrinsically make life better for the one living it, and that all of wellbeing derives from the relative pleasantness and unpleasantness of conscious experience. But Hedonism is incompatible with the ‘heterogeneity’ of pleasure: it cannot allow that distinct pleasures can feel completely differently, if experiences count as pleasant due to how they feel. I argue that a pluralistic variant of Hedonism can match its theoretical attractions while also accommodating the heterogeneity of pleasure. This has interesting implications for both the philosophical debate over the nature of wellbeing and psychological theories of how to measure and aggregate positive affect. In particular, my argument implies that there is no single dimension of ‘valence’ or ‘intensity’ on which pleasantness can be measured.

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For example, see Diener and Lucas (1999).

Similar claims can be made regarding negative affect as well. I focus on positive affect and pleasure for convenience.

See Crisp (2014) for a useful introduction and overview of the philosophical debate over wellbeing.

Psychological theories of wellbeing roughly correlate with philosophical theories in the following way (see Tiberius (2006) for discussion): Life-Satisfaction theories can be grouped with Attitudinalist theories like Preferentism since they claim that wellbeing consists at least in part in having certain attitudes. Kahneman’s theory of Objective Happiness (discussed in Sect. 5) is similar to Hedonism. Eudaemonist theories can be grouped with Pluralists since they typically posit multiple sources of wellbeing, although one sometimes suspects that these theories do not heed the distinction between intrinsic and instrumental value.

See Moore (2013) for an overview of the philosophical debate over what pleasure is and how it improves wellbeing.

For discussion, see Sumner (1996), Rachels (2000), Crisp (2006), and Tannsjo (2007).

A basic good-maker is such that there is no further explanation of what makes the relevant thing good.

Parfit (1984, p. 493), his italics. Sidgwick is arguably an early proponent of the heterogeneity argument against Phenomenalism. Many other philosophers have also made this kind of argument. See Moore 2014, sec. 2.1, for discussion of “the disunity objection”.

Parfit (1984, p. 493).

Heathwood (2007, p. 26), italics added.

Heathwood (2007, p. 26).

Monistic Phenomenalists have defended themselves from the heterogeneity objection by undermining the power and accuracy of introspection, pointing out ways in which introspection can be misleading and inconclusive. For example, see Smuts (2011), Labukt (2012), Bramble (2013). One can worry, though, that undermining introspection takes away a primary source of support for Phenomenalism, even if it were to deflate the heterogeneity objection.

Crisp (2006, p. 108).

Labukt (2012, p. 189). See also Rachels (2000, 2004). I mostly agree with Labukt’s response to the heterogeneity problem, as it targets Phenomenalism, although I think we would disagree about how best to develop the basic idea of phenomenal pluralism about pleasure.

See Alwood (2017) for my answers to these questions.

This assumption narrows the focus of my discussion and effectively leaves out any theory on which desire, evaluative belief, or some other attitude is a necessary part of any basic good-maker. That includes the varieties of hedonism discussed in Feldman (2004) which claim that pleasure itself is such an attitude.

See Heathwood (2015) and Lin (2016) for discussion of these objections to Pluralism about wellbeing.

See Kahneman (1999). I interpret Kahneman as intending for instant utility to be equivalent to total-phenomenal-pleasure-felt-at-a-time, as have other readers [e.g., Feldman (2010), Alexandrova (2005)]. However, it should be noted that Kahneman’s words sometimes suggest that instant utility should be defined attitudinally as “strength of the disposition to continue or to interrupt the current experience” (p. 4).

See Kahneman (1999, p. 7).

See Bentham (1789, chp 4). Francis Edgeworth developed Bentham’s ideas on measurement. Also see Feldman (2004) for a clear discussion of how contemporary philosophers think pleasure can be measured..

See Tannjso (2007, p. 83), his italics.

Ibid p. 81.

See Tannjso ((2007, pp. 81–3), and Kahneman (1999, p. 5).

I should note that I do think the word ‘intensity’ can make sense as applied to each kind of pleasantness, if we stipulate that ‘intensity of particular kind of pleasure’ is equivalent with ‘amount of particular kind of pleasure’. This makes sense in the case of joy, since the more joyful an experience feels the more intense it becomes. It is somewhat misleading in the case of tranquility, since increasing tranquility would initially not seem to make an experience intense. But even there, a stipulated definition of ‘intensity’ can make sense. However, my main point still stands: there is no such thing as the intensity of pleasure itself.

See Crisp (2006) for some discussion of cardinal and ordinal rankings of pleasures.

Tannsjo (2007, pp. 84–6), responds to similar worries by relying on our ability to introspect and determine how we feel: “We focus on concrete and total experiences held by a sentient creature at a particular time. Such an experience has a certain quality, a ‘feel’ or a hedonic ‘tone.’ If the experience is positive in nature, then it is a ‘pleasure.’ If it is negative in nature, then it is a ‘pain.’ … in order to avoid misunderstanding I prefer the term ‘degree of subjective well-being’ or ‘hedonic level.’” However, there is no guarantee that introspection fastens onto exactly the feature Tannsjo posits. It may be that introspecting as he instructs leads us to focus on the most salient affective dimension of our present conscious experience, without vindicating his claim that there is only one hedonic dimension.

Kahneman (1999, pp. 7–10), shows some sensitivity to the problem. He identifies his problematic assumption, that a subject’s brain provides a continuous commentary on her subjective experience that “is adequately summarized by a single value” (p. 7). He notes that this assumption “clearly is an oversimplification, but perhaps a tolerable one” (p. 7). He also mentions the objection that “there can be no meaningful comparison of intensity between experiences that differ in their quality” (p. 9). However, his response to the objection does not really address the philosophical and mathematical problem I have specified. Heterogeneity implies that no single value or scale can adequately measure phenomenal pleasure.

Clark-Polner et al. (2016) p. 152.

See Rachels (2004).

See Labukt (2012, p. 193).

See Tannsjo (2007, p. 85).

See Clark-Polner et al. (2016): “The affective workspace hypothesis …is grounded in observations from the neuroscience literature that there is significant heterogeneity (variability) across instances of both positivity and negativity, in terms of how they are represented within the brain’ (p. 148). Thanks to Matthew Miera for helpful discussion of the neuroscience literature on affect.

Alexandrova, A. (2005). Subjective well-being and Kahneman’s ‘objective happiness’. Journal of Happiness Studies, 6, 301–324.CrossRef

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Title: The Value of Heterogeneous Pleasures
Author: Andrew Alwood
Publication date: 07-10-2017
Publisher: Springer Netherlands
Published in: Journal of Happiness Studies / Issue 8/2018
Print ISSN: 1389-4978
Electronic ISSN: 1573-7780
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-017-9924-4

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