Legitimate pleasure

[otseng]

When is pleasure for self bad? When is it good? How can one tell the difference?

[Quarkhead]

Pleasure for the self is 'bad' if it relies upon, or causes, the suffering of others.

[Corvus]

Well, in principle, yes. But sometimes one can justify pleasure of self at the expense of others.

You are sitting at a table surrounded by guests. You have a cold and prior to arriving at the dinner party, your coughs rattled with the sound of mucus behind them. What you really would like to do is cough it up into a napkin, but that would obviously disturb the guests who are intent on their meal. You consider going out of the room, but you know that more mucus will inevitably follow, and it could be some time - hours perhaps - before you can return to the table completely unhindered breaths. Furthermore, you have been holding yourself from coughing for so long now that you know you really, really need to cough, clear your throat and huff out globules of green stuff.

Do you start coughing your moist rattling coughs at the dinner table to relieve yourself to the possible distress of some of the guests? Hell yes.

So how can I put this? Pleasure for self is bad if it relies upon the suffering of others. Pleasure for the self which causes the suffering of others is only justified if the suffering relieved is greater than the suffering caused. It's generalised and formulaic, but I feel these things are intuitively known.

[seekinghokmah]

Pleasure is niether good nor bad, it is just a sensation. Good or bad lies in the motivation of the individual.

[NuclearTBag]

Pleasure is good for you untill you stop enjoying it. What's enjoyable to some may not be enjoyable to others. There is no one person that can say that pleasure is bad, I don't see why society in a whole, is against self pleasure. The execption is when you impede on someone personal rights, for example if you get pleasure out of raping people, that is bad because you violated their personal rights. On the other hand if consensual sex gives you pleasure, more power too you.

[Yahweh]

When is pleasure for self bad? When is it good? How can one tell the difference?

Good question!

There is a lot gray area.

It is difficult to draw the line between the distinguishing of "good pleasure" and "bad pleasure". The problem is with the obvious recognition that "pleasure" is a personal experience, compound this with various interpretations of what constitutes "good" and "bad", and you have a very fuzzy very gray vaguely-defined and hard to place line.


A few basic points:

I think it is almost too easy to say that "bad pleasure" is pleasure which comes at the expense of others. Then again, there are plenty of people who enjoy the sport of hunting, and I'm sure the word "sado-masochism" didnt get that title for nothing. So pleasure at the expense of others is hard to place, and it is rather evident it cannot all be pigeonholed as merely "bad".

Some people believe that pleasure can be "not bad" if an act is performed in private, alone, and never learned about nor will affect others. Then again, there are plenty of people who condemn smoking, searching for illegal images on the net, infidelity, or NAMBLA-oriented behavior when those acts are indeed private.

Another consideration to take into account is actions and behavior in other cultures. While some people may consider it "good pleasure" to kiss strangers on the cheek when meeting (commonly seen in movies depicting Italian families), in America this would be considered rude.


Although I'm probably setting up a scenario that seems overly simplistic, I think the definition between "good pleasure" and "bad pleasure" can be inferred intuitively or by cultural norms. A general rule of thumb is "if you dont want your spouse / your boss / your neighbors / media / law enforcement / etc. etc. etc. to find out, you are probably doing something 'bad'". There are probably exceptions to that rule, but I'm pretty sure it may help a bit in defining the difference good or bad pleasures.

[Tigerlilly]

I think pleasure is good when said pleasure does't lead to greater pain/suffereig, or anguish. The pleasure/happiness must be greater net, and in order to help others gain pleasure, one must take the most necessary approaches and minimize pain/suffering.

[concerro]

I dont think pleasure itself can be judged as ethically/morally good or bad. It is the means that are used to get that pleasure that can be judged as good or bad.

[ChaosBorders]

Pleasure is niether good nor bad, it is just a sensation. Good or bad lies in the motivation of the individual.

I agree that pleasure is not itself inherently good or bad, but in addition to the motivation of the individual I would add on consequences. The motivation may be relatively innocent, but if the consequences are negative and foreseeably so, but the individual overlooked them then the activity could still be considered a bad one.

[Slopeshoulder]

By and large, pleasure is bad when it harms other people/beings/nature/community.

I'd add that it's also bad when it leads to an unhealthy attachment (however defined) that takes us away from ourselves.

Otherwise, I guess it's good.

But neither counts as pleasure to a wise person.