University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Feeling good and living well: on the nature of pleasure and its role in well-being

(USC Thesis Other)

Feeling good and living well: on the nature of pleasure and its role in well-being

PDF

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content FEELING GOOD AND LIVING WELL:
ON THE NATURE OF PLEASURE AND ITS ROLE IN WELL-BEING

by
Daniel Steven Pallies
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(PHILOSOPHY)

August 2022

Copyright 2022 Daniel Pallies

ii

Acknowledgements
I have been the recipient of a ridiculous amount of support from colleagues, friends, and family
— so much so that it is difficult to know where to begin. Looking back, it’s incredible the degree to which
people have helped me every step of the way. For lack of any better ideas, I’ll go chronologically.
My parents Mike and Patty have always been completely supportive of me, in philosophy and in
every other aspect of my life. They really listened to their kids and took our thoughts seriously. Sometimes
that was probably not so easy. I remember two separate meltdowns I had in grade school — one because
I was worried that life was meaningless, a second because I was worried that the world was more bad than
good. They didn’t talk down to me; they took my thoughts seriously. They tried to make me feel better too,
of course, but I definitely remember hearing: “Well, Dan, in a way it’s good that you’re thinking about
this…” Later I came up with some terrible arguments for the absence of free will (molecules don’t have free
will; we’re made of molecules; so we don’t have free will) and for experientialism about well-being (you
only know about your experiences; only things you know about affect your well-being; so only experiences
affect your well-being). Neither of them so much as suggested that it would be a mistake to pursue
academic philosophy. The same goes for my big sister Sophie (who gets to joke that I’m studying
philosophy because I love her so much). She has always been there for me, as a friend and a source of
support.
The public school system in my hometown of Brookline is excellent (we moved there mostly for
that reason) and I had a lot of really fantastic teachers. I told myself that I would be sure to thank them if
ever “made it” in academia, and this is close enough. Mrs. Williams was extremely kind to me in 3
rd
grade

iii

when I was far too stressed out about school, and she went to a lot of trouble to encourage me to pursue
subjects that interested me. When I went through a phase of being obsessed with Greek mythology, she
let me work on my own independent “project” on that subject every morning (the result was a mostly-
unplayable trivia game.) Mr. Capraro, my 7
th
grade History teacher, had an infectious passion for teaching
and did a wonderful job getting us thinking through the different perspectives of people in different times
and places. He was also extremely keen to get his students organized — right down to having specific
instructions regarding the ways in which papers should be stapled together — and he provided me with
much-needed structure at a time when all my papers were stuffed into my backpack in no particular order.
Mr. Holding, my teacher for 10
th
grade Western Humanities, also put an enormous amount of effort into
teaching and was a great facilitator of debates in the classroom. He used to be a stage actor, and he
brought the same energy to explaining what was so important and interesting about the differences
between Minoan and Mycenaean pottery motifs. My teacher for high school History and Psychology, Mrs.
Staub, did a similarly wonderful job of organizing constructive discussions, and of finding novel ways to
present the material. She also taught writing at a much higher level than most high school teachers — she
would project volunteers’ papers on the board for all to see, and the whole class would offer suggestions
about how to improve the substance and style, sentence-by-sentence. A common refrain in our high
school was that we were better prepared than most to write at a collegial level, and that was definitely my
experience.
When I went to Union College my lucky streak continued: I had a number of fantastic teachers. I
absolutely loved my philosophy classes. Leo Zaibert, the head of the department, introduced me to the
philosophy of mind and made the issues vivid in a way that has always stuck with me. He is an extremely

iv

kind person, and a model of philosophical humility. Even when I and my fellow students raised points
that were confused or badly formulated, he took the time to try to figure out the best version of what we
were saying.
Felmon Davis is an excellent philosopher and critic. It is not easy to be critical as a philosophy
teacher — the more critical you are, the more work you have to put into justifying your criticism (usually
in the form of written comments which are not a joy to write). Felmon backs up his criticisms with
unbelievable generosity: he allows every student to rewrite any of their assignments any number of times,
until they receive a B+ or higher. In retrospect, I am frankly in awe of the amount of effort and attention
he gives to each student.
In my sophomore year, Union College hired two young philosophers out of graduate school:
Krisanna Sheiter and David Barnett. I owe both of them a huge debt. Krisanna made me love Aristotle,
and taught me how rewarding philosophical exegesis can be. She has a genuine respect for her students
that shone through in the way she treated us as co-interpreters of Aristotle, rather than passive vessels to
be filled with Aristotelian wisdom.
Without a doubt, the person from Union College to whom I owe the greatest debt is David Barnett.
One night I was invited to join the philosophy faculty for dinner with a visiting speaker, and I spent that
night talking with David about 90s music, the nature of hipsterdom, and issues in personal identity. That
was the night that I definitely decided I wanted to continue studying philosophy. In the years that
followed, David took me under his wing and did everything he could to help me prepare my application to
graduate school. (Of course he did the responsible thing and tried to talk me out of it first.) When we first

v

started talking about applying, I came to him with some inchoate ideas about a new kind of argument for
panpsychism. He explained the fatal flaws in my formulation of the argument, gave me a bunch of papers
to read, and met with me over and over again over the course of an entire year. He taught me Bayes’
Theorem over email using examples of frat bros playing beer pong, taught me basic set theory one-on-one
in his office, and provided detailed feedback on countless drafts of my writing sample. I have no doubt
that, without his help, I would never have been accepted to graduate school at USC.
Apart from professors, I also had two fantastic friends in philosophy at Union. Trevor Martin has
the most expansive personality of anyone I have ever met; he is always happy to talk and argue about pretty
much anything. We kept each other sane many nights writing our philosophy assignments together until
four in the morning. And apart from being one of the most fun and adventurous people I know, he was
also there for me at my lowest points in college. Matthew Anisfeld is incredibly witty and thoughtful, and
in the two years we were roommates we talked philosophy pretty much every day. My best memories from
Union were the nights we spent eating Domino's pizza, drinking cheap wine, and reading through
philosophy papers together. He is also morally courageous — although we both hated the incredibly toxic
Greek life system at Union, only he spoke out about it publicly (and faced considerable backlash for doing
so).
At USC of course I have benefitted from another host of fantastic mentors. Outside of my
committee, I am very grateful to Jim van Cleve for giving me an appreciation for the Early Moderns, and
for agreeing to do an unofficial independent study on Hedda Morch’s “phenomenal powers” theory. Our

vi

conversations during those meeting turned out to be formative for the dissertation, though not always in
the ways that I expected.
The members of my committee have been really fantastic, both individually and as a team. Ralph
Wedgwood has not merely interfaced with my views on pleasure but also shared with me his own
developing views, and in so going he has helped me to avoid losing sight of the space of possibilities. He
has also been an excellent guide to a lot of issues in value theory, which has been especially useful to me
since my background is in the philosophy of mind. On the other side of the coin, Janet Levin has kept me
honest about the issues in philosophy of mind as I have ventured further and further into value theory. It
was a pleasure to work through the Area List in the philosophy of mind with her; she is not merely an
expert on the philosophy of mind but also an expert on the sociology of the philosophy of mind. There
were so many meetings where I felt baffled about the ways in which the issues were being discussed in
some paper, and Janet would explain “Well, at the time people were really worried about… [some issue to
which I am insensitive].” Janet is also the author of perhaps the best SEP article, the article on
Functionalism, which has been in my bookmarks and frequently consulted throughout the dissertation.
John Hawthorne is the person to whom I take my papers when I need to know exactly how and
why my views are false. When we met to talk about one of my papers, he would evaluate it claim by claim.
Sometimes there would be a long pause, and then John would come up with a decisive counterexample —
something to do with cardinality, or a variant on the philosophical zombie, or a bizarre but clearly possible
desire that someone might have. He is always very nice about it — he’d often follow up with a cheerful
“Just something to think about!” But of course his objections did make it clear to me that another round of

vii

revisions was in order. During our meetings, if John flipped a page without raising objections, I could
breathe a sigh of relief. That page at least was probably okay.
Whereas John specializes in the details, Mark Schroeder is a master of the big picture. He knows
how a paper should be organized for maximum impact — when a claim should be clearly endorsed and
when it should be merely floated as a promising possibility, when you should target an opponent whose
views are diametrically opposed to your own and when you should target someone who merely disagrees
with you about the details, when you should address an objection head on and when you should merely
set it aside for another day. Many times I came to Mark’s office thinking that a paper was totally dead,
only for him to show me that all was not lost. I just needed to shift the focus of the paper, or manage the
reader’s expectations more carefully. Mark’s pro-seminar was also the first class that got me really
interested in value theory; his flowchart showing the space of views in metaethics is one of my favorite
things I have taken from grad school. And, relatedly, Mark shares my love of a good taxonomy: the first
thing he had me do when I started on the dissertation was to chart out all the possible reductions of well-
being, desire, and pleasure to one another. It might sound a little odd, but writing that was a blast and it
got me very excited to write the dissertation.
Many graduates from USC have described how dedicated Mark is as an advisor, and I do not think
that I can put the point any better than they have. But I will add my name to the list of grateful advisees. I
cannot believe how much time Mark puts into his advising, how many drafts he is willing to read, and how
quickly he responds to the many emails I have sent him. When it comes to being an advisee, my normal
ethos is that you should take all the help you can get, and leave it up to your adviser to decide how much

viii

help they will give. Writing papers is hard, so don’t look a gift horse in the mouth! But with Mark, this
ethos breaks down. I often asked myself: “Should I ask for help with this? If I ask, Mark definitely will help
— and surely he deserves a break…?” I and many others are very fortunate to have benefitted from his
dedication to advising.
The graduate community at USC has also been a huge source of support and philosophical
enrichment. My cohort — Christa, Elli, Frank, Junhyo, Paul, and Sean — was an essential support
network, especially during our first year. We worked on our pro-seminar assignments together, we got
weekly dinners, we bought books for each other’s birthdays. And we argued about philosophy a lot. I was
introduced to so many topics that I had never encountered at all, and learned so much. It was a stressful
time, but it was also wonderful. That first year was almost certainly the most philosophically stimulating
year of my life. And every member of my cohort has provided valuable feedback on this dissertation
project.
My philosopher-roommates have also been great. Alex Dietz, Joe Horton, John Wright, and
Kenneth Silver are all great guys and great philosophers. We could chat about philosophy during the day
(not exclusively; that would be exhausting) and then watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Star Trek on the
projector at night. Many of the ideas of this dissertation came from long talks we had at Sunset Beer
Company or hiking around Los Angeles.
There are lots of other people who have provided feedback on different parts of this dissertation,
or talked through the ideas of the dissertation with me. I especially want to thank Abelard Podgorski,
Andrew Stewart, Anthony Nguyen, David Clark, Douglas Wadle, Irene Bosco, Jaime Castillo Gamboa,

ix

Jasmine Rosse Gunkel, Jesse Wilson, Kayleigh Rodgers, Laura Gurskey, Laura V Nicoară, Maegan
Fairchild, Mahmoud Jalloh, Mike Ashfield, Nick Laskowski, Nicola Kemp, Noah Gordon, Phạm Vũ Lệ
Quyên, Philip Li, Rachel Keith, Rebecca Carlson, Shane Ward, Simon Hellbesson, Tanya Kostochka, Vilma
Venesmaa, as well as anonymous reviewers at a number of journals: Ergo, Philosophical Studies, Ethics,
Journal of Ethics, The Journal of the American Philosophical Association¸ Mind, and the Australasian Journal of
Philosophy.
Lastly, I want to thank my partner and my best friend, Jennifer Foster. When I first met Jen, she
said something dismissive about qualia. I assumed that this divide between us could never be overcome.
But six years have passed and we are now engaged, so it seems like somehow we have made it work. Jen
is a wonderful source of support, feedback, and advice. She helped me pick myself up when I was
discouraged and wanted to give up. She has listened to me talk about this dissertation more than anyone
else in the world, and she has provided valuable feedback on almost all of it. In fact, from a philosophical
perspective, Jen has turned out to be the perfect to consult about the overall arc of this dissertation.
Much of the dissertation can be read as a prolonged attempt to justify a partial-but-not-full departure
from classical hedonism, and Jen is a classical hedonist (or at least tempted by classical hedonism!) So
this is another respect in which I’ve gotten lucky. But I feel luckiest of all to know that my wife to be is
also my best friend and a wonderful colleague. If not for Jen, the hedonic balance of my life would be
much lower.

x

Table of Contents
Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. ii
List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... xiii
Abstract ........................................................................................................................... xiii
Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1
§1 Pleasure........................................................................................................... 2
§2 Well-Being ....................................................................................................... 5
§3 Outline ........................................................................................................... 8
Chapter One: What is Pleasure? .............................................................................................. 13
§1 Pleasure, Phenomenology, Attitude ......................................................................... 13
§2 The Phenomenological Theory ............................................................................... 14
§2.1 Heterogeneity ........................................................................................................ 17
§2.2 Oppositeness ....................................................................................................... 18
§2.3 Normativity ......................................................................................................... 19
§2.4 HON .................................................................................................................. 21
§3 The Attitudinal Theory ....................................................................................... 22
§3.1 Euthyphro ............................................................................................................ 25
§3.2 Separateness ........................................................................................................ 26
§3.3 Togetherness ........................................................................................................ 28
§3.4 EST .................................................................................................................... 30
§4 Hybrid Theories ................................................................................................ 31
§5 Dispositional Theories ........................................................................................ 36
§6 Honest Answers ................................................................................................ 43
Chapter Two: The Objection from Differences in Taste ............................................................... 45
§1 The Objection ................................................................................................... 45
§2 The Phenomenal Thesis ....................................................................................... 47

xi

§3 Two Arguments from Taste Differences .................................................................... 56
§4 From Attitudes to Phenomenology .......................................................................... 67
§4.1 Linking Attitudes and Pleasure ................................................................................. 68
§4.2 Linking Pleasure and Phenomenology ........................................................................ 71
§5 The Existence Claim Revisited ............................................................................... 79
§5.1 Arguments from Empirical Results ............................................................................ 79
§5.2 Arguments from Combinatorial Principles ................................................................. 82
§6 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 85
Chapter Three: The Pleasure Problem and the Spriggean Solution ................................................ 87
§1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 87
§2 The Pleasure Problem ......................................................................................... 87
§3 Quenching and Burning ......................................................................................89
§4 The State of the Debate........................................................................................ 92
§4.1 Objectivist Arguments ............................................................................................ 93
§4.2 Subjectivist Arguments .......................................................................................... 96
§4.3 The Possibility Claim .............................................................................................. 99
§5 The Spriggean Argument ................................................................................... 102
§6 The Neo-Spriggean Argument ............................................................................. 105
§7 Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 117
Chapter Four: Attraction, Aversion, and Asymmetrical Attitudes ................................................. 119
§1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 119
§2 Outline ......................................................................................................... 119
§3 Terms and Conditions ....................................................................................... 122
§4 Normatively Asymmetrical Desires ........................................................................ 132
§5 The Distinction Defended ................................................................................... 143
§5.1 Kagan’s Objection ................................................................................................. 143
§5.2 Sumner’s Objection .............................................................................................. 150
§6 Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 153

xii

Chapter Five: An Expanded Role for Pleasure in the Good Life ..................................................... 155
§1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 155
§2 Terms and Conditions ....................................................................................... 157
§3 The Spriggean Theory Revisited ........................................................................... 160
§3.1 What the Spriggean Says ........................................................................................ 160
§3.2 What the Spriggean Does Not Say ............................................................................ 163
§3.3 Satisfaction and Frustration for Spriggeans ............................................................... 167
§4 Desire Satisfactionism ...................................................................................... 169
§4.1 Dispassionate Desire ............................................................................................. 170
§4.2 Asymmetrical Desire ............................................................................................. 173
§5 Hedonism ...................................................................................................... 177
§6 Putting it All Together ....................................................................................... 180
Chapter Six: Hedonistic Explanations of Well-Being ................................................................. 186
§1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 186
§2 Explanation and Enumeration ..............................................................................187
§3 Illusion Arguments .......................................................................................... 190
§4 Explanation and Otherworldly Pleasure .................................................................. 196
§4.1 An Objectivist Worry ............................................................................................ 205
§4.2 A Moorean Worry ................................................................................................ 206
§5 The Scope of Hedonistic Explanation ..................................................................... 207
§6 The Prospects of Hedonism ................................................................................. 211
References ....................................................................................................................... 212

xiii

List of Tables
Table 1.1 .................................................................................................................... 43
Table 4.1 .................................................................................................................... 126
Table 4.2 ................................................................................................................... 127
Table 4.3.................................................................................................................... 128
Table 4.4 .................................................................................................................... 133
Table 4.5 .................................................................................................................... 134
Table 4.6 .................................................................................................................... 136
Table 4.7 .................................................................................................................... 136
Table 4.8 .................................................................................................................... 138
Table 4.9 .................................................................................................................... 139
Table 6.1 .................................................................................................................... 188
Table 6.2 .................................................................................................................... 194

xiv

Abstract
I develop a psychological theory of affective experience—that is, a theory of what makes it the case
that some experiences are pleasant or unpleasant. Then I leverage that psychological theory in service to
a normative theory of well-being—that is, a theory of what makes life go best for us. Ultimately I show how
the conjunction of the psychological and normative theories can answer important questions in the
philosophy of well-being, and in value theory more broadly. According to my theory of affective
experience, there are necessary connections between our affective experiences and our attitudes.
Accordingly, I call it the necessitation view. I show that the necessitation view avoids the most pressing
philosophical problems for current philosophical theories of affective experience. With the necessitation
view at hand, I develop a normative theory regarding the role of affective experience in well-being. I argue
that a given event makes a (positive or negative) difference to how well one’s life is going for one just in
case one pleasure or displeasure in it. Because this view, like classical hedonism, entails that all facts about
well-being are ultimately explained by facts about our pleasures and displeasures, I call it hedonic
satisfactionism. I argue that this view preserves what is best in hedonistic and desire satisfactionist theories
of well-being, while also solving a number of persistent puzzles for those theories. It also yields a natural
account of which desires are relevant to well-being, and why. As a bonus, it even yields an explanation of
why pleasure and displeasure themselves are good and bad for us, respectively.

1

Introduction
Questions of value often lack obvious answers. For example, right now there is a slice of delicious
cake in the refrigerator, and none of my roommates are home. I want to eat that last slice. On the one
hand, the original cake was intended for all of us, and my roommates have had more than me already. On
the other hand they like cake more than I do, and have been more excited about the prospect of eating it.
Would it be okay for me to have that last slice right now, or must I wait to ask permission once they get
home? Would it be rude to go ahead and eat it? Would it be a bit gluttonous? (Or am I being a bit neurotic for
worrying so much?) Would it be better, all things considered, to wait rather than eat it now? The questions
are not very serious, but they lack obvious answers. And of course, many serious ethical questions lack
obvious answers, too.
In contrast, here is a question of value that is not difficult: if I were to eat the delicious slice of cake,
would I be better off? Setting aside the downstream effects of eating the cake — the possibility of angry
roommates, or unwanted weight gain — the answer seems obvious. Yes, it would be good for me to eat the
delicious cake. That I would benefit from the pleasures of eating delicious cake goes without saying. The
claim that pleasure is good for us seems obvious, in a way that issues of value are not normally obvious.
As a general methodological principle, it makes sense to start with what seems obvious, and only
then move on to the non-obvious. If we could explain the seemingly obvious value of pleasure, then
perhaps we could put ourselves in a better position to answer some non-obvious questions of value. This
is the project I undertake in the dissertation. I start with the foundational claim that pleasure is good for
us; then I attempt to articulate and answer some questions raised by this foundational claim. A first

2

question concerns the nature of pleasure: what is this feature of some experiences — pleasantness — in
virtue of which those experiences are good for us? A second question concerns the role of pleasure in well-
being: how and why do pleasures make our lives go better for us? Unsurprisingly, these questions are
closely related to each other. One major lesson of the dissertation is that by exploring new and interesting
views about the nature of pleasure, we open the door to new and interesting views about pleasure’s role in
well-being.
In this introduction I will say a bit about how I will use the terms “pleasure” and “well-being” in
the dissertation. Along the way I will also take note of a few foundational assumptions I make about
pleasure and well-being, thus understood. Then I will outline the arguments of the dissertation, chapter
by chapter.
§1 Pleasure
I use “pleasure” as a synonym for “pleasant experience”. Thus, I will not be concerned in the first
instance with any “pleasures” that are not experiences. For example, some philosophers suggest that there
can be attitudinal pleasures which are not experiences — according to one such suggestion, we can be
pleased about things in a way that does not imply that we are having any pleasant experience (Feldman 2004
p.65-66). Others contend that some unconscious mental states are recognizably pleasant, due to the roles
they play in influencing cognition and behavior (Smith et al. 2010 p.40). In what follows, I will mostly set
these cases aside, bringing them up only when they are relevant to the topic of pleasant experience.
My focus on pleasant experience, rather than pleasure in some more general sense, stems from
my interest in pleasure’s significance for well-being. Pleasant experiences seem like the sorts of things

3

that are relevant to whether or not one’s life is going well for one. In contrast, the relevance of non-
experiential pleasure is less clear. Suppose you discover that you have been in a state of pleasure all day,
despite the fact that this pleasure has made no difference at all to your experiences throughout your day.
In the case thus described, it is not obvious that your pleasure has had any direct impact on how well your
day has been going for you. This is not to suggest that you were not in a state of pleasure, or a state which
might sensibly be described as “pleasure”. Perhaps you were in a mental state which had the same
psychological function as a pleasant experience, despite not being an experience. There is some evidence
suggesting that there may be such mental states (see e.g. Berridge & Winkielman 2003). Insofar as we are
more interested in pleasure’s psychological role, rather than its role in well-being, we may very sensibly use
“pleasure” in a way that is neutral between experiential and non-experiential mental states. But given my
interest in well-being specifically, non-experiential pleasures — if such there be — are less relevant. So I
use “pleasure” to refer only to pleasant experiences.
Although I am focusing on pleasant experiences specifically, my target is broad insofar as I make
no assumptions about what kinds of experience may be pleasant. Many paradigmatic pleasures are
sensations — for example, the experiences we get from eating our favorite foods. But there may also be
pleasant experiences which are not sensations. Perhaps there are pleasant cognitive experiences, such as
the pleasure we get from following stories and hearing jokes. Perhaps also there are purely affective
experiences, such as an experience of “just plain feeling good” (Bramble 2018 p.3). I do not assume that
there are pleasant non-sensory experiences, but neither do I assume that there are no such experiences.
Everything I say about pleasure applies to non-sensory pleasures (if such there be) as well as sensory
pleasure.

4

Understood in this broad way, the category of pleasant experience does not fit straightforwardly
into existing taxonomies in the philosophical literature. For example, Fred Feldman divides pleasures into
two categories — sensory pleasures and attitudinal pleasures — which are implied to be mutually exhaustive
(Feldman 2004 p. 55-56). Similarly, Chris Heathwood introduces three categories — sensory pleasures,
propositional pleasures, and enjoyment — which are, again, implied to be mutually exhaustive (Heathwood
2006 p.28 ). In these and other taxonomies, it is unclear whether or not sensory experiences are taken to
be the only kind of pleasant experience, or whether the other kinds of pleasures may also consist partly or
wholly in certain non-sensory experiences. In any case, I prefer to avoid talk of “sensory pleasure”, since
it seems to me that we lack an intuitive grasp of the distinction between sensory and non-sensory
experience. (Consider the experience of “pins and needles”, the pain of a dull headache, feelings of hunger
and orgasm — is it obvious which are sensory, and which are not?)
On the other hand, I do believe we have an intuitive grasp of the distinction between experiences
and non-experiences. Your experiences are all those states of affairs which make up “what it’s like” to be
you. You have a lot more of them when you are awake then you do when you are asleep. They are all that
would distinguish you from your philosophical zombie duplicate, if you had one. Of course there are many
difficult questions we can ask about the nature of experience, but I cannot hope to answer them here.
Suffice it to say that we can sort out what sorts of things are and are not experiences. And at least some of
our experiences are recognizably pleasant, although difficulties arise in answering the question of what it
is for an experience to be pleasant. This is the question that a philosophical theory of pleasure is needed to
answer.

5

One final issue concerns the different ways in which theories of pleasure can be formulated. One
way of formulating a theory of pleasure is to theorize in terms of experiences, as follows:
Experience-Theoretic Approach: For any experience e, e is pleasant iff [criteria].
A second way to formulate a theory of pleasure is to theorize in terms of subjects, as follows:
Subject-Theoretic Approach: For any subject s, s is experiencing pleasure iff [criteria].
Usually it is more natural to take the experience-theoretic approach, and that is how I will formulate
theories of pleasure throughout most of the dissertation. Occasionally, however, it is better to take the
subject-theoretic approach, particularly when taking the experience-theoretic approach would require us
to settle difficult questions about the “boundaries” of a given pleasant experience. For example: when you
get pleasure from eating a cookie, what parts of your total experience are pleasant? Is the pleasure entirely
gustatory, or are your concomitant tactile and olfactory experiences also parts of the overall pleasure? And
how seriously should we take the idea that experiences have “parts”? These are difficult questions, and this
dissertation is not the place to try to answer them. When they would arise, I will avoid them by taking the
subject-theoretic approach to theorizing about pleasure.
§2 Well-Being
Well-being is a kind of value: the kind of value at issue when we say that a person’s life is going
well or badly for them. It can be usefully contrasted with moral value: the kind of value at issue when we
say that something is good or bad absolutely, and not for any particular person. To illustrate the contrast,
suppose that Lex Luthor has succeeded in defeating his hated enemy Superman. Now, with Superman out
of the way, Lex Luthor is free to enjoy fabulous wealth and fame as a well-respected business tycoon. This

6

is, intuitively, a bad situation — it’s bad that Luthor is not being brought to justice for his villainous deeds.
But it’s a good situation for Lex Luthor — things are going very well for him. So Lex Luthor’s well-being is
high, despite the fact that the overall situation lacks moral value.
The concept of well-being features in certain platitudes of folk morality. One such platitude
concerns our attitudes: insofar as we hold someone in positive or negative regard, we tend to think that it
is appropriate to wish them well or ill, respectively. That is, we tend to think it appropriate to wish that
their well-being will be high (if we hold them in positive regard) or low (if we hold them in negative regard.)
So, for example, we think it is appropriate to wish for Superman to be better-off, and for Lex Luthor to be
worse-off.
Similarly, well-being features in platitudes concerning desert. Insofar as someone deserves to be
rewarded or punished, they can get what they deserve by having their well-being raised or lowered,
respectively. The heroic Superman deserves to be better-off, and the villainous Lex Luthor deserves to be
worse-off. Some or all of these platitudes might turn out to be false. Philosophy is full of surprises. But
even if they turn out to be false, they are fixtures of folk morality, so they are useful for getting a fix on the
concept of well-being.
Theories of well-being are theories that tell us what sorts of states of affairs are good for us and bad
for us, in the sense of increasing and decreasing our well-being. They typically have a special interest in the
question of which states of affairs are non-derivatively good and bad for us. The distinction between
derivative and non-derivative value can be illustrated with a familiar sort of example. Waking up in the
morning is derivatively good for me — it improves my well-being, in part because it provides me the

7

opportunity to get pleasant experiences from eating breakfast. In contrast, it’s plausible that these
pleasant experiences improve my well-being in a way that does not depend on their being related to the
goodness of anything else.
1
So those experiences are non-derivatively good for me. I will be exclusively
concerned with non-derivative goodness and badness, as opposed to derivative goodness and badness. I
will leave the “non-derivative” qualifier unstated, except as an occasional reminder.
I make two assumptions regarding well-being. The first is that most pleasant experiences —
perhaps all pleasant experiences — are non-derivatively good for us. It is easy to find ancient philosophers
who at least appear to deny this (see e.g. Philebus 63d1-64a5, and Arius Didymus, 5a) but it is harder to find
modern philosophers who deny it. Many have claimed that some pleasures are base or “vicious”, and are
therefore bad. For example, Christine Korsgaard tells us that something is "good objectively" only if it
"contributes to the actual goodness of the world: here and now the world is a better place for this." And,
she tells us, "We would not say that about the coolness of the villain or the happiness of the evil person"
(1996, 258). In a similar vein, G. E. Moore says that "the lowest forms of sexual enjoyment… are positively
bad, although it is by no means clear that they are not the most pleasant states we could ever experience."
Taken by themselves, these claims are consistent with the assumption that all pleasures are good for us.
Korsgaard and Moore seem to suggest that Lex Luthor’s pleasures are not morally good. But it is one thing
to deny that Luthor’s pleasures are morally good; it is another to deny that those pleasures are good for
him.

1
This is weaker than the Moorean thesis that if something is non-derivatively good, it has this status independently
of its relations to anything else. The Moorean thesis is controversial, and I prefer to remain neutral. See Bradley
(2006) for a helpful overview of the debate.

8

Moore would in fact go further, and deny that Lex Luthor’s pleasures are good for him. This is
because Moore is skeptical of the very idea that anything can be good for anyone. He contends that claims
about what is “good for” someone must ultimately be understood as claims about what is simply “good”
(1903, pp. 98–9). Although there have been some recent efforts to defend Moore’s skepticism (see for
example Hurka 2021) it is safe to say that the skeptics are a distinct minority. In what follows, I will set
aside Moorean skepticism. I will assume that we can make good sense of the idea that some state of affairs
may be good for a particular subject, in the sense of contributing to make their life go better for them. It
does seem perfectly sensible to say that Lex Luthor’s life is going well for him, despite the fact that his life
is not morally good. In other words, I will assume we have a sensible concept of well-being.
§3 Outline
The basic structure of the dissertation is as follows. In the first half of the dissertation I develop a
non-standard theory about what it is for an experience to be pleasant. The central claim of this theory is
that pleasant experiences bear certain kinds of necessary connections to our attitudes: necessarily, having
a pleasant experience will dispose one to try to promote that kind of experience. In the second half of the
dissertation I leverage this theory of pleasure in service to a normative theory of well-being — that is, a
theory of what makes life go best for us. The central claim of this theory is that, whenever we experience
pleasure which disposes us to try to promote a certain state of affairs, that state of affairs is good for us.
Ultimately I show how the conjunction of the two theories — the theory of pleasure, and the theory of well-
being — yields important insights into the nature of experience, well-being, and value more generally.

9

According to my theory of affective experience, there are necessary connections between our
affective experiences and our dispositions/attitudes. When we feel pleasure or displeasure, we are moved
by the experience to promote or deter something, and this amounts to our taking a positive or negative
attitude towards that “something”. For example: when I feel pleasure upon taking a cool sip of water, I am
disposed to savor the activity and repeat it on future occasions. Crucially, I am also disposed to savor the
experience itself, and repeat that experience on future occasions. Because this view takes its cue from
Timothy Sprigge’s discussion of pleasure in The Rational Foundations of Ethics (p.1987 131-136), I call it the
Spriggean theory.
In Chapter One of my dissertation, I show that the Spriggean theory avoids the most pressing
philosophical problems for existing philosophical theories of affect. For example, it avoids the worry for
experience-based theories that there is no experience common to all instances of pleasure.
In Chapter Two, I respond to an important objection to the Spriggean theory: the objection from
differences in taste. The Spriggean theory implies that, if two people differ in taste, then they differ with
respect to how their experiences feel. For example: I like the experiences I get from eating blue cheese,
whereas my partner does not. A natural thought is that whereas my experiences are pleasant; hers are not.
And if this natural thought is correct, then the Spriggean theory implies that my experiences feel different
than my partner’s experiences. This might appear to be an implausible implication. But I argue that, when
the relevant claim is disentangled from similar claims with which it is easily mistaken, it is not at all
implausible.

10

In Chapter Three, I show that the Spriggean theory dissolves an important dispute between
certain sorts of subjectivists and objectivists. Subjectivists hold that an experience can only be good or bad
for a subject who bears certain sorts of attitudes towards it. Objectivists hold that certain kinds of feelings
are necessarily good or bad for anyone who experiences them. The Spriggean theory accommodates both
views, by allowing that the relevant kinds of experience are necessarily such that anyone who experiences
them will bear certain attitudes towards them.
With the Spriggean theory at hand, I develop a normative theory regarding the role of affective
experience in well-being. I argue that a given event makes a (positive or negative) difference to how well
one’s life is going for one just in case one is properly aware of that event and takes pleasure or displeasure
in it. Suppose, for example, that I am taking pleasure in hiking, and I am properly aware of what I am
doing. It is not the case that knowing more about my hike would not significantly diminish the pleasure I
take in it. Then, on my view, it follows that my hike is good for me. The hike itself boosts my well-being,
over and above the boost I get from the pleasure I take in the hike. Thus, if I were to get the same pleasure
without going on a hike, then, (all else being equal) I would be worse-off. I call this view hedonic
satisfactionism. I argue that it resolves a number of puzzles in the philosophy of well-being.
In Chapter Four, I establish one of the puzzles which I later argue is resolved by hedonic
satisfactionism. The puzzle begins with the observation that some of our desires have asymmetrical
significance for well-being, in the following sense: having those desires and satisfying them increases our well-
being more or less than having those desires and frustrating them decreases our well-being. This raises the
question: which desires are asymmetrical, and why are they asymmetrical in the ways that they are? I give

11

a partial answer by arguing that desires’ normative significance is derived from two more fundamental
attitudes, one positive (“attraction”) and one negative (“aversion”).
In Chapter Five, I show how hedonic satisfactionism can resolve the puzzle posed in Chapter 4. I
argue that to be attracted to something is to be disposed by one’s pleasure to make it the case, and to be
averse to something is to be disposed by one’s displeasure to make it not the case. Thus, our desires are
relevant to well-being insofar as they involve taking pleasure and/or displeasure in something. Our desires
have asymmetrically positive significance for well-being insofar as they involve a greater balance of
pleasure over displeasure, and they have asymmetrically negative significance for well-being insofar as
they involve a greater balance of displeasure over pleasure.
As a bonus, the Spriggean theory and hedonic satisfactionism can jointly explain why pleasure
and displeasure themselves are good and bad for us, respectively. By the Spriggean theory, our pleasures
and displeasure necessarily promote and deter themselves, respectively. By hedonic satisfactionism,
states of affairs promoted and deterred by our pleasures and displeasures are good and bad for us,
respectively. \ So our pleasant and unpleasant experiences are always good and bad for us, respectively.
Whereas Chapter Five compares the virtues of hedonic satisfactionism with standard desire
satisfactionist views, Chapter Six explores how the view is related to classical hedonism. I show that hedonic
satisfactionism is a member of a genre of views I call explanatory hedonisms: views that retain the best
features of classical hedonism, while making significant concessions to the most powerful objections
against it. Unlike classical hedonism, explanatory hedonisms need not be troubled by the experience
machine argument, or to other arguments with a similar structure. But like classical hedonism,

12

explanatory hedonisms provide a unified theory of well-being: they entail that all facts about subjects’ well-
being are ultimately explained by facts about their experiences of pleasure and displeasure. Hedonic
satisfactionism is clearly a version of explanatory hedonism, but I show that there are other versions that
are not wedded to the Spriggean theory of pleasure defended in the first half of the dissertation. Thus,
there is still plenty of room to explore pleasure’s role in well-being.

13

Chapter One: What is Pleasure?
§1 Pleasure, Phenomenology, Attitude
Some experiences feel good. Examples include the experiences I have when I eat chocolate, listen
to 80s pop-rock, watch a Los Angeles sunset, or get a back massage. These and other experiences are
pleasurable. But in virtue of what are they pleasurable? What do all and only pleasurable experiences have
in common?
Philosophers have tended to gravitate towards two broad theories. The first of these is the
phenomenological theory. According to the phenomenological theory, each pleasurable experience is
pleasurable because of the way that it feels — its phenomenology, or “felt-quality”. The second theory is
the attitudinal theory. According to the attitudinal theory, each pleasurable experience is pleasurable
because the experiencer takes certain attitudes towards it. These two theories of pleasure are typically
framed as rivals. But we can aspire to get the best of both worlds. It could be that pleasure is partly a matter
of phenomenology, and partly a matter of attitudes. It could be that a hybrid theory is true.
In this paper, I aim to advance the cause of hybrid theories of pleasure. I will do this in two ways.
I will begin by examining the challenges which motivate the search for a hybrid theory. I call these the
HONEST challenges: Heterogeneity, Oppositeness, Normativity, Euthyphro, Separateness, and
Togetherness. The first three challenges — HON — are challenges for the phenomenological theory. The
second three challenges — EST — are challenges for the attitudinal theory. Our aim in pursuing a hybrid
theory is to draw upon the resources of the two theories, and thereby avoid challenges for both of them.
Having established the HONEST challenges, I will then describe and motivate a particular cluster of

14

hybrid theories which I will call dispositional hybrid theories. According to these theories, pleasurable
experiences are all and only those experiences which dispose us to desire them in virtue of feeling the way
that they do. (What exactly this means will become clearer in the course of the discussion.) These
dispositional theories deliver on the promise of hybrid theories: because they appeal to both
phenomenology and attitudes, they have the resources to avoid most, if not all, of the HONEST challenges.
§2 The Phenomenological Theory
We can formulate the phenomenological theory in terms of phenomenal properties, where
phenomenal properties type experiences by “what it’s like” to have those experiences them:
Phenomenological Theory: There is a non-empty set of phenomenal properties [P] such that
necessarily, for any experience e, e is a pleasure iff it instantiates a member of [P].
This definition captures the view that pleasure is a matter of phenomenology: an experience is pleasant if
and only if it has a certain phenomenological feel. Right now I am having a pleasant gustatory experience
from eating chocolate. If the phenomenological theory is true, the pleasantness of my experience is a
matter of its phenomenology. So if my friend has an experience with the same phenomenology — if her
experience is a phenomenal duplicate of my experience — then her experience will be pleasant, too.
This is intended as a minimal definition. It tells us that some phenomenal properties are
distinctive of pleasure, but it does not tell us what sorts of phenomenology have this special status. The
simplest theory is the pure monist theory, according to which [P] contains a single felt-quality: the felt-
quality of pure pleasure. So, if pure monism is true, then all pleasurable experiences feel exactly alike —
they are all experiences of pure pleasure. It's possible that G.E.Moore held this view (see (1993, p. 64-65)).

15

But no contemporary philosophers accept it. Contemporary felt-quality theorists hold that there are
multiple felt-qualities in [P]; they deny that all pleasures feel exactly alike.
Because they deny that all pleasures feel alike, the onus is on phenomenological theorists to say
what the felt-qualities in [P] have in common. According to Ben Bramble's distinctive feeling theory, the
phenomenal properties in [P] are alike in that they all "include" or "involve" a distinctive feeling of
pleasurableness (2013, p. 202).
2
Other phenomenological theorists hold that the phenomenal properties in
[P] do not share a distinctive feeling, but rather some sort of “higher-order” phenomenology. The idea is
often illustrated with an analogy. An experience of vivid green resembles an experience of vivid red, but
not in virtue of their sharing a particular special feeling of vividness. Rather, vividness is a higher-order
phenomenology common to both experiences of vivid red and experiences of vivid green. Similarly,
pleasurableness might be a higher-order feeling of pleasurable experiences. Several philosophers have
developed theories along these lines, including Shelly Kagan (1992, p. 192), Roger Crisp (2006, p. 109-110),
and Aaron Smuts (2011). Theories of this kind are often called hedonic tone theories (Bramble 2013, p. 202;
Heathwood 2007, p. 26).
The distinctive feeling theory and hedonic tone theory are the most well-known versions of the
phenomenological theory, and they are sometimes presented as if they are the only ways of cashing out
the idea that pleasure is a matter of phenomenology. (See for example Smuts 2011, p. 255; and Heathwood

2
The distinctive feeling theory is sometimes conflated with the pure monist theory. But these are different
theories. Ben Bramble clearly denies that all pleasurable experiences feel exactly alike (2013, p. 202). He affirms
that there is a distinctive feeling of pleasure, but he does not insist that pleasures are all and only instances of that
very feeling. Rather, he argues that all and only pleasures "include" or "involve" that feeling.

16

2007, p. 26.) But there are other versions of the phenomenological view, corresponding to other views
about what the phenomenal properties in [P] have in common. For example, the phenomenological
theorist might hold that the phenomenal properties in [P] are alike with respect to their associated
representational contents. Many philosophers have argued for broadly representationalist theories;
examples include David Bain (2013, p. 2018), Manolo Martínez (2011), and Brian Cutter and Michael Tye
(2011, p. 2014).
3
Alternatively, a phenomenological theorist might hold that the phenomenal properties in
[P] are alike with respect to their axiological properties. For example, one might hold that all and only
those overall phenomenal properties in [P] are such that they include or involve experience that are non-
instrumentally good due to how they feel. Stuart Rachels (2000, p. 198) and Roger Crisp (2006, p. 108-109)
consider a few theories of this kind. One might even adopt a particularist theory, according to which the
phenomenal properties in [P] are not alike with respect to any interesting properties — except, of course,
that they are all distinctive of pleasure.
4

With the minimal definition at hand, I will examine what I take to be the three most significant
challenges for the phenomenological theory: the Heterogeneity challenge, the Oppositeness challenge,
and the Normativity challenge. I will not assess whether those challenges succeed or fail, and I will not
explain in any detail how phenomenological theorists have responded to the challenges. I don't mean to

3
These representationalist theories are not generally classified as versions of the phenomenological theory, but it’s
not obvious why they are not so classified. David Bain is an exception — he recognizes that his preferred
representationalist theory is as much a "phenomenological theory" or "feeling theory" as are traditional
phenomenological theories (2017, p. 2). It is a theory on which pleasures are pleasurable virtue of their
phenomenology.
4
The particularist theory seems unsatisfying; it seems to be a radically disunified theory of pleasure. Still, it's worth
noting that the particularist theory is another theory in the logical space of phenomenological theories.

17

imply that phenomenological theorists have not responded, or that the responses they have given are not
worthy of consideration. Rather, I do not address the responses because doing so would take me beyond
the goals of this discussion. I am examining the HONEST challenges in order to motivate the search for a
hybrid theory. We need to have the HONEST challenges at hand before we see how a hybrid theory might
avoid them.
§2.1 Heterogeneity
Many philosophers have argued that there is no phenomenology which is common to every
occasion on which we feel pleasure. This poses a problem for any version of the phenomenological theory
which entails that there should be some such phenomenology.
Henry Sidgwick is widely cited as the first philosopher to raise the Heterogeneity challenge.
Sidgwick considers the theory that pleasure is an indefinable quality of experience, like sweetness, which
is common to all pleasurable experiences. And Sidgwick claims that there is no such common quality. He
tells us:
...when I reflect on the notion of pleasure, — using the term in the comprehensive sense
which I have adopted, to include the most refined and subtle intellectual and emotional
gratifications, no less than the coarser and more definite sensual enjoyments, — the only
common quality that I can find in the feelings so designated seems to be that relation to
desire and volition expressed by the general term 'desirable', (1981, p. 127).
Many contemporary philosophers — including many attitudinal theorists — have made more or less the
same point. See for example Richard Brandt (1979, p. 37-38), Fred Feldman (1988, p. 60), David Sobel (2002,

18

p. 241), and Chris Heathwood (2007, p. 25-26). The challenge is clear enough: introspection suggests that
pleasures are phenomenologically heterogenous. Taken at face value, this challenge poses a serious
problem for any version of the phenomenological theory which implies that pleasures are
phenomenologically homogenous. That includes the two most prominent versions of the
phenomenological theory: the distinctive feeling theory, and the hedonic tone theory.
§2.2 Oppositeness
The second challenge to the phenomenological theory concerns the relationship between pleasure
and displeasure, where "displeasure" is a term covering all and only unpleasant or unpleasurable
experiences: aches, burns, stings, itches, and the like.
5
If we accept the phenomenological theory of
pleasure, then we should accept a corresponding theory of displeasure. We should say that some
phenomenal properties go hand in hand with pleasure, and other phenomenal properties go hand in hand
with displeasure. And we should acknowledge that there is some obvious sense in which pleasure is the
opposite of displeasure.
Chris Heathwood, an attitudinal theorist, argues that phenomenological theorists cannot make
sense of the idea that pleasure and displeasure are opposites. Heathwood tells us:

5
We often talk as if pain is the opposite of pleasure, but that's not quite right. “Pleasure" can be used as a synonym
for "pleasurable experience". But "pain" is not a synonym for "unpleasurable experience". There are unpleasurable
experiences which are not painful; for example: nausea, itchiness, and vertigo. So "pleasure" picks out a broader
category of experience than does "pain". For more on the relationship between displeasure, pleasure, and pain, see
Rachels 2004.

19

The Felt-Quality Theory of pleasure and pain
6
described above would leave it mysterious
why, and in what sense, pleasure and pain are opposites. Many pairs of felt qualities (e.g.,
a sensation of middle C on a piano and a sensation of F# on a banjo) are in no way
opposites. But if the phenomenological theory is true, then some such pairs are opposites.
How could that be? What could make one sensation the opposite of another sensation?
(2007, p. 27).
Heathwood seems to be suggesting the following argument. On reflection, phenomenology does not seem
like the sort of category that includes opposite pairs. In this respect phenomenology seems unlike the
numerical (which includes positive and negative numbers) or the attitudinal (which includes such pairs as
desiring p and desiring ~p). But pleasure and displeasure are obviously opposites in some important sense.
So if the phenomenological theorist understands pleasure and displeasure terms of phenomenology, then
they are missing something obvious and important about pleasure and displeasure.
Taken at face value, this challenge poses a serious problem for the phenomenological theory. It is
difficult to deny that pleasure and displeasure are in an important sense opposites. But if Heathwood is
correct, then the phenomenological theorist must deny this.
§2.3 Normativity
The third challenge to the phenomenological theory concerns the special normative status of
pleasure. It is plausible that pleasure bears a necessary connection to well-being: necessarily, whenever

6
Ultimately, Heathwood is concerned with phenomenological theories of displeasure, not pain (2007, p. 41-43). He
takes displeasure, not pain, to be the opposite of pleasure. His reasons mirror my own — see n.4.

20

you have a pleasurable experience, you also enjoy an increase in well-being.
7
But, according to some
attitudinal theorists, the phenomenological theorist cannot explain this necessary connection. For
suppose that the phenomenological theory is true, and that the experience I get from eating chocolate is
pleasant. Then anyone having the same phenomenal experience would also be experiencing pleasure. But
it seems easy to imagine a person who is utterly indifferent to the taste of chocolate, and is therefore
disinterested in that phenomenal experience. It would be strange to insist that this person is made better-
off by those experiences. So it seems that, if the phenomenological theory is true, then not everyone is
made better-off when they experience pleasure.
William Austin seems to have been the first to make this point:
What we are suggesting to be necessarily true is (P) the fact that one gets pleasure out of
x is a reason for doing or seeking x... The conscious-quality theory can throw no light on
this necessity. If pleasure is an unanalyzable quality of experience, there is nothing about
the meanings of the terms involved in (P) that would make it necessarily true. Why should
it be necessarily true that a certain unanalyzable quality of experience is something to be
sought? (1967, p. 346)

7
The claim that all pleasures make you better-off is consistent with the claim that some pleasures also make you
worse-off. Perhaps you do not deserve to feel pleasure, and you are made worse-off to the extent that you get
something you do not deserve. In that case, it your pleasure might make you both better- and worse-off. It makes
you better-off because it is pleasurable, and it makes you worse-off because it is underserved. So even if we claim
that some pleasures make you worse-off, we could also claim that all pleasure make you better-off. See Irwin
Goldstein, 2005, 23-27.

21

Austin formulates the challenge in terms of reasons, rather than well-being, but it’s clear that his challenge
has implications for well-being. If pleasure is not “something to be sought”, then presumably it is not
something that necessarily makes us better-off.
More recently, Chris Heathwood and David Sobel also made more or less the same argument
(2011, p. 94; 2005, p. 445-446). The basic idea is the same in each case. If the phenomenological theory is
true, then some creatures might be indifferent to their pleasures. Intuitively, then, those creatures are
not benefited by their pleasures — for them, pleasure is not “something to be sought.” So, on the
phenomenological theory, pleasure does not bear a necessary connection to well-being. Taken at face
value, this challenge poses a serious problem for phenomenological theorists. It is plausible — though not
entirely uncontroversial — that pleasures necessarily make us better-off. But if the above arguments are
sound, then phenomenological theorists must deny this.
§2.4 HON
To sum up: the phenomenological theory faces three prima facie serious challenges. This is not to
say that the theory is hopeless. Phenomenological theorists have responded to the Heterogeneity,
Oppositeness, and Normativity challenges. They have responded to the Heterogeneity challenge by
arguing that pleasures really do feel alike, despite our intuitions to the contrary (Crisp 2006, p. 109-110;
Smuts 2011, p. 256-257; Bramble 2013, p. 209-211). They have addressed the Oppositeness challenge by
developing views on which pleasure and displeasure are clear opposites (Klocksiem 2010; Moen 2013).
And they have responded to the Normativity challenge, by arguing we have reasons to pursue pleasure
even if we are indifferent to it (Goldstein 1980; Rachels 2000, p. 201; and Bramble 2013, p. 213-214). So

22

phenomenological theorists have things to say about the HON challenges. Still, it’s clear that the HON
challenges do require responses from phenomenological theorists.
In contrast, the HON challenges do not even arise for attitudinal theorists. The attitudinal
theory does not face a Heterogeneity challenge, because it does not imply that all pleasures feel alike. It
does not face an Oppositeness challenge, because attitudes — unlike phenomenal properties — have
clear opposites. (The opposite of desiring that p is desiring that not-p, for example.) Finally, the
attitudinal theory does not face a Normativity challenge, because it does not imply that creatures can be
indifferent to their pleasures. So the HON challenges are not challenges for the attitudinal theory. But as
we will see, the attitudinal theory faces challenges of its own.
§3 The Attitudinal Theory
According to the attitudinal theory, each pleasure is pleasurable — for a subject — because that subject
bears certain pro-attitudes towards that experience. There are some pro-attitudes such that, necessarily,
a subject is experiencing pleasure iff that subject bears one of those attitudes towards one or more of their
experiences. This is enough for a first pass.
Attitudinal Theory: There is a non-empty set of attitudes [A] such that necessarily, for any
experience e of a subject s, e is a pleasure iff s bears an attitude towards e which is a member of
[A].
When I get pleasure from eating chocolate, this is because of the attitudes I bear towards some experience
I have while eating chocolate. For our purposes, we do not need to identify which experience that is. From
the fact that I bear the attitude towards any experience, it follows that I am experiencing pleasure.

23

Different versions of the attitudinal theory correspond to different theories about [A]. For
example, Fred Feldman appeals to a sui generis pro-attitude which he calls "attitudinal pleasure" (1988, p.
2004). On Feldman's theory, [A] is the singleton set of attitudinal pleasure. Derek Parfit appeals to a sui
generis pro-attitude which he calls "hedonic liking" (2011, p. 52-53). On Parfit's theory, [A] is the singleton
set of hedonic liking. The most popular version of the attitudinal theory is the desire theory, according to
which [A] contains a certain species of desire. The desire theory has been defended by William Alston
(1967), and Thomas Carson (2000), and Chris Heathwood (2007), among others. Heathwood provides an
especially sophisticated version of the theory. He tells us that “...a sensation S, occurring at time t, is a
sensory pleasure at t iff the subject of S desires, intrinsically and de re, at t, of S, that it be occurring at t”
(2007, p. 32).
It will be helpful to linger over Heathwood’s theory for a moment, since I will return to it later.
Here's what Heathwood's theory has to say about the occasion on which I eat delicious chocolate. I am
directly acquainted with some experience that I am having. Second, I contemporaneously desire it. Third,
my desire is de re: it is directly about the experience with which I am acquainted. Finally, my desire is
“intrinsic” in the sense of being non-instrumental: I desire the experience “for its own sake”. I am getting
pleasure because I bear this attitude towards some experience that I am having (2007, p. 32).
8

Heathwood's desire theory, like Feldman's and Parfit's theories, is a theory on which [A] is a singleton set

8
This is a somewhat loose way of talking. Strictly speaking, on Heathwood's theory, the object of my desire is not
the experience as such. Rather, I desire of the experience that it be occurring. For the sake of readability — and following
Heathwood — I will continue to talk in a loose way about desiring experiences. This should be understood as a
shorthand for talking about desiring that certain experiences be occurring.

24

— [A] contains one special species of desire, and nothing else. It's worth noting, however, that one might
accept a pluralist attitudinal theory: one might hold that [A] contains multiple kinds of attitudes.
Disagreements about the contents of [A] are the most obvious disagreements among attitudinal
theorists. But attitudinal theorists might also disagree about the attitudes themselves. For example,
proponents of desire theories agree that [A] contains desire, but they might disagree about the nature of
desire. There are, after all, many possible theories. Some philosophers opt for an Aristotelian "guise of the
good" theory
9
(Stampe 1987, p. 359-362; Oddie 2005, chap.3). Others opt for an attention-based theory
(Scanlon 1998, p.38-42; Schroeder 2007, chap.8). Still others opt for various teleological and functionalist
theories (Papineau 1984, p.562-565; Millikan 2005, p.171-173). These different theories of desire yield
different versions of the desire theory.
The minimal definition of the attitudinal theory is neutral between the various versions of the
theory. With the minimal definition at hand, I will examine what I take to be the three most significant
challenges for the attitudinal theory: the Euthyphro challenge, the Separateness challenge, and the
Togetherness challenge. Again, I will not assess whether those challenges succeed or fail, nor will not
address how attitudinal theorists have responded to the challenges. My goal is to get the challenges on the
table, so that we can begin exploring hybrid theories with an eye to avoiding them.

9
Jessica Moss provides a helpful exploration of Aristotle’s views on desire and the so-called guise of the good. See
Moss 2010.

25

§3.1 Euthyphro
On the attitudinal theory, it’s a necessary truth that we bear certain attitudes towards our
pleasures. The first challenge for the theory arises when we consider a Euthyphro-style question: do we
bear those attitudes towards our pleasures because they are pleasurable, or are they pleasures because we
bear those attitudes towards them?
For ease of discussion, I will henceforth adopt Heathwood's version of the desire theory.
Whenever I talk about “desires”, the desires I have in mind are the special sorts of desires described by
Heathwood: contemporaneous, de re, non-instrumental desires. Using Heathwood's theory as a proxy for
attitudinal theories generally, we can ask our Euthyphro question. Do we desire pleasures because those
experiences are pleasurable, or are those experiences pleasurable because we desire them? Let e(C) be a
particular pleasurable experience — the experience I had yesterday when I took a bite of chocolate.
Answering the Euthyphro question means accepting one — but not both — of the following explanations:
(E1): I desire that I have e(C) because e(C) is pleasurable.
(E2): e(C) is pleasurable because I desire that I have e(C).
It seems clear enough that one cannot accept both E1 and E2. If I say that my experience is pleasurable
because I desire it, then I cannot say that I desire it because it is pleasurable.
The trouble for the attitudinal theorist is that she is committed to E2, and therefore cannot accept
E1. And this is a bad result, because E1 is quite plausible. As Aaron Smuts tells us:
Although pleasure is surely not the sole motivation for pursuing artworks or anything
else, it would be strange to say that it plays no role whatsoever. But this is what the

26

motivational theory of pleasure forces us to say. The theory holds that what makes
something pleasurable is that we desire it, not the other way around. This is odd. Surely
the reason we desire a massage is that it is pleasurable. The motivational theory of
pleasure gets the order of explanation backwards. (Smuts 2011, 9)
Taken at face value, this Euthyphro challenge poses a serious problem for attitudinal theorists. Intuitively,
we desire pleasures because those experiences are pleasurable. The attitudinal theorist would seem to
have to deny this.
§3.2 Separateness
The second challenge to the attitudinal theory consists of purported counterexamples to the
theory. On the attitudinal theory, there are some attitudes such that all pleasurable experiences are
objects of those attitudes. On Heathwood’s desire theory, for example, all pleasurable experiences are
objects of desire. But, according to some philosophers, pleasure can be separated from desire (or from
any other pro-attitude). There are experiences which are desired, but which are not pleasures. And there
are experiences which are pleasures, but which are not desired.
Start with the first kind of case: cases in which one desires an experience e, but e is not
pleasurable. Aaron Smuts purports to describe a case of this kind. In his example, he describes watching
a tragic episode of Scenes from a Marriage:
I would not describe my experience of this episode as in any way pleasurable, but I find it to be
one of the most effective affair fictions ever created. Indeed, pardon my gushing, it contains some of the
most powerful moments in cinematic history. I would recommend it to others, largely for the

27

experience. But it is not pleasurable. [...] I desire the overall sad experience while it is occurring. I am
not merely retrospectively glad to have undergone the emotional turmoil. At several moments along the
way, if you stopped the movie and asked me what I think, through a mist of tears, I would say that it is
terrific and absolutely crushing. (2011, 7)
Roger Crisp describes another case with a similar structure (Crisp 2006, p.107). If Smuts and
Crisp are describing real possible cases, then those cases are counterexamples to the attitudinal theory.
Stuart Rachels and Ben Bramble purport to offer counterexamples of the second kind: cases in
which a subject does not desire an experience e, but e is nevertheless pleasurable. Bramble and Rachels
argue that we can experience pleasure without being aware of the pleasurable experience. And they
argue that, insofar as one is unaware of one's pleasurable experience, it is implausible that one bears any
sort of pro-attitude towards it. Bramble puts the point particularly forcefully:
At any given time, there are likely hundreds or even thousands of respects in which our
experiences are subtly pleasurable. We are getting pleasures from the visual perception of colours, light,
depth, the size of things, the shape of things, symmetries and asymmetries in our environment, and so
on and so forth.
[...]
Is it really plausible that unconsciously we have a crystal clear understanding of all these various
feelings we are having — that every one of them is known to us in all its detail or complexity — and that
we are holding court unconsciously on the lot of them, simultaneously rendering hundreds of individual
judgments concerning whether we want these to be occurring? This just seems like a fantasy. (2013, 206)

28

Stuart Rachels describes another case with a similar structure (2004, p.15). Again, if Bramble
and Rachels are describing real possible cases, then those cases are counterexamples to the attitudinal
theory. If there are any cases in which pleasure is separated from desiring (or from whichever attitude
features in the attitudinal theory) then the attitudinal theory is false. So, taken at face value, the
Separation challenge poses a serious problem for attitudinal theorists.
§3.3 Togetherness
The Separateness challenge arises because, prima facie, pleasure can come apart from desiring (or from
any other pro-attitude). The Togetherness challenge arises because, prima facie, pleasure cannot come
apart from certain phenomenal properties. Some kinds of experiences seem to be necessarily pleasurable.
The experiences seem to be inextricably bound together with pleasurableness.
Attitudinal theorists are prima facie committed to denying this. On the attitudinal theory, whether
or not a given experience is pleasurable or unpleasurable depends upon the attitudes we take towards that
experience. So, an experience with any phenomenal feel might be pleasurable, unpleasurable, or
affectively neutral. This result has seemed implausible to some phenomenological theorists. For example,
Ben Bramble notes that:
Attitude-based theories entail that there is always some affectively neutral (i.e., neither
pleasurable nor unpleasurable) bit of phenomenology that forms the "base" of every
pleasure — i.e., a bit of phenomenology that we take up our attitude to in the first place.
But this seems false. Consider, for example, a pleasurable experience of euphoria, or one
of "just plain feeling good”, or the pleasures of orgasm, and so on. What is the affectively

29

neutral base in these pleasurable experiences supposed to be? What part of their
phenomenology could be had without its being a pleasure? I find it hard to imagine. These
pleasures seem to be just pure pleasurableness. (2018, 3)
Here is a different way to express Bramble’s point. Consider a moment in your life in which you felt an
extremely pleasurable experience. Could you feel that way again — that is, have an experience with the
same total phenomenology — without feeling pleasure? Prima facie, this seems difficult to imagine.
Pleasurableness seems to be bound up with the way the experience feels. The feeling itself is not
“affectively neutral.”
This point is more often made in connection with displeasure, or pain.
10
Consider a moment in
your life in which you had an intensely unpleasant experience. Suppose you were to feel that way again,
right now. Could that experience fail to be unpleasant? Again, it seems difficult to imagine.
Unpleasantness seems to be bound up with the way the experience feels. Indeed, even Heathwood
acknowledges the force of this intuition. He writes:
Imagine the feeling of stepping barefoot on a tack. Isn't it just part of the very nature of
that feeling that it is painful? It can seem incredible to suppose that this feeling qualifies
as painful only due to the attitude that we happen to take up towards it. (2007)
It seems to be part of the nature of some experiences that they are pleasurable or unpleasant. Taken at
face value, this is a serious problem for attitudinal theorists. The attitudinal theory suggests that the

10
See for example Irwin Goldstein 1989 (p. 261), 1980 (p. 351), Guy Kahane (p. 333-334) and especially Stuart Rachels
2004.

30

relationship between phenomenal properties and pleasure is contingent. Any kind of experience — from
the feeling of orgasm to the feeling of being burned alive — might be pleasurable, unpleasurable, or
neutral.
§3.4 EST
To sum up: attitude theories face three prima facie serious challenges. Of course, that does not
mean the theory is hopeless. Attitudinal theorists have responded to the Euthyphro, Separateness, and
Togetherness challenges. They have responded to the Euthyphro challenge by arguing that we do not in
fact take up pro-attitudes towards pleasures because they are independently pleasurable (Heathwood
2007, p.38-39; Parfit 2011, p.53). They have responded to the Separateness challenge by arguing that we
never fail to bear the relevant pro-attitudes towards pleasures, and we never bear the relevant pro-
attitudes towards non-pleasures (Heathwood 2018; Feldman 2018).
11
They have tended to consider the
Togetherness challenge in connection with displeasure, rather than pleasure. Attitudinal theorists have
argued that, despite our intuitions to the contrary, experiences which feel just like unpleasant pains might
fail to be unpleasant (Hall 1989). So attitudinal theorists have things to say in response to the EST
challenges. Still, these are serious challenges which require responses from attitudinal theorists.
In contrast, the EST challenges do not even arise for phenomenological theorists. The
phenomenological theory does not face a Euthyphro challenge, because it does not imply that pleasures
are pleasurable in virtue of the attitudes we bear towards them. The phenomenological theorist has no

11
These arguments involve some refinements of Heathwood's theory as I have described it. But these refinements
don't matter much for our purposes. So I'll continue to use contemporaneous de re non-instrumental desire as a
proxy for whichever attitude is implicated in the best version of the attitudinal theory.

31

special reason to deny we desire pleasures in part because they are pleasurable. The phenomenological
theory does not face a Separateness challenge, because the theory does not imply that we bear certain pro-
attitudes towards all and only pleasures. And it does not face a Togetherness challenge, because it allows
— indeed it entails — that there are necessary connections between certain phenomenal properties and
pleasure.
§4 Hybrid Theories
I have not claimed, nor do I believe, that the HONEST challenges are all equally forceful.
12
But I’m
taking the challenges at face value. I’m granting that the HON challenges pose serious prima facie problems
for the phenomenological theory, and I’m granting that the EST challenges pose serious prima facie
problems for the attitude theory. We have seen that the HON challenges are avoided by the attitude
theory, and the EST challenges are avoided by the phenomenological theory. In light of these results, it's
natural to go looking for a hybrid theory. By developing a hybrid theory, we can aspire to replicate the
successes of both the phenomenological theory and the attitudinal theory.
We can start by simply pairing versions of the phenomenological theory with versions of the
attitudinal theory. For example, we can pair Ben Bramble's distinctive feeling theory with Chris
Heathwood's desire theory. One hybrid theory is simply the conjunction of those two theories:

12
For what it's worth, I rank the forcefulness of the six challenges as follows, from most forceful to least forceful: (1)
Heterogeneity, (2) Togetherness, (3) Normativity, (4) Euthyphro, (5) Separateness, (6) Oppositeness. Taken
together, I consider the challenges for phenomenological theories to be about as forceful as the challenges for
attitudinal theories.

32

Simple Conjunctive Theory: Necessarily, for any subject s, s experiences pleasure iff s
experiences the distinctive feeling of pleasure and desires that experience.
13

This conjunctive theory avoids the Normativity challenge, and it at least mitigates the Euthyphro
challenge.
14
This is already a promising result: we are avoiding one challenge for the phenomenological
theory, and one challenge for the attitudinal theory. But the simple conjunctive theory does not avoid a
HOST of other challenges. It does not yield any easy answers to the Heterogeneity, Oppositeness,
15

Separateness, or Togetherness challenges. So if you accept the conjunctive theory, you'll have to go outside
the theory to address those four challenges. Put another way: the composite theory comes with four extra-
theoretic commitments.
You might be happy to take on those four extra-theoretic commitments. You might think that you
can give a satisfactory answer to each of those challenges, even if your theory of pleasure does not yield

13
Shelly Kagan sketches a view along these lines, although he appeals to a hedonic tone theory, rather than a
distinctive feeling theory (1992, 173-174). Furthermore, David Sobel attributes something like this theory to T.M.
Scanlon. See Sobel 2005, 448-449.
14
The conjunctive theory entails E2; it entails that the fact that my chocolate-experience e(C) is a pleasure for me
because I desire e(C). So, if we accept the conjunctive theory, we cannot accept E1. We cannot accept that I desire
e(C) for the reason that e(C) is pleasurable. However, conjunctive theorists can say something very much in the
ballpark of E1. They can say that I desire e(C) for the reason that it involves the distinctive feeling of pleasure.
15
There is some room to debate whether or not the conjunctive theory avoids the Oppositeness challenge. One
might claim that it does avoid the Oppositeness challenge, on the grounds that — according to the conjunctive
theory — pleasure and displeasure essentially involve attitudes which are opposites of each other. But I do not
think it is so easy for the conjunctive theory to escape the Oppositeness challenge. The theory posits that there are
distinctive feelings of pleasure and displeasure. Proponents of the theory ought to explain the sense in which these
feelings are opposites. In this respect, they are in the same position as proponents of the distinctive feeling theory of
pleasure. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for raising this point.

33

any easy answers. Otherwise, you should try a different theory. For example, you might try a disjunctive
theory:
Simple Disjunctive Theory: Necessarily, for any subject s, s experiences pleasure iff s
experiences the distinctive feeling of pleasure or desires one of their experiences.
The disjunctive theory, like the conjunctive theory, avoids some of the challenges for both
phenomenological theories and attitudinal theories. It avoids the Heterogeneity challenge, and it at least
mitigates the Separateness challenge.
16
But it does not avoid the ONET challenges: it does not avoid
Oppositeness, Normativity, Euthyphro, or Togetherness. So the disjunctive theory, like the conjunctive
theory, comes with four extra-theoretic commitments.
The simple conjunctive and disjunctive theory provide an illustrative starting point for thinking
about hybrid theories. They both avoid or mitigate challenges facing the phenomenological theory and the
attitudinal theory. Even so, they leave a lot to be desired. Neither theory avoids more of the HONEST
challenges than either the phenomenological theory or the attitudinal theory. And both of the theories are
inelegant; they’re both the result of simply slapping together two theories of pleasure.
We can begin to develop more sophisticated hybrid theories by considering the relationship
between our attitudes and phenomenology. If there is some characteristic relationship between our
attitudes and the phenomenology of our pleasures, then we might leverage that relationship to build a

16
The disjunctive theory does not allow that there be experiences which are desired, but which are not pleasures. It
does allow that there be experiences which are pleasures, but which are not desired.

34

hybrid theory. In this way, we could develop a theory which implicates both phenomenal properties and
attitudes, but without simply slapping together a phenomenological theory and an attitudinal theory.
In recent years, a few philosophers have gone in for this approach. And they have tended to
converge on something like the following idea. There is some pro-attitude which is implicated in the
nature of pleasure, and it feels like something to have that attitude. So, whenever we take the relevant
attitude towards an experience, our overall experience includes the phenomenological aspect of the
attitude. Versions of this general idea have been developed by Guy Kahane (2009, 2016), Murat Aydede
(2018), and Eden Lin (2018). On this view, there is a very close relationship between our attitudes and the
phenomenology of our pleasures: our pleasures are partly constituted by the feeling of a certain favorable
attitude. Lin develops this idea into a hybrid theory of pleasure, though he does not ultimately endorse it.
Here’s how he describes the theory:
There is a kind of favorable attitude, A, that is partly constituted by a certain
phenomenology, P. An attitudinal pleasure is an experience consisting, at least in part, of
your tokening A toward a state of affairs. A sensory pleasure is an experience constituted
by (i) an attitudinal pleasure whose object is an obtaining state of affairs consisting of your
presently experiencing a particular sensation, S, and (ii) sensation S. (2018, 13)
Call this the composite theory.
The composite theory is similar to the simple conjunctive theory, but there are a few differences.
Whereas the simple conjunctive theory implicates a distinctive feeling of pleasure, the composite theory
implicates P, a “certain phenomenology” which partly constitutes the attitude A. We might say that

35

whereas the simple conjunctive theory implicates a distinctive feeling of pleasure, the composite theory
implicates a distinctive feeling of A. The composite theory also differs from the simple conjunctive theory in
that the attitude implicated in the composite theory is not directed at a pleasurable experience. Instead,
the attitude A is directed at a part of a pleasurable experience. It’s directed at S, rather than the composite
pleasure which consists of both S and P.
Despite these differences, it’s not clear that the composite theory fares any better than the simple
composite theory with respect to the HONEST challenges. We have seen that the simple composite theory
faces the HOST challenges. The composite theory seems to face those challenges as well. As far as the
Heterogeneity and Oppositeness challenges go, it’s not clear that a distinctive feeling of A is an
improvement over a distinctive feeling of pleasure.
17
The Separateness challenge also seems to arise for the
composite theory, because the theory predicts that pleasure never comes apart from A. So the familiar
counterexamples arise, according to which there could be pleasure without A, or A without pleasure.
Lastly, the Togetherness challenge also seems to arise for the composite theory. Notice that one’s
experiencing P is not sufficient for one’s experiencing pleasure, because the attitude A is necessary for

17
Eden Lin addresses the Heterogeneity challenge at some length. He grants that an experience of eating salty
peanuts feels nothing like an experience of sunbathing. But he denies that those experiences are pleasures.
Instead, on the composite theory, those experiences are partly constitutive of pleasures. The peanut-experience
partly constitutes a peanut-pleasure; the sunbathing-experience partly constitutes a sunbathing-pleasure. And
those pleasures do feel alike. Speaking for myself, I am not sure how to take Lin's proposal. Setting aside theory for
a moment: I know what it's like to eat peanuts, and I know what it's like to sunbathe. Those experiences are
pleasurable, and they seem to feel nothing alike. So it seems to me that the composite theory is on a par with the
distinctive feeling theory. According to the distinctive feeling theory, there is a distinctive feeling of pleasure which
partly constitutes all pleasures. On the composite theory, there is a distinctive attitudinal feeling which partly
constitutes all pleasures. I don't see why a distinctive attitudinal feeling should be any less problematic than a
distinctive feeling of pleasure. So it's not clear to me how Lin's proposal addresses the Heterogeneity challenge.

36

pleasure and P only partly constitutes A. So the theory seems to predict that no phenomenal properties are
necessarily connected with pleasure. The composite theory, like the simple conjunctive theory, does not
yield any easy answers to the HOST challenges.
Nevertheless, I think that the composite theory is on the right track. In developing a hybrid
theory, we ought to be focusing on the relationships between our attitudes and the phenomenal properties
of our pleasures. The trouble with the composite theory is that it’s focused on the wrong relationship. In
the next section, I will develop a few theories which are focused on a different relationship: a reflexive-
dispositional relationship. When we feel pleasure, the pleasant experience disposes us to try to get more of
the same or similar experience. And pleasures dispose us in this way because of the way that they feel. This
relationship can be leveraged into a hybrid theory of pleasure which avoids many or all of the HONEST
challenges.
§5 Dispositional Theories
Think about what happens when you take a bite of chocolate, or some other delicious food.
Speaking for myself: the experience moves me to try to get more. I try to get the experience for its own
sake, and I try to get more of that experience while I am having it. It seems easy to explain why I am moved
in this way. It disposes me as it does because it feels the way that it does: it’s creamy, sugary, and so on.
Precisifying somewhat, we can say that I have a certain disposition vis a vis the experience e(C): the
experience disposes me to try to continue having the same and similar (phenomenal) kinds of experience,
and to repeat those kinds of experience on future occasions.

37

Many other kinds of experiences dispose me in the same way. Other examples include the kinds
of experiences I have when I listen to 80s pop-rock, watch a Los Angeles sunset, or get a back massage —
in short, the kinds of experiences I would ordinarily describe as “pleasurable”. These experiences "promote
themselves”, in the following sense:
“Promote”: An experience e of a subject s promotes a given state of affairs iff e disposes s to
try to make it the case that the state of affairs obtains for its own sake.
“Self-Promoting”: An experience e of a subject s is self-promoting iff it promotes a state of
affairs of s having an experience with the same or similar phenomenology as e.
This suggests a theory of pleasure — call it the dispositional theory:
Dispositional Theory: An experience is pleasant iff it is self-promoting.
The dispositional theory appeals to the phenomenology of our experiences, but it can also be
understood as a version of the attitudinal theory, with the relevant attitude understood in experiential-
dispositional terms. According to the theory, we sometimes have experiences which dispose us to try to
bring about and continue certain states of affairs. These experiences can be understood as instances of a
particular attitude: call it experiential liking. A given instance of experiential liking is directed at the states
of affairs that it disposes the experiencer to try to continue and repeat for their own sakes (that is, not for
the sake of bringing about some further state of affairs). And, according to the dispositional theory,
pleasures are instances of experiential liking which are directed at themselves. Pleasures are all and only the
objects of reflexive experiential liking.

38

We can test the dispositional theory by seeing how it fares with respect to the HONEST challenges.
The results are fairly promising. The Heterogeneity challenge doesn’t arise, because the dispositional
theory does not imply that all pleasures feel alike. The Oppositeness challenge can be addressed in the
same way that the desire theory addresses it, in terms of attitudes’ opposites. (The opposite of trying to
continue and repeat a certain kind of experience is trying to end and prevent a kind of experience.) The
Normativity challenge does not arise, because the dispositional theory does not allow for creatures to be
indifferent to their pleasures. Necessarily, if a creature is experiencing a pleasure, then it is robustly
disposed to promote that experience. The Separateness challenge is at least mitigated, because the
dispositional theory allows that the disposition can fail to manifest. For any number of reasons, we might
fail to try to continue or repeat a given pleasant experience. The theory also allows that we can promote
non-pleasures.
18

The Euthyphro challenge is a less clear case for the dispositional theory. Remember that the
Euthyphro challenge is a challenge for theories which imply E2:
(E2): e(C) is pleasurable because I desire e(C).
The challenge arises because if one accepts E2, then one must reject E1:

18
One might worry that the dispositional theory gets the wrong results in some of the Separateness cases. Recall
Aaron Smuts’ case, in which he watches Two Scenes from a Marriage. Smuts finds the experience crushing — and not
at all pleasurable — but he intrinsically desires it. Presumably, he is robustly disposed to react to the movie in this
way. Doesn’t the dispositional theory entail — erroneously — that his experience is pleasant? I don’t think so.
Smuts might be disposed to desire the experiences he gets from watching Two Scenes from a Marriage, but he is not
disposed to desire experiences of crushing sadness. He desires those experiences only in very specific
circumstances: when he is watching a film and is poised for aesthetic appreciation. Thanks to an anonymous
reviewer for raising this point.

39

(E1): I desire that I have e(C) because e(C) is pleasurable.
And this is a prima facie bad result, since E1 is independently plausible. If we accept the dispositional
theory, we get the same bad result. The dispositional theory does not imply E2, but it does imply E2
D
:
(E2
D
): e(C) is pleasurable because it disposes me to try to continue and repeat e(C).
And it seems that if we accept E2
D
, we cannot accept E1
D
:
(E1
D
): I am disposed to try to continue and repeat e(C) because it is pleasurable.
Perhaps things are not as they seem, and one can accept both E2
D
and E1
D
. But for present purposes, it’s
enough to note that friends of the dispositional theory will have to say something about the Euthyphro
challenge. Their theory does not avoid it.
Finally, we come to the Togetherness challenge. The dispositional theory certainly does not avoid
that challenge. It does not rule out that any given experience might dispose the subject of that experience
to continue and repeat that (phenomenal) kind of experience. For all that the dispositional theory tells us,
the connections between our dispositions and phenomenology may be wholly contingent. If so, then any
sort of experience — from the feeling of orgasm to the feeling of a third-degree burn — might be
pleasurable, unpleasurable, or affectively neutral.
To sum up: the dispositional theory avoids four out of six of the HONEST challenges. It avoids the
HONS challenges, but not the ET challenges. These are fairly promising results — none of the other
theories we’ve considered thus far have avoided as many as four HONEST challenges. But it’s also
somewhat disappointing. Four out of six isn’t bad, but we might have hoped for more. Thankfully, we can
still aspire to more. We can adjust the dispositional theory so as to avoid more of the HONEST challenges.

40

To avoid the ET challenges, we can appeal to a necessary relationship between our attitudes and
the phenomenal properties of our pleasures. Then we arrive at a stronger version of the dispositional
theory, one which I will call the necessitation theory:
Necessitation Theory: There is a non-empty set of phenomenal properties [P*] such that
necessarily, if an experience e has one of those properties, then e is self-promoting. Necessarily,
for any experience e, e is a pleasure iff it instantiates a member of [P*].
If the necessitation theory is true, then phenomenology bears a necessary connection to our dispositions.
My pleasant experience of eating chocolate is self-promoting — it disposes me to try to continue and
repeat the same or similar experiences — and therefore any experience with the same phenomenology as
my chocolate-experience will also be self-promoting. Necessarily, if a subject has an experience which
feels like that, then it will also be self-promoting for them. They, too, will share my disposition to try to
continue and repeat the same or similar experiences whenever they have it. The necessitation theory is
closely related to the theory of pleasure described by Thomas Sprigge. On Sprigge's view, pleasurable
experiences are pleasurable because they feel the way that they do. But Sprigge urges that we “not be afraid
of the idea that pleasures and pains are of their very nature liable to affect behavior in certain directions”
(1987, 131-132).
To see that the necessitation theory avoids the Togetherness challenge, notice that the theory is
actually a version of the phenomenological theory, in addition to being a version of the attitudinal theory.
It tells us that there is a set of phenomenal properties [P] such that an experience is pleasurable just in case
it has one of those phenomenal properties. According to the necessitation theory, [P] is the set of

41

phenomenal properties such that necessarily experiences with those properties dispose the subject of the
experience to continue and repeat that (phenomenal) kind of experience.
The necessitation theory is also well-positioned to avoid the Euthyphro challenge. According to
the necessitation theory, pleasure bears a necessary connection to both dispositions and phenomenology.
But it is open to us to claim that pleasures are pleasurable in virtue of their phenomenal properties, and not
in virtue of their connections to our dispositions. In this way, we can avoid saying that those experiences
are pleasurable in virtue of our dispositions to continue and repeat them. In lieu of E2 or E2
D
, we can
accept E2
Q
:
(E2
Q
): e(C) is pleasurable in virtue of its particular phenomenology.
It certainly seems that we can accept both E1 and E2
Q
. E1 explains my desire by appealing to the
pleasurableness of my experience, and E2
Q
explains the pleasurableness of my experience by appealing to
its phenomenology. There is no threat of circularity here, assuming that my having an experience with
that phenomenology is distinct from my having a disposition to continue and repeat an experience with
that phenomenology. For ease of reference, I will call this assumption Distinctness:
Distinctness: Having an experience with a certain phenomenology is distinct from having a
disposition to continue and repeat an experience with that phenomenology.
If Distinctness is true, then we can accept both E1 and E2
Q
, and the Euthyphro challenge is avoided.
There’s a worry looming in the background, however. The worry probably occurred to you as soon
as I suggested that there are necessary connections between phenomenal properties and dispositions. If
we accept Distinctness and the necessitation theory, we must reject Hume’s Dictum: the thesis that there

42

are no necessary connections between distinct existences. Many philosophers endorse Hume’s Dictum.
19

And indeed, this endorsement has led some philosophers to reject the idea that there are necessary
connections between phenomenal properties and our attitudes.
20

I think this rejection is too hasty. First, it is far from obvious that Hume’s Dictum is true. When
it comes to properties of experience, in particular, it seems much more intuitive to deny Hume’s Dictum.
It hardly seems to be a contingent matter that my feeling itchy tends to make me want to scratch, or that
my feeling tired tends to make me want to lie down.
21
(I will return to this point in Chapter Three.) Second,
Hume’s Dictum is actually consistent with the claim that there are necessary connections between
phenomenal properties and attitudes. If you accept Hume’s Dictum, and you’re inclined to accept
something like the necessitation theory, you can reject Distinctness. You can reject the idea that
phenomenal properties and attitudes are “distinct existences”.
As it happens, many philosophers of mind already reject Distinctness. Many philosophers of mind
are role functionalists, and role functionalists will deny that phenomenal properties are distinct from our
attitudes. According to the role functionalist, properties of experience — along with all other mental
properties — are individuated by their causal or theoretical roles. To instantiate an experience e with a
particular phenomenology P(C) is to instantiate some property which “plays the P(C) role”. And the
functionalist might hold that "playing the P(C) role" is partly a matter of disposing one to desire that one
instantiates an experience with phenomenal property P(C). On the resulting theory, P(C) is not distinct

19
For more on the sociology of Hume’s Dictum, as well as a thorough examination of the thesis, see Wilson 2010.
20
See for example Bramble 2013 (p.212), and Rachels 2000 (p.200-202).
21
For a more thorough treatment of this line of thought, see Hawthorne 2004 and especially Mørch 2014 p.101-113.

43

from the disposition to desire that one instantiates an experience with phenomenology. Part of what it is
to have an experience with that phenomenology is to be disposed to desire that you have an experience
with that phenomenology. So, for the functionalist, E1 and E2
Q
are prima facie circular. The functionalist
does not avoid the Euthyphro problem — this is the price she pays for holding onto Hume’s Dictum. Still,
the functionalist avoids all the other HONEST challenges.
We are left with three distinct theories: the dispositional theory, and two versions of the
necessitation theory. The first version embraces necessary connections between distinct existences. On
this view, there are necessary connections between some experiences and our (distinct) dispositions to
continue and repeat those experiences. Sprigge embraces the existence of these sorts of necessary
connections, so I will call this version the Spriggean theory. The second version embraces role
functionalism. Call this the functionalist theory. The dispositional theory avoids four of the HONEST
challenges; the functionalist theory avoids five of them. The Spriggean theory avoids all six challenges.
§6 Honest Answers
We have considered how the six HONEST challenges bear on quite a few different theories of pleasure.
It’s time to take stock:
Table 1.1 H O N E S T
Distinctive Feeling Theory
Desire Theory

44

Simple Conjunctive Theory
Simple Disjunctive Theory
Composite Theory
Dispositional Theory
Functionalist Theory
Spriggean Theory
An ‘shaded box indicates that the theory avoids the relevant challenge, or yields a clear answer to it. You
might disagree with some of the reports of the chart — maybe you think that an unmarked box should be
marked, or vice versa. Certainly there is room for debate. Still, the chart gives us some perspective on the
options for theorizing about pleasure.
The upshot is that things look good for hybrid theories of pleasure, and in particular for the
Spriggean theory of pleasure. From a certain perspective, this is unsurprising. If we suppose that pleasure
bears a necessary connection to our attitudes, the HON problems are easily avoided. If we suppose that
pleasure bears a necessary connection to our phenomenology, the EST problems are easily avoided. So, if
we suppose that pleasure is necessarily connected to attitudes and phenomenology, then we can avoid all
of those problems. The fact that the Spriggean theory avoids all these problems is, I believe, a strong
preliminary case for the theory.

45

In the following chapters I will build upon this preliminary case. I will begin by defending the
Spriggean theory against an objection that it cannot simply avoid: the objection from differences in taste. Then
I will defend the Spriggean claim that there are necessary connections between our phenomenology and
our attitudes, on the grounds that (1) we must posit these necessary connections to dissolve an important
dispute about the value of experiences, and (2) the existence of such necessary connections can be
defended on more general grounds. All told, then, we ought to embrace the Spriggean theory of pleasure.
Chapter Two: The Objection from Differences in Taste
§1 The Objection
In Chapter One I introduced the necessitation theory of pleasure, in both its functionalist and
Spriggean varieties. I argued that the necessitation theory, and particularly the Spriggean variety, avoids
the most widely-known objections to existing theories of pleasure in the philosophical literature. In this
chapter I will examine and respond to an important but lesser-known objection: the objection from
differences in taste.
Differences in taste are familiar sorts of cases. Asha likes to eat olives. Beiro, on the other hand,
does not. Supposing, as is extremely natural, that Asha and Beiro’s experiences differ with respect to
pleasantness, the necessitation theory implies that Asha and Beiro’s experiences must differ with respect
to phenomenology. That is, there must be some difference between “what it’s like” for Asha to eat her olive,
and “what it’s like” for Beiro to eat his olive. But, according to the objection from differences in taste, Asha
and Beiro need not differ at all with respect to phenomenology. They might be getting the same
phenomenology from eating olives. Thus the necessitation theory is false.

46

The objection gets its force from a kind of conventional view regarding differences in taste. We
think that, when two subjects differ in tastes, they bear different attitudes towards the same thing. We
might express this thought by saying that Asha likes “the taste of olives”, and Berio does not like “that
taste.” As we will see, this claim does not straightforwardly entail that Asha and Beiro’s experiences are
alike with respect to how they feel. But insofar as we are moved by the objection from differences in taste,
it is because we are prepared to accept that the view that ordinary differences in taste do not involve
differences in phenomenology. My goal in this chapter will be to cast doubt on that view. I argue that, on
reflection, ordinary differences in taste do involve differences in phenomenology. This is what I will call
the phenomenal thesis.
Proponents of the necessitation theory should accept the phenomenal thesis. But, as we will see,
the thesis has wider philosophical significance. A number of important arguments turn on this
assumption that it is false, and the objection to the necessitation theory is just one of those arguments. If
the phenomenal thesis is true, then those arguments are inconclusive. This is why the phenomenal thesis
has philosophical significance, whether or not it is inconsistent with our conventional views regarding
differences in taste.
The paper proceeds as follows. In §2, I formulate the phenomenal thesis in more specific terms. I
then highlight in §3 how the resulting thesis has been implicated in previous philosophical disputes. I
focus in particular on a pair of arguments by Chris Heathwood and David Sobel, each of which turns on
the falsity of the phenomenal thesis. In §4 I argue for two key claims: first, that there is a link between our
attitudes and our pleasures; and second, that there is a link between our pleasures and our
phenomenology. Together, my conclusions link our attitudes and phenomenology in a way that vindicates

47

the phenomenal thesis. In §5 I explore a few ways in which Heathwood and Sobel might argue for a more
modest claim about taste differences: the claim that there are possible taste differences which do not
involve phenomenological differences. I argue that even these more modest arguments are inconclusive.
I close in §6 by taking stock of my conclusions.
§2 The Phenomenal Thesis
The phenomenal thesis is a theory about taste differences. “Taste difference,” as I use the term,
covers all cases with the following structure:
Taste Difference: A case in which, for some subjects s 1 and s 2, and some activity A:
● A causes s 1 to have a certain type of overall experience E 1;
● A causes s 2 to have a certain type of overall experience E 2;
● s 1 is robustly disposed to intrinsically like experiences of type E 1;
● s 2 is robustly disposed to intrinsically dislike experiences of type E 2.
22

This definition captures the sorts of taste differences I have in mind: cases in which subjects’
attitudes towards their experiences play a prominent role in explaining their attitudes towards the

22
I assume that ordinary people often like their experiences. So, for example, Asha likes both the activity of eating
olives, and the experiences she gets from eating olives. It might be objected that this is attributing too many
attitudes to Asha. If she is an ordinary subject, she will not like her own experiences in addition to the activities
which cause those experiences. (Ben Bramble (2015) briefly develops this objection.) Although I am sympathetic to
this concern, I am setting it aside in this paper. I do this for two reasons. First, I believe that ultimately, there is a
sense in which we all take attitudes towards our own experiences. We do not — ordinarily — like or dislike our
experiences in an intellectualized or concept-laden way. But we nevertheless bear psychological relations towards
our experiences which are best construed as liking and disliking. Second, my opponents accept that ordinary
subjects like and dislike their experiences. (This will come out in (§3.)) So I am happy to set the issue aside in this
paper. I address it in greater length in chapter five.

48

activities which cause those experiences. The case of Asha and Beiro is a case of this kind. Asha
intrinsically likes the experiences she gets from eating olives; Beiro intrinsically dislikes the experiences
he gets from eating olives. This is why Asha likes eating olives, and Beiro dislikes eating olives. There are
other cases which are sometimes called “differences in taste,” in which experiences do not play a
prominent explanatory role. For example, we say that some people have a taste for collecting old
photographs. Plausibly, this “taste” is not explained by their attitudes towards their experiences of
photographs. I set such cases aside in what follows.
A few terms in my definition require clarification. First, the definition appeals to types of overall
experience. A subject’s overall experience is the totality of that subject’s experiences at a time. Types or
kinds of experience are individuated by their phenomenologies; that is, they are individuated by “what it’s
like” to experience them. To illustrate, consider Asha and Beiro. Let E A be the kind of overall experience
Asha has when she eats an olive, and let E B be the kind of overall experience Beiro has when he eats an
olive. E A and E B are different kinds of experience just in case there is a difference between “what it is like”
to be Asha as she eats her olive, and “what it is like” to be Beiro as he eats his olive. Notice that this
definition individuates kinds of experience in a highly fine-grained way. Any phenomenological
differences make for a difference in kind. Supposing that Asha’s vision is slightly blurrier than Beiro’s, it
follows that E A is a different kind of experience than E B. Part of “what it is like” to instantiate E A is to have
a blurry visual field; but this is not part of “what it is like” to instantiate E B.
It might seem odd to theorize in terms of overall experiences, rather than simply appealing to the
relevant “parts” of Asha and Berio’s overall experiences: namely, their experiences of eating olives, as opposed
to any concomitant visual experiences they may be having. But that approach, while intuitive, would raise

49

a number of problems. First, it would require us to identify which “parts” of Asha and Berio’s overall
experiences are experiences of eating olives. This is a surprisingly difficult question to answer — it isn’t even
easy to say which sensory modalities are involved. But more to the point, it is not clear that only
“experiences of eating olives” are relevant. If it turns out that “the experience of eating olives” is the same
for both Asha and Beiro, but there are some other phenomenological differences between their overall
experiences, then those differences could also undermine arguments which turn on the idea that
differences in taste do not involve phenomenological differences. If Asha but not Beiro experiences a
warm and tingling feeling of pleasure, over and above her “experience of eating olives”, then this
difference would undermine arguments which turn on the idea that differences in taste do not involve
phenomenological differences. This point will be explored in greater detail in the next section. For present
purposes, it is enough to see that focusing on Asha and Beiro’s overall experiences will prevent us from
overlooking potentially relevant differences in their experiences.
However, this still leaves us with the question of what we should we say about irrelevant
phenomenological differences, like the difference between Asha’s blurry vision and Beiro’s slightly less
blurry vision. Clearly, Asha’s blurry vision has nothing in particular to do with the fact that she likes the
overall experience she gets from eating olives. So I will simply stipulate that the case of Asha and Beiro
does not involve any such irrelevant differences. I stipulate that Asha and Beiro are very similar people,
eating very similar olives in very similar circumstances. Neither of them has blurry vision, or ringing ears,
or a pain in their foot, or any other feature which would make for an irrelevant difference in their overall
phenomenology. So, if their phenomenology does differ, it is because they differ in taste, and not because
of some difference in their circumstances or their sensory faculties.

50

My definition of “difference in tastes” appeals to our attitudes towards overall kinds of experience
— namely, intrinsic liking and disliking. These attitudes are not to be characterized decision-theoretically;
they are not reducible to actual and counterfactual choices. Rather, they are psychological phenomena
which underlie and explain (some of) our choices. Furthermore, our intrinsic likes and dislikes should be
distinguished from instrumental or otherwise extrinsic forms of approval and disapproval. To see the
difference, suppose I take some cold medicine because I have a sore throat. I like the medicine extrinsically
— I like that it will alleviate my throat pain. But I do not intrinsically like taking medicine; I do not approve
of it for its own sake. In contrast, Asha intrinsically likes the experience she gets from eating olives; she
approves of it for its own sake. Going forward, I will drop the “intrinsically” qualification. But whenever I
refer to a subject’s likes and dislikes, I mean her intrinsic likes and dislikes.
The case of Asha and Beiro is an ordinary sort of case. It is an ordinary difference in taste,
involving ordinary people. Asha is robustly disposed to like the kind of overall experience she gets from
eating olives. Barring extraordinary circumstances, she likes experiences of that kind whenever she has
them. Beiro is robustly disposed to dislike the kind of overall experience he gets from eating olives.
Barring extraordinary circumstances, he dislikes experiences of that kind whenever he has them.
Similarly, some ordinary people are robustly disposed to like the experiences they get from eating durians,
taking very hot showers, and getting deep Swedish massages. Other ordinary people are robustly disposed
to dislike the experiences they get from those activities. The phenomenal thesis is a claim about these and
all other ordinary differences in taste:
Phenomenal Thesis: All ordinary differences in taste involve phenomenological differences.

51

The phenomenal thesis says that, for example, E A and E B are different kinds of experience —
Asha’s overall experience differs phenomenologically from Beiro’s overall experience. Even if we abstract
away from irrelevant differences having to do with blurry vision, ringing ears, and so on, we ought to
believe that their experiences feel different.
Of course, we could formulate a stronger version of the phenomenal thesis, according to which all
taste differences involve phenomenal differences. This strong phenomenal thesis would extend even to
extraordinary cases, involving extraordinary subjects and extraordinary circumstances. For example, it would
cover cases involving aliens, as well as humans subjected to neuroscientific tampering. But I will not
defend the strong phenomenal thesis, for two reasons. First: nothing about these science fiction-style
cases is intuitive, so it is hard to see how we could appeal to them to support a general claim about taste
differences. Second: the weaker phenomenal thesis is philosophically significant in its own right. As I will
show in the next section, nothing stronger is required for the philosophical significance of my arguments.
Before we move on, however, there is one more clarificatory point to be made. It is crucial that we
distinguish between the following two claims:
Different Phenomenology: Asha and Beiro get experiences of different phenomenal kinds
from eating olives.
Tastes Different: Olives taste different to Asha than they do to Beiro.
If Tastes Different is synonymous with Different Phenomenology, then the phenomenal theory entails that
olives taste different to Asha than they do to Beiro. In fact, however, the two claims are not synonymous,
and the phenomenal theory does not entail that olives taste different to each of them.

52

To see why the claims are not synonymous, consider the following case:
Tinge of Disgust: Asha eats one hundred olives in a row. Although Asha likes olives quite
a bit, even she has her limits — eventually, as she works her way through the one hundred
olives, she becomes a bit disgusted with the taste. Let E A-1 be Asha’s first olive-experience,
and let E A-100 be her hundredth olive-experience. E A-100 is tinged with disgust; E A-1 is not.
E A-1 differs phenomenologically from E A-100, but nothing forces us to say that the hundredth olive
literally tastes different to Asha than the first olive. Perhaps the only difference between E A-1¸and E A-100 is that
E A-100 involves a disgust reaction, and perhaps this difference is not properly described as a way in which
the olives taste to Asha. Nothing forces us to accept this interpretation; but nothing forces us to deny it,
either. Certainly it will sometimes be the most natural way to describe what is going on. To illustrate:
imagine that Asha is attending a dinner party, and the host is being somewhat pushy with the hors
d'oeuvres. He offers Asha plate after plate of olives, and eventually he notices her grimace slightly as she
eats. “What’s wrong?” he asks. “Is there something wrong with these olives? Do they taste different than
the last batch?” Asha might respond: “No, there’s nothing wrong with them! They taste just the same. The
trouble is I’ve had too many.” This suggests that there can be phenomenological changes in the
experiences that Asha gets from eating olives, without changes in how olives taste to her.
Applying this general lesson to the case of Asha and Beiro, we can accept that Asha and Beiro get
different kinds of experiences from eating olives, while denying that olives taste different to each of them.
23

Tastes Different is not synonymous with Different Phenomenology.

23
It is worth mentioning that, even if one does accept that Asha’s hundredth olive tastes different than her first

53

A better interpretation of Tastes Different appeals to the contents of Asha and Beiro’s experiences:
Content Interpretation: Tastes Different means: Asha and Beiro’s differ with respect to the
qualities their experiences represent olives as having.
24

On the Content Interpretation, Tastes Different says that Asha and Beiro detect different qualities of olives,
and do so by tasting them. In other words, it says that they are tasting different tastes. To see why this is a
better interpretation of Tastes Different, consider another case:
Salty Taste: Beiro eats one hundred olives in a row. As Beiro works his way through the
plate of one hundred olives, he contracts a rare disease which renders him incapable of
detecting salt by taste. Let E B-1 be Beiro’s first olive-experience, and let E B-100 be his
hundredth olive-experience. In experiencing E B-1, Beiro detects-by-taste the saltiness of
an olive. In experiencing E B-100, Beiro does not detect-by-taste the saltiness of an olive.
Most of us would certainly say that Beiro’s first olive tastes different to him than his hundredth
olive. The first olive tastes salty to Beiro; the hundredth olive does not. We can also put this point in terms

olive, one need not say that the olives taste radically different from one another. They might taste different in subtle
respects, while tasting the same with respect to, say, bitterness and saltiness. So it would be a mistake to think
that, if olives taste different to Asha than they do to Beiro, that this would amount to some sort of radical
subjectivism. It might amount to a mild form of subjectivism, according to which olives taste subtly different to
Asha than they do to Beiro.
24
The appeal to representational contents is intended to capture the intuitive, pre-theoretical sense in which at
least some of our experiences are about things. It is not intended as an endorsement of representationalism, where
this is construed as a metaphysical theory of experience. One does not have to be a representationalist — in this
sense — to admit that there is an intuitive sense in which some experiences are about things. Even naive realists
and sense-datum theorists can admit that much. For an instructive discussion, see Pautz 2009.

54

of experiential contents: Beiro’s experiences change with respect to the qualities they represent olives as
having — E B-1 presents him with saltiness; E B-100 does not. The experiences differ in qualitative content.
25

The Content Interpretation is fine as a first pass interpretation of Tastes Different. Talk of “the
way olives taste” has something importantly to do with the qualities that olives are represented as having.
However, I suspect that the best interpretation of Tastes Different will appeal to both phenomenology and
qualitative contents. For example:
Phenomenology-in-Virtue-of-Content Interpretation: Tastes Different means: Asha and Beiro’s
overall experiences differ phenomenologically in virtue of differing with respect to the qualities
those experiences represent olives as having.
This, I think, is a promising interpretation. It seems to capture the sense in which phenomenology
is relevant to our evaluations of “how things taste,” while making room for the important role of contents.
The upshot is that the best interpretations of Tastes Different will appeal to the contents of experiences,
and not merely their phenomenology.
Of course, the phenomenal thesis says nothing about the contents of experiences. It says that E A
and E B differ phenomenologically, but it does not say whether or not they differ in qualitative content. For
all the phenomenal thesis says, Asha and Beiro’s experiences may share some or all of their qualitative

25
There may be contents of experience which are not qualitative contents. For example, many philosophers accept
a Russellian view of experiential contents, according to which the contents of experience include particular objects.
This view entails that Asha and Beiro’s experiences differ in content, because the contents of their experiences
include different olives. It’s hard to see why this sort of difference in contents should be relevant to differences in
taste. Thus my focus on “qualitative contents,” rather than experiential contents more generally. (For an
explanation and defense of the Russellian view, see Speaks 2009.)

55

contents.
26
So there is a very natural sense in which olives may taste the same to both Asha and Beiro, even
if the phenomenal thesis is true. It could be that Asha and Beiro taste (in the sense of detecting-by-taste)
the same tastes (construed as objective qualities of olives). As we will see, this is an important point. It is
easy to conflate the topics of phenomenology and qualitative content, but this tends to obscure what is
going on in discussions of differences in taste. We will need to keep the distinction close at hand.
Because it leaves open the possibility that E A and E B share qualitative contents, the phenomenal
thesis is more plausible than it might appear at first glance. Indeed, one might worry that it’s so plausible
as to be uninteresting. In my experience, people tend to react to the phenomenal thesis in one of two ways:
either they think that it is false (because it says that differences in taste involve differences in
phenomenology), or they think that it is uninteresting (because it does not say that different foods taste
different to different people). I think that, on the contrary, the thesis is both interesting and true. To show
that it is interesting, I will rehearse a pair of arguments which appeal to differences in taste. Both
arguments turn on the rejection of the phenomenal thesis as I have formulated it. Then in §4 I will make
the case for the phenomenal thesis.

26
The phenomenal thesis does not take a stand, but many philosophers do. According to many philosophers of
mind, there is some sort of systematic relationship between experiential content and phenomenology. For
example, intentionalists hold that phenomenology supervenes on intentional content. Insofar as intentionalists go
in for the view that Asha’s experiences feel unlike Beiro’s experiences, they cannot hold that their experiences share
all of the same contents. But they can hold that their experiences share some of the same content. They could hold
that both experiences represent the same qualities of olives, or represent those qualities which deserve to be called
“the taste of olives.” In this way, the intentionalist can avoid the worry that Asha and Beiro are tasting different
tastes. This strategy is consistent with existing intentionalist theories of pleasure and pain — see for example
David Bain (2013, 2017), and Michael Tye and Brian Cutter (2014).

56

§3 Two Arguments from Taste Differences
Both Chris Heathwood and David Sobel advance arguments which appeal to differences in taste.
They both assume that the phenomenal thesis is false — indeed, that it is obviously false. They assume that
there are many cases in which subjects differ in their likes and dislikes towards a particular (phenomenal)
kind of experience. This assumption plays an important role in each of Heathwood and Sobel’s arguments.
However, the arguments differ importantly in subject matter: whereas Heathwood argues for a thesis in
the philosophy of mind, Sobel argues for a thesis in value theory. I will consider Heathwood’s argument
first.
Heathwood argues for externalism about pleasure: the thesis that pleasant experiences are
pleasant in virtue of their extrinsic properties.
27
In contrast, internalism about pleasure is the thesis that
pleasant experiences are pleasant in virtue of their intrinsic properties — and usually the relevant intrinsic
properties are assumed to be phenomenal properties.
28
The Spriggean theory of pleasure is a version of
internalism, since it tells us that pleasures are pleasant in virtue of their intrinsic phenomenal properties.
Heathwood’s preferred theory of pleasure, by contrast, is a paradigm form of externalism. On
Heathwood’s version of the desire theory, pleasures are pleasant not in virtue of what they are like “in
themselves”, but because they are the objects of certain sorts of desires (2007: 32). The upshot is that when
I have a pleasurable experience of sipping coffee — for example — the experience is pleasurable for me in

27
Other externalists about pleasure include William Alston (1967), Fred Feldman (1988), and Derek Parfit (2011: 52-
53).
28
Internalists about pleasure include Shelly Kagan (1992), Roger Crisp (2006), and Ben Bramble (2013).

57

virtue of a certain extrinsic property — namely, its being desired in a certain way — rather than its intrinsic
phenomenal character.
Heathwood defends externalism about pleasure, and argues against internalism about pleasure,
by appealing to differences in taste. In his (2007), he tells us that:
The cases that most clearly support externalism involve sensations that some people like
and others don't (especially gustatory sensations), or sensations that bother some people
but not others. The sound of fingernails scratching on a chalkboard is extremely
unpleasant to many people, but not at all unpleasant to others. If unpleasantness is
intrinsic to sensations, then one of these groups has to be mistaken. If this sound really is
intrinsically unpleasant, then those whom it doesn't bother and who therefore judge it to
be not at all unpleasant, are wrong. That is hard to swallow. (2007)
Internalists about pleasure have an obvious response to Heathwood’s worry. They can claim (and
have claimed, see Smuts 2011) that those who differ in tastes have different types of experiences. Suppose
that Beiro, but not Asha, is bothered by the sound of fingernails scratching on a chalkboard. The
internalist may claim that Asha’s experiences differ phenomenologically from Beiro’s experiences, and
that this intrinsic difference explains the difference in their experiences’ unpleasantness. Thus, both Asha
and Beiro are correct — Beiro’s experience really is unpleasant; Asha’s experience really isn’t unpleasant.
Neither Asha nor Beiro is mistaken.
Heathwood addresses this line of thought indirectly. He considers changes in taste, which he takes
to also support externalism. He tells us:

58

Flowers and perfume initially smell nice, but can begin to nauseate after a while. One way
this may happen is that the sensation itself somehow transforms after prolonged
exposure — you start getting a different smell. But surely another way this happens is that
the smell stays the same while our feelings about it change. What we once liked, we now
dislike. [...] Internalists could respond by insisting that such cases always involve intrinsic
changes in the sensation. But this seems like a desperate move, akin to the desperate
strategies used to defend views like psychological egoism. (2007)
Importantly, Heathwood is not merely claiming that some changes in taste do not involve
phenomenological changes.
29
Rather, he claims this is so obvious that it would be a “desperate move” to
deny it. This gives some context to Heathwood’s earlier remarks regarding differences in taste. Clearly,
he would have the same reaction to the internalist’s suggestion that all differences in taste involve
differences in phenomenology. He would regard this, too, as a “desperate move.”
If Heathwood is right that differences in taste do not involve differences in phenomenology, then
it would indeed appear that internalism about pleasure has a worrisome result–viz., that people can be
thoroughly mistaken about the pleasantness of their experiences. Take Asha and Beiro, for example. Asha
and Beiro differ in tastes. Thus, by my definition, Asha is robustly disposed to like E A, and Beiro is robustly
disposed to dislike E B. Presumably, then, Asha will judge that E A is pleasant, and Beiro will judge that E B
is unpleasant. If Heathwood is right about differences in taste, then it could be that E A and E B are the same

29
Richard Hall makes this same point, and he, too, makes this point in service of externalism about pleasure. See
Hall 1989: 646.

59

kind of experience. So, if internalism about pleasure is true, then Asha and Beiro’s experiences do not
differ with respect to pleasantness. Either both experiences are pleasant — in which case Beiro is mistaken
— or they are both unpleasant–in which case Asha is mistaken.
Suppose that the experiences are pleasant, and Beiro is mistaken. It’s not that he is confused,
distracted, or somehow “out of touch” with his own experiences. He is fully aware of what those
experiences are like, and he says with great confidence that they are unpleasant. Nevertheless, he is
mistaken — he is wrong about the pleasantness of his experiences. Heathwood regards this as a deeply
implausible result, and I tend to agree.
30
The argument is as follows:
P1) There is a difference in taste which does not involve phenomenal differences. (The Existence
Claim)
P2) If P1, then if internalism is true, there is a difference in taste which does not involve a difference
is pleasurableness.
P3) If internalism is true, and if there is a difference in taste which does not involve a difference is
pleasurableness, then some people are thoroughly mistaken in their judgments about the
pleasurableness of their experiences.
Conclusion: If internalism is true, then some people are thoroughly mistaken in their
judgments about the pleasurableness of their experiences.

30
Unsurprisingly, some internalists have challenged this claim. Stuart Rachels argues that mistakes in experiential
preferences strike us as strange, not because such mistakes are impossible, but because they are nakedly irrational
or imprudent (2000: 201). More recently, Ben Bramble has made the same claims (2013).

60

P1 says that there is at least one difference in taste which do not involve phenomenological
differences. That is, there is at least one case with the following structure: for some kind of experience E,
and some subjects s 1 and s 2, s 1 is robustly disposed to like her experiences of E, and s 2 is robustly disposed
to dislike his experiences of E. Going forward, I will call this the Existence Claim. It seems clear that
Heathwood believes that there are lots of cases with this structure. However, he only needs the weaker
Existence Claim for this particular argument to go through.
Still, it might be tempting to interpret Heathwood as adopting a premise that is weaker than the
Existence Claim. Returning to our distinction between phenomenology and content, we might be
tempted to interpret Heathwood as making a point about the qualitative contents of our experiences. We
might interpret him as saying that prolonged exposure to perfume does not cause us to detect different
qualities of the perfume. This interpretation might be suggested by Heathwood’s remark that, on the view
he rejects, “you start getting a different smell” (emphasis mine). But this cannot be the right way to interpret
Heathwood. To make a case against internalism, Heathwood cannot be satisfied with claiming that there
is no change in content. He needs to claim that there is no change in phenomenology.
To see this, suppose we endorse a rather naive theory of pleasure: we think that pleasure is a
simple, contentless tingling sensation. With this theory of pleasure at hand, we give a simple treatment
of Heathwood’s perfume case. We say that as one smells perfume continuously, one feels less and less of
the pleasant tingles. This does not amount to a change in the content of one’s experiences, since the tingles
have no content. If Heathwood were merely arguing that the perfume case does not involve a change in
contents, then he would have to allow this treatment of the case. But he would not allow this treatment of
the case. The naive theory of pleasure is exactly the sort of internalist theory which Heathwood is arguing

61

against. So Heathwood cannot be satisfied with denying that cases like the perfume case involve
differences in content. He has to deny that such cases involve phenomenal differences. He has to accept
the Existence Claim.
Similarly, Heathwood cannot be satisfied with claiming that some part of one’s phenomenology
remains constant in the perfume case. This interpretation is suggested by Heathwood’s claims that, on
the view he accepts, the smell of perfume “begin[s] to nauseate after a while,” and “our feelings about it
change.” Here, Heathwood seems to suggest that our overall experiences change over time. So it’s natural
to read him as claiming that the core olfactory experience remains constant, not that the overall experience
remains constant. But again, this cannot be the right way to interpret Heathwood, because this
interpretation is consistent with internalism. The internalist can claim that our core olfactory experience
remains constant, but our overall experience becomes unpleasant because we feel less and less of the
pleasant tingles (or more and more of the unpleasant nausea).
31
Again, this is exactly the kind of naive
internalist theory that Heathwood rejects. So Heathwood must deny that the case involves phenomenal
differences — any phenomenal differences. This interpretation is mandatory to establish the Existence
Claim, and nothing weaker than the Existence Claim will suffice for Heathwood’s purposes.
Strictly speaking, the Existence Claim is consistent with the phenomenal thesis. Heathwood
could grant that all ordinary cases involve phenomenal differences, while also insisting that some

31
Of course, it is open to Heathwood to deny this interpretation. He could insist that the core olfactory experience
— as opposed to the overall experience — becomes unpleasant, despite remaining constant phenomenologically.
But this would be to simply insist upon an interpretation of the case which is consistent with externalism about
pleasure. It is not an argument for externalism.

62

extraordinary, science fiction style cases do not involve phenomenal differences. In this way, Heathwood
could accept his Existence Claim while also making room for the phenomenal thesis. But Heathwood is
not in a position to make this concession. Heathwood does not argue for the Existence Claim; rather, he
regards it as an obvious piece of common sense. He regards it as obvious that cases like the perfume case
do not involve phenomenological differences. This attitude towards the Existence Claim is deeply in
tension the phenomenal thesis. If we accept that all ordinary taste differences involve phenomenal
differences, we will not assume that some extraordinary cases do not involve such differences. So, if
Heathwood were to concede the phenomenal thesis, he would need to argue that there are extraordinary
cases of the kind he describes. I will consider some arguments of this kind in §5; for now, it’s enough to
note that Heathwood himself does not provide any such arguments.
So much for the argument for externalism about pleasure. David Sobel gives a similar argument
with the same structure — and he, too, assumes the falsity of the phenomenal thesis. Sobel appeals to
taste differences in an argument against strong objectivism. This is the thesis that none of our reasons
(or almost none of our reasons) are grounded in our desires. To illustrate: suppose I have a reason to finish
writing this paper, and a desire to finish it. The strong objectivist will deny, contra subjectivism, that my
reason to finish my paper is grounded in my desire to finish my paper (or in any of my other desires). The
strong objectivist will instead offer some other grounds for my reason. They might claim (very charitably)
that finishing my paper is objectively worthwhile, and this is what grounds my reason to finish it.
Sobel introduces taste differences as posing a prima facie problem for strong objectivism. He says:

63

An immediate worry one might have about strong objectivism is how such a view can
account for the irresistible thought that some people have more reason to taste this
chocolate ice cream rather than that strawberry ice cream and other people have more
reason to taste the strawberry where such reasons stem from the taste of the desert (rather
than, say, health concerns) and one's reaction to it. (p. 438)
To explain this “irresistible thought,” an objectivist could adopt the same strategy which I offered
on behalf of internalists about pleasure. They can claim (and have claimed, see Scanlon 1998: 42) that the
“irresistible thought” is explained by phenomenological differences. Supposing that Asha but not Beiro likes
to eat strawberry ice cream, the objectivist may claim that Asha’s overall experience differs
phenomenologically from Beiro’s overall experience, and that furthermore this phenomenological
difference grounds a difference in pleasurableness. On the resulting picture, Asha has more reason than
Beiro to eat strawberry ice cream.
Sobel anticipates this line of thought, and his response is familiar. He tells us that:
It must be metaphysically possible, on this [phenomenological] conception of pleasure,
that someone not like it. We would perhaps be similarly surprised if we learned that
someone did not like the taste of chocolate or did like the taste of dirt — we would in the
first instance reach for explanations that do not entail that they really do not like what we
find so easy to like or that they really do like what we find so disgusting. But eventually,
surely, there could be evidence that these surprising tastes are really theirs. We could, of
course, always plead inverse qualia in cases like this, but that will often seem an

64

unwarrantedly drastic understanding of what is going on. [...] So let it be that we finally
find someone who really does not like the flavor of sensation of pleasure. Should we think
that this person is necessarily making some sort mistake? Well what mistake would it be?
I myself do not understand what sort of mistake could be thought to be necessarily
involved in a failure to like this or that phenomenological state. (2005: 444-445)
Sobel clearly holds that some taste differences do not involve phenomenal differences. Indeed, he
thinks that denying this would amount to “plead[ing] inverse qualia” and would “often seem like an
unwarrantedly drastic understanding of what is going on.” This is why Sobel thinks that strong
objectivism implausibly entails that some people are mistaken about their experiences.
32
Take Beiro, for
example. He would judge that he has little or no reason to eat olives, since he does not like the experiences
he gets from eating olives. But if those experiences are objectively pleasurable, then in fact he is mistaken
— he has a fairly weighty reason to eat olives.
Putting these points together, we can reconstruct a familiar argument:
P3) There is a difference in taste which does not involve phenomenal differences. (The Existence
Claim)
P4) If P4, then if strong objectivism is true, some people are thoroughly mistaken in their
judgments about their reasons for having certain experiences.

32
Heathwood dissents with Sobel on this point — contra Sobel, he holds that objectivists can avail themselves of
externalism about pleasure. In this way, he claims, the objectivist can avoid saying that there are mistakes in
experiential preferences (2011).

65

Conclusion: If strong objectivism is true, some people are thoroughly mistaken in their
judgments about their reasons for having certain experiences.
To reiterate, the Existence Claim is the claim that there is at least one case with the following
structure: for some kind of experience E, and some subjects s 1 and s 2, s 1 is robustly disposed to like her
experiences of E, and s 2 is robustly disposed to dislike his experiences of E. With respect to this Existence
Claim, Sobel is in essentially the same dialectical situation as Heathwood. Like Heathwood, he cannot
settle for a weaker claim. Also like Heathwood, he does not argue for it in any detail. Sobel comes close to
giving an argument for P1 when he says that “It must be metaphysically possible, on this [phenomenological]
conception of pleasure, that someone not like it” (2005: 444, emphasis mine). Here, Sobel could be
interpreted as appealing to a general combinatorial principle. If so, this would constitute an independent
argument for P3 — a highly controversial one. I return to this point in §5. But it is clear that Sobel
considers it more or less obvious that the Existence Claim must be true. He cannot maintain this attitude
while at the same time conceding the phenomenal thesis. For if Sobel were to grant the phenomenal
thesis, he would need to argue for the Existence Claim. And he does not give any such arguments.
If Heathwood and Sobel’s arguments are successful, they would both have important implications
for the Spriggean theory of pleasure. The implications of Heathwood’s argument are more obvious:
Heathwood’s argument is an argument against all internalist theories, and the Spriggean theory is an
internalist theory. Sobel’s argument, on the other hand, effectively assumes that which the Spriggean
theory denies: that it is possible for someone to not be favorably disposed towards the phenomenologies
characteristic of pleasure. Either way, proponents of the Spriggean theory should have responses to both

66

arguments. My goal is to show that they can and should respond by defending the phenomenal thesis,
thereby undermining the Existence Claim.
To clarify, it is not the case that proponents of the Spriggean theory must reject the Existence
Claim, on pain of inconsistency. The Spriggean theory and the Existence Claim could both be true. The
Spriggean theory tells us that there are some kinds of experience — pleasant kinds — that we necessarily
tend to like, and other kinds of experience — unpleasant kinds — we necessarily tend to dislike. This is
consistent with granting that there is some neutral kind of experience — neither pleasant nor unpleasant
— such that one person is robustly disposed to like it, and another person is robustly disposed to dislike
it. If the Spriggean grants this, then they grant the truth of the Existence Claim.
Even so, it is important for the proponent of the Spriggean theory to embrace the phenomenal
thesis. It would be one thing to accept that, as a matter of metaphysical possibility, people can differ with
respect to their dispositional responses towards certain sorts of neutral experiences. It would be another
to accept that this is what is going on in ordinary differences in taste. That would be tantamount to
claiming, implausibly, that Adrie’s olive-experiences are not pleasant, and Beiro’s olive-experiences are
not unpleasant. The Spriggean should claim that this and other ordinary differences in taste are cases in
which people differ with respect to the pleasantness of their experiences. So they should defend the
phenomenal thesis: those cases involve differences in phenomenology.
In the remainder of this paper, I will make the case for the phenomenal thesis. If the phenomenal
thesis is true, then that would constitute an interesting result in its own right. But it would also be
dialectically significant, in that it would send the ball back into Sobel and Heathwood’s court. For if the

67

phenomenal thesis is true, then ordinary differences in taste do not have the problematic features they
describe: they are not cases in which subjects are thoroughly mistaken about the pleasantness of their
experiences, or their reasons for having certain experiences. Then the onus would be on Heathwood and
Sobel to argue that there are extraordinary taste differences of the kind they describe, and that the existence
of such extraordinary cases should make us doubt internalism about pleasure or strong objectivism. In
the absence of any such arguments, the arguments presented in this section have no force against their
targets, including the Spriggean theory.
§4 From Attitudes to Phenomenology
According to my definition, differences in taste are differences in attitudes. Subject s 1 is robustly
disposed to like the experiences she gets from a certain activity; subject s 2 is robustly disposed to dislike the
experiences he gets from that same activity. According to the phenomenal thesis, ordinary differences in
taste involve phenomenal differences — those who differ in taste are getting experiences of different
(phenomenal) kinds. So, according to the phenomenal thesis, there is a link between our attitudes and our
phenomenology. I will argue for this link in two stages. First, I will argue that there is a link between our
attitudes and our pleasures. Second, I will argue that there is a link between our pleasures and our
phenomenology. Together, these claims link our attitudes to our phenomenology in a way that vindicates
the phenomenal thesis. And, by showing that these claims are plausible, I will be indirectly lending
support to the Spriggean theory of pleasure. The Spriggean theory tells us that there are quite strong
connections between attitudes, pleasantness, and phenomenology.

68

§4.1 Linking Attitudes and Pleasure
I claim that there is a link between the attitudes we take towards our experiences, and the
pleasantness of our experiences. This link is at least strong enough to validate the following principle:
Attitude-Pleasure Principle (At-Ples): For any ordinary subject s and any type of experience E:
 if s likes her experience of E, and s is robustly disposed to like her experiences of E, then
that experience is pleasant for s
 if s dislikes her experience of E, and s is robustly disposed to dislike her experiences of E,
then that experience is unpleasant for s.
To deny At-Ples would be to claim that the pleasantness of our experiences can come radically
apart from our attitudes towards those experiences. And it is deeply implausible that our pleasures and
attitudes can come radically apart in this way.
To start to get a grip on At-Ples, it’s useful to contrast it with Heathwood’s desire theory of
pleasure. According to the desire theory, it is impossible for our pleasures to come apart from our attitudes.
The theory says that necessarily, pleasurable experiences are intrinsically desired by the subjects that
experience them. At-Ples is a comparatively modest thesis. It allows that in some extraordinary
circumstances, our pleasures can come apart from our attitudes. For an example of the extraordinary
circumstances I have in mind, consider the following case:
Hot Tub Monster: Claira falls asleep in her hot tub. While she is asleep, the lights go out,
and she has a nightmare in which she’s being digested in the stomach of a huge monster.
She wakes up in total darkness, partially submerged in hot water, still half-believing that

69

she is in a monster’s stomach. For a few seconds she believes that the hot water is stomach
acid, and she strongly dislikes the feeling of being submerged. But once the moment has
passed, her attitudes change. She realizes she is in her hot tub, and she begins to like her
experience. She recognizes that it is actually quite pleasant — indeed, that it has been
pleasant all along.
Now consider two possible interpretations of this case:
Pleasure Change: Claira’s experience was unpleasant when she disliked it, and became pleasant
when she began to like it.

Pleasure Constancy: Claira’s experience was pleasant all along, even when she disliked it.
33

The desire theory is inconsistent with Pleasure Constancy, since it entails that subjects never fail
to like their own pleasant experiences — not even in extraordinary circumstances. But At-Ples is more
modest. It does not entail that subjects never fail to like their own pleasant experiences. In fact, it does
not tell us what is necessary for pleasure but only what is sufficient. Claira does not satisfy the sufficiency
condition, so At-Ples says nothing about the pleasantness of her experience. Nor does At-Ples entail that
Claira’s experience was ever unpleasant. Although Claira disliked her experience, she probably is not
robustly disposed to dislike that (phenomenal) kind of experience. Perhaps on another day, or even a few

33
It’s crucial to this description of the case that Claira bears an attitude of intrinsic disapproval towards the feeling of
being submerged. The desire theory can accommodate the view that she instrumentally or otherwise extrinsically
disapproves of that experience. This would likely be Heathwood’s response — it’s not that Claira dislikes the feeling
of being submerged as such; rather, she dislikes it because she takes it to be a sign that she is being digested by a
monster. I do not think that this is the most plausible treatment of the case. Clearly, Claira dislikes the experience
because she thinks she is being digested. But to my mind, this “because” is most plausibly construed as a causal
relation, rather than signaling that Claira’s desire is extrinsic.

70

moments after she shakes off her nightmare, she will like that same kind of experience. So At-Ples allows
that, in this extraordinary case, Clara’s experience might have been pleasant all along. At-Ples does not
force us to say this — it is consistent with both Pleasure Change and Pleasure Constancy. It is simply neutral
about the case.
By comparison, At-Ples does force a verdict concerning the following, much more bizarre case:
Hot Tub Monster Pathology: Claira has a bizarre pathology related to hot water, perhaps
as a result of past trauma or neuroscientific tampering. During any interval in which she
feels as though she is submerged in hot water, she also believes that she is being digested
in a monster’s stomach. As a result, she is disposed to dislike experiences of that
(phenomenal) kind whenever she has them, and for as long as she has them.
Although At-Ples is neutral regarding the original Hot Tub Monster case, it is not neutral about this case.
It tells us that either (i) Claira’s experiences of the relevant (phenomenal) kind are unpleasant, or (ii) Claira
is not an “ordinary” subject, and is therefore outside the scope of At-Ples. This verdict is, I think, extremely
plausible.
Although At-Ples is not an epistemological claim, it is helpful to put the point in epistemological
terms — in terms of what we should believe about the pleasantness of subjects’ experiences. If a subject is
robustly disposed to dislike experiences of a given (phenomenal) kind, then we should believe that those
experiences are unpleasant for her, or that she is in some way extraordinary. In at least the vast majority
of cases, we will reach the former conclusion. If all we know about Claira is that she is robustly disposed
to dislike the kind of experience she gets from being submerged in hot water, then it would be very strange

71

to deny that those experiences are unpleasant for her. Common sense dictates that ordinary subjects tend
to dislike their unpleasant experiences, and tend to like their pleasant experiences. So I think that,
properly understood, At-Ples is extremely plausible.
At-Ples entails that the experiences Asha gets from eating olives are pleasant, and the experiences
Beiro gets from eating olives are unpleasant. Asha is robustly disposed to like her experiences of E A, and
Beiro is robustly disposed to dislike his experiences of E B. When Asha and Beiro eat olives in ordinary
circumstances, their dispositions manifest: Asha likes her experience of E A, and Beiro likes his experience
of E B. (If their dispositions did not manifest in such circumstances, we would not say that they are robustly
disposed to like the relevant experiences.) By the first clause of At-Ples, Asha’s ordinary olive-experiences
are pleasant. By the second clause of At-Ples, Beiro’s ordinary olive-experiences are unpleasant.
So far so good. But At-Ples only gets us halfway to the phenomenal thesis. To get the rest of the
way, we need an additional principle linking pleasantness and phenomenology.
§4.2 Linking Pleasure and Phenomenology
The following principle can do the needed work:
Pleasure-Phenomenology Principle (Ples-Phen): For any ordinary subjects s 1 and s 2, and
experiences e 1 and e 2:
 if e 1 is pleasant for s 1, and e 2 is unpleasant for s 2, then e 1 and e 2 are tokens of phenomenologically
different types of experiences.
Properly understood, Ples-Phen is at least as plausible as At-Ples. The best way to see this is to
consider a subject who gets both pleasant and unpleasant experiences from the same activity. With that in

72

mind, consider the strange case of Diana. With each olive that Diana eats, she alternates between pleasant
and unpleasant experiences. As she eats her first olive, she has a very pleasant experience. As she eats her
second olive, she has a very unpleasant experience. And so on, back and forth, between pleasant and
unpleasant experiences.
Suppose some scientists have caught wind of Diana’s strange condition, and have set upon
researching it. As a preliminary test, they ask Diana to eat through a plate of olives while they observe her
reactions. As per usual, Diana has an overall pleasant experience upon biting into the first olive. She takes
her time savoring the olive, just like Asha does whenever Asha eats an olive. Also as per usual, she has an
overall unpleasant experience upon biting into the second olive. She grimaces and puckers her lips, just
like Beiro does whenever Beiro eats an olive. This continues on, with Diana alternating back and forth
between pleasant and unpleasant experiences, as the scientists observe and take notes.
The important question is this: do each of Diana’s experiences feel alike? Or is there a difference
in “what it is like” for Diana to eat odd- and even-numbered olives? All I have said about those experiences
is that they differ in pleasantness. So, if we judge that those experiences feel different, then it must be
because they differ in pleasantness. For parity’s sake, we should also say that Asha and Beiro’s experiences
feel different, since their experiences also differ in pleasantness.
As a preliminary exercise, it is helpful to imagine the perspective of the scientists. When they first
observe Diana, she is savoring an olive with obvious pleasure. A minute later, they observe her grimacing
with obvious displeasure. It’s hard to imagine them doubting that there is some sort of change in Diana’s
experiences — some change in “what it is like” for her as she carries out the experiment. They might write

73

in their notes that, upon eating an odd-numbered olive, Diana seems satisfied. And they might write that,
upon eating an even-numbered olive, she seems mildly disgusted or repulsed. The point is not that there
must be some change in the way olives taste which explains Diana’s changing reactions. The point is that
Diana’s changing reactions amount to changes in her phenomenology. Could the change from satisfaction
to disgust obtain in the absence of any phenomenological change? Speaking for myself, I cannot make
anything of this suggestion. If the difference between satisfaction and disgust is not even partly a matter
of phenomenology, then I do not know what it is.
One might push back by offering the following suggestions. The first suggestion is that it would
be premature for the scientists to say anything about satisfaction and disgust. They could instead appeal
to “thinner” attitudes of approval and disapproval — perhaps the attitudes of liking and disliking. The
second suggestion is that our “thin” attitudes — e.g. liking and disliking — make no difference whatsoever
to our overall phenomenology. So there might be no change at all in Diana’s experiences as she carries out
the experiment. The third suggestion is that the pleasantness of Diana’s experiences might have changed
wholly in virtue of changes in her “thin” attitudes towards these experiences.
The second and third suggestions are interesting. In response, I think we ought to demand a more
thorough characterization of the relevant “thin” attitudes. It is suggested that these attitudes have two
important properties: (i) they make no difference to phenomenology; and (ii), they make a difference to
the pleasantness of experiences. But one cannot simply stipulate that there are attitudes which satisfy (i)
and (ii). Rather, one must argue that there are such attitudes. And once we see that there is an
argumentative burden to be met, it is far from clear that it can be met.

For consider what sorts of attitudes
satisfy (i). Not any kind of impassioned or emotional judgment or desire, since these attitudes make a

74

difference to one’s overall phenomenology. Rather, an attitude satisfying (i) must be something like a
dispassionate judgment or disposition. Once we have such attitudes fully in view, it implausible is that
they satisfy (ii). Supposing that Claira dispassionately judges “this experience is good” of some
experiences, and “this experience is bad,” of others, it is implausible that this change grounds a change in
the pleasantness of her experiences. On the other hand, suppose that Diana’s attitudes are better
characterized as “Wow! How delicious!” and “Yuck! How horrible!” There is something to the idea that this
change in attitudes might ground a change in pleasantness. But it is not at all plausible that this change
could take place without a change in Diana’s overall phenomenology.
34

Suffice it to say that, at least prima facie, there are phenomenological differences between Diana’s
pleasant and unpleasant experiences. In other words: there are some changes in “what it is like” for Diana
as she carries out the experiment, in addition to any changes in her attitudes. That much seems obvious,
if not indisputable.
Accordingly, I am going to defend this conclusion by following Thomas Nagel’s advice: I will try
to “get rid of the obstacles to the admission of the obvious” (1980, 109). The obstacles, in this case, are
worries about what Ples-Phen might entail. One worry is that if Asha and Beiro’s experiences feel
different, then olives taste different to each of them. This might seem troublingly subjectivist. Crucially,

34
One might go about the argument in a different way. If one accepts a theory which entails that there are attitudes
satisfying (i) and (ii), one might simply appeal to that theory. Chris Heathwood’s desire theory of pleasure might
provide one example. The desire theorist might claim that even if it is pre-theoretically implausible that there are
attitudes satisfying (i) and (ii), the desire theory entails that there are such attitudes, and the theory is sufficiently
attractive that we should follow its lead in this case. This is fine as far as it goes. But if the proponent of the desire
theory invokes their theory to account for what is going on in differences in taste, they cannot invoke differences in
taste — as Heathwood does — to lend support to the desire theory. So the dialectical point from §3 remains the
same: differences in taste cannot be leveraged in an argument for the desire theory.

75

however, Ples-Phen does not entail this subjectivist view. Recall the distinction between phenomenology
and content: even if Asha and Beiro’s experiences feel different, those experiences might present them
with the same medley of chemical, tactile, and olfactory qualities. Their experiences might both present
them with the taste of olives, where “the taste of olives” is construed as some objective property of olives. In
that case, there is a genuine sense in which olives taste the same to each of them: they each taste the same
medley of qualities. Nevertheless, their overall experiences differ phenomenologically. Beiro finds that
taste repulsive, and this makes for a difference in his overall experience.
Another worry is that, if we accept that pleasant experiences feel different than unpleasant
experiences, this will entail that there must be a “distinctive feeling of pleasantness” or a “distinctive
feeling of unpleasantness.” And as we saw in Chapter One, it has seemed implausible to many that there
are such distinctive feelings. But Ples-Phen does not entail that there are any such feelings. Ples-Phen is a
supervenience claim — it says that within the sphere of ordinary cases, certain sorts of differences in
pleasurableness are underwritten by differences in phenomenology. As a rule, supervenience claims do
not commit us to the existence of particular properties within the supervenience base. And Ples-Phen is
no exception. It does not commit us to the existence of any particular phenomenal properties, including
“distinctive feelings” of pleasantness or unpleasantness.
To see this general point, it is helpful to consider a better-known supervenience claim. According
to a certain kind of physicalist, mental properties supervene on fundamental physical properties. In
particular, then, the property of having a belief supervenes on fundamental physical properties. But that
does not mean that among the fundamental physical properties is the property of having a belief.
Physicalists need not claim that the supervenient mental properties stand in a one-to-one relation with

76

the subvening physical properties. They more often claim that mental properties are multiply realizable.
That is, there are lots of ways in which beliefs can be realized by different sets of physical properties.
Physicalists do not have to claim that there is a “distinctive fundamental physical property of belief.”
The same considerations apply in the present case. Ples-Phen says that within the sphere of
ordinary cases, certain sorts of differences in pleasantness are underwritten by differences in
phenomenology. But this is emphatically not to say that the supervenient properties of pleasantness and
unpleasantness stand in a one-to-one relation with the subvening phenomenal properties. It is not to say
that there is a distinctive phenomenal property of pleasantness. We can claim that pleasure is multiply
realizable: there are lots of ways in which pleasures can be realized by different sets of phenomenal
properties. The upshot is that Ples-Phen alone does not commit us to the existence of specific phenomenal
properties, including a “distinctive feeling of pleasure.”
Indeed, Ples-Phen does not tell us much at all about the relationship between phenomenology and
pleasure. It only tells us that — in ordinary cases — phenomenology and pleasantness do not float free
from one another. This supervenience relation might be underwritten by any number of more specific
relations between phenomenology and pleasure. Ples-Phen is all the more attractive for restricting itself
to the plausible, general claim, and leaving open the specific nature of the relationship.
I conclude that Ples-Phen, like At-Ples, is highly plausible. And these two principles can get us to
the phenomenal thesis. At-Ples tells us that Asha’s experience is pleasant, and Beiro’s experience is
unpleasant. Ples-Phen tells us that experiences which differ in this way are of different (phenomenal)
kinds. Thus, Asha and Beiro’s experiences are of different (phenomenal) kinds. The same reasoning

77

generalizes to other ordinary differences in taste, so we ought to conclude all ordinary differences in taste
involve phenomenal differences. As a full argument:
Argument for the Phenomenal Thesis:
Assumption: The case of Asha and Beiro is an ordinary difference in taste. (Asha is an ordinary
subject, she has an experience of E A in ordinary circumstances, and she is robustly disposed to like
experiences of E A. Beiro is an ordinary subject, he has an experience of E B in ordinary
circumstances, and he is robustly disposed to dislike experiences of E B.)
P5) When Asha has an experience of E A in ordinary circumstances, she likes it.
P6) When Beiro has an experience of E B in ordinary circumstances, he dislikes it.
P7) If Asha likes her experience of E A, and Asha is robustly disposed to like experiences of E A,
then that experience is pleasant for Asha.
P8) If Beiro dislikes his experience of E B, and Beiro is robustly disposed to dislike experiences
of E B, then that experience is unpleasant for Beiro.
P9) If Asha’s experience of E A is unpleasant for Asha, and Beiro’s experience of E B is unpleasant
for Beiro, then E A and E B are different phenomenal types of experience.
P10) Asha’s experience of E A is unpleasant for Asha, and Beiro’s experience of E B is unpleasant for
Beiro.
P11) E A and E B are different phenomenological types of experience.

78

P12) If Asha and Beiro are ordinary subjects who differ in tastes, their experiences differ
phenomenologically.
Conclusion: For any ordinary subjects who differ in taste, those subjects’ experiences differ
phenomenologically.
P5 and P6 follow from the fact that Asha and Beiro have robust dispositions to like experiences of E A
and dislike experiences of E B, respectively. If those dispositions did not manifest in ordinary
circumstances, we would not call them “robust.” P8 and P9 are applications of At-Ples, and P10 is an
application of Ples-Phen. P10-P12 follow straightforwardly from the preceding premises, and the
conclusion is a generalization of P12. There is nothing special about the case of Asha and Beiro, so, if we
conclude that their case involves phenomenal differences, then we should conclude that all ordinary cases
involve phenomenal differences. We should accept the phenomenal thesis.
At-Ples and Ples-Phen are doing all the heavy lifting in this argument; and as I have argued, both
principles are highly plausible. So, unless there are strong independent reasons to reject the phenomenal
thesis, we ought to accept it. We ought to think that ordinary taste differences do involve phenomenal
differences.
What about extraordinary cases — should we say that they, too, involve phenomenal differences?
This is a difficult question. The more extraordinary the subjects and circumstances, the harder to say what
is and is not plausible. But we certainly should not assume, with Heathwood and Sobel, that there exist
some strange cases which do not involve phenomenal differences. Rather, we should expect them to argue
for this Existence Claim.

79

§5 The Existence Claim Revisited
In this section, I will consider a few arguments for the Existence Claim. To reiterate, this is the
claim that there exists at least one case with the following structure: for some (phenomenal) kind of
experience E, and some subjects s 1 and s 2, s 1 is robustly disposed to like her experiences of E, and s 2 is
robustly disposed to dislike his experiences of E. Strictly speaking, such arguments are irrelevant to the
truth of the phenomenal thesis. We can accept the phenomenal thesis, while granting that some
extraordinary taste differences do not involve phenomenal differences. But it is nevertheless instructive to
consider the arguments. If it’s hard to find conclusive arguments for the Existence Claim, then this should
make us all the more confident in the phenomenal thesis.
§5.1 Arguments from Empirical Results
One strategy for defending the Existence Claim is to go looking for some empirical data which
supports it. And indeed, there is some empirical data which might appear promising. According to some
empirical studies on wine tasting, most people converge on similar judgments regarding the odors of
wine. This might seem to suggest that, for the most part, we are all smelling the same odors.
35
Olfaction
is a crucial component of wine tasting, and many of us differ in taste with respect to wines. So this might
appear to be a case in which the empirical data supports the Existence Claim.

35
For an overview of the relevant literature on wine odor detection, see Honoré-Chedozeau et.al. 2019. The results
of the literature are decidedly mixed. Some studies seem to show that wine experts are superior to non-experts
with respect to odor detection (Tempere et.al 2016; Bende & Nordin 1997). Other studies suggest that experts are
superior only with respect to describing the odors they detect (Poupon, Fernandez & Frasnelli 2019). See also Smith
(2007, 2011).

80

In fact, however, the empirical data is equivocal on this point. What it suggests is that most of us
smell the same qualities of wine; that is, we are alike with respect to detecting-by-smelling those qualities.
The data does not suggest that our experiences are exactly alike phenomenologically. The distinction is
crucial, because there are clearly cases in which our experiences share contents while differing
phenomenologically. Remember the case of Tinge of Disgust, in which Asha eats one hundred olives in a
row. Plausibly, her overall experiences change phenomenologically: they become repulsive, even
nauseating. But also plausibly, they remain constant with respect to at least some of their contents. They
all present her with some of the same qualities of the olives: their bitterness and saltiness, for example.
Even if she blindfolded, she would be able to tell that she was eating something bitter and salty.
Something similar might easily be going on in the wine tasting case. Suppose a pair of experts are
commenting on a bottle of dessert wine. One of them likes it; the other does not. They both detect notes
of red fruit, honey, and spice. But their experiences differ phenomenologically: one of the tasters finds
the honey a bit overwhelming, and her experience is tinged with disgust.
36
This treatment of the wine
tasting case is consistent with the relevant empirical data. So that data does not tell in favor of the
Existence Claim. It does not suggest that there are differences in taste without phenomenal differences.
Another set of data concerns cases of a more dramatic kind. These are certain anomalous cases in
which a subject feels pain, but reports that her pain is not unpleasant.
37
One way this can happen is if the

36
It would be a mistake to think that, if this interpretation is correct, it would lead to some sort of aesthetic
subjectivism. For it is open to the objectivist to claim that there is a fact of the matter about whether or not the
wine warrants pleasure or disgust. Proposals along these lines have been quite common in the aesthetics literature
— for a recent example, see Gorodeisky 2019.
37
According to one interpretation of these cases, the relevant experience is not really pain at all (Park 2020). For
ease of discussion, I am setting this view aside. I assume that anomalous pains can still be described as “pains.”
38

81

subject is on strong painkillers. Another way it can happen is if the subject has a rare brain condition: pain
asymbolia.
38
According to an anti-phenomenological interpretation of these cases, the anomalous subject’s
pain feels the same as any normal subject’s pain. The only difference is in their attitudes: whereas ordinary
subjects dislike their pains, the anomalous subjects are indifferent. This interpretation is endorsed by
Richard Brandt (1979: 37-38), Derek Parfit (1984: 501), and Richard Hall (1989). If these philosophers are
correct, then the anomalous pain cases would constitute a dramatic demonstration of the Existence
Claim.So our question becomes: what does the empirical data support? Does it support the anti-
phenomenological interpretation?
The answer is that data is at best equivocal. The first thing to note is that there is a dearth of
reliable reports from subjects who experience abnormal pains. Subjects with pain asymbolia are
exceedingly rare, and they often have severe language deficits (Bain 2014, Klein 2015 f.n.17). Subjects on
strong painkillers are not overly articulate, because they are high on drugs (Rachels 2000). Furthermore,
the reports we have do not clearly favor the subjectivist interpretation over the phenomenal
interpretation. Subjects report that their pains are not unpleasant — but that is not the same as reporting
that their pains feel exactly the same as ordinary pains, nor does it rule out that the difference in
unpleasantness amounts to a difference in how their overall experience feels. Moreover, there is some data
which supports the phenomenal interpretation. There are empirical studies which suggest that the
unpleasantness of pain can be experienced independently of pain itself (Ploner, M., H.K. Freund, and A.

For an especially thorough treatment of the pain asymbolia cases, see Bain (2014).
38
For an especially thorough treatment of the pain asymbolia cases, see Bain (2014).

82

Schnitzler 1999). If this suggestion is correct, then perhaps abnormal pains differ from ordinary pains in
virtue of lacking this component of experiential unpleasantness.
39
There is much more to be said about
the asymbolia and painkiller cases, but suffice it to say that the anti-phenomenological interpretation
interpretation is far from mandatory. It might be that unpleasant pain feels different than pain which is
not unpleasant, despite the fact that both kinds of experience are recognizably painful. Perhaps they feel
similar, but different, and this phenomenological difference accounts for the difference in
unpleasantness. Perhaps both ordinary and anomalous pains represent certain sorts of bodily damage,
and this is what makes them both recognizably painful.
40
On their face, these interpretations are at least
as plausible as the claim that anomalous pains feel just like ordinary pains. So the anomalous cases do not
constitute a demonstration of the Existence Claim. In the absence of some evidence which decides
between the competing interpretations — and especially given the truth of the phenomenal thesis — the
anomalous cases cannot provide a quick and easy route to the Existence Claim.
§5.2 Arguments from Combinatorial Principles
Is there some other quick and easy route available? One strategy would be to call upon some sort
of general combinatorial principle. For example:
Phenomenology-Attitude Combination (PAC): For any type of experience E:

39
This interpretation is endorsed by Grahek 2007. See also Bain 2014 and Klein 2015.
40
Interpretations along these lines are advanced by Stuart Rachels (2000), Hedda Mørch (2014), and by David Bain
(2014). Rachels specifically considers cases involving strong painkillers; Bain specifically considers cases of pain
asymbolia. In each case, they conclude that there is no strong reason to believe that abnormal pains feel like
ordinary pains.

83

● there is a possible subject s 1 that is robustly disposed to like their experiences of E,
● there is a possible subject s 2 that is robustly disposed to dislike their experiences of E.
If PAC is true, then there are possible taste differences which do not involve phenomenal
differences. There are cases in which subject s 1 is robustly disposed to like a certain kind of experience,
and subject s 2 is robustly disposed to dislike the very same kind of experience.
Of course, general principles like PAC are controversial — and PAC itself is no exception. Many
philosophers of mind endorse the view that mental types — in particular experiential types — have a causal
or dispositional essence. This view is endorsed by functionalists, and functionalism is probably the most
popular view in the metaphysics of mind. But it is also endorsed by some identity theorists (Taylor 2016,
Heil and Robb 2003), and some Russellian monists (Mørch 2018; Coleman 2015). So this view’s appeal cuts
across very different views in the metaphysics of mind.
Philosophers have various reasons for adopting the view that mental properties have a
dispositional essence. It would be a mistake to wade too deep into the literature, but the following passage
from John Hawthorne is instructive:
Consider the trio: phenomenal red, phenomenal orange, phenomenal blue. It is certainly
true that when a subject enjoys all three phenomenal states simultaneously and is invited
to judge which pair is most similar, she will judge that phenomenal red and orange are
most similar. Phenomenal colors are thus disposed to produce certain similarity verdicts.
These dispositions are causal powers of the phenomenal colors. And they seem to be
causal powers that the phenomenal colors possess essentially. A possible world where a

84

trio of phenomenal states R, O and B are not disposed to evoke the judgment that R and O
are most similar could not be a world where the R, O and B are identical to phenomenal
red, orange and blue, respectively. (2004: 355)
Here is another way to put the point. Intuitively, it’s no accident that phenomenal red and
phenomenal orange dispose us to report that they are similar. There is nothing arbitrary about the fact
that we judge that they are similar. Rather, this judgment stems from the natures of the experiences
themselves. This is just the sort of intuition motivating the view that experiential types have causal or
dispositional essences.
Clearly, this view has nothing in particular to do with differences in taste. But the intuitions apply,
mutatis mutandis, to paradigmatically pleasant and unpleasant experiences. Intuitively, it’s no accident
that feelings of disgust dispose us to avoidance behavior. Rather, they dispose us in this way because of
what those experiences are like. This is not an argument against PAC, nor is it intended as one. The point
is rather that there are general grounds for rejecting combinatorial principles like PAC, and those general
grounds do not make an exception for the kinds of experiences which feature in differences in taste. Thus,
PAC should be regarded as at best controversial. It is a heavyweight metaphysical principle, many
philosophers of mind reject it, and indeed there are intuitive grounds for rejecting it. It is not a piece of
common sense, and it does not provide a quick and easy route to the Existence Claim.
I cannot claim to have canvassed all possible routes to the Existence Claim. But I think that, in
light of the foregoing considerations, we ought to at least regard it as tendentious. The Existence Claim is
not supported by independently plausible arguments, and there are intuitive considerations which count

85

against it. This should make us all the more confident in the phenomenal thesis, and all the more wary of
arguments which turn on the Existence Claim.
§6 Conclusion
It is striking that, in recent years, much has been written about taste disputes — the sorts of things
people say when they differ in taste. See for example Egan 2010, Sundell 2011, Palmira 2015, Capraru 2016,
Ferrari 2016, Zeman 2016, Wyatt 2018, and Beddor 2019. But much less attention has been paid to taste
differences themselves — that is, the differences that obtain between people who differ in tastes. This, I
hope to have shown, is an important oversight. There is much to be learned from thinking about how we
differ when we differ in tastes.
It can be natural to suppose that olives taste pretty much the same to everyone, and this can make
it natural to think that we all get the same kind of experience from eating olives. But however natural this
thought may be, it ought to be rejected. We ought to think that those who love olives have different
experiences than those who hate olives. And we ought to be doubtful of arguments that assume otherwise.
The upshot for the Spriggean theory is that it is not threatened by differences in taste. In ordinary
cases, those who differ in taste will differ with respect to the pleasantness of their experiences, and with
respect to phenomenology, just as the Spriggean theory predicts. It is less clear what should be said about
extraordinary cases, but there is no reason to think that they will pose problems for the Spriggean theory.
As we have seen in the last section, the arguments for the Existence Claim are at best inconclusive. But
even if, for whatever reason, the Spriggean wants to accept the Existence Claim, they can do so. They can
say that, in certain extraordinary cases, subjects differ significantly with respect to their dispositional

86

reactions towards certain kinds of neutral experiences. In either case, the Spriggean has nothing to fear
from differences in taste.

87

Chapter Three: The Pleasure Problem and the Spriggean Solution
§1 Introduction
The Spriggean theory tells us that there are necessary connections between phenomenology,
pleasantness, and attitudes. Thus far I have extolled the virtues of the theory (its responses to the HONEST
objections) and I have argued that it is not threatened by differences in taste. However, I have not argued
directly for the view that there are necessary connections between phenomenology and attitudes. Doing
so is the first goal of this chapter. The second and related goal is to extol a different kind of virtue of the
Spriggean theory — namely, that it reconciles our objectivist and subjectivist intuitions about the value of
experience. The problem of reconciling those intuitions is what I call the Pleasure Problem. That the
Spriggean theory neatly solves the problem is a further mark in its favor.
§2 The Pleasure Problem
When I quench my thirst with a cool glass of water on a hot day, I have a paradigmatically pleasant
sort of experience. It seems obvious that this is a good experience for me to have. It seems to be non-
derivatively good for me, in the sense that it contributes directly to making my day go better for me. But
when we try to explain why this pleasant experience is good for me, we encounter a clash of intuitions.
First, we have an objectivist intuition: plausibly, the experience is non-derivatively good for me just because
it feels the way that it does. It ‘feels good’. Thus, any experience of the same kind would be good for the
person who has it. That experience would also ‘feel good.’ Second, we have a subjectivist intuition: if a person
were indifferent to that kind of experience, then the experience would not be non-derivatively good for
them.

88

Strictly speaking, these intuitions are not inconsistent with one another. But they are jointly
inconsistent with a possibility claim: the claim that possibly, there could be a subject who is indifferent to
an experience which feels just like my pleasant experience. Many philosophers are prepared to endorse
this possibility claim. So they face an inconsistent triad:
Objectivist Claim: Some kinds of experience (namely, pleasant experiences) are non-derivatively
good for all possible subjects who experience them.
Subjectivist Claim: Necessarily, an experience is non-derivatively good for a subject only if that
subject is not indifferent to experiences of that kind.
Possibility Claim: For every kind of experience a subject can have,
41
possibly a subject is
indifferent to experiences of that kind.
This is what I will call the Pleasure Problem. There is also a Pain Problem, in which every instance of ‘good’
is replaced with ‘bad.’
Naturally, there are three basic strategies for resolving these two problems. Subjectivists take the
first strategy: in each case, they resolve the problem by rejecting the objectivist claim (Sobel 2005;
Heathwood 2011). Objectivists take the second strategy: in each case, they resolve the problem by rejecting
the subjectivist claim (Goldstein 1989; Rachels 2000; Bramble 2013). The third strategy — rejecting the
possibility claim — is unpopular. No one seems to have adopted it in response to the Pleasure Problem,

41
There may be possible kinds of experience which no subject can have — for example, and experience as of a
square circle. If there are such experiences, then clearly no subject can be indifferent to them. Thus the
qualification.

89

with the exception of Timothy Sprigge (1987). Accordingly, I will call it the Spriggean strategy. Sprigge’s
arguments have not gained much traction — objectivists and subjectivists are both quick to dismiss the
idea that there might be necessary connections between our attitudes and our experiences.
In this paper I make the case for the Spriggean strategy. First, I show how and why the possibility
claim is relevant to the debate between objectivists and subjectivists. Then I rehearse Sprigge’s original
argument against the possibility claim, and develop my own version of it. Along the way, I show that many
philosophers of mind have independent grounds for rejecting the possibility claim. I conclude that we
ought to follow Sprigge in claiming that ‘...pleasures and pains are of their nature liable to affect behavior
in certain directions’ (Sprigge 1987: 142). In this way we can resolve the Pleasure and Pain problems, while
accommodating both the objectivist and subjectivist intuitions.
§3 Quenching and Burning
Before we consider possible responses to the Pleasure and Pain Problems, we need to establish
some terminology. First, the Pleasure and Pain Problems involve claims about ‘kinds of experience.’ As in
the previous chapter, whenever I refer to ‘kinds of experience,’ the kinds are individuated
phenomenologically, or by ‘what it is like’ to experience them. Experiences e 1 and e 2 differ in kind just in case
‘what it is like’ to experience e 1 differs from ‘what it is like’ to experience e 2.
It will be useful to have at hand some paradigmatically pleasant and unpleasant kinds of
experiences. Imagine, then, that you have a cool sip of water on a dry summer day, quenching your thirst
and causing yourself to have a pleasant experience. I will call this, and all other experiences of the same
kind, a quench-experience. Like every kind of experience, quench-experiences involve everything about

90

‘what it is like’ to be a particular subject at a particular time: they involve everything about ‘what it is like’
to be you on the particular occasion on which you have a cool sip of water. If your vision is blurry on that
occasion, then one must have blurry vision to have a quench-experience. If you feel a pebble between your
toes, then one must feel a pebble between one’s toes to have a quench-experience. The upshot is that
quench-experiences are extremely specific sorts of experiences, and it is unlikely that anyone but you will
ever have one. Even so, it will be helpful to talk about the quench-experiences of other subjects. So I will
make a simplifying assumption: whenever I talk about quench-experiences, I will assume that the subjects
having those experiences are similar to you in all relevant respects. Like you, they are parched. Like you
— maybe — they have blurry vision and pebbles between their toes. Thus, there is no bar to claiming that
they have quench-experiences — viz., experiences which are exactly like your total experience as you sip
water on a specific occasion. Nothing of philosophical significance turns on this assumption, but it makes
the discussion go more smoothly.
Quench-experiences, I claim, are paradigmatically pleasant experiences. Now imagine a different
scenario: your unprotected hand is thrust into an open flame, thereby causing you to have an extremely
unpleasant experience. I will call this, and all other experiences of the same kind, a burn-experience. Again,
burn-experiences all feel exactly alike. They all feel just like the total experience that you get, on a particular
occasion, from having your hand thrust into an open flame. I invoke my simplifying assumption again:
whenever I talk about burn-experiences, I will assume that the subjects having those experiences are
similar to you in all relevant respects. Thus, there is no bar to claiming that they have burn-experiences —
viz., experiences which are exactly like your total experience as your hand is burnt on a specific occasion.

91

I will assume that quench- and burn-experiences are among the kinds of experiences which figure
in the Pleasure and Pain problems. According to the objectivist, then, quench-experiences are non-
derivatively good for all possible subjects who have them, and burn-experiences are non-derivatively bad
for all possible subjects who have them.
42
According to the subjectivist, those experiences are only non-
derivatively good or bad for subjects who are not indifferent to them. This leaves us with three pieces of
terminology to be explained: ‘indifferent’, ‘non-derivatively good’, and ‘non-derivatively bad.’
I will understand indifference in terms of caring: we are indifferent to something if and only if we
do not care about it. The term ‘caring,’ in turn, is intended to cover the various attitudes which
subjectivists employ in their various preferred theories of experiential value. For Derek Parfit, the relevant
attitude is ‘hedonic (dis)liking’ (2001: 53) So, for Parfit, an experience is good (bad) for a subject just in case
they (dis)like it. For Fred Feldman, the relevant attitude is ‘attitudinal (dis)pleasure’ (2004); for Chris
Heathwood, it is ‘genuine attraction/aversion’ (2019). My term ‘caring’ is meant to be neutral between
these and other proposals.
Suffice it to say that caring involves some combination of behavioral dispositions, mental
dispositions, and/or phenomenology. For example, I care about eating ice cream: I am disposed to be
attracted to eating it, I view the prospect of eating it with gusto, and I ‘feel good’ about eating it — perhaps
not in a strictly phenomenological sense. I also care about drinking battery acid. I am disposed to be averse

42
Objectivists are not committed to the claim that all burn-experiences are bad simpliciter, or that all quench-
experiences are good simpliciter. In principle, at least, something can be bad simpliciter, but good for a particular
subject. Indeed, it is sometimes suggested that undeserved pleasures are like this: they are bad simpliciter, but good
for the subjects who experience them. See Goldstein 1989.

92

to drinking it, I view the prospect of drinking it with horror, and I ‘feel bad’ about drinking it — again,
perhaps not in a strictly phenomenological sense.
§4 The State of the Debate
Recall the three claims that make up the Pleasure and Pain Problems:
Objectivist Claim: Some kinds of experience are non-derivatively good for all possible subjects
who experience them, and some kinds of experience are non-derivatively bad for all possible
subjects who experience them.
Subjectivist Claim: Necessarily, an experience is non-derivatively good or bad for a subject only
if that subject is not indifferent to experiences of that kind.
Possibility Claim: For every kind of experience a subject can have, possibly a subject is indifferent
to experiences of that kind.
The purpose of this section is to demonstrate that the possibility claim is indeed relevant to the debate
between objectivists and subjectivists, where ‘objectivists’ are those who accept the objectivist claim, and
‘subjectivists’ are those who accept the subjectivist claim.
The first thing to do is to distinguish this debate from another, closely related debate. As I have
stated the objectivist and subjectivist claims, they both tell us something about which possible experiences
have the properties of non-derivative goodness and badness. So the debate, as I am understanding it, is a
debate about which possible experiences have those normative properties. The debate is not concerned
with why those experiences have those properties. That is the subject of a distinct, but closely related
debate:

93

Objectivist Explanatory Claim: Whenever an experience is non-derivatively good or bad for a
subject, it is non-derivatively good or bad for that subject in virtue of being an experience of the
kind that it is.
Subjectivist Explanatory Claim: Whenever an experience is non-derivatively good or bad for a
subject, it is non-derivatively good or bad for that subject in virtue of their caring about it.
I will be mainly interested in the former debate, rather than the latter. But much of what I say regarding
the former debate has straightforward implications for the latter. For example: in this section I will
consider various arguments put forward in the former debate, and I will argue that Spriggeans can avoid
all of them. Those same arguments are also put forward in the latter, explanatory debate, and the
Spriggean can avoid them in that context as well. Thus, my discussion of the arguments bears on the
explanatory debate in a straightforward way.
The arguments I consider turn on the possibility claim: for every kind of experience a subject can
have, possibly a subject is indifferent to experiences of that kind. Thus, the possibility claim is highly
relevant to the debate between objectivists and subjectivists. It is implicated in objectivist arguments
against subjectivism, and subjectivist arguments against objectivism. Rejecting it would deflate all those
arguments. First I will describe its role in objectivist arguments, then I will describe its role in subjectivism
arguments, and finally I will describe how we might reject it.
§4.1 Objectivist Arguments
Consider the following kind of standard objectivist argument. The argument begins with a
description of something like the following case:

94

Ultra-Spartans: The ultra-spartans are a race of aliens. They are much like human beings
in many respects. In particular, they have hands, and when those hands are burned by
open flames, they sometimes have burn-experiences. That is, they have experiences
which feel just like an experience that an ordinary human being might get from having
their hand burned by an open flame. But ultra-spartans, unlike humans, are indifferent to
burn-experiences: they are not at all disposed to avoid them, nor are they distracted by
them. They simply do not care about those experiences at all.
Cases like Ultra-Spartans have a famous history in the philosophy of mind. In that context, the
purpose of invoking ‘Spartan-style’ cases is to try and show that our inner experiences can come apart
from the dispositions with which they are associated (see for example Putnam 1963, and Lewis 1980).
Notably, however, this is not how Spartan-style cases are used by objectivists in their debate with
subjectivists, since objectivists and subjectivists both typically agree that there are no necessary
connections between experiences and dispositions. Rather, the objectivist uses Spartan-style cases in
order to motivate a value claim: paradigmatically unpleasant experiences are bad for us, even if we are
indifferent to them. After all, the objectivist argues, the ultra-spartans’ experiences feel exactly like our
experiences. Just think about what it would be like to have a burn-experience — that is, to thrust your
hand into an open flame. Could the ultra-spartans have experiences just like that, without being worse-off
for having them? When the question is framed in this way, the objectivist intuition is rather forceful. It
seems difficult to imagine that ultra-spartans are not made worse-off by their burn-experiences. And if
they are made worse-off by those experiences, then subjectivism is false:
Anti-Subjectivist Spartan Argument

95

P1) There are possible creatures who are indifferent to burn-experiences, but whose burn-
experiences are bad for them.
P2) If P1, subjectivism is false.
Conclusion: Subjectivism is false.
When objectivists make this anti-subjectivist argument, they do not appeal to the particular alien
creatures I called ‘ultra-spartans’. But they describe cases with a similar structure. For example, Irwin
Goldstein argues as follows:
In principle, emotional reaction can be severed from any pain sensation without the sensation
changing qualitatively. If all of pain’s unpleasantness and badness were contingent on concurrent
aversion to pain, any pain, however intense, could in principle shed all unpleasantness while
remaining qualitatively unchanged. In some people intense pain might have no trace of
unpleasantness or badness. This seems impossible. Concurrent aversion is not necessary for
unpleasantness and badness. (Golstein 1989: 261)
Guy Kahane pursues the same line of thought to the same conclusion. If subjectivism is true, he tells us,
then we must embrace an absurd possibility:
[...] that I could be in the same total experiential state I am in when suffering from
excruciating pain, yet that this state may not be bad at all, or may even be intensely
enjoyable and thus good. This, I believe, is not a suggestion we can make sense of. Perhaps
there will be those who will deny this. But it is not by accident that, although subjectivism

96

about pain’s badness is widespread, we are never told that this is one of its implications.
(Kahane 2009: 334)
In both cases, the basic point is the same. It would be bad for one to have paradigmatically unpleasant
experiences, even if one is indifferent to those experiences. The point is similar to the Togetherness
objection from Chapter One, except in that case the claim was that there was a necessary connection
between certain phenomenal kinds and unpleasantness. Here the point is that there is a necessary
connection between certain phenomenal kinds and prudential disvalue: necessarily, it is bad to experience
certain phenomenal feels.
Subjectivists reject this value claim. They claim that creatures like ultra-spartans would not be
made worse-off by their burn-experiences. More generally, they claim that any subject which is
indifferent to its burn-experiences is not made worse-off by those experiences. However, subjectivists
could offer a different response to the anti-subjectivist argument. They could reject the metaphysical
assumption that creatures like ultra-spartans are possible. Indeed, this is exactly how some philosophers
of mind react to these sorts of cases. This would amount to rejecting the possibility claim in the Pleasure
and Pain Problems: if no possible subjects are indifferent to burn-experiences, then it is not the case that
for every kind of experience a subject can have, possibly a subject is indifferent to experiences of that kind.
In this way, the subjectivist could undermine the objectivist’s argument.
§4.2 Subjectivist Arguments
This dialectical situation is exactly mirrored in arguments against objectivism. Subjectivists
describe cases in which subjects’ experiences come apart from the dispositions with which they are

97

associated. The only difference is that, whereas objectivists tend to describe cases in which subjects are
indifferent to paradigmatically unpleasant experiences, subjectivists tend to describe cases in which
subjects are indifferent to paradigmatically pleasant experiences. Consider the following case, for
example:
Ultra-Ascetics: The ultra-ascetics are a race of aliens. They are much like human beings in many
respects. In particular, when they quench their thirst with a cool sip of water, they sometimes
have quench-experiences. That is, they have experiences which feel just like an experience an
ordinary human might get from drinking cool water on a hot day. But ultra-ascetics, unlike
humans, are indifferent to quench-experiences: they are not at all disposed to be attracted to them.
Those experiences have no appeal for the ultra-ascetics. They simply do not care about them at
all.
Like objectivists, subjectivists are not trying to show that experiences can come apart from the dispositions
with which they are associated. Rather, they are trying to motivate a value claim. The subjectivist claims
that paradigmatically pleasant experiences are not good for subjects who are indifferent to them. After all,
the subjectivist will argue, the ultra-ascetics are psychologically unlike human beings. They, unlike us, are
in no way engaged by their quench-experiences. Why, then, should we think that those experiences make
them better-off?
When the question is framed in this way, the subjectivist intuition is rather forceful. It does seem
difficult to imagine that the ultra-ascetics are made better-off by their quench-experiences. And yet,

98

quench-experiences are the sorts of experiences which, according to objectivists, are necessarily good for
anyone who has them. So if they are not good for ultra-ascetics, then objectivism is false:
Anti-Objectivist Ascetic Argument
P3) There are possible creatures whose quench-experiences are not good for them.
P4) If P3, objectivism is false.
Conclusion: Objectivism is false.
The point is similar to the Normativity objection from Chapter One: if we are indifferent to a certain kind
of experience, then that kind of experience does not make us better off.
When subjectivists have made this kind of argument, they have typically had in mind a particular
theory of pleasure: namely, the theory that pleasurable experiences share some sort of phenomenological
commonality. But the argument applies equally to any kind of objectivism about pleasure and pain. Rather
than talking about a ‘distinctive feeling of pleasure,’ subjectivists might make the same point about
quench-experiences.
Objectivists respond to these arguments by rejecting the value claim. They contend that even
subjects who are indifferent to their quench-experiences are in fact made better-off by them. However,
objectivists could instead reject the metaphysical assumption that creatures like ultra-ascetics are possible.
Again, this would amount to rejecting the possibility claim in the Pleasure and Pain Problems: if no possible
subjects are indifferent to quench-experiences, then it is not the case that for every kind of experience a
subject can have, possibly a subject is indifferent to experiences of that kind. By rejecting the possibility
claim, the objectivist could undermine the subjectivist’s argument against objectivism.

99

§4.3 The Possibility Claim
My contention is that we should reject the possibility claim. But one might worry that, if we reject
it, then we will commit ourselves to some sort of extravagant metaphysical worldview. I briefly considered
this objection in Chapter One, when I introduced the Spriggean theory. But it will be worthwhile to revisit
the objection in this context.
Here is the worry. If the possibility claim is false, then some experiences are such that, necessarily,
we care about them whenever we have them. And this might seem to entail that which is forbidden by
Hume’s Dictum: the existence of necessary connections between wholly distinct things. There is room to debate
how exactly Hume’s Dictum should be understood, but the general idea is clear enough. Consider the two
apples on my desk: they are wholly distinct from one another — they are entirely different chunks of reality
— so Hume’s Dictum tells us that the state of one apple does not necessarily have any consequences for the
state of the other. And this does seem at least prima facie plausible. In contrast, consider the properties of
being an apple and being a fruit. It is prima facie plausible that there are necessary connections between these
properties — it seems clear that being an apple is necessarily co-instantiated with being a fruit — and Hume’s
Dictum does not forbid our saying so, because being an apple and being a fruit are not wholly distinct things.
Part of what it is to be an apple is to be a fruit.
The present worry is that our experiences and attitudes are ‘wholly distinct things’ — they are
more like the pair of apples on my desk, and less like the properties of being an apple and being a fruit. Thus,
the claim that they are necessarily connected is a violation of Hume’s Dictum, and ought to be regarded
as metaphysically extravagant. Putting this together, we arrive at a simple argument:

100

Extravagance Argument:
P5) It is metaphysically extravagant to reject Hume’s Dictum: the claim that there are no necessary
connections between wholly distinct things.
P6) Our experiences are wholly distinct from our attitudes towards our experiences (including e.g.
attitudes of caring or indifference).
P7) If P6 is true and we reject the possibility claim, then we must accept that there are necessary
connections between wholly distinct things.
Conclusion: If we reject the possibility claim, then we must accept something metaphysically
extravagant.
The argument, thus understood, is far from airtight. One might deny P6, by embracing a theory
of mental states on which our attitudes towards our experiences are not always wholly distinct from the
experiences themselves. In Chapter One, I considered how one might do this by embracing role
functionalism. To recap: according to the role functionalist, all it is to be an experience of a certain kind is
play a certain causal role — that is, to stand in certain causal relations to other things. With this theory at
hand, we might say that part of what it is to be a burn-experience is to be something that causes the
experiencer to care about it. On this theory, a given mental state simply does not count as a burn-
experience unless it causes the experiencer to care about it. So it turns out that your burn-experience is
not wholly distinct from your caring about it; they are not entirely different chunks of reality. It simply
would not count as a burn-experience if it did not cause you to care about it. P6 turns out to be false. So,

101

in rejecting the possibility claim, we need not reject Hume’s Dictum. We can depart from the Spriggean
theory and adopt the functionalist theory.
Of course, some may prefer to reject P5. Not everyone thinks that it’s a metaphysical extravagance
to reject Hume’s Dictum. And if one rejects it, then further options become available. For example:
Anti-Humean Experientialism: There are some kinds of experience which bear necessary
connections to (distinct) dispositions which are characteristic of caring — e.g., attraction and
aversion responses. One’s having those dispositions necessarily causes one to have an experience
of one of those kinds, or one’s having an experience of one of those kinds necessarily causes one
to have those dispositions.
This kind of non-Humean theory of caring and indifference can be supported by more general
metaphysical views. One might adopt a causal or dispositional theory of properties, along the lines of
Sidney Shoemaker (1984), John Heil and David Robb (2003), and Henry Taylor (2018). On this view,
experiential properties are “first-order” physical properties which bear necessary connections to other,
distinct physical properties. A related view posits that there are phenomenal powers: phenomenal properties
which produce certain effects in virtue of ‘what it is like’ to have them. This view is defended by Hedda
Mørch (2014, 2017, 2019a, 2019b, 2020), Harold Langsam (2011), and David Builes (2020). The important
point is that there is a range of views — both Humean and non-Humean — which are consistent with
rejecting the possibility claim. Rejecting it does not commit us to controversial metaphysical claims in any
straightforward way.

102

With the preamble out of the way, I now turn to my positive argument. I will begin by rehearsing
Sprigge’s argument against the possibility claim. Then I will rehearse some objections to Sprigge’s
argument. Finally I will modify Sprigge’s argument so as to avoid those objections, and defend the
resulting neo-Spriggean Argument.
§5 The Spriggean Argument
Timothy Sprigge responds to the Pleasure and Pain Problems by rejecting the possibility claim.
He does so in the context of his particular view about pleasure and pain: he maintains that pleasure and
pain are necessarily such that when we experience them, they dispose us to do certain things. In
particular: ‘The pleasurableness of an experience tends of its very nature to promote activity within the
stream of consciousness which tends to sustain and repeat it, while the painfulness of an experience tends
of its very nature to promote activity which will remove it’ (Sprigge 1987: 142.). Sprigge also affirms that
certain kinds of experiences are essentially pleasant, while others are essentially unpleasant (Sprigge 1987:
140.). So, if I am having a quench-experience, then necessarily I am disposed to ‘promote activity which
tends to sustain and repeat it.’ And if I am having a burn-experience, then necessarily I am disposed to
‘promote activity which will remove it’ (Sprigge 1987: 142.). Sprigge strongly suggests that having these
dispositions is sufficient for caring about those experiences (Sprigge 1987: 142-143). So, on the resulting
Spriggean view, we cannot possibly be indifferent to those experiences.
Sprigge offers several different arguments for his view. Most of those arguments are negative: he
argues against various competing theories of pleasure and pain, and concludes that his own view is the

103

only one left standing. I am more interested in Sprigge’s positive argument, which he summarizes as
follows:
My own view is that there are [non-analytic] necessities, at least of tendency, and that the
reinforcing powers of pleasure and pain are conspicuous examples of such. If we deny
that these, in virtue simply of being the specific qualities they are, have an intrinsic
tendency to influence behavior as positive and negative reinforcers in the way we have
roughly characterized, we must either analyse them behavioristically or pretend that
there would be nothing intrinsically odd to counter-hedonically guided behavior (Sprigge
1987: 148).
While this passage is open to multiple possible interpretations, I think the following reconstruction is
plausible. According to Sprigge, it is necessarily fitting to respond with aversion and attraction to
unpleasant and pleasant experiences, respectively. Thus, it is necessarily odd to respond with aversion to
pleasant experiences, or to respond with attraction to unpleasant experiences. Call this thesis ‘Hedonic
Fittingness.’ Sprigge goes on to say that we can adequately explain Hedonic Fittingness only if we accept
that there are necessary connections between certain kinds of experience and dispositions. In particular,
if one has a paradigmatically pleasant or unpleasant experience, one must be disposed to be attracted to
it or averse to it, respectively. So Sprigge’s argument is simple:
Spriggean Argument
P8) Hedonic Fittingness

104

P9) We cannot adequately account for Hedonic Fittingness unless we accept that there are
certain kinds of experience such that necessarily we are not indifferent to those experience.
P10) If Hedonic Fittingness and P7, then there are certain kinds of experience such that
necessarily we are not indifferent to those experience.
Conclusion: There are certain kinds of experience such that necessarily we are not indifferent to
those experience. (The possibility claim is false.)
Although there is room to doubt P8 and P10, I believe that P9 is the really doubtful premise here.
Stuart Rachels, one of the few philosophers to engage with the argument, points out that Hedonic
Fittingness can be explained without appealing to any necessary connections.
43
His explanation is simple:
unpleasant experiences are bad for us, and it is fitting to be averse to things which are bad for us (Rachels
2000: 201). This explains why the ultra-spartans’ attitudes are odd. Their burn-experiences are bad for
them, and yet they are not averse to those experiences. I think that Rachels’s objection is successful.
However, I also believe that Sprigge’s argument is on the right track. We can modify it so as to reach the
same conclusion while avoiding Rachels’s objection.
First, we can leave out any appeal to a relation of ‘fittingness.’ The important point is not that
certain dispositions ‘fit’ certain kinds of experiences, but that certain kinds of experience coincide with
certain kinds of dispositions. They coincide in the perfectly prosaic sense that, for each of those kinds of
experiences, whenever one has an experience of that kind, one also has a corresponding disposition.

43
Irwin Goldstein makes the same point, but not as a response to the Spriggean argument. See Goldstein 1980,
1983.

105

Second, we can expand the argument beyond paradigmatically pleasant and unpleasant kinds of
experience. As I will argue, there are many kinds of experience which coincide with specific kinds of
dispositions. Indeed, our phenomenology systematically coincides with our dispositions. We cannot
explain this systematic coincidence in the way that Rachels explains Hedonic Fittingness. The best
explanation is that there are necessary connections between kinds of experience and kinds of dispositions.
So we ought to accept that there are such necessary connections, and we ought to reject the possibility
claim as a consequence of this general commitment.
§6 The Neo-Spriggean Argument
The Neo-Spriggean argument begins with the following thesis:
Systematic Coincidence: Many kinds of experience are such that, whenever one has an
experience of that kind, then one has a corresponding disposition.
To get a feel for this thesis, we can start with some obvious cases in which our experiences coincide with
our dispositions. For example: if I feel an itch, I am disposed to try to scratch. This is not to say that, on
any occasion on which I feel itchy, I will try to scratch. I might be distracted, or I might have some reason
to want to feel itchy. These are most naturally understood as cases in which my disposition to try to scratch
is masked by countervailing circumstances. So these cases are consistent with the thought that everyone
who feels itchy is disposed to try to scratch. And this thought, although couched in philosophical jargon,
is a piece of common sense. Similarly, it is common sense that thirsty people are disposed to try to drink,
and tired people are disposed to try to rest.

106

Some kinds of experience are not obviously associated with outward behavior, in the way that
itchiness is associated with scratching, and thirst is associated with drinking. Consider color experiences,
for example — there is no particular kind of behavior which is obviously associated with experiences of
redness. Color experiences do not threaten Systematic Coincidence even if they do not coincide with
certain dispositions. Systematic Coincidence merely tells us that many — not all — kinds of experience
coincide with corresponding dispositions. But it worth noting that, in point of fact, there is a plausible
case to be made that color experiences coincide with dispositions. Recall John Hawthorne’s claims
regarding those experiences:
Consider the trio: phenomenal red, phenomenal orange, phenomenal blue. It is certainly
true that when a subject enjoys all three phenomenal states simultaneously and is invited
to judge which pair is most similar, she will judge that phenomenal red and orange are
most similar. Phenomenal colors are thus disposed to produce certain similarity verdicts.
These dispositions are causal powers of the phenomenal colors. [...] Of course, various
familiar puzzles attending ascriptions of dispositions arise here too: We say that a certain
poison is disposed to kill you when ingested even though it will not do so when ingested
with an accompanying antidote. I say that phenomenal colors dispose certain similarity
verdicts even though, doubtless, there are some extraordinary situations in which the
characteristic manifestation of the disposition will not be forthcoming. That all our
ordinary disposition claims may be false approximations to the truth is not a matter I
need worry about here. What is crucial is that there are causal powers essential to

107

phenomenal colors, not that I have succeeded in characterizing one of them with full
exactitude. (Hawthorne 2004: 354)
Hawthorne focuses on our dispositions to discriminate between experiences, but we could just as
well focus on our dispositions to discriminate between things in the world. Suppose I have a mixture of
red and green candies, and suppose I know that the reds taste much better than the greens. Naturally, I
am motivated to eat the best-tasting candies I can, so I will tend to go for the reds and not the greens. If I
had the same motivation but were completely color blind, I would act differently — I would be somewhat
at a loss. My color experiences thus dispose me to act differently than I would if I had no such experiences.
Compared to my experiences of itchiness — for example — color experiences bear a less overt or direct
connection to behavior. But they clearly make a difference to what we tend to do in various circumstances.
So even in the case of color experience, there is a case to be made that there are systematic connections
between experiences and dispositions. And the same considerations apply, mutatis mutandis, to sensory
experiences pertaining to other modalities.
44

Whatever one says about sensory experiences, it is clear enough that many kinds of experience —
e.g. experiences of itchiness, thirst, tiredness, etc. — systematically coincide with kinds of dispositions.
Systematic Coincidence is thus a striking fact about our experiences and dispositions. According to the
Spriggean argument I am pursuing, this striking fact is best explained by positing that there are necessary

44
Notice also that we can discriminate across sensory modalities. We can discriminate between — for example —
redness and loudness. See Hawthorne 2004: f.n.22.

108

connections between experiences and dispositions. More specifically, it is best explained by positing
Necessary Connections:
Necessary Connections: Many kinds of experience are such that, necessarily, if one has an
experience of that kind, then one has a corresponding disposition.
Necessary Connections is intended to cover whichever experiences and dispositions are covered by
Systematic Coincidence. Whereas Systematic Coincidence merely tells us that those experiences and
dispositions coincide, Necessary Connections tells us that they cannot fail to coincide, as a matter of
metaphysical necessity. Take the coincidence of feeling itchy and being disposed to try to scratch, for example.
If this coincidence is covered by Necessary Connections, then it is not a contingent quirk of human
psychology, nor is it the product of any contingent laws of nature. Even if our psychology and our laws of
nature were very different, the relevant conditional would still be true: if a subject feels itchy, then they are
disposed to try and scratch. And the same goes for all other other pairs of experience and disposition
which are covered by Systematic Coincidence.
From Necessary Connections, it is only a short leap to the falsity of the possibility claim. If many
kinds of experience bear necessary connections to dispositions, then presumably quench- and burn-
experiences are among them. They certainly seem to coincide with certain sorts of dispositions. People
who have burn-experiences tend to respond aversely: they tend to try to get rid of those experiences. Those
who have quench-experiences tend to welcome those experiences: they tend to try to savor them. The
details do not matter, so long as having the relevant dispositions is sufficient for caring about — and thus,
not being indifferent to — the relevant experiences.

109

Putting this all together, the Neo-Spriggean argument runs as follows:
Neo-Spriggean Argument
P11) Systematic Coincidence
P12) The best explanation of Systematic Coincidence is Necessary Connections.
P13) If Systematic Coincidence & P11, then Necessary Connections.
P14) If Necessary Connections, then necessarily it is impossible to be indifferent to
paradigmatically pleasant and unpleasant kinds of experiences.
Conclusion: The possibility claim is false.
I believe that this argument succeeds where the original Spriggean argument fails. In the remainder of
this section I will defend it from objections.
I have made the preliminary case for P11, or Systematic Coincidence. And I have already
considered how Systematic Coincidence might be challenged by appealing to kinds of sensory experience
— like color experiences — which do not obviously coincide with kinds of dispositions. I responded by
arguing that even in these cases, the relevant kinds of experience do plausibly coincide with kinds of
dispositions. More to the point, Systematic Coincidence is consistent with the claim that some
experiences do not coincide with dispositions, since it is a claim about many — not all — kinds of
experiences. There are doubtless other cases in which it is not obvious how our experiences coincide with
our dispositions, but my responses will be the same. First: even if the connection is not obvious, upon
reflection there may be a non-obvious connection. Second: even if we find a case in which a kind of

110

experience genuinely does not coincide with any disposition, this would not threaten Systematic
Coincidence.
The premise doing the heaviest lifting is P12. The idea is that Systematic Coincidence cries out for
explanation, and the way to explain it is to posit some sort of connections between kinds of experiences
and kinds of dispositions. Furthermore, the best explanation of Systematic Coincidence will have it that
the connections are necessary. Thus, the best explanation of Systematic Coincidence is Necessary
Connections.
One might object, along the lines of Rachels’s original objection to Sprigge, that there are better
explanations to be had. The most obvious alternative explanation is purely psychological:
Psychological Connections: Human beings are psychologically constituted such that, for many
kinds of experience, if one has an experience of that kind, then one has a corresponding
disposition.
According to the proponent of Psychological Connections, the connection between itching and scratching
is merely a fact about human psychology. In principle, other sorts of creatures might be constituted such
that itches do not at all dispose them to try to scratch. Indeed, for all we know, the universe contains lots
of creatures which feel intense itches all day and night, but never feel the least bit inclined to scratch.
There may also be creatures whose feelings of thirst do not dispose them to drink, or whose color
experiences do not dispose them to discriminate between things in their environment. On the proposal
we are currently considering, these odd creatures cannot be dismissed as mere metaphysically possible
oddities. Rather, we must be open to the idea that they exist in the actual world.

111

I predict that few will be willing to go this far. Among those who claim that itchiness can come
apart from the disposition to try to scratch, most will claim that this is a mere metaphysical possibility. It
is not something we think may actually happen. Those who adopt this line of thought should deny that the
connection between our experiences and dispositions is merely psychological. They would be better
served by claiming that the connection is nomological:
Nomological Connections: The actual laws of nature are such that, for many kinds of experience,
if one has an experience of that kind, then one has a corresponding disposition.
In contrast with Necessary Connections, Nomological Connections tells us that Systematic Coincidence is
a product of the actual laws of nature. Thus, if the world had different laws of nature, then our experiences
could come apart from our dispositions in any number of ways — our feelings of itchiness might not
dispose us to try to scratch, for example. Necessary Connections tells us that this is impossible, even with
very different laws of nature.
I think that Nomological Connections is the most promising alternative to Necessary
Connections. But even so, we ought to prefer the latter thesis. We should not be afraid of the claim that,
as a matter of metaphysical necessity, feelings of itchiness dispose us to try to scratch.
To begin with, there are some intuitive grounds for preferring Necessary Connections.
Phenomenal-dispositional coincidences do not appear to be metaphysically contingent in the same way
that other coincidences appear metaphysically contingent. For example: oak trees lose their leaves in the
winter, but this appears to be a metaphysically contingent sort of coincidence. It is easy to imagine that
(if the laws of nature were different) oak trees might hold onto their leaves throughout the winter. It is

112

similarly easy to imagine that (if the laws of nature were different) there might be lightning without
thunder, or fire without smoke. In contrast, even permitting ourselves to imagine worlds in which the
laws of nature are very different, it is hard to imagine cases in which our phenomenology comes apart
from our dispositions. Imagine feeling extremely itchy, but having no tendency to try to scratch. Of course
it is easy to imagine feeling itchy, but lacking any disposition to scratch. One can imagine being a blob-
like creature with no functional limbs, in the manner of I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (Ellison 1967).
In that case, one cannot be disposed to scratch, since one is simply incapable of scratching. However, one
can still try, in the sense of making a futile mental effort. The relevant imagined scenario is one in which
we are not even disposed to try. And that is simply very hard to imagine.
Now returning to the Spartan- and Ascetic-style cases: imagine cases in which subjects have no
disposition to respond with attraction or aversion to their quench- and burn-experiences, respectively.
These cases strain our powers of imagination in a way that the preceding cases — e.g. fire without smoke,
lightning without thunder — do not. And this provides us with some grounds for thinking that
phenomenal-dispositional connections are different. On reflection, the connection between feeling itchy
and trying to scratch, or between pain and aversion, seems tighter than the connection between lightning
and thunder or fire and smoke. Whereas the latter connections seem to be merely nomologically
necessary, this does not seem adequate for capturing the connections between experiences and
dispositions.
Relatedly, our experiences seem to explain our dispositions. If you know that I feel itchy, you can
reasonably infer that I am disposed to try to scratch. You can make this inference just in virtue of knowing
‘what it is like’ to feel itchy. In contrast, I cannot make this sort of inference in ordinary cases of

113

nomological connections. I am familiar with the phenomenon of lightning, but this familiarity alone does
not license the inference that lightning is followed by thunder. I know that a given flash of lightning will
be followed by thunder only because I know that, as a matter of fact, lightning is reliably followed by
thunder. No amount of thinking about lightning as such will reveal its connection to thunder. Similarly,
no amount of thinking about fire as such will reveal its connection to smoke, and no amount of thinking
about oak trees as such will reveal when they lose their leaves. These connections are opaque. We learn of
them — in the first instance — by repeated observation, as is typical of merely nomological connections.
If we accept Necessary Connections, we will be well-positioned to explain why repeated
observation is not necessary for knowing that itches dispose us to try to scratch. We can claim that, in
making this inference, we are latching onto the necessary connection between the experience and the
disposition. For example, we might say that the property of having an itch is identical to the property of
being disposed to try to scratch (or to some other, more complicated disposition). Alternatively, we might
say that the fact that we have the experience grounds the fact that we are disposed to try to scratch. The
important point is that, to the extent that we are at least dimly aware of this necessary connection, this
awareness can explain how we know that itches tend to cause us to try and scratch. In particular, we need
not posit laws of nature which connect our experiences with our dispositions. But this is what we must do
if we accept Nomological Connections. We must say that the connection between itching and scratching
is a nomological connection, just like the connection between lightning and thunder. Just as there is
nothing in the nature of lightning which connects it with thunder, so too is there nothing in the nature of
itchiness which connects it with trying to scratch. Just as the connection between lightning and thunder
is the sort of thing we learn on the basis of induction, so too must we rely on induction to learn that itches

114

tend to make us try to scratch. But all this seems false — in these respects, the relationship between itching
and scratching is not like the relationship between lightning and thunder. All this suggests that there is a
more than merely nomological connection between feeling itchy and being disposed to try and scratch.
On balance, then, we ought to think that the connection is necessary. We ought to accept Necessary
Connections.
In comparison with P11 and P12, P13 should be fairly uncontroversial. That premise tells us that if
the best explanation of Systematic Coincidence requires that we posit necessary connections between
certain kinds of experiences and dispositions, then that is the explanation we should accept. That much
seems hard to deny.
In contrast, P14 is perhaps somewhat more open to controversy. That premise tells us that if many
kinds of experience are necessarily connected with corresponding dispositions, then, in particular,
paradigmatically pleasant and unpleasant experiences are connected with corresponding dispositions.
The Spriggean theory of pleasure from Chapter One is a proposal about what those dispositions might be:
dispositions to repeat and continue pleasant experiences, and to end and prevent unpleasant experiences.
For present purposes, the important point is that having these dispositions is sufficient for not being
indifferent to them. This gets us the result that necessarily, it is not possible to be indifferent to
paradigmatically pleasant and unpleasant experiences.
One might challenge P14 by looking for an actual case in which a subject is indifferent to their
pleasant or unpleasant experiences. I considered two such potential cases in the last chapter. The first
were ordinary sorts of differences in taste. I love the fizzy feeling of drinking seltzer water — for me, that

115

experience is ‘paradigmatically pleasant.’ But my friend Paul is indifferent to the fizzy feeling. On the
assumption that Paul is getting the same kind of experience as me, it follows that Paul is indifferent to a
paradigmatically pleasant experience. But the Spriggean should drop this assumption. As I argued in the
last chapter, it is not obvious that Paul and I have experiences which are alike in all relevant
phenomenological respects. It does seem obvious that our experiences are alike in some important
respects — we both feel the bubbles and the coolness of the water. Paul’s experience, like my experience,
is an experience of drinking cool seltzer water. But that is a far cry from saying that our experiences are
alike with respect to their total phenomenology. Spriggeans should that ‘what-it’s like’ to drink seltzer and
like it is different from ‘what it’s like’ to drink seltzer and be indifferent to it. For a defense of this response, I
defer to my arguments elsewhere.
The second kind of potential cases of indifference to a paradigmatically unpleasant experiences
are cases of abnormal pains: cases in which a subject reports that they feel pain, but reports that this pain
is not unpleasant.
45
One way this can happen is if the subject is on strong painkillers. Another way it can
happen is if the subject has a rare brain condition called pain asymbolia. According to one interpretation of
these cases, the anomalous subject’s pain feels exactly the same as any normal subject’s pain. That is,
anomalous pains are the same kind of experience as ordinary pains. The only difference is that, whereas
ordinary subjects tend to dislike their pains, the anomalous subjects are indifferent to them. This
interpretation is endorsed by Richard Brandt (1979: 37-38), Derek Parfit (1984: 501), and Richard Hall (1989),

45
According to one interpretation of these cases, the relevant experience is not really pain at all (Park 2019). For ease
of discussion, I am setting this view aside. I assume that anomalous pains can still be described as “pains.”

116

all of whom leverage the relevant cases in support of subjectivism. If the subjectivist interpretation is
correct, then it would constitute a dramatic refutation of the Spriggean view.
It is clear enough that Spriggeans need to reject the subjectivist interpretation. They need to say
that the overall experience of abnormal pain differs phenomenologically from the overall experience of
ordinary pain.
46
They will not be alone in doing so — some philosophers explicitly accept this
phenomenological interpretation, outside the context of debates regarding objectivism and
subjectivism.
47
And as we saw in the last chapter, the Spriggean should not be embarrassed about making
this claim, since the existing data is at best equivocal.
I conclude that the neo-Spriggean argument makes a compelling case against the possibility
claim. In general, we ought to think that there are necessary connections between our phenomenology
and our dispositions. This is the best way to account for the systematic harmony between how we feel and
what we do. As a consequence of this general commitment, we ought to accept Sprigge’s thesis. We ought
to think that ‘pleasures and pains are of their nature liable to affect behavior in certain directions’ (Sprigge
1987: 142). In particular, they affect us in such a way that we are not indifferent to them.

46
Interpretations along these lines are advanced by Stuart Rachels (2000), Hedda Mørch (2014), and by David Bain
(2014). Rachels specifically considers cases involving strong painkillers; Bain specifically considers cases of pain
asymbolia. In each case, they conclude that there is no strong reason to believe that abnormal pains feel like
ordinary pains.
47
Grahek 2007, Bain 2014, Klein 2015. These philosophers differ in their treatment of abnormal pains, but they all
agree that the overall experience of abnormal pain differs phenomenologically from that of ordinary pains.

117

§7 Conclusion
I have argued for a conciliatory solution to the Pain and Pleasure Problems. Objectivists are right
to endorse the objectivist claim, and subjectivists are right to endorse the subjectivist claim. Both camps
of ethicists are correct in their ethical claims, but both go wrong in endorsing the metaphysical possibility
claim. It is a strike in favor of the Spriggean theory that it neatly captures what is correct in the objectivists’
and subjectivists’ positions. In closing, I would like to briefly consider how the Spriggean theory bears on
what I have called the ‘explanation debate.’
Recall that this debate concerns the following two claims:
Objectivist Explanation: Whenever an experience is non-derivatively good or bad for a subject,
it is non-derivatively good or bad for that subject in virtue of being an experience of the kind
that it is.
Subjectivist Explanation: Whenever an experience is non-derivatively good or bad for a subject,
it is non-derivatively good or bad for that subject in virtue of their caring about it.
The Spriggean view makes some negative progress towards resolving this debate. It tells us that we cannot
make progress by appealing to the ultra-spartan and ultra-ascetic arguments. Those arguments, if
successful, would disprove subjectivist and objectivist explanations, respectively. But they are not
successful, so they do not disprove those explanations. Different arguments are needed.
More ambitiously, the Spriggean view suggests a conciliatory solution to the explanatory debate.
Consider the debate as it pertains to quench-experiences. Objectivists will claim that those experiences
are good for us because of their particular phenomenology, and subjectivists will claim that they are good

118

for us because we care about them. But given that we necessarily care about experiences with the total
phenomenology of a quench-experience, we should ask: to what extent is the attitude of caring
metaphysically distinct from the quench-experience? If they are wholly distinct, then there is still an
important debate to be had between objectivists and subjectivists. But suppose they are not wholly
distinct. Suppose, for example, that caring about one’s quench-experience is fully grounded in — is ‘nothing
over and above’ — having a quench experience. Then the explanatory debate looks rather more fiddly and
less pressing. (Compare: is it good for us to have relationships of mutual admiration, affection, and
respect — or is it good for us to have friendships?) And in the limit, if one’s caring about one’s quench-
experience is simply identical to one’s having a quench experience, then it is unclear that there is any room
for an explanatory debate at all. Settling this issue is a topic for future work. For present purposes, it is
enough to note that the Spriggean view suggests a path forward for resolving the debate.
Whatever we conclude about the explanatory debate, the Spriggean view entails that there is
much about which objectivists and subjectivists agree. For all possible experiences, the objectivist and
subjectivist can agree about whether or not those experiences are good or bad for us. Consider, for
example, the claim that all possible burn-experiences are bad for us, and all possible quench-experiences
are good for us. This is clearly a significant ethical claim. And contrary to what is regularly assumed, it is
a claim about which objectivists and subjectivists can agree.

119

Chapter Four: Attraction, Aversion, and Asymmetrical Attitudes
§1 Introduction
So far, I have been more concerned with the nature of pleasure, as opposed to pleasure’s role in well-
being. I have relied upon an assumption about pleasure’s role in well-being: namely, that pleasure is non-
derivatively good for us. But this is not terribly controversial (which is part of why I assumed it, rather than
arguing for it). In the remaining chapters, I will defend a more novel view regarding pleasure’s role and
well-being. Roughly: when we take pleasure in some state of affairs, that state of affairs itself is non-
derivatively good for us, over and above the goodness of the pleasure for us. And, when we take
displeasure in some state of affairs, that state of affairs is itself non-derivatively bad for us, over and above
the badness of the displeasure for us. This is the view I call hedonic satisfactionism.
Hedonic satisfactionism has a number of attractive features, particularly in conjunction with the
Spriggean theory of pleasure. Giving a full accounting of those attractive features will be the goal of
Chapter Five. The goal of this chapter is to provide a crucial bit of setup. One of the most attractive features
of hedonic satisfactionism is that it explains why some desires are normatively asymmetrical. In this chapter
I will explain what it means to say that some desires are normatively asymmetrical, and why standard
desire-based theories of well-being struggle to explain the normative asymmetries. Then in Chapter Five
we will be in a position to appreciate how hedonic satisfactionism solves the problem.
§2 Outline
According to one popular and rather intuitive line of thought, differences in well-being are to be
explained at least partly in terms of desire satisfaction. For example: suppose I planted some tulips, and I

120

desire that they survived the winter. Plausibly, then, my life is going better for me if my tulips did indeed
survive. My well-being is increased if they are still living. Plausibly, also, the degree to which my well-being
is increased is proportional to the strength of my desire — the more I want my tulips to live, the better it is
for me if this desire is satisfied. This is an instance of what I will call the Satisfaction Thesis.
The Satisfaction Thesis does not tell us what happens if my tulips did not survive the winter. But
the most natural answer is that the death of my tulips would decrease my well-being. And, the stronger my
desire, the worse it is for me if my desire is frustrated. This is an instance of what I will call the Frustration
Thesis. Philosophers have given comparatively little attention to the subject of desire frustration, but
insofar as they have done so, they have tended to endorse this Frustration Thesis (Kagan 2014; Heathwood
2016). Putting the Frustration Thesis together with the Satisfaction Thesis, we arrive at what I will call the
basic desire view.
In this paper I have two aims. First, I will raise a problem for the basic desire view. The problem
stems from the fact that some desires are normatively asymmetrical: they have greater positive than negative
significance for well-being, or vice versa. Having those desires and satisfying them increases our well-being
more or less than having those desires and frustrating them decreases our well-being. We have such desires
when we are strongly attracted to p without being strongly averse to ~p, and when we are strongly averse to
p without being strongly attracted to ~p.
48
Asymmetrical desires make trouble for the basic desire view.

48
Although modern desire theorists have had relatively little to say about the distinction between attraction and
aversion, the distinction arguably featured in the inception of the theory. Thomas Hobbes, often cited as an early
proponent of a desire-based theory of well-being, writes:
…whatsoever is the object of any man’s appetite or desire that is it which he for his part calleth good; and the object
of his hate and aversion, evil... (1651, ch.6)

121

Accordingly, my second aim is to revise the basic desire view to escape the trouble. I contend that there is
no single attitude which is truly described by both the Satisfaction Thesis and the Frustration Thesis.
Instead, we should say that each of those Theses describes a different psychological attitude: attraction
and aversion, respectively. Attraction satisfaction is good, but attraction frustration is not bad. Aversion
frustration
49
is bad, but aversion satisfaction is not good. Some desires — namely, asymmetrical desires —
involve attractions and aversions of different strengths. That is why those desires have asymmetrical
significance for well-being. Thus, asymmetrical desires reveal something about the internal structure of
desire.
There is room for a number of views about the natures of attraction and aversion. My own view is
that attraction and aversion are simply identical to pleasure and displeasure, respectively. For you to be
attracted to something is for you to feel pleasure that disposes you bring about or continue that thing for
its own sake. For you to be averse to something is for you to feel displeasure that disposes you to end or
prevent that thing for its own sake. I defend these identity claims in greater detail in the next chapter. But
the central thesis of this chapter — namely, that there are normatively asymmetrical desires, and that they

Since Hobbes seems to deny that anything is good or evil “simply” or “absolutely”, he can plausibly be read as
offering a theory of what is good for subjects — in other words, a theory of well-being. And the theory seems to
suggest that appetite/desire and hate/ aversion differ substantively in their significance for well-being, as opposed to
merely being different ways of signifying the same underlying attitude.
49
There is a strict sense of “satisfaction” and “frustration” on which one’s attitude is satisfied just in case its content
obtains, and is frustrated otherwise. In this sense, a case of “aversion frustration” is a case in which one is averse to
a state of affairs which does not obtain. But in the present context I think it is more natural to understand
“satisfaction” and “frustration” in a more metaphorical sense: some of our attitudes (such as attraction and
aversion) aim at making the world a certain way, and they are satisfied just in case the world is that way. Otherwise
they are frustrated. I intend for “aversion frustration” to be understood in this more metaphorical sense. So a case
of “aversion frustration”, as I use the phrase, is a case in which one is averse to a state of affairs which does obtain.
In using “frustration” in this way, I follow Kagan (2014) and Sumner (2014).

122

are to be explained in terms of attraction and aversion — does not depend for its interest in the claim that
attraction is pleasure, or that aversion is displeasure. So, for present purposes, I will set those identity
claims aside.
I will begin in §3 by describing the basic desire view in greater detail, and by introducing the
distinction between attraction and aversion. Then in §4 I will use the distinction to argue for the existence
of asymmetrical desires. Along the way I will argue that nothing more than the attraction/aversion
distinction is needed to account for these desires. In §5 I consider a few challenges for the
attraction/aversion strategy which have been raised in passing by Shelly Kagan and Wayne Sumner. I
argue that these challenges can be met. I take stock of my conclusions in §6.
§3 Terms and Conditions
The basic desire view—henceforth simply “the desire view”—is a view about which things are non-
derivatively good and bad for us, where “good for us” and “bad for us” are understood in terms of well-
being. On my usage, a state of affairs is good for a subject insofar as it increases their well-being, and bad
for a subject insofar as it decreases their well-being. Well-being, in turn, is the kind of value at issue when
we say that someone’s life is going well or badly for them. To get a fix on the concept, it is helpful to note
that well-being seems to bear certain connections to our attitudes. It seems that, all else being equal, it is
appropriate to feel sorry for those we regard as having lower well-being than us, and to feel glad for
those we regard as having higher well-being than us. Furthermore, well-being seems to bear a
connection to desert. Insofar as people deserve to be rewarded or punished, they can get what they
deserve by having their well-being raised and lowered, respectively. One or both of these claims about

123

well-being might turn out to be false, but they are claims which many of us are pre-theoretically inclined
to accept, so they are useful for getting a fix on the concept of well-being.
The desire view, like most theories of well-being, is principally concerned with non-derivative
rather than derivative goodness and badness. Getting a massage is merely derivatively good for me—it
improves my well-being, but only because it causes me to have a pleasant experience, and that experience
is itself good for me. In contrast, the pleasant experience improves my well-being in a way that does not
depend on its being related to the value of anything else. If this is right, then the pleasant experience is
non-derivatively good for me. I will be exclusively concerned with non-derivative goodness and badness,
as opposed to derivative goodness and badness. I will leave the “non-derivative” qualifier unstated,
except as an occasional reminder.
Desire theorists accept the Satisfaction Thesis: they claim that there are desires whose
satisfaction is (non-derivatively) good for us in proportion to their strengths. Much less attention has
been paid to the topic of desire frustration, but philosophers have tended to suggest that it is (non-
derivatively) bad for us in proportion to strength of desire. This is what I call the Frustration Thesis.
Shelly Kagan tentatively endorses it in a rare discussion of desire frustration.
50
And Chris Heathwood
suggests that he and many other philosophers of well-being also accept it. Here is the opening passage
of his introduction to “the desire-fulfillment theory of well-being”:
The desire-fulfillment theory of well-being—also known as desire satisfactionism,
preferentism, or simply the desire view—holds, in its simplest form, that what is good

50
Kagan, “An Introduction to Ill-Being,” 172.

124

in itself for people and other subjects of welfare is their getting what they want, or the
fulfillment of their desires, and what is bad in itself for them is their not getting what
they want, or the frustration of their desires. Most or all desire theorists would agree
that the stronger the desire, the more beneficial is its satisfaction and the worse its
frustration.
51

If Heathwood’s assessment is correct, most proponents of the desire-fulfillment theory accept the
Frustration Thesis.
The desire-fulfillment theory is strictly stronger than the basic desire view. It takes the positive
claims of the basic desire view—that is, the Satisfaction and Frustration Theses—and adds that nothing
else is non-derivatively good or bad for us. As Chris Heathwood notes, the desire-fulfillment theory is
often regarded as the leading theory of well-being in the philosophical literature.
52
The basic desire view

51
Heathwood, “The Desire-Fulfillment Theory,” 135.
52
Heathwood quotes Daniel Haybron as writing that it is “the theory to beat” and has been “[t]he dominant account
among economists and philosophers over the last century or so.” See Chris Heathwood, "Desire-Fulfillment
Theory," in The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Well-Being, ed. Guy Fletcher (Routledge, 2015), 135, and Daniel
Haybron, The Pursuit of Unhappiness: The Elusive Psychology of Well-Being. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008),
34. In a similar vein, William Shaw writes: “[...] the desire-satisfaction theory is probably the dominant view of
welfare among economists, social-scientists, and philosophers, both utilitarian and non-utilitarian.” See William
Shaw, Contemporary Ethics: Taking Account of Utilitarianism (Wiley-Blackwell, 1999), 53.

125

is at least as popular. So I take it that the basic desire view articulates a widely-held view among
philosophers of well-being.
With that said, there is much disagreement among those who accept the basic desire view. One
prominent point of disagreement concerns the question of which desires are relevant to well-being. For
example, some philosophers claim that only informed desires are relevant; others claim that our desires
are relevant only insofar as they are self-interested.
53
One might also hold that our desires make a
difference to our well-being only to the extent that they are informed, or to the extent that they are self-
interested. (In that case, one would in effect deny that desires’ impact on well-being is proportionate to
their strengths; instead one would say that their impact is proportionate to the products of their strengths
and their informedness, self-interestedness, etc.
54
) For present purposes, I do not want to tackle these
issues head on. Instead I will avoid them. I will assume that all the desires I describe in this paper are
such that they satisfy whatever criteria are said to be relevant: they are equally informed, self-interested,

53
Purported examples of desires which do not have significance for well-being include ill-informed desires, pointless
desires, remote desires, and other-regarding desires. For a discussion of ill-informed desires, see e.g.
Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1981), 109-111. For pointless
desires, see e.g. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 432-433. For remote
desires, see e.g. Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 494. For other-regarding
desires, see e.g. Robert Adams, Finite and Infinite Goods: A Framework for Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press,
1999), 87-88.
54
I thank Alexander Dietz for raising this point to me.

126

etc. So, if the basic desire view is true, then the positive and negative significance of those desires should
be proportionate to their strengths. These assumptions do not affect the substance of my arguments,
but they make the discussion go more smoothly.
While I take it that the basic desire view is motivated by some plausible ideas—namely, that
desire satisfaction and frustration have significance for well-being, and that stronger desires have
greater significance—I will not defend these general ideas here. Instead I will defend a conditional
claim: if one accepts that desire satisfaction and frustration have significance for well-being, in roughly
the way that I have specified, then one should reject the basic desire view as an inadequate articulation of
this plausible idea. Instead, one should embrace the distinction between attraction and aversion: two
different kinds of desire-like attitudes, with differing significance for well-being. So I have two goals:
the first is to show that the basic desire view goes wrong; the second is to show that it goes wrong
because it fails to recognize the attraction/aversion distinction.
In service of my first goal, I will argue that the basic desire view makes false predictions
regarding asymmetrical desires: desires whose satisfaction has greater significance for well-being than
their frustration, or vice versa. Given that there are asymmetrical desires—and, more specifically, given
that our desires can be asymmetrical in both directions—it follows that the positive and negative
significance of our desires is not always proportional to their strengths.
To see what this claim comes to, consider the following pair of desires:
Table 4.1 Satisfaction Frustration Baseline (Indifference)
Strong Desire +5 -5 0

127

Weak Desire +1 -1
0
The exact numbers should not be taken too seriously here. What’s important is that Strong Desire has
greater positive and negative significance for well-being than Weak Desire. Whether one satisfies or
frustrates Strong Desire, the result (all else being equal) is that one’s well-being diverges significantly
from the relevant baseline state: the state of lacking the Strong Desire altogether. In contrast, if one
satisfies or frustrates Weak Desire, the result (all else being equal) is that one’s well-being diverges less
significantly from the baseline state. Weak Desire has less significance for well-being than Strong Desire.
The upshot, here, is that the chart is consistent with the basic desire view. It is consistent with the claim
that the positive and negative significance of desire satisfaction and frustration are proportionate to
strength of desire.
Table 2.1 suggests that desire satisfaction and frustration have exactly opposite significance for
well-being, in the following sense: for any pair of desires of equal strength, satisfying the first will raise
one’s well-being exactly as much as frustrating the second will lower one’s well-being. And vice versa. Call
this the Equality Thesis. It is natural for proponents of the basic desire view to embrace the Equality
Thesis. But it is not mandatory. Proponents of the basic desire view might accept an Optimistic Thesis:
for any pair of desires of equal strength, satisfying the first will raise one’s well-being more than
frustrating the second will lower one’s well-being. They might illustrate their view as follows:
Table 4.2 Satisfaction Frustration Baseline (Indifference)
Strong Desire +25 -5 0
Weak Desire +5 -1
0

128

The optimist can tell the following simple story. All else being equal, desire satisfaction is five times as
significant as desire frustration. So, satisfying one’s desire has five times as much of an impact on one’s
well-being (relative to baseline) as frustrating that same desire. At the same time, however, the positive
and negative significance of a desire are proportionate to that desire’s strength. So, given that Strong
Desire is five times as strong as Weak Desire, satisfying Strong Desire is five times as good as satisfying
Weak Desire, and frustrating Strong Desire is five times as bad as frustrating Weak Desire. Thus, the
optimist is a proponent of the basic desire view in good standing.
For exactly parallel reasons, a pessimist could be a proponent of the basic desire view in good
standing. They could claim that desire frustration is five times as significant as desire satisfaction, while
also claiming desires’ the positive and negative significance are proportionate to their strengths. The
basic desire view is broad enough to accommodate these varieties of optimism and pessimism.
Crucially, however, a proponent of the basic desire view cannot accept the deliverances of the
following chart:
Table 4.3 Satisfaction Frustration Baseline (Indifference)
Positive Desire +5 -1 0
Negative Desire +1 -5 0
No matter the relative strengths of these two desires, it cannot be that the positive and negative
significance of both desires is directly proportional to their strengths. For if Positive Desire is stronger,
then its frustration should be worse (relative to baseline) than the frustration of Negative Desire—but it

129

isn’t.
55
If, alternatively, Negative Desire is stronger, then its satisfaction should be better (relative to
baseline) than the satisfaction of Positive Desire—but again, it isn’t. There is no way that both desires’
positive and negative values are proportional to their strengths. So the basic desire view cannot admit
such pairs of desires. It cannot admit them because they are asymmetrical in different ways: Positive
Desire is weighted towards the positive; Negative Desire is weighted towards the negative. I will argue
that there are such pairs of desires.
These arguments are closely related to my second goal, which is to show that the asymmetrical
desire cases can be neatly explained by distinguishing between attraction and aversion. I will appeal to
the distinction in order to motivate the view that the relevant desires are indeed asymmetrical. This
might sound circular, but it is not. My arguments would be circular if I were to define attraction and
aversion in terms of their contributions to well-being. But that is not what I am doing. In motivating the
claim that there are asymmetrical desires, I will only appeal to a psychological distinction between
attraction and aversion. Then, having motivated the claim that there are asymmetrical desires, I will
argue that nothing more than the distinction between attraction and aversion is needed to explain our
normative judgments in these cases.

55
Technically, a basic desire theorist could hold that frustration disvalue is inversely proportional to desire strength:
the stronger the desire, the less bad it is for one if that desire is frustrated. I take it that this is not a tenable
position.

130

We have a pre-theoretic grip on the distinction between attraction and aversion, though we do
not always describe it using those terms. As I understand the attitude of attraction, it is implicated in all
of the following claims:
● I am looking forward to going to the movie.
● I would love to get a new computer for Christmas.
● I am pleased at the prospect of finishing my paper on time.
When we are attracted to something, we regard it in a positive way. All else being equal, we are
motivated to bring it about or maintain it. We can distinguish between “dispositional” and “occurrent”
attractions. Paradigmatic instances of the occurrent variety are happy daydreams: about being fabulously
wealthy, getting a promotion, kissing one’s crush, etc.
The attitude of aversion, in contrast, is implicated in other claims:
● I am dreading going to the dump.
● I would hate to get a bucket of spiders for Christmas.
● I am displeased at the prospect of finishing my paper late.
When we are averse to something, we regard it in a negative way. All else being equal, we are motivated
to prevent it or get rid of it. Again, we can distinguish between “dispositional” and “occurrent” instances.
Paradigmatic instances of occurrent aversion are ruminations: about going bankrupt, being fired, being
rejected by one’s crush, etc.

131

Insofar as philosophers have discussed a distinction between positive and negative desire-like
attitudes, they have tended to use the term “desire” rather than “attraction” for the positive attitude.
56
I
prefer not to use “desire” in this way, because it seems to me that desires are not purely positive
attitudes. On the contrary, paradigmatic desires involve a mixture of positive and negative attitudes. To
illustrate: suppose you strongly desire that there be clear skies today. Then, typically, you will not merely
regard the prospect of clear skies in a positive way. You will also regard the prospect of cloudy skies in a
negative way. And your negative attitude seems no less relevant to your desire than your positive
attitude.
57
The strength of your desire for clear skies—the degree to which clear skies matter to you—
seems to be something like the “sum” of your attraction and your aversion.
58
So it seems that aversion is,

56
See Shelly Kagan, “An Introduction to Ill-Being,” Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics 4 (2014): 270, and Wayne
Sumner, “The Worst Things in Life,” Grazer Philosophische Studien 97(3) (2020): 427-428.
57
It is sometimes suggested that desire is a paradigmatic “pro-attitude,” where pro-attitudes are ways of “being for”
or “being into” certain things. For a particularly clear statement of this view, see Chris Heathwood, “The Reduction
of Sensory Pleasure to Desire,” Philosophical Studies 101(1) (2007): 25. If this suggestion entails that desire is a purely
positive attitude in the same way that I have described attraction as being a purely positive attitude, then I am
inclined to reject the suggestion, and say that desires are not pro-attitudes in that sense. An alternative view is that
“desire” is ambiguous, and on one of the meanings between which it is ambiguous, it refers to a purely-positive
attitude.
58
Notice also that your negative and positive desire-like attitudes might both have the effect of motivating you to
bring about the same outcome. If a wish-granting spirit offered to grant you clear skies in exchange for a fee, your
delight at clear skies and your dread at clouds would both have the effect of making you more willing to pay a

132

or can be, a component of desire, in which case it is at least misleading to contrast “aversion” with
“desire”. It is better to contrast “aversion” with “attraction”, where attraction is explicitly understood to be
a purely positive attitude, along the lines described above.
More could be said about the difference between attraction and aversion. But for present
purposes, it is enough that we have an intuitive grip on the attitudes at issue, and on the difference
between them. That is all I need to motivate the view that there are asymmetrical desires: desires whose
satisfaction affects our well-being more than does their frustration, or vice versa.
§4 Normatively Asymmetrical Desires
I can say with great confidence that I desire to not be covered in ants. It matters to me quite a lot
that I not be covered in ants. This desire, like other paradigmatic desires, involves a mixture of positive
and negative attitudes. But the positive and negative are not balanced. On the one hand, I am strongly
averse to being covered in ants. I loathe the idea of being covered in squirming insects. But on the other
hand, I am not strongly attracted to being ant-free. I normally take it completely for granted that I am at
no risk of being covered in ants, so I am not particularly excited or grateful for the fact that I am not
covered in ants.
I claim that this desire is asymmetrical. On the one hand, having this desire and frustrating it makes
me significantly worse off than I would be if I lacked the desire altogether. On the other hand, having this

higher fee. Assuming that the amount of money you would be willing to pay is a rough proxy for the strength of
your desire for clear skies, this is further evidence suggesting that both attraction and aversion are relevant to
desire.

133

desire and satisfying it does not make me significantly better off than I would be if I lacked the desire
altogether. To see what these claim comes to, consider the following three cases:
Ants Desires:
1. Frustration: I am strongly averse to the prospect of being covered in ants. But as I walk to work one
day, a clumsy myrmecologist spills her bucket of ants on me.
2. Satisfaction: I am strongly averse to the prospect of being covered in ants. My walk to work
proceeds as normal—I am never at risk of being covered in ants.
3. Indifference: I am not at all averse to being covered in ants. Neither am I attracted to not being
covered in ants. I simply do not care one way or the other. The myrmecologist may or may not
spill her bucket of ants on me. Either way, I continue on my way to work without any fuss,
brushing away ants if necessary.
The space of relevant states of affairs can be organized as follows:
Table 4.4 Covered in Ants Not Covered in Ants
Desire Not to be Covered in Ants Frustration Satisfaction
No Desire Not to be Covered in Ants
Indifference
My contention is that although Frustration is much worse for me than Indifference, Satisfaction is at
most only slightly better for me than Indifference. Having my desire satisfied is, at most, only slightly
better than lacking the desire altogether. Thus, my desire has asymmetrically negative significance for
my well-being: its satisfaction makes me only slightly better off, but its frustration makes me much
worse off.

134

A few clarificatory points should be made here. First, we have to be careful in interpreting claims
about what “makes us better off” and “makes us worse off”. “Better off” and “worse off” are comparatives;
they can only be interpreted relative to some baseline state. In this case, crucially, the relevant baseline
state is Indifference. I claim that I am much worse off in Frustration than I am in Indifference, and at
most only slightly better off in Satisfaction than I am in Indifference. Relative to Indifference, then, my
desire has asymmetrically negative significance for my well-being.
It might be natural to think that the relevant baseline state is Satisfaction. After all, this is the
status quo for most of us: we are not covered in ants, and we desire to not be covered in ants. But if we
take Satisfaction to be our baseline state, then this yields a trivial interpretation of the asymmetry claim.
Of course Satisfaction has less significance for my well-being than Frustration, relative to the baseline state
of Satisfaction.
59
Satisfaction has no significance for well-being relative to Satisfaction; it does not make
me any better or worse off. So we have to be careful to keep in mind that the relevant baseline is not
Satisfaction but Indifference. The resulting asymmetry claim can be expressed as follows:
Table 4.5 Satisfaction Frustration Baseline (Indifference)
Ants Desire +1 -5 0
The numbers should not be taken too seriously here; the important point is that whereas Frustration is
much worse for me than Indifference, Satisfaction is not much better for me than Indifference.

59
Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pushing me on this point.

135

A second clarificatory point: I am assuming that, apart from my desire not to be covered in ants,
I do not have any further desires which make for a difference in my well-being across the three cases.
And a third, final clarificatory point: I am ignoring the derivative goodness or badness of being covered in
ants. Being covered in ants might cause some bad effects—I might not be allowed in my office, which
would frustrate my desire to get to work. But I am ignoring these derivative, downstream effects,
because I am concerned solely with the non-derivative value of desire satisfaction and frustration.
To get a grip on the comparison between the three cases of Satisfaction, Frustration, and
Indifference, it can be helpful to imagine that they concern three different subjects: Anne F(rustration),
Anne S(atisfaction) and Anne I(ndifference). My claim, then, is that whereas Anne F is significantly worse
off than Anne I, Anne S is at most only slightly better off than Anne I. It would be appropriate for Anne I
to feel very sorry for Anne F. (We should imagine that, although Anne I is indifferent to being covered in
ants, she appreciates how strongly Anne F feels about it.) But it would be quite strange for Anne I to feel
very glad for Anne S. Although Anne S is perhaps a bit better off for having her desire satisfied, this does
not amount to a very significant difference in well-being between herself and Anne I. The upshot is that
the desires in this case are asymmetrical: they have more negative than positive significance for well-
being.
All the same considerations apply if we start at the other end of the spectrum, with a case of
“positive” desire. Suppose, for example, that I desire to be on TV. When I see other people interviewed
on talk shows, I often have pleasant daydreams about being interviewed myself. I am strongly attracted
to the prospect of being on TV. On the other hand, I am not terribly averse to the prospect of not being on

136

TV. I am not particularly frustrated or upset about the fact that, as things stand, I probably will never be
featured on television.
I claim that this is another asymmetrical desire. Its satisfaction (being on TV) would raise my
well-being more than its frustration (not being on TV) lowers my well-being, relative to the state of my
not having this desire at all. We can once again appeal to a set of three cases:
TV Desires:
1. Frustration: I am strongly attracted to the prospect of being on television. I walk to work as
normal—I am not stopped for a television interview.
2. Satisfaction: I am strongly attracted to the prospect of being on television. As I walk to work one
day, I am stopped by a reporter who conducts an interview. Of course, I am excited and happy.
3. Indifference: I am not at all attracted to the prospect of being on TV. Neither am I averse to not being
on TV. I simply do not care one way or the other. The reporter may or may not pull me aside for
an interview. Either way, I continue on my way to work unfazed.
The space of relevant states of affairs can be organized as follows:
Table 4.6 TV Appearance No TV Appearance
Desire to be on TV Satisfaction Frustration
No Desire to be on TV Indifference
And the asymmetry claim can be expressed as follows:
Table 4.7 Satisfaction Frustration Baseline (Indifference)
TV Desire +5 -1 0

137

Again the numbers should not be taken too seriously. The point is that whereas Satisfaction is much
better for me than Indifference, Frustration is not much worse for me than Indifference. Having my
desire frustrated is at most only slightly worse than lacking the desire altogether.
Suppose that the three cases concern three different subjects: Trevor F(rustration), Trevor
S(atisfaction), and Trevor I(ndifference). Then I claim that whereas Trevor S is significantly better off
than Trevor I, Trevor F is at most only slightly worse off than Trevor I. The satisfaction of the relevant
desire is more significant than the frustration of that desire. Thus, it would be appropriate for Trevor I
to feel very glad for Trevor S. (We should imagine that, although Trevor I is indifferent to being covered
in ants, he appreciates how strongly Trevor S feels about it.) On the other hand, it would be
inappropriate for Trevor I to feel very sorry for Trevor F. Although Trevor F might be a bit worse off for
having his desire frustrated, this does not amount to a very significant difference in well-being between
himself and Trevor I. The upshot is that this case, like the case of Ants desire, shows that our desires can
be asymmetrical. In this case, however, the relevant desire is asymmetrically positive.
To account for the asymmetries, we need only leverage the distinction between attraction and
aversion. We can divide up the work that desires are supposed to do in the basic desire view, so that
attraction takes on desire’s positive significance, and aversion takes on its negative significance. In place
of the original Satisfaction Thesis and Frustration Thesis, we can substitute straightforward
alternatives:
Attraction Satisfaction: It is non-derivatively good for subjects to have their attractions
satisfied. The stronger the attraction, the better its satisfaction.

138

Aversion Frustration: It is non-derivatively bad for subjects to have their aversions frustrated.
The stronger the aversion, the worse its frustration.
Having taken on these claims, we can provide straightforward explanations of what is going on in Ants
Desire and TV Desire. I am strongly averse to being covered in ants, but only weakly attracted to the
prospect of not being covered in ants. That is why it would be very bad for me to be covered in ants, but
it’s only slightly good for me to not be covered in ants. Similarly, I am strongly attracted to being on TV,
but only weakly averse to the prospect of not being on TV. That is why it would be very good for me to be
on TV, but it’s only slightly bad for me to not be on TV. (Recall that all these claims are to be understood
relative to the baseline state of Indifference.) The attraction/aversion proposal is well-suited to explain
what is going on in these cases.
The basic desire view, in contrast, provides no easy explanations. Putting together the
asymmetry claims regarding Ants Desire and TV Desire (and assuming those desires are roughly
equivalent in strength) we can express those claims roughly as follows:
Table 4.8 Satisfaction Frustration Baseline (Indifference)
Ants Desire +1 -5 0
TV Desire +5 -1 0
At most one of TV Desire or Ants Desire is such that its positive and negative significance is proportional
to its strength. Either way, the basic desire view turns out to be false. There is no set of desires such that
all and only those desires have positive and negative significance, and in proportion to their strengths.
In contrast with my interpretations of the two cases, proponents of the basic desire view must
claim that Ants Desire and TV Desire share the same or similar significance for well-being. Assume that

139

the two desires are the same strength. Then the basic desire theorist must offer some version of the
following schematic interpretation:
Table 4.9 Satisfaction Frustration Baseline (Indifference)
Ants Desire +x -y 0
TV Desire +x -y 0
Different values of x and y correspond to different versions of the basic desire view. If x is greater than y,
then the version is “optimistic”. If y is greater than x, then the version is “pessimistic”. If x and y are
equal, then the version is “natural”. But however we fill out this schema, we will arrive at an implausible
result. I will consider each of the options in turn.
Suppose we say that x is relatively high. This claim yields the welcome result that TV-
Satisfaction is much better for me than TV-Indifference. But it also yields the unwelcome result that
Ants-Satisfaction is much better for me than Ants-Indifference. It is flatly implausible that I am
significantly better off merely for dreading the possibility of being covered in ants. This implies that if I
were to stop caring about being covered in ants—if I were to become Indifferent—then I would be
significantly worse off. More generally, it implies that if I started to dread various possibilities to which I
am currently Indifferent, I would be much better off.
60
But these implications are absurd—aversion does

60
In response, the basic desire theorist might point out that we generally desire to rid ourselves of irrational
phobias, and the frustration of these desires might make for a net decrease in well-being. This is fine as far as it
goes, but it does not change the central point: when we begin to dread some state of affairs which previously, we

140

not have that sort of positive significance. We cannot make ourselves better off by dreading various far-
flung possibilities which never come to pass. So it is not plausible that the satisfaction of my Ants Desire
is very good for me.
Similar issues arise if we say that y is relatively high. This claim yields the welcome result that
Ants-Frustration is much worse for me than Ants-Indifference. But it also yields the unwelcome result
that TV-Frustration is much worse for me than TV-Indifference. And it is implausible that I am
significantly worse off merely for liking the idea of being interviewed on TV. If I were to rid myself of
this desire, I would not be much better off. More generally, we are not much worse off for having happy
daydreams about various far-flung possibilities which never come to pass. So it is not plausible that the
frustration of my TV Desire is very bad for me.
Now suppose we say that x and y are relatively low. Then we will have to conclude that my TV
Desire’s satisfaction and my Ants Desire’s frustration would be at most slightly good and bad for me,
respectively. These results are again implausible. One of my greatest hopes is to be on TV, and one of my

did not dread, this does not make it the case that the absence of that state of affairs is good for us. An anonymous
reviewer suggests a timely example: during to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us developed a fear of heretofore
unknown respiratory illnesses. From the fact that we developed this fear, it does not follow that it became
positively good for us to be free of such illnesses. Our developing fears did not increase our well-being in any way at
all—unless, perhaps, it caused us to feel pleased or grateful for being healthy. In general, our dreads and fears do
not have any positive implications for our well-being, unless we come to feel grateful for the fact that our fears
have not come to pass.

141

greatest fears is to be covered in ants. It would be quite good for me if one of my greatest hopes was
realized, and quite bad for me if one of my greatest fears came to pass. At least, this is certainly what we
should say if we are at all on board with the idea that desire satisfaction and frustration make a
difference to well-being.
One who accepts the basic desire view might respond as follows. Both x and y are low because
they concern possibilities which, at present, I regard as distant. It is hard to muster up strong desires
regarding distant possibilities. But if the possibilities were no longer distant—as they would not be if I
were in fact on TV, or in fact covered in ants—then my desires would be vivid. In those circumstances,
the desires would increase significantly in both positive and negative significance. So it turns out that
the satisfaction and frustration of those desires would have a significant impact on my well-being, even
though they are not presently such that their satisfaction and frustration would have a significant impact
on my well-being. Thus, one might argue, the desires might meet the proportionality constraint after all:
they might both have significance proportional to their strengths.
In effect, the proponent of the basic desire view is offering a psychological hypothesis about how
my desires can be expected to change over time. But even if this hypothesis is correct, it will not get us
far. Even in cases in which my TV Desire is vivid, its frustration may be no worse for me than lacking the
desire altogether. Similarly, even in cases in which my Ants Desire is vivid, its satisfaction may be no
better for me than lacking the desire altogether.
The clearest illustrations of this point are cases in which I am mistaken about whether my
desires are satisfied or frustrated. Suppose I am walking down the street, and I see that a television in a
store window is playing a video of me. The television is simply playing a live feed of the street in front of

142

the store. But for a few moments, I do not realize this. I briefly believe that I am being broadcast on
television. So, for a moment, I vividly desire to appear on TV—and of course, this desire is frustrated.
But it is implausible that the frustration of this desire seriously lowers my well-being, below the baseline
state of lacking the desire altogether. If, upon realizing my mistake, I began to feel crushing
disappointment, then that would be a way in which the frustration of my desire is derivatively bad for me.
But suppose that, once I realize that I am not really on television, I am not at all disappointed. I simply
laugh at my silly mistake and continue my walk. In this case, it is not at all plausible that I am
significantly worse off for having my desire frustrated, relative to the baseline of lacking that desire
altogether.
The same kind of case can also be constructed around my aversion to ants. Suppose I am waking
slowly from a dream in which my house has been infested with ants. Still half-dreaming, the tickle of the
sheets on my skin feels like the movements of insects, and I briefly believe that I am indeed covered in
ants. So I vividly desire that I not be covered in ants—and of course, this desire is satisfied. But it is
implausible that the satisfaction of this desire provides a significant positive boost to my well-being,
over and above the baseline state of lacking the desire altogether.
The attraction/aversion proposal can neatly explain the cases I have considered. In contrast, the
basic desire view struggles to explain them. I provisionally conclude that we should reject the idea that
there is a single attitude—desire—whose satisfaction is good for us in proportion to its strength, and
whose frustration is bad for us in proportion to its strength. Instead, we should run with the idea that
there are two attitudes—attraction and aversion—whose satisfaction and frustration are good for us

143

and bad for us in proportion to their respective strengths. We should run with this idea at least until it
runs into problems.
Accordingly, my next step will be to go looking for problems. In the next section I will consider
some problems suggested by Shelly Kagan and Wayne Sumner for the distinction between positive and
negative desire-like attitudes. I conclude that the problems they raise can be satisfactorily addressed, so
desire theorists should adopt the attraction/aversion proposal as a working theory. We should reject the
view that desires have fundamental normative significance for well-being; we should instead say that
their normative significance is derived from the significance of attraction and aversion.
§5 The Distinction Defended
Shelly Kagan and Wayne Sumner consider cases of normatively asymmetrical desire (though not by that
name) and they note that those cases make trouble for desire theorists. They both briefly consider
solutions which appeal to a distinction between positive and negative desire-like attitudes. But, for
different reasons, they both reject that solution. I will begin with Kagan’s objection, before moving on to
Sumner’s objection.
§5.1 Kagan’s Objection
Here is how Kagan describes the distinct-attitudes view:
Perhaps what the preference theory needs is to introduce a second psychological
attitude, one that corresponds, in a negative way, to the positive attitude that preference
theories normally describe. That is, just as there is a positive attitude—desire or
preference—that we can have toward certain objects (or states of affairs), perhaps there
is a quite distinct negative attitude—call it aversion—that we can also take toward

144

various objects (or states of affairs). And just as preference theory holds that when I
want X and X obtains (so my desire is satisfied) this improves my level of well-being, so
too it should hold that when I have an aversion to X, and yet X obtains nonetheless (so
that my aversion is frustrated) this lowers my level of well-being.
61
(emphasis in the
original)
For Kagan, “desire or preference” corresponds roughly to what I call “attraction”. And we share the same
usage of “aversion”. So I think that Kagan’s general proposal is correct. Desire theorists ought to
distinguish between positive and negative desire-like attitudes, with differing significance for well-
being.
But Kagan himself rejects the proposal. He writes:
[...] if preference and aversion are indeed logically distinct psychological attitudes, then
as far as I can see, nothing rules out the possibility that one might have both a
preference for X and an aversion to X—indeed both a preference and an aversion to the
very same feature of X—at one and the same time.
62
(emphasis in the original)
Kagan takes this to be a worrying result. He tells us:
To be sure, we are used to the idea that some generally described object or state of
affairs might be good for you in one way and bad for you in another. But in such cases, I
think, we normally point to different features of the object (different aspects of the state

61
Shelly Kagan, “An Introduction to Ill-Being,” Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics 4 (2014): 270.
62
Kagan, “An Introduction to Ill-Being,” 270.

145

of affairs), precisely so as to be able to say that the one feature of the object is good for
you, while another feature of the object is bad. What seems troubling is the idea that a
single feature of a single object could be both intrinsically good and intrinsically bad for
you simultaneously.
63
(emphasis in the original)
Speaking for myself, I do not find this to be a terribly troubling result. Suppose that I will soon
be sharing a long car ride with Bill, a friend of mine from high school. On the one hand, he is an old
friend who I have not seen in a long time. On the other hand, our interests and personalities drifted
apart long ago, and we no longer have much to talk about. Thus, I have mixed feelings. And let us
assume that these mixed feelings are to be cashed out in the way that Kagan describes: I bear both
positive and negative attitudes towards the very same state of affairs. I am both attracted to the prospect
of the long car ride, and averse to it. With the details of the case thus specified, it does seem plausible—
to me, anyway—that the car ride is both good for me and bad for me.
64

63
Kagan, “An Introduction to Ill-Being,” 270-271.
64
Interestingly, this would suggest that the goodness or badness of Bill’s presence is irreducible to its being better
for me or worse for me than other states of affairs. For suppose that I am having a party, and both Bill and Briti are
attending. I am strongly attracted to the prospect of Bill attending, and only weakly averse to it. Suppose
furthermore that I am weakly attracted to the prospect of Briti’s attending, and not at all averse to her presence.
Intuitively, then, Bill’s presence might have the same total value for me as Briti’s presence, owing to the balance of
my attractions and aversions. In a ranking of states of affairs from best to worst, those two states of affairs would
occupy the same spot. But they are not good for me to the same degree—Bill’s presence is better for me than Briti’s

146

More generally, I do not share Kagan’s thought that no state of affairs could be both non-
derivatively good and non-derivatively bad for one simultaneously. The thought seems natural insofar as
we conceive of goodness and badness in terms of positive and negative numbers which cancel each other
out. But maybe that is not the right way to think about values. Maybe goodness and badness are more
like black and white pigments: they do not cancel each other out but instead mix together. If so, then the
total value of a single state of affairs could be a mixture of good and bad.
Let us grant, however, that Kagan is right about this: no single state of affairs can be both
intrinsically good and intrinsically bad for a subject. Even granting this point, the proponent of the
distinct-attitudes view has at least three possible responses to Kagan’s objection. If any of the responses
are successful, the objection poses no special problem for the distinct-attitudes view.
The first response is that we need not assume that attraction and aversion are “logically distinct
psychological attitudes''.
65
We have said very little thus far regarding the psychological natures of these
attitudes, but ultimately, they might be understood in such a way as to rule out the possibility of a
subject being attracted and averse to the same state of affairs. For example, we might say that being
attracted to X is a matter of being disposed to have overall pleasant experiences insofar as one
contemplates X, and that being averse to X is a matter of being disposed to have overall unpleasant

presence, because I am more strongly attracted to Bill’s presence than to Briti’s presence. They occupy the same
spot in the ranking only because Bill’s presence is also bad for me, owing to the fact that I am averse to his presence.
65
Kagan, “An Introduction to Ill-Being,” 270.

147

experiences insofar as one contemplates X. If, as seems plausible, one’s overall experience cannot be
both pleasant and unpleasant, then we could maintain that no one can be simultaneously attracted and
averse to X. In the Bill case, we will end up concluding that due to the natures of the attitudes involved,
my attitudes of attraction and aversion must target different fine-grained states of affairs. Perhaps I am
attracted to the prospect of having nostalgic conversations with Bill, but averse to the prospect of having
awkward conversations with Bill.
A second response is that, even if it is possible to be simultaneously attracted and averse to the
very same state of affairs X, proponents of the distinct-attitudes view can still avoid the conclusion that
X is both non-derivatively good for one and non-derivatively bad for one. To see this, notice that there is
an important ambiguity in claims like “it is non-derivatively good for you to satisfy your desire for
pizza.” The claim could be that it’s good for you to eat pizza, or it could be saying that it’s good for you to
eat pizza while desiring to eat pizza. On the second interpretation, but not the first interpretation, your
desire is part of the overall state of affairs which is good for you.
66
The second interpretation will be
favored by those who side with Moore in thinking that nothing can have non-derivative value merely in
virtue of its relations to other things, such as desires. If we embrace this Moorean interpretation, we
have an easy response to Kagan’s challenge. Strictly speaking, X is not non-derivatively good for you.

66
This ambiguity in desire-based approaches to well-being is explored by a number of philosophers. See Jan
Österberg and Wlodek Rabinowicz, “Value Based on Preferences: On Two Interpretations of Preference
Utilitarianism,” Economics and Philosophy 12(1) (1996): 1-27. See also Joseph van Weelden, “On Two Interpretations of
the Desire-Satisfaction Theory of Prudential Value,” Utilitas 31(2) (2019): 137-158.

148

Neither is it non-derivatively bad for you. Rather, X while you are attracted to X is good for you, and X
while you are averse to X is bad for you. Or, in my case: sharing a car ride with Bill while being attracted
to doing so is non-derivatively good for me; sharing a car ride with Bill while being averse to doing so is
non-derivatively bad for me. These states of affairs are distinct, even if they occur simultaneously. So no
single state of affairs is both non-derivatively good for me and non-derivatively bad for me.
The third response to Kagan’s worry is that it has nothing in particular to do with the distinct-
attitudes view. It arises for the basic desire view as well. As Kagan notes:
Admittedly, it isn’t clear to me whether this problem arises only when we introduce the
second attitude, aversion. After all, what should a fan of traditional preference theory say
about the possibility of a case in which someone simultaneously wants both X and not X
(by virtue of the very same feature)? Won’t this also be a situation in which the obtaining
of X is both intrinsically good and intrinsically bad for that person?
67

Kagan ultimately contends that the basic desire view is not equally vulnerable to the objection. But his
reasons for thinking this are somewhat puzzling. Kagan suggests that it is irrational to desire X while
also desiring ~X, but it is not irrational to be attracted to X while also being averse to X. So the basic
desire view offers a kind of guarantee that X will never be both non-derivatively good and non-
derivatively bad for a fully rational person. But the distinct-attitudes view offers no such guarantee.

67
Kagan, “An Introduction to Ill-Being,” 271.

149

Thus, Kagan thinks, the basic desire view (or as he calls it, the “traditional preference theory”) is to be
preferred over the distinct attitudes view.
Even granting Kagan’s claims about rationality, I don’t see how this is supposed to be an
advantage of the basic desire view. Supposing that one has the intuition that nothing could be both non-
derivatively good and non-derivatively bad for the same subject, why should one’s intuition discriminate
between rational and irrational subjects? Why is it more intuitive that a single state of affairs may be both
good and bad for an irrational subject, and less intuitive that a single state of affairs may be both good
and bad for a rational subject? The intuition concerns which can be co-instantiated with which other
properties. It is something like the intuition that nothing could be both uniformly hot and uniformly
cold, or uniformly red and uniformly blue. The whole topic of rationality seems to be beside the point. So
it seems that, with respect to the phenomenon Kagan finds troubling, the traditional desire theory is on
a par with the distinct attitudes view. It is no less amenable to the possibility that a single state of affairs
may be both non-derivatively good and non-derivatively bad for a subject.
It should be noted that Kagan does not claim to have given the final word on the distinct-
attitudes view. He closes by reminding us “Obviously, more needs to be said about this issue, and others
may not share my own judgments about these matters”.
68
I hope I have said enough to show that,
ultimately, Kagan’s worries are not so worrying after all. At most, Kagan’s objection poses a problem for
desire-based theories of well-being generally. It does not cast doubt on the distinct-attitudes view in

68
Kagan, “An Introduction to Ill-Being,” 272.

150

particular. So it does not cast doubt on the view that desire theorists should distinguish between positive
and negative attitudes.
§5.2 Sumner’s Objection
Sumner considers a kind of desire theory which:
...introduces a con-attitude – call it aversion – which involves disfavouring an object or
shunning it or seeking to avoid it. A substantive bad would then be the frustration of an
aversion: having the disfavoured object occur or obtain.
69

Sumner keeps the word “desire” to refer to the positive counterpart of aversion, whereas I prefer
“attraction”. But the proposal he considers is substantively the same as my proposal: we introduce a
distinction between positive and negative desire-like attitudes, then use the distinction to explain what
is going on in cases like Ants Desire and TV Desire.
Sumner’s objection to the proposal is as follows. Suppose you desire that it not rain this
afternoon. In that case, Sumner says, your attitude can be represented in three different ways:
R1. Desire (It does not rain this afternoon.)
R2. Aversion (It rains this afternoon.)
R3. Desire (The weather is dry this afternoon.)
But, Sumner claims, the different representations of your attitude cannot do any philosophical work. He
says that:

69
Wayne Sumner, “The Worst Things in Life,” Grazer Philosophische Studien 97(3) (2020): 427.

151

All three of these alternatives come to the same thing: that is, your positive desire is
satisfied, your negative desire is satisfied, and your aversion is frustrated by exactly the
same state of affairs (a rain-free afternoon)... Nothing seems to be gained by
introducing the negative element. The problem for the desire view will still be to
distinguish those desires whose frustration constitutes a substantive bad from those
whose frustration is a mere privation…
70

Sumner’s objection is that, by articulating three different ways in which a single desire can be
represented—namely R1, R2, and R3—we have not made any progress towards explaining what sort of
significance this desire has for well-being.
It seems clear how we should respond to Sumner’s objection: we should reject his assumption
that R1, R2, and R3 merely correspond to different ways of representing a single attitude. We should insist
that there is a substantive difference between positive and negative desire-like attitudes.
We have different words for talking about these different attitudes. It might be that I dread the
prospect of cloudy weather, whereas you are delighted at the prospect of clear skies. As Sumner says, our
attitudes are satisfied by the same state of affairs: namely, clear skies. Nevertheless, our attitudes are
different. Dread and delight are clearly different. And I claim that this difference in our attitudes makes
for a difference in how our well-being would be affected by the weather. If it rains, my well-being is
significantly lower than it would be if I lacked the desire. If there are clear skies, your well-being is
significantly higher than it would be if you lacked the desire.

70
Wayne Sumner, “The Worst Things in Life,” 428-429.

152

Sumner warns that desire theorists do not have recourse to “...invoking the experientialist’s
resource: the quality of the subject’s subsequent affective experience”.
71
It is true that clouds would cause
me displeasure, and clear skies would cause you pleasure, and that our pleasures and displeasures have
direct impacts on well-being. But I am not merely making a point about how the weather will affect our
feelings and emotions in different ways. I am claiming that the weather affects our levels of well-being
differently in virtue of the difference in our attitudes: I am averse to clouds; you are delighted by clear
skies. In line with the spirit of the basic desire view, I am proposing that the weather impacts us
differently in virtue of our differing attitudes. I am not wheeling in any further explanans.
I conclude that Sumner’s worry is misguided. We have good reason to think that attraction and
aversion are distinct phenomena, and not merely different ways of talking about desires. It’s true that, if
one appeals to the distinction between attraction and aversion, one should ultimately give an account of
the psychological difference between them. For my part, I think it likely that difference is to be explained
in terms of pleasure and displeasure: attraction involves a certain sort of directed anticipatory pleasure;
aversion involves a certain sort of directed anticipatory displeasure. On the resulting view, clear skies
leave you doubly well-off: both the clear skies and your anticipatory pleasure are good for you. And
cloudy skies leave me doubly badly-off: both the clouds and my anticipatory displeasure are bad for me.
This is not the place to develop a psychological account of the distinction in any detail. But there
certainly is a difference between, for example, dreading clouds and loving clear skies, whether or not
those attitudes are satisfied by the same state of affairs.

71
Wayne Sumner, “The Worst Things in Life,” 429.

153

§6 Conclusion
I have argued that there is no single subset of desires whose satisfaction is non-derivatively good
for us in proportion to their strengths, and whose frustration is non-derivatively bad for us in
proportion to their strengths. For there are pairs of desires which differ with respect to their positive-
negative asymmetries. Ants Desire is asymmetrically negative, and TV desire is asymmetrically positive.
At most one of these desires can be such that its positive and negative significance is proportional to its
strength.
If we insist that the desires do not differ with respect to their positive-negative asymmetries,
then we commit ourselves to strange claims. For example, we have to say that I am made significantly
better off for dreading the possibility of being covered in ants, or that I am significantly worse off by
daydreaming idly about being on TV. I have argued that there is no way to avoid making these strange
claims, so long as we hold onto the basic desire view. So we should give it up in favor of the view that
desires involve a mixture of two different attitudes: one of which has positive significance for well-
being, and one of which has negative significance for well-being. By helping ourselves to the distinction
between attraction and aversion, we can better explain the relationship between desire and well-being
I will close by noting a particular way in which the distinction might help us understand how
desire and well-being are related. According to an influential Buddhist idea, desire is a deeply bad thing,
and we would be better off if we rid ourselves of desire. This idea sits uncomfortably with traditional
desire-based theories of well-being, since such theories entail that having desires is a necessary

154

condition for being benefitted by anything.
72
Proponents of such theories must roundly reject the
Buddhist idea. But if we accept the distinct-attitudes view, we need not do this. We can say that, insofar
as it is interpreted as a point about aversion, the Buddhist idea is correct. Aversion has no positive
implications for well-being: its frustration makes us worse off, and its satisfaction does not make us
better off. So it is plausible that, insofar as we rid ourselves of our negative attachments to things, this is
good for us. And there is nothing ad hoc about interpreting the Buddhist claim as a claim about aversion.
In the context of the claim that desire leads to suffering, Buddhist texts typically use the word “trsnā,”
which is better translated as “craving,” rather than “desire”.
73
This at least suggests that “trsnā” refers to a
distinctly unpleasant kind of desire, rather than referring to desire in the most general sense. So, on the
distinct-attitudes view, there is an available interpretation of the Buddhist idea which is plausible. The
key is to notice that not all desires are created equal: some have greater positive significance for well-
being; some have greater negative significance for well-being.

72
Chris Heathwood briefly notes this point in a summary of lesser-known objections to desire satisfactionism; see
Chris Heathwood, "Desire-Fulfillment Theory," in The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Well-Being, ed. Guy
Fletcher (Routledge, 2015), 145.
73
Paul Williams, Anthony Tribe, and Alexander Wynne, Buddhist Thought: A Complete Introduction to the Indian
Tradition (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012), 44.

155

Chapter Five: An Expanded Role for Pleasure in the Good Life
§1 Introduction
Most philosophers agree individuals’ well-being something to do with individuals’ subjective
psychological makeup. For example: I like cats, so it is good for me to own a cat. Owning a cat makes my
life go better. But those who dislike cats would not have their well-being improved as a result of cat
ownership. The lesson here is simply that facts about individuals’ well-being depend partly on facts about
individuals’ subjective makeup. That much seems more or less indisputable.
There is, however, no shortage of dispute concerning the nature of the relationship between
individuals’ subjective makeup and their well-being. Two proposals dominate the literature. On the one
hand, hedonists claim that the relationship between subjective makeup and well-being is mediated by
pleasure: cat ownership is good for me because it causes me pleasure. In contrast, desire theorists claim that
the relationship is mediated by desire: cat ownership is good for me because I desire to own cats.
In principle, we could claim that pleasure and desire play distinct and mutually-irreducible roles
in well-being. But the result would be a somewhat disjointed and disunified theory of well-being. It is
unsurprising, then, that philosophers have not gone in for this claim. Instead, hedonists tend to claim
that desires have no immediate relevance for well-being
74
, and desire theorists tend to claim that
pleasure’s significance for well-being is derived from the significance of desire — because all it is to feel
pleasure is (roughly) to have an experience while simultaneously desiring that experience.
75

74
For defenses of this general proposal, see Mendola (2006) and Bramble (2015).
75
This general proposal has been developed and defended in great detail by Chris Heathwood (2006, 2019). David

156

My goal in this paper is to introduce and defend a neglected third strategy. I argue that desire’s
significance for well-being is derived from the significance of pleasant experiences, rather than vice versa.
My central claim is that insofar as it is good for us to satisfy a desire, it is good for us because in so doing
we take pleasure in an actual state of affairs, and states of affairs in which we take pleasure are good for
us. I take pleasure in skiing, for example, so skiing boosts my well-being — over and above the boost to well-
being which I get from the pleasure itself. On the resulting view, pleasure retains the significance which
hedonists attribute to it, while also taking on the significance which desire theorists attribute to desires.
This is the view I will call “hedonic satisfactionism”.
I argue that, properly developed, hedonic satisfactionism has remarkable explanatory power: it
can neatly explain which desires are relevant to well-being, how those desires are relevant to well-being,
and why pleasure itself is relevant to well-being. Thus, it ought to be taken seriously by anyone who thinks
that both pleasure and desire are relevant to well-being.
I begin in (2) by briefly going over some relevant terminology. Then in (3) I sketch the general
theory of pleasure which I will leverage in my arguments for hedonic satisfactionism. Then I turn to those
arguments. I argue that hedonic satisfactionism can resolve important questions regarding the normative
significance of desire and pleasure in sections (4) and (5), respectively. I close in (6) by briefly contrasting
my view with a very different view, put forward by Chris Heathwood, which attempts a similar kind of
unification (2006).

Sobel (2005) also offers a staunch defense of the proposal.

157

§2 Terms and Conditions
I have said that, according to a popular line of thought, pleasure increases our well-being. More
precisely, the line of thought I have in mind is that pleasure is non-derivatively good for us. Having
embraced this thought, it is natural to think that displeasure, or unpleasant experience, is non-
derivatively bad for us. This is the thesis I will call “minimal hedonism”:
Minimal Hedonism: Pleasant experiences are non-derivatively good for the subjects who have
them; unpleasant experiences are non-derivatively bad for the subjects who have them.
Unlike hedonism proper, minimal hedonism is consistent with the claim that many other sorts of things
are non-derivatively good or bad for us. Thus, we can reasonably expect that minimal hedonism is much
less contentious than hedonism proper. In fact, as Derek Parfit notes, many of the most popular theories
of well-being imply that pleasure and displeasure are among the things which make us better and worse
off, respectively. Such theories imply minimal hedonism (1984, p. 143).
76

According to another popular line of thought, desire satisfaction increases our well-being. More
specifically, the thought is that desire satisfaction is non-derivatively good for us.
77
But this generic

76
Some philosophers may contend that vicious pleasures — for example, sadistic or base pleasures — are positively
bad for us. G. E. Moore suggests this view when he says that "the lowest forms of sexual enjoyment… are positively
bad, although it is by no means clear that they are not the most pleasant states we could ever experience. " And
Moore uses this case to argue against hedonism (ch. III, sect. 56). This need not imply the falsity of Minimal
Hedonism, because it could be that such pleasures are bad (in virtue of being vicious) and good (in virtue of being
pleasures). That is, they could have some features that are bad for us, and others that are good for us. See Goldstein
1989.
77
I want to remain neutral between two competing interpretations of the claim that desire satisfaction is non-
derivatively good for us. On the first interpretation, “desire satisfaction” is taken to refer to the combination of a
desire, plus its object. On the second interpretation, “desire satisfaction” is taken to refer to the object of the desire,
but not the desire itself. The difference matters in some contexts, but this is not one of them. See Rabinowicz and

158

statement needs to be qualified or at least precisified, because it is implausible that every instance of
desire satisfaction is non-derivatively good for us. The word “desire” is used to denote a seemingly
heterogeneous array of mental states,
78
and it’s implausible that everything that is called “desire” is such
that its satisfaction is good for us. Indeed, even when we restrict ourselves to uses of “desire” which most
plausibly denote mental states with relevance for well-being, there seem to be cases in which their
satisfaction is not good for us. I will consider some such cases in the next section.
For present purposes, we can work with the following qualified claim: there is some wide class of
desires whose satisfaction is defeasibly good for us, and some wide class of desires whose frustration is
defeasibly bad for us. This is the view I will call “minimal desire satisfactionism”:
Minimal Desire Satisfactionism: There is a wide class of desires such that satisfaction of
those desires is (defeasibly) non-derivatively good for us. There is some wide class of
desires whose frustration is (defeasibly) non-derivatively bad for us.
Presumably, there is at least some overlap between the two sets of desires specified by minimal desire
Satisfactionism. Suppose, for example, that I desire for my students to be engaged in class. Then it is
plausible that having their attention and interest would be non-derivatively good for me, and that lacking
them would be non-derivatively bad for me. Plausibly, this desire belongs to both sets.

Österberg 1996 and Weelden 2019 for discussion.
78
For example, we are alternatively told that desires consist in certain sorts of dispositions (Scanlon 1998, p. 38-42;
Schroeder 2007, chap. 8; Schwitzgebel 2013), that they are internal functional states (Lewis 1972; Papineau 1984, p.
562-565), and that they are internal representational states — where the relevant representations might be
understood in normative terms (Stampe 1987, p. 359-362; Oddie 2005, chap. 3) or in non-normative terms (Millikan
2005, p. 171-173). It should not be assumed that these proposals are all intended to cover the same phenomena.

159

Unlike desire satisfactionism proper, minimal desire satisfactionism is consistent with the claim
that many other sorts of things, apart from desire satisfaction and frustration, are non-derivatively good
or bad for us. Desire satisfactionism is a very popular theory of well-being — perhaps the most popular
theory.
79
We can reasonably expect that minimal desire satisfactionism is at least as popular.
My aim is to unify minimal hedonism and minimal desire satisfactionism. I will pursue this aim
by defending a third view, and arguing that this third view underlies them both. The third view is as
follows:
Hedonic Satisfactionism: Pleasant experiences are such that their satisfaction is non-
derivatively good for us. Unpleasant experiences are such that their frustration is non-
derivatively bad for us.
In the rest of this paper I will defend hedonic satisfactionism. I will begin by returning to the necessitation
theory, first introduced in Chapter One, and using it to explain what I mean by “pleasure satisfaction” and
“displeasure frustration”. The rough idea that a given instance of pleasure is satisfied, and a given instance
of displeasure is frustrated, when we take (dis)pleasure in something that actually exists. The necessitation
theory can be used to make this rough idea precise. And having made the idea precise, we will be in a
position to see how hedonic satisfactionism can answer questions which present difficulties for ordinary
versions of the desire satisfactionism. In particular, hedonic satisfactionism can explain which desires

79
Chris Heathwood helpfully collects a number of philosophers’ views regarding the popularity of desire
satisfactionism (2016). For example, Daniel Haybron writes that desire satisfactionism has been “[t]he dominant
account among economists and philosophers over the last century or so” (Haybron 2008: 3). In a similar vein,
William Shaw writes that “the desire-satisfaction theory is probably the dominant view of welfare among
economists, social-scientists, and philosophers, both utilitarian and non-utilitarian” (Shaw 1999, p. 53).

160

are such that their satisfaction is good for us, and which desires are such that their frustration is bad for
us.
§3 The Spriggean Theory Revisited
In this section I will briefly recapitulate the central claims of the Spriggeanism, before explaining
a natural sense in which, on the Spriggean theory, pleasures and displeasures can be satisfied and
frustrated.
§3.1 What the Spriggean Says
According to the necessitation theory of pleasure, there is a necessary connection between our
phenomenology and our dispositions. There are certain phenomenal properties such that, necessarily,
anyone who has an experience with one of those phenomenal properties will be disposed to try to continue
and repeat the experience. In other words, necessarily any experience with one of those phenomenal
properties will be self-promoting:
“Promote”: An experience e of a subject s promotes a given state of affairs iff e disposes s to
try to make it the case that the state of affairs obtains for its own sake.
“Self-Promoting”: An experience e of a subject s is self-promoting iff e promotes a state of
affairs of s having an experience with the same or similar phenomenology as e.
And, according to the necessitation theory, pleasures are all and only experiences that have one of the
phenomenal properties such that necessarily experiences with one of those properties are self-promoting:

161

Necessitation Theory of Pleasure: There is a non-empty set of phenomenal properties [P] such
that necessarily, if an experience e has one of those properties, then e is self-promoting.
Necessarily, for any experience e, e is a pleasure iff it instantiates a member of [P].
The necessitation theory takes its cue from Timothy Sprigge’s theory of pleasure. On Sprigge's view,
pleasurable experiences are pleasurable because they feel the way that they do. But Sprigge urges that we
“not be afraid of the idea that pleasures and pains are of their very nature liable to affect behavior in certain
directions” (1987, 131-132).
To illustrate, suppose that I am getting some pleasure from eating chocolate cake. The
necessitation theory predicts that my experience will promote itself; that is, it will dispose me to try to get
more pleasures which feel similar to it. A little reflection seems to confirm this prediction. In the short
term, my pleasure motivates me to keep eating, which tends to sustain my pleasant experience. In the
long term, the experience acts as a positive reinforcer, motivating me to eat chocolate cake — and other
sugary, chocolatey, buttery foods — on future occasions. And at least part of what I will by trying to do, in
eating those foods, is to get more of those types of pleasant experiences.
These patterns seem to hold quite generally: each of my pleasures disposes me to get more
pleasant experiences which feel similar to the original pleasure. When I smell baking bread, the pleasure
disposes me to try to keep trying to get similar olfactory pleasures. When I listen to 80s pop rock, my
pleasure disposes me to keep trying to get similar auditory pleasures. When I get the satisfaction of
finishing my routine at the gym, the pleasure disposes me to keep trying to get that pleasure of
satisfaction. This is all simply to say that pleasures are positive reinforcers, and part of what they reinforce

162

are our attempts to get more pleasure — usually by continuing or repeating the activities which caused
them.
The necessitation theory can be extended naturally into a theory of displeasure. We can say, with
Sprigge, that unpleasant experiences are those which dispose us in ways which tend to “remove
themselves”, and which do so in virtue of their phenomenologies (1987, p. 142). In this way, their
dispositional profile mirrors the dispositional profile of pleasure: whereas pleasures promote themselves,
displeasures deter themselves. We can start with a definition of a “self-deterring” experience:
“Deter”: An experience e of a subject s deters a given state of affairs iff e disposes s to try to
make the absence of that state of affairs obtain for its own sake.
“Self-Deterring”: An experience e of a subject s is self-deterring iff it deters a state of affairs
of s having an experience with the same or similar phenomenology as e.
Then we can state the Spriggean theory of displeasure as follows:
Necessitation Theory of Displeasure: There is a non-empty set of phenomenal properties
[P*] such that necessarily, if an experience e has one of those properties, then e is self-
deterring. Necessarily, for any experience e, e is a displeasure iff it instantiates a member
of [P*].
If I were to touch a piece of very hot metal, for example, the resulting unpleasant experience would dispose
me to try to stop having that experience, and other experiences like it. In the short term, it would dispose
me to pull my hand away from the stove. In the long term, it would dispose me not to touch hot metal.

163

As described in Chapter One, the necessitation theory comes in two varieties. According to the
functionalist theory, the phenomenologies of pleasures and the dispositions they bestow are not altogether
distinct. Part of what it is to have certain sorts of phenomenology is to be self-promoting. So the
functionalist can accept the necessitation theory, while also Hume’s Dictum. According to the Spriggean
theory, in contrast, the phenomenologies of pleasures and the dispositions they bestow are distinct. It is
one thing to have an experience that feels a certain way, and another for that experience to self-promote.
So the Spriggean flouts Hume’s dictum. Whether one goes in for functionalism or Spriggeanism will
depend on one’s views in the philosophy of consciousness, as well as the degree to which one is troubled
by the Euthyphro objection from Chapter One. For specificity’s sake I will adopt the Spriggean view in
what follows, but much of what I say about it will also go for the functionalist view.
So much for what the Spriggean says. At this point it will be helpful to raise a few points about
what the Spriggean theory does not say. This will put us in a better position to appreciate the sense in
which pleasures and displeasures can be satisfied and frustrated on the Spriggean theory.
§3.2 What the Spriggean Does Not Say
First, Spriggeanism does not imply that there is a particular “feeling of pleasure”. According to
the Spriggean, the pleasantness of one’s experience supervenes on its phenomenology. If you are
experiencing pleasure but I am not, then there must be some difference in our phenomenologies. But this
is emphatically not to say that pleasure is associated with a highly specific feeling or sensation. It is not to
say that there is a “distinctive feeling of pleasure,” on a par with the auditory experience of middle C, the

164

gustatory experience of mintiness, or the visual experience of redness.
80
This kind of phenomenological
theory is historically unpopular, mostly because (as many philosophers have noted)
81
there does not appear
to be any such “distinctive feeling.” We cannot introspectively isolate a distinct feeling of pleasure, in the
same way that we can isolate the auditory experience of middle C.
The phenomenology of pleasure should instead be understood as a property which can be
instantiated by total or gestalt experiences, rather than as a particular quality within those experiences. By
analogy, consider the property of phenomenal symmetry. There are lots of different total experiences one
can have which share this property. One way of having a symmetrical experience is to look at a
symmetrical painting head-on. Another way is to close one's eyes and put one sour candy on each side of
one’s tongue. These experiences are very different — there is no “distinctive feeling of symmetry” which
they share. Nevertheless, each of them is phenomenologically symmetrical. And it seems clear that their
symmetry supervenes on their phenomenology, or “what it is like” to have those experiences. I claim that,
in these respects, pleasantness might well be on a par with symmetry. There are lots of different ways of
having pleasant experiences, but pleasantness nevertheless supervenes on phenomenology.
Second, Spriggeanism does not imply that the dispositions associated with our pleasures will
always manifest. From the fact that I am disposed to get more of the type of experience I get from eating
sugary food, it does not follow that I will try to get more of those experiences. For I might have any number

80
Something like this view is defended by Ben Bramble. He argues that pleasant experiences are those which
“include” or “involve” a certain distinctive feeling (2016). The cruder version — according to which pleasure is
simply identified with a distinctive feeling — might have been held by Moore (1993, p. 64-65).
81
See for example Sidgwick (1907, p. 127), Brandt (1979, pp. 37-38), Feldman (1997, p. 87), Carson (2000, p. 14), Sobel
(2002, p. 241), and Heathwood (2007, p. 26).

165

of reasons not to try to do that. In the short term, I might not take another bite of cake because I have no
more cake to eat, or because I worry that it will upset my stomach.
82
In the long term, the reinforcing
effects of my pleasure might be counteracted by anxieties about gaining weight.
83
In these and other cases,
we should not conclude that my disposition has disappeared. It is more natural to say that although I am
indeed disposed to try to get more of the pleasures I get from eating sugary and buttery food, the
disposition fails to manifest for various reasons. Internal factors (e.g., anxieties) and external factors
(e.g., my lack of cake) keep me from trying to do what I am disposed to try to do.
Third, Spriggeanism does not imply that our pleasures dispose us to think about pleasure.
Although the Spriggean theory says that our pleasures dispose us to try to get more pleasures, this should
not be understood as entailing that our pleasures dispose us to think about our experiences. When I am
motivated to chat with Asha, I am not having any sort of explicit thoughts about the pleasure I will get
from doing so. I do not think: “Ah! There’s Asha! I can’t wait to get the warm and fuzzy feelings that I
ordinarily get from chatting with her.” But despite the fact that I do not entertain this thought, it is still

82
This is how I respond to philosophers, like J. C. B. Gosling, who claim that “effervescent pleasures” do not
motivate their own continuation. Gosling writes about the scent of rose: “the pleasure is in the ephemeral
quality of the experience, and the person would be nauseated at the thought of lingering over it” (1969, p. 65). If one
would become nauseated in thinking about taking another sniff, then clearly this is a respect in which one’s
phenomenology would change. Either one stops sniffing because one knows that one will become nauseated, or
one stops sniffing because one’s experience actually becomes nauseating, and ceases to motivate one to sniff. Either
way, this is no counterexample to the Spriggean theory.
83
Some pleasant experiences do not dispose us to try to do anything in the short term, except to think about the
object of our pleasure. For example: suppose I have just won a race, and I am taking pleasure in having won. My
pleasure does not dispose me to simply keep running. After all, the race is over. Nevertheless, the pleasure does
dispose me in various ways. In the short term, the pleasure disposes me to think about the fact that I won. That will
tend to sustain my pleasure. In the long term, the pleasure acts as a positive reinforcer: it disposes me to keep
trying to win races. That will tend to repeat my pleasure.

166

true that I like the experiences I get from chatting with her, and try to get more of those experiences by
chatting with her.
84
Getting these experiences isn’t my explicit goal, but it is part of what I am after. After
all, if I anticipated that I would get no pleasure from chatting with her (perhaps because I am very
depressed) then this would likely make me at least somewhat less interested in chatting.
Fourth, and crucially: although the Spriggean theory says that pleasures promote themselves, it
does not say that pleasures promote only themselves. When I get pleasure from chatting with my friend
Asha, my pleasure does not merely promote itself. It does not merely dispose me to try get more of that
pleasure for its own sake. It also motivates me to chat with Asha for its own sake. So, as it turns out, there
are at least two distinct states of affairs which my pleasure promotes: the state of my having that kind of
experience, and the state of my chatting with Asha. Many of our pleasures, though not all our pleasures,
have this sort of Janus-faced motivational profile: they motivate “inward”, in that they dispose us to try to
bring about more of themselves for their own sake, and they motivate “outward”, in that they dispose us
to try to bring about certain worldly states of affairs for their own sake.

84
Similar remarks apply to creatures which lack a concept of experience, or kinds of experience. Take my cat for
example. He seems to get pleasure from eating his cat food. And the Spriggean theory tells us that these pleasant
experiences dispose him to try to get more experiences which share some pleasant phenomenal properties with
those experiences. But the Spriggean theory does not require that my cat has a robust concept of phenomenal
properties, or types of experience. I doubt he has such concepts. That is fine, because there is still a legitimate
sense in which we can say that he likes the type of experience he gets from eating cat food. By attributing this
attitude to him, we can explain certain salient patterns in his behavior. For example: a change in his cat food will
affect his attitude towards his cat food only if his new food tastes different. Why is that? Because he likes the way
his cat food tastes — he likes the gustatory experience he gets from eating it — and he might not like the new taste.
There are puzzles in the vicinity regarding the relationship between attitude ascriptions and contents of thought,
but we needn’t resolve those puzzles here. Suffice it to say that the Spriggean theory latches onto the psychological
feature of my cat — whatever it is — that makes these attitude ascriptions appropriate.

167

§3.3 Satisfaction and Frustration for Spriggeans
With the Spriggean theory at hand, we can now articulate what it means for a (dis)pleasure to be satisfied
or frustrated. The basic story is simple. Pleasures promote certain states of affairs; that is, they dispose us
to try to bring about those states of affairs. If the promoted states of affairs obtain, they satisfy our
pleasures. On the other hand, displeasures deter certain states of affairs; that is, dispose us to bring about
the absence of those states of affairs. If the deterred states of affairs obtain, they frustrate our
displeasures.
To see how this story works, suppose my friend Asha is visiting from out of town, and I take
pleasure in chatting with her. My pleasure disposes me to try to keep getting this pleasure — it promotes
itself — but recall that this is not the only state of affairs which my pleasure promotes. My pleasure also
promotes chatting with Asha. So, as it turns out, there are two distinct states of affairs which my pleasure
promotes: the state of my feeling that very pleasure, and the state of my chatting with Asha. Each of these two
states of affairs is such that, if it obtains, then it satisfies my pleasure and is good for me. If I am in fact
getting pleasure from chatting with Asha, then both the pleasure and the chat are good for me.
If, on the other hand, I am chatting with an evil doppelganger of Asha, then that chat is not good
for me. It doesn’t matter whether or not I can tell the difference between Asha and her doppelganger.
What matters is that my pleasure disposes me to try to promote chats with Asha (in addition to disposing
me to try to promote itself). A chat with Asha’s doppelganger is not a chat with Asha, and so it does not
satisfy my pleasure. The upshot is that it is worse for me to chat with Asha’s doppelganger than it is for
me to chat with Asha, even if I cannot tell the difference. In the doppelganger case there is one state of

168

affairs that is satisfied by my pleasure, and is therefore good for me — namely, the pleasure itself. In the
ordinary case there are two states of affairs that are satisfied by my pleasure, and are therefore good for
me — the pleasure and the chat with Asha.
Exactly parallel considerations apply to displeasure and frustration. If I am displeased at the
thought of being in the presence of my hated enemy Baara, then my displeasure deters itself. But this is
not the only state of affairs which my displeasure deters. It also disposes me to try to not be in the presence
of Baara. So there are two distinct states of affairs which my displeasure disposes me to try to deter: the
state of my feeling that very displeasure, and the state of my being in the presence of Baara. Each of these two
states of affairs is such that, if it obtains, then it frustrates my displeasure and is bad for me. If I am in
fact in Baara’s presence — perhaps because she is weirdly spying on me from my closet — then being in
her presence frustrates my displeasure. Again, it doesn’t matter whether or not I know what is going on.
The fact is that my displeasure disposes me to try to end or prevent the state of my being in the presence of
Baara, and that state of affairs obtains. The upshot is that it is better for me if Baara is not hiding in my
closet, even if I do not know the difference. If she is not in my closet then there is one state of affairs that
is frustrated by my displeasure, and is therefore bad for me — namely, the displeasure itself. If Baara is
in my closet then there are two states of affairs that are frustrated by my displeasure, and are therefore
bad for me — the displeasure and Baara’s presence.
Now we have our Spriggean theory of pleasure and displeasure, along with corresponding
explanations of what it takes for pleasures and displeasures to be satisfied or frustrated. In the next
sections I will put the theory to work: I will argue for hedonic satisfactionism, and argue that this view

169

underwrites minimal hedonism and minimal desire satisfactionism. I will start with minimal desire
satisfactionism.
§4 Desire Satisfactionism
I desire some things. It seems that, if I get what I desire, this is a way in which my life is going
well for me. And if I am denied what I desire, this is a way in which my life is going badly for me. These
are the broad, intuitive ideas which lead many philosophers to endorse minimal desire satisfactionism.
But it is one thing to say that desire satisfaction and frustration can be good and bad for us, respectively,
and another to specify which desires are such that their satisfaction and frustration are relevant to well-
being. So our question becomes: which desires are relevant to well-being?
In this section I defend a straightforward answer. Our desires are relevant to well-being insofar
as they involve feelings of pleasure or displeasure. Insofar as the desire is pleasant, the pleasure promotes
some states of affairs, and those states are good for us if they obtain. Insofar as the desire is unpleasant,
the displeasure deters some states of affairs, and those states are bad for us if they obtain. The significance
of desire for well-being can be wholly explained by the significance of pleasure satisfaction and
displeasure frustration. So hedonic satisfactionism is true, and the best version of minimal desire
satisfactionism is nothing over and above hedonic satisfactionism.
I motivate this view by considering two different kinds of cases, each of which provides a general
lesson about which desires are relevant to well-being. The first kind of case involves dispassionate desires,
and the lesson it provides is that the relevant mental states must be at least partly experiential. The second
kind of case involves asymmetrical desires, and the lesson it provides is that the relevant desires must come

170

in two varieties: one positive, and one negative. Taken together, these lessons lend support to hedonic
satisfactionism. For hedonic satisfactionism accommodates these lessons, and does so in a very
straightforward way. (Un)pleasant experiences are obviously “experience involving”, in that they are
experiences. And they obviously come in both positive and negative varieties: namely, the pleasant and
the unpleasant. None of this amounts to a knockdown argument for hedonic satisfactionism, but it does
paint a compelling picture.
§4.1 Dispassionate Desire
Consider the following case, a version of which was first described by Warren Quinn:
85

Radioman: Radioman has a strange disposition: whenever he sees a radio turned off, he
tries to turn it on. He does not feel strongly about turning on radios — he does not crave
music, or information, or anything else which radios provide. He simply finds himself
walking towards the radio, looking for the “on switch”, and flipping it.
In describing this case, Quinn is arguing against the claim that desires are a source of normative reasons
(1993, p. 32). But we can just as well use the case to make a point about well-being. The point is not that
Radioman does not in fact count as having a desire. Some have taken that view (Smithies & Weiss 2019),
but I prefer to remain neutral. The point is that, even if there is a sense in which Radioman desires to turn

85
In Quinn’s original description of the case, he does not explicitly state that the relevant functional state is non-
phenomenological. Other philosophers seem to have interpreted the case that way, however (see e.g. Bain 2013,
p.75-76, and Paul Boswell 2016 p.2981). In any case, I am happy to concede that my description of the case may
depart from Quinn’s original description. Thanks to Jason Raibley for raising this point.

171

on radios, this desire lacks direct significance for his well-being. When he turns on a radio, thereby
satisfying his desire, his well-being is not raised.
86

I am operating under the assumption that there is some set of desires whose satisfaction is good
for us. So the question is: what is it about Radioman’s desire which excludes it from the set? My answer is
that Radioman’s desire is irrelevant to well-being because it does not involve any feelings of pleasure or
displeasure. Radioman has no strong feelings — indeed, no feelings at all — about turning radios on.
Supposing he did feel pangs of longing, or bursts of excitement, at the prospect of turning on the radio,
then we do start to get the intuition that it is good for him to turn them on.
Hedonic satisfactionism tells us that the satisfaction of Radioman’s desire is good for him just in
case he feels some pleasure which motivates him to turn on the radio. To illustrate the commitments of
hedonic satisfactionism, consider a more mundane version of the Radioman case. Suppose that Newsman
gets pleasure from the thought that he is keeping up to date with the news, and this is why he is constantly
turning on the radio. Thus, on hedonic satisfactionism, it is non-derivatively good for Newsman to listen
to the daily news. Listening to daily news increases his well-being, over and above the increase he enjoys
from the pleasure itself. Supposing he were tricked into thinking that he is listening to today's news, when
in fact he is listening to yesterday’s news, then the state of affairs of his listening to the news will not raise
his well-being. For his pleasure is not satisfied: he takes pleasure in the thought of hearing today’s news,

86
It might not be lowered, either. Being compelled to turn on radios is far from the worst compulsion one can
have. The crucial point is that, when Radioman does in fact turn on a radio, he is no better off than he would be if
he simply lacked his disposition to turn on radios.

172

and that’s not the news he’s hearing. Newsman would be better off if he were hearing today’s news, despite
the fact that he would get exactly as much pleasure from doing so.
Most philosophers — if they agree that desires have significance for well-being — will agree that
it is good for Newsman to satisfy this desire. And a number of philosophers have latched onto the idea
that the affective-experiential dimension of desire is key to the normative significance of desire (Chang
2004; Heathwood 2019; Smithies & Weiss 2019). So these claims alone are not terribly original. But
hedonic satisfactionism goes further in that it provides a specific explanation of how and why the affective
dimension of Newsman’s desire is relevant to the normative significance to his desire. It tells us that,
ultimately, pleasure satisfaction doing all the normative work. Satisfying his desire is good for Newsman
because, in satisfying his desire, he satisfies his pleasure. Newsman gets pleasure from thinking about
the hearing today’s news, and this pleasure motivates him to try to hear today’s news. So, hearing today’s
news satisfies the pleasure, and is good for Newsman. Most of us already believe that affective experiences
have significance for well-being. So the pleasure-based view also has the virtue of theoretical economy: it
avoids needlessly multiplying the mental states relevant to well-being.
The subject of dispassionate desire is something of a warmup for the main event: asymmetrical
desires. As I argued in the previous chapter, we should accept that desire’s significance for well-being is
reducible to the significance of attraction and aversion. Hedonic satisfactionism provides a
straightforward way of marking the distinction: the positive states are pleasures; the negative states are
displeasures.

173

§4.2 Asymmetrical Desire
As we saw in the previous chapter, desire satisfactionists face an important but neglected
question: when and why do some desires have greater positive than negative significance for well-being,
and vice versa? Consider the following pair of cases:
Flying: Cara enjoys the thought of flying through the air like a superhero. She occasionally
indulges in pleasant daydreams about flying. But Cara knows it is extremely unlikely that
she will ever fly, and she is not particularly disappointed or upset about the fact that she
remains on the ground.
Dirty: Dana is disgusted by dirt, and she hates the idea of being dirty. On those rare
occasions when she imagines being covered in dirt, the thought is deeply unpleasant. On
the other hand, Dana is very careful to avoid getting dirty, and she more or less takes it
for granted that she will remain clean. So she is not particularly appreciative or grateful
for the fact that she is not covered in dirt.
Cara and Dana’s desires — along with many others — are normatively asymmetrical. Their positive
significance for well-being differs in degree from their negative significance for well-being. In Cara’s
case, the desire is asymmetrically positive: it has greater positive than negative significance for Cara’s
well-being. In Dana’s case, the desire is asymmetrically negative: it has greater negative than positive
significance for Dana’s well-being. So the general question is this: why and in what ways are our desires
asymmetrical? And my answer is that whereas Cara is strongly attracted to flying but not strongly averse
to remaining grounded, Dana is averse to being dirty but not strongly attracted to being clean.

174

As we saw in the last chapter, both Shelly Kagan and Wayne Sumner reject this proposal. Kagan
rejects it because he worries that, if the positive and negative attitudes are logically distinct, then one can
consistently bear both attitudes towards the same state of affairs — in which case that state of affairs
would be both good or bad for one (2014). Sumner rejects the proposal because, as he understands it, the
distinction between positive and negative attitudes can only be a notational difference: to say that I am
attracted to p is just another way of saying that I am averse to ~p, and vice versa. And a mere notational
difference cannot have real normative significance (2020).
The present proposal can address both worries. With respect to Kagan’s worry, there is room to
debate how strange it would be for a state to be both good and bad for us.
87
But supposing we agree with
Kagan that it would be very strange, the (dis)pleasure-based proposal can explain why this strange
situation is rare or even impossible. For although pleasure and displeasure are “logically distinct,” they do
drive one another out. Suppose, for example, that I have somewhat mixed feelings about meeting my old
friend Eisa. On the one hand, we have not seen each other in a long time, and it would be good to catch
up. On the other hand, our interests and personalities drifted apart long ago, and we no longer have much
to talk about. Thus, I have mixed feelings. In certain nostalgic moods, I am pleased at the thought of
meeting Eisa. In other moods, I am worried about meeting him. Crucially, however, I do not have both
feelings at the same time. When I start to feel worried, I do not continue to feel pleased. The worry drives

87
I address this issue in greater detail elsewhere; see [removed for anonymity].

175

out the pleasure — and vice versa. Depending on my mood, the state alternates between being good and
bad for me. But it is never both good and bad for me.
88

It’s also clear that the (dis)pleasure-based proposal can address Sumner’s worry. Sumner worries
that the distinction between positive and negative attitudes is a mere notational difference. But the
distinction between pleasure and displeasure is not merely notational. It is one thing to be pleased at the
possibility of clear skies; it’s another thing to dread the possibility of rain. While it is true that both
attitudes can be satisfied by clear skies, this does not suggest that the difference is merely notational.
The upshot is that the (dis)pleasure-based proposal provides a straightforward way of
distinguishing between positive and negative attitudes, which in turn straightforwardly accommodates
cases of asymmetrical desire. Cara takes great pleasure in the thought of flying; thus, it would be very
good for her to fly. She is at most only slightly displeased at the thought of not flying; thus, it is at most
only slightly bad for her to remain grounded. Dana, in contrast, is very displeased at the thought of getting
dirt on her hands; thus, it would be very bad for her hands to get dirty. She is at most only slightly pleased
at the thought of not getting dirt on her hands; thus, it is at most only slightly good for her to remain above
ground.

88
It may be a mere quirk of human psychology that displeasure drives out pleasure, and vice versa. Or this
phenomenon may have a deeper explanation. For example, it may be that my pleasure represents meeting Eisa as
good, whereas my displeasure represents meeting him as bad. Views along these lines are defended by Bennett
Helm (2002), and by David Bain (2017). It may be that my pleasure represents a net gain in desire satisfaction,
whereas my displeasure represents a net loss in desire satisfaction. A view along these lines is defended by Tim
Schroeder (2004). In either case, the contents of the experiences are directly in tension with one another. This
tension could explain why it would be so strange, or even irrational, to feel simultaneously pleased and displeased
about the same state of affairs.

176

Often, when we desire something, we feel roughly equal degrees of pleasure and displeasure. I
am pleased at the prospect of winning tonight’s board game, and to roughly the same degree I am
displeased at the prospect of losing. The combination of these mental states is roughly symmetrical in
normative significance. But the pleasure and displeasure can come apart in intensity, and when they do,
they also come apart in positive and negative normative significance.
Let’s take stock. I have argued that hedonic satisfactionism provides explanations of what is going
on in cases of asymmetrical desire, as well as in cases of dispassionate desire. It is consistent with the
most plausible explanations that philosophers of well-being have offered in response to these cases. And
it fills out those explanations in straightforward ways. Of course I have not addressed every kind of case
of desire satisfaction which has interested philosophers of well-being. Other such cases include cases of
ill-informed desire, altruistic desire, vicious desire, remote desire, etc.
89
But my sense is that hedonic
satisfactionism has nothing special to say about these cases. The hedonic satisfactionist has the same
options as an ordinary desire satisfactionist — they can appeal to idealized mental states, or to some sort
of error theory, etc. Adopting hedonic satisfactionism, as opposed to a more standard variety of minimal
desire satisfactionism, leaves us no better- or worse-equipped to deal with them. On balance, then,
hedonic satisfactionism should be appealing to those who are antecedently attracted to desire
satisfactionism. It has this appeal quite apart from its potential to unify desire satisfactionism with
hedonism. But, as I will argue in the next section, it does in fact unify the two views.

89
For a helpful overview of the cases that have interested philosophers, see Heathwood 2016.

177

§5 Hedonism
In addition to underwriting and explaining the truth of minimal desire satisfactionism, hedonic
satisfactionism also explains the truth of minimal hedonism. Together with the Spriggean theory of
pleasure, it can provide an explanation of pleasure’s goodness, as well as an explanation of displeasure’s
badness. We can start with pleasure:
P1) For all P, if P is a pleasure, then P promotes P. (Spriggean Theory of Pleasure)
P2) For all P and all S, if P is a pleasure and P promotes S, then S satisfies P.
P3) For all P, if P is a pleasure, then P satisfies P. (P1, P2)
P4) For all P, if P is a pleasure, there is some Q such that Q is a pleasure, and P satisfies Q. (P3,
Universal Instantiation).
P5) For all P and all Q, if Q is a pleasure and P satisfies Q, then P is good for us. (Hedonic
Satisfactionism)
Conclusion: All pleasures are good for us. (P4, P5)
Less formally, we can put the point this way. According to the Spriggean theory of pleasure, each pleasant
experience disposes us to try to make it the case that we have that pleasant experience, or another like it.
Each pleasure promotes itself (P1). By our definition of what it means for a pleasure to be satisfied (P2), it
follows that each pleasure satisfies itself (P3). So, for each pleasure, there is a pleasure (namely, itself) that
it satisfies (P4). And according to hedonic satisfactionism, anything that satisfies a pleasure is good for us
(P5). It follows that all pleasures are good for us.

178

Structurally the same argument can be made with respect to displeasure:
P6) For all P, if P is a displeasure, then P deters P. (Spriggean Theory of Pleasure)
P7) For all P and all S, if P is a displeasure and P detrers S, then S frustrates P.
P8) For all P, if P is a displeasure, then P frustrates P. (P1, P2)
P9) For all P, if P is a displeasure, there is some Q such that Q is a displeasure, and P frustrates Q.
(P3, Universal Instantiation).
P10) For all P and all Q, if Q is a displeasure and P frustrates Q, then P is bad for us. (Hedonic
Satisfactionism)
Conclusion: All displeasures are bad for us. (P4, P5)
The general structure is the same. Whereas pleasures are self-promoting and thus self-satisfying and thus
good for us, displeasures are self-deterring and thus self-frustrating and thus bad for us.
Minimal hedonism is the conjunction of these conclusions. One might object that these
arguments are dialectically ineffective, because the conclusions are more obvious than the premises. That
is true, but is beside the point. The point of the arguments is not to lend support to minimal hedonism.
The point is to demonstrate that minimal hedonism — like minimal desire satisfactionism — could be
underwritten by hedonic satisfactionism. In this way, hedonic satisfactionism could unify the two views.
One might worry that hedonic satisfactionism tells an implausible story about why pleasures are
good for us. Hedonic satisfactionism tells us that pleasures are good for us in virtue of being instances of
pleasure satisfaction. The worry is that this explanation conflicts with another, more plausible

179

explanation: our pleasures are good for us in virtue of how they feel. In fact, however, there is no conflict
between the two explanations. Recall that on the Spriggean view, pleasures are self-promoting and self-
satisfying precisely because of how they feel. The property of being self-promoting supervenes on
phenomenology. So, insofar as the hedonic satisfactionist goes in for the Spriggean view, their
explanation of pleasures’ goodness will appeal to how those experiences feel. Pleasures — like many other
things — are good for us because we take pleasure in them. But unlike many other things, we necessarily
take pleasure in our pleasant experiences, and we do so because of how those experiences feel. Thus,
pleasures are good for us because of how those experiences feel.
The hedonic satisfactionist’s story can be pitched at a more intuitive level. Start with the story
about why things other than pleasure are good for us. When I chat with a friend, or play a game, or achieve
a goal, these constitute ways in which my life is going well for me. And plausibly, at least some of these
states of affairs contribute to my well-being because of the fact that I feel good about them. If I did not care
about playing Dungeons and Dragons — for example — then my doing so would not make my life go
better. But I do care: I feel good about it; I feel pleasures which motivate me to continue playing. So it is
good for me. The point isn’t merely that the pleasure I get from playing is good for me. The point is that
playing itself is good for me, and has this status because I am affectively engaged with it in a positive way.
Turn now to the question of why pleasure itself is good for us. The Spriggean has a story to tell
about what it is to take pleasure in something. According to the Spriggean view, pleasures are positive
reinforcers — they dispose us to get more of themselves in various ways. When we get pleasure from
activity, it’s as though we’re receiving positive feedback: “The sort of thing that’s happening right now is
good; keep it up!” This sort of feedback is contingently connected with many different sorts of states of

180

affairs. I receive it when I play Dungeons and Dragons; you may not. But there’s at least one sort of thing
that is necessarily connected with the positive feedback: pleasure itself. Whenever we receive the
feedback, “The sort of thing that’s happening right now is good; keep it up!”, part of what’s happening in
that moment — part of what’s being positively reinforced — is that we are getting pleasure. This is why,
whenever we feel pleasure, we are affectively engaged with the pleasure itself.
If this last claim sounds odd, then might be because — on at least one reading — it is so obvious
as to go without saying. The idea that we could feel pleasure, without being affectively engaged with it,
does not make sense. Pleasures are not objects that we can hold at a distance and examine in a wholly
dispassionate way. By the time one’s experience starts to feel pleasant, one is to that extent engaged in the
experience. This is not to deny that one can also be displeased about one’s pleasant experiences. If I am
worried that I am developing a gambling addiction, I might be a bit displeased about the fact that I get
such an intense thrill from playing Blackjack. But so long as the thrill itself exists, and is pleasant, I cannot
help but be affectively engaged in it. I cannot disavow my own positive engagement with the experience.
That is why the thrill is non-derivatively good for me: it’s the sort of feeling such that feeling it is sufficient
for being positively affectively engaged in it. And the same is true of all other pleasant experiences.
§6 Putting it All Together
Hedonic satisfactionism provides a unified explanation for both minimal desire satisfactionism
and minimal hedonism, and it answers important questions facing both views. It tells us which desires are
relevant to well-being, and how those desires are relevant to well-being — that is, it tells us whether they
have positive significance, negative significance, or both. As a bonus, hedonic satisfactionism also tells us

181

why pleasure and displeasure themselves have relevance to well-being. All this gives us compelling reason
to accept it. Of course this reason could be swamped, if there are superior views which can play the same
unifying role. So, in closing, I will contrast hedonic satisfactionism with an alternative view which
promises to play the unifying role: Chris Heathwood’s subjective desire satisfactionism.
As the name implies, Heathwood’s view is an internalist-subjectivist version of desire
satisfactionism. On this view, our desires are relevant to well-being only insofar as we believe them to be
satisfied or frustrated. If I believe that a given desire of mine is satisfied, then this subjective desire
satisfaction is good for me. Likewise, if I believe that a given desire of mine is frustrated, then this
subjective desire frustration is bad for me. This view also qualifies as a version of hedonism, by
Heathwood’s lights, because he holds that pleasure is simply identical to subjective desire satisfaction, and
displeasure is identical to subjective desire frustration (2006, p.557; 2007). To be pleased about something
just is to believe that one’s desire is satisfied, and to be displeased about something just is to believe that
one’s desire is frustrated.
Heathwood’s unifying strategy is therefore centered around desire. He aims to make desires do
the work that hedonists attribute to pleasure, and in service to this aim he claims that only subjective
desire satisfaction matters. In contrast, my unifying strategy centers around pleasure. I aim to make
pleasures do the work that desire satisfactionists attribute to desire, and in service to this aim I claim there
is a sense in which pleasures can be satisfied or frustrated.
My worry for Heathwood’s proposal is that, in unifying hedonism and desire satisfactionism, it
sacrifices the best parts of those views. His subjective desire satisfactionism is unlike traditional forms of

182

desire satisfactionism, in that it yields unintuitive results in cases involving deception. By far the most
famous such case involves Nozick’s experience machine. To illustrate: suppose that, unbeknownst to you,
your life is an elaborate simulation. You have no friends or family, no real career or skills. Instead you are
alone in a warehouse, hooked up to the experience machine — indeed you were hooked up shortly after
being born, and have always been there. Are these startling facts relevant to your well-being? Are they
relevant to how well your life is going for you? Many philosophers think that they are, and traditional
versions of desire satisfactionism are well-positioned to explain why.
90
If you are plugged into the
experience machine, then many of your deeply-held desires are frustrated. Presumably you want to have
friends and family, to lead a successful career, and to develop certain skills — but in the experience
machine, all of these desires are frustrated.
Experience machine cases have been hugely influential in the well-being literature, and desire
satisfactionism is popular in part because it seems to cohere with widely-held intuitions about those
cases. But subjective desire satisfactionism does not cohere with those intuitions. As far as subjective desire
satisfaction is concerned, life inside the experience machine is just as good as life in the real world —
provided you never learn that your whole life has been a lie. More generally, no matter what terrible things
may come to pass throughout your life, they have no impact on our well-being — so long as you remain in
the dark about them. It is a prima facie unfortunate feature of subjective desire satisfactionism that it leads
us to these conclusions, especially given that standard desire satisfactionism is well-positioned to avoid
them.

90
See Lin 2016 and Bramble 2016 for helpful overviews of the expansive literature.

183

In contrast, hedonic satisfactionism can address the experience machine cases in much the same
way that they are addressed by garden-variety desire satisfactionism. In the experience machine, many
of your pleasures are unsatisfied. You experience various pleasures which dispose you to try to promote
various relationships and achievements, but those relationships and achievements are not real; the
relevant states of affairs do not obtain. You may believe that they obtain, but in fact they do not. If they did
obtain, they would be good for you. So, in the experience machine, your life is missing some goods which
would be present if your experiences were caused by real events and activities. So it would be better for
you to have a pleasant life in the real world, as opposed to a phenomenologically similar life inside the
experience machine. Life in the real world would include the same experiential goods as would a life in the
experience machine — namely, various pleasant experiences — but it would also include additional non-
experiential goods: relationships, achievements in the like. Hedonic satisfactionism secures the same
plausible result as garden-variety desire satisfactionism. Subjective desire satisfactionism, in contrast,
must give up that plausible result.
Subjective desire satisfactionism also gives up an important feature of hedonism. Hedonism is
standardly taken to be a theory on which our experiences play a central role. It is standardly supposed that,
if hedonism is true, then there is a tight connection between our experiences and our well-being — tight
enough that only subjects of experience can undergo changes in well-being. And this is a prima facie
appealing feature of hedonism, since it explains why mindless robots and philosophical zombies cannot
undergo changes in well-being, even if they have internal functional states which seem to qualify as

184

desires.
91
Subjective desire satisfactionism does not share this feature, since it makes no appeal to
experience, but only to subjective desire satisfaction.
Of course, one could argue that the desires relevant to well-being are at least partly experiential.
92

If one does this, then one could retain the experientialism of hedonism, while also endorsing subjective
desire satisfactionism. But if certain sorts of experiences are necessarily involved in desire, the most
plausible candidates are precisely pleasant and unpleasant experiences. Indeed, as we have seen,
Heathwood himself holds that the desires relevant to well-being are at least partly experiential, and he
suggests that the relevant experiences are pleasant. He writes:
If a person has a genuine-attraction desire for some event to occur (or to have occurred or
to be occurring), the person finds the occurrence of the event attractive or appealing, is
enthusiastic about it (at least to some extent), and tends to view it with pleasure or gusto.
(2019, p. 674)
“Pleasure” makes an explicit appearance here, but presumably it is implicit in talk of “enthusiasm”,
“gusto”, and regarding certain events as “attractive or appealing” (2019, p. 674). And given that pleasure
itself is understood in terms of subjective desire satisfaction, regress looms.
In light of these considerations, I think that it is better to take pleasant experiences as our starting
point. This is what I have done in developing hedonic satisfactionism — rather than trying to make desires
do the work that hedonists attribute to pleasure, I have tried to show how pleasures can do the work that

91
See Lin 2020 and Kriegel ms for discussion.
92
Lin 2020 offers some considerations in favor of this move.

185

desire satisfactionists attribute to desire. The resulting view is experientialist, in the sense of entailing
that the constituents of well-being could not be enjoyed by creatures incapable of experience. And it yields
intuitive results in cases involving deception: there are many worldly states of affairs which satisfy my
pleasures, and those states of affairs are absent if it turns out that I am plugged into the experience
machine. I get pleasure from playing games and chatting with friends, and these pleasures are satisfied
by playing games and chatting with friends. But if I am plugged into the experience machine, then those
states of affairs do not actually obtain. The pleasures themselves are still good for me, since they satisfy
themselves. But if I were in the real world, additional states of affairs would satisfy my pleasures: states of
affairs consisting of playing games and chatting with friends. So, with respect to the experience machine
case, hedonic satisfactionism gives the same verdict as an ordinary variety desire satisfactionism. A
pleasant life in the experience machine includes some of what we care about (namely, various pleasant
experiences) but it does not contain many other things we care about (namely, various worldly states of
affairs). Thus, a pleasant life in the experience machine is not as good as a phenomenologically-
indistinguishable life outside the experience machine.
It is very plausible that both (dis)pleasure and desire play important roles in the good life, but it is
hard to believe that the roles they play are entirely separate and mutually-irreducible. I have tried to show
how their roles might be intertwined. At bottom, (dis)pleasure is doing the normative heavy lifting: insofar
as desire is relevant to well-being, its significance is derived from the significance of (dis)pleasure.
However, contrary to what traditional forms of hedonism suggest, the role of pleasure and displeasure is
not merely to make our lives better and worse. Rather, to feel pleased or displeased about something is to
be engaged with it in a way that makes it relevant to your well-being.

186

Chapter Six: Hedonistic Explanations of Well-Being
§1 Introduction
In the previous chapter I defended hedonic satisfactionism: a non-standard, pleasure-based
theory of well-being. Part of my strategy was to show that hedonic satisfactionism is, in some ways, an
improved version of desire satisfactionism. It provides explanations of why certain states of affairs are
good for us in much the same way that desire satisfactionism does, but it also neatly resolves problems
facing standard versions of desire satisfactionism. In this final chapter, I turn from desire satisfactionism
to another classic theory from the philosophy of well-being — namely, classical hedonism. I show that
hedonic satisfactionism is a kind of explanatory hedonism, and that explanatory hedonism provides an
attractive general framework for theorizing about well-being. My contention is that explanatory
hedonism preserves what is best and most plausible about classical hedonism, while avoiding the most
significant arguments against it.
Classical hedonism has the virtue of providing a simple and unified explanation of well-being: it
tells us that, while there is great heterogeneity among the things that make us better off, they are unified
by their connection to pleasure. Eating cake is very different than mountain climbing, but they might be
alike in increasing my overall balance of pleasure over pain. Thus, the hedonist says, they might both be
good for me, despite differing in many other respects. Similarly, stepping on a tack is very different than
being fired, but they might be alike in decreasing my overall balance of pleasure over pain.
93

93
For thorough defenses of hedonism, see Feldman 2004 and Crisp 2006.

187

Despite these explanatory virtues, hedonism is not very popular. Its unpopularity can be traced to
a cluster of well-known and historically-impactful arguments — e.g., the objection from Robert Nozick’s
experience machine, as well as the many varieties of the so-called "philosophy of swine" objection. These
arguments purport to show that hedonism is extensionally inadequate: it fails to enumerate all and only
the things which are good and bad for us. These arguments lead many philosophers to reject hedonism
out of hand.
94

In this paper, I show that we can grant the hedonist’s claim that all facts about well-being are to
be explained by appeal to pleasure and displeasure, while rejecting their claim that all and only pleasures
and pains are good or bad for us. In other words: we can accept a hedonistic explanation of well-being,
while rejecting a hedonistic enumeration. In other words, we can accept an explanatory hedonism. Hedonic
satisfactionism is one version of explanatory hedonism; but as we will see, there are others.
§2 Explanation and Enumeration
In comparing hedonic satisfactionism with classical hedonism, it will be useful to distinguish
between different kinds of questions that theories of well-being can answer. We can start by formulating
some simple enumerative questions:
(Q1) Which things are non-derivatively good or bad for us?
(Q2) For each thing that is non-derivatively good or bad for us, to what degree is it non-
derivatively good or bad for us?

94
Joseph Mendola provides an instructive catalogue of such dismissals (2006).

188

A complete answer to Q1 would be a list of states of affairs, each of which is labeled either “good” or “bad.”

Call this a binary enumeration. A complete answer to Q2 would list the same states, but would introduce
many more labels: enough to specify the particular degrees to which each state on the list is good or bad.
Call this a graded enumeration.
The binary-graded distinction can also be used to formulate corresponding explanatory questions:
(Q3) For each thing that is non-derivatively good or bad for us, why is that thing good or bad
for us?
(Q4) For each thing that is non-derivatively good or bad for us, why is that thing good or bad
for us to the degree that it is?
These questions correspond neatly to Q1 and Q2. An answer to Q3 is a binary explanation; an answer to Q4
is an enumerative explanation.
As we will see, both the binary-graded distinction and the enumerative-explanatory distinction
are needed to track the commitments of various forms of hedonism. Using both distinctions, we can
organize the preceding four questions in a tight grid:
Table 6.1
Q1 — Binary Enumerative Question
Which things are non-derivatively good or bad for
us?
Q2 — Graded Enumerative Question
For each thing that is non-derivatively good or
bad for us, to what degree is it good or bad for
us?
Q3 — Binary Explanatory Question Q4 — Graded Explanatory Question

189

For each thing that is non-derivatively good or bad
for us, why is that thing good or bad for us?
For each thing that is non-derivatively good or
bad for us, why is that thing good or bad for us to
the degree that it is?
I will call these four questions the minimal questions. Going forward, I will formulate them simply in terms
of “goodness” and “badness,” leaving the “non-derivative” qualifier unstated.
We can use the minimal questions to interrogate the theory I have called “classical hedonism.”
Start with Q1. The simple hedonist says that all and only pleasures are non-derivative goods, and all and
only displeasures are non-derivative bads. Simple enough! Next, Q2. The simple hedonist says that each
pleasure is non-derivatively good in proportion to its quantity, where quantity is understood as a product
of intensity and duration (Bentham 1789, p.38). The greater the quantity of pleasure, the better it is. The
greater the quantity of displeasure, the worse it is. Next, Q3. The simple hedonist says that each pleasure
is good simply because it is a pleasure, and each displeasure is bad because it is a displeasure. Finally, Q4.
The simple hedonist says that each pleasure is good to the degree that it is good, and each displeasure is
bad to the degree that it is bad, because it has the quantity that it has.
95

We can also interpret the minimal questions in a more generic way, as being neutral between non-
derivative and derivative goodness and badness. So-interpreted, the hedonist will answer the minimal
questions by enumerating many different sorts of states of affairs — not merely pleasures and displeasures
— and will explain those states’ goodness and badness by appealing to the pleasures and displeasures to
which those states are relevantly related. For example: the hedonist will say that it would be good for me to

95
This is not a trivial explanation, since alternative explanations are possible. For example, one could maintain that
pleasures are good for us because it is human nature to seek them out, and well-being consists in the perfection of
human nature. Roger Crisp notes that there is conceptual space for a view of this kind (2006, pp.623).

190

climb Mt. Monadnock, to make a delicious pizza, and to grow tulips in my garden. And they will offer a
unified explanation: though these states differ in many respects, they would all increase my overall
balance of pleasure over displeasure. Similarly, the hedonist will say that it would be bad for me to get
fired, to eat a rotten peach, and to lose my family’s respect. Though these states differ in many respects,
they would all decrease my overall balance of pleasure over displeasure.
Classical hedonism provides a useful baseline for formulating more sophisticated varieties of
hedonism. As we will see, classical hedonism is vulnerable to compelling objections — and it is vulnerable
to those objections precisely because of the simple ways in which it answers the minimal questions. By
offering somewhat more sophisticated answers to those questions, we can avoid the relevant objections,
even while we retain the explanatory unity of classical hedonism.
§3 Illusion Arguments
The most famous arguments against hedonism are illusion arguments. Each such argument begins
with a case in which a person is subject to an illusion, and that illusion leads her to believe that there is
some good thing in her life. As a result, she feels pleasure. Intuitively, however, her well-being is lower
than it would be if she got the same quantity of pleasure from something genuine, as opposed to a mere
illusion. If this intuition is correct, then her well-being is not fixed by the quantities of pleasure and
displeasure in her life, and classical hedonism is false.
The force of the arguments is clearest when we contrast the well-being of two people: one of whom
gets pleasure from something genuine, the other of whom gets pleasure from a mere illusion. For
example, consider the following case:

191

Illusory Achievement: Asha and Baara each have a lifelong goal of running a mile in five
minutes. One day they each run a mile and check their stopwatches: both stopwatches
read '4:58'. Both Asha and Baara feel a swell of pleasure. In fact, however, Baara is
deceived. Her stopwatch is running slow; her real time was 5:01.
We can stipulate that Asha and Baara experienced the same quantities of pleasure and displeasure. Even
so, there is a strong intuition that Asha’s life ranks higher in well-being than Baara’s. Asha really did
achieve her lifelong goal, whereas Baara merely believes that she achieved it. Intuitively, genuine
achievement benefits us more than mere illusory achievement, even if the illusion produces as much
pleasure as the genuine thing. This intuition provides the key premise for an illusion argument:
Argument from Illusory Achievement:
P 1 ) In Illusory Achievement, Asha’s well-being is greater than Baara’s well-being.
P 2 ) If (1), then pleasures and displeasures are not the only non-derivative goods and bads.
P 3 ) If well-being is not fixed by all and only pleasures and displeasures, then hedonism is
false.
Conclusion: Hedonism is false.
The Argument from Illusory Achievement is just one among many illusion arguments against
hedonism. Another example comes from Shelly Kagan, who describes a case involving a businessman who
is cheated and deceived by everyone in his life (1993, p.311). Kagan suggests that the businessman is worse
off for being cheated and deceived, even if he never becomes aware of these wrongdoings.

192

The best-known example comes from Robert Nozick, who describes a device — the experience
machine — which allows the user to get all the experiences of leading a rich and fulfilling life. Nozick
suggests that it would be better to actually lead a rich and fulfilling life, rather than merely getting the
experience of doing so.
Each of these cases — along with many others — can be used to construct an illusion argument.
All of the arguments share the same structure. The first premise is an intuitive premise. It tells us that one’s
life goes better when one takes pleasure in genuine things, as opposed to mere illusions. The second
premise is an enumerative premise: it tells us that if the intuitive premise is true, then one’s well-being is
not fixed by all and only the pleasures and displeasures in one’s life. The third premise is an explanatory
premise. It tells us that, if it is not the case that our well-being is determined by all and only our pleasures
and displeasures, then our well-being cannot be explained in terms of pleasure and displeasure. The
hedonist project fails. The arguments are valid, so hedonists must deny at least one of the premises. They
can adopt one of three strategies: (1) deny the intuitive premise, (2) deny the enumerative premise, or (3)
deny the explanatory premise.
The first strategy has historically been the most popular. Hedonists have argued that — despite
our intuitions to the contrary — it is just as good for us to get pleasure from an illusion as it is for us to get
pleasure from something genuine.
96
So, for example, Baara’s well-being is just as high as Asha’s well-
being.

96
See for example Mendola 2006 and Crisp 2006.

193

The second strategy has been explored — but not endorsed — by Fred Feldman (2006, p.111-114).
Feldman develops views according to which the values of subjects’ pleasures and displeasures are not
determined by their quantities alone. For example, one of Feldman’s views tells us that truth makes a
difference. Asha takes pleasure in something true, whereas Baara takes pleasure in something false, so
Asha’s pleasure is more valuable than Baara’s pleasure. It turns out that Asha is better-off than Baara,
despite the fact that they experience equal quantities of pleasure and displeasure. I will say more about
this intriguing idea later; for now, I am setting it aside.
Hedonic satisfactionism is a version of the third strategy. On this strategy, we grant that Asha’s
well-being is higher than Baara’s well-being. And we grant that Asha and Baara differ with respect to the
non-derivative goods and bads in their lives. So we grant that the correct enumeration of non-derivative
goods and bads is not hedonistic. Nevertheless, we do not give up on the project of explaining well-being
in terms of pleasure and displeasure. We maintain that, if something is good or bad for us, it is good or
bad for us in virtue of being relevantly related to our pleasures and displeasures. I call views of this kind
“explanatory hedonisms.”
Explanatory hedonism involves a kind of retreat from traditional forms of hedonism. In
answering the explanatory questions, the explanatory hedonist takes their lead from classical hedonism.
They say that if something is good or bad for us, it is good or bad for us in virtue of being relevantly related
to our pleasures and displeasures. Similarly, they say that the degrees to which things are good or bad for
us are explained by the intensities of the pleasures and displeasures to which those things are relevantly
related. They follow classical hedonism’s lead in answering the (shaded) explanatory questions, but not in
answering the (unshaded) enumerative questions:

194

Table 6.2
Q1 — Binary Enumerative Question
Which things are good or bad for us?
Q2 — Graded Enumerative Question
For each thing that is good or bad for us, to what
degree is it good or bad for us?
Q3 — Binary Explanatory Question
For each thing that is good or bad for us, why is
that thing good or bad for us?
Q4 — Graded Explanatory Question
For each thing that is good or bad for us, why is
that thing good or bad for us to the degree that it
is?
There are many different varieties of explanatory hedonism, corresponding to many different
views about which relations to pleasures and displeasures are “relevant.” For example, one variety of
explanatory hedonism says that causation is the relevant relation. If the explanatory hedonist adopts this
particular variety, they will say that something is non-derivatively good for me to the extent that it causes
me pleasure, and non-derivatively bad for me to the extent that it causes me displeasure. In effect, they
adopt the simple hedonist’s answers about derivative goodness and badness, but hold them out as claims
about non-derivative goodness and badness. They might say, for example, that it would be non-derivatively
good for me to climb Mt. Monadnock, to make a delicious pizza, and to grow tulips in my garden. Unlike
the simple hedonist, this explanatory hedonist claims that climbing Mt. Monadnock will contribute
directly to my well-being — the achievement itself is good for me. Also unlike the simple hedonist, they say
that if I were to get the pleasure without the achievement, that would not be as good as getting the pleasure
with the achievement. This simple causal theory is not very plausible, but it is useful to illustrate the
conceptual space.
Hedonic satisfactionism provides a different and more plausible kind of explanation. According
to the hedonic satisfactionist, our pleasures dispose us to bring about certain states of affairs for their

195

own sakes. Those states of affairs satisfy our pleasures if they obtain, and any states of affairs that satisfy
our pleasures are good for us. Not everything that causes pleasure also satisfies pleasure, so hedonic
satisfactionism differs from the simple theory described above with respect to which states of affairs it
identifies as being non-derivatively good for us. The mere act of taking a pleasure-causing pill is not good
for us, for example, unless our pleasure motivates us to take another pill for its own sake.
Although hedonic satisfactionism is more plausible than the simple causal theory, in a way it is
not the best representative for the general framework of explanatory hedonism. This is because hedonic
satisfactionism is based upon a particular Spriggean conception of pleasure, and the framework of
explanatory hedonism would be of interest even if that particular Spriggean conception turned out to be
false. With that in mind, in the remaining sections I will develop some explanatory hedonisms which do
not depend on the Spriggean conception. I will make no assumptions about the nature of pleasure, except
that it is possible to take pleasure in certain states of affairs. In this way, I will show that there are
interesting and defensible versions of explanatory hedonism which do not rely on any contentious claims
about the nature of pleasure.
All versions of explanatory hedonism depart from classical hedonism in a significant way. But at
the same time, they adopt a core idea of classical hedonism: if something is good or bad for us — climbing
Mt. Monadnock, for example — it has this status because it is relevantly related to our pleasures and
displeasures. Climbing Mt. Monadnock is good for me because it brings me pleasure. As I will try to show,
this is the right idea to take from classical hedonism. It is the component of classical hedonism which is
most worth preserving.

196

§4 Explanation and Otherworldly Pleasure
Hedonic satisfactionism clearly makes a start at avoiding the illusion arguments against classical
hedonism. It does so in precisely the same way that standard desire satisfactionist theories avoid those
arguments. To return to the case of Asha and Baara: both women take pleasure in the thought of running
a five-minute mile, and their pleasures dispose them to try to run a five-minute mile. Asha’s pleasure is
satisfied; Baara’s is not; therefore Asha’s life is going better for Asha than Baara’s life is going for Baara.
And this is despite the fact that both Asha and Baara believe that they have run a five-minute mile. Baara’s
five-minute-and-one-second run does not satisfy her pleasure.
But we do not have to be hedonic satisfactionists to embrace the same general strategy. We do not
have to coopt the desire satisfactionist’s explanatory resources by supposing that pleasures and
displeasure can be satisfied or frustrated. To begin developing a different kind of explanatory hedonism,
we can employ the case of Illusory Achievement, and consider the different ways in which Asha’s life and
Baara’s life involve pleasure. If their lives involve pleasure in different ways — if Asha and Baara are related
to their pleasures in different ways — then we might leverage that difference in order to explain the
difference in their well-being. We’ll say that Asha but not Baara is related to her pleasure in the right way,
so she enjoys an additional non-derivative good which Baara does not enjoy.
One salient difference in Asha and Baara’s pleasures is modal-epistemological. If Baara knew more
about her run — if, in particular, she knew that her run took more than five minutes — then she would
not take pleasure in it. Or, at any rate, she would take much less pleasure in it. So Baara’s pleasure has a
certain modal property: it is epistemically sensitive. If she knew more about her run, she would take a

197

decreased quantity of pleasure in it. In contrast, Asha’s pleasure is epistemically insensitive. If Asha knew
more about her run, this would not decrease the quantity of pleasure she takes in her run.
Epistemic sensitivity, thus understood, appears to mark a general difference between illusory
goods and genuine goods. Insofar as a subject takes pleasure in something in an epistemically-sensitive
way, the appeal of that “something” for that subject is at least partly founded upon that subject’s
ignorance. Thus, the appeal of that “something” for that subject is illusory. Insofar as a subject takes
pleasure in something in an epistemically-insensitive way, the appeal of that “something” for that subject
is not founded upon that subject’s ignorance. Its appeal (for that subject) holds up to scrutiny; it is the
genuine article — at least by that subject’s lights. By appealing to this difference in epistemic sensitivity,
we can give a general answer to the binary enumerative question:
Binary Enumeration (Epistemic-Modal): A state is good [bad] for a subject iff that subject takes
[dis]pleasure in that state, and her [dis]pleasure is epistemically insensitive to knowledge about
that state.
It will be helpful to give this burgeoning view a name. I will call it Epistemic Modal Hedonism, or EM
hedonism.
To flesh out EM hedonism, we need to say what kind of epistemic sensitivity is at issue in the
theory. A given episode of pleasure might be epistemically sensitive to some information, but not to other
information. For example: in the Illusory Achievement case, Baara’s pleasure is epistemically sensitive to
the proposition that her run took more than five minutes. If she knew that proposition, she would take no
pleasure in her run. On the other hand, Baara’s pleasure is epistemically insensitive to the proposition that

198

she stepped on a bug during her run. Knowing this proposition would make no difference to Baara’s pleasure.
So we need to say which sets of propositions are at issue in the context of EM hedonism. (I take it for
granted that the propositions at issue must be propositions about Baara’s run, and going forward I will
leave this qualification unstated.)
It’s natural to suppose that EM hedonism should require insensitivity to all sets of propositions.
But, on reflection, this natural idea is wrong. To see why, consider the following case:
Semi-Illusory Achievement: Cara, like Asha and Baara, has a lifelong goal of running a
mile in five minutes. One day she runs a mile, and then checks her stopwatch — it reads
'4:58'. Cara feels a great swell of pleasure in having run a five-minute mile. However, Cara
is also slightly misinformed about her run. Her stopwatch is off by a second; in fact her
running time was 4:59.
Let p 1 be the proposition that Cara’s stopwatch is running slow. It’s quite plausible that if Cara knew the
singleton set {p 1}, she would be misled into believing that her run lasted longer than five minutes. And if
Cara believed that her run lasted longer than five minutes, then she would not take pleasure in her run.
So there is a set of propositions — namely {p 1} — such that Cara’s pleasure is not epistemically insensitive
to that set. Clearly, though, we should not say that Cara’s achievement is illusory! On the contrary, her
achievement is perfectly genuine. So EM hedonism should not require epistemic insensitivity to all sets
of propositions.
How, then, should we understand the requirements of EM hedonism? Intuitively, the view should
not require sensitivity to misleading sets of propositions. From the fact that Cara would not take pleasure

199

in her run if she were misled about it, we cannot infer anything about whether or not her achievement is
illusory. To safely infer whether or not her achievement is illusory, we need to know how much pleasure
she would take in her run if she knew all the relevant information about her run.
We can catalogue all of this 'relevant information' by following a stepwise procedure. First, we
identify a set of propositions such that, if Cara knew those propositions, she would take more or less
pleasure in her run. We know that {p 1} has this status — if Cara knew {p 1}, she would take no pleasure in
her run. So we have identified {p 1}. Now we ask: if Cara knew {p 1}, would knowing any further information
make a difference to how much pleasure she takes in her run? The answer is obviously 'yes.' If Cara knew
the proposition that Cara’s run lasted less than five minutes — call it p 2 — then {p 1} would not mislead her, and
she would take great pleasure in her run. So we add p 2 to our list of relevant information, and repeat the
process. We ask: 'if Cara knew {p 1, p 2}, would knowing any further information make a significant
difference to her pleasure?’ If the answer is 'yes,' we add that information to our list, and repeat the
process. And so on.
This procedure will iron out the various ways in which Cara might be potentially misled by having
partial information about her run. For each proposition which has the potential to mislead Cara, there is
always some corresponding proposition which would prevent Cara from being misled. For example: Cara
could potentially be misled by p 1, but she would not be misled if she also knew p 2. If Cara knew p 1 alone,
she would take little pleasure in her run. But if she knew both p 1 and p 2, she would take a lot of pleasure in
her run. The stepwise procedure ensures that whenever our list contains a potentially misleading
proposition like p 1, it also contains a corresponding proposition like p 2.

200

By following the stepwise procedure, we will eventually arrive at the full relevant story of Cara’s run:
the set of propositions such that, if Cara knew those propositions, then no further knowledge would make
a difference to Cara’s pleasure.
97
Put another way: if Cara knew the full relevant story, then, so far as her
pleasure in her run is concerned, she would know all she needs to know. If, under such circumstances,
Cara would take just as much pleasure in her run, then her achievement is not illusory — at least by her
own lights.
98
And this is what matters for EM hedonism. So we can give a more precise answer to the
binary enumerative question:
99

97
This is a somewhat loose way of talking. In fact, there is no single set of propositions which constitutes 'the full
relevant story' of Cara’s run. There are many sets which capture all of the same relevant information. For example:
suppose one 'full relevant story' is a set containing three propositions: p 1, p 2, and p 3. Another 'full relevant story' will
contain just one proposition: the conjunction of p 1, p 2, and p 3. There may also be more substantive differences
between 'full relevant stories;' for present purposes, I am setting this complication aside.
98
What if Cara has some sort of weird psychological quirk, such that learning the full relevant story would cause
her to become depressed? In that case, wouldn’t EM hedonism predict — incorrectly — that her run is not good for
her? Here I can foresee two possible responses. The first response begins by reminding us that EM hedonism is a
broadly subjectivist theory, according to which the basic goods and bads for subject are determined by those
subjects’ contingent psychological makeups. So, given that Cara’s psychological makeup includes this weird quirk,
we shouldn’t be surprised that there is a corresponding quirk in Cara’s basic goods and bads. A second, very
different line of response is to introduce a further dimension of idealization: one which screens out weird quirks
like Cara’s. I regard both lines of response as somewhat promising, but I regret that there is no space to develop
them here. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for raising this worry.
99
EM hedonism resembles a certain kind of indefeasibility theory of knowledge. According to the indefeasibility
theory I have in mind, a belief constitutes knowledge only if it has no defeaters which do not themselves have
defeater-defeaters (Barker 1976, Swain 1981, Lehrer 1990, and Pollock 1986). A defeater, in this context, is a proposition
such that if the believer knew that proposition, she would no longer be justified in her belief. A defeater-defeater is a
proposition such that if the believer knew the defeater-defeater, her original defeater would no longer defeat her
belief. The appeal to undefeated defeaters (as opposed to defeaters more generally) is motivated by the same
considerations which motivate the appeal to a full relevant story (as opposed to relevant knowledge more generally).
Just as the former appeal is made in order to screen out misleading defeaters, the latter appeal is made in order to
screen out misleading relevant knowledge.
Crucially, however, EM hedonism does not face the most serious problem faced by the indefeasibility theory,
which is this: if one’s belief is true, then for each of that belief’s defeaters, it is trivially easy to come up with further
propositions which defeat those defeaters (Klein 1980, 1981). This means that all true beliefs are indefeasible, in the
specific sense required by the indefeasibility theory. EM hedonism does not face an analogous version of this

201

Binary Enumeration (Epistemic-Modal)*: A state is good [bad] for a subject iff that subject takes
[dis]pleasure in that state, and their [dis]pleasure is epistemically insensitive to the relevant full
story of that state.
100

This binary enumeration suggests a question regarding Cara’s pleasure itself. Is it good for her? It
is very natural to suppose that each of Cara’s episodes of pleasure is good for her, but the binary
enumeration tells us that each pleasure is good for her only if she takes pleasure in it. Unless Cara enjoys
an infinite hierarchy of pleasures, this may seem to imply that at least some and perhaps many of Cara’s
pleasures are not good for her. And this is an unwelcome response, at least to those of us antecedently
attracted to hedonism.
In response, the EM hedonist should treat pleasure itself as a limit case for the relation of taking
pleasure in something. To take pleasure in something is to be affectively engaged by it. We are affectively
engaged by all sorts of things in virtue of having affective experiences which are in some sense directed at
those things. But we are also affectively engaged by some of our experiences just by dint of their being

problem. Suppose you take pleasure in some state, but there are some propositions such that knowing them would
stop you from taking pleasure in that state. Those propositions 'defeat' your pleasure. It need not be trivially easy to
come up with further propositions which 'defeat' the 'defeaters'. In other words: it need not be trivially easy to come
up with further propositions such that, if you knew them in addition to the original 'defeaters,' you would take
pleasure in the relevant state. Thanks to [names removed] for pressing me on the analogy with defeasibility
theories of knowledge.
100
It is worth noting that the preceding discussion of “genuine” and “illusory” goods has a quite general application.
To illustrate, consider the desire satisfactionist theory of well-being. According to this theory, one’s well-being is
increased to the extent that some subset of one’s desires are satisfied. Actual desire satisfactionists typically hold
that the relevant desires involve some sort of idealization (Sobel 1994, 2009), and the relevant idealization might be
cashed out in terms of epistemic insensitivity to the full relevant story of the desired state.

(Thanks to an
anonymous reviewer for raising this point.) I will continue to focus on pleasure and hedonism, rather than desire
and desire satisfactionism. But the connection is worth keeping in mind.

202

affective experiences. So the EM hedonist might say there are two ways in which something might be the
object of the “taking pleasure in” relation: either that thing can be the object of some subject’s pleasure, or
it can be identical to some subject’s pleasure. By analogy, and more prosaically, there are two ways that
something might be soapy: it can be covered in soap, or it can be soap. We have seen one way in which
this sort of move might be defended in greater detail: on the Spriggean theory, pleasures promote other
things contingently, and themselves necessarily. Thus they necessarily satisfy themselves, and are
contingently satisfied by other things. But this is not to suggest that only Spriggeans can capture the sense
in which we are a;waus affectively engaged with our affective experiences, in the sense of taking pleasure
or displeasure in them, whenever we have them.
If the EM hedonist contends that we always take pleasure in our pleasures, then the question
becomes: are those pleasures epistemically insensitive to the full relevant story of themselves? If they are
not, then they still may not be good for us. But it is much more plausible that they are epistemically
insensitive in the relevant sense. Although introspection is not infallible, it seems plausible that Cara is
much less likely to be mistaken about the nature of her own experiences, as opposed to worldly events like
her attempt to run a five-minute mile. Perhaps if Cara is a committed physicalist, and she learns that her
experience is non-physical, this would lead to diminished pleasure. But in this (somewhat odd) case, EM
hedonism delivers a plausible result: things are not going quite as well as they would be for Cara. She is
not as well off as she would if she had the same quantity of pleasure but were not in the grips of a false
philosophical theory.
So much for the binary enumerative question. Now let us turn to the graded enumerative question
for EM hedonism: for each of state of affairs that good or bad for a subject, to what degree is it good or bad

203

for that subject? A natural way to answer this question is to appeal to the quantities of pleasure which
subjects take in states of affairs. Suppose that if Cara knew the full relevant story of her run, she would
take slightly less pleasure in it than she actually takes in it. She would know that her time was not quite as
fast as she had believed — 4:59, as opposed to 4:58 — but she would also know that she achieved her goal
of running a five-minute mile. So she would take a significant quantity of pleasure in her run. We can
appeal to this quantity to answer the graded enumerative question:
Graded Enumeration (Epistemic-Modal): If a state is good [bad] for a subject, it is good [bad] for them
in proportion to the quantity of [dis]pleasure they would take in it if they knew the relevant full
story of that state.
Notice that this answer captures an important difference between Cara and Baara. Intuitively,
Cara’s false belief does not matter very much to her well-being — it does not matter much that her time
was 4:59 and not 4:58. This is reflected in the fact that, if Cara were relevantly informed, she would only be
a bit less pleased. In the case of Illusory Achievement, by contrast, Baara’s false belief matters a lot to her
well-being — it matters a lot that her time was 5:01 and not 4:59. This is reflected in the fact that, if Baara
were relevantly informed, she would take no pleasure at all in her run. The present proposal captures this
intuitive difference.
Now that we have answers to both of our enumerative questions, we can give corresponding
answers to the explanatory questions. We can thereby arrive at a full formulation of the view:
Epistemic Modal Hedonism:

204

EM Enumeration: For any state S, that state is good [bad] for a subject iff that subject takes
[dis]pleasure in S which is epistemically insensitive to the relevant full story of S, and in
proportion to the quantity of [dis]pleasure that subject would take in S if they knew the relevant
full story of S.
EM Explanation: For any state S, if S is non-derivatively good [bad] for a subject to a certain degree,
it is good [bad] for them to that degree because they would take a proportionate quantity of
[dis]pleasure in that state if they knew the relevant full story of that state.
On EM hedonism, the non-derivative goodness or badness of a state for a subject is always explained by
some quantity of pleasure or displeasure. So EM hedonism provides a hedonistic explanation of well-
being: it appeals to pleasure and displeasure, and to no other prima facie goods or bads.
EM hedonism delivers the right results in the case of Illusory Achievement, because Baara would
feel much less pleasure if she were relevantly informed about her run. And similar considerations apply
also to more famous illusion arguments. Take Kagan’s case of the deceived businessman, for example.
The businessman would take much less pleasure in family and business relationships if he knew that
everyone was lying to him. So, according to EM hedonism, his relationships are much worse for him than
they appear to be. In Nozick’s experience machine case, Nozick predicts that few of us would want to be
plugged into the experience machine. If we suddenly realized — like Neo in the Matrix — that our lives
were elaborate simulations, then most of us would take much less pleasure in our lives. So for most of us,
at least, life in the experience machine would not be as good as an equivalent normal life. In each of these
cases, EM hedonism tells us what we want to hear: genuine goods benefit us more than illusory goods.

205

Now I will briefly consider a few worries one might have about EM hedonism. To reiterate: my
main goal in this paper is not to defend EM hedonism, or any other particular version of explanatory
hedonism. My main goal is to motivate explanatory hedonism as a substantive but general framework for
theorizing about well-being. My sketch of EM hedonism is in service to that main goal; the sketch shows
that there are interesting views within the framework. With that in mind, the point of addressing worries
for EM hedonism is not to home in on a specific version of the view. The point is to show that there are
various ways of editing EM hedonism to avoid the worries. All such edits are faithful to the spirit of the
view, none rely on controversial claims about the nature of pleasure, and none take the view beyond the
bounds of explanatory hedonism.
§4.1 An Objectivist Worry
As I have formulated it, EM hedonism entails that our well-being cannot be increased by states
which do not actually cause us pleasure. To see the point, consider the following case:
Obscured Achievement: Dima is a retired track athlete. He had a lifelong goal of running
a five-minute mile, but he believes that he never achieved his goal. In fact, however, he
did run a five-minute mile once in his life. He believes that his run took more than five
minutes only because his stopwatch was not working that day.
Dima’s run does not cause him any pleasure. In particular, then, it does not cause him pleasure which is
epistemically insensitive. So, according to my formulation of EM hedonism, Dima’s run is not good for
him. But those with objectivist sensibilities may worry that this is the wrong result. One might think that
Dima’s achievement is good for him, whether or not he knows about it.

206

If you share this thought, you can tweak the commitments of EM hedonism while retaining its
spirit. You can start by adjusting its enumeration of non-derivative goods and bads:
EM Enumeration (First Edit): For any state S, that state is good [bad] for a subject iff that subject
would take [dis]pleasure in S if they knew the full relevant story of S, which is epistemically
insensitive to the relevant full story of S in proportion to the quantity of [dis]pleasure that subject
would take in S if they knew the relevant full story of S.
Then you can provide an explanation to match this enumeration. According to the resulting version of EM
hedonism, Dima’s run is good for him. For if Dima knew that the full relevant story of his run, he would
know that he ran a five-minute mile, and he would take significant pleasure in knowing this.
§4.2 A Moorean Worry
As I have formulated it, EM hedonism entails that states of affairs can have extrinsic non-
derivative value. For example: Asha’s run is non-derivatively good for her in virtue of an extrinsic property:
the property of having Asha take pleasure in it. Those with Moorean sensibilities may worry that this is
incoherent. The Moorean reasons as follows: Asha’s run has value only because she takes pleasure in it;
therefore the run’s value is derived from the pleasure; therefore the run’s value is derivative. More
generally, any extrinsic value must be derivative value, and any non-derivative value must be intrinsic.
If you share this worry, you can — once again — tweak the answer to the binary enumerative
question:
EM Enumeration (Second Edit): A state A 1 is non-derivatively good [bad] for a subject iff (i) A 1 is
intrinsically such that it (i) includes a state A 2, (ii) includes a subject s, and (iii) s takes [dis]pleasure

207

in A 2 which is epistemically insensitive to the relevant full story of A 2. If (i), (ii), and (iii), then A 1 is
good [bad] for s in proportion to the quantity of [dis]pleasure that s would take in A 2 if they knew
the relevant full story of A 2.
To see how this works, return to the case of Asha and her run. There is a state which is intrinsically such
that (i) it contains Asha’s run, (ii) it contains Asha, and (iii) Asha takes pleasure in her run in a way that
would persist through her becoming relevantly informed about her run. The state satisfying (i)-(iii) may
be quite expansive; the details depend on your preferred theory of causation. But whatever that state may
turn out to be, a Moorean could hold that it is intrinsically, non-derivatively good for Asha. In this way,
the Moorean can accept the central ideas of EM hedonism. They can accept that there is a non-derivative
good which is present in Asha’s life, but absent from Baara’s life. And they can explain this difference by
appealing to Asha and Baara’s epistemic situations: Asha would still get pleasure if she were relevantly
informed; Barra would not. So there is no deep conflict between the core ideas of EM hedonism and
Mooreanism.
§5 The Scope of Hedonistic Explanation
To take stock: I have argued that EM hedonism retains the explanatory unity of classical
hedonism, while at the same time accommodating the central data of the illusion arguments. I have also
argued that EM hedonism can be edited in various ways to accommodate various worries one might have
about it. In doing all this, I have attempted to position EM hedonism as my proof of concept for hedonistic
explanation more generally. I have attempted to show that there is a particular version of explanatory
hedonism which is interesting and worthy of further development.

208

At the same time, I do not want to give the impression that EM hedonism is the only interesting
version. There are many others. EM hedonism was motivated by the illusion arguments, but illusion
arguments are not the only famous arguments against hedonism. There are also — for example — the
various versions of the philosophy of swine objection. According to this family of objections, it is better to
experience “higher pleasures” rather than “lower pleasures.” But, the objection goes, hedonists must deny
that there is any normative difference between “higher” and “lower” pleasures. So hedonism is false.
For my part, I find the philosophy of swine objection to be less compelling than the illusion
arguments. However, it will be instructive to briefly go over the objection. As we will see, we can use the
framework of explanatory hedonism to avoid the objection, in more or less the same way that we used that
framework to avoid the illusion arguments. The upshot is that explanatory hedonism is consistent with a
wide range of views about which things are non-derivatively good and bad for us, and to which degrees.
Like the illusion arguments, the philosophy of swine objection comes out most clearly when we
consider cases involving two people. For example:
Depraved Pleasure: Erza and Felix each get a lot of pleasure from doing outdoor activities.
Erza gets pleasure from playing Polo and going on nature walks. Felix gets pleasure from
stripping naked and rolling around in mud.
We can stipulate that Erza and Felix experience the same quantities of pleasure and displeasure. Still, you
might have an intuition that Erza’s life ranks higher in well-being than Felix’s life: even if we hold fixed
the quantities of their pleasures, the 'lower' pleasure is worse than 'higher' pleasure.

209

In the case of the illusion arguments, we avoided the arguments by first identifying a modal
difference in Asha and Baara’s pleasures, and then devising a kind of explanatory hedonism which latches
onto this modal difference. We can undertake the same strategy here. Just as there is a modal difference
in the pleasures of Asha and Baara, so too is there a modal difference in the pleasures of Erza and Felix. If
Felix had more refined tastes, he would not take pleasure in rolling around in the mud. In contrast, if Erza
had more refined tastes, he would get pleasure from playing Polo and going on nature walks.
101
We might
say that whereas Felix’s pleasures are refinement-insensitive, Felix’s pleasures are refinement-sensitive. Using
this distinction, we can formulate a kind of hedonism which exactly parallels Epistemic Modal hedonism,
except that it appeals to refinement-insensitivity rather than epistemic insensitivity. The resulting explanatory
hedonism avoids the philosophy of swine objection, in exactly the same way that EM hedonism avoids the
illusion arguments.
The upshot, here, is that explanatory hedonism provides a very flexible framework for developing
theories of well-being. For my part, I am most excited about using explanatory hedonism to avoid the
illusion arguments. That is because I am pre-theoretically attracted to prudential hedonism, and I take
the illusion arguments to be the best arguments against that view. (Again, I do not find the philosophy of
swine objection particularly convincing. If Felix likes rolling around in the mud, more power to him.) But

101
One might worry that, if Ezra had more refined tastes, then he would get pleasure only from the most
sophisticated games of Polo, and only the most beautiful nature walks. This worry stems from reading “more
refined tastes” as “having a taste for (only) more refined things.” But that’s not a very plausible reading, precisely
because it’s implausible that if Ezra takes pleasure in ordinary nature walks, then this counts against his
having perfectly refined tastes. It’s better to read “more refined tastes” as “better calibrated tastes” — where having
perfectly calibrated tastes is consistent with — and very plausibly entails — taking some pleasure in less-than-
perfectly-refined things.

210

even if you are not at all pre-theoretically attracted to hedonism, you could go in for hedonistic
explanation.
To illustrate, suppose you’re attracted to the view that there is an objective list of non-derivative
goods — knowledge, achievement, health, etc.
102
One prima facie problem for this sort of view is that it
lacks explanatory unity. On the surface, at least, the various goods it enumerates appear to have little in
common. Insofar as you are troubled by this prima facie problem, you might avail yourself of explanatory
hedonism. You might say, for example, that whereas morally upright people are pleased by knowledge,
achievement, and health, they are not pleased by pleasure itself. In this way, you could avail yourself of
hedonism’s explanatory unity, even while preserving an objective list of non-derivative goods. The result
would be a kind of hedonistic pluralism: “pluralism” because it enumerates a list of objective goods,
“hedonist” because it enumerates those goods on the basis of their connections to pleasure.
The upshot, here, is that explanatory hedonism provides a very flexible framework for developing
a theory of well-being. For my part, I am most excited about using explanatory hedonism to avoid the
illusion arguments. That is because I am pre-theoretically attracted to prudential hedonism, and I take
the illusion arguments to be the best arguments against that view. But even if you are not at all pre-
theoretically attracted to hedonism, you could adopt an explanatory hedonism.

102
For a recent defense of this kind of view, see Fletcher 2013.

211

§6 The Prospects of Hedonism
All of the leading theories of well-being answer both enumerative and explanatory questions (Lin
2017). Nevertheless, the theories are often described as though they answer only one kind of question. For
example, desire satisfactionism is often described as if it were purely explanatory: it says that if something
makes you better off, it does so because you desire it. Similarly, it is common to describe hedonism as if
it were purely enumerative: it says that only pleasant and unpleasant experiences are good and bad for
you, respectively.
This way of framing things does not do justice to the prospects of hedonism. Probably the most
attractive features of hedonism are its simplicity and theoretical unity. But these theoretical virtues are,
in the first instance, virtues of explanation. So, to do justice to hedonism, it is better to describe it similarly
to the way in which we describe desire satisfactionism. It says that if something makes you better off, it
does so in virtue of being relevantly related to your pleasures. As we have seen, this kind of broadly
hedonistic explanation is consistent with a wide range of enumerations. So, insofar as hedonists are
concerned with explanatory questions, they need not be overly anxious about arguments which bear on
the enumerative questions. They can aspire to explain all facts about well-being in terms of pleasure,
whichever enumeration ultimately turns out to be correct.

212

References
Adams, R. M. (1999). Finite and Infinite Goods: A Framework for Ethics. Oxford University Press.
Alston, W. P. (1967). Pleasure. In P. Edwards (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (pp. 6–341).
Macmillan.
Aydede, M. (2018). A Contemporary Account of Sensory Pleasure. In L. Shapiro (Ed.), Pleasure: A History
(pp. 239–266). Oxford University Press.
Bain, D. (2013). What Makes Pains Unpleasant? Philosophical Studies, 166(1), 69–89.
Bain, D. (2014). Pains That Don't Hurt. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 92(2), 305–320.
Bain, D. (2017). Evaluativist Accounts of Pain's Unpleasantness. In J. Corns (Ed.), The Routledge
Handbook of the Philosophy of Pain (pp. 40–50). Routledge.
Bain, D. (2019). Why Take Painkillers? Noûs, 53(2), 462–490.
Baldwin, T. (1993). Principia Ethica. Cambridge University Press.
Barker, J. A. (1976). What You Don't Know Won't Hurt You? American Philosophical Quarterly, 13(4),
303–308.
Bende, M. & Nordin, S. (1997). Perceptual Learning in Olfaction: Professional Wine Tasters versus
Controls. Physiology & Behavior, Vol. 62(5), 1065-1070.
Bentham, J. (1996). An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation: The Collected Works of
Jeremy Bentham. Oxford University Press UK.
Bob, B. (2019). Subjective Disagreement. Noûs, 53(4), 819–851.
Bradley, B. (2006). Two Concepts of Intrinsic Value. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 9(2), 111–130.

213

Bramble, B. (2013). The Distinctive Feeling Theory of Pleasure. Philosophical Studies, 162(2), 201–217.
Bramble, B. (2016). A New Defense of Hedonism About Well Being. Ergo: An Open Access Journal of
Philosophy, 3.
Bramble, B. (2016). The Experience Machine. Philosophy Compass, 11(3), 136–145.
Bramble, B. (2020). Unknown Pleasures. Philosophical Studies, 177(5), 1333–1344.
Brandt, R. B. (1979). A Theory of the Good and the Right. Prometheus Books.
Builes, D. (2020). Derivatives and Consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 27(9-10), 87–103.
Capraru, M. D. I. (2016). Objective Truth in Matters of Taste. Philosophical Studies, 173(7), 1755–1777.
Carson, T. L. (2000). Value and the Good Life. University of Notre Dame Press.
Chang, R. (2004). Can Desires Provide Reasons for Action? In R. J. Wallace, P. Pettit, S. Scheffler, & M.
Smith (Eds.), Reason and Value: Themes From the Moral Philosophy of Joseph Raz (pp. 56–90).
Oxford University Press.
Coleman, S. (2015). Neuro‐cosmology. In P. Coates & S. Coleman (Eds.), Phenomenal Qualities: Sense,
Perception, and Consciousness (66–102). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Crisp, R. (2006). Hedonism Reconsidered. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 73(3),
619–645.
Crisp, R. (2006). Reasons and the Good. Clarendon Press.
Cutter, B., & Tye, M. (2011). Tracking Representationalism and the Painfulness of Pain. Philosophical
Issues, 21(1), 90–109.
Cutter, B., & Tye, M. (2014). Pains and Reasons: Why It Is Rational to Kill the Messenger. Philosophical
Quarterly, 64(256), 423–433.

214

Dennett, D. C. (1988). Quining Qualia. In A. J. Marcel & E. Bisiach (Eds.), Consciousness in
Contemporary Science. Oxford University Press.
Egan, A. (2010). Disputing About Taste. In T. Warfield & R. Feldman (Eds.), Disagreement (pp. 247–
286). Oxford University Press.
Ellison, H. (1977). I have no mouth and I must scream: Stories. New York: Pyramid Publications.
Endola, J. (2006). Intuitive Hedonism. Philosophical Studies, 128(2), 441–477.
Feldman, F. (1988). Two Questions About Pleasure. In D. F. Austin (Ed.), Philosophical Analysis (pp. 59–
81). Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Feldman, F. (1997). On the Intrinsic Value of Pleasures. Ethics, 107(3), 448–466.
Feldman, F. (2004). Pleasure and the Good Life: Concerning the Nature, Varieties, and Plausibility of
Hedonism. Clarendon Press.
Feldman, F. (2010). What Is This Thing Called Happiness? Oxford University Press.
Feldman, F. (2018). Unconscious Pleasures and Pains: A Problem for Attitudinal Theories? Utilitas, 30(4),
472–482.
Fletcher, G. (2013). A Fresh Start for the Objective List Theory of Well Being. Utilitas, 25(2), 206–220.
Goldstein, I. (1980). Why People Prefer Pleasure to Pain. Philosophy, 55(July), 349–362.
Goldstein, I. (1983). Pain and Masochism. Journal of Value Inquiry, 17(3), 219–223.
Goldstein, I. (1989). Pleasure and Pain: Unconditional Intrinsic Values. Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, 50(December), 255–276.
Goldstein, I. (2003). Malicious Pleasure Evaluated: Is Pleasure an Unconditional Good? Pacific
Philosophical Quarterly, 84(1), 24–31.

215

Gorodeisky, K. (2019). The Authority of Pleasure. Noûs, 55(1), 199–220.
Gosling, J. C. B. (1969). Pleasure and Desire: The Case for Hedonism Reviewed. Oxford,: Clarendon
Press.
Grahek, Nikola 2007: ‘Feeling Pain and Being in Pain, 2nd edition’. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Hall, R. J. (1989). Are Pains Necessarily Unpleasant? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research,
49(June), 643–659.
Hawthorne, J. (2004). Why Humeans Are Out of Their Minds. Noûs, 38(2), 351–358.
Haybron, D. M. (2008). The Pursuit of Unhappiness: The Elusive Psychology of Well Being. Oxford
University Press.
Heathwood, C. (2006). Desire Satisfactionism and Hedonism. Philosophical Studies, 128(3), 539–563.
Heathwood, C. (2007). Review of Roger Crisp, Reasons and the Good. Notre Dame Philosophical
Reviews, 2007(7).
Heathwood, C. (2007). The Reduction of Sensory Pleasure to Desire. Philosophical Studies, 133(1), 23–44.
Heathwood, C. (2011). Desire Based Theories of Reasons, Pleasure and Welfare. Oxford Studies in
Metaethics, 6, 79–106.
Heathwood, C. (2016). Desire Fulfillment Theory. In G. Fletcher (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of the
Philosophy of Well-Being (pp. 135–147). Routledge.
Heathwood, C. (2018). Unconscious Pleasures and Attitudinal Theories of Pleasure. Utilitas, 30(2), 219–
227.
Heathwood, C. (2019). Which Desires Are Relevant to Well‐being? Noûs, 53(3), 664–688.
Heil, J., & Robb, D. (2003). Mental Properties. American Philosophical Quarterly, 40(3), 175–196.

216

Helm, B. W. (2002). Felt Evaluations: A Theory of Pleasure and Pain. American Philosophical Quarterly,
39(1), 13–30.
Hobbes, T. (1651). Leviathan. Harmondsworth, Penguin.
Honoré-Chedozeau, Carole., Desmas Maud., Ballester Jordi., Parr, Wendy., & Chollet Sylvie. (2019)
Representation of wine and beer: influence of expertise. Current Opinion in Food Science, Vol.
27, 104-114.
Johnston, M. (2001). The Authority of Affect. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 63(1), 181–214.
Kagan, S. (1992). The Limits of Well Being. Social Philosophy and Policy, 9(2), 169–189.
Kagan, S. (1994). Me and My Life. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 94, 309–324.
Kagan, S. (1998). Rethinking Intrinsic Value. The Journal of Ethics, 2(4), 277–297.
Kagan, S. (2014). An Introduction to Ill Being. Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, 4, 261–288.
Kahane, G. (2009). Pain, Dislike and Experience. Utilitas, 21(3), 327–336.
Kahane, G. (2016). Pain, experience, and well-being. In G. Fletcher (Ed.), The routledge handbook of
philosophy of well-being. Routledge.
Kant, I. (2006). Anthropology From a Pragmatic Point of View. Cambridge University Press.
Kent Berridge & Piotr Winkielman (2003) What is an unconscious emotion? (The case for unconscious
"liking"), Cognition and Emotion, 17:2, 181-211
Klocksiem, J. (2010). Pleasure, Desire, and Oppositeness. Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 0(2),
1–7.
Korsgaard, C. M. (1983). Two Distinctions in Goodness. Philosophical Review, 92(2), 169–195.

217

Langsam, H. L. (2011). The Wonder of Consciousness: Understanding the Mind Through Philosophical
Reflection. MIT Press.
Lehrer, K. (1990). Theory of Knowledge. Routledge.
Levin, J. (2008). Functionalism.
Levine, J. (2010). Phenomenal Experience: A Cartesian Theater Revival. Philosophical Issues, 20(1), 209–
225.
Liao, S.-yi, & Meskin, A. (2017). Aesthetic Adjectives: Experimental Semantics and Context Sensitivity.
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 94(2), 371–398.
Lin, E. (2016). Attraction, Description and the Desire Satisfaction Theory of Welfare. Journal of Ethics
and Social Philosophy, 0(1), 1–8.
Lin, E. (2016). How to Use the Experience Machine. Utilitas, 28(3), 314–332.
Lin, E. (2016). The Subjective List Theory of Well Being. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 94(1), 99–114.
Lin, E. (2017). Enumeration and Explanation in Theories of Welfare. Analysis, 77(1), 65–73.
Lin, E. (2019). Why Subjectivists About Welfare Needn't Idealize. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 100(1),
2–23.
Lin, E. (2020). Attitudinal and Phenomenological Theories of Pleasure. Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, 100(3), 510–524.
Lin, E. (2021). The Experience Requirement on Well Being. Philosophical Studies, 178(3), 867–886.
Lopes, D. M. I. (2016). In the Eye of the Beholder. In J. Dodd (Ed.), Art, Mind, and Narrative: Themes
from the Work of Peter Goldie (pp. 223–340).

218

Marques, T., & García-Carpintero, M. (2014). Disagreement About Taste: Commonality Presuppositions
and Coordination. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 92(4), 701–723.
Martínez, M. (2011). Imperative Content and the Painfulness of Pain. Phenomenology and the Cognitive
Sciences, 10(1), 67–90.
Matthen, M. (2017). The Pleasure of Art. Australasian Philosophical Review, 1(1), 6–28.
Millikan, R. G. (2005). Language: A Biological Model. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Moen, O. M. (2013). The Unity and Commensurability of Pleasures and Pains. Philosophia, 41(2), 527–
543.
Moore, G. E. (1903). Principia Ethica. Dover Publications.
Mørch, H. H. (2014). Panpsychism and Causation: A New Argument and a Solution to the Combination
Problem [PhD thesis]. Oslo.
Mørch, H. H. (2017). The Evolutionary Argument for Phenomenal Powers. Philosophical Perspectives,
31(1), 293–316.
Mørch, H. H. (2018). Does Dispositionalism Entail Panpsychism? Topoi, 39(5), 1073–1088.
Mørch, H. H. (2019). Phenomenal Knowledge Why: The Explanatory Knowledge Argument Against
Physicalism. In S. Coleman (Ed.), The Knowledge Argument. Cambridge University Press.
Mørch, H. H. (2019). The Argument for Panpsychism From Experience of Causation. In W. Seager (Ed.),
The Routledge Handbook of Panpsychism. Routledge.
Moss, J. (2010). Aristotle's Non Trivial, Non Insane View That Everyone Always Desires Things Under the
Guise of the Good. In S. Tenenbaum (Ed.), Desire, Practical Reason, and the Good (p. 65).
Oxford University Press.

219

Nagel, Thomas. (1980). The limits of objectivity. The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, 1, 75-139.
Nanay, B. (2016). Aesthetics as Philosophy of Perception. Oxford University Press UK.
Nozick, R. (1974). Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Basic Books.
Oddie, G. (2005). Value, Reality, and Desire. Clarendon Press.
Palmira, M. (2015). The Semantic Significance of Faultless Disagreement. Pacific Philosophical
Quarterly, 96(3), 349–371.
Papineau, D. (1984). Representation and Explanation. Philosophy of Science, 51(December), 550–572.
Parfit, D. (1984). Reasons and Persons. Oxford University Press.
Parfit, D. (2011). On What Matters: Two Volume Set. Oxford University Press.
Park, T. (forthcoming). On the Alleged Evidence for Non Unpleasant Pains. Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary
Journal of Philosophy, 1–19.
Pautz, A. (2009). What Are the Contents of Experiences. Philosophical Quarterly, 59(236), 483–507.
Ploner, M., H.K. Freund, and A. Schnitzler (1999) ‘Pain Affect Without Pain Sensation in a Patient with a
Postcentral Lesion’. Pain, 81 (1-2), 211– 14.
Pollock, J. L. (1986). Contemporary Theories of Knowledge. Hutchinson.
Poupon, Daphnée., Fernandez, Pauline., & Frasnelli, Johannes. (2019) Sommelier Students Display
Superior Abilities to Identify but Not to Detect or Discriminate Odors Early in their Training.
Chemosensory Perception, Vol. 12(2), 106-114.
Putnam, H. (1963). Brains and Behavior. In R. J. Butler (Ed.), Analytical Philosophy: Second Series.
Blackwell.

220

Quinn, W. 1993 “Putting Rationality in its Place,” in R. G. Frey and C. W. Morris (eds. ), Value, Welfare,
and Morality (Cambridge University Press), 26–50
Rabinowicz, W., & Österberg, J. (1996). Value Based on Preferences. Economics and Philosophy, 12(1), 1.
Rachels, S. (2000). Is Unpleasantness Intrinsic to Unpleasant Experiences. Philosophical Studies, 99(2),
187–210.
Rachels, S. (2004). Six Theses About Pleasure. Philosophical Perspectives, 18(1), 247–267.
Rawls, J. (1999). A Theory of Justice: Revised Edition. Harvard University Press.
Robinson, W. S. (2006). What Is It Like to Like? Philosophical Psychology, 19(6), 743–765.
Scanlon, T. (1998). What We Owe to Each Other. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Schroeder, M. (2007). Slaves of the Passions. Oxford University Press.
Schroeder, T. (2004). Three Faces of Desire. Oxford University Press.
Schwitzgebel, E. (2013). A Dispositional Approach to the Attitudes. In N. Nottelmann (Ed.), New Essays
on Belief (pp. 75–99). Palgrave.
Shaw, W. (1999). Contemporary Ethics: Taking Account of Utilitarianism. Wiley-Blackwell.
Shoemaker, S. (2003). Identity, Cause, and Mind: Philosophical Essays. Oxford University Press UK.
Sidgwick, H. (1962). The Methods of Ethics. Cambridge University Press.
Sizer, L. (2006). What Feelings Can't Do. Mind and Language, 21(1), 108–135.
Sizer, L. (2013). The Two Facets of Pleasure. Philosophical Topics, 41(1), 215–236.
Smith, B. C. (2007). The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting. In B. C. Smith (Ed.), Questions of Taste: the
philosophy of wine. Oxford University Press.

221

Smith, B. C. (2015). The Chemical Senses. In M. Matthen (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook to Philosophy of
Perception (pp. 314–353).
Smith, Kyle & Mahler, Stephen & Peciña, Susana & Berridge, Kent. (2010). Hedonic hotspots:
Generating sensory pleasure in the brain. Pleasures of the Brain.
Smith, M. (1994). The Moral Problem. Blackwell.
Smithies, D., & Weiss, J. (2019). Affective Experience, Desire, and Reasons for Action. Analytic
Philosophy, 60(1), 27–54.
Smuts, A. (2011). The Feels Good Theory of Pleasure. Philosophical Studies, 155(2), 241–265.
Sobel, D. (1994). Full Information Accounts of Well Being. Ethics, 104(4), 784–810.
Sobel, D. (2002). Varieties of Hedonism. Journal of Social Philosophy, 33(2), 240–256.
Sobel, D. (2005). Pain for Objectivists: The Case of Matters of Mere Taste. Ethical Theory and Moral
Practice, 8(4), 437–457.
Sobel, D. (2009). Subjectivism and Idealization. Ethics, 119(2), 336–352.
Speaks, J. (2009). Transparency, Intentionalism, and the Nature of Perceptual Content. Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, 79(3), 539–573.
Sprigge, T. L. S. (1987). The Rational Foundations of Ethics. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Stalnaker, R. C. (1984). Inquiry. Cambridge University Press.
Stampe, D. W. (1987). The Authority of Desire. Philosophical Review, 96(July), 335–381.
Sumner, W. (2020). The Worst Things in Life. Grazer Philosophische Studien, 97(3), 419–432.
Sundell, T. (2011). Disagreements About Taste. Philosophical Studies, 155(2), 267–288.
Swain, M. (1981). Reasons and Knowledge. Cornell University Press.

222

Taylor, H. (2018). Powerful Qualities, Phenomenal Concepts, and the New Challenge to Physicalism.
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 96(1), 53–66.
Tempere, Sophie., Hamtat, Marie-Line., de Revel, G., and Sicard, G. (2016) Comparison of the ability of
wine experts and novices to identify odorant signals: a new insight in wine expertise. Australian
Journal of Grape and Wine Research, Vol. 22, 190-196.
van Weelden, J. (2019). On Two Interpretations of the Desire Satisfaction Theory of Prudential Value.
Utilitas, 31(2), 137–156.
Velleman, J. D. (1991). Well‐being and Time. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 72(1), 48–77.
Wilson, J. (2010). What Is Hume's Dictum, and Why Believe It? Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research, 80(3), 595–637.
Wyatt, J. (2018). Absolutely Tasty: An Examination of Predicates of Personal Taste and Faultless
Disagreement. Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, 61(3), 252–280.
Zeman, D. (2016). Contextualism and Disagreement About Taste. In C. Meier & J. van Wijnbergen-
Huitink (Eds.), Subjective Meaning: Alternatives to Relativism (pp. 91–104). de Gruyter Mouton.
Zuckert, R. (2002). A New Look at Kant's Theory of Pleasure. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism,
60(3), 239–252.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract I develop a psychological theory of affective experience—that is, a theory of what makes it the case that some experiences are pleasant or unpleasant. Then I leverage that psychological theory in service to
a normative theory of well-being—that is, a theory of what makes life go best for us. Ultimately I show how the conjunction of the psychological and normative theories can answer important questions in the
philosophy of well-being, and in value theory more broadly. According to my theory of affective experience, there are necessary connections between our affective experiences and our attitudes.
Accordingly, I call it the necessitation view. I show that the necessitation view avoids the most pressing philosophical problems for current philosophical theories of affective experience. With the necessitation
view at hand, I develop a normative theory regarding the role of affective experience in well-being. I argue that a given event makes a (positive or negative) difference to how well one’s life is going for one just in
case one pleasure or displeasure in it. Because this view, like classical hedonism, entails that all facts about well-being are ultimately explained by facts about our pleasures and displeasures, I call it hedonic
satisfactionism. I argue that this view preserves what is best in hedonistic and desire satisfactionist theories of well-being, while also solving a number of persistent puzzles for those theories. It also yields a natural
account of which desires are relevant to well-being, and why. As a bonus, it even yields an explanation of why pleasure and displeasure themselves are good and bad for us, respectively.

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

Cognitive boundaries for rational coherence requirements

PDF

A perceptual model of evaluative knowledge

PDF

Rethinking reductive realism in ethics

PDF

Capturing moods: a philosophical exploration

PDF

Rationality and the primacy of the occurrent

PDF

Reasons, obligations, and the structure of good reasoning

PDF

Contrastive reasons

PDF

A deontological explanation of accessibilism

PDF

The anatomy of cognition: thinking moments in Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton

PDF

The virtue of reasonableness: on the normative epistemic implications of public reason liberalism

PDF

Positivist realism

PDF

Aggregating happiness: seeking and identifying a single plausible unifying theory

PDF

Explaining well-being: essays on the socio-economic factors accompanying life satisfaction

PDF

Aggregation and the structure of value

PDF

Reward substitution: how consumers can be incentivized to choose smaller food portions

PDF

Aggregating complaints

PDF

What it is to be located

PDF

Process-oriented rationality

PDF

Units of agency in ethics

PDF

Essays on health and well-being

Asset Metadata

Creator Pallies, Daniel Steven (author)

Core Title Feeling good and living well: on the nature of pleasure and its role in well-being

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Philosophy

Degree Conferral Date 2022-08

Publication Date 07/22/2022

Defense Date 05/10/2022

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag desire,ethics,OAI-PMH Harvest,phenomenal consciousness,Pleasure,well-being

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Schroeder, Mark (committee chair), Bechara, Antoine (committee member), Hawthorne, John (committee member), Levin, Janet (committee member), Wedgwood, Ralph (committee member)

Creator Email pallies@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC111373912

Unique identifier UC111373912

Legacy Identifier etd-PalliesDan-10901

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Pallies, Daniel Steven

Type texts

Source 20220722-usctheses-batch-960 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given.

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu