Pleasure principle Essays

discontinuous; he believed that each of us must pass through a series of stages during childhood and that if we lack proper nurturing and parenting during a stage, we may become stuck in, or fixated on, that stage. According to Freud, children’s pleasure-seeking urges are focused on a different area of the body, called an erogenous zone, at each of the five stages of development: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. Each stage is characterised by different demands for sexual gratification

In 1920 Sigmund Freud described the id, ego and superego in his essay “Beyond the Pleasure Principle.” He introduced the idea of defence mechanisms, which we humans use to suppress anxiety created when we feel we cannot do what we want and still be rational. While Freud was the first to describe the concept of these mechanisms, it was one of his colleagues who identified one defence mechanism in particular a few years earlier. In 1908, Ernest Jones wrote the article “Rationalization in Every-Day

we naturally seek out pleasures and avoid pains (Pg. 88). As a utilitarian, he focuses on ethical hedonism, the idea that we ought to maximize our happiness. To Mill, the right actions to take are those that promote happiness, the wrong actions to take are those that promote pain (Pg. 90). Mill defines happiness as feeling many kinds of pleasures and only few temporary pains in our lifetime (Pg. 89). Like Bentham and Epicurean, Mill thinks that the Greatest Happiness Principle ought to be the foundation

Rethinking Principle of Utility What is the guideline of your behavior and what does pleasure means to you? In Bentham’s book An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, he gives a detailed explanation of principle of utility, a series of principles of behaviors. He thinks it is pleasure and pain that determine what human beings should do, and the motivation of humans’ behaviors can be attributed to the pursuit of happiness or the evasion of pain. Besides, he states that a good action

explaining to the readers what utility is, Utility is defined as pleasure itself, and the absence of pain. This leads us to another name for utility which is the greatest happiness principle. Mill claims that “actions are right in proportions as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” “By Happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain, by happiness, pain and the privation of pleasure”. (Mill, utilitarianism, p.697) To put this into simpler terms

his essay by claiming that many believe that the “greatest-happiness Principle holds that actions are right as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (book, pg 1, p 258). This principle is often called the utility/utilitarian concept and it’s the foundation of morals. Stuart argues that more needs to be discussed concerning this theory, in particular what counts as pain and pleasure, and to what extent its left an open question (book, pg 1, p 258). However

value is to achieve pleasure and avoid pain at all costs. People who follow this ideological way of life define pain and pleasure as the only two things with intrinsic value, meaning that they can identify what’s is “good” or “bad”, if they produce pain or pleasure, making pleasure the ultimate good, and pain “bad”. Continuously pleasure or happiness can be achieved by indulging on physical indulgences, like drinking, eating and sex, now all of this can only give you physical pleasure and usually doesn’t

expressing the notion of pleasure. It allows explanation to the perspective of the theory that consequences are to be considered according to the value of whether they are of quality or quantity. Mill points to these views being in correspondence with the natural desires or pleasures of the human being. Substantiation to this is from the view that the desires of people are based on their ability (of that which is desired) to create, maintain, or increase the state of pleasure. Mill address that the

action, because they emphasize on creating the most beneficial pleasure and happiness in the outcome of an act. Despite this fact, they both have different principles and rules that make them different from each other. Act utilitarianism concentrates on the acts of individuals. Meaning that if a person commits an action, he/she must at least have a positive utility. The founders of utilitarianism define positive utility as happiness and pleasure and consider it to be a driving force of all positive and

theory that one ought to only pursue one’s pleasure as an ultimate end” (Larveson, L7). He proposes that since sensations are what define us, which include pleasure and pain, learning how to maximize pleasure and minimize pain is how to live a virtuous life or the good life (Epicurus, pg. 59). Thus, our actions that we do lies in that it maximizes pleasure and minimizes pain for us. Although he did say only rightfully act if it would result in pleasure, he did not recommend living extravagantly.

the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure.”(Mill 1863) http://www.utilitarianism.com/mill2.htm Utilitarianism states that pleasure and happiness are intrinsically valuable and that pain and suffering are intrinsically invaluable and that every action that has value should either promote happiness or impede suffering. This emphasis on happiness or pleasure as a guide to making moral decisions, makes it a

is right or wrong if it has the best balance of pleasure over pain among the available acts. This theory was developed by Jeremy Bentham, he believed that we need to be most worried about how much pleasure and/or pain our actions cause. In addition, J.S. Mill developed a highly influential version of Utilitarianism after breaking away from Jeremy Bentham, who was his teacher. Mill’s Utilitarianism is focused around the greatest happiness principle which states that actions are right to the extent

mutilated, but exposed to a plethora of diseases, health and birth complications, and infections. This practice is not only severe violence against these women, but also displays a total disregard for their human rights. After reading "Against the Pleasure Principle", by Saida Hagi-Dirie Herzi, it is clear that FGM has detrimental effects on both a womens physical and mental health. One of the most profound examples of the toll on a womens mental health lies in her description of an ideal circumcision.

tells the real story of Christopher McCandless, who unlike the rest of us despised materialistic pleasures. McCandless in the April of 1992,set off alone into the Alaskan wild. He had given all of his savings to charity, abandoned his car and his possessions. Unlike others, he wanted to live a life of independence, free from materialistic pleasures and filled with nature and it’s beauty. In addition, McCandless shed his legal name early in

what is good for humans, what motivate us to behave and how we should do it, all of the hedonistic theories catalog pleasure and pain as the most important element of the life of a human being. Hedonists states that all the pleasure you can feel as a human, is intrinsically valuable and pain is intrinsically not valuable, by intrinsically we mean essential, necessary. the Pleasure Machine most known as The Experience machine is a thoughtful experiment proposed by Robert Nozick in his book Anarchy

The Form of the Good in Book VI, is the ultimate object of knowledge. The Form of the Good is the source of all other Forms. It is the source of the entire intelligible realm, of intelligibility itself, and to describe the Form of the Good explicitly, he attempts to give us a sense of it by comparing it to the sun, as in the Allegory of the Cave. It is only when a man grabs the Form of the Good that he achieves the highest level of cognition and understanding. When a man takes this last step, he

was a chance to save all six people, then that would definitely be the best option, but this is not the case. The philosophy of Mill would propose a way to handle this. He described his method as a hierarchy of pleasures, which is determined by qualitative distinctions. The higher pleasures would be more focused on the mind instead of the body. In this situation, he would state that our sole focus should be “the greatest happiness for the greatest number”. His decision would be to save the five adults

quantity and quality of pleasure, pleasurable actions that require intellect are of the higher pleasures (pp. 196-197).   One of the author’s main reasons to support his view is that morality is determined by what increases or decreases the overall amount of utility (pp. 197). Mill denounces the view of utilitarianism as a selfish, unsympathetic ideology by stating that it could only be best used if everyone could promote utility, and he uses the Greatest Happiness Principle, in which he explains

consider partaking in. This original principle that Mill disagreed with was that of the pleasure principle, the evasion of pain and harm in favor of wanting pleasure. This coincides with the harm principle of the same regard; which advocates that anything that harms you or your personal goals is bad, whereas anything that does not harm you is good. Mill would subsequently alter this definition to be more concerned with the quality of said pleasure than just the pleasure itself, because so much of egoism

I will agree with Mill and argue that higher pleasures are better than lower pleasures. In Mill’s essay, he defines Utilitarianism: ‘’actions are right in the proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure’’ (Mill, 7). Therefore, Utilitarianism according to Mill considers actions to be right or wrong based on whether or not they make