[javert]

I'm saying that people should pursue pleasure, not whatever they happen to desire.

To concretize, pleasure breaks down into two categories: physical pleasure and emotional pleasure. The former includes being full instead of hungry, etc. The latter includes happiness, joy, serenity, etc.

So you need to realize that attaining certain kinds of desires lead to maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, and adjust your desires accordingly.

If you just pursue whatever you happen to desire without reference to any further standard, which is hedonism, you will not maximize pleasure and minimize pain.

For instance, I may not feel like exercising or going on a diet, but if I realize that those things will maximize my pleasure, then I now have the ability to desire to do them, because they are a value to me.

When you suggest "utility" as a better word, you are begging the question. Utility for what? To whom? Why would one kind of thing constitute utility, and not something else?

The answer is that there is only one kind of ultimate, inherent utility for a conscious being: pleasure. Everything else that has utility has utility for the sake of pleasure.

Let me know if you have any thoughts and want to continue the conversation.

[baddox]

It's a false dichotomy unless you can actually provide an objective dichotomy against the two types of pleasures you mention. I derive pleasure from saving my money, because I know that earns me some financial security and allows me to buy bigger and cooler things in the future. I derive pleasure from exercise that is physically uncomfortable, because I know there are future benefits.

"Utility" is absolutely a better word for this, because "pleasure" often has the connotation of immediate physical euphoria without regard for future ion sequences. In a way, you're right that it's begging the question. Saying "people should do what gives them utility" is basically saying "people should make the decisions they prefer," or "people should do what they think they should do."

[javert]

> "Utility" is absolutely a better word for this, because "pleasure" often has the connotation of immediate physical euphoria

Utility is worthless without getting you something, which is pleasure. I'm just stating it in more fundamental terms than you are, and getting right to the point. Talking about it, intsead, as "utility" is just making it more absract and muddying the waters.

And it doesn't matter what connotation you think pleasure has---I have stated the definition I am using, and it's not the connotation you want to associate with it. If you have a better term than "pleasure," let me know, but "utility" is not it. "Joy" would work. "Happiness" would work. Presuming a certain definition of those things which essentially equates to a generalized form of long-term emotional pleasure.

[baddox]

> Utility is worthless without getting you something, which is pleasure.

"Utility" is generally defined to mean getting what one desires. It's not abstract. "Pleasure" could be defined in the same way, and if you're defining it to be synonymous with "utility" then that's your choice, but it usually carries the connotation of immediate sensory euphoria whereas "utility" does not. But I don't understand your criticism of the word "utility."

[javert]

I'm not defining pleasure to mean "getting what one desires," hence it is non synonomous with the definition you are using for "utility." Pleasure is a particular sensation.

For instance. If you get something you desire, you may feel pleasure, or you may not. Or maybe you'll feel pleasure for a little while, but not as long as you expected to.

Going in the reverse direction, if you feel pleasure, you may have gotten something you desired, but you may not have---e.g. a massage may feel good even if you didn't expect it to beforehand.

When I talk about "pleasure" I do mean something that you experience in the moment---just like "hot" and "cold." You feel it at a particular time, or not. But that does not exclude a long-term experience of pleasure, such as a general state of emotional happiness. In fact, the latter is what I am more interested in.

Some people associate the word "pleasure" with a necessarily temporary and immediate experience, but that is merely a connotation, it is not the definition of the word.

[baddox]

Why then do you think people should pursue pleasure (your definition) rather than things they desire?

[javert]

Pleasure is the only thing that is inherently valuable to a conscious organism. It feels good.

There would be no reason to pursue the things you desire if pursuing them and/or getting them didn't make you feel good.

If pursuing them and/or getting them does make you feel good, there is a reason to pursue them. But the reason is because they make you feel good---because they bring pleasure.