Pain Vs Pleasure
Notes on pain and pleasure………………….
Part A: Utilitarianism
The principle of utility: In “Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation”, Jeremy Bentham (Utilitarianism) included both the principles of human nature and a list of twenty-one offences “to which the condition of a husband stands exposed.”
Explanation of Human Nature: “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain subject to it all the while. The principle of utility recognizes this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and law. Systems which attempt to question it, deal in sounds instead of sense, in caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light.”
Some more points of Bentham:
Pleasure & Pain are the Motivating Factors of all human beings.
The principle: pleasure has values has its roots from Hedonism (Epicurus and Hobbes).(Gk: hedone = pleasure)
Two kinds of utilitarian hedonism:
i. Psychological Hedonism (pleasure & pain determine what we do).
ii. Ethical Hedonism (pleasure is the only good, and actions are good only if they produce pleasure).
Utility: is that property in any object: whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good or happiness, to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil or unhappiness for an individual or community as a whole.
Good = Pleasure; Evil=Pain
Sources of pleasure and pain:
Physical sanction (punishment due to personal imprudence)
Political sanction (punishment due to political magistrate)
Moral sanction (punishment due to a neighbor)
Religious sanction (punishment due to God).
The above four sanctions are the forces that influence our conduct.
Included in a sanction is the threat of pain that follows from ignoring the interests and pleasures of other people.
Bentham argued that painful consequences would punish extreme or indiscriminate selfishness.
Bentham said: Morality depends on the consequences of our acts. His focus was on egoistic pleasure.
J.S.Mill on the other hand said that the quantity and quality of pleasure cannot be measured, they are only relative.
Mill emphasized the Golden Rule: “Treat others as you would have others treat you”.
Part B: Epicurean Thought
Epicurus started the school, the members of which called themselves: “garden philosophers”.
He was greatly influenced by the Atomist Democritus.
The key points of Epicurus’ philosophy are:
pleasure is the highest good
Meaning of life is to live a life of pleasure.
Pleasure is good and Pain is Evil.
Despite his emphasis on pleasure being the aim of life, Epicurus led a simple life.
It is impossible to live pleasurably without living wisely, well, and justly; and impossible to live wisely, well, and justly without living pleasurably....Pleasure is the beginning and end of living happily.-Epicurus.
The principle of utility: In “Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation”, Jeremy Bentham (Utilitarianism) included both the principles of human nature and a list of twenty-one offences “to which the condition of a husband stands exposed.”
Explanation of Human Nature: “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain subject to it all the while. The principle of utility recognizes this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and law. Systems which attempt to question it, deal in sounds instead of sense, in caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light.”
Some more points of Bentham:
Pleasure & Pain are the Motivating Factors of all human beings.
The principle: pleasure has values has its roots from Hedonism (Epicurus and Hobbes).(Gk: hedone = pleasure)
Two kinds of utilitarian hedonism:
i. Psychological Hedonism (pleasure & pain determine what we do).
ii. Ethical Hedonism (pleasure is the only good, and actions are good only if they produce pleasure).
Utility: is that property in any object: whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good or happiness, to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil or unhappiness for an individual or community as a whole.
Good = Pleasure; Evil=Pain
Sources of pleasure and pain:
Physical sanction (punishment due to personal imprudence)
Political sanction (punishment due to political magistrate)
Moral sanction (punishment due to a neighbor)
Religious sanction (punishment due to God).
The above four sanctions are the forces that influence our conduct.
Included in a sanction is the threat of pain that follows from ignoring the interests and pleasures of other people.
Bentham argued that painful consequences would punish extreme or indiscriminate selfishness.
Bentham said: Morality depends on the consequences of our acts. His focus was on egoistic pleasure.
J.S.Mill on the other hand said that the quantity and quality of pleasure cannot be measured, they are only relative.
Mill emphasized the Golden Rule: “Treat others as you would have others treat you”.
Part B: Epicurean Thought
Epicurus started the school, the members of which called themselves: “garden philosophers”.
He was greatly influenced by the Atomist Democritus.
The key points of Epicurus’ philosophy are:
pleasure is the highest good
Meaning of life is to live a life of pleasure.
Pleasure is good and Pain is Evil.
Despite his emphasis on pleasure being the aim of life, Epicurus led a simple life.
It is impossible to live pleasurably without living wisely, well, and justly; and impossible to live wisely, well, and justly without living pleasurably....Pleasure is the beginning and end of living happily.-Epicurus.
Essay begins:
No doubt it is arguable whether pain is greater or pleasure. But more debatable point is the relation between the two. Let us analyze a situation where a person is in pain; for example say he is suffering from headache. What does he do? Does he enjoy the ache? Certainly not. He would either take an aspirin or go see a doctor to alleviate the pain. So is it that he did so to reduce the pain or to get a sense of pleasure from the medicine? Quite an issue here. The lack of pain need not be pleasure and lack of pleasure need not be pain.
The Utilitarians (Bentham) thought, pain and pleasure are the motivating factors of all human beings. All purpose of human actions is either to avoid pain or attain pleasure.
It is true to certain extent. The limitation is disclosed once we make a critical observation of how an action can cause either an isolated alleviation of pain without causing pleasure or an isolated pleasure without causing pain.
Pain and pleasure are not entirely independent. Sometimes when a pleasure exceeds a certain threshold, it could have adverse effects.
If pleasure is the highest good in the world, then why is there pain in the world?
This is similar to the question why is there evil in the world?
Let us consider the following ways and see if we can answer this question:
1) Socrates said: On the supposition that all men act in pursuit of an object which they consider beneficial, the fact that they do evil may be attributed to their imperfect understanding of what they seek to obtain. So evil in the world is due to ignorance or imperfect knowledge.
It is a common observation that people do certain illegal activities considering the benefit they draw but are ignorant of the damage it does to them or others around them. Some examples are the breaking of traffic-rules, taking/giving bribes, etc.
Applying analogy, pain is inflicted due to sheer ignorance that this will cause a pleasure. Harming self or others is an absolute act of ignorance that doing so will cause some kind of benefit.
Here, the point is: actions that cause pain are because of imperfect understanding on the part of people doing those actions.
2) There are instances when no particular human action is the cause of the pains being suffered. It could be a natural calamity, an accident or a situation where no one is responsible for the damage done.
In such cases, what is the affect of pain? When in pain, there arises a need to mitigate this pain. And of course this necessity leads to an invention to alleviate the pain and perhaps bring additionally a pleasure. World war II led to improvement of the technology.
Perhaps we can draw a thin line for the effects that the actions of men cause, a line between pain and pleasure. It is not as simple. There are certain areas overlapping both the pleasure and pain.
The point here is: pain exists for a certain period of time and either is mitigated by time (in case of no action that can heal the pain) or is eliminated by a new invention.
Bottom Line:
The pain is not what is desired by normal beings. Even if somebody does inflict pain, he does not really do that because he enjoys it, rather he does go through the pain only to reap the fruits of pleasure. As goes the famous saying: No pain no gain.
Had Edison not pained himself by spending 16 hours a day in his lab, there would not have been electric bulbs to throw us the light.
In deed, it is not the pain which is the motivating force in case of individuals who are pained, but the gain underlined beneath the layer of pain that motivates.
Pain could well be a hygiene factor. People do actions to prevent this pain. They do not want the pain.
The whole discussion was based on the assumption that Mill’s statement is followed:
“Treat others as you would have others treat you.”
The most important point I would like to make out is:
No matter what the pain and it’s severity and extent are, it is the ability of man to endure it, and convert this pain into his own or others’ pleasure which is the key to the survival and existence of his self, family, society, country, civilization in that order.
No doubt it is arguable whether pain is greater or pleasure. But more debatable point is the relation between the two. Let us analyze a situation where a person is in pain; for example say he is suffering from headache. What does he do? Does he enjoy the ache? Certainly not. He would either take an aspirin or go see a doctor to alleviate the pain. So is it that he did so to reduce the pain or to get a sense of pleasure from the medicine? Quite an issue here. The lack of pain need not be pleasure and lack of pleasure need not be pain.
The Utilitarians (Bentham) thought, pain and pleasure are the motivating factors of all human beings. All purpose of human actions is either to avoid pain or attain pleasure.
It is true to certain extent. The limitation is disclosed once we make a critical observation of how an action can cause either an isolated alleviation of pain without causing pleasure or an isolated pleasure without causing pain.
Pain and pleasure are not entirely independent. Sometimes when a pleasure exceeds a certain threshold, it could have adverse effects.
If pleasure is the highest good in the world, then why is there pain in the world?
This is similar to the question why is there evil in the world?
Let us consider the following ways and see if we can answer this question:
1) Socrates said: On the supposition that all men act in pursuit of an object which they consider beneficial, the fact that they do evil may be attributed to their imperfect understanding of what they seek to obtain. So evil in the world is due to ignorance or imperfect knowledge.
It is a common observation that people do certain illegal activities considering the benefit they draw but are ignorant of the damage it does to them or others around them. Some examples are the breaking of traffic-rules, taking/giving bribes, etc.
Applying analogy, pain is inflicted due to sheer ignorance that this will cause a pleasure. Harming self or others is an absolute act of ignorance that doing so will cause some kind of benefit.
Here, the point is: actions that cause pain are because of imperfect understanding on the part of people doing those actions.
2) There are instances when no particular human action is the cause of the pains being suffered. It could be a natural calamity, an accident or a situation where no one is responsible for the damage done.
In such cases, what is the affect of pain? When in pain, there arises a need to mitigate this pain. And of course this necessity leads to an invention to alleviate the pain and perhaps bring additionally a pleasure. World war II led to improvement of the technology.
Perhaps we can draw a thin line for the effects that the actions of men cause, a line between pain and pleasure. It is not as simple. There are certain areas overlapping both the pleasure and pain.
The point here is: pain exists for a certain period of time and either is mitigated by time (in case of no action that can heal the pain) or is eliminated by a new invention.
Bottom Line:
The pain is not what is desired by normal beings. Even if somebody does inflict pain, he does not really do that because he enjoys it, rather he does go through the pain only to reap the fruits of pleasure. As goes the famous saying: No pain no gain.
Had Edison not pained himself by spending 16 hours a day in his lab, there would not have been electric bulbs to throw us the light.
In deed, it is not the pain which is the motivating force in case of individuals who are pained, but the gain underlined beneath the layer of pain that motivates.
Pain could well be a hygiene factor. People do actions to prevent this pain. They do not want the pain.
The whole discussion was based on the assumption that Mill’s statement is followed:
“Treat others as you would have others treat you.”
The most important point I would like to make out is:
No matter what the pain and it’s severity and extent are, it is the ability of man to endure it, and convert this pain into his own or others’ pleasure which is the key to the survival and existence of his self, family, society, country, civilization in that order.
P.Siddartha
04/03/05
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