Presenter:
Pleasure is taken to be central to human life, both as a motive and as a justification. Indeed, some thinkers (psychological hedonists) have gone so far as to claim that pleasure is the only reason we ever do anything (Epicurus: “from pleasure we begin every act of choice and avoidance”); others (ethical hedonists) hold that pleasure is the only good, and that we ought to spend our days maximizing our own pleasure. This presenter discusses three contradictions in our everyday conception of pleasure, with a view to better understanding the role pleasure can and should occupy in our lives.