Manuel Feliu de Lemus / Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons
Key Takeaways
- In this week’s Mini Philosophy interview, I spoke with the Polish philosopher Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, who has literally written the book on pleasure.
- De Lazari-Radek argues that there is nothing wrong with pleasure — all pleasures are good — but that the source of those pleasures can be bad when they cause you or others pain.
- Distinguishing between the source and feeling of plesaure also has hedonic implications because it allows us to experience more of the variety of pleasures there are to be enjoyed.
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Pleasure is a dirty word.
I mean this in two ways. First are the connotations or associations of the word. If a colleague asked you, “How much pleasure have you had this morning?” you might fire off an email to HR. If you saw the title “Learning to find pleasure,” or “Enjoy more pleasure,” you’d probably expect it to be in the roped-off section of the bookshop. Pleasure is frequently associated with the erotic. But second, pleasure is a dirty word because, across a variety of religious traditions and over several millennia of philosophical thought, “pleasure” has often been seen as base: vulgar, crude, and animalistic. Those who seek pleasure are no better than pigs rutting and scoffing in the mud.
In this week’s Mini Philosophy interview, I spoke with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, who has literally written the book on pleasure: The Philosophy of Pleasure: An Introduction. De Lazari-Radek is a hedonist, which means she thinks that the only good in life is pleasure and the only bad in life is pain. We want pleasure; we don’t want pain.
For de Lazari-Radek, it is ridiculous to call pleasure bad or dirty because pleasure is an experience — an immediate, unmistakable signal that something is good. And here we learn how to find more of it.
The basic reality of pleasure
Pleasure doesn’t have to be some “higher” mystical state of joy or euphoria. It certainly doesn’t have to be some kind of “guilty indulgence.” Pleasure is a basic, biological feature of being a living animal — as basic as warmth or tiredness. De Lazari-Radek insists it’s not a sensation — not the same thing as the taste of chocolate or the pressure of a hug — but a feeling, an evaluative gloss you lay over whatever else is happening. She calls it a “sugar coating” we apply to experience: It’s the sense of “Yes, this.”
When you frame pleasure in this way — as an important heuristic or gauge — then it seems ridiculous to say seeking pleasure is bad. In fact, to say “seeking pleasure is bad” is functionally equivalent to saying “it’s bad to do what you want to do.”
For de Lazari-Radek, one of the reasons that people have moralized pleasure is that they confuse the experience of pleasure with the source of pleasure. “This is why,” she said, “we then talk about good and bad pleasures. Because, yes, of course, if you take pleasure in hurting others, then it may be bad, but that’s because hurting others is bad and not because pleasure itself is bad. I mean, pleasure is just this feeling, yes? So, we need to be clear and careful about saying that certain actions or certain sources may be bad. But there is nothing bad in the experience of pleasure itself. It can’t be, because it’s exactly how it feels, and almost by definition, it is always good.”
For de Lazari-Radek, we need to disentangle pleasure — the feeling and evaluative gloss — from the source of that feeling. Taking pleasure in something might be bad if it involves something bad, but the pleasure itself is good.
Ways to enjoy pleasure
Distinguishing between the source and experience of pleasure raises not only interesting moral questions but also hedonic ones as well. De Lazari-Radek argues that when we start to focus on the source of pleasures, we can learn to enjoy the sheer variety of pleasures that are out there to be enjoyed. Here are three examples from our conversation:
Self-regarding and other-regarding pleasure: Some pleasures might be an act of intentional self-care—a bath, a massage, a walk in the woods. When you come back from work, tired and stressed from that meeting that went on too long, you might crack open a new tub of ice cream. But other pleasures might involve helping other people. As de Lazari-Radek pointed out, “There is enough psychological research to show that for us to be happier, we do need to feel that we are responsible for certain things.” Sometimes, we should consciously commit to things that are other-regarding and that involve charity and responsibility, such as cooking for your children, helping someone at work, or smiling at a stranger in the street.
Present and delayed pleasure: How does going for a run fit into the hedonist’s life? How does raising kids, working late at work, or studying really hard? If life is about responsible pleasure, why not just live like a pleasure-seeking moth, fluttering from thrill to thrill?
Sometimes, we pursue these things not because they feel good now, but because they create pleasure later. This is a deeply adult kind of hedonism. It’s an understanding that slow mastery, accumulated effort, and long arcs of growth are among the richest pleasure sources available. Give a little to get a lot. Sow the seeds, and reap the rewards. Work hard to play hard.
Expected and unexpected pleasure: You get out a glass, pop open the bottle, and pour the wine. As you lift the glass to your lips, you think, “Oooh, yes, this is going to be good.” And it is.
Many pleasures are planned and expected in this way. We are rational, deliberative creatures, and we set aside a huge amount of time to plan our pleasure. But de Lazari-Radek also pointed out that pleasure often appears without desire. You pass a bakery and smell fresh bread. Your child laughs in the next room. You overhear a stranger say something unintentionally poetic. “Pleasure just comes in,” she said, and that’s a beautiful and important point. Sometimes happiness just arrives.
We can all build our lives to increase the chances of being pleasantly ambushed. More wandering. More curiosity. More stepping away from the algorithmic walls that funnel your attention.In other words, set yourself up to welcome more pleasure in. There is nothing wrong with pleasure, but a whole lot right. And, if de Lazari-Radek’s hedonism is right, a happy and healthy life might just be one that finds as much ethically sourced pleasure as we can.
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