Pleasure and Desire

Last night, I was thinking about pleasure and desire. I found three thinkers who have argued for the following claims:

Pleasure is the only good.
Pleasure is the satisfaction of desire.
To desire an end is to desire its means.

Pleasure is the only good. In the Principles of Morals and Legislation, Jeremy Bentham argues as follows:

“In all this chain of motives, the principal or original link seems to be the last internal motive in prospect: it is to this that all the other motives in prospect owe their materiality: and the immediately acting motive its existence. This motive in prospect, we see, is always some pleasure, or some pain; some pleasure, which the act in question is expected to be a means of continuing or producing: some pain which it is expected to be a means of discontinuing or preventing. A motive is substantially nothing more than pleasure or pain, operating in a certain manner.

“Now, pleasure is in itself a good: nay, even setting aside immunity from pain, the only good: pain is in itself an evil; and, indeed, without exception, the only evil; or else the words good and evil have no meaning. And this is alike true of every sort of pain, and of every sort of pleasure.”

In other words, “pleasure is […] the only good” because “it is to this that all other motives in prospect owe their materiality”. If one desires an object, then it is because one desires the pleasure that arises as a result of possessing the object, and not because one desires the object itself.

Pleasure is the satisfaction of desire. In Reasons and Persons, Derek Parfit argues as follows:

“What pains and pleasures have in common are their relations to our desires. On the use of ‘pain’ which has rational and moral significance, all pains are when experienced unwanted, and a pain is worse or greater the more it is unwanted. Similarly, all pleasures are when experienced wanted, and they are better or greater the more they are wanted.”

In other words, “pleasures” are “relations to our desires” in the sense that “all pleasures” are the result of “wanted” experiences. If one experiences pleasure as a result of possessing an object, then one must have first desired the object.

To desire an end is to desire its means. In Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant argues as follows:

“Whoever wills the end also wills (insofar as reason has decisive influence on his actions) the indispensably necessary means to it that are within his power.”

In other words, to will an end is to will its means that are within our power. If one desires an object, a second object is necessary for the first object and one has the power to possess the second object, then if one is rational, then one also desires the second object.