Is pleasure the same thing as happiness? Though quite a few philosophers have considered happiness as the goal of human existence, relatively few thought that maximizing happiness is the same thing as maximizing pleasure. Epicurus and his followers did try to achieve happiness through pleasure, but, as I’ve discussed earlier, to him pleasure meant not the satisfactions of eating, drinking, and sex, but an absence of pain and disturbance (call it the ‘peace and quiet’ view of happiness). Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham tried to quantify the amount of pleasure that people experience, and proposed that society seek to bring about the maximum amount of pleasure for all people considered together. His formulation has been widely criticized for regarding all pleasures as equal. Even if the respective amounts of pleasure could be shown to be equivalent, does that mean that a weekend spent watching football and eating junk food is just as good as a weekend reading The Brothers Karamazov, serving soup to the homeless, and attending religious services? (Some, of course, would say it’s better, but still pleasure and goodness aren’t being considered as equals.)
Though psychologists have been writing quite a bit about happiness over the past several years, most of them don’t consider how it relates to pleasure. One exception is Martin Seligman. In his book Authentic Happiness, he considers pleasure under the chapter heading “Happiness in the Present.” He suggests some ways of enhancing pleasurable experiences, but pleasure has only a limited role to play in his program for increasing happiness. He writes as follows:
“Despite the delights they so reliably bring, however, it is not easy to build your life around the bodily pleasures, for they are all just momentary. The fade very rapidly once the external stimulus disappears, and we become accustomed to them very readily (“habituation”), often requiring bigger doses to deliver the same kick as originally. It is only the first taste of French vanilla ice cream, the first wisp of Shalimar, and the first few seconds of warmth form the blazing fire that gives you a buzz. Unless you space these encounters out abstemiously, these pleasures are enormously diminished.” pp 103-104.
Seligman’s perspective seems balanced; pleasure doesn’t make one happy, but it can contribute to happiness. As he mentions, spacing out pleasures does help us not habituate to them. Take today, for example. It snowed in Fayetteville starting sometime early this morning and continuing until early afternoon. I’ve loved looking out on the fresh powdering of snow and walking outside as the flakes spun around my head. I even enjoyed driving in it. Earlier this winter, I spent the better part of a week with family in Michigan. It had snowed virtually every day in December, and everyone was habituated to it (that is, they were sick to death of it). Snow is so much better if it only visits just once or twice a year!
Beautiful But Unappreciated Michigan Snow
Life Assays 
January 23, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Mostly I agree, but I’m thinking association has a role to play here. The Shalimar itself may quickly pall, but when it’s associated with other pleasures (the company of its wearer, memories of previous encounters, etc.) this network of delights seems much more resilient and durable than isolated momentary thrills.
Isn’t much of the resilience of ‘addiction’ for many people tied to how much the supposedly-isolated addictive substance or behavior becomes associated with a whole complex of memories, relations, desires, etc.? Isn’t a heightened capacity and disposition to construct such associations one of the keys to the so-called ‘addictive personality’, where it turns out that the focus of the addiction is relatively contingent compared to the underlying disposition?
January 25, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Good point, Carl. Physical pleasures are definitely linked with other memories, giving them a more complex quality and probably also decreasing the amount of habituation that occurs with repeated exposure. Of course there is going to be habituation; we can only think about the associative links that the Shalimar triggers for so long before the pleasure fades and we find ourselves bored rather than excited and intrigued.
As to addictions, some certainly seem to work the way you describe. Others seem to mainly be about the addictive substance or activity strongly stimulating pleasure pathways in subcortical brain regions. Neuroscientists suggest that, in such cases, having an addictive personality has to do with the failure of other, less intense pleasures to adequately stimulate those brain pathways.