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Pleasure
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Pleasure is commonly conceptualized as a positive experience, happiness, entertainment, enjoyment, ecstasy, and euphoria. However, it is a difficult concept to define as the experience of pleasure differs from individual to individual.
People commonly experience this phenomenon through eating, exercise, sexuality, music, usage of drugs, writing, accomplishment, recognition, service, indeed through any imaginable activity, even receiving pain (the medical term for deriving pleasure from receiving being masochism) and inflicting pain (sadism).
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Encyclopedia
Pleasure is commonly conceptualized as a positive experience, happiness, entertainment, enjoyment, ecstasy, and euphoria. However, it is a difficult concept to define as the experience of pleasure differs from individual to individual.
People commonly experience this phenomenon through eating, exercise, sexuality, music, usage of drugs, writing, accomplishment, recognition, service, indeed through any imaginable activity, even receiving pain (the medical term for deriving pleasure from receiving being masochism) and inflicting pain (sadism). It also refers to "enjoyment" related to certain physical, sensual, emotional or mental experiences.
Pleasure
In the purely physical sense, pleasure is seen generally as an independent feeling of happiness, while defined in mental terms it is often seen as a sensation that creates the illusion of sexual experience.
Pleasure may also be defined, at least in some contexts, as being the reduction or absence of pain. Epicurus and his followers defined the highest pleasure as the absence of pain. and pleasure itself as "freedom from pain in the body and freedom from turmoil in the soul". According to Cicero (or rather his character Torquatus), he also believed that pleasure was the chief good (and, conversely, that pain was the chief evil).
The 19th Century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer understood pleasure as a negative sensation, as it negates the usual existential condition, that of suffering.
Philosophies of Pleasure
Utilitarianism and Hedonism are philosophies which attempt to increase to the maximum the amount of pleasure and minimize the amount of pain.
Neurology
The pleasure center is the set of brain structures, predominantly the nucleus accumbens, theorized to produce great pleasure when stimulated electrically. Some references state that the septum pellucidium is generally considered to be the pleasure center while others mention the hypothalamus when referring to pleasure center for intracranial stimulation.. Certain chemicals are known to stimulate the pleasure centers of the brain. These include dopamine and various endorphins.
Pleasure as a unique human experience
There is considerable debate as to whether animals can experience pleasure or if it is rather entirely the preserve of humankind. On the one hand, Jeremy Bentham (usually regarded as the founder of Utilitarianism) and Beth Dixon both argue that they do, the latter, however, in a carefully worded manner. On the other hand, others would argue that it is simply a form of anthropomorphism to ascribe any human experience to animals, including pleasure. Many, indeed go further and simply view animal behaviour as responses to stimuli; this is the way Behaviourists look at the evidence, Pavlov's Dogs (or rather his explanation of their behaviour) being the best known example. However, most people would argue that we simply cannot know whether animals experience pleasure and most scientists, indeed, prefer to remain neutral while utilizing anthropomorphisms as and when they need them. It appears, though, that those that subscribe emotions to animals are in the ascent: many ethologists, for example Marc Bekoff, are prepared to draw the conclusion that animals do experience emotions though these are not necessarily the same as human emotions.
See also
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