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Single Idea 5270

[filed under theme 22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / b. Types of pleasure ]

Full Idea

Intellectual pleasures are superior to sensuous ones.

Gist of Idea

Intellectual pleasures are superior to sensuous ones

Source

Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1176a02)

Book Ref

Aristotle: 'Ethics (Nicomachean)', ed/tr. ThomsonJ A K/TredennickH [Penguin 1976], p.324

A Reaction

This claim, for which he here offers no support, depends on the idea that pleasure can have a value, as well as an intensity. Mill agreed with him, but Bentham disagreed (Idea 5271)

Related Idea

Idea 5271 Prejudice apart, push-pin has equal value with music and poetry [Bentham]

The 16 ideas with the same theme [what types of pleasure are there?]:

387 A small pure pleasure is much finer than a large one contaminated with pain [Plato]
2157 Nice smells are intensive, have no preceding pain, and no bad after-effect [Plato]
5230 There are pleasures of the soul (e.g. civic honour, and learning) and of the body [Aristotle]
383 God feels one simple pleasure forever [Aristotle]
5270 Intellectual pleasures are superior to sensuous ones [Aristotle]
1839 Pains of the soul are worse than pains of the body, because it feels the past and future [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius]
1842 Pleasures only differ in their duration and the part of the body affected [Epicurus]
3557 The end for Epicurus is static pleasure [Epicurus, by Annas]
505 Good and true are the same for everyone, but pleasures differ [Democritus (attr)]
521 We should only choose pleasures which are concerned with the beautiful [Democritus (attr)]
1838 Cyrenaic pleasure is a motion, but Epicurean pleasure is a condition [Diog. Laertius]
5271 Prejudice apart, push-pin has equal value with music and poetry [Bentham]
5934 Of Bentham's 'dimensions' of pleasure, only intensity and duration matter [Ross on Bentham]
8096 He gives his body up to pleasure, but not his soul [Joubert]
9196 The pleasure of existing is the only genuine pleasure [Hadot]
7498 Greeks and early Christians were much more concerned about food than about sex [Foucault]