IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jhappi/v19y2018i8d10.1007_s10902-017-9924-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Value of Heterogeneous Pleasures

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Alwood

    (Virginia Commonwealth University)

Abstract

Pleasure is one of the most obvious candidates for directly improving wellbeing. Hedonists claim it is the only feature that can intrinsically make life better for the one living it, and that all of wellbeing derives from the relative pleasantness and unpleasantness of conscious experience. But Hedonism is incompatible with the ‘heterogeneity’ of pleasure: it cannot allow that distinct pleasures can feel completely differently, if experiences count as pleasant due to how they feel. I argue that a pluralistic variant of Hedonism can match its theoretical attractions while also accommodating the heterogeneity of pleasure. This has interesting implications for both the philosophical debate over the nature of wellbeing and psychological theories of how to measure and aggregate positive affect. In particular, my argument implies that there is no single dimension of ‘valence’ or ‘intensity’ on which pleasantness can be measured.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Alwood, 2018. "The Value of Heterogeneous Pleasures," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 19(8), pages 2303-2314, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jhappi:v:19:y:2018:i:8:d:10.1007_s10902-017-9924-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s10902-017-9924-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10902-017-9924-4
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10902-017-9924-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Labukt, Ivar, 2012. "Hedonic Tone and the Heterogeneity of Pleasure," Utilitas, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(2), pages 172-199, June.
    2. Anna Alexandrova, 2005. "Subjective Well-Being and Kahneman’s ‘Objective Happiness’," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 301-324, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Perugini, Cristiano & Vladisavljević, Marko, 2019. "Gender inequality and the gender-job satisfaction paradox in Europe," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 129-147.
    2. Hirsch, Thalia & Busse, Britta, 2020. "The importance of subjective measurements in child and youth well-being studies," Schriftenreihe Institut Arbeit und Wirtschaft 29/2020, Institut Arbeit und Wirtschaft (IAW), Universität Bremen und Arbeitnehmerkammer Bremen.
    3. Carolina Ortega Londoño & Daniel Gómez Mesa & Lina Cardona-Sosa & Catalina Gómez Toro, 2019. "Happiness and Victimization in Latin America," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 935-954, March.
    4. Yee Ngoo & Nai Tey & Eu Tan, 2015. "Determinants of Life Satisfaction in Asia," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 141-156, October.
    5. Iuliia Naidenova & Petr Parshakov & Sofiia Paklina, 2020. "Determinants of Football Fans’ Happiness: Evidence from Facial Emotion Recognition," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 1103-1116, March.
    6. Marina G. Kolosnitsyna & Natalia A. Khorkina & Khongor N. Dorzhiev, 2014. "What Happens To Happiness When People Get Older? Socio-Economic Determinants Of Life Satisfaction In Later Life," HSE Working papers WP BRP 68/EC/2014, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    7. Momin M. Malik, 2020. "A Hierarchy of Limitations in Machine Learning," Papers 2002.05193, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2020.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jhappi:v:19:y:2018:i:8:d:10.1007_s10902-017-9924-4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.