Philosophy Stack Exchange
Philosophy Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [pain-and-pleasure]

44 questions
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What is the motivation of all individuals to stay alive?

What keeps an individual alive? If we make the following assumptions: There is nothing after death, only black. No heaven, no hell, no rebirth. So we don't take anything with us after death and therefore don't remember our life Life includes…
0x30
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Does the focus on "humane" killing of animals distract from the real moral problem of killing?

"Humane" in respect to killing animals means to minimize the animal's pain as they die. But this seems to completely sidestep the moral issue with killing, which has nothing to do with the pain. Given the choice: A. Suffer severe, intense pain for a…
causative
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Are there more modern schools that follow Epicurean philosophy?

As Wikipedia says in its article, Epicureanism in short means: pleasure is the highest good, thus gain it through living virtuous life and expecting less. Based on this definition, is there a modern society, tribe, social network, or any group of…
Saeed Neamati
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Is Epicureanism a form of Hedonism?

Epicureanism can be argued to be a form of Hedonism, holding the belief that pleasure is the only source of what is intrinsically good. The distinction between the two, as Hedonism seeks to maximise the net pleasure experienced in life, as total…
user19651
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Is Benatar's "asymmetry of pleasure and pain" wrong?

I’ve some doubts regarding the epistyle of David Benatar's thought, the “asymmetry of pleasure and pain”. In Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence he writes that: Both good and bad things happen only to those who exist.…
Francesco D'Isa
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Is Plato's Callicles an example of Nietzsche's Übermensch? Is the Epicurean hedonist?

Is the hard-headed Callicles from Plato's dialogue Gorgias the type of person who exemplifies Nietzsche's Übermensch (overman)? What about the hedonistic sage of Epicureans? Is he a Übermensch?
Frank Booth
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Can the self exist instantaneously/without time?

Certainly your past experiences will affect how you perceive the world, process events, think about things, and behave but do you think the high level thinking required for the conception of self needs time or can it be instantaneous? Imagine…
hackartist
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If happiness is relative, why would I want to get more of it?

In my philosophy class, we talked about Aristotle and how he defined true happiness. For him, true happiness is acquired when you know yourself and accomplish yourself and false happiness is simply people that don't know themselves and think they…
Winter
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How can adults understand the feelings of infants?

Freud claimed that we forget our childhood, not because our brain is not powerful enough to retain memories, but because our first three years of childhood are so daunting and difficult that our brain buries its memories for rest of the life. As an…
Saeed Neamati
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How can the sensation of pain be explained materialistically?

Physicalism, be it reductionist or holistic, tries to explain every phenomenon by materialisic processes. These can be seen as noumenon, existing independently of human beings. But the true nature of the noumenon cannot be known. We cannot know the…
Pathfinder
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Can utilitarianism make anything moral if someone profits enough from it?

Ever since I first heard about utilitarian system of ethics, there is one thing that has been on my mind. Since utilitarianism is about creating the greater amount of total good (and, the smaller amount of total bad), I feel like there is a…
Kaito Kid
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Acute or chronic suffering and pain: does anyone talk about their difference?

Acute as opposed to chronic suffering and pain: does anyone talk about their difference? I mean, I think I'm more concerned with extreme pain, and I wondered whether that was a philosophical position, or anything like that. Perhaps that's confusing!…
user34654
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Why does striving to achieve my goals make me suffer so?

I am continually confused by my desires. Normally I love being alone, watching movies and eating snacks--just living life. But I don't know what devil has possessed me to desire more, to achieve more, to contribute more, to run faster and faster to…
EconBoy
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Aristotelian Analysis of Forgiveness?

I am in the process of responding to one of the latest Reading Comprehension Questions in my Ethics course. This week we were reading from pages 27-33 of Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics (2nd Ed.) Translated by Terence Irwin. The question posed is…
Analytic Lunatic
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Philosophical school of thought that includes "unsatisfaction" or "the yearning for more" as a key component of "happiness"

What is the philosophical term for Callicle's position here? The quotes are from Plato's Gorgias. SOCRATES: [...] Tell me, then:—you say, do you not, that in the rightly-developed man the passions ought not to be controlled, but that we should let…
user64708
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