I argue that pleasure cannot be goodness because if it were, that would make it impossible to give an evaluative reason for why things are pleasurable. If something is good because pleasurable, the reason it is pleasurable cannot be on the grounds that it is good.

We would thus be forced to look for reasons entirely opaque from our awareness as to why things are pleasurable. It would be a matter of arcane, and I think futile scientific study.

But on the contrary, we know a lot about why things are pleasurable to us. E. g. hugging is pleasurable because community is good. The hardware of our bodies provides the support in the delivery of pleasures, but something that feels just like a hug is not going to be so pleasurable unless it bears the meaning of a hug.

Hedonism turns pleasure into the greatest good, thus it would have to be greater than that which causes pleasure. But the greater good is the more satisfying to contemplate; so it should follow that, when i win the championship, I should bask in the contemplation not of having won the championship, but just in the pleasure deriving from it. This is psychologically impossible. Whenever we have pleasure or joy in contemplating, it is in an object of pleasure or joy, not in pleasure or joy itself. The latter comes as a byproduct of contemplating the former.

Alternately, think of how you can have a pleasure that is empty, i.e. is non-contributory to your fulfillment. This illustrates how pleasures are not per se goods. The possession of whatever is per se good is contributory to fulfillment.

I got into some trouble with you guys for saying that what is helpful to life is good; that life is good. You disagreed, saying that it is not clear that every life form (species) is good.

I think I got around the claim that some individuals are not good, arguing that a lousy life implies that something good, ie. the individual’s life, has been frustrated. A lousy life is bad exactly because of the…