The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20210818062642/https://philpapers.org/rec/VENRBD
Analysis 79 (4):684-693 (2019)

Authors
Elizabeth Ventham
University of Liverpool
Abstract
This paper defends a desire-based understanding of pleasurable and unpleasant experiences. More specifically, the thesis is that what makes an experience pleasant/unpleasant is the subject having a certain kind of desire about that experience. I begin by introducing the ‘Desire Account’ in more detail, and then go on to explain and refute a prominent set of contemporary counter-examples, based on subjects who might have ‘Reflective Blindness’, looking particularly at the example of subjects with depression. I aim to make the Desire Account more persuasive, but also to clear up more widespread misunderstandings about depression in metaethics. For example, mistakes that are made by conflating two of depression’s most prominent symptoms: depressed mood and anhedonia.
Keywords Reflective Blindness  Desire  Unpleasant Experiences  Pleasant Experiences  Depression  Anhedonia  The Motivational Account  Desire Theories of Pleasure  Unconscious Pleasures  Attitudinal Theories of Pleasure
Categories (categorize this paper)
DOI 10.1093/analys/any093
Options
Edit this record
Mark as duplicate
Export citation
Find it on Scholar
Request removal from index
Revision history

Download options

PhilArchive copy


Upload a copy of this paper     Check publisher's policy     Papers currently archived: 61,486
Through your library

References found in this work BETA

Reasons and Persons.Derek Parfit - 1984 - Oxford University Press.
The Sources of Normativity.Christine M. Korsgaard - 1996 - Cambridge University Press.
Reasons and Persons.Joseph Margolis - 1986 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 47 (2):311-327.
The Sources of Normativity.Christine M. Korsgaard - 1999 - Philosophical Quarterly 49 (196):384-394.
Reasons and the Good.Roger Crisp - 2006 - Clarendon Press.

View all 38 references / Add more references

Citations of this work BETA

Depression as a Disorder of Consciousness.Cecily Whiteley - forthcoming - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.

Add more citations

Similar books and articles

Memory for the Pleasant as Compared with the Unpleasant.A. Jersild - 1931 - Journal of Experimental Psychology 14 (3):284.
Is Unpleasantness Intrinsic to Unpleasant Experiences.Stuart Rachels - 2000 - Philosophical Studies 99 (2):187-210.
A Contemporary Account of Sensory Pleasure.Murat Aydede - 2018 - In Lisa Shapiro (ed.), Pleasure: A History. New York, USA: Oxford University Press. pp. 239-266.
The Unpleasantness of Pain.Abraham Sapién-Córdoba - 2018 - Dissertation, University of Glasgow
Reasons and Theories of Sensory Affect.Murat Aydede & Matthew Fulkerson - 2019 - In David Bain, Michael Brady & Jennifer Corns (eds.), The Philosophy of Pain: Unpleasantness, Emotion, and Deviance. New York, USA: Routledge. pp. 27-59.
Stress and Hope at the Margins.Jonathan Morgan, Cara E. Curtis & Lance D. Laird - 2017 - Archive for the Psychology of Religion 39 (3):205-234.
When Pain Isn't Painful.David Bain - 2015 - The Philosophers' Magazine 3.

Analytics

Added to PP index
2018-11-30

Total views
156 ( #66,171 of 2,441,184 )

Recent downloads (6 months)
14 ( #49,428 of 2,441,184 )

How can I increase my downloads?

Downloads

My notes