Pleasure in its many forms

Pleasure is a natural human experience; but why you feel pleasure matters.

Pleasure comes in many forms. You may feel it hugging a friend you haven’t seen in some time. You may experience it with a lover. You may know it when you do something charitable or kind or, as the Stoics might say, virtuous. Pleasure can be a wonderful thing, and it’s the very way that we know of by which our brain rewards us for doing things it likes us to do. Typically, the most consistent and sustained forms of pleasure come from behaving in the kinds of ways the Stoics say are natural and appropriate. But pleasure also has a dark allure to it. If left unchecked, the search for pleasure can lead to taking huge risks to your own safety. And in reward, you can feel some of the most intense – albeit shortlived – forms of pleasure known. Sometimes, those thrills come from dangerous hobbies like skydiving. Other times, they can come from alcohol, drugs, sweets, or other things bad for your health.

Pursuit of pleasure can lead us astray

The Stoics, prescient as they were 2,000 years ago, recognized that the pursuit of pleasure for its own ends could easily lead people down that darker path. And worse than becoming an addict to narcotics or some other thing we may contemporarily refer to as a vice, we may find ourselves addicts to potentially the worst kind of pleasure, schadenfreude, or pleasure derived from the suffering of others.

We see this manifest in all kinds of ways. Some relatively benign, like laughing at a person hurting themselves for being foolish. But other instances include more vindictive behaviour, like trying to make a person suffer or feel pain in some way. We think this will please us, make us feel good. But that feeling is hollow, and a principled person eventually finds themselves wrapped up more by the guilt – suffering for it themselves. As Stoics, we know that this antisocial behavior directly contradicts Stoic Ethics – it directly contradicts the Stoic approach to life and love.

Pleasure is a product–not the point

We may find ourselves at times tempted to do well simply because we know it will make us feel good. That’s the way to a good life, according to the Epicureans. But the Stoics realized that sometimes it is the thing that makes us feel no pleasure – certainly not in the moment – that is the good and right thing to do. We drive in the pouring rain in the middle of the night to pick up our friend who got stuck on the side of the road – not because we’ll feel good about it, but because that’s what a friend does. We don’t avoid the responsibility of our job just because it brings us no joy; we do our duty because that’s the right thing to do. And we do these things that are appropriate because we know that being prosocial, being kind, being caring and thoughtful – that is the way humans are meant to behave. That’s the way humans thrive, together.

Pleasure is the byproduct of the good life

The Stoics don’t do these things in pursuit of pleasure. There are faster and easier paths to that. Pleasure is but one byproduct that comes from living well. And we shouldn’t feel guilty that we feel pleasure from time to time, especially if that pleasure comes from doing those right things. But doing those right things for pleasure’s sake is like a Catholic doing charitable acts for the promise of making it into Heaven; or a jihadist committing great violence for the chance at getting to Paradise. It is a corrupt intent that defeats the purpose of the project that is our lives. We Stoics strive to achieve our purpose, as best we can ascertain it from the way humans seem to have been shaped by the cosmos to thrive. That pursuit of excellence, not pleasure, will give us something better than vindication or addiction or a freshly baked, warm and gooey chocolate chip cookie ever could (yes, I’m hungry – what of it?). It gives us the good life. And better than that, our pursuit of excellence enriches the lives of those around us.

Pursuit of excellence leads to joy

Seneca, ever the prosaic writer, reminds us that the pursuit of excellence leads in this direction:

[T]he effect of wisdom is a joy that is unbroken and continuous. The mind of the wise man is like the ultra-lunar firmament; eternal calm pervades that region. You have, then, a reason for wishing to be wise, if the wise man is never deprived of joy. - Seneca, Moral Letters, 59

While none of us may ever achieve sagehood – were such a thing even possible – we can at least appreciate the fact that our well-intended actions will bring ourselves and others joy, if for no other reason than that’s just the way humans are meant to be.

John Kuna is a Stoic prokopton, writer, and dog lover. He likes digging deep into Stoic theory, but also writing accessible and inspiring Stoic content.

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