(June 23, 2022 at 3:03 am)Ahriman Wrote: Morality and pleasure are intimately linked. Doing good for oneself, maximizing pleasure.......that's morality.
Certainly morality and pleasure are linked in virtue ethics, as in Aristotle.
The thinking is that a virtuous person will be pleased to do good. If you do good because you have to -- because someone makes you, or because not doing it will get you arrested -- then you're not really virtuous.
We don't act ethically simply in order to make ourselves happy, but happiness is a reliable by-product. Only a virtuous person can have a life of maximum pleasure.
In my opinion it's the sign of a bad person that he gets pleasure from making other people feel bad. Something is wrong with a person who enjoys unnecessary hurt.
So this is somewhat different from what you're saying, maybe, in that the focus is on others. It's true, though, that doing good for others is also doing good for oneself.
