What is pleasure?

[Disagreeable]

Well the pleasurable experiences you list are good in and of themselves, for their own sake, which makes them intrinsically good.

The fact that people find pleasure useful doesn't make them instrumental in the relevant sense of intrinsic versus instrumental value. I was talking about experiences that are good in themselves versus experiences that are good because they lead to something else. I wasn't talking about whether activities are 'instrumentally useful' or something like that. So now I think that we're talking past each other.

You say "We don't know if any experience is pleasurable until we've had it." But I disagree because we can know that a pleasure is pleasurable *during* the experience. It doesn't have to be after the experience.

Another thing. When we find an experience pleasurable it's not like we have the experience and then it produces pleasure. The pleasurable experience itself feels pleasurable as we're experiencing it. Which is an example of intrinsic value, not instrumental value.

Then why do people seek out pleasurable experiences? To experience pleasure. Duh.

Boru

Yes but the pleasurable experience is good in itself, intrinsically. It's not like you experience the pleasurable experience and then that pleasurable experience leads to pleasure. The pleasurable experience *is* the pleasure. Hence why it's intrinsically good.

Think of tasting chocolate: the sweetness isn’t something that comes after you eat it — the sweetness is the experience of eating chocolate itself. Similarly, the goodness of a pleasurable experience just is the pleasure you feel while having it.