That we use the ability to experience pleasure in order to appreciate the worth of a thing does not imply that worth is synonymous with pleasure. We also require consciousness to appreciate worth, but worth is not identical with consciousness. These are things that are involved in experiencing worth but are not sufficient for there to be an experience of worth. We can experience pleasure without experiencing a sensation of worth, and we can experience a sensation of worth without experiencing pleasure (if you take something valuable away from me, I experience a sensation of worth related to the thing taken, but no sensation of pleasure).
Pleasure is a contingent property associated with worth.
Since we can have sensations of worth without experiences of pleasure, pleasure is not necessary to the property of worth's identity and therefore pleasure is not the essence of worth.
Quote: ...the assumption that because some quality or combination of qualities invariably and necessarily accompanies the quality of goodness, or is invariably and necessarily accompanied by it, or both, this quality or combination of qualities is identical with goodness. If, for example, it is believed that whatever is pleasant is and must be good, or that whatever is good is and must be pleasant, or both, it is committing the naturalistic fallacy to infer from this that goodness and pleasantness are one and the same quality. The naturalistic fallacy is the assumption that because the words 'good' and, say, 'pleasant' necessarily describe the same objects, they must attribute the same quality to them.[2]
—Arthur N. Prior, Logic And The Basis Of Ethics (Wikipedia: naturalistic fallacy)
Pleasure is a contingent property associated with worth.
Wikipedia: Essence Wrote:In philosophy, essence is the attribute or set of attributes that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its identity. Essence is contrasted with accident: a property that the entity or substance has contingently, without which the substance can still retain its identity.
Since we can have sensations of worth without experiences of pleasure, pleasure is not necessary to the property of worth's identity and therefore pleasure is not the essence of worth.
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