Science vs Morality

[Mozart Link]

If you are the type of person to derive positive value from struggles, then philosophies that say struggles in life give positive value does hold true for these types of people. But if you are like me who utterly detests struggles and finds no positive value from them and wants nothing to do with them, then this doesn't hold true for me or anyone else like me. Again, I do not mind struggles themselves. The only struggle I do mind is depression (so this is what we are talking about when I mean struggles). The ideal truth would be that feelings of pleasure (including love and many others) are the greatest gifts to you and absolutely no one or nothing can take these away from you. How do you feel about that? I bet you are feeling right now that this is the absolute truth of life and that this is the main thing that makes us as human beings.

But what if I told you right now that there is, in fact, something that can take these things away from you? And that would obviously be depression. So how do you feel now? I bet you feel enraged that such an inferior abomination exists. I bet now you utterly detest depression and that there is no positive value whatsoever you can deem from it.

It wouldn't make sense anyway to derive pleasure (positive value) from something that takes away your pleasure. Also, if you somehow think that depression and struggles in life give your life greater positive value, I feel that this would be false because you can have much more positive value through having a life of no struggles and depression. For example, if depression is something you think has given your life positive value because of the fact that you are socializing and sharing your feelings with those who also have depression (or any other positive value of such), the fact of the matter is that you can socialize and share your feelings in healthier ways without struggles or depression in life and this would have greater positive value because with depression, you have both a negative and a positive going on. You have depression (which is obviously negative) and you have socializing and sharing your feelings with others which is positive. But without depression, then you would have 2 positives. You would feel happy with no depression (this is the 1st positive) and you would socialize and share your feelings with others (which is the 2nd positive). This is why having no depression in life has greater positive value (obviously because two positive values in life are greater than just one positive value). So basically, gaining positive value through struggles and depression in life is pointless when you could have gained positive value through something much better (a life of no struggles and no depression).

[LostLocke]

[Jenny A]

If your point is that we can't do without some pleasure in our lives, I don't think that anyone would argue with that. It's hardly worth saying. It isn't profound, or even particularly interesting. This thread goes on because you insist of two additional sillinesses. First that because we need it having more of it makes us superior and less inferior. And two that it's our defining need.

[The Grand Nudger]

My counterpoint would be the clear evidence that we -can- do without pleasure in our lives. Ask a POW.

Further, that the measure of our worth is not determined by how we act or respond when "pleasure is at a maximum", or even when pleasure is present; but when it is non-existent.

[Angrboda]

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).

...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.

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.

[Mozart Link]

Here is scientific proof that pleasure is the greatest thing a human being can have. In this video, from 4:20-5:01 you hear the speech from Robert Sapolsky that proves this. He says that depression is the worst thing and backs it up. Therefore, since depression is the worst thing, that obviously means pleasure is the best thing above any other part of you (such as intelligence or anything else) and that losing anything else in life would hardly compare.

Here is the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOAgplgTxfc

[LostLocke]

He says that depression is the worst thing and backs it up. Therefore, since depression is the worst thing, that obviously means pleasure is the best thing....

Pleasure - Depression is a false dichotomy. You're claiming it's an either/or situation when it's not.

A. Pleasure, no depression
B. Pleasure, depression
C. No pleasure, no depression
D. No pleasure, depression