The reduction of sensory pleasure to desire

Abstract

One of the leading approaches to the nature of sensory pleasure reduces it to desire: roughly, a sensation qualifies as a sensation of pleasure just in case its subject wants to be feeling it. This approach is, in my view, correct, but it has never been formulated quite right; and it needs to defended against some compelling arguments. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to discover the most defensible formulation of this rough idea, and to defend it against the most interesting objections.