Disliking What You Like
In a philosophy class of mine some years ago, one of the topics that we discussed at length was desire-dependent pleasure. This was for an upper-level course called “Ethical Theory”. Specifically, we were talking about consequentialism, which is the kind of umbrella that utilitarianism falls under, since utilitarianism is a type of consequentialism. But I don’t want to talk about any of that tonight; however, I do want to talk about something related to desire-dependent pleasures.
Desire-dependent pleasure is a fairly easy idea to understand. In order to illustrate this concept in the paper, I used an example containing Britney Spears. That’s right: I used Britney Spears in an example within a serious philosophy paper in an upper-level course at an Ivy League university. And I got an “A”. But that’s beside the point. Let me explain what a desire-dependent pleasure is.
Let’s say you’re a big Britney Spears fan. You have all her albums, you tape her TV performances, and you buy magazines when she’s on the cover. Your friend, let’s call him Matt, does not like Britney so much or her music. The two of you are riding in a car one day, listening to the top 40 radio station when her new song “Toxic” comes on. What results?
Well, obviously, you find listening to the song pleasurable, since you like Britney and her music. Matt, however, finds no pleasure in this whatsoever. In fact, if he actually has a hatred for Britney, then it may even be painful (in some sense) for him to have to listen to the song. Thus, the potential pleasure derived by listening to Britney’s song is a desire-dependent pleasure. It depends on having the desire to listen to her music. Without that desire, the pleasure won’t exist for you.
Hopefully that’s clear; I think it should be. So where am I going with this? Well, the other day I found out that one of my favorite TV shows might be going off the air. What was my reaction? I was quite happy. Huh? I didn’t understand my reaction at first either. As it turns out, however, it occurred to me that, while I enjoy watching the TV show, I find it to be a waste of my time to have to sit in front of the TV for 30 minutes to watch it. But let me back up for a minute.
It should be clear that any pleasure derived by viewing this (or any for that matter) TV show is a desire-dependent pleasure. Is that to say that if you didn’t have any desire to watch it that you couldn’t enjoy it? Not necessarily. But as you become a fan of the TV show, it becomes a desire-dependent pleasure, because you derive a greater pleasure from it, since you actually look forward to watching it to satisfy this desire.
So what’s going on in the situation that I’m talking about? Obviously, I’ve developed a desire-dependent pleasure for watching this TV show. Yet, I have another desire-dependent pleasure, which is to not watch TV. These desire necessarily conflict. On one hand, it would make me happy if I had more time to do things when I’m not at work and not watching any TV would help in this desire. Of course, on the other hand, I like watching the TV show, so I lose a bit of my free time in doing so.
I’m not sure it’s obvious why I might find this fabulously interesting, because the idea of desires conflicting is not a particularly novel one. If you’re lying in bed and you’re hungry, but you don’t want to get up, then obviously your desire for food and your desire to be lazy conflict. It’s moreso the effect that desire conflict has in conjunction with pleasure that I find slightly novel (to me anyway).
Through the idea of desire-dependent pleasure you can, quite literally, dislike something you like. Could there be anything more obviously contradictory and irrational? This is almost as absurd as saying: “a does not equal a.”
This is bizarre. The fact that we have desires, as humans, can leads to utterly irrational and absurd preferences. Now don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying this is the first time I’ve ever realized that people can be irrational, or even the first time I’ve ever realized that people can have contradicting preferences. Indeed, the fact that girls tend to like guys who are assholes that they somehow will be nice guys and not cheat on them is a good case in point.
What I find interesting about this is that, statistically, it is nearly impossible that someone would happen to be lucky enough to never have preferences that contradict one another. I mean, let’s say that everyone has 100 preferences (which is such a low estimate that it’s almost ridiculous). And each preference would result in two things having to be a certain way (another absurdly low estimate); thus, each preference could potentially contradict two other preferences. Do you see what I’m getting at? There would be 200 opportunities for preferences to be contradicted and 100 preferences that they could contradict. And these were ultra-conservative estimates.
The result of this line of reasoning is that the fact that we have complex preferences as humans necessarily leads to us contradicting ourselves at times: it makes us necessarily irrational. Put more succinctly in regard to desire: Human desire necessitates irrationality. Fascinating, right?
So what’s a person to do? Should we shun all of our desires? Hardly. Without desiring anything, there would be little pleasure in our lives. I think instead we must (and this will sound ironic coming from me) accept our irrationality. After all, we are human and necessarily not fully rational anyway. But at least now we can be aware that desire is almost certainly a major cause of any irrationality that we experience.
I guess this leaves me with a fitting understanding of what’s going on inside my head. While I realize that I’m relieved that football season is over, because I no longer have to have my Sundays wasted away by watching football games, that doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy watching football. However, I might just think about watching fewer games next year and having a rational preference about football. Or I could just accept the fact that I’m human.