An Interview with Mohsen Javadi on Specific Pleasure in Relation to Happiness

Pleasure is among those matters which, despite their apparent simplicity and triviality, have not remained far from the center of serious philosophical discussions. The philosophical disputes over this subject have always been fascinating and highly instructive. Pleasure can be examined from many angles. But does philosophical scrutiny push pleasure to the margins and make it subordinate to higher things? Can pleasure be studied in a way that overcomes the historical duality of body and soul? We have discussed these topics with Dr. Mohsen Javadi. What follows is his response to our questions about pleasure, specifically in relation to happiness. Dr. Javadi completed his master's and doctoral degrees in Islamic Philosophy and Theology, and for many years, in addition to authoring philosophical books and articles, he has also been engaged in teaching philosophy.

  

How can pleasure be defined and classified philosophically?

Given the limited time, I will try to present the main points. Since ancient times, there have been two kinds of interpretations of the concept of pleasure itself. In the Nicomachean Ethics, this duality in its interpretation is also seen. One has been more of a negative state, meaning the absence of pain and suffering. Perhaps in Epicurean hedonism, this was more the case than the positive meaning of pleasure. The negative concept is clear in the sense that we have no suffering, and naturally, the fewer our desires, the more this meaning is realized. The non-fulfillment of desires becomes a source of pain and suffering, and naturally, when there are no desires, this does not happen. Naturally, this concept is realized more through not having things. But the positive concept of pleasure, the fulfillment of desire or the attainment of human desire, is more what we have in mind. In this sense, it is naturally true that pleasure is subjective, meaning it is realized within me, the human being; I have a mind and a soul that are the vessel for the realization of pleasure. But the value of pleasure, in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, was usually considered more dependent on the value of the object of that desire. For example, regarding the desire for knowledge, they said the pleasure that comes from knowledge is a very good pleasure. But if it is a desire for very lowly and base things, its value is also considered of that sort. For instance, the value of money or eating was subordinate to the thing that provided that pleasure. Naturally, the Greek philosophers accepted this pleasure to some extent, because to the degree that reason permitted you to eat, the pleasure resulting from it was also a desirable pleasure. But becoming more entangled with this pleasure was perhaps not a commendable thing. So, we can look at the concept of pleasure both negatively and positively. For example, in natural law theories, which in a way have roots in Aristotelian thought—although Aristotle's own theory was not a natural law theory, it was the foundation and basis of this theory—there are basic goods that are the origin of morality. Basic goods arise from our natural desires, not our incidental desires. They are our fundamental and basic desires.

Could you give an example of each?

In Greece, or in the thought of Aquinas or others until quite recently, no one considered pleasure among these basic goods. That is, they did not say that pleasure is also something we should pursue. Why? Because pleasure itself was not a primary object of desire; rather, it resulted from something that was desired, and its value was subordinate to the value of that desired thing. Therefore, it did not have much independent relevance. From Plato and Aristotle up until quite recently, perhaps only in the last two or three hundred years, pleasure was added to natural law theories; and even then, not in all of them. This was because they said pleasure is not something to be pursued. We must pursue what is worthwhile, and when we pursue it, pleasure is also found. Pleasure was secondary and subordinate to that thing. In natural law theories, knowledge and even procreation were included, but pleasure, as something having relevance as a basic good around which we could construct rights, was not. So, in this thinking, the subjective aspect of the matter did not have much authenticity. For this reason, the pleasure from addiction or hallucination, from their perspective, has no value at all. Although in the modern world, perhaps the concept of pleasure is considered more subjective, and simply being happy might be considered pleasure.

With these details, what is the relationship between pleasure and happiness?

If we look at the Greek root of happiness, its concept was eudaimonia, meaning good being; that is, in fact, a good life and existence. But eudaimonia was translated into English as happiness, and this brought eudaimonia closer to the concept of pleasure. For this reason, some oppose this translation because they believe eudaimonia is not that. Happiness was more objective than subjective. That is, in happiness, what took precedence and the components of happiness were objective. For example, virtues played a role in happiness. But I emphasize that this does not mean they were pessimistic about pleasure. For instance, Plato said we should arrange things so that pleasures are in good things. That is, we should nurture and cultivate people's desires so that they are directed toward valuable things and then find pleasure through this. Their pleasure should be in telling the truth, not in things that are bad. So the principle of pleasure in their thinking was not condemned to the point of being rejected. What mattered was to what they connected pleasure.

So pleasure was dependent on a value system prior to itself?

Certainly. A value system in which, for example, through philosophy they understood what makes human life good and what kind of existence it is. And when they were situated in this existence, one of the things could serve as an incentive, namely pleasure. Pleasure never had the status of the foundation of ethics in their thinking. So we had a concept of happiness in Aristotle's philosophy that is more objective. Of course, there is a subjective concept within it, meaning that virtues, which are the main pillar of human happiness, are usually accompanied by a feeling of inner satisfaction and pleasure from performing actions in accordance with virtue. Aristotle says that someone who performs a just act with suffering, hardship, and toil is not a person of virtue, although such a person is self-controlled. Someone who forces himself with difficulty to tell the truth is different from someone who tells the truth with pleasure and ease. This shows that virtue and happiness have a subjective and personal element. Aristotle, and following him, Ibn Miskawayh, distinguishes types of pseudo-virtues from virtue in this same way. These cases, whose performance causes suffering and toil for the agent even if they conform to the moral law, are pseudo-virtue, not virtue. So happiness is where these two connect, meaning the person's mind and desires are aligned with that objective moral value system, and for this reason, they derive pleasure from it. When you define happiness, you are defining this alignment between the moral agent and the moral law itself. That is, it is such that these actions you perform are congenial to your soul and bring a feeling of pleasure because your soul also desires it. Then some mistakenly thought that happiness means this very pleasure. Whereas happiness is not this pleasure; it is that level of life where, when the horizon of the person's mind aligns with it, pleasure is also attained. In principle, in defining the concept of happiness or the good life, we should not emphasize only the subjective or personal aspect. This is dangerous because then someone might say that this concept can be created even with illusion. But this is not so. When you translate the word eudaimonia as happiness, it comes somewhat close to pleasure. For this reason, many scholars, like David Ross, in new translations of Aristotle, have translated this word as well-being, or for example, Terence Irwin has translated it as human flourishing. Regarding the relation of pleasure to happiness, we said that pleasure has a negative concept and a positive concept. The negative concept is a passive state. That is, the more we eliminate desires, the less desire and want we have for anything, the more comfortable we are. Because we are not upset by anything. Because upsets are related to our failures. This negative concept, which was perhaps more present in Epicurus, was not very desirable to the proper philosophers of Greece. In our mystical literature, there is also something like this, that for example, it is better to uproot and destroy the self altogether. But in the second type, that is, pleasure in the positive sense, pleasure is an activity. In fact, it is the attainment of something, as Avicenna says, the perception of the agreeable insofar as it is agreeable.

I think here we can talk about types of pleasure.

Yes. Pleasure also has varieties because the soul’s desires have varieties. Insofar as you have diverse desires, you also have diverse pleasures. The pleasure of food, the pleasure of knowledge, the pleasure of justice, the pleasure of helping another. This in fact has gradations. But pleasure in and of itself has no moral value. It is not a moral desideratum or ideal. Justice is a moral ideal, but pleasure is not. In Greek thought, happiness is usually defined in such a way that you take pleasure in what you do, even if it is a difficult task. This is also found in religious texts; for instance, regarding Imam Husayn (AS), when conditions became difficult, he would become happier. This means the soul can align itself with what it considers a moral ideal, a moral value, and it is not difficult for it. So subject and object have a kind of alignment in the concept of happiness. Therefore, pleasure enters into the concept of happiness, but its entry is not essential; it is not the case that it is the main component. Its entry is because you possess those main components and your soul has practiced them and takes joy in them, and this becomes happiness. But if your soul’s joy lies in things that are not happiness—for example, in lying—well, here there is pleasure, but it is not that concept of happiness. And these two diverge.

I recall in the Nicomachean Ethics, when Aristotle speaks of well-being, the greatest pleasure he knows is the pleasure of contemplation, meaning the state most similar to God for a human being is when he contemplates. At the same time, somewhere in the same book, he says that the one who contemplates and also enjoys external pleasures is more blessed than the one who contemplates but lacks this enjoyment. Does this not open the door for the entry of pleasures that are not morally valuable?

In Aristotle, the story is a bit complicated because when Aristotle first defines happiness, he brings in other things besides contemplation and reflection as being of equal weight. For example, he says the good life is a life in which moral values, justice, virtues of the mind, virtues of the heart, and will are present. But apart from these, he says money and wealth and such things are external goods, and he includes these as well. Therefore, I who am affluent and have a good life am, in one sense, happier than someone who lacks these things. This is at first. But later he retreats from this view and gives predominance to contemplation. If there is a life in which contemplation is absent or scarce but all those other comforts are present, he gives more value to a life in which contemplation is very abundant but those other comforts are few or nonexistent. This is not a contradiction in Aristotle because his view simply changes. However, the introduction of this issue is a good thing that becomes a subject of discussion.

I ask this because there is a mistaken view of philosophy among the general public, and one of the reasons for my interest in these interviews is to disrupt this very mistaken notion. For instance, they say philosophy is nonsense! That is, whatever is complex and incomprehensible, they call philosophy. Or the common image of the contemplative person—which may have arisen to some extent due to the behavior of philosophy’s practitioners in Iran—is that the person of philosophy is solely a person of suffering, and in short, pleasure seems to conflict with philosophy and, a fortiori, with thinking.

It is exactly as you pointed out. Perhaps the first part of Aristotle's statements is more correct. Some even say that this last section of the Nicomachean Ethics might not be authentic at all. Some commentators say these are Neoplatonic additions to Aristotle's words. But even if we say that Aristotle himself held such a view, it seems that his earlier thought is more realistic and aligns more closely with reality. After all, contemplation has its place, but it does not have a state of dominance over other matters, and alongside it, moral values are also part of the package of happiness, as are external goods. What is important is that the place of these things is defined. That is, if they are in accordance with their real place, there is no problem. In my opinion, just as it is said in the definition of philosophy that it is 'the becoming of the human being into an intellectual world corresponding to the objective world,' true philosophy is that, in fact, just as in terms of truth and reality, the truth of God is highest, then the truth of the angels, down to the material world, this is correctly reflected in your mind as well. In your mind too, what is principal and true should be this, and not something else. In that case, you are a philosopher. The same can be said about goods, meaning if in the universe, the real good of a human being is nearness to God, and then at lower levels, other things are also called good, such as health and wealth and so on, if this is also the case in your life and in your set of preferences, then you are a philosopher, not that your system of desires is different from or in conflict with the system of real good. The discussion is not about eliminating lower goods and pleasures, because elimination is fundamentally incorrect, and perhaps that is the negative view held by some Epicureans and Stoics. However, what is important is that these pleasures must find their proper place. If their place is mistaken, many difficulties may arise. For example, if in your mind the primary truth is the material world, this is a kind of deviation in understanding existence, in understanding the truths of existence. Because we have a truth that belongs to the mind and a good that belongs to the will. The mistake is that you do not correctly understand the place of those goods in the universe; for instance, your whole life is oriented towards money, or towards desires whose place was not to be satisfied to this extent, but rather they should be satisfied to the extent that you can also do other things. As Aristotle says, we do not live to experience pleasure, but we experience pleasure in order to live. In philosophy and even mysticism, there may be currents that advocate the elimination of these pleasures.

It is also more akin to mysticism.

Yes. He was mostly influenced by the Neoplatonists. You know that Aristotle's works were often confused with those of the Neoplatonists. But in my view, the correct understanding of philosophy is not to say that there should be no other pleasures or to despise all pleasures. What matters is knowing the measure of pleasures. Eliminating them does not solve the problem, is contrary to human nature, and will erupt from somewhere else. Perhaps Freud's term "sublimation" refers to this very thing, where he says that if you completely eliminate something in one place, it erupts elsewhere and is sublimated in another form. I think this elimination creates deeper deviations that disrupt the mind, the psyche, and all of these things, and it is a kind of rigidity and narrow-mindedness. The value of every kind of good and pleasure must be seen in proportion to its reality. If this is the case, there is no problem. Of course, those too are pleasures and our desires. However, it should not be that we define ourselves solely in terms of these lower desires. Rather, other desires within us must also be activated. For example, the desire for truth, the desire for worship, the desire for altruism. These are often in a state of stagnation and dormancy within us. Because our beginning is with nature, our natural desires are more active. Therefore, other desires require more work to be cultivated. If these desires are cultivated and activated within me, naturally, as Avicenna says, the pleasure of knowledge might become more important to me than the pleasure of eating. But that does not mean I abandon eating. Its meaning is, in fact, comparison. A kind of balance is intended. It is the same in religious teachings. But the understanding of this balance and the point of this equilibrium may differ for different individuals. It is similar to how prescriptions differ for an illness; the formula and arrangement for achieving balance are not the same for everyone. Some, due to their natural characteristics or talents, might achieve better results if they devote more time to knowledge, while others might achieve better results if they spend this opportunity on war and politics. This depends on a person's phronesis, that is, the practical wisdom they say one must possess. This is what Avicenna means when he says that even in theoretical wisdom, governance is by practical wisdom. Because it is this practical wisdom that determines how much philosophy one should study or how much and in what way one should pursue a certain pleasure or good. Of course, finding the point of balance is also somewhat intuitive or experiential, meaning the individual must reach and find that correct point themselves.

That is precisely my issue. Combining pleasures. How can you think a lot and not be a statue of suffering, so that when others look at you, they imagine you suffer day and night!?

What people's perception of you is a secondary issue and is not very decisive for the moral life. Some think that if a philosopher eats proper food like ordinary people, or has recreation, or travels with their family, they have fallen from the station of philosophy and consider this contrary to the dignity of philosophy and philosophical asceticism. But this is a mistake, and the great philosophers, and great people in general, were not like this.

Look, many people tell us, why do you pursue philosophy? Philosophy makes you sad.

Well, this perception stems from two things: one is that our philosophers have not found a good function, meaning they do not actually do their philosophical work well. Because if they did their work properly, philosophy is exhilarating, it unlocks the secrets of existence to the extent of human reason, and there is an unparalleled pleasure in it. The other is that some people use these titles and are not truly philosophers, although they pretend to be.

So, in reality, this is a kind of performance of philosophy.

Yes, it is a display of philosophy; otherwise, real philosophy—the genuine understanding of existence—is, in fact, joyful. As Aquinas says, it is a vision or contemplation that always makes a person happy, because a person sees the truth and aligns their life with this truth. Some people, because they think one must be very preoccupied with wealth and such matters, and they see that true philosophers are less concerned with these things, assume that philosophy is fundamentally incompatible with enjoying life and its blessings. There is a saying of Imam Ali in Nahj al-Balagha, in the Hammam sermon, that when people see the pious and upright individuals, they say, 'Laqad khūliṭū,' meaning 'They have become a bit deranged.' Then the Imam says, yes, 'Laqad khālaṭahum amrun ʿaẓīm,' meaning their minds are engaged with something greater than money and status, which in those people's view are the primary goods of human life. So, in a sense, people are right that they are deranged, because something important has taken priority in their minds—a great matter, something more important than the things in other people's minds.

If the philosopher sees the truth, then the distance of ordinary, majority people in society from that truth naturally produces suffering for them, not pleasure. How can a philosopher be happy and experience pleasure at the same time?

Awareness inherently generates suffering. They say, the more aware, the paler the face. Because awareness always creates this feeling of falling short of the ideal, the feeling of the existence of greater and higher ideals. But if a person lacks this awareness altogether and is carefree, I think it somewhat resembles that state of pleasure in a negative sense. However, the negative aspect of the matter is not very important to me. That is, erasing the problem is useless. Wanting to set aside awareness because of the suffering it produces is like wanting to completely abandon other desires because of the suffering they cause if one fails to fulfill them. The sufferings of awareness exist, but profound joys arise from these sufferings, and human ideals are also the product of these painful awarenesses. The suffering of awareness is like the pain of childbirth, from which profound joys are born. It is the scholars who, after the painful awareness of human misery and sin, think of reforming and improving their condition, and what joys they experience along this path. The concern for others being distant from the truth, which torments the philosopher, is painful, but it is the joyful origin of reconciling them with the truth.

So the philosopher does not remain in this suffering but passes through it.

Yes, the true philosopher. That is, the pleasure of an altruistic act is perhaps incomparable to the pleasure of superficial matters. We do not deny those, and they have their own place, but this value is of a different kind. Of course, there is a suffering that existentialists call existential suffering. Yes, there are sufferings that the aware endure more. Someone who is constantly in heedlessness does not suffer these pains, but that is no art. That which can become the origin of profound joys must first have its suffering, so that a person can then understand and attain that joy. Some sufferings are better than a thousand joys; that is, their nature is different.

If there is anything remaining on the types of pleasure, please share.

Of course, I have answered to some extent. The question of which pleasures are real and which are superior is somewhat dependent on the normative or value system we perceive in existence. Then we say, for example, that intellectual pleasures are superior. Someone might say, I do not consider these to be pleasures at all. The reason is that they have not been able to attune themselves to that horizon. We do not want to say that intellectual pleasures are superior for all people. We are discussing this normatively. We say this ought to be the case, and this is the correct system. Many people are not like this. Therefore, the problem lies with those people, not with this standard. Of course, as I mentioned, we must accept a kind of plurality among individuals. We should not expect everyone to attune themselves to this horizon. That is simply not right. The capacity and talents of individuals must be considered. In the system of existence, people's abilities, talents, and capacities differ. We should not say that everyone's pleasure must necessarily be in one thing. We must accept a network from the floor to the ceiling. This is extremely important for educational matters. In the system of interaction with others and the social system, we must plan and calculate more based on the floor of the matter. Of course, the ceiling is also an ideal we must reach. In my opinion, one of the primary duties of governments is to provide this very welfare, tranquility, and comfort, because these are things that are desirable for everyone. They cannot ignore this important priority and say we have come for paradise, because if they do not manage those affairs properly, these matters will also suffer. Meanwhile, there are many who pay no attention to these issues at all. One of the tasks of governments that intervene in defining the good life and such for society is to explain to people that welfare and matters of this sort are not the whole story, or to act in a way that individuals themselves can pay attention to higher desires. This is important, but it does not mean ignoring issues like welfare. I think one of the reasons for our lack of success in society is precisely this ignoring of issues that seem simple. Like the importance of profit. Because we oppose utilitarianism and say that utilitarianism cannot be the basis of morality, we have also discarded profit. Utilitarianism is different from profit. Profit is very important. Why do we not look morally upon someone who generates profit? In your mind, a moral person is more likely to be a recluse than an active member of society, or an entrepreneur. Well, if we work on this and create this mentality, it can be presented as a moral ideal. Yes, this is not the whole of morality. But this is also an important issue. I think in the discussion of pleasures, we should not make ourselves the criterion for truth. Philosophers, too, should not make only themselves the criterion and say that everyone must contemplate like us and nothing else. They must accept the differences in talents and capacities, and people's time and opportunities. They must define a floor of moral ideals, such that if these are absent, the whole of human life falls apart, meaning a person's humanity is actually damaged. One of the reasons why some non-religious countries that do not have very high moral ideals are socially moral is this. Because they have set aside those higher matters and worked on things like truth-telling, which creates profit and social security for themselves, and they have cultivated them. They have practiced and persevered. But we constantly present ourselves as paying attention to very lofty matters, and thus we become neglectful of these small but highly important points.

As a summary, in your view, can higher pleasures be combined with lower pleasures?

Yes. Unfortunately, it has become prevalent in our society to say, I am not one for leadership, and so on... No, what is wrong with someone being inclined towards leadership to some extent, or being inclined towards wealth as well? In fact, it is frequently mentioned in our narrations, for example, "One of the felicities of a man is a spacious house," meaning a large house is happiness. The problem is when you swap the places of these things.

You spoke of ethics; it seems that however we want to talk about pleasure, the discussion of ethics also arises. Have there been philosophical discussions that explore the issue of pleasure and happiness outside the realm of ethics?

That's an interesting point. Because ethics entered the Islamic world primarily through the Greek context, when people speak of ethics, what mostly comes to mind is Greek practical wisdom. In this wisdom, happiness is a broader concept than ethics. Happiness is the good life, and one part of this good life is ethics. Ethics, technically speaking, pertains to the soul and, in fact, to human desires, but that is not the entirety of happiness. In our philosophical books, happiness has had other components as well. Aristotle himself and Muslim philosophers sometimes include money, wealth, fame, and friends—all of these—as part of happiness, in due measure, of course. And alongside these, they also include virtues of the mind, such as sharp-wittedness and sagacity, and most importantly, contemplation and reflection. This is why our philosophers discussed happiness in books like the Asfar and other philosophical works, not in ethical treatises. Because not all of happiness is ethics. Of course, ethics was an important element of happiness. It is entirely possible to discuss these separately. But now they have become very interconnected.

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An Interview with Mohsen Javadi on Specific Pleasure in Relation to Happiness

Interviewer: Maryam Hashemian

Source: Book City

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