A number of philosophers have endorsed the idea that there are unconscious, or unfelt, pleasures and pains.Footnote 1 These would be sensory experiences that are genuine pleasures or pains, but experiences of which the subject is unaware. The idea that there are such things is worthy of attention in its own right; but I am interested in this alleged phenomenon for a further reason. I am attracted to an attitudinal theory of sensory pleasure and pain. Ben Bramble has claimed that the existence of unconscious pleasures and pains reveals that attitudinal theories cannot be true. In this article I explain why an attitudinal theory of pleasure and pain is consistent with whatever is plausible in the ‘unconscious pleasure and pain’ phenomenon.
1. Attitudinal Theories of Pleasure and Pain. Certain sensations are naturally described as being ‘pleasures’, or ‘pleasant’, or ‘pleasurable’, or ‘enjoyable’, or ‘delightful’. Examples include such sensations as the smell of roses, or the taste of delicious cold beer and crunchy salted peanuts, as well as the delightful feelings one gets from a warm affectionate hug from a loved one. A hedonist might say that a person's individual welfare is enhanced by the occurrence of such sensations in the person's life.
Other sensations seem to have the opposite hedonic valence. The pain of a toothache, or the foul taste of bitter medicine, or the nearly intolerable itching of shingles come to mind here. The hedonist might say that it is the presence of sensations such as these that makes for lower personal welfare.
But the hedonist – and anyone else interested in personal welfare – may want to deal with a deeper question: what is it about certain sensations that makes it correct to describe them as ‘pleasures’, or ‘pleasurable sensations’? And correspondingly, what is it about other sensations that makes it correct to characterize them as pains? Is it simply that the ones that count as pleasures somehow ‘feel alike’ in a certain way? And correspondingly that the ones that count as pains somehow feel alike in some opposite way? On its face, that seems unlikely. Pleasures come in a huge variety of specific forms. Some are tastes; others are smells; yet others are visual or auditory appearances. Similarly for pains. They are so variable that many philosophers, even after serious phenomenological research, cannot locate any single aspect of feeling that is common to them all.Footnote 2
One popular response to this puzzle is to say that what makes it correct to describe a sensation as a pleasure is that the person who experiences that sensation takes up a certain specified attitude towards the sensation when it is experienced. Thus, for example, someone might focus on the concept of desire. Footnote 3 He could say that what makes a sensation count as a pleasure (pain) is that the person who experiences it desires (not) to be experiencing it when he is experiencing it.
Loose talk of desire will not suffice here. Obviously, a person could desire to feel a certain pain. This would not be sufficient to convert the pain into a pleasure. Imagine the case of a person who has undergone some surgery involving his nervous system. The surgeon informed him that if he begins to feel a throbbing pain, this will show that the surgery has been successful. So the patient hopefully anticipates some pain. When the throbbing pain begins, the patient wants it and is glad that it is happening. Yet for all that, it is not a pleasant sensation. One way to tighten this up involves distinguishing between intrinsic desire and extrinsic desire. Note that the patient in the case just described did not desire the pain just for its own sake. He desired it in virtue of what it signified – viz., that the surgery had been a success. So in typical forms, the attitudinal theory would have to say that a sensation counts as a pleasure (pain) iff the subject intrinsically desires that it (not) be happening when it is happening.
In order to make a certain sensation count as a pleasure, the subject's desire must be more than just a vague desire that some sensation or other should happen. The desire must be directed upon the specific sensation in question. The sensation must be such that the subject desires specifically with respect to it that it occur. Thus the desire must be de re with respect to the sensation in question.
There is a slightly different form of the attitudinal theory.Footnote 4 This view starts with a distinction between sensory pleasure and attitudinal pleasure. The examples already discussed (the smell of roses, the taste of beer and peanuts, the feelings of a warm affectionate hug) are all sensory pleasures. Attitudinal pleasures are not in this way sensations. A person takes attitudinal pleasure in a state of affairs iff he is glad that it is happening, or enjoys it. For example, consider a father whose children come home with excellent report cards. This father might take attitudinal pleasure in the fact that his children are doing well in school. In my view, the father could do this without having any pleasant sensations. It might just be an attitude that he takes towards the fact that the children are doing well in school.
On this view a sensation, s, counts as a sensory pleasure (pain) iff the person who experiences s takes intrinsic de re attitudinal pleasure (displeasure) in the fact that he is then experiencing s.
2. In a recent article,Footnote 5 Ben Bramble presented an objection to the attitudinal theory of sensory pleasure and pain. He focused explicitly on the version of the theory defended by Chris Heathwood, but the objection applies just as well to my version of the theory and presumably any other version of the attitudinal view.
Bramble claims that such theories go wrong in the case of unconscious pleasures and pains.Footnote 6 The problem is straightforward: an unconscious pleasure is, in spite of the fact that the person who has it is not conscious of it, a sensory pleasure. But at the same time since the subject is ‘entirely unaware’ of the pleasure, he cannot take up any de re attitude towards it. He cannot desire that it occur; he cannot take de re attitudinal pleasure in the fact that he is having it.Footnote 7
Following Haybron, Bramble mentions a case in which a defective compressor in a refrigerator is whining away in the background.Footnote 8 He imagines that this has been going on for such a long time that the subject no longer notices the unpleasant noise. Yet, when the noise suddenly stops, the subject notices with relief that it is over. Bramble claims that since the subject notices the cessation of the unpleasant noise, he must have been experiencing it previously, even when he was not conscious of it. Thus, during times when the subject was not conscious of the whining refrigerator, it was an unconscious pain. But since he was not conscious of it at those times, the subject could not have taken up any attitude towards it. Thus the attitudinal theory is refuted.
Bramble also cites an example due to Oliver Sacks.Footnote 9 In this case a subject loses his sense of smell. He then realizes the importance of what had been lost. The smells that had been lost formed ‘a rich unconscious background to everything else’.Footnote 10 Since he previously paid no attention to those smells, he was ‘entirely unaware’ of them. They had been unconscious pleasures. Bramble claims that they also serve to refute the attitudinal theory of sensory pleasure.
3. In a recent articleFootnote 11 Heathwood replies to this objection. Heathwood says that he has ‘no quarrel’ with the notion that there are unconscious pleasures and pains. But Heathwood claims that the existence of unconscious pleasures and pains does not entail that there are pleasures and pains of which the subject is unaware. His defence of this seemingly impossible position turns on his claim that there are two importantly different senses of ‘aware’. A person is strongly aware of a sensation iff he consciously believes that he is having it; if he vividly notices it; if the sensation is right there in his experience – not hidden, or ‘under the surface’. This is just the familiar concept of being present to consciousness.
Heathwood claims (p. 5) that there is another sense of ‘aware’. He says:
there is another sense in which you do notice the whining and in which the smells are conscious. That sense is this: if the sensations were to cease, the subject would notice their cessation. Or, rather, that this counterfactual is true of someone indicates that they enjoy a certain sort of awareness of the sensations, which we can call weak awareness.
Although Heathwood did not define these terms in precisely this way, it seems to me that these definitions express pretty nearly what he was hinting at in the article:Footnote 12
SA: X is strongly aware of a sensation, s, at t = df. X actually, consciously, notices at t that he is experiencing s; X occurrently believes at t that he is then experiencing s.
WA: X is weakly aware of a sensation, s, at t = df. X is not strongly aware of s at t, but at t X is such that if s were to cease, X would notice the cessation of s.
Heathwood can grant that in a case like Haybron's whining refrigerator, the subject is not strongly aware of the unpleasant whine of the refrigerator. Thus, it is correct to describe the sound as an ‘unconscious pain’. But at the same time, Heathwood wants to claim that the subject is weakly aware of the whining sound. This follows directly from Haybron's description of the case. Heathwood claims that the fact that the subject is weakly aware of the sound makes it possible for him to have de re attitudes towards that sound. So the subject can have an intrinsic de re desire that the sound should cease – and thus the sound counts as a sensory pain on Heathwood's desire-based theory.
If the proposal works for Heathwood's theory, it works for mine as well. I can claim that mere weak awareness of an unconscious pleasure makes it possible for the subject to take de re intrinsic attitudinal pleasure in an otherwise unconscious sensation.
4. I am dubious about Heathwood's reply. It seems to me that just as a matter of ordinary English usage ‘aware’ is not ambiguous in the alleged way. I see no reason to think that the word ‘aware’ ever has the sense of ‘weakly aware’. If a person were not at all conscious of a certain sound, and then when that sound ceased, the person realized that it was gone, he could say ‘I was utterly unaware of the sound until it ceased’. A person could be completely, in every sense of the word, unaware of a sound while still being such that if it were to cease, he would notice that it had ceased. Surely it is misleading to say that there is a kind of awareness that is present when in fact all that is present is the mere disposition to notice the cessation of a sensation of which the subject had not been at all aware.
Suppose a creative philosopher wanted to make poor people happier. Suppose he were to say that ‘wealthy’ has two senses. There is the familiar strong sense of ‘wealthy’ in which it means ‘actually has a lot of money or other assets’. Of course, poor people are not wealthy in this sense. But the creative philosopher might claim that there is a weak sense of ‘wealthy’ in which it means ‘would have been strongly wealthy if he had made much wiser investment decisions in his youth’. Now the creative philosopher can offer some solace to his poor friends. He can tell them that in spite of the fact that they have no money, they are actually quite wealthy (in the weak sense).
I suspect that the poor friends will not be impressed. First, they might say, there is no such ordinary sense of the term ‘wealthy’. And furthermore, if it is introduced as a neologism, it will be misleading since weak wealthiness is consistent with everything we would naturally describe as abject poverty.
The same is true of weak awareness of pleasure. Suppose a person goes through her whole life in unmitigated misery, never having had even the briefest moment of conscious pleasure. Suppose the only pleasures she ever had remained utterly unconscious. Now as her life is coming to a close a creative hedonist informs her that in fact she has led an outstandingly good life. The dying person responds: ‘How can you – a hedonist – say that? I have never experienced any pleasure; it has been steady misery’. ‘It's easy,’ says the hedonist. ‘You just have to acknowledge the distinction between the familiar concept of strong awareness of pleasure and the novel concept of weak awareness of pleasure. There have been many occasions on which it was true that if an unconscious pleasure had ceased, you would have noticed the cessation. Thus you were often weakly conscious of many intense pleasures. Therefore sensory hedonism implies that you have led a life high in personal welfare.’
Surely the person coming to the end of a life in which she was never actually aware of any pleasure would not be buoyed by these considerations.
5. What's really wrong with Bramble's objection is the original assumption that there are unconscious pleasures and pains. Sorting this out will require reflection on the phenomenology of our experience of the passage of time.
There is something funny about saying that a subject could first begin to notice a certain sensation only at the moment when it ceases. Suppose a person is ‘experiencing’ a pleasure of which she is entirely unaware during some period of time. Suppose that at a certain instant the unconscious pleasure suddenly ceases. Now the person is no longer experiencing that pleasure – the one of which she was not conscious during the time it was happening. Assume, to make the case simpler, that as far as possible the person's experience is otherwise not affected. It strikes me that it will be impossible for the person to notice any change in her experience at the moment of cessation. It's hard to imagine how things could seem any different to her after the cessation. After all, she was ‘entirely unaware’ of the pleasure beforehand, and she was entirely unaware of it afterwards. Everything else remains the same. How could the cessation of the pleasure make any difference?
Cessation of a background sound is a familiar phenomenon. It shouldn't be quite so paradoxical. And I think it is really not paradoxical. It just requires a somewhat more detailed account of the relevant phenomenology. I think that further reflection on Haybron's refrigerator will help to clear this up.
When I reflect on my own experience of the cessation of background noises like Haybron's refrigerator, I think I discern three importantly different stretches of time. First there is a period of time during which the refrigerator is whining but I am not aware of it. If we assume that my auditory system is in good working order, we can stipulate that there are various sound-related vibrations going on in my ears and perhaps some electrical goings-on in my auditory nerves. But for Bramble's argument to work, we must assume that I am entirely unaware of the sound. I am preoccupied, or have grown accustomed to the sound, or am otherwise not paying attention. As a result, the sound is not part of my conscious experience.Footnote 13 Then there is a transitional phase during which the compressor is shutting down. As the compressor slows down, the noise it makes changes. The change in sound catches my attention. Thus, the sound of the refrigerator comes into consciousness. The sound itself may be decreasing in intensity and annoyingness, but I am now aware of it. This transitional phase is not a mere instant that marks the transition from no awareness of sound to full awareness of absence of sound. Rather, the transition is gradual and takes up a period of time as the compressor slows down and stops. During this phase, I may note the decreasing noise and annoyingness. I may come to think that the refrigerator must have been making the noise previously (during Phase One) and that it's likely that the sound had been having an effect on my auditory system. I may imagine what it would have been like to have heard that sound. Then in Phase Three the sound of the refrigerator has ceased. The vibrations in the auditory system have ceased as well. I may take pleasure in the fact that the annoying noise that I heard during Phase Two is no longer to be heard. I may also take pleasure in the fact that I didn't hear it at all during Phase One.
If this account is right, there are no ‘unconscious pains’ in Haybron's refrigerator example. During Phase One there is a lot going on in my auditory system. Since none of it has entered my consciousness, it would be reasonable to say that it is ‘unconscious’ but unreasonable to say that it is ‘pain’. It's just the underlying activity of the auditory system that would have been experienced as unpleasant sound if I had been aware of it. But Bramble has stipulated that I was entirely unaware of it. So there is no unconscious pain during Phase One.
My condition during Phase One is in an important respect like the condition of a person who is undergoing surgery while anaesthetized. Lots of interesting things are going on in his nervous system. Fortunately for him, the anaesthesia prevents him from being aware of them. Thus, it would be a mistake to say that he is experiencing pain. The same should be said about someone who is not aware of the annoying sound of a refrigerator.
During Phase Two there is quickly decreasing auditory pain. During this phase I am aware of the fading sounds. Now we can describe the sounds as painful (or at least unpleasant) since I take intrinsic attitudinal displeasure in those sounds. But there is no reason to describe the displeasure as ‘unconscious’ since I am conscious of the sounds throughout Phase Two. Thus, there is no unconscious pain during Phase Two.
In Phase Three the whining of the refrigerator has stopped and I no longer experience the unpleasant sounds. Since the sounds are no longer taking place, I no longer take displeasure in them. Thus there is no unconscious pain during Phase Three. I conclude that there is nothing in Haybron's refrigerator to support the idea that there are unconscious sensory pains.
6. In his statement of the alleged problem, Bramble also mentioned a case due to Oliver Sacks.Footnote 14 The case involves a person who lost his sense of smell. When he noticed that his sense of smell was gone, he began to miss it. Bramble described the situation by saying that the subject realized that he had previously enjoyed a lot of different aromas, but had not been conscious of those pleasures when they occurred. His realization of their pleasantness arose only when they were gone. This is alleged to show that the subject previously had been enjoying some unconscious aromatic pleasures. Attitudinal theories of pleasure are allegedly unable to explain why they were pleasures.
I am uneasy about the idea that these unconscious aromatic experiences are really pleasures. Imagine a life filled with unconscious aromatic experiences. Imagine further that aside from these experiences the subject never has any pleasures or pains. Surely the subject would not be impressed if a hedonist were to tell him that he has had lots of pleasant sensations and thus that he has enjoyed a life of high personal welfare. If he was never aware of any of these aromatic experiences, they seem not to be the sort of thing that a sensory hedonist has in mind when he says that pleasant sensations are welfare enhancing.
Perhaps the sensory hedonist would agree that unconscious sensory pleasures do not enhance welfare. But he might nevertheless claim that there are such things. Even this seems wrong to me. It strikes me that there could not be ‘experiences that we don't experience’, or ‘feelings that we don't feel’, or ‘sensations of which we are entirely unaware’. I think the just-mentioned subject would be equally unimpressed if he were told that his life had been filled with pleasant sensations that he never felt even if he were furthermore assured that in virtue of their never having been felt, they were worthless. Worthless, never experienced, unfelt experiences that are nevertheless sensory pleasures? Surely something has gone wrong here. It seems as implausible as the notion that the anaesthetized patient suffered many intense but unconscious pains while undergoing surgery.
Someone who believes in unconscious pleasures might claim that the presence of aromatic substances in the air causes the subject to have an unconscious aromatic experience; and that that aromatic experience is a sensory pleasure (though an unconscious one). I think there are better ways to explain how the presence of an aromatic substance in the atmosphere can enhance someone's welfare even if the subject does not smell it.
A more plausible option involves claiming that the subject's welfare is higher as a result of the fact that when they are affecting the subject's nervous system, these aromatic substances are able to enhance the pleasureableness of other experiences – ones of which the subject is conscious.Footnote 15 Perhaps the peanuts taste better when the smell of peanuts is in the air. This could happen even if the subject were not aware of the smell.
Why might someone think that the experiences of Sack's anosmic show that there are unconscious pleasures? Perhaps the subject previously noticed and enjoyed a bunch of aromas. Suppose, however, that he never stopped to smell the roses. Then, when he becomes anosmic, he is regretful about the aromatic experiences that he missed. He might say to himself: ‘I wish now that I had paid more attention to the smell of roses. I would have enjoyed those sensations. So I'm sorry that I missed out on those pleasures.’ This might be taken to mean that he actually had some unconscious pleasures, but regrets that he failed to pay attention to them. On the other hand, when he says that he missed out on some pleasures, he might mean only that as a result of failing to pay attention, he didn't have certain experiences that would have been pleasures; not that there were some experiences that were pleasures, but of which he was not conscious.
Thus, there are ways to accommodate the experiences of Sacks's anosmic without appealing to unconscious pleasures.
7. There is still more we can say in response to Bramble's objection.
Bramble said (in effect) that unconscious pleasures make trouble for the attitudinalist because it's impossible for a person to have de re attitudes towards sensations of which the person is not conscious. But there is a further response for the attitudinalist: he just has to draw a distinction between familiar conscious attitudes and unconscious attitudes. An unconscious attitude – desire, belief, or attitudinal pleasure – is just like its more familiar conscious cousin. The only difference is that the subject is not aware of it when it happens. Examples of unconscious attitudes are not utterly novel: we speak easily about ‘unconscious bias’. Without being conscious of this fact about himself, a person might take himself to be superior to individuals of other races, or religions, or genders. In an earlier era, those who believed in psychoanalysis talked confidently about unconscious fears, or desires, or fixations. Thus, there is nothing shocking about the idea that a person might have an attitude of which he is not aware. Once this is recognized, another possible reply on behalf of the attitudinalist comes to mind.Footnote 16
Some attitudinalists claim that a sensation counts as a pleasure only if the subject takes intrinsic de re attitudinal pleasure in the fact he has it when he has it. But they can go on to claim that it makes no difference whether the attitudinal pleasure is conscious or not. Even unconscious attitudinal pleasure suffices to make a sensation count as a sensory pleasure. Thus, attitudinalists can claim that a sensation counts as a sensory pleasure iff the subject takes de re intrinsic attitudinal pleasure (whether conscious or unconscious) in the fact that he has it when he has it. So the subject in Sacks's anosmia example may be said to have taken de re intrinsic attitudinal pleasure in the smells of which he was not aware. And if he did, and even if this attitudinal pleasure were unconscious, this permits attitudinalists to say that those unconscious sensations were sensory pleasures.Footnote 17
Perhaps a critic will be doubtful about the existence of unconscious de re attitudinal pleasure, displeasure and desire. But if there can be unconscious pleasurable sensations, and there can be other unconscious attitudes, why can't there be unconscious attitudinal pleasure, displeasure and desire?Footnote 18
