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Full Idea
Animals of both sexes cease to have intercourse after impregnation; that shows how little animals value pleasure, and that nature is all that counts.
Gist of Idea
Animals don't value pleasure, as they cease sexual intercourse after impregnation
Source
Plutarch (64: Gryllus - on Rationality in Animals [c.85], 990d)
Book Ref
Plutarch: 'Essays', ed/tr. Waterfield,Robin [Penguin 1992], p.394
A Reaction
A famous monkey had an implant to stimulate pleasure, and a button to trigger it. It apparently would have starved to death rather than release the button. Animal sex is dull?
| 134 | Good and bad people seem to experience equal amounts of pleasure and pain [Plato] |
| 361 | It is a mistake to think that the most violent pleasure or pain is therefore the truest reality [Plato] |
| 386 | Intense pleasure and pain are not felt in a good body, but in a worthless one [Plato] |
| 328 | Everything that takes place naturally is pleasant [Plato] |
| 49 | Character is revealed by the pleasures and pains people feel [Aristotle] |
| 53 | Feeling inappropriate pleasure or pain affects conduct, and is central to morality [Aristotle] |
| 3563 | Pleasure and virtue entail one another [Epicurus] |
| 506 | Immoderate desire is the mark of a child, not an adult [Democritus (attr)] |
| 5705 | Nature only wants two things: freedom from pain, and pleasure [Lucretius] |
| 13301 | We are scared of death - except when we are immersed in pleasure! [Seneca] |
| 1478 | Animals don't value pleasure, as they cease sexual intercourse after impregnation [Plutarch] |
| 3777 | Pleasure and pain control all human desires and duties [Bentham] |
| 24166 | Pleasure serves to maintain our relationship with its source [Cochrane] |