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Single Idea 521

[filed under theme 22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / b. Types of pleasure ]

Full Idea

One should choose not every pleasure, but only that concerned with the beautiful.

Clarification

'Beauty' is the Greek word 'kalos', which also translates as 'fine'

Gist of Idea

We should only choose pleasures which are concerned with the beautiful

Source

Democritus (attrib) (reports [c.250 BCE], B207), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 3.05.22

Book Ref

'Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers', ed/tr. Freeman,Kathleen [Harvard 1957], p.111

A Reaction

The pleasures we should prefer are those which involve the whole person, rather than the mere stimulation of one sense. Sez me.

The 16 ideas with the same theme [what types of pleasure are there?]:

387 A small pure pleasure is much finer than a large one contaminated with pain [Plato]
2157 Nice smells are intensive, have no preceding pain, and no bad after-effect [Plato]
5230 There are pleasures of the soul (e.g. civic honour, and learning) and of the body [Aristotle]
383 God feels one simple pleasure forever [Aristotle]
5270 Intellectual pleasures are superior to sensuous ones [Aristotle]
1839 Pains of the soul are worse than pains of the body, because it feels the past and future [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius]
1842 Pleasures only differ in their duration and the part of the body affected [Epicurus]
3557 The end for Epicurus is static pleasure [Epicurus, by Annas]
505 Good and true are the same for everyone, but pleasures differ [Democritus (attr)]
521 We should only choose pleasures which are concerned with the beautiful [Democritus (attr)]
1838 Cyrenaic pleasure is a motion, but Epicurean pleasure is a condition [Diog. Laertius]
5271 Prejudice apart, push-pin has equal value with music and poetry [Bentham]
5934 Of Bentham's 'dimensions' of pleasure, only intensity and duration matter [Ross on Bentham]
8096 He gives his body up to pleasure, but not his soul [Joubert]
9196 The pleasure of existing is the only genuine pleasure [Hadot]
7498 Greeks and early Christians were much more concerned about food than about sex [Foucault]