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Single Idea 6212

[filed under theme 25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 5. Sexual Morality ]

Full Idea

Lust consists of two appetites together, to please, and to be pleased, and the delight men take in delighting is not sensual, but a pleasure or joy of the mind consisting in the imagination of the power they have so much to please.

Gist of Idea

Lust involves pleasure, and also the sense of power in pleasing others

Source

Thomas Hobbes (Human Nature [1640], Ch.IX)

Book Ref

'British Moralists 1650-1800 Vol. 1', ed/tr. Raphael,D.D. [Hackett 1991], p.11

A Reaction

Hobbes would rather burst a blood-vessel than admit any altruism. If you take pleasure in pleasing someone else, why can't that simply be because of the other person's pleasure, with which we sympathise, rather than relishing our own 'power'?

The 14 ideas with the same theme [social issues concerning sexual relationships]:

5846 A lover using force is a villain, but a seducer is much worse, because he corrupts character [Socrates, by Xenophon]
298 While sex is very pleasant, it should be in secret, as it looks contemptible [Plato]
1479 Animals have not been led into homosexuality, because they value pleasure very little [Plutarch]
6212 Lust involves pleasure, and also the sense of power in pleasing others [Hobbes]
21467 Would humanity still exist if sex wasn't both desired and pleasurable? [Schopenhauer]
18302 Man and woman are deeply strange to one another! [Nietzsche]
19639 We all need sexual secrets! [Cioran]
20890 Why do sexual relationships need permanence, if other relationships don't? [Punzo]
20891 Does engaging in sexual intercourse really need no more thought than playing tennis? [Punzo]
20888 Rape of children is dreadful, but no one thinks children should have a right of consent [Foa]
20887 A rape disregards the status of being a person - but so does all assault [Foa]
20889 If men should lust and women shouldn't, that makes rape the prevalent sexual model [Foa]
23113 Sexual morality doesn't require monogamy, but it needs a group of sensible regulations [Kekes]
18554 Prostitution is wrong because it hardens the soul, since soul and body are one [Scruton]