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    Carmelics

    A reasoning platform. Break down any belief into clear reasons, explore both sides, and weigh the evidence honestly.

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Freedom from pain and from distress is a kind of pleasure, specifically the most complete pleasure.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Pleasure and pain are phenomenologically distinct experiential states, not merely positions on a single continuum.
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    • 2.The absence of pain lacks the positive qualitative character that defines pleasure as a genuine hedonic state.
      ?

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    • 3.Aristotle argues in NE X.3-4 that pleasure is an activity accompanying flourishing, not a static condition of deprivation's absence.
      ?

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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Cicero (De Finibus II.9-10) argues Epicurus illicitly redefines 'pleasure' to mean mere neutral quiescence, violating ordinary linguistic usage.
      ?

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    • 2.If absence of pain constitutes the 'most complete' pleasure, then dreamless sleep and unconsciousness would represent the highest human good.
      ?

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    • 3.A theory entailing that unconsciousness is the pinnacle of wellbeing contradicts the broadly defensible intuition that the good requires positive experiential content.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Katastematic pleasure refers to a state or condition, not a motion.
      ?

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    • 2.Freedom from pain and from distress is a state or condition.
      ?

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    • 3.Epicurus holds that this state qualifies as pleasure (Principal Doctrines III).
      ?

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    Strongest counterpoint
    Explore the most compelling reason on the other side.