"Pleasure is never settled. Indeed, pleasure itself suggests a process, a fluidity, a striving. Pleasure once attained, whether bodily or intellectual, tends not to last. It is pleasing to kick your opponent’s ass at chess; it is pleasing to have finished working out – but, like the great majority of pleasures, these quickly fade, then to be sought after again. It is the seeking – the pursuit – of pleasure that usually matters more than the nature of pleasure itself. Behaviour, always tinged with ethical value, is more shaped by the seeking and maintenance of pleasure than anything else."
The fact that pleasure is fleeting is why both Plato and Aristotle reject pleasure as that-which-man-is-made-for (to use Scholastic language, man's final end, his telos). People pursue pleasure because they think ... it will make them happy. People reject the world and become hermits because they think it will make them happy. People become tyrants, become artists, become saints, because they think it will make them happy. Happiness is not sought for any other reason.
But that kicks the can down the road. What is happiness, this thing which is sought for its own sake by all mankind equally?
The fact that pleasure is fleeting is why both Plato and Aristotle reject pleasure as that-which-man-is-made-for (to use Scholastic language, man's final end, his telos). People pursue pleasure because they think ... it will make them happy. People reject the world and become hermits because they think it will make them happy. People become tyrants, become artists, become saints, because they think it will make them happy. Happiness is not sought for any other reason.
But that kicks the can down the road. What is happiness, this thing which is sought for its own sake by all mankind equally?
That, detective, is the right question.
Program terminated.