How to Unify Theories of Sensory Pleasure:

ABSTRACT. A lot of qualitatively very different sensations can be pleasant or unpleasant. The Felt-Quality Views that conceive of sensory affect as having an introspectively available common phenomenology or qualitative character face the “heterogeneity problem ” of specifying what that qualitative common phenomenology is. In contrast, according to the Attitudinal Views, what is common to all pleasant or unpleasant sensations is that they are all “wanted ” or “unwanted ” in a certain sort of way. The commonality is explained not on the basis of phenomenology but by a common mental, usually some sort of conative, attitude toward the sensation. Here I criticize both views and offer an alternative framework that combines what is right in both while avoiding their unintuitive commitments. The result is the reductive (psychofunctionalist) adverbial sensory modification view of pleasure and displeasure. I like tasting slightly chilled ripe strawberries on a hot summer day. I like the smell of a warm Ciabatta loaf just taken out of the oven. I like stroking the hair of my cat peacefully purring on my lap. I like hearing the laughter of my son. What, phenomenologically, unites these otherwise very different sensory episodes when I categorize them as pleasant? Similarly, I intensely dislike the sound and the feel of my fingernails scraping the chalkboard. I dislike the smell of rotten fish in my garbage. I dislike the taste of spoile