Abstract

Pleasure is standardly conceived as a state that motivates. This chapter considers three accounts of disinterested pleasure as motivating. On one, it motivates strictly internal states because it is non-conceptual. On a second, it motivates strictly internal states because the link between motivating internal states and world-oriented acts has been inhibited. On the third, it motivates only contemplative acts. All three accounts are coherent. However, none of the three accounts of disinterested pleasure is an account of aesthetic pleasure, where aesthetic pleasure serves either to demarcate aesthetic values or to explain why facts about aesthetic value are reason-giving. The conclusion is that we have no reason to appeal to disinterested pleasure in aesthetics.