Question As the Lays Potato chip ad goes, "bet you can't just eat one." Yet I will sometimes find myself eating potato chips even when they no longer taste good. Why do we continue to desire things that when they no longer give us pleasure?

Accepted:
May 13, 2010

Comments

I think that what philosophers call "moral psychology" (the analysis of why people act as they do, where by "act" we mean behavior that is voluntary, rather than involuntary) would hold that the relevant factors here are a bit more complex. Some eating is, as you suggest, simply a matter of pursuing the pleasures of taste. But the whole notion of "comfort food," for example (which which I hope you are familiar) adds yet another factor--namely, that eating some foods provides us with a sense of comfort that is at least somewhat independent from the special pleasures of taste. Eating can also be habitual, and the very act of eating (even when we are not hungry or not enjoying the taste of what we are eating) can provide us with a sense of well-being. In brief, then, I think the explanation of why we pursue things even when they no longer give us pleasure will probably be very complex indeed, because our psychologies of desire are not as simple as just pleasure-seeking of a single, simple kind.

Question As the Lays Potato chip ad goes, "bet you can't just eat one." Yet I will sometimes find myself eating potato chips even when they no longer taste good. Why do we continue to desire things that when they no longer give us pleasure? Accepted:May 13, 2010

Question As the Lays Potato chip ad goes, "bet you can't just eat one." Yet I will sometimes find myself eating potato chips even when they no longer taste good. Why do we continue to desire things that when they no longer give us pleasure?

Accepted:
May 13, 2010