pleasure principle

Definitions

The principle that human decisions and behavior are strongly motivated by the instinctual desire of the id, arising in infancy, to experience pleasure and avoid pain.

Equivalents

Examples

“Bork warns that America is in the grip of a radical individualism that recognizes no limit⟳ to the right of personal gratification, one for which the pleasure principle is the only principle that counts.”

“Health, too, was a consideration, though it was very much pleasure-principle health—the right to wring⟳ out every last⟳ throb of ecstasy from one's knackered organs.”

“They can’t seem to decide⟳ if the moral imperative is more crucial than the pleasure principle, or the other way around.”

“The pleasure principle is, on the whole, a sound⟳ one, then: having what you like⟳ is fine so long as you don't have⟳ too much of it in one go.”

CEFR level