The Pleasure Instinct: Why We Crave Adventure, Chocolate, Pheromones, and Music

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Copyright © 2009 by Gene V. Wallenstein. All rights reserved

 

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada

 

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Wallenstein, Gene, date.
The pleasure instinct : why we crave adventure, chocolate, pheromones, and music /
Gene Wallenstein.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.

eISBN : 978-0-470-47548-5

1. Pleasure. I. Title.
BF515.W29 2008
152.4’2—dc22
2008041537

Acknowledgments

Whatever good the reader finds in this book can be traced to those who have, in one way or another, taught me over the past couple of decades about human nature. To those who have inspired me (and countless others) through the years with their lectures, conversations, writings, and generous time, I thank John Allman, David Barash, Kent Berridge, T. Berry Brazelton, David Buss, Michael Cabanac, Michael Crawford, Richard Davidson, Richard Dawkins, Terrence Deacon, Irven DeVore, Jared Diamond, Ellen Dissanayake, Robin Dunbar, Paul Ekman, Howard Eichenbaum, Nancy Etcoff, Steven Gangestad, Fred Gage, Elizabeth Gould, Steven Jay Gould, William Greenough, Dean Hamer, William Hamilton, Michael Hasselmo, Marc Hauser, Dee Higley, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Nicholas Humphrey, Thomas Insel, Victor Johnston, Jerome Kagan, J.A. Scott Kelso, Ray Kesner, Melvin Konner, Judith Langlois, Joseph LeDoux, Paul MacLean, John Manning, Andrew Meltzoff, Michael Merzenich, Geoffrey Miller, Steven Mithen, Sheri Mizumori, Anders Moller, Allan Nash, Ulric Neisser, Charles Nemeroff, Jaak Panksepp, Steven Pinker, Mark Ridley, Terry Robinson, Norman Rosenthal, Michael Ryan, Robert Sapolsky, Ellen Ruppel Shell, Devandra Singh, Georg Striedter, Donald Symons, Randy Thornhill, Sandra Trehub, Robert Trivers, Leslie Ungerleider, Ann Wallenstein, Greg Wallenstein, Claus Wedekind, George Williams, E. O. Wilson, Roy Wise,Amotz Zahavi, and Robert Zatorre.

I also wish to thank my editor at John Wiley & Sons, Christel Winkler; my literary agent, Jim Hornfischer; and Tom Miller at Wiley for their invaluable encouragement and steadfast commitment to the project.

My dear wife, Melissa, is owed a level of gratitude that is impossible to repay. Her love, companionship, support, and intellectual stimulation have been at the core of my life for the past fifteen years and have provided continual inspiration during the writing of this book. Finally, for teaching me what is most profound about human nature, I wish to thank my beautiful children, to whom this book is dedicated.

—William Shakespeare,
The Merchant of Venice

—Melvin Konner,
The Tangled Wing

 

 

 

Why does pleasure exist?

Beyond academic circles one seldom hears this question. In daily life, as we move through the minutiae of meetings, ready the kids for school, manage a household, and take care of the basic necessities, we’re more likely to seek new ways to pursue pleasure than ponder its existence. Pleasure, like fear and fire, is a natural force that humans have sought to harness and control since their beginnings. The pleasure instinct—evolution’s ancient tool for prodding us in the directions that maximize our reproductive success—has created a staggering panorama of behaviors, pathologies, and cultural idioms in our modern lives that often bewilder and beguile.

This book is a biography of sorts, a chronicle of the relationship between humans and pleasure. As the story is told, we will address some of the deepest questions that have been asked about human nature through recorded history and undoubtedly beyond. To understand pleasure, we must know its history and evolution. How is it that the human mind experiences pleasure in mere shapes and colors, textures and touch, myths and stories? Why does humor relieve tension? Why does music invigorate us—to dance, swoon, make love, or march off to battle—while many other noises leave no mark? Why do social attachments make us feel good? Do other animals experience pleasure? Why do we find babies so darn cute? And how is it possible that pleasurable feelings can be elicited from such an astonishingly wide array of events ranging from the mother’s gaze at her newborn to the addict’s anticipation of his next high?

Philosophers and spiritual leaders have debated the value and nature of pleasure for centuries, often comparing it to its more abiding sibling, happiness.The two are related, of course, but most of us, from saint to sinner, have never doubted which of the pair would make the best honeymoon companion. Happiness is often said to be a “gift for making the most of life” or “enjoying the simple things.” Pleasure is a hedonistic reflex, a burning impulse to abandon rational thought altogether and immerse oneself in the moment. Happiness is an abstraction, constructed from our social and moral identities—a carefree stroll on the beach, 2.3 children and a white picket fence, a sense of accomplishment. The pleasure instinct, like the survival instinct, is pure biological imperative fueled by an ephemeral reward so fevered and beautiful with desire that it can drive us to extraordinary lengths. Happiness is a Norman Rockwell painting hanging over your fireplace on a cold winter’s eve. Pleasure is the warmth and aesthetic beauty of the flames, the heat beating on your skin.

Pleasure is experienced in a multitude of colorful ways—the ecstasy of a sexual encounter, the epicurean delight of chocolate, the delivery of a punch line.Yet despite this it has a central core of universal features that cuts across all human cultures and historic periods. In this respect, we are all deeply connected by both the gifts and constraints that natural selection and adaptation have afforded us.

We live in an antidepression era, dominated by a seemingly insatiable appetite for happiness, and it is critically important to our individual and societal health (and happiness) to understand why this is the case.We can’t get no satisfaction. We go on spiritual quests, read all the right books, join health spas, travel, buy new cars, eat out, watch cable TV. We all want a piece of it—bliss, elation, cheer, the primrose path, spice, titillation, glee, exuberance, mirth, joy, and jubilation. How about vice, addiction, lust, malfeasance, adultery, a monkey on your back, obsession, and perversion? Our modern brains, forged from the grist of evolution’s mill during our stay as hunter-gatherers, must deal with contemporary conditions that are radically different from—and in some cases in direct opposition to—the ancestral environments in which more than 97 percent of our history has been lived. Thus the importance of understanding why pleasure evolved, how the context and selection factors that shaped its evolution differ vastly from the environmental circumstances we face today, and the personal and societal consequences of these differences cannot be overstated. And certainly not ignored.

Pleasure is not an epiphenomenon, a lucky happenstance of neurons being in the right place and firing at the right time. It has evolved to serve a very specific and adaptive set of functions from our distant past. The genes that encourage the expression and feeling of pleasure are success stories of natural selection—they are still around. Therefore, in our quest to understand the psychological, biological, and cultural foundations of pleasure in the modern world, we must consider what problems pleasure solved for our ancestors. If the pleasures did not provide a functional solution to some selection factors faced by our earlier brethren, the genes that shape their expression and feeling would be long gone, into the dustbin of ecological time like most others.

Understandably, some people twinge when Darwinism and human nature are mentioned in the same breath—Darwin himself made virtually no reference to humans in his great work
The Origin of Species
. Our fear, perhaps, lies in what we foresee as a sterile, eugenic existence such as that thrust upon the characters in Aldous Huxley’s
Brave New World
. Most of us genuinely resent the notion that our behaviors, thoughts, and feelings—the very ingredients that make humans extraordinary—are shaped, even in part, by biological and genetic factors. We refuse to accept that our genes chain us to a destiny preordained by proteins. But, as we’ll see throughout this book, nothing in modern Darwinian theory claims this to be the case. Indeed, understanding why emotions evolved, particularly the pleasure instinct, can have a profound and positive impact on daily life by showing readers how pleasure influences the way we make aesthetic, social, and moral choices, and learn from our mistakes.