We are suspicious of pleasure. It may because the Christian tradition has often regarded pleasure as sinful, or perhaps because a person chasing pleasure is likely to neglect work and responsibilities, or because we perceive that there is an inverse correlation between pleasure and health. The author Bill Bryson famously said that the British (specifically) feel that "any pleasure involving more than a cup of milky tea and a chocolate digestive biscuit is somehow irreligiously excessive.” I argued in my book on happiness that many believe in the fallacy of a “pleasure economy,” according to which life can only be extended by renouncing and containing hedonism, just like the virtuous renounced all the dissipations of the flesh in order to access paradise in more religious times than ours. In this way, a wholesome and unpleasurable diet, in conjunction with daily, and equally unpleasurable and strenuous exercise, will earn us the right to prolong our lives, while indulging in unearned and therefore illicit pleasure (such as alcohol, fats, and sugar) will be punished with an early death.

Moral Barriers To Pleasure

Pleasurable things are good for us. In moderation, of course. We like fats and sugar precisely because our ancestors in their pre-industrial times worried about not getting enough food, a much more immediate threat to their survival than the very remote possibility of acquiring obesity-induced diabetes. The reason why we like sex is even more obvious: reproduction is a crucial requirement of life, so it needs to be rewarded with generous helpings of pleasure. However, every society and culture has felt the need to tame sexual desires with the issuing of moral rules, in order to avoid social chaos. As far as eating is concerned,........

© Psychology Today