People will tell you that humans always and only ever do what brings them pleasure.
Actually, Paul Dolan’s book “Happiness by Design” offers a better theory: that humans are motivated by two broad classes of feelings that we can dub “pleasure” and “purpose”, and that both are required for happiness. In practice, of course, each of these broad classes contains many, many, sub-categories of emotion.
In general, human beings are easier to understand if you don’t try to treat them as utility maximizers. We don’t have only one stamp counter. (Or rather, we don’t have only one future-stamp-count-predictor, which is a good and correct point in your article. That is, that humans try to steer towards desirable states. I’m just pointing out that “desirable” includes a variety of metrics, many of which are better described as “purposeful” rather than pleasurable.)
Actually, Paul Dolan’s book “Happiness by Design” offers a better theory: that humans are motivated by two broad classes of feelings that we can dub “pleasure” and “purpose”, and that both are required for happiness. In practice, of course, each of these broad classes contains many, many, sub-categories of emotion.
In general, human beings are easier to understand if you don’t try to treat them as utility maximizers. We don’t have only one stamp counter. (Or rather, we don’t have only one future-stamp-count-predictor, which is a good and correct point in your article. That is, that humans try to steer towards desirable states. I’m just pointing out that “desirable” includes a variety of metrics, many of which are better described as “purposeful” rather than pleasurable.)