I have an old cat who has stopped going into battle with other cats because he knows sitting on his sheepskin rug in front of the fire is a much better deal. In the sense that animals and humans share a lot of the same instincts, why is conservation of pleasure not a strong determinant of human behaviour? People who go to war end up bloody, muddy, and amputated. Why is that more appealing than a nice warm bed, sex, alcohol, no pain and a full set of limbs? Sounds stupid as usual but I have never seen references to this in the science-lite stuff I am so fond of reading. Would a person who experiences a great amount of pleasure be more willing to conserve it?
Some people derive their pleasure from adrenaline. They figure risking their lives is more exciting than sitting around and getting drunk.
Other soldiers are so blindly patriotic that they’ll forego the pleasures of said drunkenness to help out their country - and that’s commendable. We’d probably all be speaking German if it weren’t for them.
Still others are forced into war via drafts and financial necessity. They’d rather be enjoying themselves, but they have responsibilities.
Personally, if I was drafted I’d high-tail it to Canada faster than you can say “B.C. buds.” But then, I’m a pussy. 
It’s more on a pleasure/pain level I was asking. Drafts and finance weren’t supposed to be a part of it. I could rephrase it like this: Would a recreational opium/heroin addict who has 5 orgasms a day, good food and clean, comfortable living conditions be inclined to aggression or not? The heroin, for the purpose of asking this question is freely available. I could also rephrase it like this - how many orgasms does a non-aggressive person have a year? Do they have more than the aggressive? How many do you have? I have become a pervert, you see, since I registered here.
Well, first of all, opiate addicts tend to lose interest in sex altogether. Second, a “recreational addict” is a contradiction in terms, wouldn’t you say?
I get your point, though.
I think sex would be best left out of this equation, since it’s something everybody loves, agressive or not. Only difference is that the soldiers are nailing hookers and random foreign women instead of girlfriends and wives.
Really, people simply derive pleasure from different things. I don’t think an opiate addict would ever go to war. Nor do I think that those who enjoy war would enjoy heroin. My wife is doing her clinicals in nursing and she’s shocked by the number of people who refuse morphine or demarol despite their excruciating pain. Now some of this may have to do with unfounded fears of addiction (very, VERY few people who receive opiates for treatment of acute illnesses become addicted), but others simply find that living their lives (despite the bumps and bruises) to be more fulfilling than laying around and getting high.
I like to think I occupy a niche in a nice middle ground between the two. I prefer mental challenges to physical ones, though. But I sure do love to lay around and get stoned!
A philosopher of some sort (someone like Rousseau) believed that is the natural state of human beings. Do you know who that was? He thought that if governments didn’t exercise control of commodities like drugs, sex, etc then people would be content to lay around on hot rocks in the sun all day long getting it all for free. He believed road building, architectural design and motivation generally to be anathema to human beings on some level.
What about this… perhaps sometimes people become aggressive when they perceive a threat to their comfort?
Let’s take your previous example of the 5-orgasm a day drug-junkie… suppose Mr. Civic-Minded came in and said that continuous sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll are bad, and takes said sources of pleasure away. Will Mr. Horny Junkie just kick back and let it happen? Hell no, he’s gonna fight for his right to party.
In addition, keep in mind that different people take pleasure in a vast realm of sources… some take pleasure in pain, for example… so it’s only natural for a “system” to emerge where one person withstands a little bit of unpleasantness with the expectation of getting a relatively reliable form of “pleasure” (be it food, drink, or song) in the future. The key word is “reliable”… as much as I wish it were possible (oh, how I do wish) to just stay at home playing computer games while getting a Lewinksi, it’d take a huge amount of work in order to get to that state.
So I guess, ultimately, there’s a balance of “pleasure” and “pain” that generally becomes set, and things like war are instigated because it’s believed (by some, anyway) that greater “pleasure” will come afterwards.
I hope I helped. It’s 2:30 AM, and I’m tired… 
That’s about the best answer I ever got to my questions. I’m still thinking about it. Right now I see it like this though: Postwar pleasure might well depend on a different sort of Lewinsky to one that could make you pre-war housecalls. You might be looking for one with an interest in holes where no holes should be. From a woman’s point of view I can’t see how walking the Thin Red Line is necessarily a road to sustained sexual attractiveness and therefore a pleasure payoff. I don’t even risk laying out in the sun.
I’m moving this to Great Debates.
Are you asking if the human being, as an individual is by nature a non aggressive creature?
Or if human beings, as a collective society, are by nature non aggressive?
The answer to the first, I suspect is that there are many variations within our species. Some, arguably are non aggressive (M. Ghandi for example), some, arguably as well, are not (any serial killer for example).
The second, also is dependant on variations. There seem to be some subsets of our species who seem to value non aggression as a trait, while others do not.
If all specific creature needs were provided for each and every single human, would we still see aggressive behavior? I suspect we would since the variations are nearly endless, as well as the differing perceptions of what constitues “all specific creature needs”
So perhaps some clarification on your musings would be in order?
I’m asking: Is a person who experiences a great deal of pleasure on a regular basis likely to be more or less inclined to aggressive behaviour?
I was once given a good telling-off by a philosophy graduate who regarded my attitude to “drugging the enemy” as one of the most immoral they had heard. But how many people don’t think right now that crop-dusting the Palestinians with something nice would be a good idea - in the short term anyway? If that is considered evil by those who know maybe that’s a sacrifice to make in the end anyway. I vote for a world of Wayne and Garths willing to share their stash rather than the post-apocalyptic nightmare it’s going to be if someone doesn’t do something soon. Nobody wins unless everybody wins. Nobody grows a tumour the size of a pumpkin out of the side of their head unless everybody grows a tumour…
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well, from my observations, it varies widely from individual to individual. I’ve seen people who seemed to have “everything”, who were still dissatisfied, unhappy, aggressive about getting more.
Now, here you seem to be talking specifically about drugging people to remove aggression. Well, it certainly has it’s advocates in mental institutions. Is it a moral thing to do? well, I suspect many questions would follow -circumstances for example - if some one has violent outburst and tend to harm themselves and others during these, I suppose at least a temporary drugging to reduce that is justified.
For me, there’s too many variables involved here to come up with a cohesive position statement - depends on circumstances, individual etc.
In some circumstances, acting on aggressive impulses can be pleasurable. There are those who talk about “the thrill of a fight,” and the term “battle lust” has been in the English language for quite some time.
Even your old lethargic cat used to get into fights with other cats, right? Maybe he even initiated them some of the time? As neutron star said, some people derive their pleasure from adrenaline.
That’s a strange thing to say. If it weren’t for them, the Germans never would have been a threat.
Maybe potential loss cannot be communicated for some reason. Graphic anti-car accident advertisements have been around for awhile now. As gory as possible to scare as many people as possible. They don’t have all that much effect. There may be psychological reasons preventing people from seeing themselves as potential victims. War movies have been around for as long as modern warfare. Realistic stuff like Private Ryan etc, being relatively recent. Real news footage has always been there. Who ever learned anything from them? Why did men never learn anything from the personal accounts of other men? Smokers are said to have this same block to seeing themselves as cancer victims.
The germans are and were never a threat.
Don’t nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles count for anything? The Germans had the latter and were working on the former.
I think it’s pretty commonly accepted now that soldiers aren’t motivated by “patriotism,” but generally fight for survival and the success and survival of their friends. I doubt most WWII soldiers kept slogging it out because they were “blindly patriotic” - those I’ve spoken to said they kept fighting because the alternative was dying, and refusing to fight meant prison or getting shot anyway.