Free Republic

Lust has been wrongly branded a vice and should be "reclaimed for humanity" as a life-affirming virtue, according to a top philsopher. Professor Simon Blackburn of Cambridge University is trying to "rescue" lust, arguing it has been wrongly condemned for centuries, the Sunday Times says. His campaign is part of an Oxford University Press project on the modern relevance of the seven deadly sins. The list of sins was drawn up by Pope Gregory the Great in the 6th Century. OUP has commissioned books on each of the sins - lust, anger, envy, gluttony, sloth, pride and greed. Controlling...

A philosophy of pleasure. Roger Scruton National Review, April 18, 1994 v46 n7 pS1(2) Brief Summary: Pleasure has become unfairly associated with evil and perversion due to unsound theories by people such as Freud and Nietzsche. As a result, feelings and creations have become dehumanized and unpleasurable. Pleasure, as both intellectual and physical stimulation, makes for happier humans. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HUMAN PLEASURE may be sensual, like the pleasure of a hot bath, or intellectual, like the pleasure of mathematical proof. But the pleasures that matter most to us, and that shape our lives and personalities, are neither purely sensual nor purely...