A Critique of Fakhr Rāzī's Theory of Painfulness of Sensational Pleasures

An old challenging issue in the history of philosophy has been the problem of pleasure and pain, and their relationship with true human happiness. Prominent moral philosophers have tried to explain their nature and their role in human happiness. Fakhr Rāzī has divided pleasures into the rational and the sensational, taking bodily pleasures to be essentially painful, removing one from perfection and true happiness. Fakhr Rāzī’s theory faces fundamental challenges, including the following: counterexamples from sensational pleasures, such pleasures being existent, rather than nonexistent, goodness of pleasures being modified by moderateness, pleasantness of repeating sensational pleasures ignoring their existential reality, that is, their agreement with the human nature.