In the world of neurophysiology, the terms “comfort” and “pleasure” have quite different meanings although the two are often closely related. We say “closely related” in order to make reference to the fact that both aim at securing a negative good: freedom from plain, unpleasantness, or discomfort. However, comfort and pleasure differ in the sense that comfort has to do with a level of arousal and depends on whether arousal is or is not at its optimum level, while feelings of pleasure are created by changes in the arousal level. In other words, comfort and discomfort have to do with the speed, pleasure with the acceleration and deceleration of one’s emotions. In order to further study the differences between comfort and pleasure, the chapter analyzes the topics of “the seduction of pleasure”, “the seduction of comfort”, “free choice between comfort and pleasure”, and “comfort and stimulation”.
