If, let's pretend, that we were all born with no feelings of pleasure, then I think we could very well invent the words good and bad. If we were living lives in which we were surviving, problem solving, and benefiting the survival of others, then we could say that we have lives of good value and worth here.
But that is actually not what we would define as good and we would only be fooling ourselves into defining that as good without our feelings of pleasure. The good in our personal lives is defined as having an incentive (motivation) to live, live for others, etc. This incentive can only be defined through our feelings of pleasure. Our feelings of pleasure are the only things that motivate and inspire us in life. We cannot have motivation and inspiration just from our thinking alone without our feelings of pleasure. It would be no different than some type of living organism that has no pleasant emotions living. I will give an example which would be a virus or just a cell. These organisms are not motivated and are not inspired to live. They are only simply living based on the information they hold.
Therefore, in that same sense, we as human beings would also be living like those said organisms without our feelings of pleasure. We would only be living based on intelligence, knowledge, and information we have in our brains. This information is used for our survival and to benefit the survival of others. We would be like a conscious version of a virus and cell. Us being conscious still does not define our personalities and actions as us being motivated without our feelings of pleasure. Like I said, living like that would not be a good life worth living at all. One last thing here is that even if we recognize someone else's life as being good since they have pleasure, then even though we might have a good thought from that, that good thought would not be anything good to us without our feelings of pleasure. It is just a thought that is telling you that someone else's life is good. You could tell yourself the message that this other person's life being good is something good for you, but that is a false message.
If you have the thought that something is good to you in life without your feelings of pleasure, then you might ask me how that thought can't be anything good to you since it is obviously the thought of something being good to you. The answer to that would be that it just isn't reality. If it were the case that our thoughts hold true for us, then it would be no different than saying something delusional such as that there are fairies lurking about all around the world and you saying that this thought holds true for you. It would not be true and would only be delusional. Therefore, in that same sense, to say that it is true that a good thought regarding something good in your life can be good to you without your feelings of pleasure, then this would be deluded and false. The only thing that makes things good and worth living to us would be our feelings of pleasure.
Also, in order to live for others and bring them pleasure, then that has to be something good to you. It has to be something good and worth living to you. Otherwise, you wouldn't do it. Therefore, since it is only our feelings of pleasure that define our lives as good, then you should find no reason to live for others without your feelings of pleasure. As I said before, only our pleasant feelings motivate and inspire us. Us choosing to live and help others anyway without our feelings of pleasure is not what we would refer to as motivation or inspiration. This is because it would all be the "thinking" experience without our feelings of pleasure. It is just the experience of a thought of motivation/inspiration and not the actual experience of motivation/inspiration. We wouldn't be motivated/inspired at all without our feelings of pleasure. The areas of our brain that experience emotions of motivation/inspiration and pleasure, they are the only biological functions responsible for our motivation and reward in life. No other areas of our brain can motivate/inspire us without our feelings of motivation, inspiration, and pleasure.
Now psychological hedonism states that it is only our feelings of pleasure that motivate us and our feelings of pain that demotivate us. Only feelings of pleasure make our lives good and worth living while feelings of pain (suffering) make our lives bad.
If you say that it is not necessary to have an uplifting and optimistic tone towards a good message in order to have good value and worth in your life, then this is false. We always rely on our tone to dictate the good or bad value of our lives. If you were depressed and claimed that you were able to find good value and worth in your life during a moment of depression while attributing nothing but a depressive tone, then you would actually be attributing a bit of a positive tone during that moment of depression despite your depressive (negative) tone. But it is a false (deluded) positive tone that is forced (faked) and not genuine. Only our pleasant and unpleasant emotions define our good and bad tones in life as I've said before. They are the only things that motivate our good and bad tones. Without them, then they would not be genuine tones. People who live their lives feeling "numb" (not feeling pleasant or unpleasant emotions) and make the best of their lives and help others, that is still forced (faked) and not a genuine expression at all. They are just so used to forcing (faking) it that it just seems genuine to them even though it is not. They would also be so used to having an uplifting and optimistic tone/attitude despite their absence of emotions that it seems genuine to them when it is not genuine at all.
One last thing here. Another reason why only our emotions and feelings of pleasure and suffering are the only things to be considered motivation or demotivation would be because if you had no feelings of fear, pleasure, or suffering and were being attacked by a lion and you just simply ran away knowing that you would get eaten, then that would not be considered a motivation to run away. This is because there was no fight/flight response being triggered. Our fight/flight response is the only response considered to be the motivation to either fight or flee since that is just how our brains work. But like I said before, it would be a form of motivation that would give bad value to our lives since fear is a feeling of suffering. It is an unpleasant emotion. As for reproduction, our sexual feelings of pleasure are the only things considered to be the motivation to reproduce.
Without our sexual feelings, then we could not reproduce just through our thinking and such alone. This is because there was no sexual emotional response (motivation) and neither was there a physical response either. Not only was there no sexual feelings, but there was also no physical response such as the penis becoming erect. We might choose to act sexual and to have a sexual personality through just our thoughts and such alone without our sexual feelings of pleasure, but that would not be considered being motivated to reproduce. Our thinking and such alone cannot allow us to reproduce. It cannot cause the penis to become erect. The erecting of the penis is the only thing that would allow the production of sperm which would be the only thing that would allow reproduction.
Some might say to me that every person's brain is wired differently and different people are conditioned differently to perceive pleasure differently. They might say that our feelings of pleasure are not restricted to just those areas of the brain that experience feelings (emotions) of pleasure, but that they can also reside in our thinking and such alone. I'm not sure if this is true or false, but even if it were true, then it would still only be our feelings of pleasure (the pleasant emotions themselves which would be our pleasant moods) that give good value and motivation to our lives. The form of pleasure that would come from our thoughts and such alone would still not do so. I will go back to my example with the sexual feelings (emotions) of pleasure and the feelings of fear. Even if we did have sexual feelings just from our thinking and such alone, it still would not be considered motivation because there is still no actual sexual emotions and there would still be no sexual physical response such as the penis becoming erect. Same thing applies if our feelings of fear resided in our thinking and such alone without our actual feelings of fear. It would all still be the "thinking" experience of pleasure and fear and not the actual experience of pleasure and fear. It would all still be the experience of the thought of pleasure and fear and not the actual experience of pleasure and fear.
Now I know that the brain has a remarkable way to accept and adapt to certain situations. Therefore, if you had an absence of pleasure and accepted and adapted to this lifestyle, then that still would not make your life good and worth living. Even your acceptance and adaptation would be fooling you here into thinking your life can still be good and worth living without your feelings of pleasure. But as for me though, there is no way I could ever possibly accept and adapt to a life of no pleasure knowing that my life can't be anything good or worth living to me without my feelings of pleasure.
Now if someone did something for you such as healing your wounds, then that would not be said to be something good for you. Only if you derived feelings of pleasure from that would that said to be something good for you. Without our feelings of pleasure, then this act towards you would be considered to be nothing more than a mere survival aid for you.
I will now present something here that explains how our expressions and tones can only be genuine through our moods (emotions):
Feelings of pleasure are what also define the very human life force of our personalities. If you have no feelings of love or joy and express love and joy to someone, then that would be no different than a human robot (a biological robot) expressing just thoughts, knowledge, and actions. Our feelings of pleasure are the only things that breathe life into our lives, actions, thoughts, and personalities and makes them something genuine. Otherwise, our expressions of love, bond, joy, etc. without our feelings of pleasure would not be genuine expressions since they would have no sense of good value and worth for us. Only our sense of good value and worth in life (our feelings of pleasure) make these expressions genuine. You might choose to help others and love others through just thoughts alone without your feelings of love and pleasure knowing that it is the right thing to do. But it would be no different than a robot choosing to do the right things in life and help others simply because it was programmed to do so. In a way, innocent caring people are "programmed" to choose to help others and such so that even without their feelings of love and pleasure, they would be like a programmed robot choosing to show acts of love and help towards others anyway. However, that doesn't make those said expressions genuine since it is nothing more than like a biological robot as I've said before.
I can give an example as to how our expressions of love, joy, motivation, inspiration, etc. are not genuine without our feelings of pleasure. A person who feels intense feelings of pleasure (excitement) would genuinely express an excited tone. He/she might say "WOW, I WANT TO GO ON THAT FERRIS WHEEL!!!" But if a person with no feelings of pleasure were to express that same excited tone, then that expression would be forced (faked). Therefore, all the acts and expressions we would perform through our feelings of pleasure would all be forced (faked) if we were to perform those said actions/expressions without our feelings of pleasure. It would be no different than if you are not feeling any anger and yet have chosen to express an angry tone and angry actions. As you can see here, those expressions and actions would just be forced and faked. Therefore, this is the reason why people who can't feel love or any other form of pleasure are only forcing and faking their expressions and acts of love, joy, bond, motivation, inspiration, etc.
Not only do our feelings of pleasure define the very life force of our personalities and lives, but they also enhance that said life force. In other words, the more intense pleasure you have, the more "life" you, your personality, and your life has and the greater sense of good value and worth you have in your life.
