Four Loves Chapter 2/6 ... notes on Likings and Loves

PDF for Four Loves
written by C. S. Lewis, first issued in 1958

Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Likings and Loves for the sub-human 
Chapter 3 Affection
Chapter 4 Friendship
Chapter 5 Eros
Chapter 6 Charity 

Chapter 2 

Likings and Loves 

for the Sub-Human

... for the sub-human as in I love, ummm, ice cream or I love my cat ... 

"Since "the highest does not stand without the lowest" we had better begin at the bottom, with mere likings; and, since to "like" anything means to take some sort of pleasure in it, we must begin with pleasure." (pg 11)

two classes of pleasure: pleasure preceded by desire (great thirst makes a drink of cold water very pleasurable), and those which are pleasures in their own right not requiring preparation (unsought and unexpected pleasures of smell of a row of sweet peas meeting you on a morning walk) He offers the idea that an unexpected offer of a  drink of a beer to quench one's thirst is a coupling of these two pleasures. 
Presents idea of  "Need-pleasures" (similarly handled to "need-loves") and "Pleasures of appreciation".
"The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define. It wants to make every distinction a distinction of
value ... as though ... for a prize. " (edited, but from pgs. 12 & 13) 

"We are already warned of this by the fact that Need-pleasure is the state in which Appreciative pleasures end up when they go bad (by addiction).
For us at any rate the importance of the two sorts of pleasure lies in the extent to which they foreshadow characteristics in our "loves" (properly so called)."(pg. 13)
"When Need-pleasures are in question we tend to make statements about ourselves in the past tense; when Appreciative pleasures are in question we tend to make statements about the object in the present tense. It is easy to see why Shakespeare has described the satisfaction of a tyrannous lust as something

Past reason hunted and, no sooner had,
Past reason hated." (pg. 13)

An example of a Need-pleasure might be the smell of bacon frying in the morning ... yummy ... as the smell lingers after breakfast ... not so much a pleasure, maybe even somewhat nauseating. Lewis cites the example of an empty tumbler once one's thirst is slackened. I think sex for sex sake may be a need-pleasure.  One might approach an illicit  liaison with desire then once fate accompli nothing but self-disgust. 
Pleasures of Appreciation are very different. 
"He does not simply enjoy, he feels that this fragrance somehow deserves to be enjoyed. He would blame himself if he went past unattentive and undelighted. It would be blockish, insensitive. It would be a shame that so fine a thing should have been wasted on him. He will remember the delicious moment years hence." (pg. 14)
A need pleasure is momentary, and outside that moment, have no meaning or interest ... easily cast aside as a mistress perhaps ... an object.  "The objects which afford pleasures of appreciation give us the feeling - whether irrational or not - that we somehow owe it to them to savour, to attend to and praise it." (pgs. 14 & 15).  Appreciative pleasure offers a foreshadowing of our experience with beauty ... either more or less senual or aesthetic ... transcendent.
"There is a third element in love, no less important than these, which is foreshadowed by our appreciative pleasures. This judgment that the object is very good, this attention (almost homage) offered to it as a kind of debt, this wish that it should be and should continue being what it is even if we were never to enjoy it, can go out not only to things but to persons. When it is offered to a woman we call it admiration; when to a man, hero-worship; when to God, worship simply." (pgs. 16 & 17)  
I get it ... .     
For the rest of the chapter he talks about love of nature, also love of country or place, patriotism.  And he notes that while animals are sub-human (he tweaks the phrase: sub personal) that we infer personality and thus elevate our "love" for them.