What are some good introductory material on the matter? I’m curious about the different possible definitions and how they might result in differing moral theories.
What are some good introductory material on the matter? I’m curious about the different possible definitions and how they might result in differing moral theories.
I wrote two posts exploring suffering, both with plenty of links to more resources thinking about what we mean by “suffering”: “Is Feedback Suffering?” and “Suffering and Intractable Pain”.
My views have evolved since I wrote those posts so I don’t necessarily endorse everything in them anymore, but hopefully they are useful starting points. For what it’s worth, my view now is more akin to the traditional Buddhist view on suffering as described by the teaching on dependent origination.
Are you familiar with tranquilism, which is in part inspired by Buddhist views of wellbeing?
Yes, Lukas’s post was what got me thinking about suffering in more detail and helped lead to the creation of those two posts. I think it’s linked from one or both of them.
The section What is pleasure in “Is pleasure all that is good about experience?” by Willem van der Deijl covers a bunch of ways of thinking about pleasure, which you could modify straightforwardly for suffering.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r0zNM89v9r1op4lgQ1cHqbWmO3srQ5cRSp8smRvqW7Q/edit#
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Uwp2sIe1R3Atl3_u4JO7XyjBM8lcVgMuh1904_G1-I8/edit