Thanks for this great post! Really appreciate your thinking about this important question.
Here’s one question that I’m turning over. On the face of it, you might think of the pain categories as being assessed behaviorally and relative to an individual’s capacity for welfare. So, disabling pain would be whatever pain “takes priority over most bids for behavioral execution and prevents all forms of enjoyment or positive welfare.” But then, disabling pain wouldn’t be a single pain level across species, which some might be able to feel and others not. It would be a capacity-for-welfare-neutral behavioral characterization of an internal state.
However, your post seems not to endorse this view. Instead, it seems to imply that the pain categories are indexed to humans, without any assumption that all animals can experience the same thing.
I don’t necessarily have an objection to the indexed-to-humans view. However, it does seem to undermine the idea that we can look at behavior to assess the presence of a particular pain level unless we have independent reasons to think that the relevant animal is capable of that pain level. Am I understanding that correctly?
You’re correct that there’s an apparent tension in how we frame Pain intensity categories. We addressed this briefly in our footnote [1]. Let me confirm: these categories are human-indexed and absolute, anchored to the intensity levels humans can experience. For example, Excruciating Pain represents the maximum intensity a human might feel under extreme conditions, such as severe torture. We use this human-centric scale because it’s the only reference point we can directly access and define with precision.
This absolute scale seems to conflict with the use of indicators in the operational definitions of intensity categories (such as Pain ‘taking priority over most bids for behavioral execution’ for Disabling Pain). These indicators are practical proxies to estimate where a species’ experience falls on this scale. However, they are not universal and require species-specific expertise to interpret (we discuss this in the context of differences between indicators and welfare metrics, here). The tension you pointed out—between the absolute nature of the scale and the provisional nature of the indicators, especially when diverse species are considered—is real and stems from the fundamental challenge of not being able to directly measure affective states in other beings.
This brings me to your second point: yes, you’re correct that assessing Pain levels via behavior alone is not sufficient. That is why, in the Cumulative Pain and Cumulative Pleasure methods, intensity attributions use as many diverse indicators as possible —chiefly the degree of attention demanded by the experience (hence behavioral changes), neurological evidence, pharmacology (dose/type of pain-relieving drugs), evolutionary reasoning, among others—to collectively estimate placement on this scale.
Regarding the interspecific aspect the article discusses: addressing this challenge is enormous. We believe that, alongside other approaches, examining some biological constraints on how Range (maximum intensity) and Resolution (discrimination ability) manifest in the simpler neurological structures of primitive sentient organisms can provide insights into their capacity for extreme Pain, at least for this group.
Not at all! I appreciate the great exchange, the challenging ideas, and the opportunity to clarify any points. Please feel free to continue discussing any aspect you think needs further clarification.
Thanks for this great post! Really appreciate your thinking about this important question.
Here’s one question that I’m turning over. On the face of it, you might think of the pain categories as being assessed behaviorally and relative to an individual’s capacity for welfare. So, disabling pain would be whatever pain “takes priority over most bids for behavioral execution and prevents all forms of enjoyment or positive welfare.” But then, disabling pain wouldn’t be a single pain level across species, which some might be able to feel and others not. It would be a capacity-for-welfare-neutral behavioral characterization of an internal state.
However, your post seems not to endorse this view. Instead, it seems to imply that the pain categories are indexed to humans, without any assumption that all animals can experience the same thing.
I don’t necessarily have an objection to the indexed-to-humans view. However, it does seem to undermine the idea that we can look at behavior to assess the presence of a particular pain level unless we have independent reasons to think that the relevant animal is capable of that pain level. Am I understanding that correctly?
Thanks a bunch!
Hi Bob, thank you for this valuable comment
You’re correct that there’s an apparent tension in how we frame Pain intensity categories. We addressed this briefly in our footnote [1]. Let me confirm: these categories are human-indexed and absolute, anchored to the intensity levels humans can experience. For example, Excruciating Pain represents the maximum intensity a human might feel under extreme conditions, such as severe torture. We use this human-centric scale because it’s the only reference point we can directly access and define with precision.
This absolute scale seems to conflict with the use of indicators in the operational definitions of intensity categories (such as Pain ‘taking priority over most bids for behavioral execution’ for Disabling Pain). These indicators are practical proxies to estimate where a species’ experience falls on this scale. However, they are not universal and require species-specific expertise to interpret (we discuss this in the context of differences between indicators and welfare metrics, here). The tension you pointed out—between the absolute nature of the scale and the provisional nature of the indicators, especially when diverse species are considered—is real and stems from the fundamental challenge of not being able to directly measure affective states in other beings.
This brings me to your second point: yes, you’re correct that assessing Pain levels via behavior alone is not sufficient. That is why, in the Cumulative Pain and Cumulative Pleasure methods, intensity attributions use as many diverse indicators as possible —chiefly the degree of attention demanded by the experience (hence behavioral changes), neurological evidence, pharmacology (dose/type of pain-relieving drugs), evolutionary reasoning, among others—to collectively estimate placement on this scale.
Regarding the interspecific aspect the article discusses: addressing this challenge is enormous. We believe that, alongside other approaches, examining some biological constraints on how Range (maximum intensity) and Resolution (discrimination ability) manifest in the simpler neurological structures of primitive sentient organisms can provide insights into their capacity for extreme Pain, at least for this group.
Thanks for your helpful reply and apologies for missing that note!
Not at all! I appreciate the great exchange, the challenging ideas, and the opportunity to clarify any points. Please feel free to continue discussing any aspect you think needs further clarification.