I’m not quite sure I understand what you mean. My experiences have no value unless there is another experiencer in the world? If I’m the last person on Earth and I stub my toe, I think that’s bad because it bad’s for me, that is, it reduces my well-being.
Also, given your concerns, you’ll need to define suffering in a way that is distinct from well-being. If I think suffering is just negative well-being—aka ‘ill-being’ - then your concerns about well-being apply to suffering too.
Also also, if suffering isn’t instrinsically bad, in what sense is it bad?
Finally, I note that all of these concerns are about the value of well-being in a moral theory, which is a distinct question from what this post tackles, which is just what the theories of well-being are. One could (implausibly) say well-being had no moral value (which is, I suppose, almost what impersonal views of value do say...).
Thanks, Michael, for your reaction. Clearly, “qualia depend on each other for having any value/meaning” is a too short sentence to be readily understood. I meant that if consciousness or sentience are made up of qualia, i.e. meaningful and (dis)valuable elementary contents of experience, then each of those qualia has no value/meaning except inasmuch as it relates to other qualia: nothing is (dis)valuable by itself, qualia depend on each other… In other words, one “quale” has a conscious value or meaning only when it is within a psychoneural circuit that necessarily counts several qualia, as it may be illustrated in the next paragraph.
Thus, suffering is not intrinsically bad. Badness here may have two distinct senses: unpleasant in an affective sense, or wrong in a moral sense. Both senses depend on other concomitant qualia than suffering itself to take on their value and meaning. For instance, stubbing your toe might not be unpleasant if you are rushing to save your baby from the flames, whilst it may be quite unpleasant if you are going to bed for sleeping… Or a very unpleasant occurrence of suffering like being whipped might be morally right if you feel that it is deserved and formative, whilst it may be utterly wrong in other circumstances...
Sorry, I really don’t follow your point in the first para.
One thing to say is that experience of suffering are pro tanto bad (bad ‘as far as it goes’). So stubbing your toe is bad, but this may be accompanied by another sensation such that overall you feel good. But the toe stubbing is still pro tanto bad.
Anyway, like I said, none of this is directly relevant to the post itself!
Okay, I realize that the relevance of neuroscience to the philosophy of well-being can hardly be made explicit in sufficient detail at the level of an introduction. That is unfortunate, if only for our mutual understanding because, with enough attention to details, the stubbing toe example that I used would not be understood as you do: if it is not unpleasant to stub your toe how can it be bad, pro tanto or otherwise?
I think we may well be speaking past each other someone. In my example, I took it the toe stubbing was unpleasant, and I don’t see any problem in saying the toe stubbing is unpleasant but I am simultaneously experiencing other things such that I feel pleasure overall.
The usual case people discuss here is “how can BDSM be pleasant if it involves pain?” and the answer is to distinguish between bodily pain in certain areas vs a cognitive feeling of pleasure overall resulting from feeling bodily pain.
We may sympathize in the face of such difficulties. Terminology is a big problem when speaking about suffering in the absence of a systematic discipline dealing with suffering itself. That’s another reason why the philosophy of well-being is fraught with traps and why I suggest the alleviation of suffering as the most effective first goal.
I’m not quite sure I understand what you mean. My experiences have no value unless there is another experiencer in the world? If I’m the last person on Earth and I stub my toe, I think that’s bad because it bad’s for me, that is, it reduces my well-being.
Also, given your concerns, you’ll need to define suffering in a way that is distinct from well-being. If I think suffering is just negative well-being—aka ‘ill-being’ - then your concerns about well-being apply to suffering too.
Also also, if suffering isn’t instrinsically bad, in what sense is it bad?
Finally, I note that all of these concerns are about the value of well-being in a moral theory, which is a distinct question from what this post tackles, which is just what the theories of well-being are. One could (implausibly) say well-being had no moral value (which is, I suppose, almost what impersonal views of value do say...).
Thanks, Michael, for your reaction. Clearly, “qualia depend on each other for having any value/meaning” is a too short sentence to be readily understood. I meant that if consciousness or sentience are made up of qualia, i.e. meaningful and (dis)valuable elementary contents of experience, then each of those qualia has no value/meaning except inasmuch as it relates to other qualia: nothing is (dis)valuable by itself, qualia depend on each other… In other words, one “quale” has a conscious value or meaning only when it is within a psychoneural circuit that necessarily counts several qualia, as it may be illustrated in the next paragraph.
Thus, suffering is not intrinsically bad. Badness here may have two distinct senses: unpleasant in an affective sense, or wrong in a moral sense. Both senses depend on other concomitant qualia than suffering itself to take on their value and meaning. For instance, stubbing your toe might not be unpleasant if you are rushing to save your baby from the flames, whilst it may be quite unpleasant if you are going to bed for sleeping… Or a very unpleasant occurrence of suffering like being whipped might be morally right if you feel that it is deserved and formative, whilst it may be utterly wrong in other circumstances...
Sorry, I really don’t follow your point in the first para.
One thing to say is that experience of suffering are pro tanto bad (bad ‘as far as it goes’). So stubbing your toe is bad, but this may be accompanied by another sensation such that overall you feel good. But the toe stubbing is still pro tanto bad.
Anyway, like I said, none of this is directly relevant to the post itself!
Okay, I realize that the relevance of neuroscience to the philosophy of well-being can hardly be made explicit in sufficient detail at the level of an introduction. That is unfortunate, if only for our mutual understanding because, with enough attention to details, the stubbing toe example that I used would not be understood as you do: if it is not unpleasant to stub your toe how can it be bad, pro tanto or otherwise?
I think we may well be speaking past each other someone. In my example, I took it the toe stubbing was unpleasant, and I don’t see any problem in saying the toe stubbing is unpleasant but I am simultaneously experiencing other things such that I feel pleasure overall.
The usual case people discuss here is “how can BDSM be pleasant if it involves pain?” and the answer is to distinguish between bodily pain in certain areas vs a cognitive feeling of pleasure overall resulting from feeling bodily pain.
We may sympathize in the face of such difficulties. Terminology is a big problem when speaking about suffering in the absence of a systematic discipline dealing with suffering itself. That’s another reason why the philosophy of well-being is fraught with traps and why I suggest the alleviation of suffering as the most effective first goal.