SUFFERING AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY pot

[...]... The Meaning of Suffering 11 Psychological versus Objectivist Understandings of Suffering 11 Suffering as Disagreeable Overall Feeling 14 In Search of a Definition of Happiness and Suffering 16 The Connection of Happiness and Suffering to Desire 19 The Relation of Happiness to Pleasure and Suffering to Pain 23 Describing Our Lives in Terms of Happiness and Suffering 29 Happiness and Suffering as Absolute,... Relief of Suffering in an Uncertain World 125 The Moral Asymmetry of Happiness and Suffering 128 1 Introduction 128 2 The Moral Asymmetry of Happiness and Suffering Within Lives 131 3 Epicurus's Hint 136 4 The Relative Importance of Happiness and Suffering Within Lives, as Viewed in Terms of the Three Alternative Measures of Intensity 139 5 Where Did the Classical Utilitarians Stand? 142 6 The Moral Asymmetry... conception of suffering, not because I think it is the only correct one, but because 3 4 SUFFERING AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY I think it carries enormous moral significance in its own right and therefore requires a separate discussion The organization of this book is fairly straightforward Chapter 2 discusses what suffering means and chapter 3 how it ought to be measured Chapter 4 examines the moral significance... philosophers have made too wholesale a rejection and have thus lost sight of the moral significance of suffering The following account differs from hedonistic utilitarianism in two respects: first, I do not claim that all of morality can be reduced to the requirement to promote happiness and reduce suffering; and second, I argue that the relief of suffering is morally more important than the promotion of... The Personal and Impersonal Badness of Suffering 2 The Desire Theory of Well-being 93 85 XII CONTENTS 3 Value Hedonism 98 4 Underestimating the Evil of Suffering 5 Suffering and Deprivation 107 FIVE 1 2 3 4 5 SIX The Duty To Relieve Suffering 101 111 The Source of the Duty to Relieve Suffering 111 Other Explanations of the Duty to Relieve Suffering 114 Basic Features of the Duty to Relieve Suffering 116... that the suffering of non-human animals is no less evil from a moral point of view than the suffering of human beings when equivalent in 7 In The Right and the Good, Ross overlooked the possibility of prima facie permissions—an omission later criticized by Bernard Williams in Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp 180-82 10 SUFFERING AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY. .. before experiencing distress Suffering, in this sense, is what Jeremy Bentham and Henry Sidgwick had in mind when they spoke of "pain," and what the Epicureans referred to as lupe This book is concerned with the psychological rather than the objectivist sense of suffering I focus on suffering in the psychological sense because I want to claim 11 12 SUFFERING AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY that this particular... Happiness and Suffering to Desire There has been a long tradition of drawing a conceptual connection between happiness and the satisfaction of desire, and between suffering and the frustration of desire It seems natural to suppose some such connection What sort of connection, if any, might there be? According to Bentham and J S Mill, we desire nothing as an end in itself but happiness and the avoidance of suffering. .. a careful balance between skepticism and belief Skepticism need not imply greater moral leeway There are two kinds of moral belief—the belief that X is wrong, and the belief that X is permitted One may be skeptical both about moral requirements and moral permissions Therefore, we cannot say in advance whether a partial skepticism lessens or increases the scope of moral obligation I include these remarks... See Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery (New York: Basic Books, 1992), pp 42-43 7 Ronald Melzack and Patrick D Wall, The Challenge of Pain (New York: Basic Books, 1983) See also John D Loeser and Wilbert E Fordyce, "Chronic Pain," in J E Carr and H A Dengerink, eds., Behavioral Science in the Practice of Medicine (New York: Elsevier, 1983) 14 SUFFERING AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY important here is . Temkin Morality, Mortality, Volume 1 Death and Whom to Save from It F. M. Kamm Morality, Mortality, Volume II Rights, Duties, and Status F. M. Kamm Suffering and Moral Responsibility Jamie. in Terms of Happiness and Suffering 29 7. Happiness and Suffering as Absolute, Not Relative, Terms 34 8. The Variable Intensity of Suffering 39 9. Suffering Distinct from . claim that all of morality can be reduced to the requirement to promote hap- piness and reduce suffering; and second, I argue that the relief of suffering is morally more important