Suffering and Moral ResponsibilityOxford University Press, USA, 6. aug. 1999 - 256 sider In this original study, Jamie Mayerfeld undertakes a careful inquiry into the meaning and moral significance of suffering. Understanding suffering in hedonistic terms as an affliction of feeling, he addresses difficulties associated with its identification and measurement. He then turns to an examination of the duty to relieve suffering: its content, its weight relative to other moral considerations, and the role it should play in our lives. Among the claims defended in the book are that suffering needs to be distinguished from both physical pain and the frustration of desire, that interpersonal comparisons of the intensity of happiness and suffering are possible, that several psychological processes hinder our awareness of other people's suffering, and that the prevention of suffering should often be pursued indirectly. Mayerfeld concludes his discussion by arguing that the reduction of suffering is morally more important than the promotion of happiness, and that most of us greatly underestimate the force of the duty to prevent suffering. As the first systematic book-length inquiry into the moral significance of suffering, Suffering and Moral Responsibility makes an important contribution to moral philosophy and political theory, and will interest specialists in each of these areas. |
Almindelige termer og sætninger
20-degree suffering Amartya Sen asymmetry of happiness badness of suffering behavior better Cambridge cardinal intensity chapter claim classical utilitarians consciousness consequentialist cumulative badness deny deontological deontological constraints Derek Parfit desire discussion duty to relieve Epicureans evil example experience facie duty fering global evaluative measure happiness and suffering happiness over suffering hedonism hedonistic zero hour of suffering human imagine individual intensity and duration intensity of happiness intensity of suffering interpersonal intrapersonal trade-offs intrinsic property view intuitive measure kind less bad less intense suffering lives maximal duty means measure of intensity moral asymmetry morally required overall feeling pain people's suffering person person's suffering piness pleasure preferences preferential measure prevent suffering prima facie duty priority view prudential psychological question R. M. Hare reason reduce relief of suffering relieve suffering sacrifice sense Shelly Kagan Sidgwick someone sometimes surplus of happiness theory thought torture victims well-being worst cumulative suffering