Yew-Kwang Ng and Siang Ng

With adequate safeguards and cautious preparation, genetic engineering could be used to relieve suffering and increase happiness by quantum leaps. Our short-term prospect here would be the eradication of many genetic handicaps. The medium-term prospect could be the reduction of the proportion of the neurotic and depressed personality. The longer-term prospect might be the dramatic enhancement of our capacity for enjoyment. All these have to be done with extreme caution. The reason we should be very cautious is not so much to avoid sacrificing our current welfare (which is relative small in comparison to that in the future with brain stimulation and genetic engineering) but to avoid destroying our future.

Yew-Kwang Ng and Siang Ng, The Road to Happiness, chap. 7, sect. 1

Timothy Sprigge

[I]t is an objective fact whether a certain experience is pleasurable or unpleasurable, and relatedly whether a particular conscious individual is presently experiencing something pleasurable or painful. It is an objective fact, so we may put it, about a subjective state.

Timothy Sprigge, ‘Is the esse of Intrinsic Value percipi?: Pleasure, Pain and Value’, in Anthony O’Hear (ed.), Philosophy, the Good, the True and the Beautiful, Cambridge, 2000, p. 123

Torbjörn Tännsjö

The day starts when my alarm clock goes off. I leave a state of dreamless sleep and, for a moment, my situation is worse than it would have been, had the alarm bell remained silent. When I brush my teeth I begin to see some meaning in my life, however, and as soon as I taste my morning coffee the situation looks quite pleasant. However, once I start to read the morning newspaper things become worse. I am reminded of the miserable state of the world (in many respects). In particular, when I read about a famine in the aftermath of a war in Sudan, I feel despair. But when I catch the tube and embark on my journey to work, once again I feel fine. However, when I leave the tube station near my office, I see a child being knocked over by a car. I rush to her rescue and for a short while I stand there, holding the unconscious child in my arms, feeling the weight of her head on my shoulder. I feel miserable. An ambulance arrives and the child is taken care of. I continue my walk to my office. I start preparing a lecture. I call the hospital and learn that the child has not been injured seriously. I give my lecture and get a stimulating response from my audience. I go home by tube and prepare the dinner. My wife, who is a nurse at the hospital, returns home in the evening. We have dinner together, I tell her about the accident, and we go to bed early. The last thing I feel, as wakefulness merges into unconsciousness, is intense well-being.

Torbjörn Tännsjö, ‘Narrow Hedonism’, Journal of Happiness Studies, vol. 8, no. 1 (March, 2007), pp. 81-82

R. M. Hare

Objection might be taken to the claim that there could be a ‘bare sensation’ of pain which was not disliked. What, it might be asked, would such an experience be like? Can we imagine such an experience? I think that I can not only imagine it, but have had it; but I shall return to this question later. Here I shall just make the obvious point that we cannot conclude, from the fact that something surpasses our imagination, that it cannot happen. I cannot myself imagine what the electric torture would be like; but that does not take away the possibility that it might be inflicted on me. It would be more relevant if it could be established that no sense could be given to the expression ‘experience which is like pain except for not being disliked.’ But that is precisely the question at issue, and this whole paper is an attempt to see what sense can be given to such an expression.

R. M. Hare, ‘Pain and Evil’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, supp. vol. 38 (1964), p. 95

Derek Parfit

When some principle requires us to act in some way, this principle’s acceptability cannot depend on whether such acts are often possible. We cannot defend some principle by claiming that, in the world as it is, there is no danger that too many people will act in the way that this principle requires.

Derek Parfit, ‘Justifiability to Each Person’, Ratio, vol. 16, no. 4 (December, 2003), p. 387

Jon Elster

Some psychological and social states have the property that they can only come about as the by-product of actions undertaken for other ends. They can never, that is, be brought about intelligently and intentionally, because they attempt to do so precludes the very state one is trying to bring about. I call these “states that are essentially by-products”. There are many states that may arise as by-products of individual or aggregate action, but this is the subset of states than can only come about in this way. Some of these states are very useful or desirable, and so it is very tempting to try to bring them about. We may refer to such attempts as “excess of will”, a form of hubris that pervades our lives, perhaps increasingly so.

Jon Elster, ‘States that are Essentially by-products’, Social Science Information, vol. 20, no. 3 (1981), p. 431

Bhante Henepola Gunaratana

Meditation does produce lovely blissful feelings sometimes. But they are not the purpose, and they don’t always occur. Furthermore, if you do meditation with that purpose in mind, they are less likely to occur than if you just meditate for the actual purpose of meditation, which is increased awareness. Bliss results from relaxation, and relaxation results from release of tension. Seeking bliss from meditation introduces tension into the process, which blows the whole chain of events. It is a Catch-22: you can only experience bliss if you don’t chase after it. Euphoria is not the purpose of meditation. It will often arise, but should be regarded as a byproduct.

Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English, rev. ed., Somerville, Massachusetts, 2002, p. 26

Henry Sidgwick

It is in their purely physical aspect, as complex processes of corporeal change, that [physical processes] are means to the maintenance of life: but so long as we confine our attention to their corporeal aspect,—regarding them merely as complex movements of certain particles of organised matter—it seems impossible to attribute to these movements, considered in themselves, either goodness or badness. I cannot conceive it to be an ultimate end of rational action to secure that these complex movements should be of one kind rather than another, or that they should be continued for a longer rather than a shorter period. In short, if a certain quality of human Life is that which is ultimately desirable, it must belong to human Life regarded on its psychical side, or, briefly, Consciousness.

Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed., London, 1907, bk. 3, chap. 14, sect. 3

Henry Sidgwick

Plato’s reason for claiming that the life of the Philosopher has more pleasure than that of the Sensualist is palpably inadequate. The philosopher, he argues, has tried both kinds of pleasure, sensual as well as intellectual, and prefers the delights of philosophic life; the sensualist ought therefore to trust his decision and follow his example. But who can tell that the philosopher’s constitution is not such as to render the enjoyments of the senses, in his case, comparatively feeble?

Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed., London, 1907, bk. 2, chap. 3, sect. 7

C. D. Broad

(i) Any society in which each member was prepared to make sacrifices for the benefit of the group as a whole and of certain smaller groups within it would be more likely to flourish and persist than one whose members were not prepared to make such sacrifices. Now egoistic and anti-social motives are extremely strong in everyone. Suppose, then, that there had been a society in which, no matter how, there had arisen a strong additional motive (no matter how absurd or superstitious) in support of self-sacrifice, on appropriate occasions, by a member of the group for the sake of the group as a whole or for that of certain smaller groups within it. Suppose that this motive was thereafter conveyed from one generation to another by example and by precept, and that it was supported by the sanctions of social praise and blame. Such a society would be likely to flourish, and to overcome other societies in which no such additional motive for limited self-sacrifice had arisen and been propagated. So its ways of thinking in these matters, and its sentiments of approval and disapproval concerning them, would tend to spread. They would spread directly through conquest, and indirectly by the prestige which the success of this society would give to it in the eyes of others.

(ii) Suppose, next, that there had been a society in which, not matter how, a strong additional motive for unlimited self-sacrifice had arisen and had been propagated from one generation to another. A society in which each member was as ready to sacrifice himself for other societies and their members as for his own society and its members, would be most unlikely to persist and flourish. Therefore such a society would be very likely to succumb in conflict with one of the former kind.

(iii) Now suppose a long period of conflict between societies of the various types which I have imagined. It seems likely that the societies which would still be existing and would be predominant at the latter part of such a period would be those in which there had somehow arisen in the remote past a strong pro-emotion towards self-sacrifice confined within the society and a strong anti-emotion towards extending it beyond those limits. Now these are exactly the kinds of society which we find existing and flourishing in historical times.

The Neutralist might therefore argue as follows. Even if Neutralism be true, and even if it be self-evident to a philosopher who contemplates it in a cool hour in his study, there are powerful historical causes which would tend to make certain forms of restricted Altruism or qualified Egoism seem to be true to most unreflective persons at all times and even to many reflective ones at most times. Therefore the fact that common-sense rejects Neutralism, and tends to accept this other type of doctrine, is not a conclusive objection to the truth, or even to the necessary truth, of Neutralism.

C. D. Broad, ‘Self and Others’, in David R. Cheney (ed.), Broad’s Critical Essays in Moral Philosophy, London, 1971, pp. 281-282

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

J’allais voir Diderot, alors prisonnier à Vincennes ; j’avais dans ma poche un Mercure de France que je me mis à feuilleter le long du chemin. Je tombe sur la question de l’Académie de Dijon qui a donné lieu à mon premier écrit. Si jamais quelque chose a ressemblé à une inspiration subite, c’est le mouvement qui se fit en moi à cette lecture ; tout à coup je me sens l’esprit ébloui de mille lumières ; des foules d’idées vives s’y présentèrent à la fois avec une force et une confusion qui me jeta dans un trouble inexprimable ; je sens ma tête prise par un étourdissement semblable à l’ivresse. Une violente palpitation m’oppresse, soulève ma poitrine ; ne pouvant plus respirer en marchant, je me laisse tomber sous un des arbres de l’avenue, et j’y passe une demi-heure dans une telle agitation qu’en me relevant j’aperçois tout le devant de ma veste mouillé de mes larmes sans avoir senti que j’en répandais. Oh ! Monsieur, si j’avais jamais pu écrire le quart de ce que j’ai vu et senti sous cet arbre, avec quelle clarté j’aurais fait voir toutes les contradictions du système social, avec quelle force j’aurais exposé tous les abus de nos institutions, avec quelle simplicité j’aurais démontré que l’homme est bon naturellement et que c’est par ces institutions seules que les hommes deviennent méchants !

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Letter to M. De Malesherbes, January 4, 1762

Ray Kurzweil

Cloning technologies even offer a possible solution for world hunger: creating meat and other protein sources in a factory without animals by cloning animal muscle tissue. Benefits would include extremely low cost, avoidance of pesticides and hormones that occur in natural meat, greatly reduced environmental impact (compared to factory farming), improved nutritional profile, and no animal suffering. As with therapeutic cloning, we would not be creating the entire animal but rather directly producing the desired animal parts or flesh. Essentially, all of the meat—billions of pounds of it—would be derived from a single animal.

There are other benefits to this process besides ending hunger. By creating meat in this way, it becomes subject to the law of accelerating returns—the exponential improvements in price-performance of information-based technologies over time—and will thus become extremely inexpensive. Even though hunger in the world today is certainly exacerbated by political issues and conflicts, meat could become so inexpensive that it would have a profound effect on the affordability of food.

The advent of animal-less meat will also eliminate animal suffering. The economics of factory farming place a very low priority on the comfort of animals, which are treated as cogs in a machine. The meat produced in this manner, although normal in all other respects, would not be part of an animal with a nervous system, which is generally regarded as a necessary element for suffering to occur, at least in a biological animal. We could use the same approach to produce such animal by-products as leather and fur. Other major advantages would be to eliminate the enormous ecological and environmental damage created by factory farming as well as the risk of prion-based diseases, such as mad-cow disease and its human counterpart, vCJD.

Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, New York, 2005, p. 224

E. E. Cummings

may i feel said he
(i’ll squeal said she
just once said he)
it’s fun said she

(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she

(let’s go said he
not too far said she
what’s too far said he
where you are said she)

may i stay said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she

may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you’re willing said he
(but you’re killing said she

but it’s life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she

(tiptop said he
don’t stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she

(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you’re divine! said he
(you are Mine said she)

E. E. Cummings, ‘may i feel said she’

Siri Leknes and Irene Tracey

The strong historical association between shame, guilt and pleasure might help to explain a number of paradoxical human behaviours, as well as the historical preference for formulating scientific research questions in terms of behaviour rather than pleasure and other hedonic feelings.

Siri Leknes and Irene Tracey, ‘A Common Neurobiology for Pain and Pleasure’, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, vol. 9, no. 4 (April, 2008), p. 315

Tim Harford

On the African Savannah […] our rational male forebears wanted young and beautiful partners while our rational ancestors down the maternal line would have preferred high-status males. Have these preferences, like attitudes to sex, survived to the present day? Folk wisdom would certainly say so. In the song ‘Summertime’ from Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess, there’s a reason why Bess soothes the baby with the line ‘Your daddy’s rich and your momma’s good looking’ rather than the other way round. And how often do you hear of a twenty-six-year-old Chippendale marrying an eighty-nine-year-old heiress?

Tim Harford, The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World, London, 2008, pp. 78-79

Caitlin Flanagan

The moms in my set are convinced—they’re certain; they know for a fact—that all over the city, in the very best schools, in the nicest families, in the leafiest neighborhoods, twelve- and thirteen-year-old girls are performing oral sex on as many boys as they can. They’re ducking into janitors’ closets between classes to do it; they’re doing it on school buses, and in bathrooms, libraries, and stairwells. They’re making bar mitzvah presents of the act, and performing it at “train parties”: boys lined up on one side of the room, girls working their way down the row. The circle jerk of old—shivering Boy Scouts huddled together in the forest primeval, desperately trying to spank out the first few drops of their own manhood—has apparently moved indoors, and now (death knell of the Eagle Scout?) there’s a bevy of willing girls to do the work.

Caitlin Flanagan, ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Monica’, The Atlantic, January/February 2006

Adolfo Bioy Casares

No imaginen que yo estuviera ansioso por conducir a Perla a uno de esos antros costosísimos, pero el caballero se reconoce en que apechuga de tarde en tarde. Por lo demás yo especulaba con las relevantes ventajas que en la ocasión proporcionan tales comercios: la infalible mecánica del alcohol, de la oscuridad y del baile, a la par de las oportunidades de pellizcar, al amparo de la oscuridad mencionada, mis bocaditos de aceitunas, queso y maní.

Adolfo Bioy Casares, ‘Ad porcos‘, in Historias de amor, Buenos Aires, 2004, p. 191

Randolph Nesse

Most people like to imagine that normal life is happy and that other states are abnormalities that need explanation. This is a pre-Darwinian view of psychology. We were not designed for happiness. Neither were we designed for unhappiness. Happiness is not a goal left unaccomplished by some bungling designer, it is an aspect of a behavioural regulation mechanism shaped by natural selection. The utter mindlessness of natural selection is terribly hard to grasp and even harder to accept. Natural selection gradually sifts variations in DNA sequences. Sequences that create phenotypes with a less-than-average reproductive success are displaced in the gene pool by those that give increased success. This process results in organisms that tend to want to stay alive, get resources, have sex, and take care of children. But these are not the goals of natural selection. Natural selection has no goals: it just mindlessly shapes mechanisms, including our capacities for happiness and unhappiness, that tend to lead to behavior that maximizes fitness. Happiness and unhappiness are not ends; they are means. They are aspects of mechanisms that influence us to act in the interests of our genes.

Randolph Nesse, ‘Natural Selection and the Elusiveness of Happiness’, in Felicia A. Huppert, Nick Baylis and Barry Keverne (eds.), The Science of Well-Being, Oxford, 2005, p. 10

Adam Smith

What can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, who is out of debt, and has a clear conscience? To one in this situation, all accessions of fortune may properly be said to be superfluous; and if he is much elevated upon account of them, it must be the effect of the most frivolous levity. This situation, however, may very well be called the natural and ordinary state of mankind. Notwithstanding the present misery and depravity of the world, so justly lamented, this really is the state of the greater part of men. The greater part of men, therefore, cannot find any great difficulty in elevating themselves to all the joy which any accession to this situation can well excite in their companion.

But though little can be added to this state, much may be taken from it. Though between this condition and the highest pitch of human prosperity, the interval is but a trifle; between it and the lowest depth of misery the distance is immense and prodigious. Adversity, on this account, necessarily depresses the mind of the sufferer much more below its natural state, than prosperity can elevate him above it.

Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759, sect. 1, chap. 3

C. D. Broad

The pleasure of pursuit will not be enjoyed unless we start with at least some faint desire for the pursued end. But the intensity of the pleasure of pursuit may be out of all proportion to the initial intensity of the desire for the end. As the pursuit goes on the desire to attain the end grows in intensity, and so, if we attain it, we may have enjoyed not only the pleasure of pursuit but also the pleasure of fulfilling a desire which has become very strong. All these facts are illustrated by the playing of games, and it is often prudent to try to create a desire for an end in order to enjoy the pleasures of pursuit. As Sidgwick points out, too great a concentration on the thought of the pleasure to be gained by pursuing an end will diminish the desire for the end and thus diminish the pleasure of pursuit. If you want to get most pleasure from pursuing X you will do best to try to forget that this is your object and to concentrate directly on aiming at X. This fact he calls “the Paradox of Hedonism.”

It seems to me that the facts which we have been describing have a most important bearing on the question of Optimism and Pessimism. If this question be discussed, as it generally is, simply with regard to the prospects of human happiness or misery in this life, and account to be taken only of passive pleasures and pains and the pleasures and pains of fulfilled or frustrated desire, it is difficult to justify anything but a most gloomy answer to it. But it is possible to take a much more cheerful view if we include, as we ought to do, the pleasures of pursuit. From a hedonistic standpoint, it seems to me that in human affairs the means generally have to justify the end; that ends are inferior carrots dangled before our noses to make us exercise those activities from which we gain most of our pleasures; and that the secret of a tolerably happy life may be summed up in a parody of Hegel’s famous epigram about the infinite End, viz., “the attainment of the infinite End just consists in preserving the illusion that there is an End to be attained.”

C. D. Broad, Five Types of Ethical Theory, London, 1930, pp. 191-192

R. M. Hare

It is indeed rather mysterious that critics of utilitarianism, some of whom lay great weight on the ‘right to equal concern and respect’ which all people have, should object when utilitarians show this equal concern by giving equal weight to the equal interests of everybody, a precept which leads straight to Bentham’s formula and to utilitarianism itself.

R. M. Hare, ‘Rights, Utility, and Universalization: Reply to J. L. Mackie’, in R. G. Frey (ed.) Utility and Rights, Oxford, 1985, p. 107

J. J. C. Smart

That anything should exist at all does seem to me a matter for the deepest awe. But whether other people feel this sort of awe, and whether they or I ought to is another question. I think we ought to.

J. J. C. Smart, ‘The Existence of God’, Church Quarterly Review, vol. 156, no. 319 (April-June, 1955), p. 194

Eduardo Berti and Edgardo Cozarinsky

Sin lugar a dudas, Borges es la mayor figura que ha dado la literatura argentina. Su sola obra bastaría para encarnar una “edad de oro” y exhibe un peso equivalente a lo que, en otras tradiciones, es la suma de varias individualidades. Dicho de otra forma, Borges es al mismo tiempo nuestro Tolstoi, nuestro Dostoievsky y nuestro Chejov.

Eduardo Berti and Edgardo Cozarinsky, Galaxia Borges, Buenos Aires, 2007, p. 7

Jorge Luis Borges

El movimiento dadá correspondía a una idea de nihilismo, de desesperación de la literatura. Quedamos decepcionados cuando supimos, después, que no eran verdaderos escépticos, que se peleaban por ser reconocidos como los “verdaderos” fundadores del movimiento. En fin, supimos que los dadaístas eran escritores tan profesionales como los demás, igualmente celosos, igualmente vanidosos.

Jorge Luis Borges, in Pilar Bravo and Mario Paoletti (eds.), Borges Verbal, Barcelona, 1999, pp. p. 67

David Schmitt

If men do possess psychological design features that reliably lead to higher levels of sociosexuality, this would in no way justify their unrestricted sexual behaviour in a moral sense. Such a conclusion would be the result of faulty reasoning known as the “naturalistic fallacy” or “because something is (natural), it ought to be.” There are myriad examples of unpleasant behaviors that are to some degree natural, in that they probably occurred with some frequency over our evolutionary history (e.g., high child mortality, intergroup conflict, perhaps even warfare). Just because something is natural does not justify it. Instead, understanding the way that a behavior is natural—especially the underlying psychological adaptations that give rise to the behaviour—may help to control the behaviour if that is what a culture decides is preferable. Indeed, increasing our scientific knowledge about the theoretical links between culture and sexuality may prove crucial to alleviating the public health problems of overpopulation, reproductive dysfunction, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, and—seemingly at the heart of most health concerns—gender inequity.

David Schmitt, ‘Sociosexuality from Argentina to Zimbabwe: A 48-nation Study of Sex, Culture, and Strategies of Human Mating’, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol. 28, no. 2 (2005), p. 271

Paul Feyerabend

One night […] I dreamed that I had a rather pleasant sensation in my right leg. The sensation increased in intensity, and I began to wake up. It grew even more intense. I woke up more fully and discovered that it had been a severe pain all the time. The sensation itself told me that it had been a sensation of immense pain, which I had mistaken for a sensation of pleasure.

Paul Feyerabend, Killing Time: The Autobiography of Paul Feyerabend, Chicago, 1995, p. 117

Old Testament

Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.

Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.

Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.

Old Testament, Job 3:3-5

Sheldon Reaven

Paul loved to live. Many periods of his life were a flurry of dinners, plays, operas, romantic evenings, wrestling matches. These occasions were marked by a great sociability. Killing Time itemizes these activities, but does not, I think, fully convey their athmosphere.

Feyerabend would hold court at Berkeley’s faculty lunchroom, in later years at the Chez Panisse restaurant. A steady stream of students, faculty, and assorted personages came and went. Paul was the main attraction. Discussions would careen through fine food and wine; music and opera; romantic prospects and dénouements; Feyerabend’s revered classics of literature, history, and philosophy—perhaps he would be rereading an old favorite, perhaps a new book offered a novel treatment; Perry Mason, mystery books, and the best soap opera actors—soap opera being the sole repertory acting on TV; intellectual celebrity gossip; even philosophy of science. Feyerabend would discuss the state of his ailments, and his newest try for a remedy (e.g., acupuncture). Discussion would continue afterward, as Feyerabend with difficulty would make his way to a class or his bus stop; it was a big occasion when he got a specially outfitted car. His house was a dense labyrinth of books; indeed for years one of my functions was to scout out interesting books on any topic, and interesting musical discoveries, to recommend to him. These were immensely sunny times. Feyerabend was like champagne, sheer fun to be around.

Sheldon Reaven, ‘Time Well Spent’, in John Preston, Gonzalo Munévar and David Lamb (eds.), The Worst Enemy of Science? Essays in Memory of Paul Feyerabend, Oxford, 2000, p. 24

Stuart Rachels

Ethics is founded on evidence that can’t be shared. My experience of severe pain gives me reason to believe that nihilism is false. In other words, when I am in severe pain, that pain, as it’s presented to me, gives me evidence that it’s bad in some way. I can’t share this evidence with you; you can’t feel my pain. Even if you could peer inside my head and see it, you wouldn’t be presented with it in a way that gave you evidence of its badness. But you, of course, are in the same position regarding your pain: when you are in severe pain, that pain, as it’s presented to you, provides you with evidence that it’s bad in some way. So, each of us has evidence for his or her severe pain being bad in some way. In the case of infants and nonhuman animals, the evidence is there, but the creature is too unsophisticated to recognize it as such.

Stuart Rachels, Hedonic Value, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Syracuse, 1998, p. 35

Derek Parfit

Take a Swede who is proud of his country’s peaceful record. He might have a similar divided attitude. He may not be disturbed by the thought that Sweden once fought aggressive wars; but if she had recently fought such wars he would be greatly disturbed. Someone might say, “This man’s attitude is indefensible. The wars of Gustavus, or of Karl XII, are as much part of Swedish history.” This truth cannot, I think, support this criticism. Modern Sweden is indeed continuous with the aggressive Sweden of the Vasa kings. But the connections are weak enough to justify this man’s attitude.

Derek Parfit, ‘On “The Importance of Self-Identity”‘, The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 68, no. 20 (October, 1971), p. 685

Thomas Nagel

Consider how strange is the question posed by someone who wants a justification for altruism about such a basic matter as this. Suppose he and some other people have been admitted to a hospital with severe burns after being rescued from a fire. “I understand how my pain provides me with a reason to take an analgesic,” he says, “and I understand how my groaning neighbor’s pain gives him a reason to take an analgesic; but how does his pain give me any reason to want him to be given an analgesic? How can his pain give me or anyone else looking at it from outside a reason?

This question is crazy. As an expression of puzzlement, it has that characteristic philosophical craziness which indicates that something very fundamental has gone wrong. This shows up in the fact that the answer to the question is obvious, so obvious that to ask the question is obviously a philosophical act. The answer is that pain is awful. The pain of the man groaning in the next bed is just as awful as yours. That’s your reason to want him to have an analgesic.

Thomas Nagel, ‘The Limits of Objectivity’, in Sterling McMurrin (ed.), The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, vol. 1, Cambridge, 1980, pp. 109-110

Wayne Sumner

[T]here are quite commonplace instances of our not being averse to, or even relishing, pain. I can deliberately probe a loose tooth with my tongue and find the sharp pang which results quite delicious. In this case I have no difficulty identifying the feeling as painful; indeed, that seems to be part of its appeal.

Wayne Sumner, Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics, Oxford, 1996, p. 101

Albert Einstein

Nun ist [Michele Besso] mir auch mit dem Abschied von dieser sonderbaren Welt ein wenig vorausgegangen. Dies bedeutet nichts. Für uns gläubige Physiker hat die Scheidung zwischen Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft nur die Bedeutung einer wenn auch hartnäckigen Illusion.

Albert Einstein, Letter to Vero Besso and Bice Besso, March 21, 1955, in Pierre Speziali (ed.), Albert Einstein: Correspondance avec Michele Besso, 1903-1955, Paris, 1972, pp. 537-538