Pain and the quantum leap to agent-neutral value
Ethics, vol. 100, no. 2, 1990, pp. 363–367
Abstract
T Nagel holds that the “awfulness” of anyone’s pain provides anyone else with reason for wanting it to stop and is consequently bad for all, period (Tanner Lectures, p. 108). I believe that the hard facts about pain cannot sustain any such quantum leap to agent-neutral value. Accordingly, I argue that the allegation that pain is agent-neutrally bad is not supported by Nagel’s claim about the equal awfulness of anyone’s pains, unless there are reasons (such as Nagel fails to provide) for concluding that this awfulness, itself, is agent-neutral.