Why We Should Be Experientialists about Suffering.

Abstract

Increased interest in suffering has given rise to different accounts of what suffering is. This paper focuses the debate between experientialists and non-experientialists about suffering. The former hold that suffering is necessarily experiential-for instance, because it is necessarily unpleasant or painful; the latter deny this-for instance, because one can suffer when and because one's objective properties are damaged, even if one does not experience this. After surveying how the two accounts fare on a range of issues, the paper presents a decisive argument in favor of experientialism. The central claim is that non-experientialist accounts cannot accommodate cases of suffering that are virtuous and that directly contribute to some objective good.