Question 1. What are the positive non-relieving goods that can outweigh suffering? Or in other words, what has positive intrinsic value in the same way that suffering has negative intrinsic value?
Question 2. Consider a world that contains many creatures, some of whom are flourishing and some …
Question 1. What are the positive non-relieving goods that can outweigh suffering? Or in other words, what has positive intrinsic value in the same way that suffering has negative intrinsic value?
Question 2. Consider a world that contains many creatures, some of whom are flourishing and some of whom are suffering. As it happens, the world has a net neutral balance of happiness and suffering. Wouldn't your view imply that it would be preferable to destroy such a world over adding a smallest unit of suffering (like a pingprick)?
Question 3. Whenever someone is suffering, this fact includes a call to relieve this suffering. However, when someone is flourishing, this fact doesn't include a call to increase the flourishing. Doesn't this prove a really important asymmetry?
(1) Positive well-being, i.e. whatever makes life "worth living". People can reasonably disagree about precisely what that consists in -- see https://utilitarianism.net/theories-of-wellbeing/ -- but I would include goods such as happiness, loving relationships, and achievement.
I wouldn't hesitate to endorse living a life that contains some suffering alongside vastly more of these welfare goods. Indeed, I think the view that *there are only bads, no goods*, such that no life is positively "worth living" at all, is among the most insane philosophical views I've ever heard proposed. (Just reporting my judgment here, no offense intended.)
(2) Assuming no possibility of future change, and by "happiness" you also mean to include non-hedonic welfare goods, then sure. Any view on which there is good and bad will presumably imply that there is some point at which one more bit of bad would make the world bad overall, i.e. worse than nothing. (Though on some views there could be an element of vagueness or imprecision as to the location of the threshold.)
(3) I'm not sure what you mean by "includes a call". We have normative reason to relieve suffering (suffering is such that we should want it gone). But we equally have normative reason to promote flourishing (flourishing is such that we should want it present). Doesn't that mean that the flourishing "includes a call" to pursue it, or see it realized? If someone is only flourishing a bit, I think the potential for better does indeed "call" us to realize that potential. So no, I don't see any important asymmetry here.
I have 3 additional questions about your view:
Question 1. What are the positive non-relieving goods that can outweigh suffering? Or in other words, what has positive intrinsic value in the same way that suffering has negative intrinsic value?
Question 2. Consider a world that contains many creatures, some of whom are flourishing and some of whom are suffering. As it happens, the world has a net neutral balance of happiness and suffering. Wouldn't your view imply that it would be preferable to destroy such a world over adding a smallest unit of suffering (like a pingprick)?
Question 3. Whenever someone is suffering, this fact includes a call to relieve this suffering. However, when someone is flourishing, this fact doesn't include a call to increase the flourishing. Doesn't this prove a really important asymmetry?
-Bruno Contestabile
(1) Positive well-being, i.e. whatever makes life "worth living". People can reasonably disagree about precisely what that consists in -- see https://utilitarianism.net/theories-of-wellbeing/ -- but I would include goods such as happiness, loving relationships, and achievement.
I wouldn't hesitate to endorse living a life that contains some suffering alongside vastly more of these welfare goods. Indeed, I think the view that *there are only bads, no goods*, such that no life is positively "worth living" at all, is among the most insane philosophical views I've ever heard proposed. (Just reporting my judgment here, no offense intended.)
(2) Assuming no possibility of future change, and by "happiness" you also mean to include non-hedonic welfare goods, then sure. Any view on which there is good and bad will presumably imply that there is some point at which one more bit of bad would make the world bad overall, i.e. worse than nothing. (Though on some views there could be an element of vagueness or imprecision as to the location of the threshold.)
(3) I'm not sure what you mean by "includes a call". We have normative reason to relieve suffering (suffering is such that we should want it gone). But we equally have normative reason to promote flourishing (flourishing is such that we should want it present). Doesn't that mean that the flourishing "includes a call" to pursue it, or see it realized? If someone is only flourishing a bit, I think the potential for better does indeed "call" us to realize that potential. So no, I don't see any important asymmetry here.