Please enable JavaScript.

Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.

Pain and Suffering - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Pain = specific physical sensation whereas suffering = a mental state where pain may sometimes be a feature
      - Such a state involved memory, anticipation, capacity to imagine alternatives and a moral conscience
        
        anxiety and despair, regret and remorse or the loss of loved ones all clearly differ from physical pain
        
        To be miserable is to be aware of a larger context of existence
  - - - the adventurer may endure great pains through their travels and yet remain positive due to the satisfaction of accomplishment
    - - "all endure forms of suffering and even those opulent few never find satisfaction. All the goods in the world would not make one happy but all the ills would make a “wretch” rendering life “ineligible”"
        
        Hick agrees with idea that we do not find satisfaction but holds that life is better than ineligible
        
        If the bad outweighed the good Hick claims that humanity would have destroyed itself
        
        However, even if good does outweigh the bad, problem of evil remains
  - - - due to epistemic distance we inevitably take a self-centred approach to life
        
        this is a requirement for freedom
      - If we had no suffering moral actions would lose all meaning, wrong actions would have no consequence
        
        If acting wrong is to harm others, no act will be wrong in a world without suffering
        
        Virtues of self-sacrifice, care, devotion, skill etc. would be ignored and never built upon
        
        Removing all suffering is a "sterile reform"
  - - - Remove a 10 and 9 becomes the new 10
      - If cycle continues we eventually remove all suffering, undesirable as outlined in "a paradise without suffering"
    - - Hume suggests that we are not well equipped, suggesting that God would make us as a species more industry and perseverance
        
        If god created us, as a species, with more industry and perseverance evil becomes equipped faster
        
        but so does good
        
        overall a more volatile world which is not wanted
  - - - E.g. tsunamis, WMDs etc.
      - Many theologists attempt to explain this through the idea of fallen angels controlling different aspects of such suffering
        
        However, idea of fallen angels is reliant on incomprehensible rebellion of perfect beings (angels)
        
        Evil would have to self-create, thus Hick rejects this explanation
  - - - mysteriousness of such suffering is an important aspect of soul-making
      - Consider a world where all suffering could be justified, all would face danger but not to such a perceived excessive amount
        
        Would such a world lead to development of virtues or soul building?
        
        Suffering would not be seen as bad for the victim
        
        We do not morally condemn a doctor giving a patient a painful procedure to cure them as it is morally rational
        
        Dysteleological suffering is a requirement for compassionate love
        
        Dysteliological suffering remains unjust and excessive, challenging christian conceptions of God however, such mystery has its own intrinsic value as it allows for human goodness to occur
- - - - Pain is not necessarily proportional to the amount of danger one is in
      - However on an individual level, pain is not necessary to survive - people can be taught that things are dangerous
        
        It is necessary on a societal level in order to determine these dangers consistently - if no one felt pain we would not have got this far
    - - Hume describes pain as one of the four major defects of the world - “none of them appear to human reason to be in the least degree necessary or unavoidable”
        
        Hume: pain is just the absence of pleasure, and thus with more pleasure we can abolish pain. IGNORES THAT PAIN IS RELATIVE
        
        To Hume, pain only exists because of the laws of nature - with limitation comes danger e.g. hitting a hard surface from a height
        
        In a perfect world, the laws of nature would change to adapt to the needs of sentient beings spontaneously
        
        a world such as this would present no hardship and thus no significant achievements, no need to eat or sleep or fight. achievement has allowed us to get this far, according to Hick
        
        Hick goes deep into this theoretical world, but ultimately decides it is pointless, as the definition of "better" is something only God can decide. By a "better" world, who is it better for? God or us?
  - - - J.S. Mill: Animals are often highly driven to kill and hurt, and have developed well with instruments to inflict this - many animals are incapable of surviving without killing and maiming. They are designed to be immoral
      - Animals, however, do feel pain - we see this in the world, where things that would hurt us cause similar reactions that we would have when exposed to said painful stimulus. Additionally, evolution suggests that man's consciousness differs "in degree" rather than in entirety.
        
        Why is this then the case? Especially since animals do not have this capability to live in the future or past, but only in the present, they have no mental potentiality
        
        The question then becomes why do animals exist at all if they provide no greater meaning to God?
        
        One that is popular but he disagrees with is The Augustinian Principle of Plenitude
        
        Due to the infinite nature of divinity, God's love overflows and manifests as possible goodness and aspects of goodness. Non-human animals are possible goodness and other things that can exist. Their pain is mysterious
        
        These do not explain why different animals exist how they do - this might just have different and unique meaning to God that we can't understand
        
        Epistemic distance - by existing in a world with other animals and as such things alike to himself, man is able to imagine a world without God and as a free being in this sandbox
  - - - But IMPLIES psychic suffering
        
        The pairing of psychic and physical is variable and dependent on the person
        
        PROOF: depending on adrenaline + other chemicals and previous pain, people respond differently to the same stimulus
      - PROOF: after a prefrontal leucotomy, patients can feel pain but experience no distress from it