From suffering to satisfaction: Why we need pain to feel pleasure

Abstract

It’s fair to say that suffering has a bad name. Today, perhaps more so than any other time in history, we view suffering mostly as a negative experience. This is not to say that we simply recognize its innately anti-hedonic affective qualities, but that we see it as something that detracts from our quality of life in a more overarching sense - we have a suffering aversion. This way of thinking gives rise to the idea that if we could end all suffering the world, and our lives within it, would be all the much better. The project from which this volume resulted has attempted to provide a much-needed counter-point to this perspective, exploring the various nuances of suffering rather than castin..