All of Mary Stowers's Comments + Replies
I'd definitely like to write more on the concept since I truly believe it could be useful, at the very least as a source of hope. It's all too easy to feel depressed diving into the viewpoint of suffering-focused ethics, but that probably slows motivation that would be more effective otherwise. The possibility of forgetting suffering to soon is a good point to remember, I'll take a look at the essay linked. Thanks for the response!
I would agree that pleasure is important too, but I think I'd place a higher disvalue on suffering than I place value on pleasure. I definitely don't think that a world without suffering would necessarily be a state of hedonic neutral, or result in meaninglessness. However, I would also be one to bite the bullet and say that a Melba toast world with general pleasantness but no true joy or wonder would be preferable to a world with widespread extreme suffering (at least on the scale it exists on today) if that was necessary. I'd also say the ideal version o... (read more)