Suffering and Moral Responsibility
Suffering and Moral Responsibility by Jamie Mayerfeld, published by Oxford University Press in 1999, is a comprehensive exploration of the moral implications of suffering. This 237-page study delves into the meaning and significance of suffering, examining it through a hedonistic lens as an affliction of feeling. Mayerfeld addresses the complexities involved in identifying and measuring suffering, while also discussing the moral duty to alleviate it and how this duty interacts with other ethical considerations.
Readers will find a thorough analysis of various aspects of suffering, including its distinction from physical pain and desire frustration. The book presents insights into the psychological barriers that obscure our awareness of others’ suffering and argues for the importance of pursuing indirect methods for its prevention. Mayerfeld posits that reducing suffering holds greater moral weight than promoting happiness, emphasizing that many individuals underestimate the obligation to prevent suffering. This edition serves as a significant contribution to the fields of moral philosophy and political theory, appealing to specialists and those interested in the ethical dimensions of human experience.
Official synopsis Publisher
In this original study, Jamie Mayerfeld undertakes a careful inquiry into the meaning and moral significance of suffering. Understanding suffering in hedonistic terms as an affliction of feeling, he addresses difficulties associated with its identification and measurement. He then turns to an examination of the duty to relieve suffering: its content, its weight relative to other moral considerations, and the role it should play in our lives.
Among the claims defended in the book are that suffering needs to be distinguished from both physical pain and the frustration of desire, that interpersonal comparisons of the intensity of happiness and suffering are possible, that several psychological processes hinder our awareness of other people’s suffering, and that the prevention of suffering should often be pursued indirectly. Mayerfeld concludes his discussion by arguing that the reduction of suffering is morally more important than the promotion of happiness, and that most of us greatly underestimate the force of the duty to prevent suffering.
As the first systematic book-length inquiry into the moral significance of suffering, Suffering and Moral Responsibility makes an important contribution to moral philosophy and political theory, and will interest specialists in each of these areas.
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