original sound expressive of a sensation which one does not experience oneself. Hearing it from a neighbouring room without being able to see, one may mistake for a chuckle the noise which is forced by pain from a patient being operated on without an anaesthetic; and as for the noise emitted by a mother who has just been told that her child has died, it can seem to us, if we are unaware of its origin, as difficult to translate into human terms as the noise emitted by an animal or by a harp.2
Proust seemed to think that even knowing the cause of another’s pain may leave us struggling to understand what is happening to him or her; the obstacle to understanding, Proust believed, came down to “...the curtain that is forever lowered for other people over what happens in the mysterious intimacy of every human creature.”
Wittgenstein saw pain as a curtain that divides us from others. His ruminations on the sensation of pain, especially in Philosophical Investigations I, Sections 243–308, have set in place an epistemology of pain.3 Although it would be absurd to say that no one can ever know whether another is in pain or not, or even conceive what it would be for another to be in pain, Wittgenstein concluded, we cannot readily verify either the presence or the extent of suffering in another. But we can certainly believe that he or she suffers (because it makes no sense to argue with sincere people who insist they feel pain). That belief suffices to generate an emotional response to the pain or suffering of another.
I have said that pain emanates from a location on or in a body, but that suffering does not. The presence of pain is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for suffering. Pain has a felt quality, a felt intensity. Suffering, on the other hand, is not located in the body. The suffering of grief, envy, and anxiety do not relate to the nervous system, as does the sensation of pain.
Numerous writers concur that only bodies feel pain and that only persons suffer. (Bentham held that animals suffer and so possess moral rights, but I do not consider animals here.) This distinction is useful. For example, it helps to put in context the biomedical ethicist Tristram Engelhardt’s approval of the practice of subjecting newborn infants to painful 52
procedures (for example, circumcision) on the grounds that they cannot integrate the experience of pain sufficiently so as to be said actually to suffer.4 I accept this narrowing of the concept of suffering and accordingly stipulate that pain is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for Schadenfreude . That pain often includes suffering does not diminish the point of this distinction, for the converse cannot be said to be true.
Unlike pain, suffering always entails a psychological and/or a social component. This component can change suddenly or evolve gradually: in any event, it is not static. The suffering of children forced to work in factories or immigrant families crowded into dirty, unsafe hovels commands a different popular reaction today than it would have a century, or perhaps even a decade, ago. The legal theorist Richard Posner remarks in Overcoming Law that, “Slavery just doesn’t mesh with our current belief system, which includes a historically recent belief in racial equality that is held as dogmatically (though secretly doubted by many of its holders) as our ancestors held their belief in inequality.”5 This social dimension shapes and refracts the experience of suffering.
Whereas pain calls out for medication or bandages, suffering waits for sympathy. The experience of suffering marginalizes us all by isolating us from other people. The successful articulation of suffering, in poems, novels, and paintings, serves to move us closer to others whose understanding is a primary source of consolation. The closer we move to others, the more we can feel triumphant over suffering. T.S. Eliot once summed up the sense of hell in
Proust seemed to think that even knowing the cause of another’s pain may leave us struggling to understand what is happening to him or her; the obstacle to understanding, Proust believed, came down to “...the curtain that is forever lowered for other people over what happens in the mysterious intimacy of every human creature.”
Wittgenstein saw pain as a curtain that divides us from others. His ruminations on the sensation of pain, especially in Philosophical Investigations I, Sections 243–308, have set in place an epistemology of pain.3 Although it would be absurd to say that no one can ever know whether another is in pain or not, or even conceive what it would be for another to be in pain, Wittgenstein concluded, we cannot readily verify either the presence or the extent of suffering in another. But we can certainly believe that he or she suffers (because it makes no sense to argue with sincere people who insist they feel pain). That belief suffices to generate an emotional response to the pain or suffering of another.
I have said that pain emanates from a location on or in a body, but that suffering does not. The presence of pain is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for suffering. Pain has a felt quality, a felt intensity. Suffering, on the other hand, is not located in the body. The suffering of grief, envy, and anxiety do not relate to the nervous system, as does the sensation of pain.
Numerous writers concur that only bodies feel pain and that only persons suffer. (Bentham held that animals suffer and so possess moral rights, but I do not consider animals here.) This distinction is useful. For example, it helps to put in context the biomedical ethicist Tristram Engelhardt’s approval of the practice of subjecting newborn infants to painful 52
procedures (for example, circumcision) on the grounds that they cannot integrate the experience of pain sufficiently so as to be said actually to suffer.4 I accept this narrowing of the concept of suffering and accordingly stipulate that pain is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for Schadenfreude . That pain often includes suffering does not diminish the point of this distinction, for the converse cannot be said to be true.
Unlike pain, suffering always entails a psychological and/or a social component. This component can change suddenly or evolve gradually: in any event, it is not static. The suffering of children forced to work in factories or immigrant families crowded into dirty, unsafe hovels commands a different popular reaction today than it would have a century, or perhaps even a decade, ago. The legal theorist Richard Posner remarks in Overcoming Law that, “Slavery just doesn’t mesh with our current belief system, which includes a historically recent belief in racial equality that is held as dogmatically (though secretly doubted by many of its holders) as our ancestors held their belief in inequality.”5 This social dimension shapes and refracts the experience of suffering.
Whereas pain calls out for medication or bandages, suffering waits for sympathy. The experience of suffering marginalizes us all by isolating us from other people. The successful articulation of suffering, in poems, novels, and paintings, serves to move us closer to others whose understanding is a primary source of consolation. The closer we move to others, the more we can feel triumphant over suffering. T.S. Eliot once summed up the sense of hell in
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