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Zusatztext ... provocative and insightful ... This book would work well in a graduate ethics course. Klappentext 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 anexamination 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 otherpeople'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 toprevent 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. Zusammenfassung In this work, Jamie Mayerfeld examines the content of the duty to prevent suffering and the weight it has relative to other moral considerations. He argues that the prevention of suffering is morally more important than the promotion of happiness, and that the duty to relieve suffering is much stronger than most of us acknowledge. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1.: Introduction 2.: The Meaning of Suffering 3.: The Measurement of Suffering 4.: The Moral Significance of Suffering 5.: The Duty to Relieve Suffering 6.: The Moral Asymmetry of Happiness and Suffering 7.: Trade-offs Internal to the Duty to Relieve Suffering 8.: The Limits of the Duty to Relieve Suffering Notes Bibliography Index ...
