One important test of adequacy for a theory of welfare is completeness. To be complete a theory must cover ill-being as well as well-being. Call this the ill-being test for a theory. The author’s aim in this article is to determine how well equipped the leading theories of welfare are to pass this test. The author reaches three modest conclusions: passing the test is not straightforward for any theory; on the whole, subjective theories do better than objective ones; within the (...) subjective category experiential theories do better than desire theories. (shrink)

Science and technology have vastly expanded the realm of medicine. The numbers of and knowledge about diseases has greatly increased, and we can help more people in many more ways than ever before. At the same time, the extensive expansion has also augmented harms, professional responsibility, and ethical concerns. While these challenges have been studied from a wide range of perspectives, the problems prevail. This article adds value to previous analyses by identifying how the moral imperative of medicine has expanded (...) in three ways: (1) from targeting experienced phenomena, such as pain and suffering, to non-experienced phenomena (paraclinical signs and indicators); (2) from addressing present pain to potential future suffering; and (3) from reducing negative wellbeing (pain and suffering) to promoting positive wellbeing. These expansions create and aggravate problems in medicine: medicalization, overdiagnosis, overtreatment, risk aversion, stigmatization, and healthism. Moreover, they threaten to infringe ethical principles, to distract attention and responsibility from other competent agents and institutions, to enhance the power and responsibility of professionals, and to change the professional-beneficiary relationship. In order to find ways to manage the moral expansion of medicine, four traditional ways of setting limits are analyzed and dismissed. However, basic asymmetries in ethics suggest that it is more justified to address people’s negative wellbeing (pain and suffering) than their positive wellbeing. Moreover, differences in epistemology, indicate that it is less uncertain to address present pain and suffering than future wellbeing and happiness. Based on these insights the article concludes that the moral imperative of medicine has a gradient from pain and suffering to wellbeing and happiness, and from the present to the future. Hence, in general present pain and suffering have normative priority over future positive wellbeing. (shrink)

Karl Popper suggested that the utilitarian formula "Maximise happiness" should be replaced by the formula "Minimize suffering" - a view which has been called "negative utilitarianism". Can such a view be spelled out in a plausible way? Examining several ways of understanding the alleged ethical priority of pain over pleasure, I come to the conclusion that none of them is satisfactory as a basis for a theory of benevolence. However, once we move from hedonistic to preference utilitarianism two possible views (...) emerge which, although not fundamentally different from classical utilitarianism, diverge from it in interesting ways and seem to warrant further study. (shrink)

Who owns nature? The question could be less important than reducing animal sufferings in nature. It does not matter if nature does not belong to anyone or if it belongs to someone, because in both cases there are limitations, linked with animal welfare, regarding what we should do in nature. Sentient beings have interests that we must take into account when designing environmental policies. Since neither ecosystems nor plants have interests, preserving nature is less important than reducing animal sufferings. The (...) relevant moral issue is, therefore, knowing what happens to sentient animals in nature and developing policies to reduce their sufferings. This implies that we have the moral obligation of intervening in nature with the aim of reducing animal sufferings, so conservationist environmental policies defended by ecologists are morally unacceptable. (shrink)

En este artículo se explica en qué consisten las éticas centradas en el sufrimiento, presenta algunas de las principales razones a su favor y expone cuáles son sus implicaciones con respecto a la consideración moral de los animales. Se argumenta que conforme a estas éticas los usos como recursos de los animales lesivos para estos deberán ser rechazados. A continuación, se examinan las posiciones que aceptan el uso de los animales siempre que este tenga lugar reduciendo los daños infligidos a (...) estos. Se presentarán una serie de razones por las que tales posiciones resultan cuestionables y por las que van a entrar en conflicto con las implicaciones de las éticas centradas en el sufrimiento. (shrink)