The Imperative View of Pain

Journal of Consciousness Studies 18 (9-10):164-85 (2011)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Pain, crucially, is unpleasant and motivational. It can be awful; and it drives us to action, e.g. to take our weight off a sprained ankle. But what is the relationship between pain and those two features? And in virtue of what does pain have them? Addressing these questions, Colin Klein and Richard J. Hall have recently developed the idea that pains are, at least partly, experiential commands—to stop placing your weight on your ankle, for example. In this paper, I reject their accounts. Against Klein, I use dissociation cases to argue that possession of ‘imperative content’ cannot wholly constitute pain. Against them both, I further claim that possession of such content cannot even constitute pain’s unpleasant, motivational aspect. For, even if it were possible to specify the relevant imperative content—which is far from clear—the idea of a command cannot bear the explanatory weight Klein and Hall place on it.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Response to Tumulty on Pain and Imperatives.Colin Klein - 2010 - Journal of Philosophy 107 (10):554-557.
What makes pains unpleasant?David Bain - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 166 (1):69-89.
What the body commands: the imperative theory of pain.Colin Klein - 2015 - Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Pains that Don't Hurt.David Bain - 2014 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 92 (2):305-320.
Why Take Painkillers?David Bain - 2019 - Noûs 53 (2):462-490.
Imperative Transparency.Manolo Martínez - 2022 - Mind 131 (522):585-601.
Pain Experiences and Their Link to Action: Challenging Imperative Theories.Sabrina Coninx - 2020 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 27 (9-10):104-126.
Sharing Pain: A Hybrid Expressivist Account.Jada Wiggleton-Little - 2024 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 102 (3):608-622.

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-04-03

Downloads
1,202 (#18,066)

6 months
194 (#22,401)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

David Bain
Glasgow University

Citations of this work

What makes pains unpleasant?David Bain - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 166 (1):69-89.
Pain.Murat Aydede - 2019 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Fish and microchips: on fish pain and multiple realization.Matthias Michel - 2018 - Philosophical Studies 176 (9):2411-2428.
Pains as reasons.Manolo Martínez - 2015 - Philosophical Studies 172 (9):2261-2274.
Pain signals are predominantly imperative.Manolo Martínez & Colin Klein - 2016 - Biology and Philosophy 31 (2):283-298.

View all 27 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Consciousness and Experience.William G. Lycan - 1996 - Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Consciousness and Experience.William G. Lycan - 1996 - Philosophy 72 (282):602-604.
Perception and content.Bill Brewer - 2006 - European Journal of Philosophy 14 (2):165-181.
Pain.Murat Aydede - 2019 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

View all 18 references / Add more references