The Social Pain Posit

Australasian Journal of Philosophy 93 (3):561-582 (2015)
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Abstract

Although discussion of social pain has become popular among researchers in psychology and behavioural neuroscience, the philosophical community has yet to pay it any direct attention. Social pain is characterized as the emotional reaction to the perception of the loss or devaluation of desired relationships. These are argued to comprise a pain type and are explicitly intended to include the everyday sub-types grief, jealousy, heartbreak, rejection, and hurt feelings. Social pain is accordingly posited as a nested type of pain encompassing multiple emotional sub-types. Call this the social pain posit. This article focuses on whether we should endorse the social pain posit and, in particular, whether social pain is pain. I present the four lines of evidence for the social pain posit that are currently offered in the literature and I argue that each provides only inadequate support, taken either individually or together. I close by considering the significance of the presented argument for philosophical theo..

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Jennifer Corns
University of Glasgow

Citations of this work

The World According to Suffering.Antti Kauppinen - 2020 - In Michael S. Brady, David Bain & Jennifer Corns (eds.), The Philosophy of Suffering. London: Routledge.
Emotional Perception.Matthew Fulkerson - 2020 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 98 (1):16-30.
Pain and Pleasure.Murat Aydede - 2024 - In Andrea Scarantino (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Emotion Theory. Routledge.
The social dimension of pain.Abraham Olivier - 2024 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 23 (2):375-408.

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References found in this work

What makes pains unpleasant?David Bain - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 166 (1):69-89.
How to Unify Theories of Sensory Pleasure: An Adverbialist Proposal.Murat Aydede - 2014 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 5 (1):119-133.
An Imperative Theory of Pain.Colin Klein - 2007 - Journal of Philosophy 104 (10):517-532.

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