Rafael De Clercq Levinson, Jerrold (1982). 'Music and NeSative Emotion', reprinted in id., Mlslc, Art, atld Metdphysics: Essays ilt Philosophical ,Aestftdfi.s (Ithaca and Londoni Cornel l UP, 1990), 306-335, Levinson, Jetold (1997). 'Emotion in Response to Art', reprinted in ld,, Co tanplatitlg Att (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006), 38-55. Morreall, J. (1985). 'Enjoying Negative Emotions in Fictions', Philosophy and Literctu/e 9(1)t 95-103. Robinson, Jenefer (1995). 'lleducation sentimentale', Austrulasian Joumal ol Phil osophy 7 312)t 2L2-226. Scruton, Roger (1999). The Aestheti.s of Music (Oxford: Oxford UP). Smuts, Aaron (2009). 'Art and Negative Affect', Philosophy C-o,rpd5i 4(1)i 39-55 (tslackwell Online). Walton, Kendall (1990), Mitnesis as Make-Belieye: Ot1 the Fowdations of th, Reprcsentational Arts (Cambridge, MAr HaNard UP). Williamson, Timothy (2002), Knowledge atld fts lilits (Oxford: Oxford UP), I'}ainful Art and the Limits of Well-Being Vrcn Smuts ln this chapter I ask what painful art can teach us about the nature ,[rd importance of human welfare. My goal is not so much to defend a rew solution to the paradox of tragedy as it is to explore the implicalions of the kinds of solutions that I find attractive. Both nonhedonic .ompensatory theories and constitutive theories plausibly explain why |eople seek out painful art, but they have troublesome implications. On v)rne narrow theories of well-being, they imply that painful art is bad lor rrs. Accordingly, we may rightly wonder if it is rational for people to \\'atch melodramas or to listen to love songs. One might think that we \hould generally avoid unpleasant works of art. This implication flirts rvith absurdity. I show how it can be avoided by making a distinction l)ctween well-being and worth. 7.1 Introduction Why do we listen to love songs, watch melodramas, or engage with any of the wide vadety ofworks of art that tend to arouse unpleasant, or even rlowndght painful, emotional reactions? This question captures what is known as the paradox of tragedy, or, more generall, the paradox of I)ainful art: we tend to avoid situations that arouse negative emotions, vet we seek out art that we know is likely to elicit such feelings. This is l)uzzling. Some think the puzzle can be resolved by appealing to the various l)leasures to be had from putatively palnful art. We take pleasure from il well-crafted nauative, beautiful prose, a melodious tune, and skilled ,rcting. One might plausibly suggest that these pleasures cornpensate lor the pain of the negative emotions. Call this style of solution to lhe paradox the hedonic compensatory theory (HCT), since it holds that 7 124 Aaron Smuts the pain is compensated for hedonically. I will argue that HCT is an inadequate solution to the paradox. The principal problem is that HCT does not iibe with the phenomenology: people typicallt or at least frequentl, describe their experiences of the kinds of works in question ar, on the whole, painful, distressinS, gut-wrenching, and emotionally devastating, not as on balance pleasurable. Nonhedonic compensatory fheolies (NHCT) are more plausible than their hedonic counterparts. NHCT holds that there are other kinds oJ value to be had frorn painful art that compensate for the unpleasant' ness. Although NHCT is more plausible, I think it fails to account fot the fact that the painful experi€nces are often intrinsically valuable Of course, this is a controversial suggestion. Regardless of whether painful experiences can be intdnsically valuable, I will argue that they are plau' sibly constitutive of kinds of value that motivate audiences to appre' ciate many painful works of art. Call this style of solution a constitutlv, theory (CT). Although I defend a constitutive solution to the paradox of tragedy, my chief goal here is to explore the implications of the solutions t find most attractive, namel, those that do not appeal to hedonic compen. sation.l Both nonhedonic compensatory theori€s and constitutive theo' ries explain why audiences pursue painful art, but they raise further questions. If the pain experienced in response to a work is not hedonl' cally compensated for, then on some plausible theories of well-beint it appears that the work might be bad for audiences. If so, one might suggest, it is i ational for people to watch melodramas or listen to lovQ songs. Accordingly, we should generally avoid love songs, melodrama, tragedt conspiracy thrillers, maybe even horror movies, and should encoumge our loved on€s to likewise avoid them. Herein lies a problem: If a solution to the paradox of painful art leadt one to the conclusion that much of the history of literature, film, and popular music is bad for audiences, that we are ifiational to pursue 8 wide variety of seemingly innocuous works, and that w€ have exceh lent reason to discourage others fmm watching melodramas or listenint to love songs, then something has gone terribly wron8. As Chishoh suggests, if we are forced to choose between an obvious ftuth and I controversial philosophical theoly (such as NHCT or CT), we should reject the theory.2 We should rciect the theory first and figure out whert it went wrong later, Happily, there is another option: neither NHCT nor CT alone impliet the absurdity that we are irrational in our pursuit of painful art. Tha charge of irrationality follows only if we also accept a narrow theory ot Pai fi.tl Att o d the Limits of Well-Being 125 weu-being, such as hedonism the view that pleasure and pain are the only things that are ultimately good or bad for a person. Hence, rather than a problem for NHCT and CT, it appears that we hav€ the seed of an important obiection to hedonism about welfare and its ilk. If hedonism irnplies that painful art is bad for us and that we are irational to attend to such works, we should reject hedonism and any other theory with similar implications. Although it appears that we must either defend a hedonic compensatory solution to the paradox of painful art or defend a wide theory of well-being, I argue that this is not the case. We can accept both CT, a nonhedonic compensatory theory and a narrow theory of well-being without courting absurdities. I offer a brief defence of both views and show that that putative problem is the product of a mistaken assumption about the importance of well-being. But my conclusion is nevertheless controversial. I conclude that although it might be rational to pursue painful art, it is sometimes prudentially bad. So far I have only provided a brief sketch of the dialectic. In what follows I will fill in the details. My argurnent proceeds in a few steps. Fi$t, I argue against hedonic compensatory solutions to the paradox. fhen I provide a brief defence of CT. Before showing how this leads to the problem sketched above, t prcvide an overview of the leading theories of well-being. I then present th€ problem and briefly defend a narrow theory ofwell-being. Finally I suggest that well-being is of limited importance. Rather than focus on the welfare impact of painful art, we should be concerned with how it affects the worth of our lives. I argue that the value had from painful art often makes our lives more worth living, despite sometimes having an adverse effect on our welfare. 7 .2 The paradox of painful art Vost of the literature on the paradox of tragedy is concerned with a notivational question: What motivates audiences to pursue works of art that arouse negative emotional responses?3 The motivational question is seldom stated in the same wat and it is rarely shown to be a formal paradox. Depending on how one poses the question, different solutions drop out. As it is typically stated, the paradox of tragedy asks how it is possible for audiences to feel pleasure in response to the fictional portrayal of events in a tragedy, or else to other distressing, depressing, and unpleasant works of art. But this formulation of the issue begs a central question: Do tragedies afford, on balance, pleasurable experiences? Perhaps they do. But even if tragedies arc generally pleasurable, T 126 Aarctl Snuts there are certainly works in other genres, such as melodrama, that do not typically provide experiences that are, on balance, pleasurable. The puzzle encompasses far more than mere tragedy, The breadth of negative emotional expedences to which audiences willingly submlt themselves is extensive. For starte6, a great deal of religious-themed art in the Western tradition seeks to provoke painful emotional reactions via depictions of the suffering of Christ and the martyrdom of saints. The motivation for viewing religious works is complicated. We need not settle the issue here, as there are plenty of clear secular cases. For instance, consider the genre of melodrama. A popular cinematic melodrama based on an Alice Munro story Away ftom Her (Sanh Polley 2006), featurcs a couple torn apart by past infidelitt uncovered paradoxically by the loss of recent memodes from Alzheimer's. Just a month into her stay at a nursing home, the wife falls in love with another resident and all but forgets her husband; invariablt audiences weep and weep. This is far from aberrant, Another exemplary cinematic nelodrama, Plenty (Schepisi 1985) ends with a flashback scene, where in the summer of her youth, the protagonist projects forward: 'There will be days and days like this.' But after two hours watching the heroine go insane ftom borcdom in a stultifying marriaSe, the audience knows better. For susceptible viewers, good melodramas elicit visceral sorrow. on any plausible account, a melodrama that fails to ierk tears is a failed melodrama. Likewise, the horror genre pdmarily attempts to arouse a combination of two aversive responses, fear and disgust, yet many people loutinely attend hofror movies where such responses are almost guaranteed. Although I think that the unpleasantness of feal and non-olfactory disgust is exaggerated, some works in the horror genre inspire unpleasant dread and profound sadness. Nicolas Roeg's beautiful and profoundly depressing masterpiece Don't Look Now (1973) denies its main character hope that the universe is anything but indifferent to human happiness.r Conspiratorial fictions such as The Pqrqllax yieral (Pakula 1974) often leave audiences without clear explanations of the events other than that the wolld is a malevolent cauldron of conuptionr where almost anyone could become an expendable tool of powerful interests. Melancholy music can arouse remorse at past wrongs or missed opportunities and acutely felt nostalgia, where listeners come to desire to return to previous times and suffer from the realization that this desire can never be satisfied.s There is no denying that much good art hurts. When one looks beyond tlagedy and notices the array of art that arouses negative emotions, the puzzle becomes more pronounced. In response to art, people seem far more willing than in ordinary life Paitlfrtl Att d d the Litnits ofwell-Bei g 727 lo expedence emotions that we think of as negative, We describe an crnotion as negqtiye w}]'er' it is typically accompanied by an aversive reaction. Accordingly, we typicauy avoid situations that arouse the crnotion. ln addition, such emotions ate often descdbed as having a iegative affect; they feel bad. We might say that they have a negative hedonic tone.6 The emotions themselves are thought to be an important source of aversion. In some cases, such as those of profound sadness, we r{ould go so far as to say that the emotions are painful.T This is precisely why I refer to the issue as the parqdox of painful arf. The paradox boils (lown to a simple question: If people want to avoid pain, then why do they want to experience art that is painful? The paradox of painful art can be formalized as follows: l. People voluntarily avoid things that provide painful experiences and only pursue things that provide pleasurable experiences. 2. Audiences rcutinely have net painful experiences in response to putatively painful art (PPA), such as tragedies, melodramas, religious works, sad songs, and hofior films. .1. People expect to have net painful experiences in response to PPA. .1. People voluntarily pursue works that they know to be PPA. 'lhe fourth claim, that people voluntadly pursue putatively palnful art, is beyond reasonable doubt. It is clear that audiences are not typically forcedtothe movies against their will. There is no Hollywood secret police lorce gathering people from their homes, forcing them into buses, only to be made to sit in crowded theatres while eating buckets of popcorn. And, as the third claim makes explicit, it is clear that audiences know what they are getting into. Rarc is it that people go to movies without lirst reading reviews, seeing a preview or talking to ftiends. Theaues do rlot have to employ bait-and-switch tactics to get audiences to watch uelodramas. Thefe is no need to advertise a comedy to get audiences to l)uy tickets to a tearjerker. Hence, no one has taken issue with the fourth claim of the paradox: audiences willingly seek out putatively painful art with largely accurate expectations about what they will experience. In contrast, neatly every solution to the paradox has rejected the second claim, as I have formulated it that people have net painful cxpefiences in response to putatively painful art. There are two broad options here. One night simply deny that putativety painful art provides ,r7r, noteworthy painful experiences. Alternatively, one might deny that the experiences arc on the whole painf]ol. Although some take the fi$t option, most take the second, more popular route; they claim that the v 1.28 Aqrofi Stnuts pain is compensated for by other pleasures. Although thefe are nonhe. donic compensatory solutions in the literature, these are atypical,r Commonly, compensatory solutions to the paradox claim that there l! hedonic compensation. They admit that audiences feel pain in response to putatively painful arti but they claim that the works of art provide adequate compensation in the form of other pleasures. The second claim of the paradox has been a popular target, though upon reflection it appears to be secure. I suspect that critics of the second premise have simply failed to adequately consider the phenomenology of painful alt experiences, a phenomenology that provides a geat deal of data in support of the second claim. I can think of a few reasons why this error is so pervasive, but one stands out:q the failure to take the phenomenology of painful art seriously is likely the product of a crude, implicit assumption of a relatively strong form of motivational hedonism. This assumption makes it difficult to see that the experlence of some art might not be on the whole pleasurable. If we only s€ek pleasure, then why in the world would anyone seek out unpleasant art? It must not be so unpleasant after all. Or at least this seems to be the line of thought. But once this implausible assumption is made explicit, we lack clear motivation for reiecting the second claim. My formulation of the paradox makes explicit the underlying assumption of motivational hedonism. The first claim is simply a statement of motivational, or psychological, hedonism the theory that the ulti. mate source of human motivation is pleasure and the avoidance of pain. This theory is certainly incorrect. Although psychological hedonists are a stubbom lot who more often than not are under the spell of some crackpot author of didactic fiction, I think it is fairly easy to show why their credo is false. ln the proverbial foxhole, a soldier may throw himself on a grenade to save his comrades, thereby sacrificing his pleasure for the good of others. It takes some serious theoretical indoctrination to call this selfish! Only a philosopher could make such a claim with a straight face. Similarl, the morally motivated may pursue what they consider the right course of action instead of what would bring them the most pleasure. Furthet one may occasionally promote the happiness of ftiends or loved ones at the expense of one's own pleasure, This is widely accepted endoxa. The burden of proof thus lies with the psychological hedonist. Naturally the psychological hedonist has a reply: the reason one helps a friend or keeps a promise is because it brings one pleasure and allows one to avoid the displeasure of sympathetic suffering and g11ilt. The psychological hedonist has a point. It feels good to do good for others; Paitllul Art dtld the Linits of Well-Behtg 129 guilt and sympathetic suffeling feel bad. But the psychological hedonist fails to see the significance of the source of our pleasure and distress in the weal and woe of others. We enioy doing good for friends because we care about them. Likewise, we feel bad when they suffer because we cate about them. We wouldn't feel bad otherwise. And there is no reason to think that we care for our friends merely because it brings us pleasure to help them. Such a suggestion gets things backwards. The problem for psychological hedonism is this: if we can care about others, then surely we can be motivated by our care and not merely a selfish calculus concerning our expected hedonic payoff.l0 Further, not all anhedonic motivations are benevolent. As the existentialists take pains to note, one may sacdfice one's own happiness for the pursuit of a meaningful project, knowing that it will likely bring more fuustration and less pleasure than going to the beach. Although pleasure undeniably plays a significant role, it is most reasonable to think that pleasure is just one among many of sources of motivation. Since motivational hedonism is false, the paradox of painful art quickly dissolves. A more plausible motivational theory, predominant motivational hedonism the theory that people are predominantly motivated by the prospect of pleasurc does not create a paradox. But it does raise a pressing question: Why is it that people want to experience putatively painful art if it is indeed painful? 7.3 A non-compensatory proposal As I've presented it, the pafadox of painful art is essentially a conflict between audience reports and a default assumption of motivational hedonism. Given the plausibility of predominant motivational hedonism, the burden is likely on the proponent of the second claim. If audiences really do find some works of art painful, why do they want to see them? As I noted earlier, most theorists pfopose hedonic compensatory solutions to the problem, suggesting that audiences must find some pleasure to compensate for the pain. The principal problem with hedonic solutions is that they fail to accord with the phenomenology. Although there are surely many pleasures to be had from a well-cmfted narrative, audiences do not always describe their experiences as on the whole pleasurable. In fact there are many cases where people descdbe their expedences as predominantly and genuinely painful. Since the significance of this chapter rides on this point, it warrants additional suppot. Consider my favourite example: lngmar Bergman,s horribly depressing six-hour series, Scsnes ftom a Marisge (1973). The V 730 Aarotl Snuts third episode, 'Paula', is one of the most excruciating stodes ever filmed. Madanne (Liv Ullmann) is at the summer house for the week with the children. Her husband Johan is not expected back until the weekend. When he makes a surprise midweekvisit, Madanne is overioyed. She runs around the house merrily fixingJohan a snack, saying how happy she is that he arrived eadier than expected. Her happiness makesJohan's news all that more crushing: he tells Marianne that he has fallen in love with another woman (Paula) and will be leaving that night with his mistress on a six-month trip, Their conversation lasts for an excruciating half hour of screen time, dudng which Johan proceeds to show Madanne, albeit at her request, a wallet picture of his loverl Throughout the cou$e of the scene, Bergman uses a series of tight close-ups on Marianne's face as she experiences waves of hurt, indiSnation, frustration, and rage. I would not descdbe my experience of this episode as pleasurable, but I find it to be one of the most effective 'unfaithfulness' fictions ever created. In film heaven it sits next to Murnau's masterpiece, Su/trise (1927). Indeed, it contains some of the most powerful roments in cinematic history. I would strcngly recommend it to others, largely for the experience it affords. But it is not pleasurable. No, it is nothing less than emotionally devastating. At several moments along the wa, if you stopped the film and asked me what I think, through a mist of tears I would say it is te ific and absolutely crushing. This is precisely what makes it a masterpiece. One might reply that although pleasure might not be the source of motivation, audiences must be seeking out some other source of value. The painful expedences are perhaps instumental to this value, but the pain is not inhinsically valuable. The problem with this objection is that it does not accord with the way we talk about painful art. Audiences do not talk about even the rnost painful expedences had in response to art as having mere instrumental value. Watching Scenes /?om q Marriage is not like going to the dentist. In subiecting ourselves to Bergman's film we do not, so to speak, endure the ddlling in order to end a throbbing ache. Certainly we may find value in the film's insightlul portrayal of suffering and rnardage, but that does not exhaust our motivation, Although audiences lnay find vadous forms of value in experiencing the work, no compensation is necessary for the negative experiences it engenders. Although the painful emotional responses one feels in response to art are not instrumentally valuable, one miSht suggest that they are constitutive of other types of value, such as the cognitive value of recognizing humanity's profoundly depressing proclivity to cruelty. Somehow, as I I'aitlal Att d\d the Limits of Well-Being 131 will argue below fully understanding such insights necessarily involves paintul emotional experiences. This style of explanation is highly plausible. Indeed, I think it is part of the complete motivational story. I will thus return to this suggestion/ but what it would have to show it it were to provide a reason to reject my initial claim, is that audiences only desire painful emotional responses as constitutive of other kinds of value, and never fof themselves. I find this highly implausible, especially since the kinds of cognitive value one can take ftom art are typically banal. We know all too well that the universe is indifferent to our desires and that people are capable of beastly acts of violence, cruelry and gross insensitivity. It is hard to imagine that the desire to be reninded of such depressing trivialities is the primary source of audience motivation/ one to which our willingness to undergo all negative affect must be attributed. Surely it accounts for some of our motivation, but it seems that audiences do in fact desire the ultimately unpleasant experiences for the sake of having the experiences, At least that is how we often talk about such works: we applaud Bergman's powers of emotional devastation in addition to his humanity and depth of insight. So it seems that audiences do indeed seek out painful works of art at least in part for the painful expedences they afford. Narratives provide long and varied experiences. Most provide at least sorne pleasures. But overall, some works are best descdbed as painful. I argue that although we seek out painful art for a vadety of reasons, one reason is for the expedences themselves. When engaging with painful art one sometimes intrinsically desires the nonpleasant experiences they afford. Perhaps this sounds odd, but therc is good evidence for my claim: after the fact, we praise many works for their effectiveness at eliciting just such painful responses. We praise Scenes ftom a Marriage for its power to disturb to elicit heart-wrenching, painfully felt sorrow In part, this is what we intrinsically desire from the work. Elsewhere, I dub this the rich experience theory (REl).\r The theory holds that audiences desire painful works in part for the rich experiences they afford, expedences they cannot have in their daily lives, at least not without risk of serlous bodily harm or worse. A common objection to RET cornes from works that are wildly repugnant. Although I am a horor film fan, I can't stomach 'torture-porn', such as Saw (Wan 2004), Hostel (Roth 2005), ot The Humqn Centipede (Six 2009). Nor do I like films involving graphic operations of eye surgery. I'm not alone here. At a screening ofPasrio (Paolo Cherchi Usai 2006) in New York, the audience fled in droves during a extended scene that one-ups Bunuel in Un Chien Andqlolt, featuring the surgical slicing of a human eyeball, lids 132 Aarct1 Sfiuts pried open d la Alex in A Clockwork Orrrge (Kubrick 1971).12 Her€'s the obiection: if audiences find unpleasant experiences intrinsically deslrable, then why do so many people, myself includ€d, avoid these kinds of experiences? RET predicts that audienc€s would behave other than they actually do. Accordingly, we should reject RET. Audiences must want something else, something b€sides the painful experience. Although I think that this obiection gets at something very impoftant, it does not provide a reason to reiect the basic claim of the rich-experience theory. Note that I didn't call rny theory the'intense experience theory'. It is not mere intensity that we find valuable, but experiences that are cognitively, sensorily, and affectively engaging: that is, rlc, experiences. An overwhelmingly disgusting experience is not ch. It's intensely disgusting, but tacking in other dimensions. Fully speclfied, the rich-experience theory avoids the problem of repugnant a , Nevertheless, the obiection does point the way to a significant limitation of RET. I never clained that the rich experierrce theory tells the entirc story about audience motivation, but I now suspect that it has less explanatory power than I previously thought. Audiences may indeed desire unpleasant and downright painful experiences for their own sake, but there is much more to be had from painful art. As noted above, I think that compensatory suggestions strike a false note. They don't accord with how we typically praise distressing works. We rarely say that watching a distressing movie was worth it, sa, for its cognitive value worth it in spite of the pain. No, we make mor€ synoptic evaluations. Hume was aware of this. On a plausible interpretation, Hume argues that the pain expedenced in response to hagedy is converted into pleasure via the artistry of the narrative.r3 His suggestion is often called tt,e conve$ion ffteory. I think that he was on the riSht track, but rather than a hedonic conversion, what we find is that painful emotional reactions are integral to other kinds of value.la They are not so much converted as they are constitutive of valuable ends. Just as a brushstroke may have little value outside of a painting, in context the brushstroke plays an essential part in a valuable whole. The brushstroke is not intdnsically valuable, nor is it merely instrumentally valuable. Rathet it is constitutively valuable. This is all fairly abstract. But it can be made more concrete by reflecting on our engagement with sad songs. If we reflect on our experience with sad songs and discuss the phenomena with othe6, it quickly becomes clear that sad songs frequently make us feel worse. Not only do they make us feel worse, it seems that we desire them precisely because they heighten our suffering. Sometimes a sad song might help us grieve; it Pai ful Att atd the Litnits ofwell-Beit| 133 might help us to purge our sonow by 'having a good cry, along with it. But more often than not, we do not purge our sollow in listening to such songs; we instead enhance it, We seek not catharsis, in the sense of purgation, but the welling of ernotion.ts Although this sounds odd, it has solid phenomenological support. One may listen for formal elements and delight in the arrangement of a sad song, but one is typically also presented with poetry sometimes a narative that requires a different kind of listening.l6 Most songs provide only skeletal naratives which along with vivid imagery provoke personal associations. These provide the catalyst for imaginative reflection. The end result is intensely felt emotions directed at thoughts of the personalized narrative content. lt is not uncommon for people to listen to sad songs as a way of intensifying negative emotionsi we do this partly as a means of focusing our reflection on situations of great importance. Emotional reactions have a searchlight effect; they enhance our focus. Just as fear rivets our attention to a dangerous obiect, strong emotions can help us achieve profound levels of concentration, thereby affording rich reflective or imaginative expedences. Sad songs, particularly those with suggestive narrative structures, aid in self-reflection, They have this instrumental value. Backed by mood-inducing instrumentation and vocalization, the narrative content of sad songs seeds our reflection on personal events. This is not always therapeutic. Dwelling on a loss, a misstep, an unfortunate circumstance does not always lead to acceptance or atonement. It can lead to fuustration and suffe ng. But profound loss deserves profound grief. The value of these experiences is not immediately clear, But it seems plausible that sad songs can help us see what we have had as well as what we have lost. Reflection does not always make us feel better, Indeed, sometimes it makes things worse. But we also want to understand what we have lost and to feel the significance. The value of such emotionally charged reflection is not merely cognitive, but it does serve to deepen our understanding. We listen partly for the experiences themselves, but the experiences are also constitutive of our enhanced understanding, Partly what it is to appreciate the significance of some event is to feel it to feel the significance. We assume that those who feel nothing have yet to accept their loss. They certainly do not undertand the significance, at least not yet. This might sound a bit obscure, but we frequently make use of this notion of unde$tanding. It is not knowing-that and it is not knowing-how, it is something different a matter of understanding the felt v I J 134 Aarcfi Snuts significance of a situation. tmagine asking someone if they understood the enormity of sone genocide, battle, bombing, or other horrific event, In reply they say, sure, and spin off a few statistics. We ask: 'lsn't it just awful to think about? It's inconprehensible.' A reply that, 'No, it is perfectly comprehensible: x number of people diedr/ misses the point. As William James notes, in such a case the pe$on has a mere 'cold and neutral state of intellectual perception'.17 Similarlt consider someone who is completely unmoved at the death of a friend's child. It is incoherent to say: 'l understand how hordble it is to lose a child, but it just doesn't sadden me one bit'. Either they do not care, or they sirnply do not understand. This is not merely a matter of knowing how it feels to lose a child. It is a matter of understanding the significance of the loss, Of course, in extremes one may be overwhelmed, moved into a nearly affectless state, but before this extreme, one cannot even approximately understand the loss of a child without feeling pity or grief. The same goes for things that happen to us. Understanding the significance of things that matter to us sometimes requires feeling profound sadness,ls It is not that the emotion is merely indicative of our unde$tandingi rather, it seems that having the emotion is palf of the understanding itself. This notion of understanding is adnittedly somewhat obscure. Unfortunately, I am unsure how to make the idea much clearer, In less controversial terms, one might describe the kind ofunderstanding at lssue as a form of qpprcciation. Cheshire Calhoun argues that emotions help one gain an'evidential ' (as opposed to a merely ' intellectual') grasp on one's beliefs,it One might know some fact or another, but not appreciate it. Coming to appreciate a descriptive fact is a process of understanding its implications and becoming ready to deploy it in future thought. We should expect something similar to be the case with evaluative facts. Most plausibly, painful emotional responses can be instrumental to evaluative appreciation. But I am not entirely happy descdbing the kind of understanding at issue as a mode of appreciation. Ifappreciation were the full extent ofthe value ofthe painful emotional responses, then I would be merely offering a nonhedonic compensatory theory, There's nothing wrong with that. Except that I think something strcnger can be said, namely, that emotional reactions are sometimes constitutive of evaluative understanding. I will focus on the clearest example I know, one where one's emotions are integral to a kind of selfknowledge about one's evaluative commitments, about what one values, On most accounts, we need not care about all that we believe is valuable. But to yalre something is surely more than mercly believing \t Pail1frtl Art dnd the Litnits of Well-Beitlg '135 valuable. It appears that to value something is to believe that it is valuable and to care about it. Both are necessary. For instance, one might believe that the life of a starving child halfway across the globe has value, but if the child's fate leaves one cold, it does not seem appropfate to say that one values the child's 1ife.20 If one does not care, one does not value.2l Unfortunately, the nature of care is almost as murky as the notion of understanding that I am tryingto explicate. But at least one thing is clear: care cannot be defined apart from its relation to the emotions. One might go so far as to think of care as a mere disposition to emotion. I think that this is a mistake. Since caring gives rise to a vadety of diffetent emotions, actions, and thoughts, it cannot be reduced to a mele disposition to emote. All I am confident in affirming is that our emotions depend on what we care about.zz For example, we only fear for that which we care about. In general, standard emotions essentially involve evaluations of the way something we care about stands to be or has been affected.23 But it is incoherent to think that someone could care about something and not be prone to feel fear when it is thleatened, or hope when it stands to flourish. Accordinglt it is uncontrove$ial to suggest that our cares are \onretimes revealed to us by our emotional responses. Ultimatelt we need to feel in ord€r to understand what we care about and how much we care. Sad songs, in particular, afford us the opportunity to feel and thereby understand what we care about. The painful emotional responses they encourage are constitutive of our understanding the personal importance of a loss, of how important something is to us.2a This is a significant source of their value. 7.4 Welfare, an overview In the Introduction, I briefly presented a troublesome implication of the constitutive solution to the paradox of tragedy: it implies that painful art is bad for us. I noted that this implication results only if we assume a controversially narfow theory of well-being. I turn now to explain the problem in more detail. To fully appreciate this problematic implication, we must first get a little clearer about the nature of well-being. Theories of lyefare (a.k.a., well-being, self-interest, and prudential value) tell us what makes a life good &rthe one who lives it. Things that are good or bad for a person affect her well-being her good, her welfare. They have prudential value. Accordingly, theodes of prudential value tell us what is in a person's self-intercst. The notion of welfare is central to a vadety of concepts, such as harm and benefit, self-sacdfice, and selfishness. I 136 Aatutl Sflluts There are three general contenders in the welfare literatlure mental stqtism, desirc-satisfactionism, and objective list theories.2s The standard presentation of the dialectic begins with a nanow theory and proceeds in response to obiections that favour broader theories,26 Mental statism is the narrowest theory. It holds that the sole bearers of intdnsic prudential value are mental states.27 Hedonism, for instance, is a type of mental statism. It holds that only the mental states of pleasure and pain are intrinsically prudentially valuable.28 ln its simplest form, the value of a life for the one who lives it is equal to the net balance of pleasure over pain.2e Hedonism is the most popular form of mental statism. lf experiences are all that count, what could be more fundamental than pleasure and pain? Although hedonism is the most populal variant of mental statism, one need not be a hedonist to be a mental statist. I find mental statism compelling, but I think that hedonism is implausible. It is implausible because many nonpleasurable experiences appear to be intrinsically prudentially valuable. At least, many pleasurable experiences appear to be prudentially valuable disproportionate to the pleasure involved. I suspect that this is partly what Mill tried to capture with his theory of 'qualitative hedonism'. Think of embracing a loved one. It might be pleasurable, but the prudential value of the experience exceeds its hedonic quotient. Or consider flow experiences: it is not clear that they are very pleasurable, but surely they are prudentially valuable mental states.30 Most controversially, mental statism implies what is known as the expeience requircment the claim that what you do not experience cannot hurt you or cannot constitute a harm for you.3r There is a decent consensus, although not without dissenting opinion, that expedence machine-style examples show that the experience requirement and, by implication, mental statisn are false.3z Nozick asks us to imagine a machine that can simulate a wide array of fantastic experiences.33 He gives us what is by now a familiaf sales pitch: Perhaps you want to write the great American novel. In the expedence machine you can have the experience of writing the nost celebrated novel in histofy. Your work will be praised far and wide. Champion athlete, war hero, Iegendary lover, you name it in the machine, you will experience any life that you desire. Most important, life in the machine will seem as real as any experience that you have ever had, You will never know the difference. Nozick asks us whether given the chance we would step into the rnachine. lntuitions diverge, but many, if not most, people decline. Most of us opt out of the machine because we do not merely want to think Pditlf Att dnd tl4 Lit its ofwell-Beitlr 137 that we have wdtten the great American novel; we want to actually have written it. We do not metely want to think that we have genuine relationships; we want to forn genuine bonds with others. We like to win, but we do not want every game to be fixed in our favour. Opponents of hedonism take our reluctance to live a life in the rnachine as evidence that we want more than mere happiness in the ordinary sense. Defenders of desire satisfactionisrn concur, They hold that a llfe in the experience machine is deficient because it fails to satisfy a wide variety of our desires, such as the desire for contact with reality. Hence, they conclude that it is not merely pleasure that makes a life good for the one who lives it, but the satisfaction of our desires.3a The next move in the debate widens the scope even further. Imagine a woman who could make significant contributions to applied mathematics, but instead prefers to spend each day counting the blades of grass on Harvard Yard.3s Her desires are satisfied, but she does not live a good life. Clearlt the obiection holds, shewould be better offdoing something obiectively worthwhile. To account for the grass countet some propose an obiective list theory (OLT) of well-being.36 This theory holds that the rnore obiective goods and fewer objective bads in a life, the better the life for the one who lives it. The obiective goods are commonly thought to include such things as loving relationships, knowledge, the appreciation of genuine beauty, virtue, autonont and achievement.3T 7.5 The paintuI art ploblem for mental statism The above discussion suggests that mental statism is a fairly unattractive theory. The problem of painful art appears to give us yet another teason to reject the view. As I noted in the Introduction, if we accept hedonisrrr, then nonhedonic compensatory and constitutive solutions to the paladox of tragedy imply that it is bad for us to watch melodramas and to listen to love songs, assuming they don't bdng us a surplus of pleasure further down the road. If the pain is not compensated hedonically, we come out, on balance, worse off. We would be better off staying away from such works. Accordinglt depending on one,s theory of rationality, it would be irrational to watch them or listen to them. But this is absurd. If something along the lines of the constitutive solution is right, the wory is that hedonism and most likely, mental statism about wellbeing must be wrong. I disagee. ln the remainder of this section I will provide a brief defence of mental statism and set the stage for the resolution to the problem. Rather than an obiection to mental statisn, I think we should regard 138 Aarcn Smuts the foregoing as reason to think that welfare is not all-important' We can admit that on many occasions painful art may indeed be somewhat bad for people, but we need not think that this gives us Sood reason to stop attending melodramas or listening to sad songs. Audiences seek out nonprudential forms of value, such as self-knowledge, from most painful art, and they are perfectly rational to do so. Consider once again the experience machine: although most non' frivolous, nonterminally ill people would opt out of a life in the experience machine, this does not constitute a decisive obiection to mental statism. Yes, the thought expedment clearly shows that we want more than merc experiences, but it does not show that things without expertential impact can affect our well-bein8. The thought experiment merely confirms what we already know: we desire many things other than our own well-bein8.38 Stdct psychological egoism is highly implausible. We often nonselfishly desire the good of othe$. PeoPle frequently sacdfice themselves for a cause or for the benefit of those they love. And many people have been known to sacrifice their own well-being for other kinds of goods, such as knowledge, contact with reality, moral worth, and meaningfulness. Most of us think that a tife in the experience machine would be meaningless. Insofar as we desire meaninSfulness, we will opt out of the machine.3e This does not show that we think that we would be better off that we would have a higher state of welfarc outside of the machine. Life in the machine simply cannot Sive us everything we want, Since we want more than what merely increases our well-being, the case against mental statism is inconclusive. Perhaps mental statism is unscathed by the expedence machine, but one might nevertheless think it implausible. lndeed, one might suggest that the value had from painful art lends suPport to obiective list theodes of welfare. For instance, one might claim that we are benefited by the understanding we acquile through the painful emotions aroused by sad songs. Since other vadeties of painful art help us aPpreciate valu' ative facts, they too ale good for us. They make our lives intrinsically better by enhancing our self-knowledge. I do not think that we should make this move. Although I agree that the objective-list heory of well-being has intuitive pull, it suffers from some serious difficulties. I will briefly consider three. First, the most pressing problem comes from the person who takes no pleasure from the obiective goods. Consider the reluctant cancer researchet: although he has an aptitude for biochemistry, he derived little enioyment from his studies in college. He only pursued the field out of Poinftl Art a d the Limits of Well-Being 1,39 pressure from his father. Despite his dissatisfaction, he made several rnaior discoveries that revolutionized cancer treatment. Although his life was high in achievement value and knowledge, it was not a good life for him. He was chronically dissatisfied. Despite the objective goods, the cancer researcher did not have a life high in individual welfare. Take any, and perhaps all, of the goods on the obiective list and we can concoct a similar scenario. This suggests that it is not objective goods, but some subiective state, such as happiness, that is most important for welfare. To save the theory it will not suffice to merely include pleasure or happiness in the list of obiective goods. The reluctant cancer lesearcher would be deficient in this regard, but high in several other such goods. Yet his life would still be low in prudential value.ao Hence, happiness appears to be of far greater prudential importance. lt is hard to imagine a non-ad hoc explanation for why. A more promising move available to defenden of the OLT of welfare is to construct a hybrid version of the theory: the objective goods must be subiectively appreciated, either by taking pleasure in or by desiring the objective good. But the hybdd theory suffers ftom a second problem. Consider a life with a good amount of subiective appreciation. Now imagine a variation: keep the subjective appreciation, happiness, and satisfaction the same and increase one of the other goods, such as the significance or generality of the knowledge. The problem is that it is hard to see how this change improves the value of the life for the one who lives it.ar If something is good fof someone, it seems that it needs to affect the lntrinsic properties of the person. It must be a'real change' in the person. This is clearly the case for nonhuman welfare subiects. If you do not affect the intdnsic properties of a cat, you do not do anything good or bad for the cat. Although it is not clear that plants have welfare, it is clear that nothing is good or bad for tomato plants unless it affects their intrinsic prcperties. This is likely not a sufficient condition, as not everything that affects one's intrinsic properties affects one's well-being. But it is plausibly n€cessary. How could something that does not change me make my life better for me? I know of no decisive argument for this claim.a2 Nevertheless, it seems securc. The problem is that the intuitive plausibility of this condition is at odds with the implications of the OLT of wetfare. This does not show that the OLT of welfare is false or contradictory. Rather, it shows that the OLT has strong counterintuitive implications. In fact, the OLT of welfare denies a claim that is likely more secure than any consideratlons in favour of the theory held individually or iointly. 1 T 14O Aarotl Snluts Third, the obiective-list theory of well-being makes it nontrivial k) account for self-sacrif ice, far more diff icult than is plausible.a3 Thls is particularly clear if the theory includes moral worth as one of the obiective goods. In response to a case of heroic self-sacrifice, the OLI' of welfare might be able to account for the welfare impact of the sacrl. fice in an overall evaluation, where the losses outweigh the gains from supererogation. But the Seneral strategy sounds very odd. I do not think that OLT of welfare makes supererogation selfish. I am not confusing the motivation with the result of the action. The OLT theo. rist can coherently acknowledge that the self-sacrificing hero need nol be motivated by self-interest. The problem is that it is very odd to say of someone who rushed into a burning building that it was a great loss for him apart from the prudential benefits of the self-sacrifice, It is not just that the tally sheet comes out in the prudential red, but that the self-sacrifice doesn't have any prudential benefit. The only goods for which one cannot coherently sacrifice one's welfare, at least not directly, are valuable experiences, Only mental statism avoids the problem of self-saoifice. These considerations strongly count against an OLT aboutwelfarc.B$ the value had from painful art does lend support to a closely related theory an objectivelist theory of ra)orth. It the next section I explain how making a distinction between well-being and worth helps solve the problem set out in the introduction. 7 .6 Tlre limits of well-being In the previous section, I argued that the OLT about welfare faces a significant problem accounting for self-sacrifice. This problem is pronounced if one includes the noral worth of our actions on the list of objective goods. But it is inplausible that moral worth is a prudentially relevant good. This has significant implications for thinking about welfare. Brad Hooker argues that we do not pity the wicked.aa Since appropriateness of pity is a good test of the loss of welfare, we have good reason to think that the moral worth of our actions does not directly impact our welfare. There are reasons to doubt the soundness of Hooker's argument, but not the truth of the conclusion. We typically only pity underseryed suffering. But if wrongdoing harmed the wrongdoer, the negative welfare impact would be deserved. Hence, it would not be cause for pity, Contra Hooker, it is not the absence of pity that shows the intrinsic irrclevance of moral worth to welfare, but the appropriateness ofindignation. Others have noted that the reason it is bad for the vicious to expedence Pditlful Art a d tlrc Limits of Well-Bein:{ 741 pleasure is that the prudential good is underserved.as The thing that makes malicious pleasure so awful is that it benefits the vicious pe$on. If we thought that wrongdoing was bad for the wrongdoer, we could not account for the particular offensiveness of the prosperous gangster. The source of our indignation gives us good reason to think that moral worth does not impact our welfare. Although immorality does not clearly make one intrinsicallt prudentially worse off, the moral value of our actions is nevertheless important to the evaluation of our lives. Most intuitivelt a life tltat significantly advances horendous evil is not worth living. Hitler, Pol Pot, and Stalin lived lives of negative worth. Killing millions of people is hideously evil. And, most plausibly, moral repugnance is sufficient to sap a life of positive worth. But it is not the only thing to do so. Intense pain can suffice. Lives spent in persistent, incapacitating agony are not worth living. By any plausible account, they arc lives worth rvoidirrg (LWA). They ale objectively wofth avoiding. There are clear cases of lives not worth living. And therc are not so clear cases. Worth comes in degrees. Lives entirely consumed by meaningless activities, such as counting blades of grass, collecting rubber bands, or making handwritten copies of War and Peace, appear to be less worth living than those spent in pursuit of valuable ends, but it is not so clear that they are not worth living.46 A theory of worth will answer this question: What makes a li.fe worth Iiving (LWL)? This is not the same question as what makes a life good Br the one who lives it.a7 As we have seen, a theory that answe$ the latter question is a theory of well-being. The two questions are clearly related, and they are often conflated.as But most likely worth is not strictly a matter of welfare, since one can live a life of great hardship and suffering that might nevertheless be worth living.ae Prima facie compelling examples abound: again, the proverbial soldier who throws himself on a grenade to save his comrades does not enhance his welfare. But he does improve the worth of his life. s0 Achilles's choice, recounted in the lliad, illustrates the point. Achilles knew that if he entered the battle against the Trojans, he would die soon, but that his name would live on for agesj alternativelt if he stayed out of the fight, his name would be forgotten, but his life would be long and happy. He chose a sholt, meaningful life over a long life high in indi vidual welfare. He was not merely motivated by a desire for fame, but for achievement and, more significantly, revenge for Hector's slaying of Patroclus. By entering the battle, Achilles did not enhance his welfare. But, plausibly, he did improve the worth of his life. '142 Aatut1 SnuE Just as some things that do not promote our self-interest are nevertheless worth doing, some lives low in welfare appear to be worth living. When we wonder whether some activity is wolth doing, 'What,s in it for me?'is typically not our only thought. Intuitivelt the same should hold for lives. Conve$el, some lives high in welfare are not worth living. Most plausiblt a supremely happy Hitter does not live a life worth living. It would be highly countedntuitive to suggest otherwise. More needs to be said, but these considerations suggest that worth and welfare are distinct, Not only are they conceptually distinct, they are extensionally nonequivalent. Regardless of whether the experience machine-objection refutes mental statism about welfare, it has important implications for the theory of value. Although some think that you could live a pruden" tially highly valuable life inside the experience machine, few think that you could live a very meaningful life inside the machine. This shows that therc is a conceptual difference between meaning and well-being. If they were conceptually identical, it is hald to see how we could be less certain about how meaningful a life could be in the experience machine than about how high in welfale such a life could be. But many people are indeed far less cetain about one than the other, Perhaps the set of lives high in meaning will be identical to the set of lives high in welfare. I doubt it, but either way there is a conceptual difference. The distinction between welfare and meaning is compelling, as is the distinction between welfare and worth. But one might wonder if worth and meaning are two different kinds of value. I think they are.st Even without developing a theory of the meaning of life, we can see that thele are good reasons to think that worth and meaning are distinct concepts, A largely meaningless life might nevertheless be worth living. Consider a happy rubber-band collector: it is not clear that the rubber-band collector's life is entirely not worth living; however, apart ftom whatever limited achievement value results from having a large horde of rubber bands, his life is decidedly meaningless. His life is meaningless, but not entirely worthless. Hence, worth is not entirely a matter of meaning. But meaning is nonetheless relevant to worth. Other things being equal, the nore meaningful a life, the more it is worth living. Once again, consider the life of the brave soldier, Mother Teresa, or Abraham Lincoln. There considerations give us reason to think that worth is a higher-level mode of value, one that encompasses lower-level values such as meaning and well-being.s2 Although I cannot here develop a full theory of worth, the discussion so far lends itself to an obiective-list theory. Most plausiblt lives worth Painful Att atld the Limits of Well-Beitlg 743 living ale those high in various objective goods and comparatively low lD objective bads. On a tally sheet for a life worth living (LWL), the goods come out far ahead. A life worth avoiding (LWA) is the opposite: It is high in bads and low in goods.s3 I claim no originality in the list of Soods/ and I will not try to offer an exhaustive list, but for simplicity's \ake we can think of them as involving two main categories, those of rvelfare and meaning. More precisely spelled out, we would expect the list to include most of the following: happiness, moral worth, loving fclationships, knowledge, the appreciation of genuine beauty, virtue, rrLtonomt and achievement. The principal virtue of the OLT of worth is that it helps capture the importance of a wide swath of concerns that (lo not clearly impact one's welfare. For instance/ it seems that I can selfracrificially pursue ends that do not make me better off prudentiallt but that nevertheless enhance the worth of my life. Similarl, enhancing my ('valuative understanding via painful art might enhance the worth of rny life without affording much, if ant prudential benefit. The distinction between well-being and worth thus provides the key Lo solving the problem I introduced in the introduction. Rather than loctts oo the welfare impact of painful art, we should be concemed with its impact on the worth of our lives. Most plausibly, the value had from painful art often makes our lives more worth living, despite sometimes lraving an adverse affect on our welfare. And it is not inational to pursue works of art that make oul lives more worth livins. 7.7 Conclusion In this chapter I explored the implications of a nonhedonic solution lo the paradox of tragedt or what I call 'the paradox of painful art'. lt certainly seems that people are far more willing to experience negative cmotions in response to art than in their daily lives. This diffelence begs lor an explanation, Why do people desire to see melodramas or listen to sad songs? More specifically, we might ask, why do people seemingly want to be scared by a movie or feel pity for a character when they avoid \ituations in real life that arouse the same emotions? The most populal solution to the problem is a hedonic-conpensatory lheory. It holds that audiences find other sources of pleasure to compensate for the pain. I argue that the hedonic-compensatory theory lacks phenomenological support. Not only does the hedonic-compensatory theory fail, it appears that painful art frequently fails to provide suffirient prudential compensation, at least on a mental statist conception of welfare. Rather than see this as a reductio of mental statism, t think I 744 Aarctl Smuts we should accept the implication. We do not always seek out painful arl to improve our welfare. There are other forms of value to be had, such as an imprcved understanding of our evaluative commitments. I argue that even though painful art may not always enhance our well-being ol contribute to welfare, it can verv well enhance the worth of our lives.5' Notes "fhere are a variety of solutions in the literature. Control theorists argue thal the putative painfulness of some works of art is mitigated by our abillty k) stop experiencing them at will (Morreall 1985). Compensation theorlsti argue that any painful reactions must be compensated for by other pleasures, either in the cralt of the nanative (Hume 1985) or in the awareness that wc a{e sympathetic creatures responsive to the suffering of others (Feagin 1983). Conversion theorists argue that the overall experience of painful works of art is not one of pain but of pleasure, as the pain is converted into a larger, morc pleasurablc experience (Hume 1985), Power theorists argue that we enioy thc feeling of power that arlses from either the realization of the endurance of humanity (P ce 1998), ol through the overcoming of our fear (Shaw 2007) Rich experience theorists argue that there are many reasons why people do things other than to leel pleasure, The overall expedence of painful art may be one of pain, but the experience can still be seen as valuable, and, as such, motivatinS (Srnuts 2007). Levinson (1997) and Smuts (2009) survey thc literature. Ch i sho lm (1973 :21 ) . A small subset of the literature, its oldest part, is principally concemed wlth moral issues. Platoworries that tragedy threatens the moral chafacter of audl. ences. He argues that enioying suffering renders audiences less capable of enduring hardship without excessive, 'unm anly' $ief lRepublicX.60Sd-606b). ln general, he fears that tragedy makes audiences limp-wdsted, licentious (Republic X,6O6d) buffoons (Repirrlic X.606c). In contrast, Augustine (2008i 36; III.ii) worries more generally that it is problematic to take pleasure in the theatre. He implies that it is somehow selfish to derive pleasure from our viewing expedences. More recently, some wonder if it is ethically suspect to take pleasure in the suffering of fictional characters. Hurka (2001r chapter 6) and Smuts (circulating) provide comprehensive discussions of the issue. Due to limitations of scoDe, I must Dut the moral issues aslde. Pai fitl Att a,kl the Limits of Well-Being -145 'fhere is some debate as to whether non-sensation-based pain should be thought of as liteially or only metaphodcally painful. One might propose that psychological pain be called s ffe,.ilg. The analog for pleasure would be to call psychological pleasure fol. Surnner (1996: 109) makes this distinction. I agree that 'suffering' and 'joy' are apt descriptions of genetal evaiuative attitudes, but I cannot find a clear line between psychological and sensory pain and pleasure. Psychological pains typically feel bad, just like cuts and scmpes, And psychological pleasures oflen feel good, as does a sweet snack. This should be clear as long as one does not call all states where one is'pleased that'such and such ls the casep/ea.rrre. Clearly, most ate not. I can be pleased that lots of things are the case without feeling any pleasu(e. See, fol instance, Levinson (1982). 2. 3 . 4. Neill (1996: 181-182) argues that the film requires einpathetic engaSement to be successful. 5. 'Nostalgia' comes from the Greek dlgos ('pain'or 'distress') and rosfoi ('to return hoine'). 6. Broad (1959) develops a sophisticated version of the hedonic tone theory of pleasure. But hedonic tone theodes of pleasure have gone out of lashion, The 'heterogeneity problem' is thought to provide a decisive refutation of this general family of theorles. See Alston (1968) and Feldman (2006) for a presentation of the problem. Smuts (2010) defends a hedonic tone theory 9. Elsewheie I consider two other explanations for why the second premise is commonly targeted (Smuts 2007). See Bishop Bulter (Sermon XI) for a similar line of argument. Smuts (2007). Much of the Austin audience seemed to enjoy a screening of the gruesome flick Sick: The Life & Death of Bob FlatMgatL Supermasochist (Dick 1997) that I attended in the late 1990's. This film was a rollet-coaster of discomfort. I still cringe when thiokinS about Flanagan nailing his penis to a board. Apparently watching masochism is very different from watching torture. Hume (1985). Some such explanatlons would be appropriately classified as what Levinson (1997: 30) calls 'organicist' explanations, where the negative affect is thought to be a necessary part of a valuable organic whole, I llke to call it 'anti-catharsis,' But this coutts controvemy. I do not thtnk that the notion of antl-catharsis tracks the purification interpretation of Aristotle. But this might be because I can't make much sense ofthe purificatlon model. In any case, I prefer not to teach old words to do new tricks, so hete I follow the popular conception of cathaFis as purgation, or flushing out. Smuts (2011) provides a more in depth discussion of listening to songs. Hete, I draw on and elaborate my previous defence of the value of sad songs. James (2003: 70). Blum (1980: 173-178), Nussbaum (1994: chapter 10;2001, chapter 1, lV; and 2003), Oakley (1992: 50-51), Stocker (1996: 183-184), Taylor (1985: 61-62), and to some extent Williams (1973t 225-257) make similar suggestions. Starkey (2008) provides a rare sustained discussion of the issue. He defends the claim that the emotions are required in order to achieve certain kinds of unde$tanding. Similarly, Oakley argues that'having certain emotions may sometimes be necessary for understanding some features of the work, such that an appreciation of these features would be beyond an u[emotional person' (50). It is unclear if he adopts an instrumental model as does Starkey. Rather than a constitutive solution, Starkey's model supports a compensatory solution. 19. Calholun (2OO3t 242-244). 20. I have at least one reseration about this storyt It is unclear what an affectless evaluative belief amounts to. I am not sympathetic to non-cognitivisin, but I nevertheless find it suspect to suggest that someone can fully understand the value of something without caring about it. At least their knowledge would 7 . 10. I 1 . t2 . 13 . 14 . 1 5 . 1.6. 1 7 . 18 . 146 Aaro11Sfl1uts appear deficient. But then again, I suppose that one need not cate much about the victlms of an ancient attocity to undetstand the horror. 21. It is less clear that one can cate about something witftolrt believing it valuable. Shoemake. (2003: 96-97) discusses the relation between valuing and caring. 22. Roberts (1988) forcelully defends a similar view Helm (2009) defends a related claim about concern. Shoemaket (2003: 91-93) argues that we can only make sense of out ernotions in light of our cares. But all three appeal to accept a dispositional account of care. Jaworska (2007) thinks of care as something of a complex emotion. 23. As many have noted, emotions seem to require that one cate about that which was or stands to be affected by the obiect of the emotion. For instance: Taylor (1985: 400-401) notes the connection, as does Stocker (1996:175), Solomon (1980: 276) argues that emotions are personal and involved evaluations. Taylor (1985: 59-62) argues that emotions rcveal what we value, what matters to us. They are import-ascriptions. Roberts (1988: 188-189) claims that emotiolls are grounded in concerns. Shoemaker (2003: 91 93) argues that emotions are conceptually connected to cates. Helm (2009: 5,6) notes that emotions have a focus, a locus of concem. Strangel, in his comprehensive and influential taxonomy of the objects of emotions, De Sousa (1999: chapter 5) leaves out the object of our concern. He uses'focus'differently, to refer to the focus of attentioni for example, the snarling dog's menacing teeth. 24. Following Chrysippus, Nussbaum (1994r 45) makes a much stronger clalm: 'the real, the full recognition of that terrible event (as many times as I recognize it) is the upheaval.'In a later work she argues that the bellef is identical with the passion (Nussbaum 2001:373-386). 25. Parfit (1984: 493-494) divides the terrain in this way. His taxonomy has been highly influenttal. Kagan (1992) defends an alternative. 26. For instance, see Kagan (1992), Parfit (1984), and Scanlon (1993: 186-191). 27. Kagan (7994 and 1992) confesses his temptation toward mental statism. He later (20091 771, n.3) recants. 28. Parfit (1984r 493) and Wolf (1997) reverse this distinction. They seem to hold that all forms of mental statism aie forms of hedonism, 29. See Feldman (2006i passilri) for more sophisticated forms of the theory. 30. The viability of non-hedonic forms of mental statism opens the way for a suggestlon I cannot explore here. Rather than an objection to mental statism in general, painful art might give us reason to teject hedonism in par cular. Perhaps painful art affords non-pleasurable expedences that are nevertheless prudentially valuable. Hedonism cannot account for thls. But non-hedonic forms of mental statism can. 31. Griffin (1986: 13). For further discussion see Sumner (1996: 127-130). Since the expedence rcquirement is not always presented in the same way, I have chosen to focus on mental statism. Soll (1998), for instance, defends a theory called 'experientialism' that has both motivational and broad axiological implications. Mental statism, as I have formulated it, implies only a limited axiological claim about well-beingi Something can affect someone,s wellbeing onlyifit makes an experiential difference fot that pe$on. This is not the same as what Dorsey (2011: 172) might call the endorsement requirement. Paitful Att a d the Limits of Well-Being 147 :i2. Nozick's (L974t 4245) '0xperience Machine', Nagel's (19931 64) 'Deceived Businessman', Nagel's (1993: 66) 'Contented Infant', Mill's (2002) 'Pig', and Nozick's (1997) 'Mongolian Pornographer' are the most pressing obiections to mental statism. :t3, Nozick (1974r,12-45). .i4. lypically, the position holds that it is not the feeling of satisfaction that counts, but satisfaction in the logician's sense that is, what we desire to be the case actually being the case. Heathwood (2006) defends a subiective versron. :15. Rawls (1971:432). See Feldman (2006: chapter 3) for a host of other obiections. 36. Some of the more influential defences of OLT of well-being (not worth) include: Brink (1989t 221236), Hooker (1996), Nozick (1989), and Scanlon (1993). 37. I present this as a plausible list, but cannot defend the individual items here. As intrinsic goods, Ross (1930: 140) lists virtue, pleasure, the allocation of pleasure to the virtuous, and knowledge. 38. In defence of mental statism, Haslett (1990) appeals to this distinction, as do Goldsworthy (1992), Bradley (2009: 10), Kawall (1999), and FeldDan (2012: 67-72). For additional discussion of this line of argument, see Tannsio (1998: 111-112) and Sumner (7996196-97). 39. A desire for meaning is not the only thinS that can mottvate repulsion at the expe ence machine. Other desires will suffice, such as the desire for contact with reality. 40. Trianosky (1988) defends an OLT with a necessary subiective condition. Parfit (1984) finds the hybrid theory most plausible. Kraut (2008) seems to defend a hybdd theory though he confusingly uses the label 'happy' to refer to well-being. Kagan (2009r 255) suggests a hybdd theory. 41. Dorsey (2011: 186) presents a similar thought experiment that putatively supports the opposite conclusion. As we will see, the OLI theory ol worth can account for these apparent conflicts of intuition. 42, Kagan (1992t 186) finds himself in the same spot, and later relects this claim (2009 t271 ,n ,3 ) . 43. Similarly, desire satlsfaction theories of well-being seem to imply that selfsacrifice is impossible. See Overvold (1980) for a forceful presentation of the issue, Heathwood (2011) defends a solution. The problem is worse for OLT theorles. Hooker (1996). Hurka (2001: 242). Rawls (1971:432) and Wolf (1997:211). Feldman (20121 1,67, 167, afld 168) suggests that we commonly us€ the phrase'a life worth living' as roughly synonymous with a life high in individual welfare. But I disagree. This is likely because the phrase'a life worth living' is somewhat ambiguous. The ambiguity is between 'worth for' the agent and obiective worth. I have in mind the lattet which will include the former. Darwall (2002:26 and 109 n. 5) suggests that a life having woth ls an estimable life. This is plausible, but he thinks that the contrast is between welfare and perfectionist value. Hurka (2001: 7) defends a similar distinction. T I 4/1. 45. 46. 47 . 48. 19. 148 Aarcn Smuts There is reason to doubt this suggestlon, Since worth appears to sublective happiness, a non-perfectlonlst value, the contrast does not I also worry that Dorsey's (2011) arguments agalnst perfectlontst theodes welfare apply to perfectlonist theorles of worth. I $'tll not explor€ this futher here. One might thtnk that the notion of a life worth living should be called good life'. But I am hesitant to adopt thls label. The phrase'the good does occaslonally show up ln the llteratule on well-beln8, but it is not conslstentlv. Feldman uses the Dhrase to refer to a life that is cood for the who llves lt, by whlch he intends a life hlSh in indi!'ldual welfare. there is little precedent, hls usage ls atyplcal. lFeldman (2006: 12, n. 5) that the traditlonal notlon of the Sood llfe mtght be one that several dlfferent klnds of Soodness, Nevertheless, he contlnues to use term to refer to a llfe hiSh in well-betng.l More typicallt Danlel Haybron Susan wolf refer to something blgger, something much closer to what I after WolI (2010) understandably lnterchanges concepts such as 'the llfe' (72, 52, and 118), a llfe that would seem a benefit (21 , 23, and 27), 'tully successtul ltfe' (32), the 'tully floudsblnS ltfe' (12), and the life good the one who lives lt (32). Since she thlnk that the notlon ls diffetent ft self-interest (56, 63, and 116) and happtness (109), tt appears that we have in mind a slmilar notlon. Slmllall, whenThomas Hulka uses the 'the good llfe' he seems to have in mlnd a llfe wo h livtnS, Hurka (2011) phrases uch as: a'8ood life' (8, 35, and 67), a'valuable ltfe'(120), a llfe' (7), and a 'destrable life' (2, 3, 28, 148, and 186). He deferds an llst account. The goods include, but are not llmtted to pleasure, knowledgc, achievement, vlrtue, and lovinS reladonshtps, Although a chorus of speak ln favour of substttuting 'the Sood llfe' for 'a llle worth livinS', the potentially misleading connotadons, I &tll avotd the label. Most tant. 'The Good Llfe' sounds verv demandlns. A somewhat medlocre mlght be worth llvlng, but we would be hesltant to call lt'The Good Life', Only a few have drawn a dlstlnctlon between what makes a life worth llvlng and what makes a llfe meantnSful. As far as I can tell, Baier (1988) provides flrst sustained dlscusslon of the dlstinctlon. Baler (19971 67-69) also make! a few passlng remarks on worth. Apart from this, only Trlsel (2N7: 6?-65, ptovldes a substantlal defence of the dtstinction. Metz (2007: 213) makes r clea! statement of the dtfference, though he provides little defence. Metl (2N2t 788, n. 10) also brtefly notes the dlsdnctlon. Blumenfeld (2009: 8, n. 2) seconds Metz's proposal, but does not develop a theory of worth. Haack (2002) proposes that we abandon the concept of meanlng for worth. She doet not explaln the conceptual dtfference. Wollheim (19841 44,948) propos€t a dlsffnction between a life worth llvlng and a worthwhlle ltfe. I decllnc to adopt this termlnology, since there ls better, more famtltar conceptual machlnery; hls dlstlnctlon closely tack that between welfare and meanlnS. Camus (2004:533) appears to dlstlnguish between meanlng and worthi 'people have pretended to believe that retusing to grant a meanlng to llfe leads necessarlly to declaring that it ls not worth llvlnS, In truth, there ls no necessaly common measure between these two iudgments.' But he says very llttle about worth. Painfal Att and the Limia ofwell-Belng I49 52. Trtsel (2007: 2) argues that worth is a broader notlon than meanlnS, but the theory he offers looks very much like a narrow welfarist account of wotth, Hence, lt's not cl€ar if he would disttngutsh between welfare and worth. 53. The calculation will llkely have to account for the lntensity as well as overall quantlty. An ex&emely patnful episode mtSht mal(e the entlre llfe worth avoldlng, Also, an extremely long life that ls barely positlve ln Soods mtght not be a LWL, it miSht be a LWA. 54. I thank Jerrold Levlnson for helpful feedback on an eatllet draft of this chaptei References Alston, wlllam (1968). 'Pleasure', in P. Edwalds (ed.), The Encfclopedia of Philoroprr, (New York Collter-Macmillan). Augusttne (2008). corrfesJlorB. Trans. Henrychadwtck (Oxford:Oxford University Press). Baier, (urt (1988). 'Threats of Futtllty: Is Llfe Worth Living?' Free hquiry 8', 47-52. 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Neil, Alex (1996).'Empathy and (Flction) Film', in Davtd Bordwell and Noel Carroll (eds), Post-Theory: Reconsiuctifig Film Studies (Madison: Unlverslty of Wisconsln Prcss). Nozick, Robert (1974). Atwtchy, State, ond Utopia (New Yorki Basic Books). Nozlck, Robert (1989). 'Happiness', In The Erami ed Life (New York Simon and Schuster). Noziclq Robert (199 7). 'On the Ra ndlan Argument', in Socrd fic P uzzles (Cambrldgel Harvard Unive$ity Press). Nussbaum, Mattha (1994). The Thercpy of Desirc: Theory atd Practice in Helle istic Efrics (Princetonr Prlnceton University Press). Nussbaum, Martha (2001). Upheavals of Thought: The htelligetlce of Emotions (CambridSe: Cambridge University Press). Nussbaum, Martha (2003). 'Emotions asJudgments of Value and Importance', in Solomon (2003). Oaklet Justtn (1992). Morolity a d the Emotiorr.t (New York: Routledge). OveNold, Mark (1980). 'Selflnterest and the Concept of Self-Sac fice', Catladiatl loumal of Philosolrhy 1.0(1): 105-1 18. 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'Cadng, Identlfication, Agency', ttfiicr 114:88-118. Shoemaker, Davld (2011).'Attributability, Answerabllit, and Accountabilityi Toward a Wder Theory of Moral Responsibilily' , Ethics l21t 602-632. Smuts, Aaion (2007). 'The Paradox of Painful Art', Jounul of Aesthetic Educatio 4lt3)i 59-77. Smuts, Aaron (2009). 'Art and Negative Affect', Philosophy Cotnlrdsr 4(1): 39-55. smuts, Aaron (2010). 'The Feels cood Theory of Pleasure', Philosophical Studies 155(2\t 241J65. l I 152 Aamtl Smuts Smuts, Aaron (2011). 'Rubber Rtng: Why Do We Listen to Sad Songs?' in John Gibson and Noel Carroll (eds), Natative, Emotion, and Insight (Phtladelphlal Penn State University Press). Smuts, Aaron (clrolatlng). 'Pleasurably Regarding the Patn of Ftctlonal Others.' Soll, lvan (1998). 'On the Purported Insignlficance of Death', tn Jeff Malpas and Robert Solomon (eds\, Death and Philosophy (New Yorkr Routledge). Solomon, Robert (1980). 'Emotions and Chotce', ln Amelie Oksenberg Rorty (ed.), Erplaining Emotions (Berkeleyi University of Califomia Press). Starkey, Charles (2008), 'Emotton and Full Understanding', Ethical Theory and Monl Pructice 111 425-454, Stocker, Mlchael (1996). 'How Emotions Reveal Value and Help Cure the Schizophrenla of Modern Ethical Theory', ln Roger Crtsp (ed.), How Should Onc live (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Sumner, L. W. (1996), Welfarc, Happhtess, adE rici (New York Oxford Universlty Press). Tdnnsid, Torbidm (1998). Hedo istic Utilitatldtism (Edinburghr Edinburgh Universlty Press). Taylor, Charles (1985). 'Selflnterpreting Animals', ln l],is Hufian Agency arrd Iatlguage, vol.1 (New York: Cambridge Universlty Press). Trtanosky, Gregory (1988). 'Rightly Ordered Appetites: How to Live Morally and Liee Well' , Amedcan Philosophical Quatteiy 25(1): 1-12. Trisel, Brooke Alan (2002), 'Futlltty and the Meanlng of Life Debate', SorifeJ 14i 70-84. Trlsel, Brooke Alan (2007). Judglng Ltfe and Its Value', Soritiei 18j 60-75. Williams, Bernard (1993). 'Morality and the Emotlons', in his Problems of the Self (Cambrldge: Cambridge University Press). Wolt Susan (1997). 'Happiness and Meaning: TWo Aspects of the Good Llfe', Social Phllosophy afid Policy 14t 207-225 . WoIt Susan (2010). Meanhlg in Life a d Why lt Matte\ (Princeton: Pdnceton Universlty Press), Wollheim, Richard (1984). The Thrcad of Life Glew Haven: Yale Unlversity Press). B That Obscure Object of Desire: Pleasure in Painful Art Ionathan Gilmore EDGAR: O thou side-piercing stght! K|NG LEAR: Nature,s above art in that respect.... David Hume famously noted a puzzling aspect of our engagement with works of tragic drama: It seems an unaccountable pleasure, which the spectators of a well-written tragedy receive from sorrow terror, anxiety, and other passions, that are in themselves disa$eeable and uneasy. The more they are touched and affected, the more are they delighted with the spectacle; and as soon as the uneasy passions cease to operate, the piece is at an end.r What is puzzling is not that work such as tragedies eem to provoke both pleasure and pain, for many non-perplexing experiences do that. Nor $ it odd that feeling pain may be necessary for feeling pleasure, for many ordinary cilcumstances have that structure, Rather, Hume,s enlcma is that our pleasule seems to be intemally related to our distressing fe-el ings. Feeling such pain is not a regrettable cost, but an essential element, of the pleasure in question, without which it would not be a desirable one. One would delight in blood-red sunsets even if they were not caused, as it happens, by aerosol pollution, but one would not dedve certan pleasures from tragic dramas if they did not provoke their characte suc kinds of distress.2As Hume notes, audiences are ,pleased in proportion as they are afflicted'.3 Yet how best to describe this puzzle, beyond the noncommittal sketch above, remains contentious. On the one hand, we often pursue and take pleasure or satisfactlon in works of art in ways that are ostensibly explained by their elicitatron AIso W Jeftold Levinson MUSIC, ART, AND MI,TAPHYSICS THE PLEASURES OF AESTHETICS MUSIC IN THE MOMENT CONTDMPLATINC AR'I' AESTHETICS AND DTHICS (c/ttor) THE OXITORD HANDBOOK OI AlSl'HE'llCS (editor) ADSTHETIC ONC[Irf'S (co-editot with Emily BMdy) ART AND PORNOGII.APHY (co-editot with Hans Maes) Suffering Art Gladly Negative Edited by Jerrold Levinson Depafime t ofPhilosophk Univetsity ofMaryland, USA palgrave macmi[[an to t. l The Paradox of Emotion in Art