Abstract
According to several prominent philosophers, pleasure and pain come in measurable quantities. This thesis is controversial, however, and many philosophers have presented or felt compelled to respond to arguments for the conclusion that it is false. One important class of these arguments concerns the problem of aggregation, which says that if pleasure and pain were measurable quantities, then, by definition, it would be possible to perform various mathematical and statistical operations on numbers representing amounts of them. It is sometimes argued that such operations cannot be sensibly applied to pleasure and pain, and that sentences expressing such operations must be false or meaningless. The purpose of this paper is to present, explain, and rebut several versions of this argument. In the first section, I present a generic version of the argument. In the second section, I present a defense of its key premise based on a case involving comparisons of relief from pain, and explain why I think it fails. In the third section, I present and rebut another defense, based on a pair of analogies with temperature. In the final section, I present a third defense, based on an analogy with spatial distances. I then present my reasons for rejecting it. Along the way, I explain my reasons for thinking that pleasure and pain are amenable to interval measurement.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Hall (1966–1967), pp. 38–42. Hall’s project in this paper is to rebut arguments of this kind. He does not endorse any argument considered in this paper for which he is the source. I find his ultimate reasons for rejecting these arguments to be inconclusive, for reasons I explain below.
Hall (1966–1967), p. 38. As is common practice among writers who address this topic, Hall writes in a way that obliterates any distinction between pleasure and pain. Although they are clearly distinct phenomena, it is just as clear that they are “of a piece.” I will therefore assume that what I say about pleasure applies, mutatis mutandis to pain, and vice versa.
Perhaps the proponent of this line of argument would argue that (c) isn’t really true, on the grounds that it is nonsense to claim that Adam’s pain at t2 is precisely equal to Burt’s pain at t2. Perhaps the most precise thing that could be said is that Adams t2 pain is roughly equal to Burt’s t2 pain. If that were the case, then (c) would be false, and (c1) would be true: c1) 1 ≈ 1. If (c) is false and (c1) is true, what I have to say about this case will still apply. For a detailed discussion of rough equality, or “parity,” see Chang (1997) and Griffin (1997).
I arrive at these numbers in the following manner: the left-hand side of the equation represents Adam’s pain-reduction interval. ‘2’ represents the amount of pain Adam was in at t1, and ‘1’ represents Adams pain at t2. The quantity ‘2–1’ represents Adam’s 1-unit reduction in pain. Likewise, the right-hand side of the equation represents Burt’s pain-reduction interval. ‘5’ represents Burt’s pain at t1; ‘4’ represents his pain at t2. The quantity ‘5–4’ represents Burt’s 1-unit reduction in pain.
The argument, of course, is not that (d) entails (c), and that (c) is true, therefore (d) is true. Rather, it is that (d) and (c) express the same state of affairs, so there is no reason to accept (c) that would not also be a reason to support (d).
See Klocksiem (2008).
For a related argument, see Mackenzie (1890), p. 206.
It is important to realize that, as Krantz et al. (1971) put it, “in the case of strict preference, [the agent] simply has to judge which of two offers he would rather have. There is no comparable simple act which reflects indifference. Thus, a theory that does not require indifference judgments is more satisfactory from both theoretical and practical viewpoints.” This desideratum creates a difficulty for the creation of a scale that satisfies the relevant criteria, but this difficulty is not insurmountable. See Krantz et al. (1971), pp. 155–6.
For a more detailed treatment of this issue, see Klocksiem (2008).
Not all straightforward applications of addition, though. Adding (or subtracting) heat energy without also simultaneously adding volume yields no addition problems.
The temperature of the room would have to rise, at least a little; there are now two furnaces in it, rather than just one. Perhaps the rise would be too slight to register on any but the most sensitive of thermometers.
Hall (1966–1967), p. 40. According to Hall, the suggestion that it does make sense to subtract pain from pleasure in this way is related somehow to the suggestion that pleasure and pain are attitudes, not feelings.
I realize that this is a contentious claim in itself, and a thorough defense of it is beyond the scope of this paper. However, I think it is clear that some episodes of pleasure are more intense than others: the pleasure I took in the Red Sox winning the 2004 World Series was much more intense than the pleasure I took in their winning the 2007 World Series. The same is true of pain; the pain I took in the Red Sox’s elimination from the 2008 postseason was far less intense than the pain I took in their elimination from the 2003 postseason. There are further problems concerning the extension of these points to interpersonal cases, and in cases in which the levels of intensity being compared are relatively close. For a more detailed discussion of these questions, see Klocksiem (2008).
In particular, we should suppose that the choice situation contains no moral dimension, or long-term consequences that would affect the judgment, nor that satiety would render the intensity of the pleasure inconstant.
References
Bentham J (2003) Principles of morals and legislation. Reprinted in Troyer J (ed) The classical utilitarians. Hackett Publishing, Indianapolis
Campbell NR (1928) An account of the principles of measurement and calculations. Longmans, Green
Chang R (1997) Introduction. In: Chang R (ed) Incommensurability, incomparability, and practical reason. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Ellis B (1966) Basic concepts of measurement. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Griffin J (1997) Incommensurability: what’s the problem? In: Chang R (ed) Incommensurability, incomparability, and practical reason. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp 35–51
Hall JC (1966–1967) Quantity of pleasure. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 67:35–52
Klocksiem J (2008) The problem of interpersonal comparisons of pleasure and pain. Journal of Value Inquiry 42:23–40
Krantz DH, Luce RD, Suppes P, Tversky A (1971) Foundations of measurement volume I: additive and polynomial representations. Academic, San Diego
Mackenzie JS (1890) An introduction to social philosophy. MacMillan and co, New York
Mill JS (2002) In: Sher G (ed) Utilitarianism. Hackett Publishing, Indianapolis
Moore GE (1903) Principia ethica. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Plato (1996) Protagoras. In: Allen RE (Trans) The dialogues of Plato vol. 3. Yale University Press, New Haven
Rashdall H (1899) Can there be a sum of pleasures? Mind 8:357–382
Resnik MD (1987) Choices: an introduction to decision theory. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis
Stevens SS (1946) On the theory of scales of measurement. Science 103:677–680
Acknowledgement
I am grateful to Fred Feldman for many helpful discussions and comments during the drafting of this paper. I am also indebted to two anonymous referees for this journal for helpful comments on an earlier draft.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Klocksiem, J. The Amenability of Pleasure and Pain to Aggregation. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 13, 293–303 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-009-9200-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-009-9200-8