Human suffering is bad

I have to say, I'm a little confused by con's remarks. But I'll try to sort them out. You'll remember in my opening statements I said that my goal was to show that 'human suffering' and 'badness' were coherent, well-understood concepts. If they are, then we can know prima facie simply by the meaning of the words that human suffering is bad. It seems to me that con has dug himself into a hole by trying to claim outright that human suffering is a clear, distinct, objective thing, but badness is not. What I have tried to show (perhaps less explicitly than I should have) is that human suffering is intrinsically bad. That is, pain, and the capacity to suffer, are not bad because they lead to bad outcomes, or because they are bad for character, or because they are logically inconsistent. They are bad just because they are. It seems here that pro wants to say it's true that human being suffer, but it is not true that that suffering is bad. His reasons for this seem to me that 'bad' is not something that can be measured objectively, i. e. on some sort of cosmic scale. In other words, that the stars or planets cannot experience badness, and since pain is a physical thing, our experience of badness as a reaction to pain is like a planet spinning: meaningless. But this is confused on a number of grounds. First, pain is not a physical thing in the way con describes. Pain has physical CAUSES, namely the firing of certain C-fibers in response to nerve stimulation. But our EXPERIENCE of pain is not physical in any way. Neuroscience can show us what parts of the brain are active when we undergo pain, but there is absolutely no scientific process whatever that can show us where the PAINFULNESS of pain is located, what is like, et cetera. The painfulness of pain, like the taste of wine and the sight of a sunset, are what is known as qualia. They are first-person, qualitative experiences that are unique to the experiencer [1]. These things may one day be reduced to physical processes, but as of now they do not have physical basis themselves. Con therefore gives us no reason to think that pain is an objective quality. I am not making a case against qualia. I am of the opinion that qualia are real, but this is a controversial topic in philosophy of mind and one simply has to choice which option is more appealing to him. The point of my last argument about qualia, namely, that they may not be real, was simply to bring into question con's assumption that pain is a real, objective thing. Notice that I am not denying the definitions con presented. I accept them wholly. But con did not mention in the resolution that we were to assume pain as an objective fact. I accept the burden of proof in terms of the holistic argument, but this does not obligate me to accept whatever assumptions con makes. I do not think con has showed in any way that pain is an objective thing. Therefore we have no reason to accept his argument that pain is objective but badness is not. I have argued that neither pain nor badness are 'objective' in terms of being human-independent. Pain only exists as a function of sentient creatures. Pain means nothing on a universal scale. But it does not follow from that that therefore pain does not matter to us. Con tries to make the case that since planets have no notion of badness (e. g. it is not 'bad' or 'good' when they spin on their axis, it just is') therefore pain is not bad when it happens to us - it just is. But of course this does not follow in any way logically. Again, insofar as we understand what pain is, that is, insofar as we experience pain, we know that it is bad. That is the nature of pain. It is intrinsically bad, that is, it is bad in and of itself. Therefore if the word 'bad' has any meaning to us, which it obviously does (after all, it must be meaningful if we are to debate about it), then we can include human suffering in the category of 'bad. ' Now let me address a few of con's points. "The universe exists, objectively. The concept, that arose from human beings, is one that describes reality. The description of reality applies, even when humans are not around. " This is a controversial metaphysical claim. There are actually a number of philosophers who maintain precisely the opposite - namely that the material world does NOT exist independent of us. If con wants to take this position, he must provide some justification for it, which he has not. Therefore we are not obligated to accept this point. "Coherency is coherency no matter from what perspective it is viewed from. On a cosmic scale, all bachelors are unmarried. On a cosmic scale, the Earth's sky is blue in some areas. " Again, con makes assertions with no support. "All bachelors are unmarried" is an analytic truth. It is a function of logic. Logic MAY exist independent of human beings, or it may be a tool we have invented. Con provides no evidence for these claims whatever, therefore they are easily dismissed. "Human pain does exist objectively. From an objective perspective, humans have been in pain. " Again, pure conjecture. If you want to make the claim that human pain exists objectively, you have to provide at least some evidence. I have provided evidence to think that it does not exist objectively, but only as a function of qualitative human experiences (like the concept of badness). This point is easily dismissed. In conclusion, we have no reason to accept virtually any of con's responses or positive assertions. We have good reason to think that pain and badness both exist as functions of human experience, and thus human suffering is intrinsically bad. That is, by its very nature, if we can suffer (we can) and if we know what the word 'bad' means, then we know prima facie that human suffering is bad.