"Facts are objective, values are subjective"
This is a line people repeat a lot. It suggests that saying "suffering is bad" would just be an opinion, like saying "I like blue." The author shows that this line has problems.
Two meanings of "subjective"
"Subjective" can mean:
- happening in someone's mind, like a pain or a thought;
- a matter of opinion, with no right answer.
Describing what's going on in someone's mind (for example, "he's in pain") can have a right or wrong answer, even though it's about something "subjective" in the first sense. So being about the mind doesn't make something a matter of opinion.
How can we confirm that suffering is bad?
Someone might say: "Describing pain has a right answer, but judging whether it's bad doesn't."
The author answers: we have direct access to suffering and pleasure. When we feel pain, we directly notice that it's bad. Nobody needs an argument to know that.
The alien example
Imagine aliens who can feel but have never felt pain or pleasure, only neutral experiences. They hear about pain on Earth, but don't really understand what it is. If one day they felt pain, they'd immediately realize it's bad. It's a discovery, not a choice.
Impossible to explain without value
There's no way to explain what suffering is without saying it's bad, or what pleasure is without saying it's good. The value is part of what these things are.
What about a torturer's pleasure?
Someone might ask: "So is a torturer's pleasure good?" The author separates the two: the pleasure itself may be good, but the act of torturing is wrong, because it causes much greater suffering for the victim. Value theory is one thing; the ethics of action is another.
In short
- "Subjective" can mean "in the mind" or "a matter of opinion."
- We have direct access to the fact that suffering is bad.
- The value of an experience isn't the same as whether an action is right or wrong.