"I believe that most of us tend to underrate the evilness of suffering. The reason is that it is difficult for us, when not actually suffering, to recollect what suffering really is. We employ numerous psychological mechanisms to conceal from our consciousness the true nature or meaning of suffering, to falsify and deny it. We do this without renouncing the word, however. The word comes to designate, in our minds, only a faint copy or superficial image of the real thing; but having forgotten what the original is, we mistake it in the copy. We ascribe to "suffering" a certain gravity of evil; but it is slight compared to what we would ascribe to suffering itself, if we could only recall its true meaning."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Jamie Mayerfeld, Suffering and Moral Responsibility (1999), p. 101
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Negative_utilitarianism
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Jamie Mayerfeld
9 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Jamie Mayerfeld →
Related Quotes
"... there may be a crucial difference between thinking that it would have been better if the world had never come int…"
"Real cases of suffering ... tend to go unheard. This is not only because people who are genuinely suffering typically…"
"We might say (again metaphorically) that suffering cries out for its own abolition ... ."
"An agent who regarded [sound moral principles] as mere rules of thumb would ignore them whenever she calculated that …"
"[T]he duty to relieve suffering comes in two parts: a prohibition against inflicting suffering, and a requirement to …"
"The falsification of suffering is everywhere—in movies, in poetry, in novels, on the nightly news. Accounts of disast…"
"... suffering cries out for its own abolition ... ."
"A strong duty to relieve suffering that does not discriminate between species would require radical changes in the wa…"
"In the higher degrees of Scottish Freemasonry, there are two mottos whose meaning is related to some of the considera…"
"In absolute clarity, one sees as little as in absolute darkness. Pure light and pure darkness are two voids, they are…"