mentality (part ii): but pain hurts!

There is an old philosopher’s joke that goes something like this. There are two men who are tied up as captives of a third man. The third man, let us call him the torturer, needs information from these two renowned philosophers, and he decides the best way to get the information out of them is by repeatedly hitting them with a large bag of oranges until one of them finally relents. The torturer starts with the smaller of the two men, thinking that he will be easier to break. As you might expect—and if you have ever been beaten repeatedly with a bag of oranges then you know first hand—this hurts! The small man screams and begs for the torturer to stop, but he gives no information away, being well trained in the philosopher’s code of unyielding secrecy to rogue torturers. So, becoming bored with the small man, the torturer turns to the larger man and begins hitting him with the bag of oranges. The small man, being the keen philosopher he is—even in the face of torment—begins to think upon this. “Well,” he thinks aloud, “I am quite certain that the pain you are now feeling, larger man, is very different from the pain that I was feeling moments ago.” The torturer thinks this is amusing, as he is trouncing the larger man just as hard as he trounced the smaller man. “Why would you say such a foolish thing little philosopher?” the torturer asks. The small man answers, “Because, my pain hurts; his pain is funny!” I should have warned you that most philosophy jokes are not really all that funny, unless you are a philosopher, in which case they still are not funny, but you laugh anyways.

The philosophical point that this joke brings to the forefront is that of the subjectivity of pain. How can we know when somebody else is in pain? To answer this, we must first know the answer to the question, what is pain?, and it is this question that we will now explore.

It is difficult to define pain. Pain is, well, painful. Pain hurts. Pain is a sensation that normally causes us to have some aversive reaction. But are these descriptions definitive of pain? In other words, what characteristic is central to what pain is? When most people touch an extremely potent pepper to their tongues, they instantly remove the pepper and proceed to grab a drink. The sensation is “painful”. However, there are some people that genuinely enjoy this same sensation. In this case at least, it seems that the sensation is not what is definitive of pain. Additionally, consider all the different types of pain that we conveniently group together under one term. To take just two of the many types, compare pain from extreme coldness and pain from being cut by a knife. I do not think that anyone who has experienced both of these sensations can in any way assert that these feel similar. But, we label each of these disparate sensational experiences as pain—why? It must be something other than the sensational qualities of these experiences. That is where functionalism comes in.

Functionalists classify pain by examining the functional role that it plays, as opposed to the qualitative aspect of pain, qualia. Basically, pain is that state caused by certain physical inputs, and leads to certain behavioral outputs, such as screaming, or other avoidance techniques and forms of displeasure. This is significant because it entirely removes the qualitative aspect of pain from the definition! This is somewhat counterintuitive.

Philosophers such as David Chalmers are not satisfied with this reductive definition of pain. It is the ouchiness or hurtfulness of pain that makes pain what it is, they adamantly claim. If we are to define pain functionally, then we are in danger of classifying things which are clearly not pain, as pain. For example, if you were to leave the room immediately in a screaming fit every time a certain person comes near you, is this pain? A functionalist definition of pain may indeed consider that it is. This may be difficult to accept.

What is your position on what constitutes pain? Is it the adverse behavioral output that defines pain or is it the sensational experience? Your decision on this matter will become crucial when examining the controversial issue of Artificial Intelligence that we will address in mentality (part iii), so consider your options thoroughly.