Abstract

It is commonplace, in philosophy and in everyday life, to think that suffering, understood as a kind of negative affective experience, is bad. Nevertheless, the case can be made that suffering, in certain instances and circumstances, has considerable value. Indeed, it seems plausible that we would be considerably worse off if we didn’t experience things like pain and remorse, hunger and shame. Those who are insensitive to pain don’t live very long, after all. And those who are incapable of feeling negative emotions such as guilt and shame will find it very difficult to form and function in social relationships that are central to a happy life. By the same token, we think that we ought to experience other negative emotions: we ought to grieve when a loved one dies, and that despair is appropriate when our dreams are shattered. Reflection on these cases might incline us to the view that suffering is not always and everywhere bad, but can in many instances be good. In this paper I want to extend this positive perspective on the value of suffering, by examining the idea that suffering is necessary for wisdom.