Jennings and Nanay (this journal, 2016) argue against my claim that action entails attention by providing putative counterexamples to the claim that action entails a Many–Many Problem. This reply demonstrates that they have misunderstood the central notion of a pure reflex on which my argument depends. A simplified form of the argument from pure reflex to the Many–Many Problem as a necessary feature of agency is given, and putative counterexamples of action without attention are addressed. Attention is present in every (...) action. In passing, the reply discusses how we should assess intuitive claims about attention and mental processing, with emphasis on learning and the automatization of attention in its development as a skill. (shrink)

According to a subjectivist theory, normative reasons are grounded in facts about our desires. According to an instrumentalist theory, reasons are grounded also in facts about the relevant means to desired objects. These are distinct theories. The widespread tendency to conflate the normativity of subjective and instrumentalist precepts obscures two facts. First, instrumentalist precepts incorporate a subjective element with an objective one. Second, combining these elements into a single theory of normative reasons requires explaining how and why they are to (...) be combined. I argue that the most plausible justification for combining the two elements—which appeals to a theory of well‐being—exposes the inadequacy of the instrumentalist theory: The grounds required to justify the instrumentalist combination are also grounds for the normativity of prudential precepts and with them practical reasons that may have no internal connection to an agent's conative, motivational states. (shrink)

Well-being is that which is non-instrumentally good for a person. It is identical to how well someone's life goes. There are three main theories of well-being: hedonism, desire-fulfillment, and objective list theories. Each of these theories is subject to criticism, which has led some philosophers to posit a hybrid theory in which well-being is defined as taking pleasure in objective goods. One problem that comes with such an account is the possibility of what I will call harmless pleasures; that is, (...) pleasures that while not taken in something bad, are neither linked to objective goods. It is counterintuitive to say that such pleasures do not make a person's life go better, yet this seems to be what hybrid theories entail. I call this the harmless-pleasure objection. In this paper, I argue that there is no obvious solution to this objection and this result casts doubt on hybrid theories of well-being. (shrink)

Many moral philosophers accept the Debunking Thesis, according to which facts about natural selection provide debunking explanations for certain of our moral beliefs. I argue that philosophers who accept the Debunking Thesis beg important questions in the philosophy of biology. They assume that past selection can explain why you or I hold certain of the moral beliefs we do. A position advanced by many prominent philosophers of biology implies that this assumption is false. According to the Negative View, natural selection (...) cannot explain the traits of individuals. Hence, facts about past selection cannot provide debunking explanations for any of our moral beliefs. The aim of this paper is to explore the conflict between the Debunking Thesis and the Negative View. (shrink)

Many find it plausible to posit a category of supererogatory actions. But the supererogatory resists easy analysis. Traditionally, supererogatory actions are characterized as actions that are morally good, but not morally required; actions that go the call of our moral obligations. As I shall argue in this article, however, the traditional analysis can be accepted only by a view with troubling consequences concerning the structure of the moral point of view. I propose a different analysis that is extensionally correct, avoids (...) the problems of the traditional view, and, incidentally, also defuses any objection to act-consequentialism, or any other first-order moral theory, on grounds that it cannot accommodate the supererogatory. (shrink)

Are there normative reasons for love? More specifically, is it possible to rationally justify love? Or can we at best provide explanations for why we love? In Part I of this entry, I discuss the nature of love, theories of emotion, and what it takes to justify an attitude. In Part II, I provide an overview of the various positions one might take on the rational justification of love. I focus on the debate between defenders of the no-reasons view and (...) the reasons view. Along the way, I discuss the significance of falling in love, the problem of trading up, and the notion of irreplaceability. I evaluate attempts to justify love based on the intrinsic and the relational properties of the beloved. (shrink)

In this paper I seek to answer two interrelated questions about pleasures and pains: (i) The question of unity: Do all pleasures share a single quality that accounts for why these, and only these, are pleasures, and do all pains share a single quality that accounts for why these, and only these, are pains? (ii) The question of commensurability: Are all pleasures and pains rankable on a single, quantitative hedonic scale? I argue that our intuitions draw us in opposing directions: (...) On the one hand, pleasures and pains seem unified and commensurable; on the other hand, they do not. I further argue that neither intuition can be abandoned, and examine three different paths to reconciliation. The first two are response theory and split experience theory. Both of these, I argue, are unsuccessful. A third path, however—which I label “dimensionalism” —succeeds. Dimensionalism is the theory that pleasure and pain have the ontological status as opposite sides of a hedonic dimension along which experiences vary. This view has earlier been suggested by C. D. Broad, Karl Duncker, Shelly Kagan, and John Searle, but it has not been worked out in detail. In this paper I work out the dimensionalist view in some detail, defend it, and explain how it solves the problem of the unity and commensurability of pleasures and pains. (shrink)

This paper will examine a claim that nursing is united by its moral stance. The claim is that there are moral constraints on nurses' actions as people practising nursing and that they are in some way different from both what for now can be called standard morality and also different from the person's own moral views who also happens to be a nurse, hence the defining and unifying factor for nursing. I will begin by situating the claim within the broader (...) area about the need for a definition to state features that are essential to all and only members of its class. This will highlight the fact that there are two distinct types of definition used by authors seeking to find a unity for nursing. One type of definition has to do with goals or purposes given to nursing and the other with ends discovered as nursing. But even if there are ends waiting to be discovered a particular practical concern is how we can have knowledge of them. I will suggest that knowledge by intuition is plausible but that as things currently stand in moral epistemology it will not provide the unifying ground for nursing. Then I will argue that in the latter approach to definition a certain account of human nature has been advanced in order to provide features that are there to be discovered and so not dependent on human beings for the definition or classification. However, such an attempt to define nursing cannot do what is wanted. Rather than the account of human nature grounding morality and doing so for nursing, the account of human nature itself relies upon a prior account of morality. Because of this it loses its supposed ground of unity for the profession. Nursing is not united by its moral stance especially if this is understood in a strong sense as unique moral stance, but as things currently stand in moral epistemology this is not necessarily a bad thing for practitioners or patients. (shrink)

The bulk of the literature on the relationship between art and morality is principally concerned with an aesthetic question: Do moral flaws with works of art constitute aesthetic flaws?1 Much less attention has been paid to the ways in which artworks can be morally flawed. There are at least three promising contenders that concern aesthetic education: Artworks can be morally flawed by endorsing immorality, corrupting audiences, and encouraging responses that are bad to have. When it comes to works of fiction, (...) the third suggestion requires what Allan Hazlett calls response moralism—the position that audience reactions to artworks can be morally bad.2 Here, I will put aside issues of aesthetic.. (shrink)

Although we can try to explain why we love, we can never justify our love. Love is neither based on reasons, nor responsive to reasons, nor can it be assessed for normative reasons. Love can be odd, unfortunate, fortuitous, or even sadly lacking, but it can never be appropriate or inappropriate. We may have reasons to act on our love, but we cannot justify our loving feelings. Shakespeare's Bottom is right: "Reason and love keep little company together now-a-days." Indeed, they (...) keep none and they never kept any: there are no justifying reasons for love. (shrink)

Services of ethics consultants are nowadays commonly used in such various spheres of life as engineering, public administration, business, law, health care, journalism, and scientific research. It has however been maintained that use of ethics consultants is incompatible with personal autonomy; in moral matters individuals should be allowed to make their own decisions. The problem this criticism refers to can be conceived of as a conflict between the professional autonomy of ethics experts and the autonomy of the persons they serve. (...) This paper addresses this conflict and maintains that when the nature of both ethics consultation and individual autonomy is properly understood, the professional autonomy of ethics experts is compatible with the autonomy of the persons they assist. (shrink)

Speaking roughly, there are two competing accounts of the basis of love. First, the appraisal view: love is based in reasons derived from the valuable properties of the beloved. Second, the bestowal view: love is not based in reasons derived from the valuable properties of the beloved, but love is based in the lover, who then bestows value onto the beloved. While both models deserve due attention, the bestowal model is of present concern. Despite numerous virtues, the bestowal model faces (...) trenchant objections. In this paper, I outline and defend a version of bestowal love, according to which bestowal love is based in the lover’s motivating reasons, and which preserves the virtues while overcoming the difficulties facing bestowal love. (shrink)

It is common for moral philosophers to reject a moral theory on the basis that its verdicts are unreasonably demanding—it requires too much of us to be a correct account of our moral obligations. Even though such objections frequently strike us as convincing, they give rise to two challenges: Are demandingness objections really independent of other objections to moral theories? Do standard demandingness objections not presuppose that costs borne by the comfortably off are more important than costs borne by the (...) poor? These challenges have led some writers to question whether there really can be convincing demandingness objections, notwithstanding their strong initial appeal. David Sobel has argued that standard demandingness objections are ‘impotent’, Liam Murphy that they can be ‘dissolved’. In this paper, I aim to vindicate the possibility of demandingness objections by addressing these two challenges. (shrink)

What is the relation between virtue and wellbeing? Our claim is that, under certain conditions, virtue necessarily tends to have a positive impact on an individual’s wellbeing. This is so because of the connection between virtue and psychological happiness, on the one hand, and between psychological happiness and wellbeing, on the other hand. In particular we defend three claims: that virtue is constituted by a disposition to experience fitting emotions, that fitting emotions are constituents of fitting happiness, and that fitting (...) happiness is a constituent of wellbeing. What follows is that, under certain conditions, virtue disposes the individual to experience wellbeing-constituting states. We end with a discussion of two objections that may be raised against our proposal. (shrink)

Theories of well-being purport to identify the basic goods and bads whose presence in a person's life determines how well she is faring. Monism is the view that there is only one basic good and one basic bad. Pluralism is the view that there is either more than one basic good or more than one basic bad. In this paper, I give an argument for pluralism that is general in the sense that it does not purport to identify any basic (...) goods or bads. If I am right, then even if you cannot name a single basic good or bad, you can know that pluralism is true. (shrink)

Distributive egalitarians believe that distributive justice is to be explained by the idea of distributive equality (DE) and that DE is of intrinsic value. The socio-relational critique argues that distributive egalitarianism does not account for the “true” value of equality, which rather lies in the idea of “equality as a substantive social value” (ESV). This paper examines the socio-relational critique and argues that it fails because – contrary to what the critique presupposes –, first, ESV is not conceptually distinct from (...) DE, and second, the idea of ESV cannot serve as a “foundation” or “root” of distributive egalitarianism. (shrink)

Many philosophers with hedonistic sympathies (e.g., Mill, Sidgwick, Sumner, Feldman, Crisp, Heathwood, and Bradley) have claimed that well-being is necessarily experiential. Kagan once claimed something slightly different, saying that, although unexperienced bodily events can directly impact a person’s well-being, it is nonetheless true that any change in a person’s well-being must involve a change in her (i.e., either in her mind or in her body). Kagan elaborated by saying that a person’s well-being cannot float freely of her such that it (...) is affected by events that do not affect her (Kagan 1992, 169–189). These two claims—that well-being is necessarily experiential and that changes in well-being must involve changes in the person—are two different ways of specifying the general intuition that a person’s well-being must be strongly tied to her. This general intuition imposes an adequacy constraint on welfare theorizing: To be adequate, a welfare theory cannot allow that someone can be directly benefited by events that are not strongly tied to her. Call this the strong-tie requirement. The strong-tie requirement is easily satisfied by welfare hedonism, but it poses problems for desire-fulfillment welfare theories and objective-list welfare theories. Though a great deal has been written about desire-fulfillment welfare theories in relation to the strong-tie requirement, not as much has been written about objective-list welfare theories in relation to the strong-tie requirement. This paper argues that objective-list welfare theories can satisfy the strong-tie requirement, though probably only if they take a perfectionist form, as opposed to a brute-list form. (shrink)

The Quality of Life: Aristotle Revised, by KrautRichard. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. x + 249.

In earlier work I defended Intrinsic Attitudinal Hedonism—a view about what makes for individual personal welfare. On this view, a person’s level of welfare is entirely determined by the amounts of intrinsic attitudinal pleasure and pain he or she takes in things. The view seems to run into trouble in cases involving individuals who take their pleasure in disgusting, immoral things; and in cases involving individuals who take their pleasure in things that really don’t actually happen; and in cases involving (...) individuals who enjoy pleasures but who lead meaningless lives; and in cases involving individuals whose lives fail to manifest an attractive narrative structure. After sharpening up the objections, I introduce a distinction between Pure Welfare Narrowly Conceived and Enriched Welfare Broadly Conceived. I go on to claim that if this distinction is recognized, we will be able to say that each of the objections rests on the fallacy of equivocation. If, years ago, I had been more sensitive to the distinction between Pure Welfare and Enriched Welfare I would have been able to respond to the objections in a more coherent and effective way. I present that response here. In an appendix, I compare my current view with a related view defended by Shelly Kagan in ‘Me and My Life’. (shrink)

This dissertation concerns the location and nature of phenomenal qualities. Arguably, these qualities naively seem to belong to perceived external objects. However, we also seem to experience phenomenal qualities in hallucinations, and in hallucinations we do not perceive any external objects. I present and argue for a theory of the phenomenal qualities, "brain theory", which claims that all phenomenal qualities we experience are physical properties instantiated in the brain, regardless of whether they are experienced in veridical perceptions or in hallucinations. (...) I begin by more carefully identifying the phenomenal qualities, discussing how they are related to "qualia" and "phenomenal character". Then I present brain theory, and investigate its implications for the perceptual relations we stand in to external objects, noting that it is mostly neutral. I also compare brain theory to a similar theory of perception advocated by Bertrand Russell. Next, I provide an overview over the competing theories of phenomenal qualities, and relate them to theories of perception, such as representationalism, qualia theory, sense data theory and disjunctivism. The majority of my argumentation for brain theory focuses on arguing that the phenomenal qualities are instantiated in the brain, rather than on arguing that they are physical properties. Instead, I largely assume physicalism. However, even independently of the physicalism assumption, I show that we have reason to believe that phenomenal qualities are experienced in hallucinations, and that qualities experienced in hallucinations are instantiated in internal objects, such as our brains or sense data. In the first step towards this conclusion I argue that theories which deny that phenomenal qualities are experienced in hallucinations face serious problems. In the next step I argue that theories which deny that phenomenal qualities experienced in hallucinations are instantiated in internal objects face serious problems. Finally, an important part of the argumentation is my replies to objections against brain theory, including common sense objections and the "observation objection". From these conclusions, together with the physicalism assumption, I infer that we have reason to believe that brain theory is true about hallucinations. On this basis, I then argue, through a generalizing argument, that the same is the case for veridical perceptions. (shrink)

Constitutivism aims to justify substantial normative standards as constitutive of practical reason. In this way, it can defend the constructivist commitment to avoiding realism and anti-realism in normative disciplines. This metaphysical debate is the perspective from which the nature of the constitutivist justification is usually discussed. In this paper, I focus on a related, but distinct, debate. My concern will not be whether the substantial normative claims asserted by the constructivist have some elements, which are not constructed, but real, given (...) independently from us; instead, my concern will be more narrowly epistemic – whether those claims can be derived from premises, which are normatively less substantial than the normative conclusions themselves. I focus on Korsgaard’s transcendental articulation of the constitutivist argument. I conclude that more work would need to be done, in order for this argument to function as intended. (shrink)

I consider whether evolutionary explanations can debunk our moral beliefs. Most contemporary discussion in this area is centred on the question of whether debunking implications follow from our ability to explain elements of human morality in terms of natural selection, given that there has been no selection for true moral beliefs. By considering the most prominent arguments in the literature today, I offer reasons to think that debunking arguments of this kind fail. However, I argue that a successful evolutionary debunking (...) argument can be constructed by appeal to the suggestion that our moral outlook reflects arbitrary contingencies of our phylogeny, much as the horizontal orientation of the whale’s tail reflects its descent from terrestrial quadrupeds. An introductory chapter unpacks the question of whether evolutionary explanations can debunk our moral beliefs, offers a brief historical guide to the philosophical discussion surrounding it, and explains what I mean to contribute to this discussion. Thereafter follow six chapters and a conclusion. The six chapters are divided into three pairs. The first two chapters consider what contemporary scientific evidence can tell us about the evolutionary origins of morality and, in particular, to what extent the evidence speaks in favour of the claims on which debunking arguments rely. The next two chapters offer a critique of popular debunking arguments that are centred on the irrelevance of moral facts in natural selection explanations. The final chapters develop a novel argument for the claim that evolutionary explanations can undermine our moral beliefs insofar as they show that our moral outlook reflects arbitrary contingencies of our phylogeny. A conclusion summarizes my argument and sets out the key questions that arise in its wake. (shrink)

Rule consequentialism (RC) holds that the rightness and wrongness of actions is determined by an ideal moral code, i.e., the set of rules whose internalization would have the best consequences. But just how many moral codes are there supposed to be? Absolute RC holds that there is a single morally ideal code for everyone, while Relative RC holds that there are different codes for different groups or individuals. I argue that Relative RC better meets the test of reflective equilibrium than (...) Absolute RC. In particular, I contend that Relative RC is superior because it accommodates our convictions about costless benefits. Some have charged that Relative RC threatens our convictions about the generality of moral codes and that it leads inevitably to what Brad Hooker calls “runaway relativism.” I argue that Relative RC has principled reasons for stopping this imagined slide down the slippery slope. (shrink)

I argue that the strongest form of consequentialism is one which rejects the claim that we are morally obliged to bring about the best available consequences, but which continues to assert that what there is most reason to do is bring about the best available consequences. Such an approach promises to avoid common objections to consequentialism, such as demandingness objections. Nevertheless, the onus is on the defender of this approach either to offer her own account of what moral obligations we (...) do face, or to explain why offering such a theory is ill-advised. I consider, and reject, one attempt at the second sort of strategy, put forward by Alastair Norcross, who defends a 'scalar' consequentialism which eschews the moral concepts of right, wrong and obligation, and limits itself to claims about what is better and worse. I go on to raise some considerations which suggest that no systematic consequentialist theory of our moral obligations will be plausible, and propose instead that consequentialism should have a more informal and indirect role in shaping what we take our moral obligations to be. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I argue that all extant theories of prudential value are either a) enumeratively deficient, in that they are unable to accommodate everything that, intuitively, is a basic constituent of prudential value, b) explanatorily deficient, in that they are at least sometimes unable to offer a plausible story about what makes a given thing prudentially valuable, or c) both. In response to the unsatisfactory state of the literature, I present my own account, the Disjunctive Hybrid Theory or DHT. (...) DHT answers to and remedies each of the above inadequacies in a way that no other approach can. This account has the following general structure:Disjunctive Hybrid Theory (DHT): Thing x is basically good for person P if and only if x is either a) cared about (sufficiently and in the right way) by P, b) a bearer of (the right kind of) attitude-independent value, or c) both.Although it follows other recent accounts in combining elements from objective and subjective theories, DHT is a hybrid theory of a quite new kind. This is because it denies both subjective necessity (the constraint that, if thing x is to be basically good for person P, P must have some pro-attitude toward x) and objective necessity (the constraint that, if thing x is to be basically good for person P, x must have some attitude-independent value). I argue that the rejection of both necessity claims is called for if we are to move beyond the enumerative and explanatory limitations of existing accounts.I begin by outlining the general structure of DHT. I then argue, against various recent authors, that desire-satisfactionism remains the most appealing subjectivist approach to prudential value, in that it is best able to capture the central subjectivist insight. This insight is that a person can confer prudential value upon things by caring about them (sufficiently and in the right way). The subjectivist strand of DHT will thus be a version of desire-satisfactionism, which must be interpreted in line with what I call the object, as opposed to the combo, view. I move on to further motivate and develop the second, objectivist strand of DHT. This part of the theory involves a commitment to robustly attitude-independent prudential goods. I close by addressing some puzzles for the theory, and considering some of its more specific applications. (shrink)

What are the norms governing the pursuit of happiness? Presumably not just anything goes. But are the rules any more interesting than platitudes like “do whatworks, as long as you don’t hurt anyone”? Such questions have become especially salient in light of the development of positive psychology. Yet so far these matters have received relatively little attention, most of it from skeptics who doubt that the pursuit of happiness is an important, or even legitimate, enterprise. This paper examines the normative (...) issues in this realm, arguing that the pursuit of happiness is indeed a legitimate and important endeavor, contra recent criticisms by Aristotelian and other skeptics. Yet it is also subject to strong, nonobvious normative constraints that extend well beyond those typically posited by commonsense and consequentialist thought. (shrink)

Is it ever bad to take pleasure in the suffering of fictional characters? I think so. I attempt to show when and why. I begin with two powerful objections to my view: (1) engaging with fiction is akin to morally unproblematic autonomous fantasy, and (2) since no one is harmed, it is morally unproblematic. I reply to the objections and defend a Moorean view on the issue: It is intrinsically bad to enjoy evil, actual (past, present, or future) and merely (...) imagined. In support, I offer four examples. Then I argue against Moore's claim that it is equally bad to delight in fictional suffering as it is to enjoy actual suffering. Finally, I argue that even though it is bad to enjoy imagined suffering, the power of fiction is often mitigating. The moral problems are more often with the works of fiction than with the audience. (shrink)

This paper discusses J.S. Mill’s distinction between higher and lower pleasures, and suggests that recent neuroscientific evidence counts against it.

This article outlines an objective list theory of animal and alien well-being. Responding to three sorts of perfectionist criticism of such OLT, it argues that OLT is actually superior on each count. This is significant, because perfectionism is much discussed yet OLT is little discussed in philosophy of animal well-being, and because perfectionism can reasonably be expected to do comparatively well on the points where it is criticizing OLT.

This chapter sketches four forms of realism ascribed to four great historical figures that provide an important set of determinate versions of moral realism. Plato provides a picture according to which moral facts exist in a non-concrete realm of abstract universal properties. Aristotle provides a picture according to which moral facts exist as concrete facts in the world. Hume provides a picture according to which moral facts have their basis in universal human sentiments. Kant provides a picture according to which (...) moral facts are simply truths of universal reason. It is argued that the revolution in our understanding of metaphysical explanations that occurred between Aristotle and Hume has important consequences for realist views. (shrink)

The article propounds a justification of public health interventionism grounded on personal health as an intermediate human end in the ethical domain, on an interpretation of Aristotle. This goes beyond the position taken by some liberals that health should be understood as a prudential good alone. A second, but independent, argument is advanced in the domain of the political, namely, that population health can be justified as a political value in its own right as a primary social good, following an (...) interpretation of John Rawls’s evolved understanding of such goods in his later works. The article sets the scene for these positions by highlighting how liberal theories focusing on freedom as non-interference, or making the harm principle the basis of legitimate public health interventions, undercut the capacity of the state to actively promote population health. The article points to theoretical resources on legitimacy and liberty—the ‘salient coordinator account’ of authority and freedom as non-domination—that may help avoid this risk. The role of reflective equilibrium incorporating incompletely theorized mid-level principles is emphasized to ensure that interventions are soundly justified. The application of these principles would ensure that interventions do not exceed the proper moral/political boundaries limiting the role of government. (shrink)

This paper's philosophical ideas are developed from a General Nursing Council for England and Wales Trust‐funded study to explore nursing knowledge and wisdom and ways in which these can be translated into clinical practice and fostered in junior nurses. Participants using Carper's (1978) ways of knowing as a framework experienced difficulty conceptualizing a link between the empirics and ethics of nursing. The philosophical problem is how to understandpraxisas a moral entity with intrinsic value when so much of value seems to (...) be technical and extrinsic depending on desired ends. Using the Aristotelian termspoesisandpraxiscan articulate the concerns that the participants as well as Carper (1978) and Dreyfus (in Flyvbjerg, 1991) among others share that certain actions or ways of knowing important for nursing are being devalued and deformed by the importance placed on quantitative data and measurable outcomes. The sense ofpraxisis a moralized one and most of what nurses do is plausibly on any account of normative ethics a morally good thing; the articulation of the idea ofpraxiscan go some way in showing how it is a part of the discipline of nursing. Nursing's acts aspoesiscan be a part of how practitioners come to havepraxisasphronesisor practical wisdom. So to be a wise nurse, one needs be a wise person. (shrink)

In this paper I make a contribution to three distinct, but deeply interwoven subjects. Firstly, I argue that, at the level of ideal theory, the distribution of educational goods should follow a sufficientarian pattern and that the evaluative space of children’s advantage should be inspired by the capability approach. Secondly, the paper is delving into the more policy-oriented debates on the desirability of school choice. I argue that, given the non-ideal circumstances in which decision makers have to act, giving parents (...) the opportunity to choose the school for their children is a sine qua non condition for even approaching the ideals of sufficientarian justice. Lastly, I move the discussion on more empirical grounds, advancing a criticism of the Romanian educational legislation. I argue that the sufficiency-constrained school choice system that I envision could solve some of the problems that the Romanian educational system faces today. (shrink)

In refutation of hedonism, Nozick offered a hypothetical thought experiment, known as the Experience Machine. This paper maintains that end-of-life-suffering of the kind that is resistant to state-of-the-art palliation provides a conceptually equal experiment which validates Nozick’s observations and conclusions. The observation that very many terminal patients who suffer terribly do no wish for euthanasia or terminal sedation is incompatible with motivational hedonism. Although irreversible vegetative state and death are equivalently pain-free, very many people loath the former even at the (...) price of the latter. This attitude cannot be accounted for by hedonism. Following these observations, the goals of palliative care are sketched along four circles. The first is mere removal or mitigation of noxious symptoms and suffering. The second targets sufferings that stymie patients’ life-plans and do not allow them to be happy, the third targets sufferings that interfere with their pursuance of other goods (palliation as a primary good). The fourth is the control of sufferings that do not allow the person to benefit from any human good whatsoever (“total pain” or critical suffering). Only in the fourth circle are people hedonists. (shrink)