Hostname: page-component-76d6cb85b7-mgxrv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-07-11T18:36:00.027Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Asymmetrical Contributions of Pleasure and Pain to Animal Welfare

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 February 2014

ADAM J. SHRIVER
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Recent results from the neurosciences demonstrate that pleasure and pain are not two symmetrical poles of a single scale of experience but in fact two different types of experiences altogether, with dramatically different contributions to well-being. These differences between pleasure and pain and the general finding that “the bad is stronger than the good” have important implications for our treatment of nonhuman animals. In particular, whereas animal experimentation that causes suffering might be justified if it leads to the prevention of more suffering, it can never by justified merely by leading to increased levels of happiness.

Keywords

pleasurepainasymmetrysufferingwell-beinganimal experimentation

Information

Type
Special Section: Neuroethics and Animals
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , April 2014 , pp. 152 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Notes

1. Mayerfeld, J. Suffering and Moral Responsibility. New York: Oxford University Press; 2002.Google Scholar

2. Popper, K. The Open Society and Its Enemies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; 1952.Google Scholar

3. Rackham, H, ed. Cicero: De Finebus Bonorum et Malorum. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 1983.Google Scholar

4. Lecknes, S, Tracy, I. A common neurobiology for pain and pleasure. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2008;9:314–20.Google Scholar

5. Rainville, P, Duncan, GH, Price, DD, Carrier, B, Bushnell, MC. Pain affect encoded in human anterior cingulate but not somatosensory cortex. Science 1997;277:968–71.Google Scholar

6. Price, DD. Psychological and neural mechanisms of the affective dimension of pain. Science 2000;288:1769–72.Google Scholar

7. Vogt, B, Sikes, RW. Cingulate nociceptive circuitry and roles in pain processing: The cingulate premotor pain model. In: Vogt, B, ed. Cingulate Neurobiology and Disease. New York: Oxford University Press; 2009:311–38.Google Scholar

8. Foltz, EL, White, LE. Pain relief by frontal cingulotomy. Journal of Neurosurgery 1962;19:89–100.Google Scholar

9. Berthier, M, Starkstein, S, Leiguards, R. Asymbolia forp: A sensory-limbic disconnection syndrome. Annals of Neurology 1988;24:41–9.Google Scholar

10. Johansen, JP, Fields, HL. Glutamatergic activation of anterior cingulate cortex produces an aversive teaching signal. Nature Neuroscience 2004;7(4):398–403.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

11. Dong, WK, Hayashi, T, Roberts, VJ, Fusco, BM, Chudler, EH. Behavioral outcome of posterior parietal cortex injury in the monkey. Pain 1996;64:579–87.Google Scholar

12. Smith, KS, Mahler, SV, Pecina, S, Berridge, KC. Hedonic hotspots: Generating sensory pleasure in the brain. In: Kringlebach, ML, Berridge, KC, eds. Pleasures of the Brain. New York: Oxford University Press; 2010:27–49.Google Scholar

13. Miller, JM, Vorel, SR, Tranguch, AJ, Kenny, ET, Mazzoni, P, van Gorp, WG, et al. Anhedonia after selective bilateral lesion of the globus pallidus. American Journal of Psychiatry 2006;163:786–8.Google Scholar

14. Cromwell, HC, Berridge, KC. Where does damage lead to enhanced food aversion: The ventral pallidum/substantia innominata or lateral hypothalamus? Brain Research 1993;624:1–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

15. Baumeister, RF, Bratslavsky, E, Finkenauer, C, Vohs, KD. Bad is stronger than good. Review of General Psychology 2001;5:323–70, at 323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16. Hietanen, JK, Korpela, KM. Do both negative and positive environmental scenes elicit rapid affective processing? Environment and Behavior 2004;36:558–77.Google Scholar

17. Bentham, J. Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. New York: Oxford University Press; 1789, at 11.Google Scholar

18. See note 17, Bentham 1789, at 34.

19. Larsen, RJ, Prizmic, Z. Regulation of emotional well-being. In: Eid, M, Larsen, R, eds. The Science of Subjective Well-Being. New York: Guilford; 2008, at 261.Google Scholar

20. Larson, RJ. Differential contributions of positive and negative affect to subjective well being. In: Da Silva, JA, Matsushima, EH, Riberio-Filho, NP, eds. Annual Meeting of the International Society for Psychophysics. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Editora Legis Summa Ltda; 2002;18:186–90.Google Scholar

21. Gottman, JM. What Predicts Divorce? The Relationship between Marital Process and Marital Outcomes. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; 1994.Google Scholar

22. More precisely, the cutoff for “flourishing” marriages was 5.1 to 1 for verbal content and 4.7 to 1 for emotional expressions.

23. Fredrickson, BL, Losada, MF. Positive affect and the complex dynamics of human flourishing. American Psychologist 2005;60:678–86.Google Scholar

24. The categories were self-acceptance, purpose in life, environmental mastery, positive relations with others, personal growth, autonomy, social coherence, social integration, social acceptance, social contribution, and social actualization.

25. See note 19, Larsen, Prizmic 2008, at 258–89.

26. See note 23, Fredrickson, Losada 2005.

27. For many people, notably those privileged enough to be in academia, this depressing fact is neutralized by the fact that we have a much greater quantity of mildly pleasant experiences than we do negative experiences, and indeed the general “set point” for most people in normal situations is a mildly pleasant experience.

28. Griffin, J. Is unhappiness more important than happiness? Philosophical Quarterly 1979;114:47–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29. Sidgwick, H. The Methods of Ethics. Indianapolis: Hackett; 1907, at 129.Google Scholar

30. See note 29, Sidgwick 1907, at 125.

31. Much of the following paragraph is based on Tim Schroeder’s helpful discussion in Schoeder, T. The Three Faces of Desire. New York: Oxford University Press; 2004.Google Scholar

32. Lamb, RJ, Preston, KL, Schindler, CW, Meisch, RA, Davis, F, Katz, JL, et al. The reinforcing and subjective effects of morphine in post-addicts: A dose-response study. Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapies 1991;259:1165–73.Google Scholar

33. Fischman, MW, Foltin, RW. Self-administration of cocaine by humans: A laboratory perspective. In: Bock, GR, Whelan, J, eds. Cocaine: Scientific and Social Dimensions. Chichester, England: Wiley; 1992;165–80.Google Scholar

34. Berridge, K, Robinson, TE. What is the role of dopamine in reward: Hedonic impact, reward learning, or incentive salience? Brain Research Reviews 1998;28:309–69.Google Scholar

35. Wyvell, C, Berridge, K. Intra-accumbens amphetamine increases the conditioned incentive salience of sucrose reward: Enhancement of reward “wanting” without enhanced “liking” or response reinforcement. The Journal of Neuroscience 2000;20:8122–30.Google Scholar

36. Shriver, A. Minding mammals. Philosophical Psychology 2006;19:433–42.Google Scholar

37. Allen, C, Fuchs, P, Shriver, A, Wilson, H. Deciphering animal pain. In: Aydede, M, ed. Pain: New Essays on the Nature of Pain and the Methodology of Its Study. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 2005:352–366.Google Scholar

38. LaGraize, S, Labuda, C, Rutledge, R, Jackson, R, Fuchs, P. Differential effect of anterior cingulated cortex lesion on mechanical hypersensitivity and escape/avoidance behavior in an animal model of neuropathic pain. Experimental Neurology 2004;188:139–48.Google Scholar

39. LaGraize, S, Borzan, J, Peng, YB, Fuchs, P. Selective regulation of pain affect following activation of the opioid anterior cingulate cortex system. Experimental Neurology 2006;197:22–30.Google Scholar

40. Singer, P. Practical Ethics. New York: Cambridge University Press; 1993.Google Scholar