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<p>Painful pains feel bad. One popular account of the nature of painfulness explains this feeling—i.e. its phenomenal character—in virtue of intentional content. Moreover, painful pains not only feel bad, but intuitively <i>are</i> bad. Hence, why we take painkillers. I argue that intentionalism about painfulness is incompatible with the sort of painkiller-taking behaviour characteristic of being in painful pain. In particular, if you’re an intentionalist, then you can’t invoke four highly plausible motivational views. That leaves intentionalism with the following motivational view: you are motivated to take a painkiller solely in virtue of the intrinsically motivating content of a second-order evaluative <i>belief</i> that pain is bad. I further argue that intentionalists can’t make epistemic sense of such a belief. I consider and reject a recent attempt by Bain (2017) to explain how subjects could know their pains are bad solely in virtue of knowing a conceptual truth about the kind of experience they are having. I end by drawing out some metaethical implications, none of which help the intentionalist.</p>

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Why intentionalists can’t take painkillers

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  • 发表日期：

    2026年4月3日

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  • Matthew Kinakin

摘要

Painful pains feel bad. One popular account of the nature of painfulness explains this feeling—i.e. its phenomenal character—in virtue of intentional content. Moreover, painful pains not only feel bad, but intuitively are bad. Hence, why we take painkillers. I argue that intentionalism about painfulness is incompatible with the sort of painkiller-taking behaviour characteristic of being in painful pain. In particular, if you’re an intentionalist, then you can’t invoke four highly plausible motivational views. That leaves intentionalism with the following motivational view: you are motivated to take a painkiller solely in virtue of the intrinsically motivating content of a second-order evaluative belief that pain is bad. I further argue that intentionalists can’t make epistemic sense of such a belief. I consider and reject a recent attempt by Bain (2017) to explain how subjects could know their pains are bad solely in virtue of knowing a conceptual truth about the kind of experience they are having. I end by drawing out some metaethical implications, none of which help the intentionalist.