<p>A common belief is that pain and suffering are bad, and a fact. Suffering-focused consequentialism holds that pain and suffering are bad, and alleviating suffering is morally primary rather than maximizing happiness. However, thinkers championing this view should explain the way(s) in which we <i>know</i> that pain and suffering are bad, a moral fact for which there are moral explanations. The view of suffering-focused consequentialism will make no sense if we do not attend to this problem of moral epistemology. Moral realists ground their arguments that we know pain and suffering are bad, and a fact, on <i>moral qualia</i> and <i>introspection.</i> The claim ‘and a <i>fact</i>’ is an essentialist claim about the badness of pain and suffering, which demands justification. Hence, whether pain and suffering are essentially evil is an important question of epistemology of the ontological claim. Remarkably, for a rigorous discussion on these problems, inquiry into the logical soundness of the arguments from qualia, moral qualia, and introspection is awaited. I aim to emphasize the theoretical weaknesses of moral realism’s epistemology of direct conscious experience of the badness of pain based on different arguments from moral qualia and introspection. I argue that the knowledge of the essentialist claim about the badness of suffering is epistemology sans socio-historic considerations and fails to justify the basic presupposition of suffering-focused ethics.</p>