ABSTRACT
The idea of the Benthamistas – that pain is always bad and pleasure is always good – breaks down from an ecological perspective. Pain is nature’s way of telling us to see the dentist. After all, ‘A living mammal which experienced no pain would be one that had a lethal dysfunction of the nervous system’, as the environmental philosopher J. Baird Callicott put it. JBC goes on to add that ‘the idea that pain is evil and ought to be minimised or eliminated is as primitive a notion as that of a tyrant who puts to death messengers bearing bad news on the supposition that thus his well-being and security is improved’.
