Why Pain & Suffering Are Necessary For A Good Life - Paul Bloom

... I wanna run a marathon, and I'm really hoping to get blisters and to get ill and to, to fail or whatever. It's not like that at all. I don't think people court suffering in that sort of way. But at the same time, people know that if it didn't have the possibility of failure and difficulty and struggle, it wouldn't be seen as meaningful. You don't want to fail. But on the other hand, the chance of failure has to be part and parcel of the thing. (air whooshing)

Paul Bloom, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me back.

My pleasure, man. Why are we talking about suffering today?

I have come out with a new book, uh, called, uh, The Sweet Spot: Uh, The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning. And it is a topic which I have been occupied by for many years, and I think it's absolutely fascinating. I think suffering connects to all sorts of ... provides some nice explanations for some very odd and puzzling behavior, connects to movies, connects to sex, connects to purpose and life. And, um, and it just ... And I think it also just tells us some interesting things about human nature.

What's the c-

So, you're on, you're on a man, you're on a man to talk to about this.

(laughs) Yeah, true. What's the, uh, core message of the book?

Um, well, when I started the book, I, I was interested in puzzles about, um, what, what psychologists call benign masochism. So why do people like spicy foods or hot baths or, um, scary movies or sad movies and all of that? And I was just focusing on a role of, of, um, explaining the message was gonna be here's why we use pain and suffering to, to increase some kind of pleasure in our lives. But as I began to do this more and more and look at this and read philosophers, read psychologists, I began to realize a lot of the suffering we choose isn't in the service of pleasure, but in the service of other goals, like meaning and morality. So in, in pretty late into working on the book, I think the message is, um, what you could call motivational pluralism, which is people want more than one thing. We want pleasure, but we also want morality. We want meaning. And that's one bit of the message. The rest of the message is that sometimes chosen suffering of the right sort is just what we need to get us there.

How do you define pleasure, meaning, and morality?

It's a good question. Um ... You could corne- you could start off by defining it in kind of a rough and intuitive way. So roughly, pleasure is things we seek out and we go, make us smile, make us happy, give us a glow. You know, so if, if you're hungry, a hot food Sunday is pleasure for most of us. Uh, you know, sex, being loved, nice artwork, a beautiful walk on a beautiful day. That's pleasure. Um, morality is doing the right thing. And, you know, doing the right thing, which could mean, involve fairness and justice. It could mean helping somebody. It could mean harming somebody. Uh, applying some sort of moral r- moral rule or principle. And meaning is a different animal all together, connected to the other two, but, but meaning is, um, a pursuit connected to ... that has significance, that, uh, takes a while, that influences other people, that involves goals and sub-goals, and most of all requires, um, some degree of difficulty, sometimes physical pain, sometimes anxiety, sometimes suffering. If you have a pursuit and you find it easy and natural and fun, it probably isn't a meaningful one. It could be a fun one. So, you know, a fun pursuit is eating some M&Ms, going for a nice walk. A meaningful pursuit could be raising children, starting a business, uh, going to war. A moral pursuit could be helping a friend in trouble, you know, trying to punish somebody who did something wrong, trying to, to fight for justice. And they're all related, but they take you in different directions.