Pain and suffering
Date: Monday 1st June 2015
Time: 7pm
Venue: the Victorian Bar, Tron Theatre
Speaker: Michael Brady
Pain and suffering are both widespread and varied: think of all of the very many kinds of pain, emotional distress, physical discomfort, and mental anguish that human beings experience. It is, moreover, widely agreed that all of these different forms of suffering are bad: we have reason to avoid, alleviate, and reduce our own pain and suffering, and that of others. However, suffering can also be valuable, and in many different ways. In this talk I’ll explain some of the ways in which pain and suffering can be good for us, and for others.
About the speaker:
Michael Brady is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. His research focuses on issues in the philosophy of emotion, ethics, and epistemology, and he has published widely in these areas. He is currently co-Principal Investigator on a major three-year research project, titled The Value of Suffering, which is funded by the John Templeton Foundation and hosted in the Philosophy Department, University of Glasgow. He was previously Director of the British Philosophical Association and Secretary of the Scots Philosophical Association. He is on the editorial board of The Philosophical Quarterly and Oxford Bibliographies, and has worked as a philosophical advisor on a number of productions by the Manchester-based theatre company Quarantine.
Find out more:
The Value of Suffering project