We argue that suffering, especially its significance as an ineliminable dimension of the human condition must be ethically reconceptualized without the paralyzing assumptions of naïve optimism and hopeless pessimism. Acknowledging the controversial status of definitions of suffering, we mean by this concept not only physical pain but an open-ended totality of physical, physiological, psychological, social, and political states and circumstances rendering human and non-human beings’ lives uncomfortable and often horrible or meaningless.
The core of our investigation is the meliorist (Lat. melior, better) idea that the world can and should be made better by means of active yet piecemeal human efforts. Meliorism emerges from the recognition that suffering is real and ethically fundamentally significant.
A positive outcome in responding to affliction is neither inevitable (optimism) nor impossible (pessimism), but we can reasonably hope for such outcomes if we actively do our best. Our main research hypothesis is that meliorist philosophy of suffering is not only ethically superior to its rivals (i.e., optimism and pessimism) but also the only sincere option, as it critically questions problematic ways of justifying suffering. Meliorism balances moral optimism with realism and even pessimism: the world can be made better, but it is not perfectible; while we can never eliminate suffering from our individual and social lives, there is always something to do to help its victims.
MePhiS problematizes the theodicist idea that suffering invariably has some justification, meaning, or purpose, either religiously or secularly conceptualized. We will examine how acknowledging the possibility of meaningless affliction may ameliorate our lives and societies by liberating us from the illusory assumptions of optimism claiming to find meaning even in the most horrendous suffering. The ethically problematic “theodicist logic” underlying our social, cultural, and political discourses and practices of responding to suffering will be critically uncovered. Our secondary hypothesis is that meliorist philosophy of suffering should be philosophically conceptualized in terms of antitheodicy, rejecting not only specific – religious and secular – theodicies but the justificatory “theodicist logic” itself.
Appropriately conceptualizing suffering, meliorism, and antitheodicy requires an interplay of philosophical and empirical investigation articulating what it means to have an ethical relation to a world in which others’ possibly meaningless and unjustifiable suffering must be ethically recognized.
MePhiS investigates meliorist philosophy of suffering by organizing its work as five intertwining teams (work packages) that operate closely together.
Antitheodicy and the methodology of meliorist philosophy of suffering serves the entire CoE by investigating, both historically and systematically, the methodologies of the philosophy of suffering. The team specifically focuses on developing pragmatist and transcendental methodologies, enabling an in-depth critical analysis and assessment of the prospects of antitheodicy in developing meliorism.
Suffering and the problem of life in contemporary philosophy of religion examines how religious and secular viewpoints in contemporary philosophy theorize suffering, mortality, hope, and the meaning of life, as well as how ethics and philosophy, especially philosophy of religion, may be reformulated in response to the issues highlighted by antitheodicy.
History of ethics and law of responding to suffering focuses on extreme human and non-human suffering. The team analyzes medieval and early modern jurists’ and moral theologians’ responses to extreme suffering and recommendations regarding its alleviation, considering how these responses to extremes may be employed in developing a meliorist stance to suffering.
Suffering and meliorism in literature and the philosophy of literature emphasizes literary studies and the philosophy of literature as routes to meliorist philosophy of suffering. The team examines diverging concepts of meliorism by exploring writers with links to optimism, pessimism, and/or meliorism, and analyzing literature reflecting societal anxieties and human or non-human suffering. The team also considers how philosophers employ literature in reflecting on ethical stances to suffering.
Future, futurelessness, and vernacular responses to suffering investigates both empirically and theoretically the vernacular responses to suffering within the contexts of lived spirituality and lived non-religion today. The team explores, for example, the expressions of optimism, pessimism, and meliorism among caregivers of the elderly and the dying, young adults and migrants, or other groups that provide unique perspectives on suffering and potential ways to alleviate it.
According to meliorism, the world is neither predetermined to be good nor destined to be doomed. Instead, piecemeal human effort can make things better – though improvement is always partial, contingent, and ongoing. Suffering calls for action aimed at improving the conditions of individual and social life. A crucial question is what it means for an individual or a collective to be ethically oriented in relation to suffering, i.e., to the world. Meliorism emphasizes practical interventions rather than passive acceptance: small, achievable improvements are morally meaningful. While eradicating all suffering is impossible, finite human-scale steps in ameliorating our practices of responding to affliction may make a great moral difference. MePhiS suggests that developing meliorism is itself an ameliorative gesture critically renewing our ethical self-understanding.
There are pervasive interrelated themes that all work packages examine from their distinctive perspectives. These include the following:
The main aims of MePhiS are
MePhiS as a whole works closely together in pursuing the following major research questions by studying, contextualizing, and specifying them through the distinctive perspectives of the work packages: