Sharon Hewitt Rawlette

Why pleasure & pain are the only things that intrinsically matter | Sharon Hewitt Rawlette (2022)

Sharon Hewitt Rawlette, Rob Wiblin

Philosopher Sharon Hewitt Rawlett proposes a form of moral realism where intrinsic goodness and badness are identical to the qualitative nature of positive and negative conscious experiences, thereby grounding moral facts directly in phenomenal consciousness. By integrating neuroscientific evidence of shared pain pathways with behavioral data on how humans trade off different sensations, Rawlett argues for a unified axis of value that supports hedonistic utilitarianism while utilizing reductive personal identity theories to extend moral concern beyond the self. Her framework reconciles utilitarian principles with practical ethical rules, such as individual rights and liberal autonomy, by demonstrating that strict impartiality is often counterproductive to maximizing well-being in real-world conditions of uncertainty.