Review of Philosophy and Psychology (2020) 11:805–830

https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-019-00458-5

The Structure of Unpleasantness

Abraham Sapién 1

Published online: 9 January 2020

# Springer Nature B.V. 2020

Abstract
A fair amount of the philosophical discussion about pain and unpleasantness has
focused on providing a constitutive account of unpleasantness. These theories provide
a more fundamental description of what unpleasantness is by appealing to other well-
established notions in the architecture of the mind. In contrast, I address the nature of
unpleasantness from a structural account. I will argue for how unpleasantness is built,
rather than what unpleasantness is made of, as it were. I focus on the heterogeneity of
experience, which has been a somewhat neglected issue in the literature about unpleas-
antness: after careful introspection, there seems to be nothing phenomenal that all and
only unpleasant experiences share. In order to address the heterogeneity of unpleasant
experiences, I propose that the structure of the rich phenomenology of unpleasantness
should be understood as a determinable property constituted by multiple essential
dimensions.

1 Introduction

What makes unpleasant experiences unpleasant? Behind this apparently naïve question lies
something rather relevant about the nature of suffering. A fair amount of the philosophical
discussion about pain and unpleasantness has focused on providing a constitutive account
of unpleasantness. These theories provide a more fundamental description of what un-
pleasantness is by appealing to other well-stablished notions in the architecture of the mind.
In contrast, I address the nature of unpleasantness from a structural account. I will argue for
how we should understand the structure of unpleasantness, how unpleasantness is built,
rather than what unpleasantness is made of, as it were.
We can divide the question of what constitutes unpleasantness between internalist and
externalist conceptions. Most authors discussing about the nature of pain think of it as a
composite experience, a sort of portmanteau phenomenon. A typical unpleasant pain is
constituted by: 1) a sensory aspect, the pain sensation in itself, which is not unpleasant and
does not imply a form of suffering, and 2) a hedonic aspect, the unpleasantness itself, the

* Abraham Sapién
abrahamsapienc@gmail.com

1
Universidad Pedagógica Nacional (UPN), Mexico City, Mexico
806 Sapién A.

aspect of the experience in virtue of which it hurts and one suffers from it. I will be focusing
merely on the second aspect and on the different theories that try to account for it.1
In one corner, we find the internalist team, what I call the content theories.
According to a standard version of internalism, unpleasantness is: 1) a phenomenal
property, it is a felt aspect of experience, and 2) it is an intrinsic property of mental
states. This intrinsic felt aspect of experience is, in one way or another, constituted by
some form of intentional mental content, either: 1) evaluative (Bain 2012, 2013; Cutter
and Tye 2014; Helm 2002; Tye 1995, 2006), or 2) imperative (Barlassina and Hayward
forthcoming; Hall 2008; Klein 2007, 2012; Klein and Martínez forthcoming; Martínez
2011, 2015; Martínez and Klein 2016).
In the other corner we find the externalist approach. I refer to these as the desire theories.
In a standard version of this, unpleasantness: 1) is not something felt, it isn’t a phenomenal
aspect of experience, and 2) it is explained extrinsically, unpleasantness is accounted by
appealing to an attitude. People who endorse this kind of approach argue that unpleasantness
can be explained by referring to the very specific type of attitudes, often understood in terms
of desires, that are directed at other mental states, such as pain (Armstrong 1962; Brady
2017; Clark 2005; Heathwood 2006, 2007, 2011, 2018; Pitcher 1970; Schroeder 2004,
2017).
I will focus on the heterogeneity of experience, which has been a somewhat neglected
issue in the literature about unpleasantness. The general idea is that: 1) unpleasant experi-
ences are phenomenologically very diverse; 2) that all and only unpleasant experiences are
unified in virtue of feeling unpleasant; however, 3) after careful introspection, there seems to
be nothing phenomenal that all and only unpleasant experiences share. By attending to this
issue, and focusing in the case of unpleasant pains, we’ll be able to shed light on the nature
and structure of the property of unpleasantness. This will be useful for the constitutive
theories of unpleasantness, both internalists as well as externalists.
In order to address the heterogeneity of unpleasant experiences and show how to
best account for its structure, I proceed as follows.
I start by explaining what the heterogeneity problem is and continue by offering
some important attempts to deal with it. The first theory is the distinctive feeling theory.
This approach denies that the heterogeneity problem even exists. This view lacks strong
enough arguments in order to prove it so, thus this theory should be rejected.
I continue by explaining other theories that account for the diversity of unpleasant
experiences by appealing to the notion of dimension: the intensity theory and the
determinable theory. I will argue that only the latter is capable to successfully manage
the heterogeneity problem. However, this approach entails a fundamental difficulty:
whereas it is possible to experience pains that are not unpleasant, this approach entails
that pains are necessarily so.
I finish by proposing my own theory in order to address the heterogeneity of
unpleasant experiences: the unpleasantnesses theory. In a nutshell, I propose that the
structure of the rich phenomenology of unpleasantness should be understood as a
determinable property constituted by multiple essential dimensions. I will defend this

1
These two aspects of the experience may not only be separable in theory. Pain asymbolia is a medical case,
which suggests they can actually come apart. I consider this condition in section 4.2.3. The purpose of this
paper is to focus on the unpleasantness of pain, and not on the sensory pain experience in itself. I thank an
anonymous referee for helping me to underlie this.
The Structure of Unpleasantness 807

account against a reasonable critique by showing how it provides a useful guide to be

employed, and eventually developed, by constitutive theories of unpleasantness.2

2 The Heterogeneity Problem

Unpleasant experiences feel unpleasant. This is quite a strong intuition. By this, not only do I
mean that unpleasant experiences feel somehow. This is a more precise claim: unpleasant-
ness itself feels somehow. It seems that there is an unpleasant phenomenal aspect about
unpleasant experiences, unpleasantness seems to be right there in the bad taste of something
rotten, in the annoying feeling of being pinched, in a handicapping sharp headache, etc. It is,
however, quite hard to delineate or pin down what this feeling is.
In order to start, we could ask ourselves: is hedonic tone really something felt? At the end,
I think there are good enough reasons to take unpleasantness as something felt as well as
phenomenologically diverse.

2.1 What if Unpleasantness Is Something Felt?

Even if unpleasantness may appear as something felt, there seems to be no unitary feeling
that all and only unpleasant experiences share. That is, it is not evident that we can discern
one and only phenomenology that all and only unpleasant experiences have and by dint of
which they all can be classified as belonging to the same group.
This idea also applies to pleasant experiences and, in fact, most of the literature on the
heterogeneity of experience is about pleasure. The idea is similar, there is no unitary
qualitative aspect that all and only pleasant experiences share and by dint of which they
are pleasant. Feldman (2004) provides a good example of this intuition:

Reflection on sensory pleasures quickly reveals an enormous phenomenological

heterogeneity. Perhaps this can be expressed more simply: sensory pleasures are
all “feelings”, but they do not “feel alike”. Consider the warm, dry, slightly
drowsy feeling of pleasure that you get while sunbathing on a quiet beach. By
way of contrast, consider the cool, wet, invigorating feeling of pleasure that you
get when drinking some cold, refreshing beer on a hot day . . . [T]hey do not feel
at all alike. After many years of careful research on this question, I have come to
the conclusion that they have just about nothing in common phenomenologically.
(Feldman 2004: 79)

Feldman’s intuition is, I take it, that even if we agree that the warm and cool feelings in
each of the situations feel pleasant, there seems to be no discernable unitary feeling in
virtue of which both qualify as such. This intuition is also held for unpleasant
experiences. If you think of many of the unpleasant experiences that you might have,

2
There are two important aspects about the nature of unpleasantness that I will not address, given that they go
beyond the main purpose of this paper: 1) the motivational and 2) the normative nature of unpleasantness.
Broadly, there is a strong intuition that unpleasant experiences, insofar as they are unpleasant: 1) are
motivational states, we can render actions intelligible by appealing to these mental states, and 2) that these
states are normative, having an unpleasant experience makes true sentences of the form ‘it is desirable or it is
required that I φ’. For more on motivation and justification see Smith (1995: 94–96).
808 Sapién A.

such as feeling a particular pain, feeling dizzy, experiencing itching, hunger, thirst, etc.,
there is nothing phenomenal, no conscious unitary feeling, in virtue of which all and
only these experiences can be grouped as all belonging to the same type of experience.
Korsgaard (1996) writes along these lines:

If the painfulness of pain rested in the character of the sensations . . . our belief
that physical pain has something in common with grief, rage and disappointment
would be inexplicable. For that matter, what physical pains have in common with
each other would be inexplicable, for the sensations are of many different kinds.
What do nausea, migraine, menstrual cramps, pinpricks and pinches have in
common that makes us call them all pains? (Korsgaard 1996: 148)

It is worth noting that Korsgaard is using here the word ‘pain’ in a very loose sense.
That is, nausea is not a pain as a headache is, most would agree. Many would concur
too that feeling nausea is unpleasant, but it is not a pain as the feelings of being cut or
burnt are. Pinpricks and pinches are stimuli that cause pain, but they are not pains
themselves. The word that she should be using here is ‘unpleasant’. That is, all these
affective experiences are extremely diverse and they do not seem to have one single
phenomenal aspect that unifies them all and by dint of which they qualify as such.
What this suggests is that being unpleasant is not a shared qualitative and unitary feature
among all and only unpleasant experiences; being unpleasant cannot be explained in virtue
of the same feeling that all and only unpleasant experiences share. There is nothing that feels
exactly alike among all and only unpleasant experiences.

The heterogeneity problem

We have a very strong intuition that:
1) Unpleasant experiences are unified. It is in virtue of feeling unpleasant, of
having this phenomenal character, that all and only unpleasant experiences
qualify as such.
However, after careful introspection, there is also the strong intuition that:
2) Unpleasant experiences are very diverse. There is nothing qualitative, nothing
phenomenal, no unitary feeling, that all and only unpleasant experiences share
and in virtue of which they all count as unpleasant.

It is crucial for a theory that takes hedonic tone to be phenomenal to explain how all
unpleasant experiences are so because of a phenomenal property, even if there seems to
be no unitary feeling that is shared among all and only unpleasant experiences. The idea
is not that we simply call a bunch of experiences ‘unpleasant’ based on a completely
arbitrary ground. On the contrary, what is at the heart of the heterogeneity problem is
that there is a good reason why we take all unpleasant experiences to have some unity.
It is because they have something qualitative in common, the share a common feature.
In the same way we may collect a bunch of the objects and put the on the same bag on
the basis of their redness, we may think that we could organize unpleasant experiences
as belonging to the same group on the basis of their experienced unpleasantness. But
can we really apply this strategy when it comes to these experiences? In order to tackle
this issue, some theorists have adopted a different strategy. They do not think that
unpleasantness is phenomenal.
The Structure of Unpleasantness 809

2.2 What if Unpleasantness Isn’t Something Felt?

Another way to explain the unity of divergent unpleasant experiences is to deny that the
common link is phenomenal. For example, according to the desire theories approach,
unpleasantness is not a phenomenal property. In the case of a typically unpleasant
sensory experience, such as an unpleasant pain, the experience’s hedonic tone is
accounted for by referring to a desire for this pain not to be occurring.3 If we accept
this kind of view, we can offer a straightforward solution to the heterogeneity problem:
what unifies all unpleasant experiences is a common type of desire for these experi-
ences not to occur, rather than something felt, i.e., a common unpleasant unitary
phenomenology.4
Clark (2005), for example, argues that unpleasantness is not a quale. He thinks that
negative affect should be understood by referring to its motivational role of aversion.5
‘Aversiveness is an essential but relational property of those states we call “painful”
[i.e., unpleasant pains]. But then the properties that such relational characterizations
describe are not qualia . . . So painfulness is not a quale. It is at best a motivational
disposition occasioned by a quale.” (Clark 2005: 187) Clark’s proposal is very similar
to what desire theories take unpleasantness to be. In the case of a pain, for instance,
being unpleasant is not an intrinsic property of the pain sensation, unpleasantness is
what this pain sensation provokes: aversion.
However, there is an important reason to think unpleasantness is indeed a quale. If we
think it isn’t, this leads to a Euthyphro dilemma. Consider an unpleasant pain. Is a pain
unpleasant because we are averse to it? This is what Clark appears to suggest, that the
unpleasantness of a pain is extrinsic to the pain sensation. It is only unpleasant insofar
we stand in a relation of aversion to that pain quale, which is not in itself hedonic. Or the
other way around, are we averse to a pain because there is something about that quale
that makes us want to avoid it? This is in line with how we often think avoidance works.
Unpleasantness is intrinsic to pain. There is something bad about that quale in itself,
which explains our natural rejection to it. Whereas the first horn of the dilemma seems
unintuitive, but it is what a theorist such as Clark would have to defend, the second one
is not available to a theory such as Clark’s, because, on his view, unpleasantness is not
intrinsic to the pain quale; unpleasantness depends on us having an aversion to a pain
sensation, instead of us having such aversion because of the way the pain feels.
There have been attempts to save this kind of approach from the dilemma (Brady
2017; Heathwood 2007). Brady argues that the Euthyphro dilemma gets dissolved if
we ascribe the property of being unpleasant to the whole compound experience, rather
than ascribing this property only to the sensation that is being desired not to occur. In

3
To be more precise, the desire must have certain features in order to be able to account for the unpleasantness
of the experience (Heathwood 2007). Broadly, the desire must be: 1) intrinsic to the pain, the desire is for the
pain sensation not to be occurring for its own sake, 2) simultaneous to it, the desire and the pain sensation have
to co-occur, and 3) directed de re, as opposed to be a de dicto desire.
4
I take this to be the standard and more convenient way of interpreting desire views regarding hedonic tone:
unpleasantness is not a phenomenal property. If it were, then desire theorists would not be avoiding the tension
that the heterogeneity problems raises, they would still have to explain how such phenomenal unity,
constituted in this case by a desire, aversion, etc., cannot be identified after careful introspection. I thank an
anonymous referee for pointing out this possible interpretation of the extrinsic approach of unpleasantness,
where affect is phenomenal, but constituted by an attitude.
5
I thank an anonymous referee for insisting in taking this point into account.
810 Sapién A.

the case of an unpleasant pain, rather than thinking that a pain sensation has negative
affect in virtue of being desired not to occur, which leads to a Euthyphro dilemma, we
should attribute the property of unpleasantness to the compound of: 1) the pain
sensation and 2) the attitude (desire, aversion, etc.) directed at that pain quale. In this
way, there is simply no dilemma to be raised.
However, even if Brady is right, there are still unsolved issues (Sapién 2018): 1) we
cannot provide a non-instrumental justification of the attitude that constitutes unpleasant-
ness, and 2) we have not yet given an account for the motivation behind such aversion
from a psychological point of view of the one who experiences the relevant quale. This is
problematic precisely because these are the kind of things that we would expect a
constitutive theory of unpleasantness to explain. Briefly, the idea is the following.
Clark, for instance, could tell an evolutionary explanation behind this aversion. He
could argue that there is an instrumental normative reason for us to be hardwired to show
avoidance behaviour in the presence of a pain quale. It is desirable that we tend to avoid
having these experiences so that we maintain ourselves safe and alive, given the high
association of pain qualia with some form of body injury. It is instrumentally good. Hall
(1989) had something similar in mind; ‘evolution has done its work very well and almost
every living creature in the animal kingdom finds the sensations accompanying almost
every kind of nociception unpleasant. So goes the evolutionary story.’ (Hall 1989: 648).
However, I think that there are two important elements missing. When we think of
an unpleasant experience, there is the strong intuition that there is something intrinsi-
cally bad about it, its unpleasantness, which explains why we, sentient beings: 1) avoid
those experiences, we are motivated to act because of how the experience feels, and 2)
it is good for us, non-instrumentally, to avoid them, because they are bad in themselves.
The evolutionary tale about avoidance cannot fill the gaps regarding these two aspects.
Instead, we could accept that unpleasantness is something felt, as many theorists
about hedonic tone do, as our very deep intuition suggests, and try to figure out how we
can account for the phenomenal diversity of it.

3 The Distinctive Feeling Theory

In this account, unpleasantness is a unitary qualitative property, a distinctive feeling,

that all and only unpleasant experiences have and by dint of which these experiences
qualify as such. This theory is, basically, the denial of premise 2) of the heterogeneity
problem.
The main issue for this theory is, therefore, the heterogeneity problem. The distinctive
feeling theory tells us that all unpleasant experiences share the same ingredient, as it were,
which is a unitary feeling of unpleasantness, the same and only for all unpleasant experi-
ences. However, according to the heterogeneity problem, there is no single qualitative
aspect, no single unitary phenomenal property, no single ‘ingredient’, by dint of which all
and only unpleasant experiences qualify as unpleasant. If the heterogeneity problem exists,
the distinctive feeling theory is wrong.
I think there are relevant reasons why we shall reject the distinctive feeling theory
and look into other more promising candidates: 1) this theory relies heavily on an
undeveloped metaphor, and 2) even if we developed such metaphor, we cannot discern
The Structure of Unpleasantness 811

the same unitary unpleasant feeling among unpleasant experiences as we can identify
similarities among other divergent experiences.

3.1 The Distinctive Feeling

Bramble (2013) defends the idea that pleasant and unpleasant sensory experiences are
respectively pleasant and unpleasant in virtue of a distinctive feeling. This is a quality, a
phenomenal aspect in virtue of which a sensory experience qualifies as pleasant or unpleas-
ant. In other words, the distinctive feeling is a phenomenal property of mental states such as
sensory experiences. Unpleasant auditory, taste, touch, or pain experiences are all unpleasant
because they instantiate the phenomenal property of being unpleasant, i.e., because they
share a common distinctive unpleasant feeling.
But what does distinctive mean? Here are three relevant ways in which we could
understand something phenomenal being ‘distinctive’: 1) in terms of a unitary feeling,
i.e., it is the same and only phenomenal property in virtue of which all and only sensory
experiences that are unpleasant qualify as such, we cannot divide this feeling into qualitative
sub-parts; 2) in the sense that it is accessible to our stream of consciousness, the distinctive
feeling is something that is part of our conscious experience, we can direct our attention to it,
at least under normal circumstances, and thus compare it to other phenomenal experiences
and make reports about it; and 3) that it is irreducible, it cannot be accounted for in terms of
something more fundamental in our theory of the mind.6
Bramble argues that even if it seems as if there is no unitary feeling in all and only
unpleasant experiences after a first introspective glance, there is, in fact, such feeling.
However, this feeling is not easy to notice because it is ‘permeating’ the sensory
experiences. This permeation is meant to explain why, after simple introspection, it
seems as if there was no distinctive phenomenal property that unifies all pleasant or
unpleasant sensory experiences, respectively. ‘Clearly, if “the pleasant feeling” exists, it
does not make these sort [sic] of experiences pleasant by being ‘tacked on to them’, so
to speak, in any crude fashion. Instead, it must be the sort of feeling that can come in
extremely low intensities, and very finely discriminable locations within one’s experi-
ential field, so that it can come scattered throughout one’s experiential field.” (Bramble
2013: 210).
According to the heterogeneity problem, if we make a list of all of the experiences
that have negative affect and we introspect them, we will not be able to find one single
distinctive feeling that all and only these experiences share. In other words: of course
all and only unpleasant experiences share one property, they all are unpleasant! But the
key intuition is that all these experiences are not unpleasant because they all share the
same and only distinctive phenomenal property of unpleasantness.

The distinctive feeling theory

Unpleasantness is a unitary feeling that all and only unpleasant experieces share and
by dint of which they qualify as such. Unpleasantness is a phenomenal property that
permeates mental states.

6
I owe noticing this third sense of ‘distinctive’ to Frederique de Vigmenont. See, for example, the discussion
whether the sense of bodily ownership is distinctive or it can be reduced to either spatial awareness, to agentive
awareness, or to affective awareness (de Vignemont 2018).
812 Sapién A.

3.2 What Does Permeation Mean?

What could it mean for a distinctive feeling to permeate our experiences,

instead of it merely being tacked on to them? Bramble does not go into detail
in order to explain what permeation means when it comes to phenomenal
properties. The idea of permeation is a nice metaphor and it does capture
how hard it is to pin down how unpleasantness is something felt. However, I
find it hard to accept that such feeling exists in such unitary way by appealing
to our introspection and then account for the difficulty of detecting such feeling
by referring to an undeveloped metaphor.
In order to be charitable, I think we can try to make sense of permeation by
translating the proposal into visual language. Suppose that the distinctive unpleasant-
feeling is analogous to the distinctive red-feeling that typical experiences of seeing
something red have. Following the distinctive feeling theory, there is a shared distinc-
tive hedonic tone when we experience a cut, a burn, a headache, etc. However, this
feeling is hard to find after introspection, given the subtle permeation with which
unpleasantness modifies pain experiences.
One recognises some similarity in the experiences of seeing a ladybird, of seeing a
stop sign on a traffic light, and of seeing a stereotypical apple. All of these experiences
are phenomenologically similar because they have some shared red-feeling-ness. In
other words, we could distinguish the same red-feeling-ness as being present in these
examples. If this is a fair analogy, we can try to understand what it would mean for
distinctive red-feeling-ness to be permeating our visual experiences, so we can make
sense of the permeation of the distinctive unpleasantness.
Suppose that you have the visual experience of a Magritte painting. I can
think of two ways of making sense of the notion of visual permeation. First, in
the way that water permeates a sponge by filling its cavities with water, if the
Magritte painting were filled with tiny red dots, these would be dispersed and
filling the cavities of the painting. These subtle red dots in the painting
translate into red-feeling-ness permeating your experience of a Magritte paint-
ing. In the same way that the dots are ‘scattered throughout one’s experiential
field’, red-feeling-ness is spread throughout your visual experience (see Fig. 1).
A second alternative is to understand permeation as a filter. Imagine you go to
the museum wearing red shaded glasses: your experience of the painting is then
filtered with a red tonality, you still identify the painting as a Magritte but now
it has a red permeation (see Fig. 2).7
Contrast these two possibilities as opposed to what being ‘tacked on’ would mean in
terms of a phenomenal property of experience. If someone attached a big red stripe to
the Magritte painting, the red stripe would be literally tacked on to it. This would not
translate into your experience being finely permeated by red-feeling-ness, but rather
into having red-feeling-ness being tacked onto it (see Fig. 3).

7
Even if Fig. 2 might not be exactly what happens when one wears coloured shades, the modification of the
pixels of the image turned closer to the red spectrum is meant to exemplify how your visual experience of this
image now has some red-feeling-ness. This image modification results, the idea goes, in your visual
experience having permeating red-feeling-ness. Sometimes the modification of the painting might be so
subtle, so fine grained, that it would result in an almost unnoticeable red-feeling-ness at an experiential level.
The Structure of Unpleasantness 813

Fig. 1 This is meant to show permeation of a visual experience in analogy with a sponge. The red dots in the
painting translate into red-feelingness permeating your experience of a Magritte painting

The feeling is not ‘tacked on’ to the experience, Bramble says. In other words, the
fact that our unpleasant pain experiences are permeated with such distinctive unpleas-
antness does not imply that this unpleasant feeling will always be easily localisable,
discernible, accessible, etc. What Bramble proposes should be rather similar to figs. 1
or 2 and not at all like fig. 3. This should give us a better idea of what Bramble has in
mind when he says that a distinctive feeling permeates our experiences.

3.3 Accessibility of the Unitary Unpleasant Feeling

Let’s consider figs. 1, 2, and 3. I think that there is something similar and
discernible among these three images. There is some red-feeling-ness that we
can access and compare among all these instances. This is an example of some
common phenomenal aspect among various diverse phenomenal experiences.
This, however, is something that does not seem to occur when we compare
unpleasant experiences qua their unpleasantness. Whereas we are able to detect
shared red-feeling-ness in various different visual experiences, even when it is
subtle, we cannot detect shared unitary phenomenal unpleasantness among
diverse unpleasant experiences, subtle or not.
Let me make this clearer. If we compare somewhat similar unpleasant experiences, it
is already quite hard to detect the exact same unitary unpleasant feeling. Let’s illustrate
this. Pinch yourself in different parts of your body. Are all these experiences unpleasant
in the same way? Now, let’s compare less similar experiences. Hit yourself in
those same places. Is the unpleasantness of these experiences the exact same unpleas-
antness that you had when you pinched yourself? Now, just imagine that you burn
yourself in the same areas of your skin. Could you detect the same distinctive
unpleasantness?
814 Sapién A.

Fig. 2 This is meant to show permeation of a visual experience in analogy with a filter. Your experience of the
painting is filtered with a red tonality. You still identify the painting as a Magritte but now it has a red
permeation

All these are unpleasant experiences related to bodily damage, yet it is very hard to
detect the same unitary unpleasant feeling in all of them. If we think of the many other
unpleasant experiences that we might undergo, like tasting or smelling something

Fig. 3 This is meant to show what permeation of a visual experience is not. The red stripe would not translate
into your experience being permeated by red-feeling-ness
The Structure of Unpleasantness 815

rotten, feeling nauseous, being tired, sad, heartbroken, etc., we will not be able to go
‘Aha, there is that distinctive unpleasant feeling again!’ It looks like if unpleasantness is
phenomenal, it is not a unitary feeling, not even a subtle permeating one.8
Consider another example of detecting some phenomenal sameness. When we look
at different faces, there is some form of similarity among them, we see them as being
similar, as being a face, even if they are different regarding many respects.9 This does
not appear to be the case when we try to detect a unitary unpleasant feeling, especially
when we consider the vast variety of unpleasant experiences. If we think unpleasant-
ness is phenomenal and want to account for its variations, we should revise other
theories that allow us to account for a more fine-grained diversity within the phenom-
enology of unpleasantness.

4 The Dimensional Theories of Unpleasantness

There are different ways in which unpleasantness may vary as a feeling. When an
experience is more unpleasant than another one, there is, strictly speaking, some
change: it feels different. It is hard, however, to express what it is that remains the
same and what is phenomenologically changing. In this section I will discuss two
approaches in order to account for variations of unpleasantness. The notion of dimen-
sion, i.e., the possibility of taking different quantitative values within a given scale, will
be crucial to make sense of the proposals.
I refer to the first approach as the intensity theory: unpleasantness is a single
dimension along which sensory experiences may vary. The idea comes from
Kagan (1992). I briefly consider a critique from Bramble (2013), who thinks that
Kagan’s analogy is inapt. I will argue that the intensity theory, even if enlighten-
ing, is limited in order to account for the whole range of diversity of unpleasant
experiences. So I turn to another approach that I call the determinable theory. This
is based on Crisp’s (2006) proposal about enjoyment. The determinable theory
provides a straightforward answer to the heterogeneity problem. Broadly, in the
same way that scarlet is a way of being red, and red is a way of being coloured, a
headache is a way of being an unpleasant pain, and an unpleasant pain is a way of
being an unpleasant experience. However, this theory has a fundamental difficulty:
accounting for cases of pain not being unpleasant.

4.1 The Intensity Theory

This proposal relies on an analogy: volume is to sound what pleasantness or unpleasantness

are to mental states. If this analogy is correct, one of its virtues is that it acknowledges an
important feature of negative affect: some experiences are worse than others. According to

8
Moreover, some argue that even if two experiences appear to us as being the same regarding some aspect of
their phenomenal character, that does not imply that these experience actually have the exact same phenom-
enal character (Fara 2001). ‘[W]e should reject the entailment from sameness in lookings [or feelings] to
sameness in phenomenal character.’ (Sebastián 2018: 7) If this is correct, this implies that not only do we fail
to identify unitary unpleasantness, but also that even if we did, there are reasons to doubt it is the exact same
phenomenal feeling.
9
I thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this comparison.
816 Sapién A.

this view, unpleasantness is a single dimension along which experiences may be ranked.
Here is what Kagan (1992) says:

An alternative move is to identify pleasantness not as a component of experi-

ences, but rather as a dimension along which experiences can vary. As an
analogy, consider the loudness of auditory experiences — that is, sounds. It is
obvious that loudness or volume is not a kind of sound. And it seems plausible to
insist that loudness is not a single kind of component of auditory experiences.
Rather, volume is a dimension along which sounds can vary. It is an aspect of
sounds, with regard to which they can be ranked . . . Similarly, then, pleasure
might well be a distinct dimension of mental states, with regard to which they can
be ranked as well . . . For it seems to me that there is a sense in which a specific
volume is indeed an ingredient of a given sound, along with a particular pitch,
and so forth. (Kagan 1992: 172 – 173)

Kagan’s proposal is about pleasantness, but something very similar can be said for unpleas-
antness: it is an aspect along which different experiences can vary. Since volume is a
dimensional property with intensities, we can explain that some sounds are louder than
others. If unpleasantness is a dimensional property with intensities, we can explain that some
unpleasant experiences feel worse.

The intensity theory

Unpleasantness is a phenomenal property of mental states; this property is a
single dimension along which unpleasant experiences can be ranked as being
more, less, or equally unpleasant as any other unpleasant experience qua its
shared unpleasantness.

Bramble (2013) argues that Kagan’s analogy is inapt and, therefore, he would think that the
intensity theory is inadequate too. ‘Consider that, for most pleasant experiences, one can
reduce their pleasantness to nothing, while leaving the experience intact, whereas one cannot
ever reduce the volume of an auditory experience to nothing and still be left with the auditory
experience in question.’ (Bramble 2013: 209) A simple way of explaining Bramble’s
critique is to focus on volume as a property of sound. Whereas volume is an essential
property of sound, being pleasant or unpleasant isn’t essential to mental states such as
sensory experiences.
Sound is often understood as a physical phenomenon, as a perturbation in a medium
such as air; these perturbations can be measured in waves and the standard way of
understanding sound’s volume is in terms of the amplitude of its waves representing the
medium’s magnitude of perturbation. The bigger the volume the bigger the wave. If the
wave has no size, this means that there is no perturbation in the medium, that there is no
sound. This is why volume is essential to sound. In contrast, being pleasant or
unpleasant is not essential for sensory experiences. We could have a taste experience
of drinking coffee without it being pleasant or unpleasant, the idea goes. Whereas
sound cannot exist without volume, certain sensory experiences can exist without
having a hedonic dimension.
There is a simple way of dealing with this critique. We could take Kagan’s analogy as
comparing the hedonic tone of unpleasant experiences with sound’s volume. That is, if
The Structure of Unpleasantness 817

volume is essential to sound, we can argue that being unpleasant is essential to unpleasant
experiences. In this way, even if it is true that a sound must have volume in order to exist, the
analogy is apt because an unpleasant experience has to be unpleasant in order to exist as an
unpleasant experience. The analogy is finally apt regarding essentiality.10

4.1.1 The Heterogeneity Problem for the Intensity Theory

There is, however, a much more important problem for the theory: whereas volume only
varies in one scale, unpleasantness not only varies in terms of one single dimension.
The intensity theory has to show that all and only the experiences that are unpleasant are
unified in virtue of having the same phenomenal unity, the same phenomenal dimension,
and that the only variation among all these unpleasant experiences, qua their affect, is
regarding changes of intensity regarding the same unitary felt unpleasantness. The theory,
however, does not seem to be able to meet this requirement.
Consider pleasantness. I agree that hiking, listening to music, and reading philosophy can
all be pleasant, as Kagan points out (1992: 172–173). However, I do not think that their
pleasantness can only vary in intensity regarding the same feeling. If we think that hedonic
properties are ultimately something that is part of our conscious phenomenology, we should
be able to detect that it is the same feeling that is being compared among the various
instances of experiences. It is quite hard to identify the same pleasant feeling among all
pleasant experiences. Kagan admits that it is odd to say that there is something phenomenal
shared among all these experiences, but he insists that: ‘pleasantness might well be
considered an ingredient of (conscious) mental states in general, albeit an ingredient that
we will only notice if we “chop up” experiences in some nonstandard ways.’ (Kagan 1992:
173).
The same can be said for unpleasant experiences. It is not particularly hard to accept that
experiencing grief, nausea, suffering from severe burns, having a headache, etc. are all
unpleasant. What is controversial is that all these experiences are unpleasant in virtue of the
same shared phenomenal aspect, and that the only difference regarding their unpleasantness
is that some of these experiences are more unpleasant than others based a single phenomenal
scale.
If we understand unpleasantness as being similar to volume, the analogy seems limited. It
is relatively clear what makes the volume of a sound more intense than another one: it has a
major impact on the fluid that it disturbs and, thus, its measurement results in a bigger wave.
But there are two aspects of unpleasant experiences that make it hard to accept the analogy
with volume: 1) that it is not clear, even regarding one phenomenal dimension, what makes
an unpleasant experience more intense than another, and 2) it is not obvious that all
unpleasant experiences, when compared regarding their unpleasantness, are being judged
on the basis of one single phenomenal scale.
Let me clarify this last idea. For this, allow me to perform some armchair experiments.
Pinch yourself softly! It hurts a little; lets call this experience A. Pinch harder! It hurts more;

10
Another possible strategy to show that there is no issue with the analogy between sound and hedonic
properties is to argue that a sound could take the value 0 of volume and it would still be a sound. Similarly, we
could argue that an unpleasant experience could take a 0 value in a ranking of unpleasantness and still be an
unpleasant experience. I prefer the presented solution because it would be hard to distinguish a pleasant
experience from an unpleasant one regarding the same sensory feeling if both have value 0 in their ranking,
respectively. I thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this possible strategy.
818 Sapién A.

this is experience B. Now pinch much harder to get experience C. I think we would be
tempted so say that even if these three experiences are somewhat similar, C is more
unpleasant than B, and B is more intense than A. If the intensity theory is right, what makes
an unpleasant experience more intense than another is that the same type of unpleasantness
is somehow present in A, B and C. This may not be so hard to accept.
Compare the unpleasant feeling of being pinched to the one we have while being mildly
or severely burnt. Is there a shared unpleasant feeling with all the three previous pinching
experiences? It is harder to tell. The heterogeneity of unpleasantness becomes clearer the
broader the type of unpleasant experiences we want to compare.
Contrast a migraine with a stomachache or a toothache. They vary in location, clearly, but
are they all achy because of the exact same phenomenal quality of unpleasantness that differs
only in intensity? Suppose that they rank with the same intensity qua their unpleasantness,
they are all excruciating according to the McGill Pain Questionnaire, and that they last the
same amount of time.11 There is going to be an obvious difference regarding a sensory
component of the experience, but it does not seem clear that they are unpleasant in the exact
same phenomenal way. Compare a horrible migraine with horrible grief. Are these two
horrible unpleasant experiences horrible in the exact same phenomenal way? I think that the
careful comparison between a wide variety of unpleasant experiences shows that there is no
unitary phenomenal dimension among all and only these experiences and in virtue of which
they all qualify as unpleasant.
The intensity theory acknowledges that unpleasant experiences may have differences qua
their unpleasantness: multiple intensities. However, this is not enough to shed light on all the
possible variations regarding unpleasantness.12 The variations of the different ways of being
unpleasant will be easier to capture once we introduce the following theory, since we will be
not looking for phenomenal unitary sameness among various unpleasant experiences qua
their unpleasantness.

4.2 The Determinable Theory

How can we preserve the intuition that unpleasantness is something felt, while accounting
for the wide phenomenal diversity within unpleasant experiences? A good way of doing this
is incorporating the notion of determinables and determinates. For this, I will first explain the
main features of the distinction that we need to have in mind in order to make full sense of
Crisp’s (2006) proposal about enjoyment. Enjoyment can be easily translated to the
discussion about unpleasantness. I will explain what I take to be the determinable theory,

11
It is relevant to notice that according to a pain questionnaire, such as the McGill one, as well as in the
general scientific understanding of pain, unpleasantness is taken to only vary in intensity within a single
dimension and that other phenomenal variations are ascribed to a sensory component.
12
Aydede (2014) may seem to propose a similar approach to Kagan’s. ‘Just the fastness or slowness of dances
can be recognized across all different types of dances, the pleasantness or unpleasantness common to various
otherwise quite different sensations is detectable, indeed introspectively available.’ (Aydede, 2014: 113)
However, this proposal may face similar worries if the intensity of unpleasantness is understood as a single
linear detectable dimension. In fact, Aydede thinks that hedonic tone can be explained in terms of a range of
psychofunctional processes, suggesting that unpleasantness should not be understood as one-dimensional — I
thank an anonymous referee for pointing this out. I favour the interpretation of hedonic tone as multidimen-
sional, as I explain in the last section of this paper. This suggests that an approach such as Aydede’s could also
be adapted to the model I propose.
The Structure of Unpleasantness 819

this will be useful to confront the heterogeneity problem. I will show, however, that this
solution entails a very significant problem.

4.2.1 The Determinable-Determinate Distinction

The determinable-determinate distinction serves to account for different items belonging to a

common group.13 The distinction, for instance, has been particularly useful to explain colour
variation. The differences among determinates of a common determinable are explained in
terms of variations along the shared dimensions that constitute a determinable. One of the
initial mentions of the distinction was, indeed, in reference to colour.

[T]he several colours are put into the same group and given the same name
colour, not on the ground of any partial agreement, but on the ground of the
special kind of difference which distinguishes one colour from another; whereas
no such difference exists between a colour and a shape. (Johnson 1921: 176, my
emphasis)

Similarly, Prior (1949: 13) says ‘redness, blueness, etc., all characterise objects, as we say,
“in respect of their colour”. .. And this is surely fundamental to the notion of being a
determinate under a determinable.’ So what is this special kind of difference that Johnson
talks about? How is it that redness and blueness vary in respect to their colour, as Prior
mentions? Once more, let’s employ the notion of dimension.
Dimensions are the essential properties of a determinable and in virtue of which each
of its determinates varies from the rest. Determinates of a common determinable have
different values along the same essential dimension, or dimensions, of a common
determinable. Kagan was right, when making the analogy with volume, to notice that
unpleasantness may vary along a dimension. His proposal can be illustrated by this
distinction. He could say that unpleasantness — as well as pleasantness — is a one-
dimensional determinable. However, given the phenomenal complexity of the unpleas-
antness of various experiences, it is more than tempting to think that there might be
multiple dimensions along which unpleasantness may vary.
Let’s focus on being coloured in order clarify the distinction. Three dimensions arguably
constitute this property: hue, saturation, and brightness. These elements are necessary and
sufficient for being coloured. Being coloured is equivalent to the disjunction of all the
possible combinations along hue, saturation, and brightness. Accordingly, being red is the
disjunction of the possible combinations of hue, saturation, and brightness, but within a more
limited range than being coloured. Red is a determinate of being coloured, and also a
determinable of being magenta, of being crimson, etc. That is, some determinates can also
be determinables.
A determinable, such as being coloured, that is not a determinate of any other determin-
able is a super-determinable. Accordingly, a determinate that is not also a determinable is a
super-determinate. For example, take a very precise shade of red, such as Coca-Cola red. It
is composed by a very particular hue, saturation, and brightness. Shades of red, such as

13
For more on the determinable-determinate distinction see Funkhouser (2006, 2014), Johnson (1921), Prior
(1949), and Wilson (2009, 2017).
820 Sapién A.

Coca-Cola red or Ferrari red, could be good examples of super-determinates: they are not
determinables of anything else.
This accounts for what Johnson had in mind. The ‘special kind of difference’ between
colour and shape is that they are different determinables, i.e., different essential dimensions
constitute them. When we talk about different ways of being for various determinates of a
common determinable, this means that the variation between these determinates is explained
in terms of variation along the same dimensions. Something similar can be said for
unpleasant experiences, which accounts for how unpleasant experiences are so diverse,
and do feel different, even if they belong to a common type.
But before entering into the details of how unpleasant experiences can be understood as a
determinable, let’s illustrate how not to understand the determinable-determinate distinction
for our purposes. This will serve us to clarify why, in particular, the distinctive feeling theory
was not able to account for unpleasantness phenomenal diversity. Wilson (2017) explains:

The determination relation appears to differ from other specification relations. In

contrast with the genus-species and conjunct-conjunction relations, where the more
specific property can be understood as a conjunction of the less specific property and
some independent property or properties, a determinate is not naturally treated in
conjunctive terms (red is not a conjunctive property having color and some other
property or properties as conjuncts) [. . .] (Wilson 2017)

I think that a good way of making sense of the determinable-determinate distinction, as

Wilson points out, is to say that different determinates vary among themselves non-
additively. To say that being coloured is a determinable is to say that the colour properties
that fall under it differ from one another non-additively. The difference between being a
particular shade of red and being a particular shade blue is not that being red consists in being
coloured plus being R, whereas being blue consists in being coloured plus being B; rather,
being red consists in being coloured in a particular way, and being blue consists in being
coloured in a different particular way. Each of these particular ways is the result of the values
that each particular way, each super-determinate, takes regarding the same essential
dimensions.
Contrast this to the different ways of being a young animal. This is closer to what we take
to be the difference genus-species. Being a kitten, a cub, a lamb, and a sheep share the same
property of being a young animal. However, the differences among these items is explained
in terms of variations of different dimensions: only the property of being a kitten entails
being a cat, only the property of being a cub entails being a bear, only the property of being a
lamb entails being a sheep, and so on. Being a kitten, a cub, a lamb, and a sheep vary
additively and, therefore, even if they all belong to a common group, they are not
determinates of a common determinable.

4.2.2 Being an Unpleasant Experience as a Determinable

Crisp (2006) proposes that the mistake in trying to find something in common in experiences
that we enjoy is that we are thinking in terms of finding a determinate feeling, rather than
such phenomenal character in terms of a determinable property. He understands enjoyment
as some form of sensory pleasure, something phenomenal that unifies experiences that feel
good.
The Structure of Unpleasantness 821

Enjoyment, then, is best understood using the determinable-determinate distinc-

tion, and the mistake in the heterogeneity argument is that it considers only
determinates. Enjoyable experiences do differ from one another . . . But there is a
certain common quality . . . feeling good . . . The determinable–determinate
distinction also helps us to be clear about the role of ‘feeling’ in this analysis:
feeling good as a determinable is not any particular kind of determinate feeling.
(Crisp 2006: 109)

There are a few rather terminological things to say about Crisp’s passage. First, his idea can
be equally applied to experiences that feel bad, i.e., several instances of experiences can be
explained as determinates of the common feeling-bad determinable. Instead of referring to
these determinables as ‘feeling good’ or ‘feeling bad’, I refer to them as being pleasant or
unpleasant.
Second, I should also point out that when I mention determinables and determinates, I
refer to properties. Being unpleasant is a property of mental states, and the same applies to
the different ways of being unpleasant. To make sense of this proposal in order to address the
heterogeneity problem, we can compare the property of being unpleasant, or unpleasantness,
to other features such as the property of being red, or redness, when it comes to objects, or to
the property of being red-feeling, or red-feeling-ness, when it comes to visual experiences.

The determinable theory

Unpleasantness is a determinable and phenomenal property of mental states. There are
certain ways of being unpleasant, such as a pain. Pain is a determinate of unpleasant-
ness. Moreover, pain is also a determinable; there are ways of being a pain. A specific
way of being a pain, e.g., a very precise headache is a super-determinate of the pain
determinable.

The key is to understand that different determinates of the same determinable are not unified
by dint of sharing a distinctive single ingredient plus something else. In this way, different
unpleasant experiences are not unified by sharing the same single ingredient of unpleasant-
ness plus something else. Instead, being an unpleasant experience is a determinable with
determinates such as being the feeling of nausea, of itch, of pain, etc. These determinates are
particular ways of being unpleasant and they vary from each other non-additively. We can
give an answer to the heterogeneity problem once we adopt this approach.
A clear way of making sense of this is to make an analogy with being coloured. All ways
of being coloured are different, yet they belong to the same kind. How can being red and
being blue be different and yet both be ways of being coloured? The answer is that they are
both determinates of the same determinable. Being red and being blue are different non-
additively. They do not share a distinctive coloured-ness plus something else. The same can
be said about the difference between being magenta and being scarlet; they do not share
some unitary redness plus something else, they are different ways of being red non-
additively.
Let’s now consider different ways of being an unpleasant experience. This means
that being an unpleasant experience is a determinable with various determinates such as
being an itch, being a pain, being a cramp, etc. Being an itch and being a pain do not
share a common ingredient of unpleasantness plus something else that makes them
822 Sapién A.

different. They are different ways of being unpleasant non-additively. In the same way
that there is no unitary coloured-ness shared between being red and being blue, there is
no unitary shared unpleasantness between being an itch and being a pain, as the
distinctive feeling theory understood unpleasantness.
According to the heterogeneity problem there is no single unitary phenomenal
ingredient common to all and only unpleasant experiences and by dint of which
these experiences are unpleasant. This is compatible with the claim that being an
unpleasant experience is a determinable property. All it means to have an un-
pleasant experience is to have a mental state with a super-determinate property of
being an unpleasant experience in a very particular way. These different super-
determinate properties entail being unpleasant without unpleasantness being a
unitary phenomenal ingredient common to all of them.
If we understand being an unpleasant experience as a determinable, the heterogeneity
problem fades away. We can maintain that being unpleasant is a phenomenal property, and
also accept that it is not a common unitary ingredient common to all and only unpleasant
experiences.

4.2.3 Pains That Are Not Unpleasant

There is a critical problem for the determinable theory. This way of understanding
pain in relation to unpleasantness entails that pain is necessarily unpleasant.
Determinate properties entail their determinables. However, it does not seem to
be necessary that pain is unpleasant.
If being red is a determinate of being coloured, being red necessarily entails
being coloured. If being a pain is a determinate of being unpleasant, then being a
pain entails, necessarily, being unpleasant. More precisely, a super-determinate of
pain implies that such experience must be necessarily a pain and thus unpleasant.
This means that being a particular pain without being unpleasant is impossible, as
it is impossible to be Ferrari red, without being both red and coloured. However,
there are cases that suggest that people might experience pains that are not
unpleasant: pain asymbolia is often taken to be the more convincing example of
this.
The question whether pain is necessarily unpleasant has been around the
philosophical discussion for a while (Pitcher 1970). More recently, philosophers
consider that it is not only possible, but that there are actual examples of pain
experiences that are not unpleasant. Pain asymbolia is a neurological condition
that has drawn a lot of attention in the philosophical discussion about pain (Bain
2013; Corns 2014; Grahek 2007; Gray 2014; Klein 2015a; de Vignemont 2015).
Asymbolics do not react in the usual way to harmful stimuli that would normally
cause pain, yet they claim that they feel pain. This condition, some philosophers
think, provides strong evidence of the existence of pains that are not unpleasant.
In other words, there might be mental states that instantiate the phenomenal
property of being a pain, people identify the experiences as feeling like a pain,
without instantiating any property of unpleasantness, without identifying that same
pain experience as being unpleasant. Most philosophers nowadays consider un-
pleasantness to be a distinct property from the one that constitutes a sensory pain.
The Structure of Unpleasantness 823

This allows them, in particular, to tell a coherent story about what is happening in
the case of asymbolics.14
The discussion about pain asymbolia shows that even if there were no actual
cases of pains that are not unpleasant, it is possible that there might be. It seems at
least conceivable that pain experiences could exist without being unpleasant. The
determinable theory fails to account for the pain asymbolia cases, if these do
exemplify pains that are not unpleasant, and for the possibility of non-unpleasant
pains, which we should be able to capture since the property of being a pain and
being unpleasant do not seem to be necessarily linked. Even if the present theory
does deal with the heterogeneity problem, taking into account pain asymbolia
forces us to reject the proposal.

5 The Structure of Unpleasantness

I propose to adapt Crisp’s intuition, while taking unpleasantness as distinct from other
sensory properties. By doing this, we obtain several benefits: 1) this view maintains the
strong intuition that unpleasantness is something felt, something phenomenal; 2) it can
account for the possibility of non-unpleasant pains; 3) it can account for the Ploner case, i.e.,
an example for which it is claimed that an unpleasant experience lacks only its pain
phenomenal aspect; 4) it can easily explain how two sensory experiences can vary only
hedonically, i.e., one is pleasant and the other unpleasant; 5) this theory is able to account for
the heterogeneity of unpleasant experiences, and 6) it provides a blueprint for the constitutive
theories in order to account for the heterogeneity of unpleasantness.
According to current theory we should apply the determinable-determinate
distinction solely to the unpleasantness of an unpleasant experience. There are
different ways of being unpleasant, various unpleasantnesses, and each of this is a
different way of being unpleasant. Here is what an unpleasant experience is
according to this approach.

The unpleasantnesses theory

An unpleasant sensory experience is constituted of two phenomenal proper-
ties: 1) the phenomenal property of being a sensory experience and 2) a
phenomenal super-determinate property (u1, u2, u3, etc.) of the unpleasant-
ness determinable.

In this way, we can easily account for the possibility of asymbolics having pain
experiences that are not hedonic at all. They would have a mental state with the
phenomenal property of being a pain, but without the phenomenal property of

14
One of the interesting consequences of disentangling the property of being a pain from being unpleasant is
that there could be, in principle, purely pleasant pains. However, there is no evidence that I am aware of
suggesting that this actually happens. The possibility of experiences that could be simultaneously unpleasant
and pleasant has been suggested (Klein 2014). The closest case that I have encountered of a pain that is solely
pleasant is mentioned by Moscoso, while considering cases of masochism (2011: 222–31). The case is about
the ascetic Margaret Mary Alacoque, a seventeenth century nun and mystic, who constantly and systematically
sough out pain, and other typically unpleasant experiences, and she said that only pain made her life bearable
(Bougaud 1875: 145). However, there is no conclusive evidence of the fctuality of such possibility.
824 Sapién A.

being unpleasant. Another advantage of dissociating the property of being a pain

from the property of being unpleasant is that we can account for cases where,
presumably, someone has an experience that is unpleasant, without being a pain or
a phenomenal experience in any other way. Some think that we could have
phenomenal experiences that are just unpleasant, and that there is an actual
example of this.
Some researchers claim that their ‘results demonstrate, for the first time in
humans, a loss of pain sensation with preserved pain affect.’ (Ploner et al. 1999:
211) This is based on a single case of a man who, after a stroke, lost to a good
extent the capacity to have sensory experiences, such as the ones produced by
thermal stimuli. According to this study, ‘[i]n the patient reported here, clinical
examination and cutaneous laser stimulation revealed . . . loss of sensory discrim-
inative pain component and preserved motivational-affective dimension of pain.’
(Ploner et al. 1999: 213) If this case is real, or even possible, this approach to
unpleasantness allows us to make sense of it. A mental state could instantiate the
property of being unpleasant, without the property of being a pain.15
The unpleasantnesses theory has another advantage: we can easily explain how
different sensory experiences may vary only hedonically. We can explain how the
same type of sensory experience can sometimes be pleasant and at other times
unpleasant. Take, for instance, the gustatory experience of tasting chocolate; this
experience is one of tasting chocolate in virtue of a phenomenal property choco-
late-taste-feeling-ness, say.16 We can have chocolate-taste-feeling experiences that
are sometimes pleasant, and at other times unpleasant. How? These two experi-
ences, the one that is pleasant and the one that is unpleasant, seem to be ways of
being chocolate-taste-feeling experiences. However, it does not seem that we can
account for these experiences being different by appealing to the determinable-
determinate distinction. The pleasant chocolate-taste-feeling experience and the
unpleasant chocolate-taste-feeling experience vary additively. These experiences
are chocolate-taste-feeling plus something else, i.e., they are either pleasant or
unpleasant.17
Finally, we should explain how to deal with the heterogeneity of unpleasant
experiences. According to the present account, unpleasantness is phenomenal, but
there is no unitary feeling of unpleasantness because different unpleasantnesses
vary non-additively. The current proposal is in line with the intuitions behind the
heterogeneity problem. All unpleasant experiences qualify as unpleasant in virtue
of instantiating unpleasantness as a phenomenal determinable property. All un-
pleasant experiences are unpleasant in a certain way, u1, u2, u3, etc. and each of
these particular ways of being unpleasant, each of these unpleasantnesses, varies

15
Another example of a purely unpleasant state could be depression, where it seems that there is no particular
intentional object to which the experience is directed at, it is an experience of pure unpleasantness (Barlassina
and Hayward forthcoming).
16
I call the phenomenal property of having an experience of eating something that tastes like chocolate
chocolate-taste-feeling-ness, as opposed to the property chocolate-taste-ness. Whereas the former is a property
of mental states, the latter is a property of things that taste like chocolate, such as a cake.
17
I leave open whether pleasantness and unpleasantness are determinates of a common determinable. This
will depend on these properties varying non-additively or not, i.e., if pleasantness and unpleasantness share the
same essential dimensions of variation.
The Structure of Unpleasantness 825

from the others non-additively, without unpleasantness itself, understood as a

unitary determinate feeling, being a common ingredient to them all.18

6 The Dimensions of Unpleasantness

There is, however, an important aspect about this proposal that needs to be developed.
Namely, which are those dimensions of variation that would account for the multiplic-
ity of unpleasantnessess?
I am not the first to allow for the possibility that there might be various ways of
being unpleasant. Labukt (2012), for example, argues in favour of a pluralistic version
of hedonic tone in order to deal with the heterogeneity of experience. But he insists that
we should have ‘some fairly well-founded ideas about what the different hedonic tones
are’ before accepting such view (Labukt 2012: 199).
I think that even if we do not have quite yet an extensive list of the different forms of
being unpleasant, we have a good way of account for the metaphysics of it. We can
understand unpleasantness as a phenomenal determinable. However, the theory may
appear as lacking a positive proposal for the concrete dimensions of unpleasantness.
The proposal might look too speculative.
That said, even if we do not know exactly which are the dimensions along which
unpleasantnesses may vary, we can accept that unpleasantness’ dimensions exist. We
can accept that different unpleasant experiences do feel different qua their unpleasant-
ness, just as we can agree that there is a the variation of different visual experiences,
even if we know nothing about their precise dimensions of variations. We can accept
that there are different ways of being unpleasant, without yet knowing which are the
precise dimensions along which unpleasantnesses might vary. As Funkhouser puts it:

[T]he concept of a determination dimension is quite general and it applies to

various kinds — kinds with essences that are phenomenological, functional,
qualitative, etc. We can certainly disagree over the determination dimension of
a particular kind, but so long as this disagreement is reasonable, the very existence
of such disagreement helps confirm that we share an intuitive understanding of
the concept of determination dimension and the task of discovering them . . .
Scientific kinds are of particular interest to the metaphysicians and I assume that
the determination dimensions for such kinds typically are to be discovered by a
posteriori investigation. (Funkhouser 2014: 30, my emphasis)

18
One could argue that there are also different ways of being a pain, and that being a pain is also a
determinable property. That is, that there are different ways of being a pain experience that are determinates
of a common determinable. If this were correct, this would imply that there are different determinates of being
a pain, pa1, pa2, pa3, etc. These would be phenomenal properties and would vary from one another non-
additively. This could be a way to deal with heterogeneity concerning pain phenomenology. Given the rich
phenomenology of pain, I am inclined to think that, if it is a determinable property, it is multi-dimensional.
That is, pain does not vary solely within a unified scale of intensity. However, I do not think that we need to
get into the details of this in order to deal with the heterogeneity problem, since it focuses only on the
unpleasantness of experiences.
826 Sapién A.

If Funkhouser is right, it is probably an empirical affair to discover which are the

precise felt dimensions of unpleasantness as a kind, as a determinable, in the same way
that it is rather an empirical affair to discover the dimensions along which being an
experience of colour may vary, or the multi-dimensions among diverse olfactory
experiences (Young et al. 2014). However, it is a philosophical task to point out that
the determinable-determinate distinction helps us to understand the structure of un-
pleasantness in order to address its heterogeneity.
That said, I do think that we can provide some a priori progress regarding this issue.
We can make sense of the structure of the unpleasantness determinable according to the
diverse constitutive theories of unpleasantness. The full development of how to best
account for unpleasantness as a determinable would need an entire paper. However, I
provide in the next and last section a general idea of how this could be done. This
shows the advantage of understanding the structure of unpleasantness as a determinable
and how this can be incorporated by the different constitutive accounts of unpleasant-
ness in order to deal with unpleasantness heterogeneity. There are two main ways in
which this might be done: 1) by thinking that unpleasantness is unidimensional, and 2)
by considering, as I do, that it is multidimensional.

6.1 Unpleasantness as Unidimensional

Suppose you are not convinced about the critique to the intensity theory, you see no
reason to accept that unpleasantness varies in ways that are not captured in changes in
intensity of a single phenomenal dimension. Even if this is the case, understanding
unpleasantness as a determinable is useful. Determinates of a common determinable
may vary along one single scale; for example: mass is a determinable that takes
different determinate values in grams (or other mass unit) and temperature is a
determinable which takes different values in degrees (or other temperature unit).
Different mass or temperature values are different instances that belong to the same
group that vary non-additively, they do no differ from one another by sharing a
common property plus something else. Instead, they take different values along the
same constitutive dimension. Determinables can be unidimensional. We can derive
then a unidimensional understanding of unpleasantness.

Unidimensional unpleasantness
Unpleasantness is a determinable property that has only one dimension of
determination.

The unidimensional understanding might be adapted for theorists who take unpleas-
antness to be phenomenal or not. Let’s start with the ones who do take unpleasantness
to be something felt. The different content theories could adapt what they take
unpleasantness to be into changes in degree along a unitary type of content.
For evaluative theorists, such as Bain (2012), the unpleasantness of a pain consists,
roughly, in representing a sensory pain with evaluative content, that is, as being bad for
oneself. Whatever makes a pain worse, or less bad for oneself, would account for the
different values on the same scale of badness. If we followed an imperativist account of
unpleasantness, where unpleasantness consists in some form of imperative content, a
The Structure of Unpleasantness 827

command, the intensity of the command would account for the value on the scale that
such unpleasantness would have. In fact, Martínez and Klein (forthcoming) have
proposed a model that would explain the intensity of unpleasantness based on a scale.
They think that the priority that we assign to different mental states with imperative
content accounts for how unpleasant these are. The type of ranking that they argue for
would nicely adapt to the unidimensional account of unpleasantness.
Understanding unpleasantness as a determinable is useful even if we thought that it
is not a phenomenal aspect of experience, as externalists do. If we are desire theorists,
we could still understand unpleasantness as a determinable to account for its intensity.
The more we want an experience not to be occurring, the more unpleasant it is. This
will depend on how we account for some desire being stronger than other, which is no
simple affair. I will not go into the details of this, since it may involve numerous
complications regarding how to precisely account for desire strength. However, I
believe this offers a gist of how the determinable structure of unpleasantness can be
employed.
That said, I think that we should be able to account for various unpleasantnesess,
where these differences are: 1) phenomenal and 2) multidimensional.

6.2 Unpleasantness as Multidimensional

Unpleasantness is rich in its phenomenology. Other forms of experience, such as visual

and olfactory experiences, are, at least, as vast. In the case of these sensory experiences,
we think that they are multidimensional; it is, I think, quite natural to conclude that
unpleasantness must be too.
Content theorists seem to take unpleasantness as unidimensional. However, I think
they will not find it so hard to accept that phenomenal variations of unpleasantness are
multidimensional. This will be easier to accept if we provide a clear way of accounting
for such phenomenal diversity within unpleasantness.

Multidimensional unpleasantness
Unpleasantness is a determinable property with more than one dimension of
determination.

Let’s start with evaluative content theories. Consider an unpleasant pain. Is there only
one way in which one may represent something as being bad for oneself? I think not.
One of the important worries about evaluativism is that this account does not explain
precisely what it means for one to represent a bodily state or disturbance as being bad. It
is probably about time to start filling in this gap and, in doing so, noticing that a bodily
state may be represented as being bad in a myriad of ways. I can think of at least two
relevant ways in which a bodily disturbance might be represented as being bad: 1)
insofar this disturbance is highly associated with tissue damage, which is bad for our
body, and 2) in the sense that it is attention grabbing, and does not allow us to perform
other activities.
Allowing that there is more than one way in which a bodily state may be represented
as bad would account for unpleasantness as multidimensional. How bad a given
unpleasant feeling is regarding those dimensions, would allow us to rank different
828 Sapién A.

unpleasantness, compare them, classify them, and create a space model of

unpleasantness.
Now consider imperative content theories. There are, roughly, three different pro-
posals about what kind of imperative content constitutes unpleasantness:

1) A world-directed content, where unpleasantness is constituted by an imperative

mental state I1 about a state of the world p, where I1 has the form “See to it that p
does not exist.” (Martínez 2015)
2) A mind-directed imperative content I2, about another imperative mental state Im,
where these are co-ocurrent yet distinct mental states, and I2 has the form ‘Less of
Im!’ (Klein 2015b).
3) A self-directed imperative content I3, where unpleasantness is constituted by a
reflexive imperative, where this I 3 imperative has the form ‘Less of
me!’(Barlassina and Hayward forthcoming).

The subtler differences and advantages of these versions of imperativism are not worth
considering at this point. However, what is relevant pointing out is that these different
versions could be allies rather than competitors.
That is to say, if imperativists accepted that the phenomenology of unpleasantness is
diverse enough so that we cannot account for it only by refereeing to one type of
phenomenal dimension, we could explain that these different imperative contents could
precisely account for the diverse ways in which unpleasantness feels. Similar to what I
said about evaluative content theories, the unpleasantness of pains seems to mix at least
two dimensions: 1) one regarding our body parts, and 2) one about the experience itself.
Unpleasantness feels complex because, following this approach, it is commanding
us to do more than one thing. Not only does it order us to do something about the world
and our bodies, it is also telling us to do something about itself. It does not seem to me
that this over complicates the approach. Instead of thinking that these contents are
describing the right way of accounting for unpleasantness, we could see that they were
describing a aspect of it. A rich affective phenomenology commands us to provide a
richer type of content.

7 Conclusion

It is not obvious how to narrow down what unpleasantness is from a phenomenological

point of view. Nor is it very clear how to disentangle it from other phenomenological
aspects of an experience or how to analyse unpleasantness itself, as a separate phe-
nomenal aspect. However, I think we have compelling reasons to believe that unpleas-
antness is felt and that it varies widely.
Introducing the determinable-determinate distinction helps us to account for the
phenomenal variations of such feeling. Moreover, if we take unpleasantness to vary
hedonically in ways that cannot be accounted in terms of variations of intensity of one
single phenomenal dimension, the determinable-determinate distinction becomes par-
ticularly handy since, according to this view, important qualitative differences can be
explained by referring to multidimensional variations of a single determinable.
The Structure of Unpleasantness 829

I conclude that all and only unpleasant experiences are unpleasant in virtue of
instantiating unpleasantness, a determinable phenomenal property that has multiple
essential dimensions. Now that we know which is the structure of unpleasantness, how
it is built, we can start testing what material adapts better to its configuration.

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