Intrinsic vs instrumental value

[charlatan]

How would you define "suffering"?

And what about suffering that over time brings about a greater good, as in Nietzsche's aphorism: "What does not kill me makes me stronger"?

Well for the definition, it is of course potentially a little hard to fully capture qualia in language.
However, there are noncontroversial instances -- stuff like pure physical torture, being crucified, etc.

But basically, I think I'm very far from Nietzsche type philosophers, who emphasize things like strength, will, and so on over things like truth.
I generally find the typical paradoxes in 'free will' debates (can you be the cause of yourself) come up here too -- if you're dependent on the life experience of suffering to develop your strength, isn't a being who could do the same exertion without suffering somehow even more in command, powerful, willful?
Generally, when it comes to gaining skill we lack, I wonder why couldn't we just instantiate a being with the same skills that they lacked, without ever having to go through the treadmill of learning, without suffering, and so on.
Basically, sure such a person doesn't 'learn what it's like to not know,' but that seems similar to the criticisms of God for not knowing what it's like to be limited....which it seems to me isn't a genuine criticism.

If there is nothing suffering truly gives you besides the experience itself, which is what I tend to believe of such qualitative experiences, it seems there are no arguments for asking for suffering, and at least one very powerful one against it, i.e. the intrinsic nature of suffering, by definition.


Now there may be PRACTICAL situations where going through hardship is a necessary condition for gaining some skill where we decide the lesser evil is to undergo this suffering for that end. That, however, seems to be a flaw of how the world is set up--I can't think of arguments why such suffering would be necessary that don't smell of the 'Well you're greater than God because he just had it all for free!'

 

[charlatan]

I am SORT of guessing @Ren you ain't a nietzsche flavored philosopher either, but I'd be interested to know!

For me, 'oughts' are all about what I can self-consistently justify. I take very seriously that many things are 'subjective' in the sense that the subject's nature plays an integral role in deciding what they can self-consistently pursue.
However, a more thoroughgoing, genuine relativism would say the subject itself doesn't have a nature, so there is no fact as to what it can self-consistently pursue, and it is all completely and utterly made up.
That last step is where I don't go...

 

[Headstorm]

objectively positive things

I object, objectively positive things?

 

[Zola]

The answers people have written here are beautiful. I have enjoyed reading them.
I have a superficial reply, which I hope doesn't sound stupid, but here it is:

I can't see the difference between intrinsic and utilitarian value because I cannot imagine existence without usefulness. It's the All-One concept -- both spirituality and ecologically.

My main problem with human beings, as a species, is that we've tried to bow out of the equation by making everything serve our purposes, and what do we do for the Earth and its other inhabitants?

 

[Wyote]

what do we do for the Earth and its other inhabitants?

We've done quite a lot. All we ever hear about is bad stuff though. But that in turn causes more improvements, generally.

 

[Zola]

(By "other inhabitants" I meant non-humans.) I do hope you're right, and our improvements end up making the whole ecosystem function better in the long run.