Abstract
After an overview of the concepts of suffering and social suffering, this chapter gives six common frames for thinking about suffering-alleviation. For example, one frame is suffering-alleviation as moral responsibility; another is suffering-alleviation as undesirable or harmful. Next the following four major societal sectors for suffering-alleviation are described: the humanitarian sector, the social policy sector, the caregiving sector, and the spiritual sector. Additional topics include philosophical approaches for suffering-alleviation priority setting; suggestions for how to alleviate extreme suffering; data on the global trend in rising suffering; and a final section overviewing each chapter. The reader will discover surprisingly wide diversity in approaches to alleviating suffering, which altogether reveal how important suffering-alleviation is to studying and understanding human quality of life.
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Anderson, R.E. (2017). A Worldview of the Alleviation of Suffering. In: Anderson, R. (eds) Alleviating World Suffering. Social Indicators Research Series, vol 67. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51391-1_1
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