Brian Cutter on the badness of pain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p41Ir-_9E-k

1:44:30 - 1:45:46

"I guess my thought with the normativity challenge is it seems to me more plausible that basic normative principles are fundamental simpliciter. Why is pain bad? Why does having a seeming that p justify the belief that p? This feels to me like a rock-bottom fact. Why is it wrong for me to press this button? Well, 'cause it would cause Joe an electric shock. Why is it wrong to cause Joe an electric shock? Well, 'cause it would cause him lots of pain. Why is it wrong to cause lots of pain? Well, because pain is bad. Why is pain bad? I feel like this is a plausible stopping point – we've hit bedrock. We know explanation needs to end somewhere – this seems like roughly the place it's gonna end. Maybe you can go like one or two layers deeper, but something normative seems to be – like these basic bedrock principles like the badness of pain or the justificatory power of experiences and so on – these seem to be bedrock principles that when you ask why they hold, the only thing to say is: that's just how it is, we've hit bedrock, explanation ends somewhere and it ends here."