Colin Klein, “What the Body Commands: The Imperative Theory of Pain” (MIT Press, 2015)
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What is the Imperative Theory of Pain and how does it differ from the traditional view that pain reports tissue damage?
Hello and welcome to New Books and Philosophy, a podcast channel with the New Books Network. I'm Carrie Figdor, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa. And I'm co-host of the channel along with Robert Talise, Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. Together we bring you conversations with philosophers about their new books drawing from a wide range of areas of contemporary philosophical inquiry. Today's interview is with Colin Klein, lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at Macquarie University in Australia. His new book What the Body Commands The Imperative Theory of Pain is just out from the MIT press. Nothing seems so obviously true as the claim that pains feel bad, that they are painful, that pain and suffering go together.
And yet, argues Klein, pain and suffering can come apart, and we need an account of pain that can explain why. On the imperative theory of pain, a pain is a protective imperative whose content is to protect the body or body part, for example, don't put weight on that left ankle. In this accessible yet vigorous defense of the imperative theory Klein argues that pains do not represent the causes of pain but Do not inform us about tissue damage and should not be identified with the painful sensations. He shows us how his account is sufficient to distinguish pain locations, qualities, and intensities in And he deals with cases in which people report feeling pain, but not being the least bit motivated to do anything about it.
He also considers the problem of masochistic pleasure, where we seek to act in ways that do not protect the body. And finally, he addresses the question why do pains hurt? Let's turn to the interview. Hello, Colin Klein, are you there?
I am. Hi, Gary.
Hi. Nice to uh talk with you and welcome to New Books in Philosophy.
Hey, thanks for uh and delighted to be here.
Um so I'm this is a a great book. I had a it's a it was a wonderful read, um very easy to read, easy to follow and uh well argued and also, you know, obviously a bit contentious in certain ways. So um I'm looking forward to to talking about it uh with you. Um before we get to the actual imperative theory of pain, which you're defending in the book, um Uh can you tell us a bit about yourself? Um how you came to philosophy, how you came to this area of research and um how you came to write this particular book.
Sure. So uh how I got to philosophy? I've always been interested in the mind. Uh I think the mind is still the the last great mystery to be solved. Uh when I was an undergraduate I was at Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania and I had a great opportunity where I majored both in philosophy and in a interdisciplinary program they had called Scientific and Philosophical Studies of Mind. Uh and that let me do both a lot of philosophy and also empirically oriented work. Uh as for pan. Uh when I was about thirteen I broke my ankle very badly in wrestling practice. And so that's also given me a lot of good examples over the years and that's why the book focuses so much on ankle pain. Uh but when I was in the hospital they gave me morphine and I had an experience which turns out to be quite common where uh I was laying there, my ankle, as far as I could tell, still hurt, but I didn't care about it anymore.
I was as I sort of discovered I was up here, it was down there, uh I didn't know what one had to do with the other. And I didn't think about that much until I had a philosophy class and Daniel Dennett actually talks about this in I believe why comput why you can't make a computer that feels pain. And so I talked to my philosophy advisor at the time, Bennett Helm, who had also written a lot on pain, and that's kind of how the intro started and I've just been sort of thinking about it and writing about it ever since.
Okay. So this this book kind of brings together you know, you have published a number of uh you know previous papers, uh but this kind of brings it all together and provides a uh you know kind of a more thorough defense uh of the theory and elaboration of the theory as well.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the Imperative Theory of Pain and how does it differ from the traditional view that pain reports tissue damage?
0:08–8:10
2
How did Colin Klein’s personal experiences and academic background lead him to develop this theory?
8:10–16:45
3
What are the core components of the “protective imperative” and how does the book structure them?
16:45–23:35
4
How does the theory distinguish between physical pain and painfulness (suffering) and why is that distinction important?
23:35–30:50
5
How does the imperative account handle puzzling cases like morphine‑induced pain and pain asymbolia?
30:50–38:26
6
What explanation does the theory give for masochistic pleasure and other “pain‑like” enjoyable experiences?
38:26–46:25
7
How can the imperative framework be applied to chronic pain, placebos, and other clinical interventions?
46:25–53:26
8
What are the next research directions Klein is pursuing and how might philosophy influence real‑world pain treatment?
53:26–1:03:23
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