Experience = qualia. No, suffering isn't a necessary condition for consciousness. We can make rats euphoric in a lab with electrodes and they are presumably co

Experience = qualia. No, suffering isn't a necessary condition for consciousness. We can make rats euphoric in a lab with electrodes and they are presumably conscious despite a lack of suffering. Suffering is just one example of a conscious state. On the question of moral value, we aren't going to resolve that here. But if anything has moral value, it ought to be consciousness. That is what most people value in their personal ethics and relationships.