People think I'm crazy to put myself through such torture, though I would argue otherwise. Somewhere along the line we seem to have confused comfort with happiness. . . Dostoyevsky had it right: 'Suffering is the sole origin of consciousness. ' Never are my senses more engaged than when the pain sets in. There is a magic in misery. Just ask any runner.
Our search for such [moral] principles can start with. . . the unconditional imperative to acknowledge every person as a person. If we ask for the contents given by this absolute, we find, first, something negative-the command not to treat a person as a thing. This seems little, but it is much. It is the core of the principle of justice.