I wonder if this point of view has been considered before and which role it does play in the discussion of consciousness:
Consider a typical Skinner box experiment: A rat is exposed to some pleasant and unpleasant unconditioned stimuli (food, electric shock) depending on doing something to be learned (e.g. pressing a button under specific circumstances).
Such an experiment and its outcomes seem trivial when we take into account the pleasantness or unpleasantness of the reward or punishment: Of course, the rat will learn to do this and that, because it wants food and wants to avoid electric shocks = pain (because it feels hunger, an urge to eat, pain, or an urge to avoid bodily damage - all kinds of unpleasant experiences which the rat wants to diminish).
But how would we understand the experiment if subjective experiences (feels of hunger and pain) were lacking and not part of the explanation? We would have to tell very long and complicated stories - about the need to have food and to avoid bodily damage, how these needs are coded, represented, and effective, how appropriate behaviour evolved during biological evolution, and so on and on.)
Having subjective feelings at hand makes explanations very much easier - every child can understand Skinner box experiments, presumably.
What's possibly wrong with this line of argument? Does it help to "understand" consciousness and subjective experience? Or do I rotate in argumentative circles?