Is Evil merely the absence of Good?

"'Pain is evil, I would say, only to the extent that it is disliked or shunned or unwanted'

[Here] Von Wright [argues] that pain, as evil, is a kind of harm, and as such something that frustrates the attainment of some end. And the end here could only be the avoidance of pain!

This is [...] implausible because it invites us to suppose that avoiding an evil, such as pain, is a kind of purpose-fulfillment or want-satisfcation, and hence it is just a species of achieving or obtaining a good. But the good here is plainly nothing positive at all. According to the theory, an evil [...] is the absence [...] of a good"
(E.J Bond, Reason and Value, p125)

Is there a good point to be made here? Are preference-satisfication theorists unable to make a distinction between the privation of good and the presence of evil?

(Last post on E.J Bond, I promise!)