Comments Elsewhere

Gary:

I can think of instances where death would be perferable to torture; where torture would be much worse than merely dying. Of course which is worse is based on some rather subjective decision-making.

Brian:

I can see several instances where being killed is preferable to torture. If my options are: [extreme mutilating torture that leaves you in unbearable pain, or a relatively painless immediate death] … and those are my 2, metaphysically certain options, I choose B. Granted some people may love existence so much that they’d choose A still, but I’d find living after A to be intolerable.

Granted: there may be cases in which one might rationally choose death over extreme ongoing pain. But most forms of torture and almost all forms of isolated mutilation, flogging, beating, etc. are not like this; as horrifying as they would be to go through, most people would nevertheless undergo them rather than being killed in even the most painless fashion. (It’s also interesting that even in the strongest cases, both of you seem inclined to think that it’s a matter open to debate and individual variation whether or not death is preferable to the torture.)

So let’s skip over the borderline cases and talk policy. Here’s one: for some particularly heinous crime X, which is currently a capital offense, everyone convicted of X is (for the sole purpose of punishing her or him) to be flogged and rubbed down the back with brine, then branded with hot irons, then forced to eat his or her own excrement, and then incarcerated in an ordinary prison for the rest of her or his life. Do you think that this policy is morally any less permissible than killing the condemned for X? Why or why not?

Actually, let’s not skip over the borderline cases. Here’s another policy: for some particularly heinous crime X, which is currently a capital offense, everyone convicted of X is (for the sole purpose of punishing her or him with intense bodily pain) to be sentenced to daily torture of the most bizarre and Satanic kinds. However, the condemned is allowed the option of a painless assisted suicid at any point if he or she wants it. Do you think that this policy is morally any less permissible than killing the condemned for X? Why or why not?

Brian:

Additionally, there are plenty of times when it is socially necessary, in terms of cost-benefit, signalling effects, yada yada, where it is useful and beneficial to kill a prisoner

What “signals” are sent by killing a prisoner that could not also be sent by mutilating or torturing him or her? What costs are saved by killing her or him that are not saved by mutilating or torturing her or him? What benefits accrue from killing her or him that do not accrue from mutilating or torturing her or him?

Brian:

If you look at it another way, a death is a one time suffering event; be it long and drawn out or quick and dirty, at the end, the suffering ends (absent a position that there is a soul which continues to suffer from death after removal from a physical body).

With torture, the mental and physical pain of the event stays with the victim for the rest of their life.

So from a utilitarian POV (ala our friend Joe’s position), you could say that you get more negatives from the torture than from death.

Well, appeals to oblivion either don’t cut much ice or else prove far too much. If the only thing you’re willing to count as disutility is present or future sensate pain, then the fact that the prisoner is oblivious would make death come out higher in the calculation than being tortured for the same amount of time. But it would also make death come out higher in the calculation than being bored and mildly uncomfortable for the same amount of time, or any other situation with a net negative utility at all. But that doesn’t show anything about death; all it shows is that you shouldn’t be so radical a hedonist about utility and disutility.

If, on the other hand, you’re willing to count more than just present or future sensate pain as a form of disutility then it’s not clear what a bare appeal to the fact that the dead are (may be?) oblivious doesn’t prove anything in particular. You’ve shown that death doesn’t involve one kind of disutility—present or future sensate pain—but you haven’t shown that it doesn’t involve any kind of evil for the dead. You’ll either have to demonstrate that, or else demonstrate that whatever evils are involved are not cumulatively as bad as the evils involved in being in a particular kind of pain for the same amount of time.

(Note also that if this is the way you’re going to set about doing the calculation, it makes the policy decision of whether or not prisoners should be executed dependent on holding a particular, currently unpopular, eschatological theory. I think the theory you’d have to hold is probably the right one; but that does seem like an awkward position to be stuck in when trying to justify a particular criminal justice policy.)