Is it preferable to have one person be tortured if it gives 3^^^3 people a miniscule amount of pleasure?
Great question, and if it has been covered before on this site, I haven’t seen it. Philosophers have discussed whether or not “sadistic” pleasure from others’ suffering should be included in utilitarian calculations, and in fact this is one of the classic arguments against (some types of) utilitarianism, along with the utility monster and the organ lottery.
One possible answer is that utilitarians should maximize other terminal values besides just pleasure, and that sadistic pleasures like this go against the total of our terminal values, so utilitarians shouldn’t allow these to cancel out torture.
Great question, and if it has been covered before on this site, I haven’t seen it. Philosophers have discussed whether or not “sadistic” pleasure from others’ suffering should be included in utilitarian calculations, and in fact this is one of the classic arguments against (some types of) utilitarianism, along with the utility monster and the organ lottery.
One possible answer is that utilitarians should maximize other terminal values besides just pleasure, and that sadistic pleasures like this go against the total of our terminal values, so utilitarians shouldn’t allow these to cancel out torture.