I think suicide is a very poor measure of welfare for nonhuman animals, because they typically don’t understand death or how they could kill themselves, so it’s not an option they understand. I think you could plausibly torture farmed animals almost nonstop and they would generally not commit suicide. I’d expect the same to apply to typically developing toddlers, and it’s plausible to me that you could in principle shelter normally developing humans from understanding of death and suicide into adulthood, and torture them, and they too would not attempt suicide.
We (humans and other animals) also have instincts (especially fear) that deter us from committing suicide or harming ourselves regardless of our quality of life, and nonhuman animals rely on instinct more, so I’d expect suicide rates to underestimate the prevalence of bad lives.
Presumably cloud happen earlier in kids with a better developmental environment, but suicide and murder at an age this young is going to come from outliers that lived in a hellish developmental environment.
Not sure about ages < 1 or 2 years of age, but:
1. We think that beyond a certain point of brain development abortion is acceptable since the kid is not in any way “human”. So why not start you argument there ? and if you do, well, you reach a very tricky gray line
2. Surgeons did use to think toddlers couldn’t feel “pain” the way we do and operate on them without anesthesia. This was stopped due to concerns/proof of PTSD, not due to anyone remembering the exact experience, after all there’s a lot of traumatic pain one goes through before the age of 1 that none will remember. Conscious experience might be present at that age but… this is really arguable. People don’t have memories at ages bellow 1 or 2 and certainly no memories indicative of conscious experience. It might exist, but I think this falls in the same realms as “monkeys” rather than fully fledged humans in terms of certainty.
and it’s plausible to me that you could in principle shelter normally developing humans from understanding of death and suicide into adulthood, and torture them, and they too would not attempt suicide.
This I find, harder to believe, but it could be a good thought experiment to counter my intuition if I ever have the time to mold it into a form that fits my own conception of the world and of people.
We (humans and other animals) also have instincts (especially fear) that deter us from committing suicide or harming ourselves regardless of our quality of life, and nonhuman animals rely on instinct more, so I’d expect suicide rates to underestimate the prevalence of bad lives.
I don’t see how this undermines the point, unless you want to argue the “fear” of death can be so powerful one can lead what is essentially a negative value life because an instinct to not die (similarly to, say, how one would be able to feel pain from a certain muscle twitch yet be unable to stop in until it becomes unbearable).
I don’t necessarily disagree with this perspective, but from this angle you reach a antinatalist utilitarian view of “Kill every single form of potentially conscious life in a painless way as quickly as possible, and most humans for good measure, and either have a planet with no life, or with very few forms of conscious life that have nothing to cause them harm”. No matter how valid this perspective is, almost by definition it will never make it into the zeitgeist and it’s fairly pointless to think about since it’s impossible to act upon and the moral downside of being wrong would be gigantic.
I think understanding of death is largely experiential (witnessing death) and conceptual (passed on through language), and intentional suicide attempt would further require understanding what would kill you. Maybe people could infer some things based on their experience with sleep, though.
Here’s an article on the development of understanding of death in children; it seems they tend to start to understand at 3 years old. I would expect understanding of suicide to generally come later still. Do you think 2-3 year olds can have lives worse than death despite not committing suicide or being able do judge that their lives are/will be worse than death? I’d expect there will be periods for most children where they can speak and be taught to understand death and suicide, but since they won’t have been taught yet, they won’t understand.
An individual’s experience of torture could be similar to ours, and we could deprive them of all pleasure, too, so on a hedonistic account, it wouldn’t at all be plausible that their life is good, and yet they might not understand death and suicide enough to attempt suicide. If we think their hedonistic experiences are sufficiently similar to ours, even though they don’t have well-informed preferences, we can make judgements in their place.
On a preferential account of value, if an individual doesn’t recognize or understand an option and then fails to choose it, we can’t conclude that that option is worse for that individual. This is also an everyday issue for typical adult humans given our very limited understanding, but it’s worse the more ill-informed the preferences, especially in children and nonhuman animals. If you generally take an individual’s actions as indicating what’s best for them, then we shouldn’t stop children from sticking forks into electrical outlets or touching hot stovetops.
1. We think that beyond a certain point of brain development abortion is acceptable since the kid is not in any way “human”. So why not start you argument there ? and if you do, well, you reach a very tricky gray line
I don’t start my argument there precisely because it’s a grey area for consciousness. I chose examples I’d expect you to accept as conscious and capable of suffering (although it seems you have doubts), and would generally not commit suicide even if tortured.
People don’t have memories at ages bellow 1 or 2 and certainly no memories indicative of conscious experience.
I’m guessing you mean episodic memories? Children that young (and farmed animals) certainly remember things like words, individuals, how to do things, etc.. There’s also research on episodic-like memory in many different species of nonhuman animals, not just the obviously smart ones (I haven’t looked into similar research for young children). Also dreams seem relevant.
I don’t see how this undermines the point, unless you want to argue the “fear” of death can be so powerful one can lead what is essentially a negative value life because an instinct to not die (similarly to, say, how one would be able to feel pain from a certain muscle twitch yet be unable to stop in until it becomes unbearable).
I don’t necessarily disagree with this perspective, but from this angle you reach a antinatalist utilitarian view of “Kill every single form of potentially conscious life in a painless way as quickly as possible, and most humans for good measure, and either have a planet with no life, or with very few forms of conscious life that have nothing to cause them harm”.
It’s also possible for an individual to be so focused on the present that any suicide attempt would feel worse than what they’re otherwise feeling at that moment (which could still be overall bad), and this would prevent them from doing it. This can be the case even if it would prevent more intense suffering later. Again, however, I think farmed animals just usually don’t understand suicide properly as an option.
My point is that suicide is not a good objective measure on its own. I think suicide attempt is fairly strong evidence of misery, but absence of suicide attempt is really not very good evidence for a life better than death, because of the obstacles (understanding, fear, access to suicide methods, guilt, etc.).
I think suicide is a very poor measure of welfare for nonhuman animals, because they typically don’t understand death or how they could kill themselves, so it’s not an option they understand. I think you could plausibly torture farmed animals almost nonstop and they would generally not commit suicide. I’d expect the same to apply to typically developing toddlers, and it’s plausible to me that you could in principle shelter normally developing humans from understanding of death and suicide into adulthood, and torture them, and they too would not attempt suicide.
We (humans and other animals) also have instincts (especially fear) that deter us from committing suicide or harming ourselves regardless of our quality of life, and nonhuman animals rely on instinct more, so I’d expect suicide rates to underestimate the prevalence of bad lives.
Very quick search reveals suicide as young as 6:
https://ewn.co.za/2019/10/10/youngest-person-to-ever-commit-suicide-in-sa-was-a-six-year-old-sadag
Murder as young as 4:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_youngest_killers
Presumably cloud happen earlier in kids with a better developmental environment, but suicide and murder at an age this young is going to come from outliers that lived in a hellish developmental environment.
Not sure about ages < 1 or 2 years of age, but:
1. We think that beyond a certain point of brain development abortion is acceptable since the kid is not in any way “human”. So why not start you argument there ? and if you do, well, you reach a very tricky gray line
2. Surgeons did use to think toddlers couldn’t feel “pain” the way we do and operate on them without anesthesia. This was stopped due to concerns/proof of PTSD, not due to anyone remembering the exact experience, after all there’s a lot of traumatic pain one goes through before the age of 1 that none will remember. Conscious experience might be present at that age but… this is really arguable. People don’t have memories at ages bellow 1 or 2 and certainly no memories indicative of conscious experience. It might exist, but I think this falls in the same realms as “monkeys” rather than fully fledged humans in terms of certainty.
This I find, harder to believe, but it could be a good thought experiment to counter my intuition if I ever have the time to mold it into a form that fits my own conception of the world and of people.
I don’t see how this undermines the point, unless you want to argue the “fear” of death can be so powerful one can lead what is essentially a negative value life because an instinct to not die (similarly to, say, how one would be able to feel pain from a certain muscle twitch yet be unable to stop in until it becomes unbearable).
I don’t necessarily disagree with this perspective, but from this angle you reach a antinatalist utilitarian view of “Kill every single form of potentially conscious life in a painless way as quickly as possible, and most humans for good measure, and either have a planet with no life, or with very few forms of conscious life that have nothing to cause them harm”. No matter how valid this perspective is, almost by definition it will never make it into the zeitgeist and it’s fairly pointless to think about since it’s impossible to act upon and the moral downside of being wrong would be gigantic.
I think understanding of death is largely experiential (witnessing death) and conceptual (passed on through language), and intentional suicide attempt would further require understanding what would kill you. Maybe people could infer some things based on their experience with sleep, though.
Here’s an article on the development of understanding of death in children; it seems they tend to start to understand at 3 years old. I would expect understanding of suicide to generally come later still. Do you think 2-3 year olds can have lives worse than death despite not committing suicide or being able do judge that their lives are/will be worse than death? I’d expect there will be periods for most children where they can speak and be taught to understand death and suicide, but since they won’t have been taught yet, they won’t understand.
An individual’s experience of torture could be similar to ours, and we could deprive them of all pleasure, too, so on a hedonistic account, it wouldn’t at all be plausible that their life is good, and yet they might not understand death and suicide enough to attempt suicide. If we think their hedonistic experiences are sufficiently similar to ours, even though they don’t have well-informed preferences, we can make judgements in their place.
On a preferential account of value, if an individual doesn’t recognize or understand an option and then fails to choose it, we can’t conclude that that option is worse for that individual. This is also an everyday issue for typical adult humans given our very limited understanding, but it’s worse the more ill-informed the preferences, especially in children and nonhuman animals. If you generally take an individual’s actions as indicating what’s best for them, then we shouldn’t stop children from sticking forks into electrical outlets or touching hot stovetops.
I don’t start my argument there precisely because it’s a grey area for consciousness. I chose examples I’d expect you to accept as conscious and capable of suffering (although it seems you have doubts), and would generally not commit suicide even if tortured.
I’m guessing you mean episodic memories? Children that young (and farmed animals) certainly remember things like words, individuals, how to do things, etc.. There’s also research on episodic-like memory in many different species of nonhuman animals, not just the obviously smart ones (I haven’t looked into similar research for young children). Also dreams seem relevant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episodic-like_memory
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/147470491301100307
It’s also possible for an individual to be so focused on the present that any suicide attempt would feel worse than what they’re otherwise feeling at that moment (which could still be overall bad), and this would prevent them from doing it. This can be the case even if it would prevent more intense suffering later. Again, however, I think farmed animals just usually don’t understand suicide properly as an option.
My point is that suicide is not a good objective measure on its own. I think suicide attempt is fairly strong evidence of misery, but absence of suicide attempt is really not very good evidence for a life better than death, because of the obstacles (understanding, fear, access to suicide methods, guilt, etc.).