A dust speck takes a second to remove from your eye. But it is sufficiently painful, unpleasant, or distracting that you will take that second to remove it from your eye, forsaking all other actions or thoughts for that one second. If a typical human today can expect to live for 75 years, then one second is a one-in-2.3-billion part of a life. And that part of that life is indeed taken away from that person; since they surely are not pursuing any other end for the second it takes to remove that dust speck. If all moments of life were considered equal, then 2.3 billion dust specks would be the equal to one life spent entirely dealing with constant — but instant, which is to say, memoryless — moments of unpleasant distraction.
One of the things that is distracting about the word “torture” is that in our world, torture is something that is inflicted by some person. Someone in agonizing pain from, say, cancer, is not literally being tortured; that is, no agent chose to put that person in that situation. Human values consider the badness of an agent’s intentional, malicious action to be worse than the equivalent consequence caused by non-agent phenomena. Torture implies a torturer.
It seems to me that one distinction between suffering and pain is that suffering includes a term for the knowledge that I am being diminished by what is happening to me: it is not merely negative utility, but undermines my ability to seek utility. Torture — actual torture — has further negative consequences after the torture itself is over: in diminution of the victim’s physical and psychological health, alteration of their values and other aspects of their psyche. To ask me to envision “50 years of torture” followed by no further negative consequence is to ask me to envision something so contrary to fact as to become morally misleading in and of itself.
So rather than “torture vs. dust specks”, if we say “fifty years of constant, memoryless, unpleasant distraction vs. 3^^^3 dust specks”, then I would certainly favor DISTRACTION over SPECKS.
Some considerations:
A dust speck takes a second to remove from your eye. But it is sufficiently painful, unpleasant, or distracting that you will take that second to remove it from your eye, forsaking all other actions or thoughts for that one second. If a typical human today can expect to live for 75 years, then one second is a one-in-2.3-billion part of a life. And that part of that life is indeed taken away from that person; since they surely are not pursuing any other end for the second it takes to remove that dust speck. If all moments of life were considered equal, then 2.3 billion dust specks would be the equal to one life spent entirely dealing with constant — but instant, which is to say, memoryless — moments of unpleasant distraction.
One of the things that is distracting about the word “torture” is that in our world, torture is something that is inflicted by some person. Someone in agonizing pain from, say, cancer, is not literally being tortured; that is, no agent chose to put that person in that situation. Human values consider the badness of an agent’s intentional, malicious action to be worse than the equivalent consequence caused by non-agent phenomena. Torture implies a torturer.
It seems to me that one distinction between suffering and pain is that suffering includes a term for the knowledge that I am being diminished by what is happening to me: it is not merely negative utility, but undermines my ability to seek utility. Torture — actual torture — has further negative consequences after the torture itself is over: in diminution of the victim’s physical and psychological health, alteration of their values and other aspects of their psyche. To ask me to envision “50 years of torture” followed by no further negative consequence is to ask me to envision something so contrary to fact as to become morally misleading in and of itself.
So rather than “torture vs. dust specks”, if we say “fifty years of constant, memoryless, unpleasant distraction vs. 3^^^3 dust specks”, then I would certainly favor DISTRACTION over SPECKS.
I think concentrating specks in one person over the course of her life increases the magnitude of the harm non-linearly.
Yes, it does. But not to the ratio of 3^^^3 over 2.3 billion.