This is very bizarre situation and difficult to think about but I think there’s a chance I would press the button. My main issue is that children require some kind of protection because they’re our only source of valuable adults. Childhood is probably the worst time to torture people in terms of long-term side effects. But in terms of merely causing the experience of suffering (which I think is what you’re getting at) I think torture is value-neutral.
This is a slightly different matter to the one I initially posted about; I don’t think the experience of pain (or happiness) is cumulative. Consider the situation where I could choose to be tortured for a year to receive a reward. If you could strip this scenario of long-term side effects, which would probably require erasing my memory afterwards, then I would willingly undergo the torture for a reward. The reward would have to compensatory for the loss of time, the discomfort and the impracticality of the scenario. If I really liked pie I’d probably be willing to undergo 5 minutes of torture without long-term side effects for pie. Actually, I’d probably be willing to do it for 5 minutes purely out of curiosity.
Now, the child in question, assuming he or she has no value and comes from a community where he or she would not become a valuable adult, could not have long-term side effects. He or she would surely be changed by the situation but not being a value-contributor could not be changed for the worse; any change would be value-neutral in terms of benefit to the cumulative wealth of society. (There is a possibility that the child would become a greater strain on society, and acquire greater negative value, but let’s put this aside and say there are no major long-term side effects of the torture such as loss of function.)
A complication here is the value I place on pie in your scenario would be unlikely given how I determine value generally. As I said, I do not consider the experience of pain or pleasure cumulative, and consider them value-neutral in general. I would not place a high value on the consumption of pie. But let us say that my love of pie is a part of my general need to stay healthy and happy in order to be a value-contributor. In this case, whether I push the button would be some function of the probability that the child might be a child of value or from a community that produces adults of value weighed against the value of pie to me as a value-contributor, so there’s a non-zero probability I would push the button.
This is very bizarre situation and difficult to think about but I think there’s a chance I would press the button. My main issue is that children require some kind of protection because they’re our only source of valuable adults. Childhood is probably the worst time to torture people in terms of long-term side effects. But in terms of merely causing the experience of suffering (which I think is what you’re getting at) I think torture is value-neutral.
This is a slightly different matter to the one I initially posted about; I don’t think the experience of pain (or happiness) is cumulative. Consider the situation where I could choose to be tortured for a year to receive a reward. If you could strip this scenario of long-term side effects, which would probably require erasing my memory afterwards, then I would willingly undergo the torture for a reward. The reward would have to compensatory for the loss of time, the discomfort and the impracticality of the scenario. If I really liked pie I’d probably be willing to undergo 5 minutes of torture without long-term side effects for pie. Actually, I’d probably be willing to do it for 5 minutes purely out of curiosity.
Now, the child in question, assuming he or she has no value and comes from a community where he or she would not become a valuable adult, could not have long-term side effects. He or she would surely be changed by the situation but not being a value-contributor could not be changed for the worse; any change would be value-neutral in terms of benefit to the cumulative wealth of society. (There is a possibility that the child would become a greater strain on society, and acquire greater negative value, but let’s put this aside and say there are no major long-term side effects of the torture such as loss of function.)
A complication here is the value I place on pie in your scenario would be unlikely given how I determine value generally. As I said, I do not consider the experience of pain or pleasure cumulative, and consider them value-neutral in general. I would not place a high value on the consumption of pie. But let us say that my love of pie is a part of my general need to stay healthy and happy in order to be a value-contributor. In this case, whether I push the button would be some function of the probability that the child might be a child of value or from a community that produces adults of value weighed against the value of pie to me as a value-contributor, so there’s a non-zero probability I would push the button.
It’s beside the point, but your idea of torture might be a bit light if you would undergo five minutes out of curiosity.
Maybe he’s thinking of water-boading.