B) Having your IQ and cognitive abilities lowered then being tortured.
EDIT:
I am asking because it is useful to consider pure self interest because it seems like a failure of a moral theory if it suggests people act outside of their self interest without some compensating goodness. If I want to eat an apple but my moral theory says that shouldn’t even though doing so wouldn’t harm anyone else, that seems like a point against that moral theory.
I see. Makes sense. I was giving long term memory formation an example of a way you could remove part of my self and decrease how much I objected to being tortured, but it’s not the only way.
Different cognitive abilities would matter in some ways for how much suffering is actually experienced but not as much as most people think. There are also situations where it seems like it could increase the amount an animal suffers by. While a chicken is being tortured it would not really be able to hope that the situation will change.
A) Being tortured as you are now
B) Having your IQ and cognitive abilities lowered then being tortured.
EDIT:
I am asking because it is useful to consider pure self interest because it seems like a failure of a moral theory if it suggests people act outside of their self interest without some compensating goodness. If I want to eat an apple but my moral theory says that shouldn’t even though doing so wouldn’t harm anyone else, that seems like a point against that moral theory.
Different cognitive abilities would matter in some ways for how much suffering is actually experienced but not as much as most people think. There are also situations where it seems like it could increase the amount an animal suffers by. While a chicken is being tortured it would not really be able to hope that the situation will change.
Strong preference for (B), having my cognitive abilities lowered to the point that there’s no longer anyone there to experience the torture.