Injury vs. Death

[Simplicius]

I didn't see this in a cursory search; it's meant as a simple question.

If one must choose between inflicting serious (but non-fatal) injury on an absurd scale, or causing the death of a single person, which is the least harmful choice?

(I'm personally inclined to think that ending a life is the most severe due to its utter irrevocability, but tearing off the limbs of a billion people would sow pain and suffering on a tremendous scale. Would that sort of scaling effect ever have weight in a hypothetical?)

[Junghalli]

I'm inclined to say preventing one death justifies any amount of non-fatal suffering, because death completely robs the individual of the ability to experience anything ever again, whereas injury does not.

[Broomstick]

That statement makes me inclined to think you've never witnessed just how much suffering can happen to an individual.

So...you'd prefer an injury that causes you severe and unrelenting pain in all your limbs for the rest of your life, years and years of agony, but won't kill you? You'd prefer a hundred or a thousand or million people to suffer such pain for decades to prevent a single death?

If you are injured so as to leave you blind, deaf, and lacking all four limbs you will be able to "experience" things, but I question how useful or desirable such experience would be.

[Lord of the Abyss]

If one must choose between inflicting serious (but non-fatal) injury on an absurd scale, or causing the death of a single person, which is the least harmful choice?

Death. Death is just nothingness; suffering hurts. Extreme suffering makes life into a negative value.

[Zadius]

There's a reason the Bible threatens eternal torture; it's far worse than death.

[Junghalli]

So...you'd prefer an injury that causes you severe and unrelenting pain in all your limbs for the rest of your life, years and years of agony, but won't kill you?

Yes. I find the thought of effectively ceasing to exist far more frightening than physical pain, for the most part.

You'd prefer a hundred or a thousand or million people to suffer such pain for decades to prevent a single death?

I suppose if you start permanently lowering quality of life for truly massive numbers of people it does start to become more ambiguous. If we're just talking about a few people then I think the death of one person is worse than lowering quality of life several, but when you get into huge numbers of people it becomes a different matter. As with most things, it's hard to hold to an absolute position when things get lopsided enough.

[CaptJodan]

I find suffering as something worse than death. For me, it doesn't matter on the scale of people suffering so much as the scale of suffering. One person suffering in mutiple ways with no real way of escape is far worse for me than offering that same person death.

I'd rather die than have some kind of eternal suffering, or a drastic lowering of quality of life. Ceasing to exist previously to when I was born, it wasn't that bad. I dare say ceasing to exist after can't be that much worse.

[Edi]

Got to echo Broomstick here. Just imagine having all of your non-spinal column and non-hip joints bent out of shape and broken and left to heal on their own without any medical attention beyond preventing fatal infections. You would never again have full use of your limbs. Knees, elbows, wrists, fingers, toes, ankles, maybe shoulders too. You'd be in agonizing pain every single moment of your life without the ability to do much of anything but scream in pain.

Or people who have suffered 3rd degree burns over significant portions of their bodies, they also can only scream in pain.

Imagine this kind of shit multiplied by dozens or hundreds or thousands or more.

Sorry, I'd off that one single person quickly and painlessly and be done.

Edi

[Aaron]

Speaking as someone who has to endure daily pain and disfigurement on a not to minimal scale there are days when I look upon death as a release.

[weemadando]

Death is easily the winner here.

[wolveraptor]

Death, easily. Though you're somewhat vague when you say, "on an absurd scale", I take it that you're talking about millions, if not hundreds of millions of people suffering intensely.

[defanatic]

Well, I guess it's a question of scale. e.g. 1 pin-prick that draws blood, to death... Well, I'm not going to die for that slight sting and drop of blood. How about two? Three? etc. Point is, I don't think there is a clear line.

[wolveraptor]

There's a clear line, but it's different for every person, i.e. subjective.

[Ghost Rider]

Well, I guess it's a question of scale. e.g. 1 pin-prick that draws blood, to death... Well, I'm not going to die for that slight sting and drop of blood. How about two? Three? etc. Point is, I don't think there is a clear line.

He does say "an absurd scale". Now, what one considers absurd is in some thought, but I am doubting he is thinking a couple thumbtacks on one's ass.

As for the topic, death. I've seen two relatives live through shit that killed them in the end, and the suffering through cancer was immense. On a scale that honestly it's not worth living if every day is pain.

[Simplicius]

I'm not sure if this really matters, but by "absurd scale" I meant quantity, i.e. one dead person against, say, 100 000+ injured. "Serious injury" was specified in order to eliminate sprains, paper cuts, etc., but the injury in question doesn't have to be as horrific as Edi imagined. The purpose of the question was to weigh the respective ethical importance of quantity, as represented by injury, and quality, as represented by death. Is is better to prevent a lesser harm suffered by a greater number of people, or to prevent a greater harm suffered by a few?

I'll try stating things a bit more concretely. Suppose you, wielding grand and mysterious power, could prevent one of the following:

-one hundred million people having their legs torn off in freak tree-climbing accidents, knowing that if you do not save them they will suffer until the injury heals, after which point they will remain alive but crippled; or

-one death

Which would then be the most ethical choice?

For both the scenario and the more abstract question, I find it difficult to find an answer which is consistently satisfactory. I would assume that losing one's legs and recovering generally does not count as an injury worth ending a life over - at the very least, people do survive such injury and cope with the associated pain afterword. Given that the scenario guarantees that the injured parties will survive, the simplest answer seems to be to prevent the death. That way, there are the same number of people alive at the end as at the beginning.

What must be weighed against the death is awfully subjective, but certainly can't be idly dismissed. For starters, that's 200 million missing legs. A hundred million of people will need to adapt physically and psychologically (that adaptation will vary with the injury, as well). There will be some emotional burden on their families and friends while the injured parties adapt. And, let's not forget, recovering from a serious injury can be extremely expensive. Whether all of that is worth one human life or not, I certainly can't tell.
____

The other possibility is that the hypothetical is too cluttered, or otherwise inadequate to address the general question. If the consensus is that this is the case, I will work on another one.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Well, as to the question asked above:

I'm not sure if this really matters, but by "absurd scale" I meant quantity, i.e. one dead person against, say, 100 000+ injured. "Serious injury" was specified in order to eliminate sprains, paper cuts, etc., but the injury in question doesn't have to be as horrific as Edi imagined. The purpose of the question was to weigh the respective ethical importance of quantity, as represented by injury, and quality, as represented by death. Is is better to prevent a lesser harm suffered by a greater number of people, or to prevent a greater harm suffered by a few?

This is an important question if you come from a Utilitarian perspective, specfically because of the difficulty in mathematically weighing these things and comming up with an answer that doesn't make you feel like all solutions were distasteful inthe end. It has been asked a lot in ethics because that particular philosophy deals (or can deal) with the average utility experienced by each person affected--ironically, this is usually a scenario that is made to attack Utilitarianism due to its aggregative effects as well as difficultity with preference/suffering commesurability. It's awefully subjective at points. People tend not to like the aggregative affects of Utilitarianism, because Utility doesn't make a distinction in where the Utility lies, but only in how much of it there is (unless you use an averaging instead of net form).

As an aggregative philosophy, actual Utilitarianism cannot discount a much larger number of smaller-in-scope wrongs compared to much fewer, but more serious wrongs. However, it's not to say any larger amount of X would outweigh Y simply because of quantity. Although it assumes that wrongs can add up or accumulate with the number of cases, this can be modified to an extent, especially in the Singerian formulation of Preference Utilitarianism, which is largely interated in the Principle of Equality of Interests. Even so, the problem I believe still exists in that some things are very subjective, hard to measure and incommesurable. The basic idea is that one can take the interests of others into consideration without treating them exactly the same. If their interests are "equal" or "roughly equal" in scope and nature, then they recieve relatively equal weight with your own interests. This really begs the question though, since "what is equal or roughly equal?" How do you make those decisions? Guess?

What do we consider "worth more?" Intense, long term suffering, or a quick death? I am very skeptical of myself making the universal claim that it should always be that life trumps the alleviation of suffering, just as I would say that the alleviation of suffering itself is all that matters. I certainly do not believe that death is the worst thing you can do to someone. For example, I would think it much worse to be snapped in half and set on fire, only to be in pain and crippled in a bed for the rest of my life.

In the above scenario, you certainly made it clear that the pain and injury would be significant and fall into the realm of suffering. When I think of suffering, I think of excruciating pain and anguish. I think one would have not only to weigh the quantity of suffering, though, but measure the time involved. How long will they suffer? Imagine your finger being burned on the stove. Then multipy that to your whole lower body engulfed in flame or having something done to you that ammounts to torture. I think it would also depend on the after-affect. What will their life be like? If they were so horribly maimed or injured as to make life not worth living at that point, they might as well be dead.

-one hundred million people having their legs torn off in freak tree-climbing accidents, knowing that if you do not save them they will suffer until the injury heals, after which point they will remain alive but crippled; or

-one death

Which would then be the most ethical choice?

This is one problem in that some of the things we are required to measure according Utility are either not commesurable or very difficult to commesurate with other items.

In this particular case, I would say that it would be more unethical to allow millions of people to go through the tremendous trauma and suffering of having their limbs physically ripped from their sockets, having to be awake during it, and then having to suffering the averge decrease in life quality after that. At least being dead has the benefit of not suffering horribly over an extended period, which sounds morbid, but I would rather, personally, not lie in agony for hours with my lower torso ripped away.

It would ultimately depend, though, on a quasi-subjective weighing of wrongs. I don't think it would be valid to say life always matters more, since I am obviously in favour of euthanasia, both voluntary and non-voluntary in some cases I cannot really give an exact number, because the equation would get very difficult and I don't believe I am that advanced. Perhaps even if 50 people were going to suffer tremendously, it would be worth one person dying. Again, it boils down to whether or not death or horrible suffering is weighted more. A headonistic form of Utility would certainly say the intense suffering. Instinctually, I think that even if I had to choose on a lesser scale, I would choose the horrible suffering over the life, but if possible, I would try not to violate the conscious preference of the individuals.

I think it would be more morally reprehensible to tie two people to a chair and torture them daily than to just kill one of them and be done with it.

[Edi]

Again, in your scenario, killing that one person is the way to go. It will cause less suffering on the whole, especially when you factor in what the loved ones of those 100 million will have to go through in order to support their now crippled family members and the societal cost of taking care of them. It depends on what principles you use to make the determination, but in a scenario as absurd as this one is and where the scales are what they are (minuscule vs absolutely massive), it's not much of a dilemma.

Edi