On morality: Death vs extreme suffering

[Meatball]

(27th January 2010 22:22)Saerules Wrote:  If you are killing someone/something: what does it matter that they will feel pain before they die...? Once they are dead, it isn't like they are going to remember that their death hurt.

I don't think that death wipes the slate clean as that argument could be used to justify anything.

• I stole that man's car, but he died 30 years later of a stroke, so it isn't like he is going to remember that his car was stolen.
• I ordered the imprisonment and execution of millions of people but they and their families have been dead for 60 years now so it isn't like they are going to remember it.

I think morality has to come from the perspective of the here and now, without regard for any future state.

I'm just babbling between doing real work right now, so that might be incoherent.

[Violet Lilly Blossom]

No no... it makes plenty of sense.

But perhaps if it is an extremely short term pain, say seconds, or minutes perhaps?

Does the fact that there was pain matter so much if one dies fairly quickly?

Although i do understand what you mean by

Meatball Wrote:I think morality has to come from the perspective of the here and now, without regard for any future state.

I wonder if it is necessarily so clear-cut?

[Moros Synackaon]

No one really wants to die, unless they have convinced themselves that life no longer is worth living. The body itself will do its damndest to keep alive, even attempting to restimulate and rewire sections of the brain to keep a few more moments of life (Read: thats why people who die slowly from traumatic and terminal injuries thrash around in their last moments, and why brain activity becomes incredibly erratic, like a seizure is occurring).

Death is the last resort in an errand of mercy and should be treated on a case by case basis with much consideration.

[HalcyonicTrust]

Good post Watson.

Now, in response to Sae,

It may not matter to a person that they felt pain before their death (it can't matter to them now, they're dead), but it certainly mattered at the time they felt pain and at the time you were killing them. And it certainly matters to others. Even though the person may be dead now and, say, they have no family members or close friends so no one is grieving, it is still best they are arrested, for very obvious reasons I would think. At least intuitively. One way of putting it would be that, someone who murders people (a murderer) isn't the sort of person you want roaming around free... they need locking up. They may never even do anything remotely like it again - but we can't see into the future and the best bet is people who do stuff like that certainly need locking up!

EvF