This whole discussion seems to hinge on the possibly misleading choice of the word “torture” in the original thought-experiment. Words can be wrong and one way is to sneak in connotations and misleading vividness — and I think that’s what’s going on here.
The point is that a choice between the two is made. How the choice is instantiated is entirely irrelevant, saving that it be done in equivalent manners. (I.e.; if torture → torturer, then speck → specker && if torture !-> torturer; then speck !-> specker)
And that’s what I think is going on here: it’s not that 3^^^3 is a big number; it’s that a torturer is an agent and the wind (exemplary deliverer of dust specks) is not.
That would invalidate equivalency between the two options, however. We needn’t go that far. As I originally said; if the question is meant merely to derive whether a person views suffering to operate linearly for quantification purposes, as opposed to logarithmically, then restricting the topic to immediate suffering is sensible. However, the question was not phrased in that manner: it was instead asked to derive which of the two options is preferable to a consequentialistic utilitarian. And my argument simply put was that a culture that permits such tortures to occur—either at the hand of an agent or otherwise—faces significantly greater secondary consequences than are associated with 3^^^3 dust-speckings. Not the least of which is the ancillary suffering experienced by those cognizant of the suffering who can do nothing to prevent it; and the resulting increases in suffering in general caused by the presence of at least one individual suffering to that extremity—or, rather, caused by the innurement to human suffering engendered in a non-zero percentage of individuals aware of that suffering. And then there’s the question of self-determination; the tortured individual is bereft of all ability to achieve individual utility—all forms of utility, whereas the 3^^^3 speckees recieve only a barely noticeable disutility of displeasure and are otherwise almost entirely unaffected. (It’s possible a non-zero portion of those individuals might have accidents or the like, but given how infrequently getting a dust-speck in your eye causes traffic accidents—as in, I can find no record of such an incident—that’s negligible.)
I hope this clears up any confusion here as to the nature of my argument.
The point is that a choice between the two is made. How the choice is instantiated is entirely irrelevant, saving that it be done in equivalent manners. (I.e.; if torture → torturer, then speck → specker && if torture !-> torturer; then speck !-> specker)
That would invalidate equivalency between the two options, however. We needn’t go that far. As I originally said; if the question is meant merely to derive whether a person views suffering to operate linearly for quantification purposes, as opposed to logarithmically, then restricting the topic to immediate suffering is sensible. However, the question was not phrased in that manner: it was instead asked to derive which of the two options is preferable to a consequentialistic utilitarian. And my argument simply put was that a culture that permits such tortures to occur—either at the hand of an agent or otherwise—faces significantly greater secondary consequences than are associated with 3^^^3 dust-speckings. Not the least of which is the ancillary suffering experienced by those cognizant of the suffering who can do nothing to prevent it; and the resulting increases in suffering in general caused by the presence of at least one individual suffering to that extremity—or, rather, caused by the innurement to human suffering engendered in a non-zero percentage of individuals aware of that suffering. And then there’s the question of self-determination; the tortured individual is bereft of all ability to achieve individual utility—all forms of utility, whereas the 3^^^3 speckees recieve only a barely noticeable disutility of displeasure and are otherwise almost entirely unaffected. (It’s possible a non-zero portion of those individuals might have accidents or the like, but given how infrequently getting a dust-speck in your eye causes traffic accidents—as in, I can find no record of such an incident—that’s negligible.)
I hope this clears up any confusion here as to the nature of my argument.