Topics Ethics

Question A few people are born with a rare disorder that prevents these people from feeling pain. Is "hurting" these people - i.e. doing to them things that would cause others to feel pain but don't have much of an effect on these people - just as morally significant as hurting people who do feel pain? (Let's assume there are no long-lasting injuries involved.) I ask not because I want permission to hit people, but because I wonder how closely related pain as a neurological phenomenon is to suffering as a moral phenomenon.

Accepted:
April 12, 2012

Comments

Part of what makes it wrong to hit or torture people is surely that such behavior causes pain. It follows naturally that, when such conduct is wrong, it is more wrong when it inflicts more pain. An unprovoked slap on your thigh by a stranger is a lesser wrong than a full strength blow to your nose.

By the same logic, it would seem to be less wrong to hit a stranger if you ensure (perhaps by first inviting him to a good glass of Scotch or through prior local anaesthesia) that he feels little or no pain. And it would then also seem less wrong if you hit his "bad" leg (where he has lost feeling after a botched appendicitis) rather than his "good" leg (which has normal pain sensitivity). This is easily extended to saying that it is less wrong to hit one stranger's "bad" leg than another stranger's "good" leg. And this in turn pretty much is the proposition you query: other things equal, a behavior is less wrong if it causes less pain.

Of course, it does not follow that a behavior is not wrong if it causes no pain. Hitting someone may well be wrong even if it causes no pain at all. It invades the other's personal space, possibly humiliates him, violating his dignity and self-respect. Still, the behavior would be even more wrong if it also inflicted pain.