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How bad and long lasting does pain have to be for death to be good?

ToukaKirishima August 24, 2017 at 17:22 3250 views 5 comments
What do you think?

Comments (5)

Michael Ossipoff August 24, 2017 at 17:45 #99961
Reply to ToukaKirishima

I don't think that there's any rule about that.

If any individual feels that suffering, physical pain, or disability due to an injury or disease is sufficiently lowering his/her quality of life, then s/he is fully justified in auto-euthanasia. ...and is rightfully entitled to physician-assisted auto-euthanasia.

Michael Ossipoff
unenlightened August 24, 2017 at 20:18 #99977
I do not know, and I hope none of us finds out.

But suppose you had suffered such pain a year ago, and survived against your will, would you regret your survival from the position of not being now in pain?
VagabondSpectre August 24, 2017 at 20:19 #99978
Really really bad, and permanent (with no reprieve or reward of any kind).
BC August 24, 2017 at 20:48 #99991
Reply to ToukaKirishima "How bad and long lasting does pain have to be for death to be good?"

Pain can be subjectively rated; to some extent it can be described. It's not possible to rate pain objectively, nor describe it objectively. The best one can do is create a subjective consensus about the kinds of pain and what subjectively severe pain does to one life.

I've experienced what I would call moderate pain quite a few times, some have a fairly long (2 months) duration. I could stand that kind of pain. I've experienced severe pain (burns, post surgical pain, broken bones) quite a few times, but the pain did not last long. If this severe pain was expected to last a long time, I wouldn't be able to hold out indefinitely.

There are two kinds of pain that I find difficult to tolerate: Very sharp, very strong 'stinging' pain (like that from a burn) or very strong dull-type pain accompanied by the feeling of 'coming apart'. Lower back pain might be an example -- not just pain, but the feeling of one's back being dislocated (which, of course, it wasn't).
_db August 24, 2017 at 21:18 #100004
It's hard to say how much pain is necessary for survival to be lexically removed. I can't give you a precise amount but I would say that any amount of pain that would make you wish you hadn't woken up that day would be enough to make death a good.

This would seem to make the amount of pain a lot less than you might have had in mind.