Quote:
Originally Posted by Lucem Ferre
No, because you're assuming that he'll always be suffering. You're likely preventing any chance of him to feel something that isn't suffering. It's also a very very lazy way to end his suffering.
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so your objection is that I can't accurately predict the suffering that will be caused/prevented
I would argue that is also true of most of the thought experiments meant to argue in favor of utilitarianism.
E.G. your example of killing one child to save 100 people. That 1 person you kill might end up doing more to alleviate suffering than the other 100 combined. Or they might be a monster. Or somewhere in between. There is no way of knowing.
Let's say for the sake of argument (since all of this is already based on unrealistic hypothetical situations) that you somehow know for a fact that if you kill him you will alleviate more suffering than you cause. Is it still wrong?