I'm indebted to my Econ 101 professor for teaching me that this is not the case. He was discussing the decision "You have a pristine prairie next to a Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart wants to pave it to make it a parking lot. What are the pros and cons of this?"
Someone pointed out that, if you turn it into a parking lot, you can never get the prairie back, but if it turns out you really need the parking lot you can make that transformation at a later date. My teacher said "Ah, but after it is Tuesday, you will forever lose the use of the parking lot on Monday if you haven't already built it. You can't ever get that day back."
This concept is widely applicable -- for example, many pro-life folks say the death penalty is irreversible and that this is a strike against it. I happen to be pro-life but am not persuaded by this, because prison is also irreversible. After you've locked someone up for ten years and discovered, whoops, he was innocent, you can free him but you can't free him ten years ago.
(This is a philosophical point with serious policy implications: if you buy it, you'd want to shift your resources from opposing the death penalty qua death penalty to ensuring fair trials generally.)
If I tell you your wife cheated on you with someone else. Is that statement really reversible? You're either going to hate my guts for lying or hate hers for cheating. You may find peace with it, but you can't un-hear that statement.
Actually, if you hit yourself in the head really hard very soon after, it won't be committed to long term memory. Blissful ignorance! Now why does my head hurt?
I never argued that life is an exciting ball of non-stop enjoyment. Sad things happen.
(And I may be a bit odd here, but I am not the jealous type. If you want to sleep with someone else from time to time, then do so. It's fun.)
So my point is... I'm not even sure what we are arguing about anymore.
Ending a healthy person's life without their consent "can be" less severe than intercepting their email... because life is not always 100% enjoyable? I still don't buy that.
I feel that making somebody's life a living hell can be more severe than simply ending it, yes. That's my opinion and I don't need you to agree with that. The point I'm making is that reasonable people can disagree on which is the more severe crime and which deserves the tougher sentence.
