Are guillotines considered enlightened?

Nobody really knows if the guilotined loose consciousness instantly since nobody has been able to come back and tell.

The French chemist Antoine Lavoisier supported the French Revolution but his past as a tax collector caused him to fall out of favor with the revolutionaries who sent him to the guillotine. As a man of science Lavoisier carried out one final experiment. He told his colleagues that after beheading he would blink if he was able. It is reported that he managed to blink for about 10 seconds after his decapitation. There are several other stories of the disembodied head responding to a pin prick or to their name being called several seconds after the blade fell.

Of course the guillotine was rather enlightened compared to many other means of execution. Many methods were designed to proling the suffering and humiliation as long as possible. Drawing and quartering, the breaking wheel, and burning at the stake were particularily unpleasent ends.

Decapitation existed before the guilotine; typically by a swung axe or sword. For important convicts highly skilled swordmen were used to reduce the chance of a poorly placed strike. The condemned also tipped the executioner to bribe them to dispatch them with a single blow rather than a messy multiple strike execution.

Our current method of death by lethal injection has come under scrutiny. The current protocol is to administer 3 drugs with one of the 3 paralyzing the condemned. Since the condemned is paralyzed they could be in excruciating pain but unable to move or communicate their discomfort. Post execution blood analysis revealed in most cases the amount of anesthetic would be insufficient to render a surgical patient unconscious and the other two drugs are capable of causing excruciating pain.

It could be the guilotine is more enlightened than our most popular modern means of execution.