To torture or not to torture? A question that troubles the West

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MultiCore said:
Okay, you just hit a buzz-phrase for me.

There are a lot of restrictions being put in place on anything you can think of, all in the name of "If we can save just 1 person/prevent 1 accident/ect then it was worth it".

As you might imagine, I find this train of logic to be overreaching. I find myself to be fond of my personal freedom, and the suggestion that my activities should be limited, because it would be in my own best interest, causes me great distress. (For instance, who in the heck has the right to tell me that I have to wear a seatbelt? No one, that's who.)

No amount of restrictive policy is going to solve all the world's problems, it is just going to reduce law-abiding citizens to zombies with little real choice.

As it pertains to torture: The odds of someone who has nothing to do with, oh, let's say a bomb threat on a US/UN/(insert favorite country/orginazation here) embassy being detained and interrogated are pretty slim. The key point is, we wouldn't be out to tourture people, we'd be out to save innocent bystanders. I think intent is important in this instance, as, from a morality standpoint, it makes all the difference.

Nobody intends to tourture an innocent person. You can bet your ass they intend to torutre someone who is withholding information that they believe, in good faith, could be used to prevent a large act of terror/violence/kitty killing/ect.
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You say the chances are slim but there have been numerous examples of people being tortured when they had no knowledge of something. I know nobody intends to torture anybody who is innocent, but there are always mistakes in intelligence gathering. If it was a perfect process then ok, but its not.
 
Kowak said:
You say the chances are slim but there have been numerous examples of people being tortured when they had no knowledge of something. I know nobody intends to torture anybody who is innocent, but there are always mistakes in intelligence gathering. If it was a perfect process then ok, but its not.
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That's my point in its entirety really: I don't think the the imperfect nature of the world is cause enough to take force off the table completely.
 
logen9999 said:
i take back my comment about not being polite anymore. it was a silly thing to say. we can have a much better discussion being polite and level headed.

having said that how exactly am i oversimplifying it? you're as guilty of it as i am since you're making an argument against it due to it being against the values of this country.

we can go hardcore and make this really detailed with bullet-points and statistics and everything. it will require a lot of time and commitment but it will be an extremely thorough and detailed discussion. or we can keep it to broad strokes which is what we've both been doing.

i feel like i've made an extremely solid, albeit general argument.
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Essentially, the difference is that he is saying it is a moral and ethical issue to torture in the first place, while you were providing "what if?" scenarios to support torture. You can look at both arguments as simplified if you want to, but to compare Duckroll's to yours is inaccurate, as he is saying that torture shouldn't happen in the first place due to it being outright wrong, as opposed to your general argument of hypothetical situations in which it would be needed.

hypothetical /= ethical

Also, sorry if I misrepresented either of your opinions, feel free to correct me.
 
Cyan said:
Ok, now let's say that if you pull a lever, the runaway trolley will go onto a different track, where it will kill one person. But if you don't pull it, it stays on the current track and kills 50,000 people!

Do you pull the lever?
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I'm interested to hear what others would do in this scenario.

I would definitely pull it. No matter who the one person was. I cannot fathom a situation where I wouldn't but I am open to GAF showing me the light.
 
kobashi100 said:
Why is it that when it comes to political views the only system that is acceptable is democracy and secularism?
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beacose it's the best system that humans currently have, it's not perfect, but it is the best out of all the avalible systems
 
theusedversion said:
I'm interested to hear what others would do in this scenario.

I would definitely pull it. No matter who the one person was. I cannot fathom a situation where I wouldn't but I am open to GAF showing me the light.
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its like The Dark Knight boat situation, you might think you could, but could you really?
 
Preventing violence with violence only provides escalation and will never, ever solve the problem. We are humans and right now humans will fight wars, destroy other countries, and demolish lives if they are allowed. So there is no answer, only do what you want and are able to do. Unless you are a citizen, in which case you will go to jail.
 
Enosh said:
beacose it's the best system that humans currently have, it's not perfect, but it is the best out of all the avalible systems
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Actually, I tend to think that democracy and secularism is only "the best" if a society is ready for it and I think every country arrives at that point at a different pace.

South Korea and Iraq are good examples of where dictators and totalitarian regimes, at the right time in history, can actually shape a country and expand it's economy and infrastructure more rapidly than through a democratic system.

Democracy is one of those things, because it's of the people, really has to come from the people to work. And by this I mean revolution or otherwise disposing of a dictator...when the time is right. That is when you know that people are ready for self-governance and democracy.
 
Kowak said:
its like The Dark Knight boat situation, you might think you could, but could you really?
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Lever pulled; 50,000 people saved; 1 person involved in unfortunate tragedy; instant hero!
Failed to pull lever; 1 person saved; 50,000 people killed due to inaction; world's biggest failure.

I don't see the dilemma.
 
CharlieDigital said:
Actually, I tend to think that democracy and secularism is only "the best" if a society is ready for it and I think every country arrives at that point at a different pace.

South Korea and Iraq are good examples of where dictators and totalitarian regimes, at the right time in history, can actually shape a country and expand it's economy and infrastructure more rapidly than through a democratic system.

Democracy is one of those things, because it's of the people, really has to come from the people to work. And by this I mean revolution or otherwise disposing of a dictator...when the time is right.
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Same for Brazil, it was a dictator that created the infrastructure for ethanol fuel, and now it's a profitable industry that doesn't require further government subsidies.
 
logen9999 said:
i mentioned only one hypothetical scenario. how is it different then what "really happens". explain to me what "really happens". if you're a knowledgeable person who is familiar with the details of intelligence gathering and the politics behind it please go nuts and educate me. I'm open minded enough to give you the benefit of the doubt so all you have to do is run with it.
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I'm not about to go digging up articles. Why should I do the leg work to disprove a hypothetical scenario you pulled out of your ass?

To put it in broad strokes:

1. You generally don't know for certian if someone is a terrorist when you torture him.
2. You generally don't know for certain if he knows anything
3. You generally don't know for certain if the information he is telling you is accurate.

By persuing torture with these uncertainties, you potentially waste time and resources, cut off other avenues of persuation that may have worked, draw a lot of negativity and scandals towards the military and the mission (which may jeapordize support of said mission), and last but not least, cause harm to innocent civilians.

By focusing on the off-chance hypothetical scenario where good make come out of torture, you are ignoring all the good that could have came out of not torturing.
 
MultiCore said:
Lever pulled; 50,000 people saved; 1 person involved in unfortunate tragedy; instant hero!
Failed to pull lever; 1 person saved; 50,000 people killed due to inaction; world's biggest failure.

I don't see the dilemma.
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i know it seems simple and I agree with the theory, but I think could I really do it? I personally doubt it, so I would pass it on to someone else. I believe in the greater good principle, but putting it into practice is something different.
 
Kowak said:
i know it seems simple and I agree with the theory, but I think could I really do it? I personally doubt it, so I would pass it on to someone else. I believe in the greater good principle, but putting it into practice is something different.
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You're a good man for that, and I don't belittle you for it in the least.

This is obviously a tough issue. The funny thing is, I'm not really a proponent of doing things "For the Greater Good". In fact, I find most things done under that banner to be disingenuous at best.
 
Enosh said:
beacose it's the best system that humans currently have, it's not perfect, but it is the best out of all the avalible systems
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Pretty much.

I prefer a tenth of all congress/parliament members being idiots with minute power over every tenth dictator or caliph being a moron with absolute power.
 
I came up with the perfect solution to this long ago.

Torture should always remain illegal, and a high crime at that. But we should still engage in it if the ultimate-holy-shit-ticking-timebomb-scenario ever came to be.

If it turns out in the end that torture did indeed save a million lives, then we can go easy on the punished or even pardon them outright. If not, then those involved in the torture knew what they were risking.

Don't jump on that grenade if you're not willing to be blown to bits.
 
MultiCore said:
Lever pulled; 50,000 people saved; 1 person involved in unfortunate tragedy; instant hero!
Failed to pull lever; 1 person saved; 50,000 people killed due to inaction; world's biggest failure.

I don't see the dilemma.
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By contrast, up here in Canada, our Parliament gets up in arms at the prospect that our government may have known about incidents of torture that may have occurred among Afghanistan detainees that our soldiers transferred to the Afghan authorities. And then the government cuts off a session of Parliament because they don't want to release unredacted documents either supporting or refuting the claims, on the grounds that they could all compromise operational security and international relations.
 
MultiCore said:
Lever pulled; 50,000 people saved; 1 person involved in unfortunate tragedy; instant hero!
Failed to pull lever; 1 person saved; 50,000 people killed due to inaction; world's biggest failure.

I don't see the dilemma.
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It's part of a series of questions that came out of social psychology in the 70s which were designed to get you thinking about taboo trade-offs and counterfactual heuristics.

For instance, the next question is usually: imagine a train is on a track about to run over 10 people. You're on a bridge above the track. You have the chance to throw 1 person off the bridge and in front of the train, thereby stopping the train before it reaches the 10 people. Would you throw one person in front of a train to save ten people?

Dilemmas get progressively more difficult as you vary personal blame and the number of lives saved.

Interestingly enough, moral psychology moved away from these sorts of dilemma questions in the 90s because they're unrealistic and never actually happen.

Sort of like ticking-bomb torture hypotheticals.
 
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