Torture – is it ever justified?

Until any of us are put in an ACTUAL situation where its suggested as a solution to uncover info that could save others lives or the lives of people we love i dont think any of us can accurately predict what we’d do.

i hope that none of us are ever put in that situation.

Thats pretty much my position its irritating when people can be so dogmatic from their place of comfort while at the same time other people are making the decisions.

Its the same question surfer and you won’t answer.

Of course it is ficticious The principle remains the same and is not changed by the fact the captive gives false information. To try to qualify that misses the point.

Ah, well I think using fictional scenarios to then extrapolate to real world usage misses the point 🙂

Surfer – its the same question an you won’t answer it.

that is a scenario where you would have to torture innocents to get the info you want.

So – you say its justifiable to torture one person to save thousands. Is it justifiable to torture thousands to save one knowing some of those thousands are innocent?

@TJ

You have asked several questions, all based around the same theme but different.

How many innocent villagers is it OK to torture to make sure you get the info?

How many innocent people is it justifiable to torture to save one life?

How many innocents is it justifiable to torture to get the piece of information you want. How many women? How many children

Prioritise them by all means or just higlight one.

Just answer it surfer.

ts only not obvious if you are hard of thinking.

Come on TJ – you’re avoiding the question!

What exactly constitutes torture? you’re repeatedly stated that international law prohibits torture, but fail to admit that the legal definition is very grey and imprecise.

What exactly constitutes severe pain and suffering?

I’ll offer you a couple of easy examples:

Sleep Deprivation
Tasering

None of these are life threatening, none is likely to result in permanent lasting physical harm or fear of death in the subject – which of them legally amounts to Torture?

Surfer – its the same question an you won’t answer it.

that is a scenario where you would have to torture innocents to get the info you want.

So – you say its justifiable to torture one person to save thousands. Is it justifiable to torture thousands to save one knowing some of those thousands are innocent?

Its not so I await your reply.

I think its conceivable that many people would disagree with you and would agree (no matter how distasteful) that it is acceptable to inflict torture on an individual if they felt their was a high degree of possibilty that they had information that could save their lives or lead to their release.
I can forsee a scenario that allows for the torture of lots to save one.

If Ton sits on your chest and tickles you with grass, is that torture?

Just answer it surfer.

Pick one.

The miracle of copy and paste even saves you typing.

Zulu – if you don’t understand I cannot explain it to you. Your moral compass is clearly sadly lacking.

None of these are life threatening, none is likely to result in permanent lasting physical harm or fear of death in the subject – which of them legally amounts to Torture?

In the secure world of TJ is pushing an arm up somebodies back torture?

Zulu – if you don’t understand I cannot explain it to you. Your moral compass is clearly sadly lacking.

Biggest Cop out ever. Answer the question!

Surfer – answer the question.

“is it justifiable to torture thousands of innocents to save one life?”

“is it justifiable to torture thousands of innocents to save one life?”

But they aren’t talking about saving just 1 life tho…

Zulu – you are being ridiculous even by your standards. Tehre is a legal definition. its clear and obvious.

And I actually agree, that yes, torture can be justified..

Teetoosugars – its about defining the boundaries of what is aceptable. i say torture is never acceptable – surfer says it is. I would like him to define the boundaries.
edit – in that case you answer the question.

Zulu – you are being ridiculous even by your standards. Tehre is a legal definition. its clear and obvious.

Go on then… edumacate us!

its about defining the boundaries of what is aceptable… .I would like him to define the boundaries.

Touche! 😉

Unfortunately , contradictory as it sounds, you may need to do terrible things to protect civil liberties and freedom like say torture, murder or carpet bomb dresden.
Sometimes the enemy does some really nasty things and you need to do nasty things to them to stop/prevent them.
I dont think anyone can be really pro torture any more than you can be pro war but we would , probably, all agree to it under extreme circumstances

No it is not accpeptable to torture thousands of innocent people to save one life- nor even hundreds
It probably is accepatable to torture 1 person to save thousands or hundreds though.

“is it justifiable to torture thousands of innocents to save one life?”

That’s a f*cking stupid question old chap, of course it is not, it is loaded to the point of falling over.

Listen to surfer and what he is trying to say, the main point being that it is very easy for you to draw moral absolutes from a point of zero experience or context. Obviously torture is wrong. It could also be argued that torture is actually quite a vague thing, for Winston Smith, it was the threat of rats. For others that would present no problem at all.

Unless you have had to go through the actual internal torture of deciding whether to exert physical pain on a person to further your own aims however morally high or low they are, you are merely pontificating from a point of ignorance.

Junkyard – Member

No it is not accpeptable to torture thousands of innocent people to save one life- nor even hundreds
It probably is accepatable to torture 1 person to save thousands or hundreds though.

Nail. On. Head.

and my alltime fave is ‘wedgies’ or ‘pooh tash’…….. 8)

Zulu – if you don’t understand I cannot explain it to you. Your moral compass is clearly sadly lacking.

Answer the question.

Unfortunately , contradictory as it sounds, you may need to do terrible things to protect civil liberties and freedom like say torture, murder or carpet bomb dresden.
Sometimes the enemy does some really nasty things and you need to do nasty things to them to stop/prevent them.

This was my first reaction too.

But TJ’s stance has made me think a bit more about the longer term implications of these actions. Sure Dresden getting levelled may have stopped the same happening to Birmingham, but in the longer term I can’t see that humanity have really gained anything by it. I’m not talking about our grandparents, parents, childrens and grandchildrens lives. I’m talking about us as a species, the more we perpetuate the idea that violence can be stopped by violence the more the cycle continues.

Bit heavy, but got me thinking a bit.

“is it justifiable to torture thousands of innocents to save one life?”

No its not.

So its not acceptable to torture thousands to save one , but it is acceptable to torture one to save thousands? is that your stance?

so how about torture one to save one? is that justifiable? How many people need to be at risk for the torture to be acceptable?

I am sorry – to me morals are absolute. if its wrong in one circumstance it is wrong in all circumstances.

Torture is never ever justifiable by a government or government agency. It brings shame on GB that our government was complicit in it.

Torture to prevent terrorism? One is as bad as the other and FFS sake what type of reliable info would you get when torturing someone?

TJ, once again:

International law prohibits “Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted…

What exactly constitutes severe pain or suffering?

as an example does, in your opinion, sleep deprivation, fulfil the legal definition of torture?

Answer the question!

Sadly TJ, we live in the real world, where this does go on..

And If you think that the UK Government don’t agree with it, then your sadly wrong..

So if you think it is acceptable to torture one person to save thousands. but not to torture thousands of people to save one here are some more awkward questions.

1) can you define a moral difference between the two situations?
2) is torturing one person to save one acceptable?

3) is torturing thousands to save thousands acceptable?

4) How many people need to be at risk to justify the torture?

I am sorry – to me morals are absolute.

So if our country was the one being invaded, if we were on the wrong end of the economic oppression so rife in the world, if our circumstances changed to a point where the world was seriously unfair to us, would that not affect your moral stance at all?

Can your morals not be changed? Are your morals a totally objective thing that you merely channel on to the world or are they actually a construct of your relatively safe life in one of the fairest countries in the world?

Morals ain’t absolute, they are dynamic constructs of society, I appreciate that you have a very strongly held views (ON EVERYTHING) but I can’t help but think that shouting about your moral fortitude from a position of essentially no power without actually ever having to put these high ideals to any sort of test is more than a little naive.

1) can you define a moral difference between the two situations?
Well in one you torture more thna you save in the other you save more thna you torture – will that do?
2) is torturing one person to save one acceptable?
If it is my child yes- depends who am i torturing and who am I trying to save?
3) is torturing thousands to save thousands acceptable?
Depends

4) How many people need to be at risk to justify the torture?
Depends
It is a scale of grey there is no absolute cut off or cut in point the badness of the peron involved would make me more likely to torture them for example

So is it ever ok to let innocent people die to save other innocent people?
Here as a real world example. Was Churchill correct to let innocent people die in Coventry so the Nazis did not know we had cracked the enigma code? Innocents died innocents were saved was it right?
I see why you see it as black and white but it is all grey area to me. I would prefer a world where this never occured, or war or violence but sometimes it is justified and sometimes it is not it just depends on the exact scenario

I am sorry – to me morals are absolute. if its wrong in one circumstance it is wrong in all circumstances.

Really? Does this apply to all your morals or just torture?

Is it ever morally justifiable to steal? To take a life?

Context and outcomes have no bearing on decisions of morality?

Just playing devil’s advocate like.

What constitutes a moral act is something that has pre-occupied philosophers for centuries. They’ve obviously been wasting their time.
I wonder if TJ would like to tell us the meaning of life while he’s at it.

TJ: AC Grayling he aint.

if you torture someone committed to the cause they won’t tell you anything useful
if you torture someone not committed to the cause they’ll tell you anything to make you stop

great method for keeping us all safe 🙄

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I think trying to debate Kant and MIlls on here will be a little hard.

the categorical imperative is the key concept I believe here

“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”

If you apply the tests of the categorical imperative to torture you get the position I arrive at. It can never be justifiable for if it is justifiable in one context then it must be justifiable in all.

IE if it is justifiable to torture one person to save thousands than it is also justifiable to torture thousands to save one. They are morally identical situations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundwork_for_the_Metaphysics_of_Morals

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill

Still waiting TJ!

If we want to live in world where “torture” is a thing of the past, surely there must come a point where we have say stop. We can argue that in some cases torture is justifiable, but you could use that argument untill the end of time and i’d like to think that as a species we will at some point advance beyond such cruelty.

I was visiting a Chatuea in France, at which they randomly had a torture exhibiton to highlight the fact that toture still goes on. Waterbaording featured and oddly enough so was tickling the feet with a feather. It was morbidly fascinating, i felt compelled to finish the exhibition but i genuinley felt sick to the core at the end

Zulu – I have given you the only possible answer. I am sorry you are unable to understand.

Teej I was gonna back you up until you said this

Your moral compass is clearly sadly lacking.

What a crock of sheeeeeiiite meaningless statement.

I’m with the torture is irrelevant/pointless because the results can’t be trusted camp.