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You are very clearly begging the question here; not everyone agrees that use of torture 'cedes moral high ground', or that torture made the Germans, Japanese, o

by nickff 11y ago

You are very clearly begging the question here; not everyone agrees that use of torture 'cedes moral high ground', or that torture made the Germans, Japanese, or North Vietnamese 'bad'.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beg_a_question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beg_a_question

jdc 11y ago
It's bad because it increases human suffering, and it's unfair to harm someone who can't fight back.
- TheLogothete 11y ago
  That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, but let's say a terrorist is captured and you have to put a stop to his operation. His cell will kill a hundred or so people in the next month. You don't torture him and the bomb goes off killing 243 people. A year and a half later you capture another and you have to put a stop to his operation. What do you do?
  - marklgr 11y ago
    This might happen in some (arguably extremely rare) cases, but you know that's the narrative that will be used every time it will be somewhat convenient to torture someone.
  - LoSboccacc 11y ago
    You fire half your detectives fpr incompetence. You know how hard is to procure even rudimentary explosives without leaving a trail?
    - TheLogothete 11y ago
      It's not hard at all. You need a few google searches and household supplies.
      - LoSboccacc 11y ago
        Why would you need a whole terrorist cell and a cell leader uf any fuckwit could do it? Your whole argoment falls apart from whenever direction you look at it.
        deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
  - doikor 11y ago
    And if you torture him and he doesn't really know and he just feeds you some lies just so you will stop torturing him and you follow wrong info and cannot stop the incident. But if you didn't follow his lies you might have followed some other leads and stopped the attack.
  - honzzz 11y ago
    I believe this scenario is misleading because it does ignore the negative consequences of allowing torture. The way you describe it there seem to be two possible scenarios - 1. forbid torturing the terrorist and let innocent people die or 2. torture the terrorist and save innocent people. I believe this is not what happens in real life. The real decision is either 1. authorities are never allowed to torture anyone and some innocent people whose deaths could be prevented die and 2. authorities are allowed to torture terrorist suspects and they will abuse this power to achieve what they want by torturing people they know are innocent and claiming they were suspects. As someone who grew up in a totalitarian country I am inclined to believe that real 2 does more harm to society than real 1.
  - rbcgerard 11y ago
    thr more likely scenario would be: "...a [suspected] terrorist is captured and you have to put a stop to [an unkown but potential] operation. [a] cell [he is thought to be affiliated with may] kill a hundred or so people in the next month...." My point is the chances that you know everything with certainty except x or y and all you need to do is torture this guy to find out x is alsmot never the case...are you ok with "we think this guy might know x, who we know is a bad guy, lets torture him to find out" Let's for a second say it WAS the case, the proverbial ticking time bomb, do you propose tortureing innocents that may have tangential information that may prove useful but they are with holding I.e. Children, parents, siblings, friends?
  - e12e 11y ago
    Ok, so by "terrorist" I assume you mean someone who's technically innocent, because you have no proof of a crime? By "the bomb goes off killin 243 people", you invoke hindsight. Ok, so now we're talking about how to best prevent an attack that kills 243 (or so) people, given we have a suspect in custody. You seem to imply the answer is that our best chance of preventing the first bomb was to torture the person we at the time couldn't know was a terrorist. But maybe the best way would be to sweep for parked abandoned cars? You do clearly illustrate why if you don't have oversight, institutions dealing with violent crime etc are likely to degenerate.
weland 11y ago
> not everyone agrees that use of torture 'cedes moral high ground' There probably are a few assholes who don't, but to take it seriously outside the realm of a purely philosophical discussion on formal logic is something that no sane human being should even consider. I don't care if Germans, Japanese, North Vietnamese or, for that matter, Americans were generally good or bad.
- bluecalm 11y ago
  I think most sane human beings would consider torture in situations where the information obtained could save many lives (for example during the war).
  - weland 11y ago
    I hear this argument a lot. That situation is as unlikely as it gets. At least in my part of the world, torture is particularly discouraged as a means of gathering information during war. Not only are prisoners likely to confess anything that will make the pain stop, but the ones inflicting it are themselves unlikely to be able to tell when the one being tortured is telling the truth. Furthermore, even if he tells the truth (as in information that he honestly believes to be true), it's very difficult to tell if that information is of real value or just another smoke screen -- i.e. if the man you're holding was intentionally misinformed by an enemy who became aware of his imminent capture, or who simply believe the risk of capture to be very high. History is full of cases where important plans have been withheld even from unit commanders, having been shared only with the highest political and military commanders. In such cases, field units aren't left without orders -- they're given inconsequentially fake ones. Saying "torture would be OK in situations where the information obtained could save many lives" is basically like saying "living in the Sahara would be OK during rainy days". It's theoretically possible and it's obviously hard to disagree that you can live for 24 hours in a desert where it rains, but there's a good reason why no one is rushing to live in the Sahara.
    - bluecalm 11y ago
      I agree with your arguments but it seems to me you are arguing for different point: that torture is bad in almost all situations and is especially bad when applied systematically. I don't think anyone reasonable are going to contest that though. My position is that I can imagine situations where I think torture is justified even though I see those situations as very unlikely to occur and even less likely to be judged correctly. I do agree that the history doesn't inspire optimism and that systemic torture use is a problem and it's a good battle to reduce it.
vacri 11y ago
You can make that statement about anything and everything. Using your standard: Not everyone agrees that the earth is a sphere, therefore any statement which assumes it is a sphere is begging the question.

by nickff 11y ago

jdc 11y ago

It's bad because it increases human suffering, and it's unfair to harm someone who can't fight back.

TheLogothete 11y ago
That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, but let's say a terrorist is captured and you have to put a stop to his operation. His cell will kill a hundred or so people in the next month. You don't torture him and the bomb goes off killing 243 people. A year and a half later you capture another and you have to put a stop to his operation. What do you do?
- marklgr 11y ago
  This might happen in some (arguably extremely rare) cases, but you know that's the narrative that will be used every time it will be somewhat convenient to torture someone.
- LoSboccacc 11y ago
  You fire half your detectives fpr incompetence. You know how hard is to procure even rudimentary explosives without leaving a trail?
  - TheLogothete 11y ago
    It's not hard at all. You need a few google searches and household supplies.
    - LoSboccacc 11y ago
      Why would you need a whole terrorist cell and a cell leader uf any fuckwit could do it? Your whole argoment falls apart from whenever direction you look at it.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
- doikor 11y ago
  And if you torture him and he doesn't really know and he just feeds you some lies just so you will stop torturing him and you follow wrong info and cannot stop the incident. But if you didn't follow his lies you might have followed some other leads and stopped the attack.
- honzzz 11y ago
  I believe this scenario is misleading because it does ignore the negative consequences of allowing torture. The way you describe it there seem to be two possible scenarios - 1. forbid torturing the terrorist and let innocent people die or 2. torture the terrorist and save innocent people. I believe this is not what happens in real life. The real decision is either 1. authorities are never allowed to torture anyone and some innocent people whose deaths could be prevented die and 2. authorities are allowed to torture terrorist suspects and they will abuse this power to achieve what they want by torturing people they know are innocent and claiming they were suspects. As someone who grew up in a totalitarian country I am inclined to believe that real 2 does more harm to society than real 1.
- rbcgerard 11y ago
  thr more likely scenario would be: "...a [suspected] terrorist is captured and you have to put a stop to [an unkown but potential] operation. [a] cell [he is thought to be affiliated with may] kill a hundred or so people in the next month...." My point is the chances that you know everything with certainty except x or y and all you need to do is torture this guy to find out x is alsmot never the case...are you ok with "we think this guy might know x, who we know is a bad guy, lets torture him to find out" Let's for a second say it WAS the case, the proverbial ticking time bomb, do you propose tortureing innocents that may have tangential information that may prove useful but they are with holding I.e. Children, parents, siblings, friends?
- e12e 11y ago
  Ok, so by "terrorist" I assume you mean someone who's technically innocent, because you have no proof of a crime? By "the bomb goes off killin 243 people", you invoke hindsight. Ok, so now we're talking about how to best prevent an attack that kills 243 (or so) people, given we have a suspect in custody. You seem to imply the answer is that our best chance of preventing the first bomb was to torture the person we at the time couldn't know was a terrorist. But maybe the best way would be to sweep for parked abandoned cars? You do clearly illustrate why if you don't have oversight, institutions dealing with violent crime etc are likely to degenerate.

weland 11y ago

> not everyone agrees that use of torture 'cedes moral high ground' There probably are a few assholes who don't, but to take it seriously outside the realm of a purely philosophical discussion on formal logic is something that no sane human being should even consider. I don't care if Germans, Japanese, North Vietnamese or, for that matter, Americans were generally good or bad.

bluecalm 11y ago
I think most sane human beings would consider torture in situations where the information obtained could save many lives (for example during the war).
- weland 11y ago
  I hear this argument a lot. That situation is as unlikely as it gets. At least in my part of the world, torture is particularly discouraged as a means of gathering information during war. Not only are prisoners likely to confess anything that will make the pain stop, but the ones inflicting it are themselves unlikely to be able to tell when the one being tortured is telling the truth. Furthermore, even if he tells the truth (as in information that he honestly believes to be true), it's very difficult to tell if that information is of real value or just another smoke screen -- i.e. if the man you're holding was intentionally misinformed by an enemy who became aware of his imminent capture, or who simply believe the risk of capture to be very high. History is full of cases where important plans have been withheld even from unit commanders, having been shared only with the highest political and military commanders. In such cases, field units aren't left without orders -- they're given inconsequentially fake ones. Saying "torture would be OK in situations where the information obtained could save many lives" is basically like saying "living in the Sahara would be OK during rainy days". It's theoretically possible and it's obviously hard to disagree that you can live for 24 hours in a desert where it rains, but there's a good reason why no one is rushing to live in the Sahara.
  - bluecalm 11y ago
    I agree with your arguments but it seems to me you are arguing for different point: that torture is bad in almost all situations and is especially bad when applied systematically. I don't think anyone reasonable are going to contest that though. My position is that I can imagine situations where I think torture is justified even though I see those situations as very unlikely to occur and even less likely to be judged correctly. I do agree that the history doesn't inspire optimism and that systemic torture use is a problem and it's a good battle to reduce it.

vacri 11y ago

You can make that statement about anything and everything. Using your standard: Not everyone agrees that the earth is a sphere, therefore any statement which assumes it is a sphere is begging the question.