# Resolved: Our Moral Intuitions Regarding Torture Make No Sense. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 27, 2015, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-our-moral-intuitions-regarding-torture-make-no-sense/729098 "2015-08-27T20:26:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-our-moral-intuitions-regarding-torture-make-no-sense/729098/101 "2015-09-21T05:32:26Z")
I think we should let this [guy](https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3633/3622941441_3d52c44e8f_z.jpg?zz=1) be in charge of deciding who does and does not get waterboarded actually, I basically agree with you, but I think my sarcastic comment above kind of illustrates a key problem with carrying this philosophy too far ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-our-moral-intuitions-regarding-torture-make-no-sense/729098/102 "2015-09-21T05:38:57Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > No, you are missing one important thing, you are maybe correct about the “extraordinary circumstances” but we already found that the evidence is dubious, \*\*but reaching for hypotheticals to counter that is silly when real life already has showed us why one should not torture. \*\* I literally have no idea what you are saying. Let me take a step back for a second here, and maybe you’ll see why I think what I’m talking about is interesting. I would torture in a situation in which: -Every human life on the planet was at risk -I was certain beyond doubt that the threat was real -I was certain beyond doubt that the person I was considering torturing was guilty of evilly putting every human life at risk -I was certain beyond doubt that the person I was considering torturing did have information which would stop the doomsday -I was certain that there was no chance of any other technique (either of persuading the guy without torturing him, or of finding the needed information in some other fashion) would work I think that’s a sufficient set of qualifications to land us squarely in the land of incredibly-contrived-hypothetical. One interesting question to me is which of those could be changed, and how much, before my certain “yes I would torture” changes to “I dunno” to “I would not torture”. And how does that vary for other people? For instance, changing “every human life on the planet” to “every human life in North America” doesn’t even give me pause. But some of them are trickier… what if there’s a reasonable chance that the doomsday device might be found via some kind of scan? But we won’t know if the scan failed until it’s too late? What if the guy I’m considering torturing is 100% certainly the individual with the information I need, but was himself initially innocent, only setting up the device due to someone kidnapping and holding his family hostabge? (Presumably this would only make sense if his family was in Europe and he was only blowing up North America…) Again, this is not some backdoor means for me to try to convince you all that it’s really OK to waterboard lots of ay-rabs. But it’s a fascinating (if morbid) topic, and one which I think could lead to some interesting (purely theoretical) ethical discussion. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-our-moral-intuitions-regarding-torture-make-no-sense/729098/103 "2015-09-21T05:40:11Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > I think we should let this [guy](https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3633/3622941441_3d52c44e8f_z.jpg?zz=1) be in charge of deciding who does and does not get waterboarded > actually, I basically agree with you, but I think my sarcastic comment above kind of illustrates a key problem with carrying this philosophy too far (a) who is that, and (b) who are you saying you basically agree with? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-our-moral-intuitions-regarding-torture-make-no-sense/729098/104 "2015-09-21T05:44:19Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > I literally have no idea what you are saying. > > Let me take a step back for a second here, and maybe you’ll see why I think what I’m talking about is interesting. > > I would torture in a situation in which: > -Every human life on the planet was at risk > -I was certain beyond doubt that the threat was real > -I was certain beyond doubt that the person I was considering torturing was guilty of evilly putting every human life at risk > -I was certain beyond doubt that the person I was considering torturing did have information which would stop the doomsday > -I was certain that there was no chance of any other technique (either of persuading the guy without torturing him, or of finding the needed information in some other fashion) would work > > I think that’s a sufficient set of qualifications to land us squarely in the land of incredibly-contrived-hypothetical. > > One interesting question to me is which of those could be changed, and how much, before my certain “yes I would torture” changes to “I dunno” to “I would not torture”. And how does that vary for other people? > > For instance, changing “every human life on the planet” to “every human life in North America” doesn’t even give me pause. But some of them are trickier… what if there’s a reasonable chance that the doomsday device might be found via some kind of scan? But we won’t know if the scan failed until it’s too late? What if the guy I’m considering torturing is 100% certainly the individual with the information I need, but was himself initially innocent, only setting up the device due to someone kidnapping and holding his family hostabge? (Presumably this would only make sense if his family was in Europe and he was only blowing up North America…) > Again, this is not some backdoor means for me to try to convince you all that it’s really OK to waterboard lots of ay-rabs. But it’s a fascinating (if morbid) topic, and one which I think could lead to some interesting (purely theoretical) ethical discussion. I think you did miss that I already told you that if I was part of the authorities then it is likely that torture would take place (really, chains of command would be hard to break if the order to torture to deal for something that big comes), of course the caveat that I mentioned does not make it look good to your hypothetical so now it is clear that you can not let go of the silliness. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-our-moral-intuitions-regarding-torture-make-no-sense/729098/105 "2015-09-21T05:49:30Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > One shouldn’t confuse moral with legal opposition to torture. > > I was convinced years ago, based on essentially the same argument, that torture is morally permissible in some situations. However, I think that it should in all situations be illegal. > > If I am utterly convinced that torturing someone will prevent a nuke from going off, and I’m in a situation to do so, I’m not going to let some silly thing like the threat of lifetime imprisonment stop me. I’m just going to do it. Same goes for torturing the kidnapper of my kid. > > Maybe, if and when my actions are judged in court, I will be given leniency because of the situation. Maybe not. It doesn’t matter, because it was still worth it, as far as I was concerned. > > I think it’s critical that the threat is still there. The situation has to be dire enough that you’re willing to put your own freedom on the line to save the others. Anything less and, well, maybe the moral cost of the torture is not actually worth it. Or maybe you aren’t really convinced of the likelihood that the torture will be useful. If the situation doesn’t meet this standard, torture probably isn’t warranted. Got it in one, so I’m not going to read the rest of the thread. If somebody in the CIA is so convinced that torture is necessary that he’s willing to risk a jail sentence for it, then he can have at it. If he turns out to be right, and prevents a bombing, then great, maybe a jury will acquit him, or maybe the President will pardon him. But it should still be illegal. If it’s legal, then it won’t be long before it becomes routine. Police are always under pressure to use all available tools, which is why it’s now common to see what looks like a platoon of heavily armed Marines breaking into homes when the owner is suspected of possessing marijuana. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-our-moral-intuitions-regarding-torture-make-no-sense/729098/106 "2015-09-21T15:48:51Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > I think you did miss that I already told you that if I was part of the authorities then it is likely that torture would take place (really, chains of command would be hard to break if the order to torture to deal for something that big comes), of course the caveat that I mentioned does not make it look good to your hypothetical so now it is clear that you can not let go of the silliness. Wait, what? So… you AGREE with me? I’m totally lost. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-our-moral-intuitions-regarding-torture-make-no-sense/729098/107 "2015-09-21T17:24:35Z")
I believe he’s saying that if you want to have a legal torture procedure ready to go in the case of all your ludicrously restrictive criteria are met (he’s a bad guy, millions of people will die, you know it will work, ticking time bomb), you have to actually do it every so often. Otherwise the infrastructure needed to actually carry out the torture when you decide you need to torture won’t be in place. What good does it to to have a legal procedure for Jack Bauer to get permission to torture the terrorist, when the steps to carry out that procedure can’t be reasonably carried out in time to actually defuse the nuclear bomb? How does this request move up and down the chain of command? If you really want a squad of torturers ready to go in case of a nuclear bomb planted in Manhattan, you have to have regular work for these people. They have to practice their skills, they have to have experience. You can’t just have teams ready and then never use them because when it comes time to actually use them they won’t be ready. So in real life, it turns out that torture squads are always busy, and always find people to torture, and always make themselves useful to their bosses in various ways. In real life they are never used to disarm ticking nuclear time bombs. Look, if Jack Bauer needs to torture the terrorist or millions of people will die, then he’s just going to have to wing it, and torture the guy without getting legal approval first. You can’t get legal authority to torture a prisoner. And if you won’t torture the guy without a get out of jail free card signed by the President, well, I guess the torture wasn’t that important after all, was it? Like, you’re willing to torture a guy to save millions of people, but you’re not willing to risk a congressional investigation, or losing your job, or public humiliation, or some jail time. You only want to play the hero if you can get everyone to agree in advance that you’re the hero. If they’re going to second-guess your heroism after the fact then you don’t want to play. Screw Manhattan, you’d rather millions of people die than derail your career. It’s the exact counterpart of the baby raping I was talking about earlier. It’s OK to torture a bad guy to save millions of people, so why isn’t it OK to torture an innocent person to save millions of people? Why isn’t it OK to torture several innocent people? Why not many innocent people? Why only when you’re absolutely certain the people will die, why not when it’s only very likely that people will die? Why does it have to be millions of victims, why can’t it be thousands? Or dozens? Or one? Regimes that use torture always justify it because the stakes are so high. People will die, or their souls will be damned. There’s absolutely no bright line over the torture criteria, because once you’ve got a torture chamber and a squad of torturers, those guys need to be fed. And there are no hero torturers, it turns out in real life that people who torture are sadists, because normal people can’t stand it. So you staff your torture chamber with sadists who only care about providing their bosses with information because they want to keep their jobs. But they can keep their bosses happy by providing all kinds of information. Look at all these terrorists we found! Look at all the heretics! ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-our-moral-intuitions-regarding-torture-make-no-sense/729098/108 "2015-09-21T19:15:40Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > I believe he’s saying that if you want to have a legal torture procedure ready to go in the case of all your ludicrously restrictive criteria are met (he’s a bad guy, millions of people will die, you know it will work, ticking time bomb), you have to actually do it every so often. Otherwise the infrastructure needed to actually carry out the torture when you decide you need to torture won’t be in place. That’s a reasonable point, and is an argument against the idea of “torture warrants”, which I think has some good points as an idea but might be logistically unworkable. (That said, it would probably be better than the system we had during the Iraq war where we defined waterboarding as not being torture.) > [@](#): > > You only want to play the hero if you can get everyone to agree in advance that you’re the hero. If they’re going to second-guess your heroism after the fact then you don’t want to play. Screw Manhattan, you’d rather millions of people die than derail your career. Oh, I agree with this entirely and have all along. If I was an FBI guy and was in the incredibly-unlikely ticking-doomsday-device scenario, if I thought the situation was dire enough to require torture, I would certainly also think it was dire enough to be worth risking going to jail. (I mean, in a literal end-of-the-world situation, that decision is so easy it’s comical, since I will be DEAD if I don’t commit torture. But even in a try-to-save-millions-of-people case I think it’s pretty easy even if I myself am somehow not in the blast zone.) All of my discussion of contrived hypotheticals have been intended towards precisely that situation… “you find yourself in that situation, what do you do? do you torture even if/though it is illegal?”, as opposed to “these contrived hypotheticals might happen… should torture be made generally legal so that people in the contrived hypothetical can use it?”. > [@](#): > > It’s the exact counterpart of the baby raping I was talking about earlier. It’s OK to torture a bad guy to save millions of people, so why isn’t it OK to torture an innocent person to save millions of people? Why isn’t it OK to torture several innocent people? Why not many innocent people? Why only when you’re absolutely certain the people will die, why not when it’s only very likely that people will die? Why does it have to be millions of victims, why can’t it be thousands? Or dozens? Or one? Once again I’ve lost track of what your point is, but maybe we agree? Isn’t that what I was saying, that at one end of the spectrum you have a (comically contrived) situation in which committing an in-isolation heinous act is justified. And on the other end of the spectrum is a situation in which the heinous act is clearly NOT justified. I think it’s interesting (and hard) to figure out where to draw the line between them, but the fact that the line is hard to draw doesn’t mean that suddenly even in the super-contrived situation the heinous act is no longer justified. > [@](#): > > Regimes that use torture always justify it because the stakes are so high. People will die, or their souls will be damned. There’s absolutely no bright line over the torture criteria, because once you’ve got a torture chamber and a squad of torturers, those guys need to be fed. And there are no hero torturers, it turns out in real life that people who torture are sadists, because normal people can’t stand it. So you staff your torture chamber with sadists who only care about providing their bosses with information because they want to keep their jobs. But they can keep their bosses happy by providing all kinds of information. Look at all these terrorists we found! Look at all the heretics! I’m certainly not endorsing that the US have trained full-time torturers on staff. I think the closest I’ve come has been expressing approval for the idea of torture warrants, but upon further thought (and discussion) I agree that that’s probably not workable. Either they’d happen more commonly than morally acceptable, or they’d happen so rarely that no infrastructure could really exist to support them. So I will say that I support the idea behind them, but find the possibility of actual implementation suspect. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2015, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-our-moral-intuitions-regarding-torture-make-no-sense/729098/109 "2015-11-15T02:26:28Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Want to bet?No. I would die rather than torture someone. I would see you die. I would see my wife die. I would see my kids die. I would see _the whole of humanity burn_, before I torture someone. So where does that leave your argument now? Really? You’d let all of humankind perish rather than torture someone? So your moral comfort us worth more than the survival of your entire species? That is an extraordinarily selfish attitude. Now, my willingness to kill or cripple an innocent adult to save any one my kids is also selfish, you may say. And you’d be right. But I don’t claim any special morality. I KNOW my choice is immoral. And there’s limits to how far my immorality goes. I wouldn’t kill any child to save even mine – not because I’m a force for good, but because I couldn’t bear the guilt. I wouldn’t kill ten innocents to sav my my kids, or the the adults I love most. Anyway, Dibble, here’s my question: do you believe it your absolute refusal to torture or kill is morally superior to my willingness to do so under limited circumstances? If so, why? ---
**Author:** ![Memnon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2015, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-our-moral-intuitions-regarding-torture-make-no-sense/729098/110 "2015-11-22T00:27:35Z")
I think the poll in the thread linked below might have some relevance to this topic: [Would you shoot out three people’s kneecaps to save a loved one?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=775009) Current results: Yes: 69.33% No: 14.67% I’m going to be difficult and fight the hypothetical: 16% [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-our-moral-intuitions-regarding-torture-make-no-sense/729098.md?page=5)