# Resolved: Unequivocal Opposition To Torture Is Logically Inconsistent. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 19, 2009, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-unequivocal-opposition-to-torture-is-logically-inconsistent/497014 "2009-05-19T21:51:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-unequivocal-opposition-to-torture-is-logically-inconsistent/497014/41 "2009-05-20T13:16:50Z")
As has been stated, the problem with the OP is that it cannot distinguish between “intentionally and deliberately” with “foreseeable.” To present an argument that is similarly structured: We all need transportation. Cars pollute the atmosphere. Since cars pollute the atmosphere, and we’re okay with using cars, then we should also be okay with dumping used motor oil in mountain streams. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-unequivocal-opposition-to-torture-is-logically-inconsistent/497014/42 "2009-05-20T14:08:25Z")
I happen to believe that many of the arguments in opposition to torture are flawed and in fact wrong, as discussed in other threads. That said, the logic of this OP is also flawed. The main flaw from my perspective is in insisting on looking at each instance of bombing or torture individually. Suppose one granted that the ends justified the means in both instances. That doesn’t mean that you can know WRT every specific instance of bombing or torture whether the good outweighs the bad or not. But you can adopt a policy that on the whole will bring the greater good for the most people. In that context it’s logically consistent to say that a policy of torture will never produce, in aggregate, enough positive to outweigh the negative, while a policy of bombing will sometimes do this. The specific details of torture and bombing are not the same, and these details can change the cost/benefit equation. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-unequivocal-opposition-to-torture-is-logically-inconsistent/497014/43 "2009-05-20T14:10:40Z")
I see any number of flaws in the OP’s argument, of which I will list only two. The first has already been mentioned but is worth repeating. The argument rests on the assumption that torture can do some good in some cases, and could theoretically serve some purpose in a just war. But in the entire history of the human race, torture has never produced any useful information. Not even once. So therefore there’s never anything to be gained by torture. The second objection comes in response to this. > [@Weston](#): > > The second reasonable objection is that torture is more objectionable than collateral damage because it is more pre-meditated and more visceral. Some people feel an instinctive revulsion to torture that they simply cannot summon when hearing that a score of innocents were obliterated in a bombing raid. This is understandable, but it is ultimately nothing more than a failure of imagination. > > I believe that the human mind is poorly equipped to instinctively appreciate the consequences of large scale violence. Tell a man his uncle flew a bombing mission over Germany WWII and he’d likely feel some measure of pride. Tell him he raped and strangled his wife and daughter and he’d surely feel a very different emotion. This, in spite of the fact that his uncle doubtlessly killed many more people during his mission, and that they surely would have died in equally horrible ways. There’s no basis for comparison of the severity of the consequences here. Deaths in battle or bombing are qualitatively different from torture. War is the means of settling conflicts when negotiation and compromise have failed. Hence it is entirely possible for good people and good nations to wage war, and it does not subvert their common humanity. Consider examples such as the English and German soldiers during WWI who held a Christmas party and played a soccer game on Christmas day, and then went back to shooting machine guns at each other the next day, or the Union and Confederate soldiers who traded coffee and cigarettes with each other during the Civil War. Torture, on the other hand, is a direct denial of the moral basis of our humanity. Any person who tortures becomes less human, and any organization that supports torture is dehumanizing. There could not possibly be any friendship or cooperation between those who torture and their victims, as there often is between opposing sides in warfare. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-unequivocal-opposition-to-torture-is-logically-inconsistent/497014/44 "2009-05-20T15:06:35Z")
> [@Weston](#): > > Okay, where would you suggest I start? Others have answered other issues with your premise. You asked for reading on the French experience in Algeria. The following article I think is a very good overview of the conflict. I have quoted a few tidbits but do yourself a favor and read it. Note that the French were actually quite effective in some respects and could have perhaps pulled out a victory there. Torture undermined the whole thing for them though. _“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”_ ~George Santayana > [@](#): > > By 1960 the French Army had essentially eliminated the insurgents’ ability to conduct effective military operations and had significantly degraded the insurgent organization in Algeria. From a purely military point of view, the French Army had pacified the country. > > Despite this success, the French Army had unknowingly sown the seeds for losing the war. Though pacified, the Algerian Muslim population was less inclined to accept French rule in 1960 than they were in 1954. By 1960 a significant portion of the French population and body politic that had supported the war in 1954 had turned against the government’s Algerian policy. Within the army itself, dissension ran rampant as various factions viewed government policy as too aggressive, not aggressive enough, or immoral. All of these conditions were directly or indirectly related to command policies which condoned harsh tactical interrogation techniques including torture. > > \ > > [The French Army] believed that the army and France itself could not survive another military defeat, and thus all necessary means were justified to ensure victory. These circumstances inclined many of the army’s leaders toward condoning torture as a tactical intelligence technique. These conditions also made many in the French Army blind to the linkage between tactical methods and strategic outcomes. > > \ > > The ideological and spiritual nature of the conflict was internalized by many in the French Army and became one justification for torture. They saw the enemy as communist and therefore as inherently evil. The struggle was one of ultimate national and ideological survival. > > \ > > The official condoning of torture by French Army leaders had numerous negative effects that were not envisioned because of the army leadership’s intensive focus on tactical success. The negative results of torture included decreasing France’s ability to affect the conflict’s strategic center of gravity; internal fragmentation of the French Army officer corps; decreased moral authority of the army; setting the conditions for even greater violations of moral and legal authority; and providing a major information operations opportunity to the insurgency. The irony is that even though some tactical successes can be attributed to their use of torture, the French had numerous other effective HUMINT techniques and were far from reliant on torture for tactical success. > > \ > > Rationalizing the permission of torture as a tactical operational necessity to achieve a greater operational or strategic aim soon was applied to justify even greater crimes. > > \ > > The accelerating trend to sanctioned lawlessness within the army culminated in 1961 with an aborted coup attempt involving elements of the French Army. The coup was prompted by the announcement by French President Charles DeGaulle that he would permit a free and open vote in Algeria in which the people could choose independence or could choose to remain part of France. Army leaders knew that the more numerous Muslim population would vote for independence. The government was permitting the democratic process to give the insurgents that which they were unable to achieve by force of arms. Despite the overwhelming popularity of this policy in France, army leaders in Algeria decided to try to overthrow the French government to prevent this from happening. > > SOURCE: [News Articles - FindArticles](http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0IBR/is_2_36/ai_n16689900/pg_9/?tag=content;col1) ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-unequivocal-opposition-to-torture-is-logically-inconsistent/497014/45 "2009-05-20T15:55:10Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > I happen to believe that many of the arguments in opposition to torture are flawed and in fact wrong, as discussed in other threads. Because you always handwaved away all of the evidence that proved you wrong, and trumpeted anything that might be twisted into saying you were kind of right sometimes maybe. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-unequivocal-opposition-to-torture-is-logically-inconsistent/497014/46 "2009-05-20T16:13:00Z")
> [@Captain\_Carrot](#): > > Because you always handwaved away all of the evidence that proved you wrong, and trumpeted anything that might be twisted into saying you were kind of right sometimes maybe. No to the contrary, I considered and weighed all the evidence, in marked contrast to my opponents in these threads - possibly including you, though I don’t recall - who handwaved, along with assorted other tactics of even more dubious value. Nonetheless, it was not my intention to turn this into a followup debate about those other matters, and I merely putting my remarks about the OP in context. If you feel compelled to rehash those matters, the other threads are open, and there’s also an available pit thread if you want to mix it up a little. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-unequivocal-opposition-to-torture-is-logically-inconsistent/497014/47 "2009-05-20T16:17:00Z")
I can see how from a consequentialist point of view unequivoval opposition to torture could be argued against - you can always create a situation, however bizarre, that torture saves the day. Huzzah! But you can do that for anything. I’m unequivocably opposed to child rape. It’s logically possible, I guess, that a situation might arise whereby a terrorist threatens to destroy the whole planet unless a child is raped. From a consequentialist view, then, that particular act of child rape wouldn’t be wrong; just like the hypothetical ticking bomb act of torture (that we somehow know is going to work) wouldn’t be wrong. Neither scenario is sufficiently plausible to make me, who is generally a consequentialist, move from the stance that both child rape and torture are unequivocably wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-unequivocal-opposition-to-torture-is-logically-inconsistent/497014/48 "2009-05-20T16:22:04Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > If you feel compelled to rehash those matters, the other threads are open, and there’s also an available pit thread if you want to mix it up a little. No, I gave you your very own pit thread. Don’t you feel special? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-unequivocal-opposition-to-torture-is-logically-inconsistent/497014/49 "2009-05-20T17:06:25Z")
> [@villa](#): > > … who is generally a consequentialist, move from the stance that both child rape and torture are unequivocably wrong. “Tonight, on _24_, Jack Bauer faces his most vexing decision…” ---
**Author:** ![LilShieste](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9f8e36/32.png) [@LilShieste](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilShieste)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-unequivocal-opposition-to-torture-is-logically-inconsistent/497014/50 "2009-05-20T20:37:04Z")
[QUOTE=Weston] **Conclusion** : If we are willing to indiscriminately kill innocents to find Osama Bin Laden, we also ought to be willing to tolerate the torture of those whose guilt may be undetermined but who we have good reason to believe may know Bin Laden’s location. In other words, if we are willing to accept collateral damage in pursuit of a particular foreign policy objective, it is logically inconsistent to object to the selective use of torture in pursuit of that same objective as the former is far worse than the latter. [/quote] This logic does not compute. With these sentences, you’re making the case that, “If we’re going to accidentally kill people, we might as well intentionally kill those same people.” If we were talking about _accidentally_ torturing people (“Oh, how did those electrodes get there?”), then your OP might carry water. As it is, though, you’re just presenting a false equivalence. You’re contending that intention is inconsequential in all of this, when, in fact, it is _key_. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2009, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-unequivocal-opposition-to-torture-is-logically-inconsistent/497014/51 "2009-05-21T00:38:41Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Y’know, it really pisses me off when right-wingers accuse liberals of moral relativism, when people seriously make arguments like this. Torture is bad. Torture is in fact always and absolutely bad. Unequivocal opposition to something which is absolutely bad is unequivocally good. It’s really quite simple. This. It is one of the reasons I chose to not take part in this charade (this time around). ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2009, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-unequivocal-opposition-to-torture-is-logically-inconsistent/497014/52 "2009-05-21T02:54:46Z")
This is like saying that, with the aim of having faster, more efficient transportation we condone the use of cars even though that will result in accidental deaths and injuries to innocent people. Therefore it’s logically inconsistent to not condone pushing, shoving, kicking and punching people out of your way while you are walking so you can move faster and more efficiently. Nope, doesn’t compute. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-unequivocal-opposition-to-torture-is-logically-inconsistent/497014.md?page=2)