# The Ethics of Torture. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 1, 2012, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-torture/617498 "2012-04-01T18:13:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-torture/617498/61 "2012-04-03T23:49:44Z")
> [@erislover](#): > > You misunderstand. Determining what is ethical is not black and white. As a moral subjectivist, I would argue that quite strongly you are correct. But the words “ethical” and “unethical” do not suddenly become ambiguous for it. How we determine something is ethical could be a complicated process, but if it is resolved, we don’t then have the additional burden of deciding which word to use. > > And I think my point stands: this is a distinction without a difference. 🙂 Well, I don’t really care which words are used, but I see it like this: In isolation, killing someone is a bad thing, as are stealing, lying and torture. So when you are choosing between otherwise identical courses of action, one which involves killing someone is worse than one that doesn’t involve killing someone. I suspect we’re all on board there… Torture is also, in isolation, a bad thing. (Worse than killing? Debatable…) Therefore, when choosing between otherwise identical courses of action, one which involves torture is worse than one that doesn’t involve torture. Of course, the rub comes when you have several possible courses of action, each of which have various likelihoods, to the best of your ability to estimate, of leading to various sets of bad things, and each of these courses of actions involves doing different numbers and types of in-isoliation-bad things yourself, etc., etc., etc. Der Trihs makes the claim that torture is SO bad that no real-world situation would EVER result in a choice where the course of action involving torture is the ethically correct one to pick. That seems like an awfully extreme and overcertain statement to make, but it’s important to remember that I’m in agreement with DT that torture is awful, should be illegal, should be punished when it happens, made the US as a whole a worse place for its routine use, etc. etc. etc… we’re just disagreeing about likelihoods of fringe situations. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-torture/617498/62 "2012-04-04T02:24:25Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Der Trihs makes the claim that torture is SO bad that no real-world situation would EVER result in a choice where the course of action involving torture is the ethically correct one to pick. It’s not just that; I believe that the kind of people who are willing to torture are not going to be making decisions ethically in the first place. I’m saying that the kind of person who is always brought up in these arguments, who tortures only when it’s “necessary” and otherwise acts decently does not exist. Torturers are monsters; they torture because they are monsters. Which is exactly what we see in the real world; the innocent are tortured or false data is “gained” from torture and the torturers go right on torturing; they _don’t care_. ---
**Author:** ![Craz3d117](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c4cdca/32.png) [@Craz3d117](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Craz3d117)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-torture/617498/63 "2012-04-04T02:34:00Z")
> [@hdc\_bst](#): > > What you’re missing is that as soon as you remove the ‘ticking time bomb’ craziness, there are alternatives to torture. You see, there’s this other technique called ‘interrogation.’ There is no reason to believe that information gained through physical duress is more accurate than information gained through psychological manipulation. And it has the plus of not being abhorrent. > > The only benefits from ‘torture’ are: > > 1. it’s easy to conduct > 2. it feeds the pathological sadism of those who conduct it > > Constructing scenarios that actually justify torture is as easy as constructing scenarios that justify killing your enemies’ children and making suits from their skin. Of course there are alternatives, I would never suggest torture be the immediate go-to method. However you can only interrogate someone for so long. I also stated that the accuracy of torture is often questionable, thus its practices are very rarely (if ever) used now by our forces. All I am disagreeing with is the sentiment that the concept of torture is 100% always wrong, shoulder never be used ever, and that no one could ever possibly benefit from it. As far as the ethics of it go, I’d say it’s _generally_ unethical, however as is the case with lying, killing and stealing, it can be the “right” thing to do sometimes, “the greater good” if you will. Also, just as an side. I see little difference in physical and psychological torture (except for maybe in effectiveness). I would call forcing to watch an enemy’s comrade die torture. For example, I’d say waterboarding is more psychological than physical. It’s still torture though. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-torture/617498/64 "2012-04-04T02:40:00Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Well, I don’t really care which words are used, but I see it like this: In isolation, killing someone is a bad thing, as are stealing, lying and torture. I guess I agree, but for someone who thinks ethics aren’t black and white, I’d think you’re someone who wouldn’t particularly value judgments made in a vacuum. > [@](#): > > So when you are choosing between otherwise identical courses of action, one which involves killing someone is worse than one that doesn’t involve killing someone. I suspect we’re all on board there… Yeah, sure, all else equal. I’d wager we’re all on board there. > [@](#): > > Der Trihs makes the claim that torture is SO bad that no real-world situation would EVER result in a choice where the course of action involving torture is the ethically correct one to pick. I think that’s probably true. I remember reading Harris’s soliloquy on torture in “The End of Faith” and being wholly unconvinced. I seem to recall the motivation was highly utilitarian and that would probably be the source of my problems. But I don’t remember, it’s been quite a few years. (I actually liked a lot of the book, incidentally.) > [@](#): > > That seems like an awfully extreme and overcertain statement to make, but it’s important to remember that I’m in agreement with DT that torture is awful, should be illegal, should be punished when it happens, made the US as a whole a worse place for its routine use, etc. etc. etc… we’re just disagreeing about likelihoods of fringe situations. The problem is that merely trying to imagine a situation in which an action is ethically preferable to inaction is not a hurdle at all. If this were our criterion for evaluating choices, everything not violating the laws of physics would be permissible. I think we should try to set the bar high enough to mean something. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-torture/617498/65 "2012-04-04T03:44:38Z")
> [@Craz3d117](#): > > Of course there are alternatives, I would never suggest torture be the immediate go-to method. However you can only interrogate someone for so long. Irrelevant, unless you can demonstrate that torture works better than interrogation (which it doesn’t). You might as well argue that\* “I would never suggest voodoo magic be the immediate go-to method. However you can only interrogate someone for so long.”\* > [@Craz3d117](#): > > I also stated that the accuracy of torture is often questionable, thus its practices are very rarely (if ever) used now by our forces. I expect they are still widely used, just kept more under cover. And the accuracy of torture is more than “often questionable”, it’s horrible. _Competent_ interrogators don’t torture people, because it’s simply a really awful technique and ruins the usefulness of other techniques. ---
**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:** [April 4, 2012, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-torture/617498/66 "2012-04-04T04:26:29Z")
[QUOTE=Craz3d117;14932634I also stated that the accuracy of torture is often questionable, thus its practices are very rarely (if ever) used now by our forces. All I am disagreeing with is the sentiment that the concept of torture is 100% always wrong, shoulder never be used ever, and that no one could ever possibly benefit from it. As far as the ethics of it go, I’d say it’s _generally_ unethical, however as is the case with lying, killing and stealing, it can be the “right” thing to do sometimes, “the greater good” if you will. [/QUOTE] Is torture “always” wrong? Depends what your goals are. If you want to get someone to say whatever you want them to say then it is great. If you want to get intelligence about your enemy it is horrible. The information you would get is unreliable in the extreme. If you need reliable info then torture is about the worst choice you could make to obtain that info. So, to the OP, is torture ethical? Absolutely not. It will not provide you, reliably, with the information you need to be of help. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-torture/617498/67 "2012-04-04T05:01:37Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Torturers are monsters; they torture because they are monsters. Which is exactly what we see in the real world; the innocent are tortured or false data is “gained” from torture and the torturers go right on torturing; they _don’t care_. > [@](#): > > If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? > > During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish. One and the same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being. At times he is close to being a devil, at times to sainthood. But his name doesn’t change, and to that name we ascribe the whole lot, good and evil. -Solzhenitsyn Professional torturers don’t torture because they’re monsters who just like torturing people…not most anyway. And governments don’t order torture just for the hell of it or because they like seeing people in pain. Torture happens for a lot of reasons…the torturer is scared, or he’s in a hurry and doesn’t have time for a drawn out non-coercive interrogation, or he knows the person is guilty anyway and this is the easiest way to get him to admit it, or because he feels that the question he’s interrogating the subject on is so important that the ends justify the means. I don’t think it’s usually, “Hurray, I get to hurt somebody.” ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-torture/617498/68 "2012-04-04T05:28:56Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Professional torturers don’t torture because they’re monsters who just like torturing people…not most anyway. And governments don’t order torture just for the hell of it or because they like seeing people in pain. Torture happens for a lot of reasons…the torturer is scared, or he’s in a hurry and doesn’t have time for a drawn out non-coercive interrogation, or he knows the person is guilty anyway and this is the easiest way to get him to admit it, or because he feels that the question he’s interrogating the subject on is so important that the ends justify the means. I don’t think it’s usually, “Hurray, I get to hurt somebody.” Where does Der Trihs or anyone else suggest a torturer does it for fun? So what if they do it for what they consider rational reason? That doesn’t really make it any better other than providing a comforting rationale for the torturer. But I do disagree with Der Trihs that people torture because they are monsters. I think that some of them are turned into monsters if they allow themselves to become torturers – the “banality of evil” and all that. If you get immersed in a culture where inhumanity is routine, you become less human yourself. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-torture/617498/69 "2012-04-04T05:57:07Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > I think that some of them are turned into monsters if they allow themselves to become torturers – the “banality of evil” and all that. If you get immersed in a culture where inhumanity is routine, you become less human yourself. [Virtue ethics](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/) is still alive and kicking! ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-torture/617498/70 "2012-04-04T09:48:10Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Professional torturers don’t torture because they’re monsters who just like torturing people…not most anyway. And governments don’t order torture just for the hell of it or because they like seeing people in pain. Many do. Malice, hatred and cruelty are major human motivations, as much as most Americans like to pretend that they don’t exist (even while indulging in them themselves). And they are just as much a monster if they torture people because they don’t care than if they do so because they enjoy it; they’re just a slightly different variety of monster. > [@](#): > > If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. Not every human being. Some are just monsters; psychopaths, fanatics and such. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-torture/617498/71 "2012-04-04T11:13:25Z")
They’re not “monsters”, though. They’re just human beings. To try to separate them like that…to say, “Oh, yeah, those people, there’s something wrong with them…they’re somehow distinct and defective, and that’s why they torture people, or own slaves, or whatever” isn’t borne out by facts, isn’t helpful in figuring out why people do things like that and what conditions make that behavior considered acceptable, and really is nothing more than a rationalization meant to reassure the person who says it and assert his own innate moral superiority. It’s a “Oh, I would never do something like that. I’m not that bad!” sort of thing. And I don’t think it really answers the question. The fact is, most torturers are mentally and psychologically normal, and studies bear that out. ---
**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:** [April 5, 2012, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-torture/617498/72 "2012-04-05T16:01:36Z")
Thing is, if you institutionalize torture, who’s going to end up on your professional torture squad? The guy who hates pain and suffering? Or the guy who gets a bit of a stiffy watching some scumbag squirm? The people who end up doing the torturing are the people who enjoy it. If you’re psychologically normal, and it’s prisoner torturing time, you call in crazy Corporal Jenkins who enjoys it, because you don’t want to have to do it yourself. Then the problem is, the sadist doesn’t care if the prisoner is guilty or innocent or has information or doesn’t, he just likes torturing prisoners. Your point that torturers and concentration camp guards and child molestors and serial killers and rapists aren’t monsters, but human beings is well taken. The other point that nees to be emphasized is that torture can’t be taken in isolation. Treating prisoners decently isn’t some pansy-ass sissy liberal fantasy. It’s a tactic for winning wars. You want enemy soldiers to surrender, don’t you? How many enemy soldiers are going to surrender if they expect to be tortured and summarily executed? The Geneva Conventions weren’t dreamed up by some ivory tower intellectuals and foisted on the unwilling military, they were created by and for soldiers. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2012, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-torture/617498/73 "2012-04-05T17:10:38Z")
Surprisingly, my view of torture as moral comes from the TV show 24, which many conservatives apparently think is a great justification for torture and supports their world view At the beginning of one of the later seasons, I forget which, Jack is being questioned by Congress as to his actions in the previous season or seasons where he had to go around torturing criminals and killing them. Of course, the show quickly devolves into more terrorist threats and Jack has to use questionable methods again to save the day But what he says during the actions of the day is that he will do what is necessary to save people, but that _when it is all over, he will be glad to turn himself in to the authorities_. I am 100% against torture being legal, being justified by the government, and being used by them for any reason. However, I am not 100% against using it. That’s not a contradiction. I recognize that there are instances, such as the old ticking time bomb scenario, in which torture of someone is the only thing that may work to get the information I need. Yes, I’m familiar with the criticisms, that the tortured can simply stall and give false information. That’s true, but its also true that in such a situation, there wouldn’t be time to try anything else. I know those situations are possible, if not already in existence But the reason why we need to keep torture illegal and not give our government any authority to ever use it is because of the ease in which it can be abused, and the ease in which people can justify using it again Let’s talk about the Bush Administration. If they were to be believed, torture was the only thing that could have been used to get certain information to save Americans. But unlike Jack, they chose to hide behind interpretations, their power, politics, and stupid legal opinions written by unqualified idiots to escape their punishment. I’m saying that torture is such an evil thing to do that whoever does so, even if justified, must be punished. If Bush thought torture was justified to use to save Americans and that it was the only choice he had, he STILL should have turned himself in and sat in jail for it voluntarily. That is the sacrifice we must make if torture is to be used, that those who do it, even under the right circumstances for the right reasons, still need to be punished. I think all those who genuinely believed that torturing prisoners to save America was necessary need to turn themselves in, admit to what they’ve done, and serve time in jail. That is the price we must pay to use something like that ---
**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:** [April 5, 2012, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-torture/617498/74 "2012-04-05T17:37:31Z")
I guess I don’t have much sympathy for people who would be willing to save New York City from a nuclear bomb by torturing a prisoner, but only if they get clearance from the legal department first. If you’re too scared you might go to prison to slap around a terrorist scumbag, then maybe you’re not such a tough guy after all. If the information you need isn’t important enough to risk going to jail over, then maybe it isn’t important enough to torture over. ---
**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:** [April 5, 2012, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-torture/617498/75 "2012-04-05T20:18:37Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > I am 100% against torture being legal, being justified by the government, and being used by them for any reason. However, I am not 100% against using it. That’s not a contradiction. I recognize that there are instances, such as the old ticking time bomb scenario, in which torture of someone is the only thing that may work to get the information I need. Yes, I’m familiar with the criticisms, that the tortured can simply stall and give false information. That’s true, but its also true that in such a situation, there wouldn’t be time to try anything else. I know those situations are possible, if not already in existence Torture is not your best option in a ticking time bomb scenario either (understanding that in that situation there are not much in the way of “good” options either): Bolding mine > [@](#): > > At the meeting, Cochran demanded to know what the interrogators would do if they faced the imminent threat of a nuclear blast in New York City, and had custody of a suspect who knew how to stop it. One interrogator said that he would apply physical coercion only if he received a personal directive from the President. But Navarro, who estimates that he has conducted some twelve thousand interrogations, replied that torture was not an effective response. “These are very determined people, and they won’t turn just because you pull a fingernail out,” he told me. And Finnegan argued that torturing fanatical Islamist terrorists is particularly pointless. “They almost welcome torture,” he said. “They expect it. They want to be martyred.” **A ticking time bomb, he pointed out, would make a suspect only more unwilling to talk. “They know if they can simply hold out several hours, all the more glory—the ticking time bomb will go off!”** > > \ > > “In Iraq, I never saw pain produce intelligence,” Lagouranis told me. “I worked with someone who used waterboarding”—an interrogation method involving the repeated near-drowning of a suspect. “I used severe hypothermia, dogs, and sleep deprivation. I saw suspects after soldiers had gone into their homes and broken their bones, or made them sit on a Humvee’s hot exhaust pipes until they got third-degree burns. Nothing happened.” Some people, he said, “gave confessions. But they just told us what we already knew. It never opened up a stream of new information.” **If anything, he said, “physical pain can strengthen the resolve to clam up.”** > > SOURCE: [The Politics of “24” | The New Yorker](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/02/19/070219fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all) ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2012, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-torture/617498/76 "2012-04-05T20:57:15Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > More weaseling. > No, the other civilised Western Governments STILL DO NOT TORTURE, _you_ do. > > Sorry that this doesn’t jive with your vision as the shining city on the hill, but you have long lost this image. That’s really not true. Plenty of Palestinians, Algerians and Irish Catholics can testify to that. Similarly before making such foolish statements as “you yanks” keep in mind that at least since the start of the GWOT, various UK governments have clearly condoned torture as we can tell by the number of intelligence reports they’ve accepted from the ISI and other organizations that unquestionably DO engage in torture. I remember Andrew Sullivan on his blog making a fool of himself by talking a few years ago about a terror plot in the UK being foiled “through old-fashioned intelligence work rather than torture” and quickly dropping the subject when it was revealed the arrested were made and the plot broken following information given to them that Pakistani intelligence had gained while “interviewing” some “captured terrorists”. In fact, I’ve noticed that while lots of people who freely condemn the US torturing people don’t call on the US to not engage in “enhanced interrogation” suddenly becoming mute when it comes to the US accepting intelligence information gained from Egyptian, Saudi, Pakistani, or Israeli intelligence via torture. Similarly, many of the “experts” who go on to cable TV insisting how “torture doesn’t work” when pressed start advocating “psychological pressure techniques” and similar methods that are clearly also torture. In short, they don’t seem to be claiming that tortured doesn’t work, they just want to rename it a la John Yoo. Incidentally, nothing that I’ve posted is meant as an excuse for the brutal torture that went on under the Bush administration. Finally, since this OP began by mentioning Harris, it’s worth noting that book is nearly ten years old and, I believe, he has backed off a bit from it. None of that is to justify ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2012, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-torture/617498/77 "2012-04-05T22:16:16Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > In fact, I’ve noticed that while lots of people who freely condemn the US torturing people don’t call on the US to not engage in “enhanced interrogation” suddenly becoming mute when it comes to the US accepting intelligence information gained from Egyptian, Saudi, Pakistani, or Israeli intelligence via torture. Well I oppose it; both because it’s unethical, and because if it’s actually obtained though torture it’s almost certainly wrong. And I expect that the vast majority of _accurate_ data “obtained through torture” in reality was obtained though _other_ means, then they tortured people anyway. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was common for them to get accurate information, then pick out some guy and torture him specifically so they could say they tortured it out of him. ---
**Author:** ![Rysdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7cd45c/32.png) [@Rysdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysdad)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2012, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-torture/617498/78 "2012-04-06T01:05:00Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > If someone is willing to torture, then they are a monster and an enemy of humanity who should be hunted down and killed or imprisoned for life… Or tortured? ---
**Author:** ![Rysdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7cd45c/32.png) [@Rysdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysdad)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2012, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-torture/617498/79 "2012-04-06T01:06:27Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was common for them to get accurate information, then pick out some guy and torture him specifically so they could say they tortured it out of him. Wow. Really? Seriously? You said that? Wow. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2012, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-torture/617498/80 "2012-04-06T02:45:20Z")
> [@Rysdad](#): > > Or tortured? No. :rolleyes: > [@Rysdad](#): > > Wow. Really? Seriously? You said that? Wow. Oh, come on. By torturing people they’ve already demonstrated just how vile they are. There’s no reason to think they have any scruples whatsoever. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-torture/617498.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-torture/617498.md?page=5)