The Ethics of Torture.

Great Debates
61

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.

62

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.

63

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.

64

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.

Yeah, sure, all else equal. I’d wager we’re all on board there.

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.)

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.

65

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.”*

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.

66

[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.

67

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.”

68

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.

69

Virtue ethics is still alive and kicking!

70

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.

Not every human being. Some are just monsters; psychopaths, fanatics and such.

71

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.

72

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.

73

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

74

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.

75

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

76

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

77

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.

78

Or tortured?

79

Wow. Really? Seriously? You said that? Wow.

80

No. :rolleyes:

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.