# Torture Hypothetical (Logic Not Adqeuate For Real Life Situations). **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 13, 2008, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-hypothetical-logic-not-adqeuate-for-real-life-situations/437388 "2008-02-13T02:26:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-hypothetical-logic-not-adqeuate-for-real-life-situations/437388/81 "2008-02-14T17:15:20Z")
[QUOTE=Dumbguy] If God came to you and asked you to kill your son as a show of loyalty, would you do it? If so, why do you hate your son? If not, why do you hate God? [/QUOTE] Well put. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Controvert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@The\_Controvert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Controvert)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-hypothetical-logic-not-adqeuate-for-real-life-situations/437388/82 "2008-02-14T17:59:20Z")
[QUOTE=GomiBoy] if I was Mr Evil Genius who went to all this trouble, I would simply tell you things I thought you wanted to hear (“The virus bomb is at 11 East 50th Street, New York, I PROMISE! No more wild goose chases like the last 5 I sent you out on, no matter I know the time is ticking! I swear on my mother’s name!”) just to get you to leave me alone for a little while. [/QUOTE] You’re obviously not a very good interrogator if you don’t make it clear to the Evil Genius that the torture stops when the information is verified. And with the world at stake, it just takes a phone call and less than a minute’s time to verify that location. If the Evil Genius is broken, he will tell you the very exact location i.e. “under the counter in a red backpack”. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-hypothetical-logic-not-adqeuate-for-real-life-situations/437388/83 "2008-02-14T18:11:35Z")
[QUOTE=The Controvert] You’re obviously not a very good interrogator if you don’t make it clear to the Evil Genius that the torture stops when the information is verified. [/QUOTE] Or when the plague kills _you_. And if the Evil Genius values the change to the planet more than his own life and more than his own pain, he might stick it out regardless. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-hypothetical-logic-not-adqeuate-for-real-life-situations/437388/84 "2008-02-14T19:28:14Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] What is not “immediate and unavoidable” about this danger? : [/QUOTE] Yes, it is possible to construct bizarre hypothetical scenarios where it’s possible to “torture in self-defense”. That doesn’t mean that we can equate “torture” and “self-defense” as they normally occur. The existence of hermaphrodites does not justify me peeing in the ladies’ room. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-hypothetical-logic-not-adqeuate-for-real-life-situations/437388/85 "2008-02-14T20:53:27Z")
[QUOTE=Pochacco] Yes, it is possible to construct bizarre hypothetical scenarios where it’s possible to “torture in self-defense”. That doesn’t mean that we can equate “torture” and “self-defense” as they normally occur. The existence of hermaphrodites does not justify me peeing in the ladies’ room. [/QUOTE] I’m not equating “torture” and “self defense.” I am saying that the situation in the OP is \*not \*torture, but \*is \*self defense. Not an equivalency at all. I mean, saying that one thing is not another thing is not equating them, right? I thought I had made that clear, but often I find that what is clear in my mind is less so when I verbalize it. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-hypothetical-logic-not-adqeuate-for-real-life-situations/437388/86 "2008-02-14T20:57:39Z")
[QUOTE=Dumbguy] If God came to you and asked you to kill your son as a show of loyalty, would you do it? If so, why do you hate your son? If not, why do you hate God? [/QUOTE] What’s a tortoise? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-hypothetical-logic-not-adqeuate-for-real-life-situations/437388/87 "2008-02-14T21:19:57Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] I’m not equating “torture” and “self defense.” I am saying that the situation in the OP is \*not \*torture, but \*is \*self defense. Not an equivalency at all. I mean, saying that one thing is not another thing is not equating them, right? I thought I had made that clear, but often I find that what is clear in my mind is less so when I verbalize it. [/QUOTE] The most you’re going to be able to sell is that in _this_ hypothetical situation, it is _both_ torture _and_ self-defense. You can’t sell that it’s not torture; if you end up torturing the guy, for whatever the reason, it’s still torture. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-hypothetical-logic-not-adqeuate-for-real-life-situations/437388/88 "2008-02-14T21:21:53Z")
[QUOTE=begbert2] The most you’re going to be able to sell is that in _this_ hypothetical situation, it is _both_ torture _and_ self-defense. You can’t sell that it’s not torture; if you end up torturing the guy, for whatever the reason, it’s still torture. [/QUOTE] Is hitting a guy in the head with a stick torture? How about if hitting him in the head with a stick stops him from killing me? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-hypothetical-logic-not-adqeuate-for-real-life-situations/437388/89 "2008-02-14T21:44:36Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] Is hitting a guy in the head with a stick torture? How about if hitting him in the head with a stick stops him from killing me? [/QUOTE] From [merriam-webster](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/torture): > [@](#): > > 1 a: anguish of body or mind : agony b: something that causes agony or pain > 2: the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure I believe that the applicable definition is #2 (from the perspective of the one doing the torturing), it clearly states that your beating him with the stick is _not_ torture, unless you think the reason you’re swinging is to ‘coerce’, in which case it is. It _certainly_ is in the OP, so, by definition, in the hypothetical it _is_ torture. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-hypothetical-logic-not-adqeuate-for-real-life-situations/437388/90 "2008-02-14T22:08:31Z")
First of all, the OP clearly does not believe in any moral absolutes, since you can substitute nuking a city (or killing a baby, as already proposed) for torture. However, let me propose that no real torture can happen in this scenario. The evil genius surrenders. The evil genius clearly knows he is going to be tortured. There are two reasons for this. He might have arranged to be immune from torture, and, just before the plague is released, can look up from the torture rack and tell the torturers that their actions demonstrate that man deserves to be eradicated. The second choice is that the torture will work. Why then does he submit to it? He must enjoy being tortured, so the torture in this case is not really torture. So the scenario in the OP contains a contradiction, and thus is inoperative. ---
**Author:** ![Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4da419/32.png) [@Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gala_Matrix_Fire)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2008, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-hypothetical-logic-not-adqeuate-for-real-life-situations/437388/91 "2008-02-14T23:32:27Z")
Let us not forget that torture, as parsed by former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, is only torture if it causes pain equivalent to loss of limb or organ failure _and is done only for the purpose of inflicting pain_. If you do it to elicit information, it’s ipso facto not torture. ---
**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:** [February 15, 2008, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-hypothetical-logic-not-adqeuate-for-real-life-situations/437388/92 "2008-02-15T04:34:10Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] Is hitting a guy in the head with a stick torture? How about if hitting him in the head with a stick stops him from killing me? [/QUOTE] You challenged me to explain why self defense isn’t torture. I go into excruciating detail about your question, and you still trot out the same lame argument. Nice going. ---
**Author:** ![GomiBoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b2d939/32.png) [@GomiBoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GomiBoy)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2008, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-hypothetical-logic-not-adqeuate-for-real-life-situations/437388/93 "2008-02-15T08:42:58Z")
[QUOTE=The Controvert] You’re obviously not a very good interrogator if you don’t make it clear to the Evil Genius that the torture stops when the information is verified. [/quote] No, you’re continuing to miss the point. Torture does not work, not because people who know things will tell, but because if you don’t know something you’ll still talk, just to make it stop. And it can be ‘gamed’ And I’m not an interrogator, nor have I ever been. > [@](#): > > And with the world at stake, it just takes a phone call and less than a minute’s time to verify that location. If the Evil Genius is broken, he will tell you the very exact location i.e. “under the counter in a red backpack”. Oh, of course - I forgot. This insane hypothetical will continue to get twisted until anyone who is against torture is shown as either a hypocrite or an idiot. Please feel free to continue this mental masturbation exercise and just chalk me up to the ‘I won’t torture to extract information no matter what’ camp. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2008, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-hypothetical-logic-not-adqeuate-for-real-life-situations/437388/94 "2008-02-18T17:42:00Z")
[QUOTE=George Kaplin] …this thread isn’t intended to establish the moral status of torture. I think it’s quite obvious that the moral status of torture is situational. Torturing someone over a parking ticket is obviously inhumane, but torturing someone for information which could conceivably save thousands of lives is arguably less so. [/quote] I think it’s quite obvious that torture has no place in a civilised society. You won’t use it yourself over a parking ticket, but will use it to ‘conceivably’ save thousands of lives? Would you use it to conceivably save one life? Conceivably two lives? If you had 100 suspects (99 innocent), would you torture them all to save lives? [QUOTE=George Kaplin] This thread is not concerned with torture _per se_ as much as it is concerned with the ethics of those who would rule out torture in every conceivable circumstance. I would like to know what guides people to such conclusions. [/quote] Once you allow the government to do something, it will usually do it more. For example, Income Tax started as a temporary measure to finance one war. Now it’s embedded. If torture becomes legal, its use will be expanded. Note how hard it has been to get innocent people released from Guantanamo Bay (where they have been tortured). > [@glee](#): > > Would it matter if you could only save millions of lives? [QUOTE=George Kaplin] No. I would still torture. [/quote] > [@glee](#): > > Would it matter if you could only save one life? [QUOTE=George Kaplin] I would not torture in that instance. Doing so would set a precedent for torture which could result in the premature deaths of more than one innocent person. [/quote] So how many people would you need to save in order to torture one? Is there a simple mathematical relationship? [QUOTE=glee] If the madman wanted you to kill your family, would you do it? [/quote] [QUOTE=George Kaplin] In return for the world? Yes, because they’d die anyway if I refused. [/quote] Well two points here: - if the madman wants you to spend a long time torturing your family, would you do it? - if your family would otherwise be safe (they are genetically immune or something), would you kill them? [QUOTE=glee] If the madman wanted you to kill all the first-born children in the US, would you do it? [/quote] [QUOTE=George Kaplin] See above. I probably wouldn’t be too pleased with myself, but in your hypothetical world I could rest easily knowing I’d done the right thing. [/quote] Rest easy after killing a lot of children? You have \*\*very different values \*\* from me. It’s **your** hypothetical world, where somehow you know who is guilty and that torture will work. **In my world, after you kill a lot of children, it turns out the madman was bluffing.** ---
**Author:** ![BrainFireBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e495f1/32.png) [@BrainFireBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainFireBob)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2008, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-hypothetical-logic-not-adqeuate-for-real-life-situations/437388/95 "2008-02-19T08:19:37Z")
Fine. I would authorize torturing him. I do not believe I could bring myself to do it without incontrovertible outside proof being directly presented. If I am passive, he is responsible for thousands of deaths. If I am active, I have commited an irreverisible moral crime upon the person of another human being without direct provocation or solicitation, more, I would be allowing them, if they did dare me to do it, to control my actions, and my hostility to attempts to passive-aggressively dictate my actions is very high. If I don’t do it, he kills millions of people. I fail to do something good, but I did not do something bad. If I do do it, I do something that I consider evil, and I still may not be successful, not being terribly skilled in torture as far as I know. Now, this is all assuming physical torture. I am quite fine, given sufficient time, with using psyschological tortures of certain types, since they are dependent on the recipient accepting them for their efficacy. In short, I would allow him to torture himself until he presented the information. Although inducing the situation, the resultant actions would be from his choices, not my own. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2008, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-hypothetical-logic-not-adqeuate-for-real-life-situations/437388/96 "2008-02-19T11:31:37Z")
[QUOTE=GomiBoy] People will say anything they think the torturer wants to hear just to make it stop. … I would not torture, in this situation or any other similar, because it does not work. [/QUOTE] Several people have said “torture does not work” as a blanket statement. So, if I am an evil sadistic thief (a hypothetical, but sadly there are certainly evil sadistic thieves in the world) and I break into a guy’s house and tie him up, and then find a safe, and want to open the safe for thieving purposes, and wonder whether I should start shooting the guy in the kneecaps until he tells me the combination, I should choose not to, not because of moral compunctions or for fear of a heavier sentence should I be caught, but because it won’t work? I just don’t buy that… And if you are in fact making that claim, what’s your evidence for it? As to the topic of the OP, one thing I believe pretty firmly is that there are very very very few ethical statements that are absolutely true with no exceptions. And in fact, making absolute statements seems to me to be divorcing onesself of the responsibility of actually judging and assessing the situation. Killing people is wrong. But should you have an absolute rule against every killing anyone no matter what? So if (God forbid) you find yourself in an actually morally difficult situation you just follow your rule and trust that it’s the right one? There certainly have been situations in the history of the world where people have been forced to make terribly difficult judgments which involved potentially doing things like killing innocent people. Would we be better off if they’d just had an absolute rule and followed it, period, paragraph, end of story? (I mean, obviously, there are dozens of generally accepted exceptions to “do not kill people ever”, but you hopefully see my point.) To look at things in slightly different light, I firmly believe that torture is evil. (And also likely ineffective in almost all cases.) But I wouldn’t say one should never torture. I would say one should torture only in truly extraordinary, once in a generation, perfect storm type situations. However, I would NOT then say that the law should be “don’t torture unless you fill out application 5 for extraordinary situational exception”. The law should clearly be “don’t torture”. But, as is the case with all laws, someone’s first responsibility is to do what’s right, and that occasionally means breaking the law. But with some laws that’s a lot more occasional than others. Off the top of my head, I would not torture unless all of the following criteria were met: (1) Certainty beyond reasonable doubt of the identity of the torturee (2) Certainty beyond reasonable doubt that the torturee knows the piece of information you are trying to extract (3) Certainty beyond reasonable doubt that this piece of information exists, and that having it will avert catastrophe (4) Certainty beyond reasonable doubt that the torturee has knowingly committed or attempted to commit evil acts of sufficient magnitude that they would be beyond fogiveness (the type that would receive the death penalty, were there a death penalty) (5) Ability to verify that the information is correct (6) All other paths to avert catastrophe in a timely fashion have been exhausted (which pretty much implies that there is a time limit of some sort) And, on a more meta level, there’s an element of accountability and acceptance-of-responsibility that is important. If (god forbid) I were ever actually in a situation where all 6 of the above were met, I might in fact torture someone, but would then (I hope) turn myself in to the relevant authorities and explain my actions and what motivated them, and accept the consequences. That’s a large part of the problem with the actual waterboarding that occurred… did the people who did it have reason to believe that all 6 of the above were true simultaneously? It’s just barely conceivably possible that there’s a glimmer of a chance that that might be true. But we’ll sure never know. But as long as we do NOT know, the people who are “pro-torture” will be able to convince themselves that, whatever their own personal standards for when-it-might-possibly-be-ok-to-torture are, those standards might have been met in the actual cases. To repeat something I said in a previous thread on the topic: > [@me](#): > > BUT, I’m not necessarily sure that making torture in extreme situations like this legal is a good idea, because situations like this are SO rare, and setting up a law that makes torture legal in SUCH a hypothetical situation is probably going to do more harm than good. And just as being a torturer probably harms someone (and I agree that it does, but I think it would be worth it in this kind of extreme hypothetical), I think being a nation which passed a law to make torture legal, even in an extreme hypothetical, would probably damage us, as a nation. > All of that said, if I’m the sheriff, and I catch a guy in this Extreme Hypthetical, I’ll torture him in an effort to save the missing kid, who I’ll either save or not, and then I’ll admit what I did, throw myself on the mercy of the court, and trust public opinion to keep anyone from throwing the book at me. Because I’d rather do that and be able to look the surviving family members in the eye and say "I did everything I could to save that child. What I did, I did not for vengeance, but to save a life. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2008, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-hypothetical-logic-not-adqeuate-for-real-life-situations/437388/97 "2008-02-19T12:39:33Z")
In this hypothetical world where torture is redefined as a method that works, and people are redefined as entities that would react as you claim, and reality itself is redefined so that you can create this last minute sure-thing-no-ambiguities “do or die” situation, I still couldn’t bring deliberate harm to another. How my redefined new-human “Other Me” in this hypothetical world would react-well, I have no idea. ---
**Author:** ![GomiBoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b2d939/32.png) [@GomiBoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GomiBoy)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2008, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-hypothetical-logic-not-adqeuate-for-real-life-situations/437388/98 "2008-02-19T15:01:51Z")
**MaxTheVool** , rather than harvesting nuggets, you should read and quote entire posts to either support or disprove arguments. The point I raised about torture being ineffective is: 1. People who don’t know anything will say whatever they think will make the torture stop, and 2. It is easy to game the system, especially in the BS hypothetical in the OP, where time is a factor. Just keep jerking the interrogators around with false leads until time’s up. The situation you describe, where you shoot someone in the kneecaps to get a PIN number or safe combination, clearly works. Which does not disprove either of my points about the ineffectiveness of torture as an intelligence gathering tool. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2008, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-hypothetical-logic-not-adqeuate-for-real-life-situations/437388/99 "2008-02-19T18:05:34Z")
[QUOTE=GomiBoy] **MaxTheVool** , rather than harvesting nuggets, you should read and quote entire posts to either support or disprove arguments. The point I raised about torture being ineffective is: 1. People who don’t know anything will say whatever they think will make the torture stop, and 2. It is easy to game the system, especially in the BS hypothetical in the OP, where time is a factor. Just keep jerking the interrogators around with false leads until time’s up. The situation you describe, where you shoot someone in the kneecaps to get a PIN number or safe combination, clearly works. Which does not disprove either of my points about the ineffectiveness of torture as an intelligence gathering tool. [/QUOTE] I believe we are in basic agreement, although the absoluteness of your statements makes me want to come up with counterexamples… which I guess is what this thread is all about. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2008, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-hypothetical-logic-not-adqeuate-for-real-life-situations/437388/100 "2008-02-19T18:52:16Z")
Haven’t read beyond the OP. I don’t torture the dude. Sooner or later it will be reasonably possible for any person on the face of the earth to depopulate said earth, barring rather draconian total-institutional power over all people. We better hope we can learn to trust each other because I doubt we can control each other nor do I want our descendants to have to live in the world where doing so is being seriously attempted. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-hypothetical-logic-not-adqeuate-for-real-life-situations/437388.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-hypothetical-logic-not-adqeuate-for-real-life-situations/437388.md?page=6)