Is torture ever morally acceptable?

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carn said:
Look at the UN definition, its a hilarious joke.
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Ok, remember, never think the UN is as ridicolous as you think, its always more ridicolous:
lifesitenews.com/news/failing-to-offer-abortion-is-torture-according-to-un-report

I hope this highlights that without any definition of torture, its pointless claiming any specific action is evil due to being torture, since with a vague definition of torture anything can be torture.

edit:
From ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session22/A.HRC.22.53_English.pdf, page 111, last lines:
“The Committee against Torture has repeatedly expressed concerns about restrictions
on acce
ss to abortion and about absolute bans on abortion as violating the prohibition of
torture and ill treatment.”

So in the eyes of the UN the Catholic Church promotes torture, since Church promotes absolute ban on abortion. Guess Church would tend to disagree.👍

I just hope Church officials are aware, that when they proclaim that torture is wrong, that then the politicians listening will understand something completely different. (And in the same way i doubt people in this thread are actually talking about the same thing.)
 
carn said:
Ok, remember, never think the UN is as ridicolous as you think, its always more ridicolous:
lifesitenews.com/news/failing-to-offer-abortion-is-torture-according-to-un-report

I hope this highlights that without any definition of torture, its pointless claiming any specific action is evil due to being torture, since with a vague definition of torture anything can be torture.

edit:
From ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session22/A.HRC.22.53_English.pdf, page 111, last lines:
“The Committee against Torture has repeatedly expressed concerns about restrictions
on acce
ss to abortion and about absolute bans on abortion as violating the prohibition of
torture and ill treatment.”

So in the eyes of the UN the Catholic Church promotes torture, since Church promotes absolute ban on abortion. Guess Church would tend to disagree.👍

I just hope Church officials are aware, that when they proclaim that torture is wrong, that then the politicians listening will understand something completely different. (And in the same way i doubt people in this thread are actually talking about the same thing.)
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I always felt that the UN is a non serious organization, mostly because of their blue helmets.
Edit: When I see the roman inspired wheat in their logo I think about the similar wheat used in Soviet-union logos.
 
I am going to school to be a police officer, and police officers are not allowed to torture suspects, because they are typically dealing with American citizens who have rights. However, terrorists don’t have rights. So I say, break out the car batteries, the waterboarding implements, and go to town on these monsters.
 
If I can torture someone to potentially save people from a bomb (unrealistic anyway…) or even find an 11 year old who is missing then what is the moral separation between that act of torture and the bombing of abortion clinics to stop the murders of countless unborn lives?
 
This whole thread reminds me of “24” TV series. Jack Bower to the rescue!!
 
starshiptrooper said:
I am going to school to be a police officer, and police officers are not allowed to torture suspects, because they are typically dealing with American citizens who have rights.
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Wow.

You’re going to be a police office and you think the only reason you can’t torture somebody is because they’re likely American citizens who have rights.

Frightening.

Sarah x 🙂
 
You cannot do something evil, (like inflicting pain and suffering on a human being) even if the intent is to do something good (saving lives). The Church has been very clear on this.

Besides, how do you know that you will achieve your aim? Most military and intelligence experts do not consider torture an effective intelligence gathering tool, because if you torture someone long enough, they will tell you anything you want to hear (not necessarily what you need to know) to end the pain.
 
Again define torture?

If loud noises and sleep depravation are torture, I am in for some serious torture when my next child is born.
 
Frank_Drebin said:
Again define torture?

If loud noises and sleep depravation are torture, I am in for some serious torture when my next child is born.
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I certainly hope you aren’t trying to morally equate intentionally causing prolonged distress to another human being with a child crying out of a need for comfort.

If I locked you in a room and didn’t allow you to sleep for days you would not say that my actions were moral, yet no one would question a baby for crying in the middle of the night because it needs a clean diaper.

If you want to justify sleep deprivation torture your argument has to be a justification as to why in certain circumstances it is alright to treat another human in a inhumane manner. Not “Oh it isn’t THAT bad.”
 
atheistgirl said:
Wow.

You’re going to be a police office and you think the only reason you can’t torture somebody is because they’re likely American citizens who have rights.

Frightening.

Sarah x 🙂
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Do you have better reason? :cool:
 
PatrickSebast said:
I certainly hope you aren’t trying to morally equate intentionally causing prolonged distress to another human being with a child crying out of a need for comfort.

If I locked you in a room and didn’t allow you to sleep for days you would not say that my actions were moral, yet no one would question a baby for crying in the middle of the night because it needs a clean diaper.

If you want to justify sleep deprivation torture your argument has to be a justification as to why in certain circumstances it is alright to treat another human in a inhumane manner. Not “Oh it isn’t THAT bad.”
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I was speaking in jest, buddy, relax.

I am simply saying you haven’t clearly defined torture, and I went through sleep depravation and loud music when I was trained in the USAF at SERE school. I don’t consider that torture, nor do most people discussing the issue. If it is, then sleeping on a hard matress in a jail cell would be too.

Water boarding is the easiest example of a fair debate.
 
The only moral argument the anti-torture folks keep returning to is one line from the CCC: “You can’t do evil so that good comes of it.”

The logical fallacy of falling back on that as a basis to oppose torture is multi-faceted:
  1. Once again…who says I’m doing evil? I say the anti-torture folks are themselves doing evil, by, in our hypothetical, allowing innocents to suffer needlessly when the terrorist smirks at them. Their position requires complete agreement on what constitutes evil, and, since there is no such agreement, I’ll torture away on the terrorist, using thumb screws or whatever is at hand.
  2. Johann sort of tried to say that torture is evil because it inflicts pain and suffering on another human. By this definition, a dentist is a torturer. So is a parent who spanks their child, or who refuses to let little Johnny play outside because he didn’t eat his vegetables. So is anyone who causes any pain. The knee-jerk response is “but there the dentist’s work is part of a larger benefit, etc.” But – see – if that’s so, and “you can’t do evil so that good may come of it,” a dentist cannot cause pain even if a good comes of it. Suffice it to say, the “no doing evil even if good comes of it,” is soon rendered ridiculous by circumstances.
My larger point, lost on the anti-torture folks, is that morality is often exceedingly complex, and spouting lines from the Catechism is, frankly, meaningless when applied to hard situations in the real world.
 
PolarGuy said:
The only moral argument the anti-torture folks keep returning to is one line from the CCC: “You can’t do evil so that good comes of it.”

The logical fallacy of falling back on that as a basis to oppose torture is multi-faceted:
  1. Once again…who says I’m doing evil? I say the anti-torture folks are themselves doing evil, by, in our hypothetical, allowing innocents to suffer needlessly when the terrorist smirks at them. Their position requires complete agreement on what constitutes evil, and, since there is no such agreement, I’ll torture away on the terrorist, using thumb screws or whatever is at hand.
  2. Johann sort of tried to say that torture is evil because it inflicts pain and suffering on another human. By this definition, a dentist is a torturer. So is a parent who spanks their child, or who refuses to let little Johnny play outside because he didn’t eat his vegetables. So is anyone who causes any pain. The knee-jerk response is “but there the dentist’s work is part of a larger benefit, etc.” But – see – if that’s so, and “you can’t do evil so that good may come of it,” a dentist cannot cause pain even if a good comes of it. Suffice it to say, the “no doing evil even if good comes of it,” is soon rendered ridiculous by circumstances.
My larger point, lost on the anti-torture folks, is that morality is often exceedingly complex, and spouting lines from the Catechism is, frankly, meaningless when applied to hard situations in the real world.
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The whole point of Church teaching and the catechism is to help guide us in the hard situations of the real world…

Also you are failing to make any distinction between the very obvious moral separation of a dental patient willing submitting to pain as a solution to a greater problem and an individual being forcefully entrapped and treated with less than human dignity.

To add to that this idea of a smirking terrorist who needs to be treated to thumbscrew torture to save innocents is mostly a false situation. Ticking time-bombs are not a real-life occurrence and most experts agree that time and effort can be better spent gathering information through methods and realms outside of torture.

The way you speak of your willingness to “torture away” at the “smirking terrorist” also makes it appear as if your willingness to partake in these actions is due to a personal dehumanizing of “terrorists” rather than a well developed moral justification for subjecting your fellow man to unwanted suffering.
 
Frank_Drebin said:
I was speaking in jest, buddy, relax.

I am simply saying you haven’t clearly defined torture, and I went through sleep depravation and loud music when I was trained in the USAF at SERE school. I don’t consider that torture, nor do most people discussing the issue. If it is, then sleeping on a hard matress in a jail cell would be too.

Water boarding is the easiest example of a fair debate.
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Sleep deprivation training, with a foreseeable end, administered by allies with your interests in mind is a bit different than sleep deprivation administered by people who are disregarding your well being and dignity for the sake of information.

And sleeping on a hard matress is not in anyway comparable. A lack of luxury (and for many people any mattress is a luxury) is different from intentional harm.
 
PatrickSebast said:
Sleep deprivation training, with a foreseeable end, administered by allies with your interests in mind is a bit different than sleep deprivation administered by people who are disregarding your well being and dignity for the sake of information.

And sleeping on a hard matress is not in anyway comparable. A lack of luxury (and for many people any mattress is a luxury) is different from intentional harm.
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So torture is not the act itself, but the intent of the act? Depriving someone of sleep (or other form of torture) is okay, as long as it is for a just cause?

Just clarifying.

Again, even the most liberal definitions of torture do not argue over loud music and sleep depravation. They argue over water boarding.

You seem to arbitrarily deciding what is and isn’t comparable. You refer to intentional harm, but include lack of sleep and loud music as intentional harm? Come on, that’s silly.
 
Frank_Drebin said:
So torture is not the act itself, but the intent of the act? Depriving someone of sleep (or other form of torture) is okay, as long as it is for a just cause?

Just clarifying.

Again, even the most liberal definitions of torture do not argue over loud music and sleep depravation. They argue over water boarding.

You seem to arbitrarily deciding what is and isn’t comparable. You refer to intentional harm, but include lack of sleep and loud music as intentional harm? Come on, that’s silly.
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Whether or not it is torture isn’t really that important. Punching someone in the face isn’t torture either, but that doesn’t mean it is at all justifiable to do it to an already captured and helpless individual. And sleep deprivation, much like the deprivation of food and water, can cause serious lasting effects to a person’s body if drawn out too long, so yes lack of sleep is intentional harm. Nothing I am saying is arbitrary. I have not given you an unclear question to answer. I am asking for a moral justification, in line with Church teaching, for treating prisoners cruely.

Also I would like to note, that since you mentioned waterboarding, that the Catholic Church very clearly defined waterboarding as torture during the inquisition and put extreme limitations on it’s use. So centuries ago there really wasn’t much debate over the issue, it is just a modern political ploy by certain US government groups to justify their actions. It was considered torture by our military in much earlier periods, and it was most certainly considered torture in WW2 when the Japanese were doing it to US prisoners of war. So at the very least the classification of the action as torture or not torture is meaningless in the grand scheme of things.
 
Frank_Drebin said:
So torture is not the act itself, but the intent of the act? Depriving someone of sleep (or other form of torture) is okay, as long as it is for a just cause?

Just clarifying.

Again, even the most liberal definitions of torture do not argue over loud music and sleep depravation. They argue over water boarding.

You seem to arbitrarily deciding what is and isn’t comparable. You refer to intentional harm, but include lack of sleep and loud music as intentional harm? Come on, that’s silly.
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Continuous loud music and sleep deprivation most certainly is torture.
 
Tomdstone said:
Continuous loud music and sleep deprivation most certainly is torture.
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Says who, you?

I think it isn’t. And my source is them same as yours - opinion.

So if it is torture, does that mean the US military is guilty of torturing their own members? It happens regularly in Spokane, Washington.
 
AIUI, someone can die if kept awake long enough; so even if technically not “torture”, it is intentional harm, therefore reprehensible if done as interrogation.

Actions undertaken as physical training, where care is taken not to harm those in training, are not the same as actions done to break captives’ resistance. There are military training situations where trainees have to swim with bound limbs; however, tying someone up and throwing them into deep water as interrogation would be reprehensible. AIUI.

ICXC NIKA
 
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