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atheistgirl
Guest
Time to get educated.
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/13/AR2007121301303.html
Sarah x
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Sarah x
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carn
Guest
Time to learn logic:Time to get educated.
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/13/AR2007121301303.html
Sarah x
a) Efficiency of “torture” is irrelevant to the question whether it is always forbidden.
b) “But the number of prisoners who said anything was low, from 3 percent in Paris to 14 percent in Toulouse (an exceptional high).” Even if the efficiency argument would have any merit, such information would be meaningless as the question would then under dire circumstances of a ticking nuke only be whether “torture” is more or less efficient than other options and normal interorogation with a 3 hours time limit might also have bad sucess rates and especially it might be that “tortures” bad sucess rates are better.
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PolarGuy
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Apparently we were insufficiently “educated” by some miscellaneous college professor, from a miscellaneous college, who wrote a 2-page on-line article.
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atheistgirl
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Some miscellaneous college professor
Meet the author:
A professor of political science who also wrote: “Torture and Democracy.”
*Darius Rejali, professor of political science at Reed College, is a nationally recognized expert on government torture and interrogation. Iranian-born, Rejali has spent his scholarly career reflecting on violence, and, specifically, reflecting on the causes, consequences, and meaning of modern torture in our world. His work spans concerns in political science, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, history, and critical social theory.
Torture and Democracy won the 2007 Human Rights Book of the Year Award from the American Political Science Association. The award is decided on the merits of the book’s scholarship and for its capacity to influence policy or bring about change in human rights conventions.
Torture and Democracy has also placed Rejali in the international media spotlight, positioning him among the world’s preeminent scholars on torture.
In 2009, the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board awarded Reed College professor of political science Darius Rejali with the Danish Distinguished Chair in Human Rights and International Studies. Awards in the Fulbright Distinguished Chairs Program are among the most prestigious appointments in the Fulbright Scholar Program. The Danish Distinguished Chair is a research award at the Danish Center for International Studies and Human Rights
Rejali is also the author of Torture and Modernity: Self, Society, and State in Modern Iran (Westview, 1994) as well as many recent articles on violence including masculinity and torture, media representations of torture, American public opinion on torture, the political thought of Osama bin Ladin, the history of electric torture, the practice of stoning in the Middle East, the treatment of refugees who have been tortured, and theories of ethnic rape.
Rejali has been a member of the Reed faculty since 1989. He earned a Ph.D. in political science from McGill University and a B.A. in philosophy from Swarthmore College. He is a member of the editorial board of Human Rights Review. *
academic.reed.edu/poli_sci/faculty/rejali/
Sarah x
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carn
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That does not change that the question “Is torture ever morally acceptable?” cannot be answered via evaluating the efficiency of torture or “torture”.
Some miscellaneous college professor
Meet the author:
A professor of political science who also wrote: “Torture and Democracy.”
academic.reed.edu/poli_sci/faculty/rejali/
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PolarGuy
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Like I said.
A miscellaneous professor.
A miscellaneous professor.
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atheistgirl
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Where did I say it could be?
My post was simply addressing Polarguy’s post and his boasting what he’d do to the terrorist to get the guy to talk.
He’d be wasting his time.
Polarguy seems to think torture is efficient.
The experts disagree as I’ve demonstrated.
That is what I was highlighting - I was not addressing the morality.
Sarah x
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Ridgerunner
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I’m guessing we will no more get a fully accepted and reasonably workable definition of “torture” in this thread than has been gotten in any other thread on the subject.
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PolarGuy
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Stop overstating your case, SarahX. “The experts” agree? No. You are citing one professor, who is clearly a career academic who has likely never been in any setting where torture was even close to taking place. And this one professor cites…what? Alleged “studies” dating to the 1500s (which can’t exactly be scientifically verified, now can they?)? And some anecdotal evidence which also can’t be verified.
Don’t pass off one miscellaneous professor’s internet article as “agreement by experts,” please.
Don’t pass off one miscellaneous professor’s internet article as “agreement by experts,” please.
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carn
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Your link does not even show that. For PolarGuy wasting his time his sucess probability must be either zero or lower than an alternative option, which is guaranteed to be available to him.
Your link does indicate that “torture” does not have a 0% chance for sucess and does not compare the efficiency of “torture” with other methods under PolarGuys suggested time frame of 3 hours (it only indicates that for usual police work - e.g. questioning a suspect for several days, asking third parties about the issue in the meantime - “torture” efficiency might be often inferior). Hence the link cannot show that he would be wasting his time.
Mind closely what experts actually claim. Often experts discuss in respect to “torture” the idea whether it would be efficient as a normal legally available police method. Such informationen is of limited usefulness in the case of a ticking bomb and the options of normal questioning and “torture”, since in real life ticking bomb scenarios practically do not happen, hence no data to evaluate these situations.
The only case i know about, which came close to ticking bomb was a kidnapper caught by the police (and there was no doubt about him being the kidnapper). The victims whereabouts were unknown, the kidnappers behavior lead police to the conclusion that the victim might still be alife, imprisoned somewhere and that the kidnapper had no accomplice capable of providing the victim with food and water. Hence, it was possible that somewhere the victim was dying of thirst, while the only person knowing where he was, was in police custody and unwilling to offer information (and besides trying to play legal games).
After repeated questioning for half a day, police feared time was running out and the one in charge decided to threaten the kidnapper with pain like he has never experienced in his life, since the police officer thought that the kidnapper would collapse under such pressure. The kidnapper did collapse and lead the police to the place where the victim was imprisoned. Unfortunately the kidnapper had already murdered the victim, while trying to abduct him.
Which of course was pretty “fortunate” for experts, philosophers and do-gooders, since all their arguments regarding the subject would have fallen apart in face of a 11-year old boy surviving thanks to police threatening a kidnapper. (And “fortunate” for German legal system, since per letter of law the police officer would still have to be convicted, but any court would sound pretty stupid saying “we convict you for saving the life of an 11-year old victim”).
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thistle
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Well YOU are wrong. Doing an evil to achieve a good is NEVER morally acceptable. That is the Church teaching.
On a separate note it has been shown that information obtained by torture is very rarely true so only a fool and very naive person would think torturing a terrorist who had planted a nuclear bomb would give up the location. These people don’t care if you kill or torture them.
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PolarGuy
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Thistle, saying platitudes like, “one must not do evil so a good comes of it!” is meaningless when you have not convinced me or anyone else that anything I propose to do is evil. Rather, I contend that your proposed act – whatever it is, because you’ve not edified us, but it apparently involves doing very little when the terrorist smirks at you – is evil, since it condemns millions of innocents to death by fire/radiation.
Platitudes are great when you’re at your computer for your 16,000th post, but in the real world, reality is often very different.
And BTW – can I alert a forum elder that someone is calling me a fool or naive? Oh…wait…
Platitudes are great when you’re at your computer for your 16,000th post, but in the real world, reality is often very different.
And BTW – can I alert a forum elder that someone is calling me a fool or naive? Oh…wait…
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carn
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Please provide a Church document showing that inflicting pain or threatening to so on an unwilling subject to make the subject do something, which the subject is capable of doing and which will reduce the risk for innocents, which are endangered due to a crime the subject committed, is intrinsically evil.
Or please provide a document showing that such action falls within the Churchs definition of torture.
(Ok, i guess you cannot, because any police officer saying “Drop you gun!” is doing nothing else than threatening an unwilling subject to…)
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carn
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To again remind people, that its difficult to define “torture” in a sensible way:
hrweb.org/legal/cat.html
“For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. ** It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions. **”
Effictively, the definition in the first part includes a lot of things that are happening daily in ordinary police and court work. Hence, the opt out in the end that if its lawful sanctions, then it isnt torture. Which is a pretty stupid definition, because then simply a law requiring all suspects to answer any police question truthfully and otherwise be beaten till a truthful answer is given, would mean that then the police would not be torturing according to UN convention (although such a law would violate other UN conventions, there would not be any violation of the UN convention vs torture).
hrweb.org/legal/cat.html
“For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. ** It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions. **”
Effictively, the definition in the first part includes a lot of things that are happening daily in ordinary police and court work. Hence, the opt out in the end that if its lawful sanctions, then it isnt torture. Which is a pretty stupid definition, because then simply a law requiring all suspects to answer any police question truthfully and otherwise be beaten till a truthful answer is given, would mean that then the police would not be torturing according to UN convention (although such a law would violate other UN conventions, there would not be any violation of the UN convention vs torture).
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thistle
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CCC 1756 It is therefore an error to judge the morality of human acts by considering only the intention that inspires them or the circumstances (environment, social pressure, duress or emergency, etc.) which supply their context. There are acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object; such as blasphemy and perjury, murder and adultery.** One may not do evil so that good may result from it.**
CCC 2297 Kidnapping and hostage taking bring on a reign of terror; by means of threats they subject their victims to intolerable pressures. They are morally wrong. Terrorism threatens, wounds, and kills indiscriminately; it is gravely against justice and charity. Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity. Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law.
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carn
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You failed to show that using physical or moral violence to extract information from the responsible criminal necessary to prevent serious consequences oif his crimes is such an act that is always gravely illicit. You only showed that using physical or moral violence to extract confessions is gravely illicit.
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Frank_Drebin
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Technically, that is a good point. It doesn’t explicitly condemn the circumstance of preventing a serious crime, unless they construe confession to mean preemptive.
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thistle
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You must have your head stuck in the sand or desperate to justify torture!
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carn
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Since i have neither in this thread nor anywhere else seen a definition of torture, i cannot (knowingly) justify it, since i do not know what it is.
Look at the UN definition, its a hilarious joke. The definition one can read into the CCC is at best only by example and not exhaustive, therefore may or may not include further things.
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Tomdstone
Guest
I believe that Pope Pius VII forbade the use of torture on March 31, 1816. However, before that time torture was used in the Inquisition, although you were not allowed to break bones or spill blood while torturing the person. The papal bull ad extirpanda is often quoted as having approved the use of torture to extract confessions, but in reading the text, I can’t find that wording.
The question I had was whether or not the Catholic Church has changed its teaching on the use of torture?
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