Torture by the state

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codefro

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What is the church’s teaching on governments torturing terrorists for information? Not cruel and unusual like iron maiden, but the “intense interrogation techniques” that the CIA claims is their MO.

I know the church condemns Christians torturing others, but what of the gov’t?
 
codefro said:
What is the church’s teaching on governments torturing terrorists for information? Not cruel and unusual like iron maiden, but the “intense interrogation techniques” that the CIA claims is their MO.

I know the church condemns Christians torturing others, but what of the gov’t?
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As far as torture is concerned, the practice is explicitly condemned by the Church as evil.

Now I don’t know if the Church or any of the Bishops have explicitly addressed the “enhanced interrogation techniques” in and of themselves, but based on the descriptions I have seen it’s hard to ignore the fact that these “techniques” ARE torture.
 
From the Catechism, paragraph 2297:

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.

It doesn’t matter who does it, it’s still intrinsically evil. Even if it is at the hands of “The State”, it is still a human individual who is doing the torturing.

As far as “enhanced interrogation techniques”, I haven’t heard the phrase. If it “uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred,” then that would mean it’s just a euphemism for torture and would thus still be immoral.
 
LotusCarsLtd said:
As far as torture is concerned, the practice is explicitly condemned by the Church as evil.

Now I don’t know if the Church or any of the Bishops have explicitly addressed the “enhanced interrogation techniques” in and of themselves, but based on the descriptions I have seen it’s hard to ignore the fact that these “techniques” ARE torture.
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I’m sorry, but the idea that “enhanced interrogation techniques” is equivalent to torture is a bit silly. Just because someone is caused to be psychologically stressed does not mean they are being tortured.

Heck, you can’t even THREATEN to cause physical harm to someone… that’s against the rules. Although that wasn’t the case when they were waterboarding all two people who were subjected to that, it’s clear that now you’re not even allowed to mentally torture someone, much less are you allowed to physically torture them.

You know what IS classed as torture these days (and therefore not allowed)? Putting a caterpillar in the cell with a prisoner. That’s right, AQ agents have no idea what a caterpillar is, so interrogators were quietly walking in without saying a word, and setting one by the door of the cell. Because they didn’t know what it was, this led to a great deal of stress on the part of the prisoners, and as such, was deemed abusive and therefore banned. Let’s be clear: setting a harmless caterpillar on the ground in a prisoner’s cell is forbidden because it was considered torture.

So why do you happen to think that the CIA’s enhanced interogation techniques amount to torture???
 
Joe_5859 said:
From the Catechism, paragraph 2297:

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.

It doesn’t matter who does it, it’s still intrinsically evil. Even if it is at the hands of “The State”, it is still a human individual who is doing the torturing.

As far as “enhanced interrogation techniques”, I haven’t heard the phrase. If it “uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred,” then that would mean it’s just a euphemism for torture and would thus still be immoral.
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The paragraph you cited in the CCC never said torture was intrinsically evil, it said it was contrary to respect for human dignity.

I wonder if such actions could be justified if they prevented the destruction of thousands of human beings? Would that now be consistent with respect for human dignity as it saves many lives?
 
I would agree about torturing is evil,but let’s say for example that a terrorist has been caught and he is being interrogated.He confess that he has placed a bomb in a building and policemen are trying to find in which.Shouldn’t he be tortured so we can save hundreds or thousands of lives?
 
codefro said:
cargau;9510601:
I wonder if such actions could be justified if they prevented the destruction of thousands of human beings?QUOTE]

That is along the lines of what I am thinking
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Nope, no justification. That is the false notion of “the lesser of two evils”. It is still a sin to torture.

We must not conflate the cause of sinful action here… when the interogator does not torture and the bomb goes off, that does NOT make the interrogator guilty of killing people. The guilt for that sin rests where it did from the moment the bomb was planted: 100% on the person who planted the bomb. No amount of not torturing someone will transfer the guilt off of the bomb planter and onto the person trying to stop the bomb through all legitimate and moral methods.
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Actaeon said:
We must not conflate the cause of sinful action here… when the interogator does not torture and the bomb goes off, that does NOT make the interrogator guilty of killing people. The guilt for that sin rests where it did from the moment the bomb was planted: 100% on the person who planted the bomb. No amount of not torturing someone will transfer the guilt off of the bomb planter and onto the person trying to stop the bomb through all legitimate and moral methods.
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That’s right.The sin rests on the person who planted the bomb;no question.But don’t be excessive,we are talking about thousands of lives.What are we gonna tell to the victims’ families?If I was the policeman I would tortured him;yes it’s a sin but I’m sure God will recognize that I saved innocent lives.
 
Vasilis92 said:
That’s right.The sin rests on the person who planted the bomb;no question.But don’t be excessive,we are talking about thousands of lives.What are we gonna tell to the victims’ families?If I was the policeman I would tortured him;yes it’s a sin but I’m sure God will recognize that I saved innocent lives.
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You’re assuming that torture works.
 
Vasilis92 said:
That’s right.The sin rests on the person who planted the bomb;no question.But don’t be excessive,we are talking about thousands of lives.What are we gonna tell to the victims’ families?If I was the policeman I would tortured him;yes it’s a sin but I’m sure God will recognize that I saved innocent lives.
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and what if it doesn’t work and he doesn’t tell you? Then you would have tortured a man for nothing, and only compounded the amount of evil done. The law of God is deontological… it does not excuse the means to acheive an ends, it always applies, regardless of the circumstances.

We can play with any number of hypotheticals, and yes, given the situation your culpability for sin MIGHT be reduced by the impact of the situation on the will, but nonetheless you would be wrong to torture someone.
 
Vasilis92 said:
I would agree about torturing is evil,but let’s say for example that a terrorist has been caught and he is being interrogated.He confess that he has placed a bomb in a building and policemen are trying to find in which.Shouldn’t he be tortured so we can save hundreds or thousands of lives?
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No! The Church teaching is very clear that you cannot do an evil even if the intent is to achieve a good.
 
Once you accept torture or any fancy word meaning the same thing You are on a slippery slope.
What is worse the murder of thousands of people or the killing of heritics who cause people to lose their salvation. Today we are appalled at the latter. However if Christianity is true the former is a far lesser crime.
From a moral point of view the just thing would be not to torture as the reasons for it could be argued as arbitray
 
codefro said:
are you assuming it doesn’t?
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Torture is inherently evil and it is also inherently flawed as an information gathering tool for one simple reason.
Torture is based on the idea causing psychological or physical stress to another human being - to such a point where they will yield some important information. The person in question may or may not have the information required.

If they do, after a period of torture they may reveal information that could be true, partially true or just false merely to relieve their state of anxiety. They may also just not break under torture at all.

If they know nothing, they may attempt to invent details in order to relieve their suffering.

In any case, the method is unreliable at best as it relies on information gathered from someone in a state of mental anguish.
 
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