Torture

[itsjustdave1988]

Is torture, of its very nature, intrinsically evil? God torments the wicked in hell, is that intrinsically evil? It seems the very act of tormenting someone can be a just punishment. So it seems it is really a matter of being conditionally evil, not necessarily intrinsically evil. I believe that like slavery or capital punishment, which are not intrinsically evil (of it’s nature, evil), they are so easily and almost always implemented unjustly that it is most prudent to presume that they cannot be charitably implemented by fallible humanity, and as such ought not to be tolerated apart from direct Divine revelation.

 

[Lisa_N]

Pug:

Lisa,

From my perspective, there are a lot of points in your post!

First, in my understanding, you are a different type of moral thinker than myself. Perhaps you follow proportionalism? A method of weighing the various goods in a situation? If so, we follow different systems…

Yes I tend to be a bit verbose. Thank heavens I can type really fast or it would take me forever to post!

Of course I weigh the benefit or detriment of various situations. So porportionalism may be applicable depending on the situation. For example our parish had an ethicist speak on human life issues and he explained that in some cases you weigh the good or the benefit versus the cost or the detriment. His example was a person with metastatic cancer where no further treatment will help that person. Do you keep treating them anyway? His answer was no, because the cost (side effects to the patient, expense to the family, use of personnel who could do more good somewhere else) exceeds any potential benefit. OTOH the person with terminal cancer would still receive food and water and pain control because the benefit far exceeds the cost. That seems like proportionalism to me and I frankly think it makes a lot of sense in such situations.

It sounds like you think all situations are black or white. I respectfully disagree and I do not think this makes me an unethical or immoral person. I do think there are some actions that are always evil, but most are dependent upon the situation.

Pug:

Second, you propose that the prison system violates the ends/means law. I’ve got to think about that, never having really thought about it…

No I said the prison system is a good example where the ends may justify the means. Taking away someone’s freedom is a really serious restriction. But IMO public safety (the end) justifies the means (incarceration). I cannot imagine how you thought I said this violated that theory.

Pug:

Third, you propose a situation in which torture is not justified for the particular goals to be achieved. Would you accept torture of a person who could singlehandedly save the lives of 100 people by telling you where a poison antidote is?

Realistically and truthfully? If it were my personal decision? Yes.

Pug:

Fourth, I agree, so far as I know, a person can recover from a period of sleep deprivation. The long term damage is less than with other methods. I still see it as harming a person in the short term. Making it so a person can’t think straight is not good for the person. However, I can’t tell if you are saying that you can hurt the person this small amount if they are a *bad *enough person or if they are *dangerous *enough. (violent guy v. traffic violator).

If someone is a criminal then I can’t get too wrapped around the axle about whether he is suffering some temporary discomfort. My point is that temporary discomfort, annoyances, manipulation in order to get information that will protect the innocent is in some cases necessary. I think asking “pretty please with a cherry on top” is not very effective when dealing with certain individuals. Do I care if some terrorist who’d just as soon cut off my head as look at me doesn’t get 8 hrs of sleep? No. Because there may be a greater good in obtaining the information even if Mr Terrorist suffered a bit of sleep deprivation.

Pug:

I do see long term damage in making a person say something that they would never have said unless you forced them. I think the experience could linger with someone forever. I also think the indignity of the experience could linger. But this could be said of pulling nails as well.

So you are saying that if a terrorist who would happily filet you like a fish, spills the beans about one of his cohort’s plots to blow up the White House, feels guilty about betraying his buddies, that you are more concerned that he is suffering some kind of indignity versus being able to prevent the deaths of innocent civilians?

Lisa N

 

[Nichevo]

walter.gonzalez:

I didn’t decide that torture occured at Gitmo, Afghanistan, Iraq. FBI agents did. I don’t accept the spin that “modern interrogation methods” don’t constitute torture. Those techniques have been withdrawn now by our government after the secret got out. Is water boarding not torture?

First the FBI conducted a preliminary oversight investigation and not a criminal one. It reviewed the situation from the perspective of a civillian law enforcement agency not from the perspective of military intelligence operations and interrogation of enemy POWs which differs greatly from what takes place in federal, state, and local police agencies. Having the FBI investigate military intelligence operations is akin to having a bellhop review the protocol for receiving a head of state. Different fields, methods, protocols, and dare I say it, levels of expertise. If you’ll recall, it was the previous administration’s treatment of terrorism as a law enforcement problem that contributed significantly to the conflict in which we are presently engaged.

As far as what has been withdrawn and what hasn’t, what do you know of the methods used today? Unless you have received training in MOS 97E or are presently employed as a member of the CIA, DIA, NSA, or other military and para-military operations units, you are accepting spin of a different type except this spin agrees with your own point of view and QED, must be true. As for what methods have been removed, again without first hand knowledge of the situation you are forced to rely on that objective media that we all know operates without any bias and only has our best interests at heart. Have you been to Gitmo or Abu Ghraib? Talked directly to anyone there? Any first person resources at all independent of the media? Stop trying to convict via yellow journalism while clothing yourself in the noble cloak of Christianity and social justice. Did not Christ whip the money changers in the temple? Were they not unarmed? Is that torture? Enough with the conspiracy theories and evil military torture chambers run by apprentice dark lords of the sith. I saw enough of that garbage at Benning with the SOA protests. Waterboarding? torture? Comparatively, no it’s not, it’s not like having, say …your head sawed off.

 

[porthos11]

Now no way do I condone torture.

But to make an interesting thread even more so, presenting the following HYPOTHETICAL example (the stuff you see on "24").

A terrorist organization is hidden a nuclear device somewhere in a large metropolitan area, say, NY or LA. Millions of people will die if the device goes off. Agents manage to capture one of the group’s memebers but not at the site of the device. Judging from the communications equipment in his van, agents determine that he knows where the device is. Of course, fanatic that he is, he is ready to die for his cause.

QUESTION: Do you torture him for information?

(Jack Bauer tortured a fellow physically for info on a nuclear device and when he didn’t budge, shot his son on live closed-circuit TV. Rather, he made it look like it anyway, the kid was fine. But that constiuted psychological torture as well).

 

[Pug]

Porthos, I still owe Lisa some answers (not sure what to say yet), but I do want to suggest on your hypothetical situation people also think about what if the person who knows where the bomb is happens to be an innocent, like maybe the child of one of the guys who planted it. And the child has been instructed never to tell, and so refuses to tell. Or some such other innocent person who nevertheless refuses to tell.

I just plain don’t think I could do it if it were a child. Regardless of any other consideration.

 

[Pug]

Lisa,

Not verbose, just a lot to think about! First, I don’t think it is unethical to work things out different from me. Do I think in black and white…I don’t know. I am very sensitive to context for most decisions. But I am probably best described as believing that some general types of choices are always wrong. Directly choosing to do an evil so that good may come is an example.

In your example of the terminal person, I agree that further radiation is often unreasonable, and there is a type of weighing required. I would never choose to dehydrate them to death. If I had only 2 quarts of water, however, I might choose to give it to a different person. Or if they could not process water, I would not force it down them. Neither of those choices is one to dehydrate them.

No I said the prison system is a good example where the ends may justify the means. Taking away someone’s freedom is a really serious restriction. But IMO public safety (the end) justifies the means (incarceration). I cannot imagine how you thought I said this violated that theory.

Ah. I thought you were going to point out to me that I, Pug, probably support prisons, and that prisons are likely only justifiable if one allowed cases where the ends justify the (bad) means. Hence, you would catch me out on not following my own principle that you cannot choose evil that good may come. Sorry to confuse! My fault for being wary and not listening. Phew! Now I don’t have to figure out how I justify prisons.

Realistically and truthfully? If it were my personal decision? Yes.

From the way you answer, I wonder if you mean it would be your decision out of weakness, but you would still consider the decision to be morally the wrong one?

Because there may be a greater good in obtaining the information even if Mr Terrorist suffered a bit of sleep deprivation.

If you saying that in general it would not be okay to deprive Mr T of sleep, but if one can accomplish a largish good relative to the harm to him, then it is perfectly fine to directly will him harm so that one can obtain that good…If you are saying that, then this is more what I mean by proportionalism, by weighing the overall good quotient to explain why it is fine to directly intend evil as a means.

that you are more concerned that he is suffering some kind of indignity versus being able to prevent the deaths of innocent civilians?

I guess I look to what my decisions mean about me (and what I believe and what are my responsibilities and what I am) as a principle consideration in moral thought. I cannot control the good that actually outcomes from my decisions (I could torture a guy and he still not tell anyway) (God could save the city). I can control how I orient myself relative to humanity/truth/good/God and hence I can control who I am. I don’t generally think in terms of placing myself in an advantageous position relative to the betterness of certain goods likely to outcome.

I would feel way more actively concerned about the civilians and not Mt T, however.

 

[walter.gonzalez]

(Washington-AP, Jan. 7, 2005 8:05 AM) _ The dean of Yale’s Law School criticized President Bush’s nominee for U.S. attorney general and the handling by the United States of terrorist suspects.

Harold Koh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about a January 2002 memo written by Attorney General-nominee Alberto Gonzales when he was White House counsel. He called it the quote, “most legally erroneous opinion I’ve ever read,” end quote, and said it was a stain on U.S. law and on the nation’s reputation.

 

[walter.gonzalez]

Several senators, including one Republican, criticized Gonzales for a series of memos in 2002 that he either wrote or asked for that deprived some prisoners of Geneva Convention protections and sought to shield U.S. officials legally for using coercive interrogation tactics.

Several senators said those policies created confusion in the military, contributed to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and other abuses, and seriously weakened U.S. standing in the world.

“I do believe we have lost our way,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who is a former military prosecutor.

Graham called the prison camp at the U.S. naval base at Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay “legal chaos” and warned that bad policies were “putting our troops in jeopardy.”

 

[Lisa_N]

Well walter.g you don’t like Gonzales. I think he’s an incredibly admirable person who is perfect embodiment of the American dream. That liberals are howling about him because of very loose association with what some call torture fascinates me. Blaming him for the perverted actions of a few renegade soldiers in Abu Ghraib is ridiculous.

Lisa N