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Rascalking
Guest
Lovely. Thanks for making it personal, commenting on “my view of morality”.
God bless.
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God bless.
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MindOverMatter2
Guest
I was just trying to show you where your thinking is leading. And the only way I could do that is to bring your grandmother in to the picture; since the moral value of a stranger and the moral value of your grandmother is the same. But we can easily forget the moral value of a stranger. It is your argument that is implying that you would torture you grandmother. I did not intend to accuse you. I am sorry if I offended you; and I do not intend to be a hypocrite. But your argument has fallen apart by the mere fact of how you reacted to the fact of what I said. You were immediately offended, because you perceived the injustice of the idea of torturing your own grandmother. You would not have been offended if you didn’t see that my accusation was presenting you in a light that was morally unfavourable. Of course you would never torture your own grandmother.You would never do such a thing because you value the dignity of you grandmother and you love her. All I ask is that you extend that same dignity and love to everyone else.
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Rascalking
Guest
It had nothing to do with the fact that you brought up my grandmother or father. I just thought it was silly you said I had a distorted view of morality.I was just trying to show you where your thinking is leading. And the only way I could do that is to bring your grandmother in to the picture; since the moral value of a stranger and the moral value of your grandmother is the same. It is your argument that is implying that you would torture you grandmother. I did not intend to accuse you. I am sorry if I offended you; and i do not intend to be a hypocrite. But your argument has fallen apart by the mere fact of how you reacted to the fact of what I said. You were immediately offended, because you perceived the injustice of the idea of torturing your own grandmother. You would not have been offended if you didn’t see that my accusation was presenting you in a light that was morally unfavourable. Of course you would never torture your own grandmother.You would never do such a thing because you value the dignity of you grandmother and you love her. All I ask is that you extend that same dignity and love to everyone else.
It’s far more complicated than what you say. My argument has not “fallen apart”.If they where guility or implicated in a crime, they would have to face the consequences. If my father was Osama Bin Laden, then yes, he would have to be punished. If they had more information that would save lives, yes, they would have to do be subject to interrogation that is not pretty.
Could I do it? No, but again~I’m sure glad that someone can, and I’m sure glad that there are people who realize that it sometimes needs to be done.
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verum_peto_1
Guest
Well, perhaps my view is different because I have been to a mass grave, and I have watched people sifting through bones and other remains, hoping to understand the fate of a loved one. I once had to try to hold a blood vessel shut inside of a friend’s chest, and I watched him turn gray and bleed out as I tried to keep him conscious long enough to get medical attention which would save him.
I think that we just essentially disagree. I have no problem sending someone to bed without dinner, if there is a possibility that doing so would save a life.
I hope that was not too graphic, and it was not meant to be critical, just to motivate my personal perspective, which is no doubt colored by my own experiences.
We do live in a society in which torture is illegal both in the civilian sector, and in the military sector. Under the last political administration, the boundaries of what exactly “torture” is were pushed, and I think this was immoral and detrimental to our collective “soul” as a nation, if such a concept may be allowed.
I was in the Marines. I did not work in any detention facilities, but I had three occasions to deliver people to them. In two cases (Marine facilities), I did not see anything which I found degrading to the detainees. However, in another case, I was disgusted (Army facility). I did not see any actual abuse of prisoners taking place, but as soon as I entered the facility, I was appalled by the smell of the place. It was worse like a zoo where the cages had not been cleaned for a month.
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MindOverMatter2
Guest
Oh well.
I certainly couldn’t torture my own grandmother, but perhaps If my moral sensibilities were distorted enough I could convince somebody else to carry the guilt for me.
Lets agree to disagree.
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Lutheranteach
Guest
The problem you run into with torture is that it rarely works. I can tear your fingernails out and you will tell me everything you think I want to hear and even some things I couldn’t care less about. The odds that any of it is the truth is 50/50 at best. For torture to work I can’t torture the person who is motivated to do me harm. I have to torture someone he loves more than his cause (wife, kids, family members) which means I may very well now be torturing someone is totally innocent. So then the question becomes…are you willing to start breaking the fingers or knocking the teeth out of an innocent three year old to get the information you want?
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richardacombs
Guest
Moral ambiguity only means doing wrong and attempting to justify the wrongdoing.
You can do the wrong thing and mentally justify the act, but that doesn’t make the act right. If morality is relative, all wrongdoing is based on sliding scale: “It’s OK as long as…”
You can do the wrong thing and mentally justify the act, but that doesn’t make the act right. If morality is relative, all wrongdoing is based on sliding scale: “It’s OK as long as…”
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verum_peto_1
Guest
Then you deny that there is a distinction between a venial and a mortal sin?
I agree with you that there is a great danger in trying to justify certain acts. When is a war just?
My own history is that I went to war the first time, thinking that it was just. I went to war a second time without thinking through the moral justification. This was denial on my part. I should have filed for conscientious objector status, and when that was declined accepted my fate, even if that meant a criminal conviction and time in Leavenworth.
Having said that, I also believe in moral relativism. Perhaps I am not as Kantian as you. I don’t think a lie for personal gain is the same as a lie to save another person’s life, for example.
I think that a vice president who holds hundreds of millions in stock in a company, and then who then influences government policy to turn that into, perhaps, a billion of more at the cost of the bloodshed and lives of others, has committed a greater moral evil than the kid who is hungry and shoplifts something to eat.
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ronnie_bonigli
Guest
I wish I could vote, I’m too new and I don’t have voting privileges yet. Anyway, for all those who are saying they wouldn’t do anything to the terrorist and just let the timer tick to zero and the nuke incinerate hundreds of thousands of children and babies, I say ARE YOU NUTS!
I’d go all Jack Bauer on their terrorist butt if I could. Why is is morally OK to shoot some kid who was drafted into some dictator’s army, like a Saddam or a Hitler? Poor kid didn’t want to be there, they toss a uniform on him and throw in out in the field and the American soldier is morally justified in putting two bullets between his eyes, because he’s in the enemy army. Yet if you know some terrorist dirtbag is going to nuke Boston and a few hundred thousand children and you think there’s a chance you can find out something by slapping him around and breaking his fingers, that’s a moral outrage? Sorry, I don’t get it
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Rascalking
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Dude! (My apologies if your a girl)
Thank GOD someone else feels like I do. I know there are alot of us who are morally secure in our views, and would do the right thing-that means sometimes ::gasp:: that it’s complicated.
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Ghosty
Guest
Read the Catechism, then. This isn’t a question that’s really up for debate for Catholics. It’s as settled as contraception, abortion, and women priests.
Peace and God bless!
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Rascalking
Guest
So thousands of people have to die because you won’t slap the face of a man to find out where a bomb is hidden?Read the Catechism, then. This isn’t a question that’s really up for debate for Catholics. It’s as settled as contraception, abortion, and women priests.
Peace and God bless!
And, for everyone saying it doesn’t work, please read the book by Mark Thiessen. It’s called Courting Disaster. Please read it.
Ironically, I think good people can be on both sides of this issue. However, good people against harsh methods of interrogation are presented with the uncomfortable “so how many people have to die” aspect of the question.
Clarity in this case, just saying, "Yes, the lives of innocent people aren’t as important as not torturing. " would be the best answer.
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Just_Lurking
Guest
The problem with all these hypothetical questions is that you can always change it slightly to make it better or worse, depending on which way the original question is answered. For example, suppose there are two suspects, one innocent and one guilty. Is it okay to torture both to save the lives of millions?
Thanks to the Bush administration’s War on Terror, we know based on an actual example (see here) that when an innocent person is mistakenly categorized as a terrorist, it takes 3 years of torture before the government becomes convinced of the person’s innocence.
Thanks to the Bush administration’s War on Terror, we know based on an actual example (see here) that when an innocent person is mistakenly categorized as a terrorist, it takes 3 years of torture before the government becomes convinced of the person’s innocence.
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ronnie_bonigli
Guest
yes, a dude (last time I checked anyway)
OK, since so many usually hide behind the “these hypothetical ‘ticking time bomb’ things never happen anyway” argument, let’s look at a real incident from a few years ago. The Beslan school massacre. In 2004 Chechen terrorists sieged a school in Beslan Russia and killed over 300 people, including 186 children, to make their twisted evil point. Now the question is; if the Russian intelligence services had intercepted some phone conversations and knew that the Chechen terrorists were planning a school massacre ***somewhere ***in Russia in the next few days and if they caught one of the planners, would they be justified in doing whatever they had to do to get that Chechen to give some information on where it’s suppose to happen? Nevermind the red herrings about “oh, they’ll say anything if you’re twisting their arms”, should the Russian Intelligence guys at least TRY to save those kids they know are going to be machine gunned in a few days?
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verum_peto_1
Guest
I would not go so far as to say that these things are FINALLY settled in the Church. The Church adapts, and changes its theology in light of social change and new science. It is just slower than most other institutions to do so.Read the Catechism, then. This isn’t a question that’s really up for debate for Catholics. It’s as settled as contraception, abortion, and women priests.
Peace and God bless!
There are many historic examples of this.
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verum_peto_1
Guest
Well, there is another aspect to the question, which if not usually mentioned. In basic training, one learns, and the general view held by most military personnel is that if we torture them, then they will torture us, if we are captured.
There is also the legal issue of the treaties of the Geneva Conventions, of which the US is a signatory. The rules for treatment of prisoners, and the rules governing and occupying power are clearly stated in those treaties.
The Bush administration decided to ignore the spirit of the “law” by declaring terrorists to be non-combatants as they have no formal state, and therefore US treatment of them is not subject to the agreed upon rules of war, nor to international law. It is debatable whether their interpretation of the “letter” of the law is valid. I think the consensus of most legal experts in the topic is that they acted illegally. The US Courts consistently overturned every case brought before them on similar grounds regarding the Guantanamo detainees. Keep in mind that the Federal Government chose the courts in which these cases would be heard very carefully, hoping to find sympathetic judges. But they lost every case.
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RWMorris
Guest
No, you are wrong. I suggest you read CCC 2265. If torturing a terrorist who knows where the ticking time bomb is located, reveals the location of the bomb and saves lives, how do we know this action does not fall under “defense of the common good against an unjust aggressor [rendering him] unable to cause harm” and is a grave duty of those responsible for the common good? By taking away the terrorist’s ability to cause harm are not our leaders performing a grave duty? It sure sounds like the CCC is stating that the life of one unjust aggressor is worth less than the common good. Now, I’m sure all of us will agree that torturing an innocent is a mortal sin, but this seems to open the door for torturing an unjust aggressor.Read the Catechism, then. This isn’t a question that’s really up for debate for Catholics. It’s as settled as contraception, abortion, and women priests.
Peace and God bless!
The link following will take you to another discussion on torture, one of the better ones.
– forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=224592
Here’s some light reading for anyone interested in more than just their own self-righteous pontifications and platitudes:
From Jimmy Akin & Dave Armstrong
jimmyakin.typepad.com/defenso…bout_tort.html
socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/…s-related.html
In fact, an article written specifically on “defining torture” might be quite apropos here.
jimmyakin.typepad.com/defenso…ng_tortur.html
Additionally, here is a quite thorough series called “The Torture Debate”
ratzingerfanclub.com/blog…rrogation.html
ratzingerfanclub.com/blog…e-part-ii.html
ratzingerfanclub.com/blog…-part-iii.html
ratzingerfanclub.com/blog…v-roundup.html
And here is an encyclopedic article by Fr. Brian Harrison in two parts, titled “Torture & Corporal Punishment as a Problem in Catholic Theology”
Part 1 - rtforum.org/lt/lt118.html
Part 2 - rtforum.org/lt/lt119.html
– From: forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=3497024&postcount=144
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RWMorris
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All true, except for one major point. The detainees at Guantanamo are not POWs and are not covered by the Geneva Conventions.
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Ghosty
Guest
RWMorris: Self-defense is quite simply not the same as torturing someone for information. More specifically, the paragraph you cite says “legitimate self-defense”, not “any kind of self-defense”. Since torture is already ruled out as a grave moral evil, it obviously can’t fall under “legitimate self-defense”.
Bottom line is that it’s not a question of defending or not defending oneself and others, but rather what is legitimate. I could defend myself from harm by holding a gun to the terrorist’s mother, for example, but that would not be legitimate.
As for “what is torture”, I think simply taking the definition given by the Catechism is a good point, namely physical or moral violence. Obviously this would include “enhanced interrogations” such as water-boarding, “slamming”, and forced-positions. Mental pressure or intense verbal interogations don’t fall under this broad definition, however. The Catechism doesn’t rule on every detail (how long is too long of an interrogation, for example), but the definition isn’t completely blurry.
For what it’s worth, I’ve already read most of the links you provided. The fact remains that “physical or moral violence” is pretty clear language, at least for the purposes of what we’re discussing here.
Rascalking:
Peace and God bless!
Bottom line is that it’s not a question of defending or not defending oneself and others, but rather what is legitimate. I could defend myself from harm by holding a gun to the terrorist’s mother, for example, but that would not be legitimate.
As for “what is torture”, I think simply taking the definition given by the Catechism is a good point, namely physical or moral violence. Obviously this would include “enhanced interrogations” such as water-boarding, “slamming”, and forced-positions. Mental pressure or intense verbal interogations don’t fall under this broad definition, however. The Catechism doesn’t rule on every detail (how long is too long of an interrogation, for example), but the definition isn’t completely blurry.
For what it’s worth, I’ve already read most of the links you provided. The fact remains that “physical or moral violence” is pretty clear language, at least for the purposes of what we’re discussing here.
Rascalking:
We are not permitted to do evil so that good may come about. I would put it another way: the lives of thousands of innocents are not worth the eternal destination of one soul (the torturer). In fact, the life of the Supreme Innocent is not worth the eternal damnation of a single soul; God taught us that Personally.
Peace and God bless!
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verum_peto_1
Guest
Yes, well that was the claim which was struck down by the courts and which nearly every legal expert outside of the Bush administration disagrees with. As I already pointed out, the US AG was very careful to have the cases heard by judges who were known to be loyal to Bush, and usually his appointees. They all ruled against him. If there had been any legal merit to the non POW claim, then the courts would have supported him. The courts usually err on the side of national defense, if there is any ambiguity.
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