Waterboarding Terrorists- Justified to Save Lives?

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Newbie2 said:
Straw man argument. Same question as “would you subject your child to painful surgery to save their life?”

You continue to reject Catholic moral theological teaching. I don’t think that you don’t “get it”. 🤷
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It is not a straw man. It just exposes the flaw in your reasoning so you don’t want to deal with it.
 
Deo_Volente said:
Grace & Peace!

Let’s suppose that is the question (it isn’t, exactly–though granted it is a specific instance of the larger question “is it permissible to use an evil means to accomplish a good end”). Let’s look at an analogous question to help us with the answer: Is embryonic stem cell research evil if it is used to save human life? According to Catholic teaching, the answer is: yes. We can safely say that the answer to the waterboarding question is similarly: yes, it remains evil. If it is not, then we have confidently entered the terrain of moral relativism.

I’ll repeat the last para of my previous post: Again, it is not morally justifiable to use an evil means to pursue a good end. If you wish to support the practice of waterboarding, the honest position would be to just say, “I disagree with Christian moral teaching when it says it is immoral to pursue a good by an evil means. I believe a nation should be allowed to use whatever means necessary to pursue it’s ends.” Anything else is just a different degree of equivocating, of dishonest justification. The principle stated differently is: let your yes be yes, and your no be no.

Under the Mercy,
Mark

All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
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According to your reasoning, there is no such thing as a just war.
 
CHESTERTONRULES said:
It is not a straw man. It just exposes the flaw in your reasoning so you don’t want to deal with it.
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:rolleyes:

OK, I’ll deal with it. It’s exactly like subjecting the child to painful surgery in order to cure him or her. Such is completely moral. The scenario deals with one person, and that one person’s best interests are in mind. This falls under the principle of double effect; the surgery is done to fix the patient, and the pain is a necessary and forseen side effect, although it is a real stretch to imagine a scenario where one would have to be tortured to save their life.

In the case of torture to extract information, the person being tortured does not benefit from the torture.

These are two completely different situations; your analogy is completely flawed!

My reasoning is in line with Church teaching. You are rejecting Church teaching as it pertains to torture; that is clear from your extreme views that you have posted in this thread.

At least you should have the intellectual honesty to admit that. If you disagree with Church teaching, fine. But don’t try to pee down my back and tell me it’s raining. Certainly there is some grey area that we’ve been discussing when it comes to what constitutes torture and what does not, we agree on that. But you’ve said that clear torture is justified to save lives, and this is not the view of the Catholic Church.

Such does not have anything to do with “flaws” in my logic, it is the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, like it or not.

:banghead: You fail to see that. 🤷 Sorry that I cannot be more convincing, so I’ll quit trying. I’m sure you’ll want to have the last word on this, so go ahead…
 
Newbie2 said:
:rolleyes:

OK, I’ll deal with it. It’s exactly like subjecting the child to painful surgery in order to cure him or her. Such is completely moral. The scenario deals with one person, and that one person’s best interests are in mind. This falls under the principle of double effect; the surgery is done to fix the patient, and the pain is a necessary and forseen side effect, although it is a real stretch to imagine a scenario where one would have to be tortured to save their life.

In the case of torture to extract information, the person being tortured does not benefit from the torture.

…
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True enough. However, the same can be said for shooting an opposing soldier in a battle or for police shooting an armed robber.

The question is what is the higher value, the comfort of the terrorist or the life of the innocent people who will be saved?

The Church teaches that security authorities are required to take actions which protect innocent life.
 
For most of American history, Christians were strongly opposed to torture. No excuses. That’s why we didn’t use torture in WWII. That’s why we don’t allow police to torture criminal suspects. Etc. But, as American Christians have become Judaized in the last several decades, torture is now on the table, not even for war, but for our police actions when dealing with Muslims.

Christian support of torture and unjust war has cost Christianity a great deal of credibility, as well as a great deal of American blood and wealth.
 
Is it okay to shine a bright light in a terrorist’s face while you interrogate him?
 
Steel_Pinwheel said:
For most of American history, Christians were strongly opposed to torture. No excuses. That’s why we didn’t use torture in WWII. That’s why we don’t allow police to torture criminal suspects. Etc. But, as American Christians have become Judaized in the last several decades, torture is now on the table, not even for war, but for our police actions when dealing with Muslims.

Christian support of torture and unjust war has cost Christianity a great deal of credibility, as well as a great deal of American blood and wealth.
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I’m not quite sure what you are trying to say when you claim that American Christians have become Judaized and thus more accepting of torture, but if you are attempting to slight Jews or the Jewish faith, I fully reject such assertions and ask you to focus on the topic at hand rather than make such base accusations. I certainly hope my fears are misplaced.
 
You are avoiding the central issue.

What is a higher priority, saving life or avoiding the discomfort of prisoners?

I believe that waterboarding a terrorist to save innocent lives is a moral decision.

You seem to be saying that allowing innocent people to be killed to avoid waterboarding is a moral decision.

Also,

The US government does not torture. Waterboarding was not considered to be torture when it was used.

It is a subjective word and the line must be drawn somewhere.

Is this what you are saying?
 
What logic?

Waterboarding to save lives is logical.

Do you oppose this logic?

Are you making the claim that allowing innocents to be killed in order to prevent waterboarding is logical or moral?

The US government does not condone or use torture. That was the whole point of going through the legal process to determine which techniques are acceptable for aggressive interrogation.

Obviously, the ends do justify the means in many cases, including surgery!

Killing Nazis is justified by ending the Holocaust, for example, and waterboarding terrorists to prevent the killing of innocent people is justified.
 
Tsuwano said:
I’m not quite sure what you are trying to say when you claim that American Christians have become Judaized and thus more accepting of torture, but if you are attempting to slight Jews or the Jewish faith, I fully reject such assertions and ask you to focus on the topic at hand rather than make such base accusations. I certainly hope my fears are misplaced.
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Thank you for making my point.
 
Tsuwano said:
Not to the point of blinding or injuring him or insulting his human dignity.
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I cannot figure out why waterboarding insults someone’s human dignity but shining a bright light in that someone’s face doesn’t. After all the, both techniques are similar. They both are intended to make a person talk. They both use physical discomfort for this purpose. The only difference between them is a matter of degree.
 
I don’t need to spell it out. The proof is always more offensive than the charge.
 
Please point out a false dilemma I have resorted to.

I am making my point clearly while you refuse to acknowledge your position.

I believe that the moral choice is to waterboard a terrorist if it will prevent innocent deaths.

Thus far you have refused to defend your position that the moral choice is to allow innocent deaths in order to prevent the waterboarding of a terrorist.
 
I am in agreement with the original poster’s position in this matter, as best I can tell from a quick review of the debate so far. I write to highlight the importance of this matter and to more clearly establish when waterboarding, a method of interrogation that may or may not be torture could be utilized. An exampel would be the recently horrid case involving the Ohio kidnapping. The accused kidnapper, Matthew Hoffman, was found with a thirteen year old girl tied up in his basement. The girl’s mother, brother and another adult were missing and police had no clues as to where they were. I strongly believe that Hoffman could have and likely should have been waterboarded to obtain information as to where these three missing persons were located. Might time have been of the essence as medical care may have been needed? Certainly their lives were in the balance. As it turned out, after more than a day, of conjecture and deal making Hoffman told police where their bodies were located. It make my blood run cold to think that he could withhold this information for that period of time. Imagine if it involved your family members. I do not have any doubt as to the morality of the use of “inhanced interrogation techniques” under these circumstances. Peace, g.
 
You keep repeating your opinion but you can’t support it.

Tell us why it is more moral for innocent people to be killed than for a terrorist to be waterboarded.
 
CHESTERTONRULES said:
You keep repeating your opinion but you can’t support it.

Tell us why it is more moral for innocent people to be killed than for a terrorist to be waterboarded.
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If I can answer on Jharek’s behalf, it’s because torture is intrinsically evil. It’s not an acceptable tool to use in fighting a war, even if your enemies are very wicked men.

Saying it’s okay in certain limited circumstances is like saying abortion is wrong except in cases of rape or incest – which is an argument that never made any sense to me.
 
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