A case where I would support torture.

[Freakshow]

Hmm. I think Bjorn's hypothetical is no more outlandish than yours. It seems he's merely using an illustration/example so that you'll pause to contemplate a less clinical and more personal scenario. And ask the question, "What do you, Freakshow, do now?"

If you want to present a scenario that involves pausing and contemplating a less clinical scenario, then make your own thread. But now that you are in this one, do you want to answer the question?

 

[demon]

Freakshow:
"I think you should read my posts. I'll make it easy for you..."

Ignoring Bjorn`s point makes it easy for you you mean.
Oh well, carry on.

 

[Donks]

Very good question.

I would only support torture when there was absolutely no doubt that they had the right person. Which is why I presented a scenario in which the person admits to being someone that both has the needed details of the plot and is an active participant in the plot itself. I think those factors are crucial to the scenario.

Yes, I know those factors are crucial to your scenario. For me at least they make your scenario trivially easy to say yes to, but I would not trust my government (Mexico) to be able to guarantee with any degree of certainty that they have the right person. That is why I would never condone torture by my government. Do you trust your governemnt to only use torture in the case where there is absolute certainty that they have the right guy? Would you be willing to allow them to torture if they promise they will only use it under those circumstances?

 

[Freakshow]

Freakshow:
"I think you should read my posts. I'll make it easy for you..."

Ignoring Bjorn`s point makes it easy for you you mean.
Oh well, carry on.

It would really cause you great pain to have to admit "OK, yes, there are some very rare unusual times that I would support torture", wouldn't it? That is why you won't actually address the very specific scenario I stated, isn't it?

 

[Freakshow]

Yes, I know those factors are crucial to your scenario. For me at least they make your scenario trivially easy to say yes to, but I would not trust my government (Mexico) to be able to guarantee with any degree of certainty that they have the right person. That is why I would never condone torture by my government. Do you trust your governemnt to only use torture in the case where there is absolute certainty that they have the right guy? Would you be willing to allow them to torture if they promise they will only use it under those circumstances?

Oh, I totally agree with you.

I think it is interesting to approach these sort of real-world issues in a couple phases:

Phase 1: Decide whether or not the action is ethically acceptable.
Phase 2: Decide whether or not it is possible/practical to apply such ethics in the real world.

The reason that I think this approach is valid is that there are some cases where you won't even make it past phase 1. There are times that we will say "No. No matter what, that just isn't the right thing to do. Let's move on to the next possible solution."

Phase 1 is the easy part. But I am genuinely curious as to whether or not some people will reject the very specific scenario I've outlined. I'm curious as to how their reasoning and approach differs from mine.

 

[Bjorn]

Freakshow,

Forget about your twin daughters for a moment - I understand you would never torture an innocent?

("I would only support torture when there was absolutely no doubt that they had the right person")

Am I correct?

 

[peptoabysmal]

By "torture", I'm not talking about sleep deprivation and being photographed nude. I'm talking real torture. Things you don't even want to imagine.

Here is a scenario where I would support it...

We know that a nuclear bomb has come into the country. We know it is a matter of days before it goes off. But we don't know which city it is in, much less knowing exactly where it is in that city.

We capture a member of the organization that has planted the bomb. He says "Yep, I admit it. I carried the thing across the border myself, and I know exactly where it is. And it is going off in less than 48 hours. But I'm not telling you where it is. I've watched CNN, I know you guys don't torture. So tough. You'll just have to watch hundreds of thousands suffer and/or die. I'm not talking!"

I would say to the goverment: go for it. Knock yourself out. Do anything it takes to get him to cough up the info.

Is there anyone here that wouldn't support it? If you wouldn't, what course of action would you recommend?

I would only support it if Rumsfeld says it's alright.
You raise an interesting point here. Obviously this is a survival situation, people can do things in survival situations that they may never have dreamed of in normal life, like eat other humans to survive and so on. You're not talking about the moral and good side of life in this scenario. I would probably support it and feel ashamed that I had supported it, but realize it was necessary.

 

[Charlie Monoxide]

I'll admit I haven't read all the posts, but base on the OP it truly smells like a typical "slippery slope".

Charlie (let's be the shining example) Monoxide

 

[The Fool]

It would really cause you great pain to have to admit "OK, yes, there are some very rare unusual times that I would support torture", wouldn't it? That is why you won't actually address the very specific scenario I stated, isn't it?

there are also some very rare and unusual times that you would support eating babies...so whats the point?

Lets talk about how aliens make us rape our pets.....

 

[kalen]

We know that a nuclear bomb has come into the country. We know it is a matter of days before it goes off. But we don't know which city it is in, much less knowing exactly where it is in that city.

And how did you get that information. Not by torture, I hope.

We capture a member of the organization that has planted the bomb. He says "Yep, I admit it. I carried the thing across the border myself, and I know exactly where it is. And it is going off in less than 48 hours. But I'm not telling you where it is. I've watched CNN, I know you guys don't torture. So tough. You'll just have to watch hundreds of thousands suffer and/or die. I'm not talking!"

Sounds like this guy could be off his meds.

I would say to the goverment: go for it. Knock yourself out. Do anything it takes to get him to cough up the info.

Is there anyone here that wouldn't support it? If you wouldn't, what course of action would you recommend?

If said fellow is not requiring medication, and you think your information is good, I would recommend taking iodine tablets and evacuating major urban centers. This is regardless of whether you torture him or not, because torturing him might not work . Specifically, he might not talk or he might stall with false information. And when you look at it that way, there's really not much point in torturing the guy. I would not support the torture.

(Now you have me thinking - completely off topic of course. I'm pretty sure the radiation coming off a lump of plutonium - like one in a bomb - is detctable with the right equipment from quite a distance; hundreds of meters, maybe. If it's possible, this equipment should be ready to be deployed at a moments notice, you know, with the immenent mushroom clouds and all. Ah, but you know how the Feds spend your money. I will look into this and start a thread one of these days soon. )

 

[Earthborn]

Is there anyone here that wouldn't support it?

I wouldn't. It still doesn't adress the problem that torture does not necessarily result in accurate information. And getting accurate information is in this case more important than getting any old information quickly. The guy in your example seems pretty determined to keep the information a secret, so it's more than likely that he's going to lie early and lie often.

It also does not adress the problem that the act of torture can damage the very information you are trying to get. It doesn't take much to make the person with the information an incoherent mental patient, who lost all coherent thought, suffers from hallucinations and couldn't give you the information even if he wanted to.

Torturing to get information inside someone's head is very much like trying to get the information on a diskette by putting it in the microwave for a few minutes. It won't get you the information and the information is possibly destroyed. A human brain might function again after a considerable recovery period, so the information is perhaps not permanently lost. But these 'ticking time-bomb' scenario's usually don't allow for a period for the tortured person to get back to his senses.

If you wouldn't, what course of action would you recommend?

Simple:

1. Do everything to preserve the information. Since the carrier of the information is in this case a human being, make sure that human being stays in functioning condition. Inflict no pain, cause no fear, no anger, no discomfort.
2. Convince the person with the information that you mean well, you are just trying to save all those people and you do not intend to hurt him. Treat him with kindness and respect, convince him that you are not the bad guy he thought you were.
3. Give the person with the information an incentive to give you the correct information instead of any old information. Promise for example that no charges will be pressed against him if he gives the correct location of the bomb. Or perhaps even offer a reward. Be convincing enough that you will keep your word.
4. Make sure it is possible to quickly check the correctness of the information he provides. If the information turns out to be incorrect, do not punish but instead be more convincing. If the information turns out to be correct, give him whatever you think he should get.

Do you doubt that it will get you the correct information? You'd be right: there is no guarantee. There isn't one with torture either, so we'll have to weigh which method is more likely to get the correct information. Since with torture there is good chance the information itself is destroyed, the above method is clearly superior.

Do you think it will be too slow to get the information on time? You might very well be right. It is a method that takes time, which you may not have. But the fact that it is a slow method does not prove that there is a faster method that gives you the same chance of success. Torture may give you a result much quicker does not mean that it gives you the result you need much quicker. If the bomb goes off in 48 hours, it is better if you get the correct result after 47 hours than if you get 44 incorrect results and after that are left with a terrorist who is no longer able to answer any question.

The real issue here is patience. If a soft approach does not yield an answer quickly it is easy to lose patience. It is easy to lose patience with such a lethal deadline. The use of force might appear increasily attractive, not because it works but because you feel the need to do something quicker than is actually possible.

People use force when they lose their patience with methods that are actually effective in giving you the result you need as quickly as is physically possible. That is understandable and it is not necessarily blamable. But that does not make it the right course of action.

 

[jay gw]

I would say skip the torture because it's proven not to work. It's not about getting information it's used to keep dissent down - why do people not get this already?

 

[Freakshow]

I'll admit I haven't read all the posts, but base on the OP it truly smells like a typical "slippery slope".

Charlie (let's be the shining example) Monoxide

Its not a slippery slope. It is just genuine curiosity about the way different people see the world. For example, Earthborn's view on this is completely at the opposite end of the spectrum from mine. I think it is interesting to find out about it and discuss it. That's all.

 

[Bjorn]

Freakshow,

Forget about your twin daughters for a moment - I understand you would never torture an innocent?

("I would only support torture when there was absolutely no doubt that they had the right person")

Am I correct?

 

[peptoabysmal]

The real issue here is patience. If a soft approach does not yield an answer quickly it is easy to lose patience. It is easy to lose patience with such a lethal deadline. The use of force might appear increasily attractive, not because it works but because you feel the need to do something quicker than is actually possible.

People use force when they lose their patience with methods that are actually effective in giving you the result you need as quickly as is physically possible. That is understandable and it is not necessarily blamable. But that does not make it the right course of action.

Patience?

In this scenario, we have 48 hours and either we succeed in finding and disarming the bomb, or we don't. There is more than one person on the government's payroll and torture is one possible avenue of investigation. There is the possibility that information gleaned from torture could be corroborated with other investigations. The "feel-good-special-olympics-made-for-TV-docu-drama" option is if we don't torture him and manage to find and disarm the bomb through other means. Are we willing to bet the lives of a million people on that outcome or would we do every thing we could think of?

It could take some people the entire 48 hours just to make up their minds about what to do.

tick-tock people

 

[Bjorn]

Are we willing to bet the lives of a million people on that outcome or would we do every thing we could think of?

Rape Freakshow's daughters, then your own daughters, if you know that their pain is the only thing that will make the guy with the ticking bomb confess.

It could take some people the entire 48 hours just to make up their minds about raping their daughters or not.

Sure. Sorry about that.

 

[Earthborn]

In this scenario, we have 48 hours and either we succeed in finding and disarming the bomb, or we don't.

That just means that it is easy to lose one's patience, not that it isn't needed.

Are we willing to bet the lives of a million people on that outcome or would we do every thing we could think of?

The lives of a million people depend on the information inside someone's mind. Are we willing to risk the lives of a million people by hurting that mind and losing that information? The mind is not invulnerable thing, people. It is a physical thing that can be broken, just like every other information medium. And just as if the information was stored on a diskette, the most effective way of getting it is by handling it with care.

It is really not such a strange thing that one needs to be patient, even when there is very little time. Would you prefer the bomb squad to defuse a time bomb patiently and carefully even if it takes more time, or would you prefer them to play footie with it? I think things that cannot be rushed, should not be. Especially not if lives are at stake.

 

[Donks]

That just means that it is easy to lose one's patience, not that it isn't needed.

The lives of a million people depend on the information inside someone's mind. Are we willing to risk the lives of a million people by hurting that mind and losing that information? The mind is not invulnerable thing, people. It is a physical thing that can be broken, just like every other information medium. And just as if the information was stored on a diskette, the most effective way of getting it is by handling it with care.

It is really not such a strange thing that one needs to be patient, even when there is very little time. Would you prefer the bomb squad to defuse a time bomb patiently and carefully even if it takes more time, or would you prefer them to play footie with it? I think things that cannot be rushed, should not be. Especially not if lives are at stake.

Would you reconsider your strategy if it was clear it wasn't working? If every hour on the hour the terrorist laughed on your face and mocked you? If you had 2 hours left and he was possitively giddy with anticipation for the explosion?

 

[slingblade]

Rape Freakshow's daughters, then your own daughters, if you know that their pain is the only thing that will make the guy with the ticking bomb confess.

As a woman, I find this very disturbing. Torture: inflicting the pain and trauma of rape on innocent children to make a man not even related to them start talking...like he'll care. He's already willing to kill thousands, knowing they will suffer, so how is this supposed to make him talk? Make him laugh, yes, at your own stupidity and desperation.

So female children (and all women, I can only assume) are just so much disposable trash, and it is correct or justifiable to treat them like things in order to possibly save the lives of other innocents? The point's already been made that torture might make a suspect talk, but it won't necessarily get you correct information. If that's how someone plans to save my life, I'd frankly rather die.

Rape your own child, tramuatize her forever, just to make a suspect talk. What a sick concept. Hope you also plan to kill her afterward, and then yourself. "Daddy's willing to destroy you to save other people." Glad you're not my daddy.

I hope this point is not made again.

 

[fishbob]

Very good question.

I would only support torture when there was absolutely no doubt that they had the right person. Which is why I presented a scenario in which the person admits to being someone that both has the needed details of the plot and is an active participant in the plot itself. I think those factors are crucial to the scenario.

And that is what makes the scenario an excercise in fantasy, with no bearing on reality. Why would you do that?

Reading further I find:

Phase 1: Decide whether or not the action is ethically acceptable.
Phase 2: Decide whether or not it is possible/practical to apply such ethics in the real world.

I think this is backwards. You created a scenario that has no chance of ever being applicable in the real world to come up with something ethically acceptable so you can look for a practical place to apply these ethics in the real world. This is dangerous.