Is torture ever acceptable?

[Milton Platt]

One could never be guarenteed that torture would generate the needed result, or honest confession!

I agree.

 

[stvdv]

24 jul 2018 stvdv 019 82 info

If you have a person in your custody who knows where and when a nuclear device will be detonated in a highly populated area and torturing him could provide information that would save millions of lives, would you simply allow the device to be detonated or would you use torture to get the information?

As I am now, I would not torture
Of course if you brainwash me to get the job done and you are good at brainwashing then I would torture
My question to you would be: Would you go that far to get me brainwashed yourself so I do the job that you yourself could have done yourself?

Why add an extra step? and why does it require brainwashing?

You started with adding the extra step [what if 1 million would die]. And then you ask me "why adding the extra step"
You started with trying to have me change my resolve [by adding extra step]. And then asking me "why adding brainwashing"

Spoiler: If explanation is needed

You were the one starting questioning "my feeling not wanting to torture"
I am who I am NOW. Changing my future changes me, hence I introduce brainwashing.
Hence the Bible says "do not judge others" .. different situation ... different thoughts, words, acts

So creating this hypothetical shows that we should not judge others. Do NOT judge is therefore high on my to do list.
When I state "I do not want to torture" I only say "I do not want to torture". I do not say others should not torture. I pray to God not to be their next victim.

That is why my initial replies to this thread were:
https://www.religiousforums.com/threads/is-torture-ever-acceptable.210917/#post-5710729
https://www.religiousforums.com/threads/is-torture-ever-acceptable.210917/#post-5710708

 

[joe1776]

Knock yourself out... http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190262365.001.0001/acprof-9780190262365

I'm not making baseless, ideologically derived claims here. I played a very (very) minor part in some of the events that led to the current state of affairs surrounding the subject, I have an actual professional interest in the matter.

I'm not interesting in buying the book from the offer you linked. I have no doubt there are expert claims on both sides of this question.

Why should your professional interest in the matter interest me?

Since the Germans lost World War Two, there's no denial that they used torture as an effective tool against the resistance movements. So, the claims that tortured intelligence has no value is obviously overstated.

There's also plenty of evidence that law enforcement beat valid confessions out of suspects. That they did so illegally is not relevant in our debate because the point is that moral dilemmas do happen that would justify the use of torture.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Are we talking about torturing another in general or torturing another to death? I think there's an important distinction.

I also don't think it's a rational stance to say that "torture is never acceptable." Here's why...

Hypothetical:
Your child is being held captive in a place unknown to you. S/he is in a tank that is slowly filling with water and will drown in 6 hours. You know a person that knows the location and controls the situation but refuses to tell you where s/he is.

• Option 1: You torture that person or have that person tortured until s/he reveals your child's location?
• Option 2: You don't think torture is acceptable ever, so you allow your child to die.

Which option to you take? Is there a third option?

In those circumstances many people would try torture. Unfortunately it is still not likely to give you the right answer. It is not in their interest to do so. They are far more likely to tell you "what you want to believe" or "what you want them to say", rather than the truth, so as to make you stop.
Torturing to the death achieves nothing.

Torture is a very poor and ineffective way to arrive at the truth about anything.

It has been proven many time people will confess to anything and say anything under torture.
So though it will always get a result in the end, the torturer is still no wiser as to the truth.

 

[stvdv]

Actually the intell8gence community agrees with me, and we have operational evidence to that effect. But that's kind of beside the point, because the ticking time bomb scenario never happens.

Agreed. People like to use that to prove you wrong mostly.

You made two claims you can't support with evidence to add to the the first claim you can't support.

Better be careful challenging a "poly armoured" RF poster play boy

Knock yourself out... http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190262365.001.0001/acprof-9780190262365

I'm not making baseless, ideologically derived claims here. I played a very (very) minor part in some of the events that led to the current state of affairs surrounding the subject, I have an actual professional interest in the matter.

I never met you, I can be wrong, but I imagine you "have fun right now", remembering your "poly armoured" post you had before
Even I could hardly contain my smiles. So I can't be the only one enjoying your neat little baits placed now and then on RF

And if you have some toppers to share about "torture and effectiveness or not" I would like to hear
Better to hear from "someone who knows" than crawling through the net to find good info filtering "fake info"
I don't like pain, so always thought "torture will be the fastest way to get the right info", but from your words I get that it's not always the case

Why should your professional interest in the matter interest me?

Strange reply.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

I'm not interesting in buying the book from the offer you linked. I have no doubt there are expert claims on both sides of this question.

Why should your professional interest in the matter interest me?

Since the Germans lost World War Two, there's no denial that they used torture as an effective tool against the resistance movements. So, the claims that tortured intelligence has no value is obviously overstated.

There's also plenty of evidence that law enforcement beat valid confessions out of suspects. That they did so illegally is not relevant in our debate because the point is that moral dilemmas do happen that would justify the use of torture.

You may beat a genuine confession out of a suspect. You are just as likely to beat a FALSE confession out of a suspect, too. If all you care about is getting a confession, then torture is fine, i guess? If you care about accurate, reliable information, it's really not very useful.

The Germans DID use torture, and found it thoroughly unreliable. It's one of the reasons the Gestapo was so ineffective operationally. The actual military intelligence services of the Wermacht and Luftwaffe only used torture as a last resort or when politically orrdered to do so. They found other interrogation methods far more reliable and sustainable.

I linked you to a fairly seminal work on the subject. If you don't care to buy it, well that's fine. You don't get to just handwave it away with "oh, but other (unspecified) people said something different, so I guess we'll never know", because we do, in fact, know.

I mean hey, believe whatever you like, I appreciate that justifying torture appeals to certain mind sets and agendas, but don't pretend that there's any meaningful debate on the subject in the security communities.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

Agreed. People like to use that to prove you wrong mostly.


Better be careful challenging a "poly armoured" RF poster play boy


I never met you, I can be wrong, but I imagine you "have fun right now", remembering your "poly armoured" post you had before
Even I could hardly contain my smiles. So I can't be the only one enjoying your neat little baits placed now and then on RF

And if you have some toppers to share about "torture and effectiveness or not" I would like to hear
Better to hear from "someone who knows" than crawling through the net to find good info filtering "fake info"
I don't like pain, so always thought "torture will be the fastest way to get the right info", but from your words I get that it's not always the case


Strange reply.

No one likes pain, but that, surprisingly, is part of the problem. People will do anything to avoid pain, namely, giving their torturer anything they want. So if the torturer wants information, the subject will give information. Sounds great, right? The problem is three fold:
1. The types of operatives likely to have sensitive information (SPECOPS types and other irregular forces) are often trained in deception. Torture Sergeant Thug of the SASR, he'll give you information, all right. He'll give you information he was specifically given to give you. Try to use it operationally, at best, it will be useless, at worst, it will lead you into a trap. Either way you're unlikely to find out the information was false until much later, when any real information he had has long since expired. This leads to the second point,

2. Military and paramilitary forces are reactive and proactive. If you capture a guy who knows the super duper top secret plan, can you guess what the rest of his organisation does? They change the plan. So even if you do mabage to capture Ahmed McBadguy and torture him to tell you where the durty bomb you somehow KNOW he knows about, when you get to the place he told you the bomb is, there'll be nothing there, because his colleagues moved the thing about 30 seconds after he missed his half hourly sitrep and they knew he was captured

3. The thurd point is probably the biggest one. Say you have two suspects. You know one of them kniws where the bomb is, the ither is just some guy. You decide greatesr good for greatest number, no time to lose, so you torture both of them. They BOTH give you information. As discussed, people will try to give their torturer what they want. You know one lit of information is definitely made up, and the other information MIGHT be accurate (see points 1 and 2) how do you tell which is which? Say NEITHER suspect knows where the bomb is? You still get two sets of information, only this time they're BOTH false! And in the time it takes to work that out, the whole situation nay have changed or escalated. Of course, these problems only get worse the more susoects you add to the equation.

TL;dr? Torture produces unreliable information that is likely to have a negative effect on operational concerns.

 

[Quintessence]

Your mind isn't going to run through the slow, deliberate, reasoning process you described, nor will it need to.

What leads you to the assumption that running through those questions is a slow, deliberate reasoning process? How things work for you is not how they work for me or others.

 

[joe1776]

What leads you to the assumption that running through those questions is a slow, deliberate reasoning process? How things work for you is not how they work for me or others.

Well, there's science on this point to back me up for one thing. Jon Haidt, who was then with the University of Virginia, did some research on this and found that moral judgments were immediate and intuitive. Reasoning was done after-the fact to support the judgments.

Here's his paper on the topic.
https://www.motherjones.com/files/emotional_dog_and_rational_tail.pdf

There are several logical arguments against your position as well. For example, if moral judgments were the product of reasoning, we would have long ago noticed that highly intelligent people were morally better human beings. Since we haven't, we don't suspect that reasoning and moral judgment capabilities are directly proportional.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

Things that bother me about Abrahamic Monotheists is the way they torture people to death and set up laws that remove hands and feet, or Christians who preach that there is a place of eternal torture for non-Christians.

That is complete psychopathic cruelty!

So, I have said elsewhere but for those who haven't seen it, I don't even believe a terrorist who rapes and murders my whole family then hacks off my limbs should be tortured to death.

I think the severely wounded creature is tormented enough, is miserable (and joyless) from hate and bitterness, and needs to be put out of his misery quickly!

Also, If I'm such an offense to God, he should just put me out of my misery. What good does it do to torture me?

So, I think torture is never acceptable. Not ever!

Do you?

Please explain!

First we have to define "torture." But I'd be 100% in favor of waterboarding a few terrorists for information if it could have prevented 9/11 which resulted in thousands of innocent deaths.

 

[Quintessence]

Well, there's science on this point to back me up for one thing. Jon Haidt, who was then with the University of Virginia, did some research on this and found that moral judgments were immediate and intuitive. Reasoning was done after-the fact to support the judgments.

Here's his paper on the topic.
https://www.motherjones.com/files/emotional_dog_and_rational_tail.pdf

There are several logical arguments against your position as well. For example, if moral judgments were the product of reasoning, we would have long ago noticed that intelligent people were morally better human beings.

Let's back up a second, because I'm not disputing what you think I'm disputing.

Why did you assume that the process I laid out is necessarily slow, deliberate, or rational in the first place? Utility, norms, and honor can all be assessed intuitively and immediately. Nothing about the process has to be what you described, so I'm wondering what led you to believe that they must be.

 

[Thief]

Things that bother me about Abrahamic Monotheists is the way they torture people to death and set up laws that remove hands and feet, or Christians who preach that there is a place of eternal torture for non-Christians.

That is complete psychopathic cruelty!

So, I have said elsewhere but for those who haven't seen it, I don't even believe a terrorist who rapes and murders my whole family then hacks off my limbs should be tortured to death.

I think the severely wounded creature is tormented enough, is miserable (and joyless) from hate and bitterness, and needs to be put out of his misery quickly!

Also, If I'm such an offense to God, he should just put me out of my misery. What good does it do to torture me?

So, I think torture is never acceptable. Not ever!

Do you?

Please explain!

I suspect.....Do unto others as you would have it done unto you.....
is a code of behavior
AND fair warning

picture this......I'm sure that you can
someone I have never seen before walks up to me and shoves a fist in my eye socket
as if to knock me down doing so

I remain standing and look him in the face.....even as my eye begins to swell shut

he makes no further advance......and I walk away

when we get to the 'otherside'.....
the angelic will do unto me as I did unto others

and they will do unto my adversary....as he did unto me

as many times as there are angels

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

First we have to define "torture." But I'd be 100% in favor of waterboarding a few terrorists for information if it could have prevented 9/11 which resulted in thousands of innocent deaths.

But it could't have do nor did it.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

But it could't have do nor did it.

I couldn't do it either.

 

[stvdv]

I suspect.....Do unto others as you would have it done unto you.....
is a code of behavior
AND fair warning

picture this......I'm sure that you can
someone I have never seen before walks up to me and shoves a fist in my eye socket
as if to knock me down doing so

I remain standing and look him in the face.....even as my eye begins to swell shut

he makes no further advance......and I walk away

when we get to the 'otherside'.....
the angelic will do unto me as I did unto others

and they will do unto my adversary....as he did unto me

as many times as there are angels

Yours is one way to Go. I just now found another way to go also.

Do unto others what you want them to do unto you
The above formula applies to me as well as to the other

Your scenario:
He punches me = He does to me what he wants me to do unto him
So why disappoint him = I Just give him what he wants me to give him

And now finally it all makes sense. Both ways are correct, and should be. God does not judge IMO.

 

[joe1776]

No one likes pain, but that, surprisingly, is part of the problem. People will do anything to avoid pain, namely, giving their torturer anything they want. So if the torturer wants information, the subject will give information. Sounds great, right? The problem is three fold:
1. The types of operatives likely to have sensitive information (SPECOPS types and other irregular forces) are often trained in deception. Torture Sergeant Thug of the SASR, he'll give you information, all right. He'll give you information he was specifically given to give you. Try to use it operationally, at best, it will be useless, at worst, it will lead you into a trap. Either way you're unlikely to find out the information was false until much later, when any real information he had has long since expired. This leads to the second point,

2. Military and paramilitary forces are reactive and proactive. If you capture a guy who knows the super duper top secret plan, can you guess what the rest of his organisation does? They change the plan. So even if you do mabage to capture Ahmed McBadguy and torture him to tell you where the durty bomb you somehow KNOW he knows about, when you get to the place he told you the bomb is, there'll be nothing there, because his colleagues moved the thing about 30 seconds after he missed his half hourly sitrep and they knew he was captured

3. The thurd point is probably the biggest one. Say you have two suspects. You know one of them kniws where the bomb is, the ither is just some guy. You decide greatesr good for greatest number, no time to lose, so you torture both of them. They BOTH give you information. As discussed, people will try to give their torturer what they want. You know one lit of information is definitely made up, and the other information MIGHT be accurate (see points 1 and 2) how do you tell which is which? Say NEITHER suspect knows where the bomb is? You still get two sets of information, only this time they're BOTH false! And in the time it takes to work that out, the whole situation nay have changed or escalated. Of course, these problems only get worse the more susoects you add to the equation.

TL;dr? Torture produces unreliable information that is likely to have a negative effect on operational concerns.

The three scenarios you built seem to assume that the people who analyze the intelligence gained from torture are peabrains, not bright enough to 1) verify the information they get from other independent sources 2) devise operations to verify the information 3) keep the information classified so as not to alert the enemy 4) spread misinformation as a cover or 5) cross-check the information against what they already know.

 

[joe1776]

Let's back up a second, because I'm not disputing what you think I'm disputing.

Why did you assume that the process I laid out is necessarily slow, deliberate, or rational in the first place? Utility, norms, and honor can all be assessed intuitively and immediately. Nothing about the process has to be what you described, so I'm wondering what led you to believe that they must be.

I've put one of your sentences in bold type. You're making a claim here that is hard to believe. Do you have science or a logical argument to support it?

 

[Quintessence]

I've put one of your sentences in bold type. You're making a claim here that is hard to believe. Do you have science or a logical argument to support it?

*sigh*

You know what, forget it. It won't matter what I present; you're not interested in valuing someone else's experiences. If you've convinced yourself I'm "kidding myself" and don't actually do what I do on a regular basis, whatever. I know what I do in my own life.

 

[joe1776]

*sigh*

You know what, forget it. It won't matter what I present; you're not interested in valuing someone else's experiences. If you've convinced yourself I'm "kidding myself" and don't actually do what I do on a regular basis, whatever. I know what I do in my own life.

You're a seasoned member of an Internet debate board; and yet my request for you to support your extraordinary claim with science or logic sent you into a pout and caused you to lash out at me personally?

 

[Quintessence]

You're a seasoned member of an Internet debate board; and yet my request for you to support your extraordinary claim with science or logic sent you into a pout and caused you to lash out at me personally?

Yes, that's right... I'm an extraordinary person. Thanks for the complement.