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The Morality of Torture

Started by LegendarySandwich, November 28, 2010, 02:07:44 AM

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LegendarySandwich

The title sums it up. What are your views on the morality of torture? Is it always wrong? Is it justified in certain instances?

Will

According to my personal values, it's always wrong, but I'm cheating. I know from my education in psychology that torture doesn't work (despite what the Bush administration might insist). It's a poor method of extracting actionable intelligence, being unreliable even under the best circumstances. Even if it did work, though, I would personally be against it because there's a certain point at which the cost of survival is higher than your being worthy of that survival. Surviving for survival's sake is pointless. It's not enough to survive, you have to be worthy of survival.
I want bad people to look forward to and celebrate the day I die, because if they don't, I'm not living up to my potential.

Davin

The only situations anyone can bring up that are even close to making torture a morally justifiable action, are not realistic. If it takes an unrealistic set of circumstances to morally justify an action, then the action is morally unjustifiable.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.

Wilson

I suspect that torture is effective more often than some of us would like.  It certainly isn't consistently useful; the torturee will tell the torturer anything, true or false, to stop the pain, and often the torturee simply doesn't know what he's being asked, and will make something up.  

But if Guido wants you to tell him where your life savings are hidden, and he has a knife and icepick and blowtorch and all the time in the world, I suspect you'll be pleased to reveal the location.  So let's not minimize the effectiveness of excruciating pain in loosening one's tongue.  Try to imagine yourself as a guest in Guido's chamber and ask yourself if you would be able to hold out.

Information obtained by torture is unreliable and you can't assume it's true, but I'll bet that in cases where the prisoner actually knows the location of a bomb or the name of a colleague, torture would work, more often than not.

I feel that a lot of people overemphasize the unreliability of torture, because if they acknowledge that it is sometimes effective, they fear that it would open the floodgates and make torture popular.

I'm sure that there have been abuses at Gitmo and elsewhere, with more or less innocent people being tortured to obtain information that they weren't able to provide because they didn't know anything useful.  I'm certainly against that and almost all other torture.  Still ...

In another thread Davin and I discussed a hypothetical situation where a reliable informant tells us that a nuclear device is scheduled to detonate somewhere in Manhattan in 24 hours, and a person in custody is the only one who knows the location.  (Sounds like a season of "24") Davin said that he wouldn't approve torturing that individual in order to save a million New Yorkers (I know that New Yorkers aren't too popular across the country, but still ..) because we couldn't be sure that the information obtained would be accurate.  To me that's a crazy attitude.  It would be immoral to allow a nuclear bomb to explode in Manhattan if there was a chance you could stop it, even if that chance required torturing a terrorist.

I know that this exact situation is unlikely - this is a hypothetical scenario, after all - but maybe not as unlikely as all that.  And it's useful to do these thought experiments, just in case we are faced with an imminent terrorist attack in the future.

Some of us like our morality all neat and tidy and laid down in rules.  No killing, no torture, no stealing.  But morally valid exceptions are possible to most of our rules.  What I consider moral in the above hypothetical sitation is to balance the good of trying to save a million lives against the bad of torturing one terrorist.  To me it would be no contest.

Tank

Morality isn't the same as effectiveness.

One can argue that under some circumstances torture will lead to the extraction of inaccurate or false information. I would contend this is mainly down to torturing the wrong person e.g. they don't know what you think they know. Thus the person being interrogated tell lies to stop the pain. The British used very effective interrogation methods during WWII. One such example was to put prisoners together in a cell with a hidden microphone and listen to them. In due course remarkable amounts of information were obtained. The effect can be seen on Big Brother. Contestants start to become blasé about the cameras after a few days. The captured Germans, mostly aircrew were not even aware they were being listened too. Once they thought they had been interrogated and deemed of no interest they happily chatted about every thing. This allowed the British to create 'Trojan Prisoners' who were put into detention with the real prisoners and they would lead the conversation around to the subjects the British wanted to find out about. These were very brave men as if they were found out they would almost definitely come to a gruesome end.  

However if one is certain that an individual does poses the information required then torture is often effective. How effective is again determined by the amount you know the subject knows and if that 3rd party information allows one to verify what you expect the subject to know. There are a number of techniques that the SAS and Royal Marines are taught that are highly effective at encouraging individuals to tell them what they need to know, and they work. But the issue of accuracy will always be a balancing act. Even if the person knows what you think they know and they tell you what you want to know there is no guarantee that the interpretation of that information will be accurate. One example, although not related to torture, occurred during WWII when the Germans brought some radar jamming equipment to Sicily to disrupt the British radar on Malta. The British had expected this. When the jammers were switched on the British radar screens turned into an indecipherable field of static 'snow'. The operator went to switch off the system and the commander told him not to. Three days later the Germans switched off the jammers, they obviously hadn't worked as the British were still using the radar. The Germans stopped using that type of jammer completely as a result of its failure. The Germans failed because they didn't correctly interpret the information they had.

To my mind the behaviour of the security forces at Guantanamo Bay has everything to do with revenge and nothing to do with intelligence gathering. The use of boredom and Trojan Prisoners would have given the security services all they needed to know. Now this makes me very suspicious about the motivations of the security forces there. They are professional interrogators, they know about the effects of boredom and how to exploit human psychology.

So the effectiveness of torture as a method of extracting information is not 100%. It has to be used on the right person, the information has to be verifiable and it has to be correctly interpreted to be effective. In other words it's not a magic wand.

Now as to the morality of torture it's a classic numbers game. Does torturing one or a few individuals prevent something else happening that is worse for more people? That has to be dealt with on a case by case basis. On a personal level if I was 95% sure that torturing a person would definitely save the life of one of my kids and I knew I would go to prison for a very long time and probably never get out again as a result of my actions I would do what needed to be done to get the information. Would I do it to save somebody else's child? No I don't think so, but I wouldn't stop that parent from trying.Would I do it to save a number of children not including my own? Don't know, but I expect it would come down to how emotionally bound to the situation I was.

So to my mind the efficacy of torture is one thing, it does work but there are often better ways to get information. The morality is 'does the end justify the means?' and on a personal level under certain extremely specific circumstances I think torture is justifiable.

Now spreading the net wider is torture of terrorist suspects after the event of a terrorist act a reasonable thing to do? And by reasonable I would say does the action prevent more terrorism? Personally I do not think torture is justifiable as there are infinitely more effective ways to exploit a terrorist suspect than to lock them up and water-board them. Imprisoning them for a little while and really learning about them and then releasing them is far more effective as they become bait for others and their actions can be tracked, their connections to organisations, suppliers and other groups could be monitored and would give invaluable intelligence to security forces. They would act as 'activity markers'.

The human desire for revenge has really fucked up the so called 'war on terror'. You can't wage war on terrorists you have to trap them one by one in a painstaking exercise and at the same time erode their credibility as providers of the result they are attempting to gain. This is precisely how the British and Irish governments closed down the IRA, they removed their credibility as an organisation for providing the reunification of Ireland. Killing loads of Iraqis and Afghans has not removed the threat of terrorism and it never will. To truly stop a terrorist one has to remove their desire to kill. Killing them may win a battle but it does not win an ideological war.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Thumpalumpacus

Wilson:
Firstly,  by my morality, being purely subjective and based upon the Golden Rule, torture is always wrong.  I do not want a cattle-prod stuck upon my gonads.  I do not want a carbolic-acid emetic.  I do not want my fingernails plied out, nor do I want bamboo shoved underneath them.  I'm not overly fond of cigarette burn, and, though I've never had my wrists shackled behind my back and subsequently been hung from them, I am possessed of enough imagination to understand that that probably fucking hurts.

Also, I'd like for every advocate of torture who throws that "ticking bomb" crap out for discussion to do me a quick favor: please link me to three cases in the last 100 years where the torture of a man saved more lives than it cost.  If you cannot provide such data, spare me your rhetoric. In every case I've found, the torture was used to hunt down dissentients.  Every case.  I've amenable to correction.  Please bring your hard data.

Quote from: "Wilson"I suspect that torture is effective more often than some of us would like.  It certainly isn't consistently useful; the torturee will tell the torturer anything, true or false, to stop the pain, and often the torturee simply doesn't know what he's being asked, and will make something up.  

But if Guido wants you to tell him where your life savings are hidden, and he has a knife and icepick and blowtorch and all the time in the world, I suspect you'll be pleased to reveal the location.  So let's not minimize the effectiveness of excruciating pain in loosening one's tongue.  Try to imagine yourself as a guest in Guido's chamber and ask yourself if you would be able to hold out.

1) This is an appeal to fear, and not reason. On those grounds alone, your argument ought to be ignored.
2) You've yet to explain how Guido can know for certain you're telling the truth.  How's he gonna have "all the time in the world?"  I thought the fucking bomb was going off in an hour.  You torture proponents need to get together and straighten out your stories, heart-to-heart, buddy.  Is it an hour, or all the time in the world?  You cannot have it both ways.
3) There are plenty of examples of people surviving brutal torture because they had the strength of their own moral courage.  John McCain, and Hans Speidel, leap to mind immediately.

QuoteInformation obtained by torture is unreliable and you can't assume it's true, but I'll bet that in cases where the prisoner actually knows the location of a bomb or the name of a colleague, torture would work, more often than not.

This of course presumes that you're torturing someone in the know.  I'll bet that in cases where worms have machine guns, birds leave them the hell alone.

QuoteI feel that a lot of people overemphasize the unreliability of torture, because if they acknowledge that it is sometimes effective, they fear that it would open the floodgates and make torture popular.

Are you admitting then that supporters of torture are impervious to any sort of moral appeal?  I will tell you this, right now:  even if you showed me that torture was sometimes effective, I'd still abjure it, precisely because it is morally wrong to inflict cruelty onto another human, particularly if the infliction is not a punishment, but a goad for information you do not even know he has.  You are gambling another human being's physical, mental, and emotional well-being on the odds that they know what you don't -- but no matter how you dress it up, you cannot know that they know.  Furthermore, you cannot know that even if they do know, they are telling you the truth.

QuoteI'm sure that there have been abuses at Gitmo and elsewhere, with more or less innocent people being tortured to obtain information that they weren't able to provide because they didn't know anything useful.  I'm certainly against that and almost all other torture.  Still ...

Golly, what an inconvenience.  I wonder how they felt.

QuoteIn another thread Davin and I discussed a hypothetical situation where a reliable informant tells us that a nuclear device is scheduled to detonate somewhere in Manhattan in 24 hours, and a person in custody is the only one who knows the location.  (Sounds like a season of "24") Davin said that he wouldn't approve torturing that individual in order to save a million New Yorkers (I know that New Yorkers aren't too popular across the country, but still ..) because we couldn't be sure that the information obtained would be accurate.  To me that's a crazy attitude.  It would be immoral to allow a nuclear bomb to explode in Manhattan if there was a chance you could stop it, even if that chance required torturing a terrorist.

I know that this exact situation is unlikely - this is a hypothetical scenario, after all - but maybe not as unlikely as all that.  And it's useful to do these thought experiments, just in case we are faced with an imminent terrorist attack in the future.

Davin's response is not only correct, it is devastatingly so: if you must appeal to such an unlikely hypothetical to justify your actions, your actions are unjustifiable.

QuoteSome of us like our morality all neat and tidy and laid down in rules.  No killing, no torture, no stealing.  But morally valid exceptions are possible to most of our rules.  What I consider moral in the above hypothetical sitation is to balance the good of trying to save a million lives against the bad of torturing one terrorist.  To me it would be no contest.

I speak as an Air Force veteran: the torture of anyone under American custody is a blot on our honor, and you should be ashamed to be urging it forward.

And, Will the Mod, using your education in psychology isn't cheating.  Do you honestly think that the people who apply torture are not versed in the psychological?  Au contraire, mon frere: torture is probably the keenest expression of psychology in man's experience, perhaps, outside of love.
Illegitimi non carborundum.

Wilson

Quote from: "Thumpalumpacus"Also, I'd like for every advocate of torture who throws that "ticking bomb" crap out for discussion to do me a quick favor: please link me to three cases in the last 100 years where the torture of a man saved more lives than it cost.  If you cannot provide such data, spare me your rhetoric. In every case I've found, the torture was used to hunt down dissentients.  Every case.  I've amenable to correction.  Please bring your hard data.

Hard data?  I'm not a student of torture science.  My guess is that there have been many such incidents, but I have no direct knowledge, and no desire to spend time searching for them.  

About the Guido situation:

Quote1) This is an appeal to fear, and not reason. On those grounds alone, your argument ought to be ignored.
2) You've yet to explain how Guido can know for certain you're telling the truth.  How's he gonna have "all the time in the world?"  I thought the fucking bomb was going off in an hour.  You torture proponents need to get together and straighten out your stories, heart-to-heart, buddy.  Is it an hour, or all the time in the world?  You cannot have it both ways.
3) There are plenty of examples of people surviving brutal torture because they had the strength of their own moral courage.  John McCain, and Hans Speidel, leap to mind immediately.

1) An appeal to fear?  We're just talking here.  I'm not trying to frighten you.  See, there's this concept of hypothetical situations, which can be useful in figuring out where morality lies under certain circumstances.  And certainly there have been cases of people being tortured to reveal where the cash box is, even if I can't give you three examples of "hard data" on the subject.
2) How can Guido know for certain you're telling the truth?  Okay, here's Guido's clever strategy.  He looks where you tell him to look.  If it's not there, Guido knows you were lying, and resumes his blowtorch work until you give him the right answer.  That Guido is brilliant!  It's the exact same answer to my nuclear hypothetical.  You look where the terrorist says the bomb is.  Obviously, you're desperately searching for a hole in the scenario but failing and looking foolish.
3) Some people can hold out, most can't.  According to Wikipedia, "After four days (of severe torture), McCain made an anti-American propaganda "confession". He has always felt that his statement was dishonorable, but as he later wrote, "I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine."  No blame attaches to McCain for being human; he resisted to the best of his ability.

Regarding Davin's refusal to torture a person who could reveal the location of the bomb in Manhattan, resulting in the death of one million New Yorkers:
QuoteDavin's response is not only correct, it is devastatingly so: if you must appeal to such an unlikely hypothetical to justify your actions, your actions are unjustifiable.

You and Davin lack subtlety in your thinking.   Everything is black and white.  No gray areas.  You seem to think that if there is an exception to a general rule, it invalidates the rule.  Nonsense.

Now you know that I said that I'm against torture except in exceptional circumstances.  And I gave a hypothetical example of such an exceptional circumstance.  And then you say that "if you must appeal to such an unlikely hypothetical to justify your actions, your actions are unjustifiable."  My actions?  What actions?  Are you accusing me of torturing someone?  You seem to be implying that I'm in favor of torture in general, when you know that's not true.  Please try to be more logical.  And honest.

QuoteI speak as an Air Force veteran: the torture of anyone under American custody is a blot on our honor, and you should be ashamed to be urging it forward.
And I speak as a Navy veteran: We must be smart enough to consider each case on its own merits.

Asmodean

Quote from: "LegendarySandwich"The title sums it up. What are your views on the morality of torture?
The morality of torture..?  :raised: It's immoral by the standards of most "reasonable" countries.

QuoteIs it always wrong?
Always is a strong word... Probably not.

QuoteIs it justified in certain instances?
Of course. You can justify anything you want. The real question is, how many others will accept your justification?
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

Davin

Quote from: "Wilson"
Quote from: "Thumpalumpacus"Also, I'd like for every advocate of torture who throws that "ticking bomb" crap out for discussion to do me a quick favor: please link me to three cases in the last 100 years where the torture of a man saved more lives than it cost.  If you cannot provide such data, spare me your rhetoric. In every case I've found, the torture was used to hunt down dissentients.  Every case.  I've amenable to correction.  Please bring your hard data.

Hard data?  I'm not a student of torture science.  My guess is that there have been many such incidents, but I have no direct knowledge, and no desire to spend time searching for them.
Without hard data, it's just speculation. I never accept any speculation as true without evidence that supports it. However you have every right to accept things as true without supporting evidence, but don't then go around trying to act like your conclusions based off of your mere speculations are true.

Quote from: "Wilson"About the Guido situation:

Quote1) This is an appeal to fear, and not reason. On those grounds alone, your argument ought to be ignored.
2) You've yet to explain how Guido can know for certain you're telling the truth.  How's he gonna have "all the time in the world?"  I thought the fucking bomb was going off in an hour.  You torture proponents need to get together and straighten out your stories, heart-to-heart, buddy.  Is it an hour, or all the time in the world?  You cannot have it both ways.
3) There are plenty of examples of people surviving brutal torture because they had the strength of their own moral courage.  John McCain, and Hans Speidel, leap to mind immediately.

1) An appeal to fear?  We're just talking here.  I'm not trying to frighten you.  See, there's this concept of hypothetical situations, which can be useful in figuring out where morality lies under certain circumstances.  And certainly there have been cases of people being tortured to reveal where the cash box is, even if I can't give you three examples of "hard data" on the subject.
2) How can Guido know for certain you're telling the truth?  Okay, here's Guido's clever strategy.  He looks where you tell him to look.  If it's not there, Guido knows you were lying, and resumes his blowtorch work until you give him the right answer.  That Guido is brilliant!  It's the exact same answer to my nuclear hypothetical.  You look where the terrorist says the bomb is.  Obviously, you're desperately searching for a hole in the scenario but failing and looking foolish.
3) Some people can hold out, most can't.  According to Wikipedia, "After four days (of severe torture), McCain made an anti-American propaganda "confession". He has always felt that his statement was dishonorable, but as he later wrote, "I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine."  No blame attaches to McCain for being human; he resisted to the best of his ability.
Are you trying to advocate against torture with this example? If you're asking me to put myself in this situation, I don't think it goes well for your point for me to be in this situation. I don't feel pain like normal people do, it's very numb, like the sensation goes through a filter, I feel it, but it doesn't hurt, so yeah, I can last a very, very long time.

Now if you're trying to get most people to envision themselves as being the position of those who you're proposing are morally justifiable to torture in order to try and convince them how effective torture is: Most of us had not been trained to withstand torture, most of us do not believe that by sacrificing their lives to kill infidels that we'll get huge rewards in the afterlife and most of us won't plant a bomb to kill people in the first place. Now let's say it's basically the same situation, but instead of money being what the guy is after, it's you releasing sensitive information. If you release this information it will prevent your cause from saving your country from those who are trying to destroy it and everything you stand for and saving the souls of your family and everyone in your social group for all eternity. That is what they believe, and no one is going to convince them otherwise, especially not someone who's torturing them. If you're going to put yourself in their shoes, put them all the way on.

Quote from: "Wilson"Regarding Davin's refusal to torture a person who could reveal the location of the bomb in Manhattan, resulting in the death of one million New Yorkers:
QuoteDavin's response is not only correct, it is devastatingly so: if you must appeal to such an unlikely hypothetical to justify your actions, your actions are unjustifiable.

You and Davin lack subtlety in your thinking.   Everything is black and white.  No gray areas.  You seem to think that if there is an exception to a general rule, it invalidates the rule.  Nonsense.
I'd like to know where you get the basis for these assumptions, perhaps something I said. Nope, I never said that I think everything is black and white, because that is not what I hold to be true. Never have I said anything about there being no grey areas... not once, because I don't hold that to be true. We haven't even discussed enough issues for you to even have any idea about what I think about everything. Just baseless speculation. Please stop assuming things, just because someone disagrees with you, doesn't mean you get to make irrational statements about them.

While I agree with a lot of what Thumpalumpacus says, I doubt we're in the same boat, not even on this issue. What we are is in agreement of the facts, the hard data, the objective evidence. We also come to the same conclusion based off of that evidence that torture is essentially useless and a waste of time.

Another note on the extremely unlikely scenario that you brought forth: Torture takes longer than 24 hours in all accounts. It's days before people even start to bend. So even if you rely on torture, 24 hours isn't enough time and in your scenario a million people died because you chose to rely on something very unreliable that takes a lot longer than your given time frame to even acquire any information... which is very likely to be false information. Everyone who has used some pretty nasty interrogation techniques that has been interviewed, knows that once actual physical pain has been introduced, the subject is less willing to talk. The other more reliable option is psychological torture, which takes at least a week to even get the person to start talking... by start talking, it's useless information for the first several days of talking. Still yet in your scenario, a waste of time.

You're telling me that when a million lives are at stake that you're more willing to rely on something very unreliable over doing something much more reliable. So tell me which makes more sense. Because if I'm the one who has to make a choice that may save a million lives, I'm going to rely on things with a much higher success rate that take far less time.

For evidence, look up Michael Koubi the former chief interrogator for Israel's General Security Services when you have time. This is a man who has decades of experience extracting information and has no qualms against abusing prisoners. Yet because his goal is to get information, he doesn't need to use extreme physical and psychological torture on suspects to get that information from them. For most of the people he interrogated, there is no permanent physical or psychological damage, but is still very effective to get information.

I'm not just speaking from a moral standpoint, I'm also speaking about usefulness, I'm speaking from evidence. If it was at least reliable and useful, then there might be some case where it could be considered moral, but as yet, all the evidence points towards it's inefficiency. I don't want reality to be any certain way, it will be what it is regardless of my wants, I only want to know what reality is.

Quote from: "Wilson"Now you know that I said that I'm against torture except in exceptional circumstances.  And I gave a hypothetical example of such an exceptional circumstance.  And then you say that "if you must appeal to such an unlikely hypothetical to justify your actions, your actions are unjustifiable."  My actions?  What actions?  Are you accusing me of torturing someone?  You seem to be implying that I'm in favor of torture in general, when you know that's not true.  Please try to be more logical.  And honest.
If you stop assuming things and being irrational, I think people might take you appealing to others to be more logical more seriously. As it is, it's like the pot calling the sun black. Don't argue from baseless assertions then ask others to be more logical, it holds no weight if you're unwilling to do so as well.

Quote from: "Wilson"
QuoteI speak as an Air Force veteran: the torture of anyone under American custody is a blot on our honor, and you should be ashamed to be urging it forward.
And I speak as a Navy veteran: We must be smart enough to consider each case on its own merits.
Then bring up a case where it might be moral. The ticking time bomb hypothetical is not only unrealistic, it also doesn't make torture useful, let alone moral.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.

Wilson

Davin wrote, "Torture takes longer than 24 hours in all accounts."

I did not know that.

I don't think you know that, either.

Listen.  None of us is an expert on torture, far as I know.  None of us is likely to torture anybody, or - Allah willing - be tortured.  I doubt that most torture is documented.  If a successful two hour torture saved Cleveland last year, the details probably wouldn't be Googlable.  That stuff happens in the shadows and most of it isn't committed to official record.  It just seems logical that excruciating pain and plausible threats of chopping off body parts and such would drive almost anybody to divulge what they know to stop the suffering.  I'm sure that some people could resist almost anything, but most couldn't.  I'll bet a Salvadorean drug cartel could get you to reveal your social security number in spite of your hypesthesia.

To be honest, what irritates me here is the refusal by you and Thumper to acknowledge something that's obvious - that there could come a circumstance where torture would be the best option.  You essentially told me that you would prefer sacrificing a million New Yorkers to dirtying your hands by approving torture.  I know, I know, you say that there are more effective ways of getting that information, but a committed terrorist?  Very unrealistic in anything like a short time frame.  Deep down, you know that.

Do we really think that it's impossible that an Islamic extremist could get an atomic weapon into the US?  Maybe from North Korea?  And just as a lot of terrorist plots have been foiled by informants, it's not impossible (though very unlikely) that the scenario I posted could happen.  I pray that it won't, and I'm an atheist!  

I think it's a mistake to rely on strict rules as your sole guide to morality.  Thou shalt not kill.  Even in self-defense?  Thou shalt not steal.  Even if baby is hungry?  Thou shalt not go to war.  Even if Hitler is killing the Jews?  Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.  No matter how hot?  Thou shalt not torture.  Even if it might save New York City?

Inevitable Droid

I'll use a less loaded word: corporal punishment.  Using that word allows me to speak of a less drastic scenario than has been suggested thus far.  

Twenty years ago, I experimented with corporal punishment as a method of behavior modification.  I was a parent trying to get my young daugters to behave as expected in public places.  When they weren't doing as expected, I would threaten a slap to the thigh.  I employed a single slap to the meatiest, most cushioned part of the body, the thigh.  My older daugher received slaps on three separate occasions and never needed to be slapped again, as the mere threat sufficed.  She had made the calculation that getting her way wasn't worth the slap.  Soon even the threat wasn't needed.  My younger daughter received slaps on six separate occasions, and I could tell she was never going to submit.  She had made the calculation that avoiding the slaps wasn't worth submission.  I stopped slapping her and stopped even threatening her, as ineffectual corporal punishment was, in my estimation, brutality.

From the foregoing experiment I gleaned the following principles with respect to corporal punishment:

1. Don't use it unless the strategic objective is mandatory, rather than merely nice to have.

2. Don't use it unless it's the most effective method available.

3. Don't use it unless it's the most efficient method available, or unless extreme effectiveness outweighs the inefficiency.

4. Don't employ the actual punishment if the mere threat will suffice to curb misbehavior.

5. Don't threaten if renewed instruction will suffice to curb misbehavior.
Oppose Abraham.

[Missing image]

In the face of mystery, do science, not theology.

Davin

Quote from: "Wilson"Davin wrote, "Torture takes longer than 24 hours in all accounts."

I did not know that.

I don't think you know that, either.
You're right, all I have is the evidence that is available and the interviews of those that have used various interrogation tactics. What do you have?

Quote from: "Wilson"Listen.  None of us is an expert on torture, far as I know. None of us is likely to torture anybody, or - Allah willing - be tortured.  I doubt that most torture is documented.  If a successful two hour torture saved Cleveland last year, the details probably wouldn't be Googlable.  That stuff happens in the shadows and most of it isn't committed to official record.
Ah, the classic "neither one of is an expert therefore throw away all the evidence you've come across" tactic. Not a very effective one, nor a very reasonable one. Your doubt and your speculated probabilities do not a compelling argument make.

Quote from: "Wilson"It just seems logical that excruciating pain and plausible threats of chopping off body parts and such would drive almost anybody to divulge what they know to stop the suffering.  I'm sure that some people could resist almost anything, but most couldn't.  I'll bet a Salvadorean drug cartel could get you to reveal your social security number in spite of your hypesthesia.
I would probably give the person my social security number at just the threat, it's not important to me, so this is still a false analogy. Refer back to the example I gave:

Most of us had not been trained to withstand torture, most of us do not believe that by sacrificing their lives to kill infidels that we'll get huge rewards in the afterlife and most of us won't plant a bomb to kill people in the first place. Now let's say it's basically the same situation, but instead of money being what the guy is after, it's you releasing sensitive information. If you release this information it will prevent your cause from saving your country from those who are trying to destroy it and everything you stand for and saving the souls of your family and everyone in your social group for all eternity. That is what they believe, and no one is going to convince them otherwise, especially not someone who's torturing them. If you're going to put yourself in their shoes, put them all the way on.

Quote from: "Wilson"To be honest, what irritates me here is the refusal by you and Thumper to acknowledge something that's obvious - that there could come a circumstance where torture would be the best option.
If it's obvious, then you can provide an obvious example. As yet, I have not seen a single example where torture would be the best option.

Quote from: "Wilson"You essentially told me that you would prefer sacrificing a million New Yorkers to dirtying your hands by approving torture.
No I did not, I said I would use far more reliable resources. You're the one who states that you would use an extremely unreliable resource when a million lives are on the line.

Quote from: "Wilson"I know, I know, you say that there are more effective ways of getting that information, but a committed terrorist?  Very unrealistic in anything like a short time frame.
If you're going to state that it's unrealistic, do you have real evidence to back up that claim? I have seen a tremendous amount of evidence and presented some evidence that torturing someone for information in a short time frame is unrealistic. Should I trust your judgment or where the evidence leads to? I'll do what I always do and go where the evidence leads.

Quote from: "Wilson"Deep down, you know that.
And your basis for this assumption?

Quote from: "Wilson"Do we really think that it's impossible that an Islamic extremist could get an atomic weapon into the US?  Maybe from North Korea?  And just as a lot of terrorist plots have been foiled by informants, it's not impossible (though very unlikely) that the scenario I posted could happen.  I pray that it won't, and I'm an atheist!
Impossible for an atomic weapon to be planted in the U.S. by religious extremists? No, not impossible. The rest of your example is unrealistic. Trying to only cover a small portion of your example as being possible then trying to attach the rest of it onto that is dirty pool.

Quote from: "Wilson"I think it's a mistake to rely on strict rules as your sole guide to morality.  Thou shalt not kill.  Even in self-defense?  Thou shalt not steal.  Even if baby is hungry?  Thou shalt not go to war.  Even if Hitler is killing the Jews?  Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.  No matter how hot?  Thou shalt not torture.  Even if it might save New York City?
Once again, it's not strict rules on morality, it's cold hard logic and objective evidence. You keep trying to bring up some kind of strict moral code as if that's why I'm not agreeing with you, but the honest truth is that the evidence simply doesn't support your claim.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.

Wilson

Davin, you don't seem to have much common sense.  This back and forth is worthless.  Over and out.

Will

I'm not an expert and I've never tortured, but I may be the closes thing to a reliable source you're going to find so I might as well share what it is I know. First, in 2008, the American Psychological Association, the largest and most respected psychologist association in the world, went so far as to ban any members from being involved directly or indirectly with inhumane or torture situations. The decision was based, among other things, on The Trauma of Psychological Torture a seminal work on the psychological facts about torture.

The data is there and it's unquestionable: torture absolutely, positively does not work. Under no circumstances, ticking time bomb or not, is torture a viable method for retrieving reliable or even quasi-reliable information from a subject. Torture exists as a method of exacting aggression for the torturer or a method of inflicting physical and psychological harm on the tortured. It serves no other purpose.

One will gladly give up false information if it meant ending the significant physical or psychological pain or discomfort of torture, perhaps even regardless of the consequences. I would do or say anything to make it stop, and so would you. Most of the time, that means confirming what answer the torturer is leading you towards, regardless of whether it's true or not. Even with the aid of narcotics, torture will not yield intelligence of actionable reliability.
I want bad people to look forward to and celebrate the day I die, because if they don't, I'm not living up to my potential.

Wilson

Quote from: "Will"I would do or say anything to make it stop, and so would you. Most of the time, that means confirming what answer the torturer is leading you towards, regardless of whether it's true or not. Even with the aid of narcotics, torture will not yield intelligence of actionable reliability.

Will: If a torturee would do or say anything to make it stop, wouldn't he tell the truth, if he knew it?  I suspect that the practical problem with most torture is that the guy doesn't know anything useful, and lies to make it stop.  But in the specific situation where the prisoner actually knows the location of a bomb or the name of an associate, don't you think he would give it up?  Seems to me that he would, in many cases.  As John McCain said, we all have our breaking point.  Is it possible that your blanket denial that torture ever works is based more on disgust at the procedure than on logic?