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Therein lies a problem: it is not conducive to an exploratory philosophical discussion to be a wedded to a position.... a bit like arguing with a devout religious person on the existence of god: Yeah!.. No! It's going nowhere.

Astronauts, airplane pilots, counter-terrorists, Formula One drivers, army officers, etc. - all have to learn.... the modern way (after 1990) is to play computer games with simulated battles, simulated hostage rescue in Counter-Strike, simulated airplane flight, and so on.. The longer people train, the better experience they have in a subject they train. If they make a mistake, the simulated plane crashes instead of the real one. If an army officer loses a war in a simulated game, he gains knowledge, experience, can learn from what was done incorrectly.. Hours, hundreds hours, thousands hours, of experience that people from the old ages were not able to get in their lifetime.. If you make a mistake, you learn from what you did wrong and start over so you have a chance to not repeat it again... You gain experience, which is impossible to gain in the real world.. because you're dead.. Turn-based strategy is completely different than RTS.. A typical RTS has a fairly advanced economy, i.e. you have forest, quarry, iron/silver/gold mines, you need wood to build houses (at the beginning of the play), you need stone to build houses (a more advanced one or walls), you need iron to build a bridge, tank or airplane, etc. etc. People need to eat, so there are farmers, cows, pigs, etc. Multiply that by a thousand to get a true picture of the complexity of any modern RTS.. and yes, simulated RTS units also have morale, for at least 25 years.. (In one of my favorite RTSs from 20 years ago, hops were needed to make beer, which when distributed to people raised the morale of the population ) Do you really not see the similarity of generals surrounding a dictator, planning their next moves, on a map with little figures representing them and enemy units? (apart from humanitarian aspects, complexity and unexpected influences e.g. help from 3rd party side) ..if reconnaissance of enemy forces is working (in the time of satellites, it should be top-notch), they know in advance when they are sending soldiers to their deaths in a suicidal mission and a pointless move that cannot succeed.. Their units are just little figures on a map (or arrows).. In an RTS, you have immediate feedback from the opponent or from the A.I., which behaves accordingly to the force set in the options. The officers of the Russian army behave as if they had no basic experience. Officers received their ranks not on the basis of their experience on the battlefields, but because of their subordination to the V.P..

... and sometimes, people can't live with themselves, or look in the mirror, when they do nothing to retaliate against the person who did harm to their loved ones. Both can leave emotional scars. Some deny this, and claim to be virtuous, while others know themselves, and that we are all animals. ( thought I'd contribute my 'two cents' after 26 pages )

Evil is an emergent property of the valuation process of self-reflective moral entities.

One useful piece of information that this thread gave us is the topic top posters who are most interested in this subject and are most eager to give their invaluable opinion on torture. Lets hear a round of applause for them and lock this thread.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerovo_air_base_attack @zapatos

Due to the war, these countries may experience food problems in just a few months: https://www.voanews.com/a/ukraine-war-to-compound-hunger-poverty-in-africa-experts-say/6492430.html "Experts warn the war in Ukraine could increase hunger and food insecurity for some people in Africa. Most African countries import wheat and vegetable oil from Ukraine and Russia, a region now engulfed in conflict since Russia invaded its neighbor." "The United Nations says Russia and Ukraine produce 53% of the world’s sunflowers and seeds, and 27% of the world’s wheat." "The study shows at least 25 African countries import a third of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine, and 15 of them import more than half from those two countries." https://www.gonewsindia.com/latest-news/international/african-arab-countries-food-dependence-on-russia-ukraine-28571

Probably. Beats nails in the fingertips and a defibrillator easy. LSD is another potential avenue. I'd definitely try drug cocktails over torture. The perp has valuable Intel. Physical torture; especially for the untrained, is a threat to that Intel, as you may accidentally kill the perp before they divulge anything.

Which was what I was trying to point out when I said “There is no moral factor in blowing up images on a computer screen” In a simulation, if there are points for blowing up a school or hospital, you blow it up. That’s not reality, though. IOW, simulations don’t model things completely. It omits aspects of reality. You’re moving the goalposts here. You had made claims that a 15-17 year-old could make better decisions because they had more experience than a “true general” by playing RTS games. Do you think that actual military people don’t do simulations? aka war games? They do. In addition to training that you don’t get with computer games.

I wonder if there are gray areas of torture, like truth serum, that the thread didn't explore? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_serum You are inducing a involuntary state, which may be emotionally painful for the "perp," but you aren't inducing physical agony. Leaving aside the highly complex question of relative efficacy, is this a violation of that person that would weigh less heavily (re @MSC feeling of shame, and empathic awareness of perp as a human being) than outright physical assaults? I don't have a quick answer to this myself, but if we were talking suitcase nuke in Grand Central Station and a certain perp who knows the location, or the heavily massively monstrously overused pedo example, I wonder if the drug cocktail might be worth trying.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex-currencies/092316/how-us-dollar-became-worlds-reserve-currency.asp Надеюсь, это поможет.

Indeed, evil is as rare as a unicorn... I don't think Socrates did either...

An old fable: A Pan Am 727 flight, waiting for start clearance in Munich , overheard the following: Lufthansa (in German): “Ground, what is our start clearance time?” Ground (in English): “If you want an answer you must speak in English.” Lufthansa (in English): “I am a German, flying a German airplane, in Germany . Why must I speak English?” Unknown voice from another plane (in a beautiful British accent): “Because you lost the bloody war!”

! Moderator Note Similar topics merged.

I think they are similar not the same, you can compare the morality in a similar fashion and favour or object. There are many cases where in "self-defence" or in defence of another, someone gets killed and one could question whether or not this was the "right" thing to do at the time. Desperate times sometimes seek desperate measures, this was my point. My focus for answering the OP is centred around the one possibility where an evil act could be the right thing to do and the lesser of the 2 evils. In long consideration and listening to all the arguments presented I cannot honestly change my stance and still suggest that there could plausibly be a real situation where torture is the only option left which is the lesser of the 2 evils. Maybe I'm wrong but I believe that if found in such a situation, the vast majority of people, if being honest, would consider and condone the use of torture. For example, if your child had been kidnapped and their death was a real possibility. All attempts at retrieving your child had failed, negotiations with the perp, investigations into the location etc... all used and exhausted. Torture was an option on the table as a last resort. Would you not only consider it, but also condone it? Basically in this situation you are placing the life of your child in higher value than the rights/life of the perp. This I believe is the "right" thing to do and I believe that majority of people would agree.

Wow! the colour content is quite impresssive, but yeah, I also believe this has run its course, and having made many valid points and many morally correct arguments and assumptions, I will now gladly drop out and concentrate on the hard sciences.

Exactly. Water will flow to the more concentrated side from the more dilute side. So if the membrane is the skin of a worm, and the ionic strength on the inside is approximately that of seawater, what will happen to the worm if it is placed in a solution with lower ion concentration?

He didn't even assume that. Strawman. He literally said "assuming it's a fair trial.." and you're now accusing him of having claimed the exact opposite? This comment borders on racist also. Needs to be said. You really ought to calm down a bit and stop knee jerk reacting to everything we say by going down the pointless route of trying to question the credibility of an entire field while attempting to actually poorly practice it. All the while the irony of that, is lost on you. You're not actually attacking our arguments, just philosophy, which is a thinly veiled attack on philosophers. Especially as you are still picking and choosing which philosophers are to be listened to and which ones are not and going so far as to misrepresent their views as if they are the same as yours. They aren't. Kant was a moral absolutist. I don't like or agree with everything every philosopher has to say. Some are total assholes to each other, some are not. You can't paint us all with the same brush. The sort of criticisms you are attempting to credit as strictly a problem of philosophy as a field of study, are criticisms that apply to any group of humans. You're not at odds with philosophers or philosophy, you're at odds with human behavior in general... in which case, welcome to the club that you've always been in 😆 Sorry, hadn't seen this before my last comment. I'm done now. Thank you for weighing in. I also feel the thread has run its course now.

Great! we disagree. But my facts and common sense decency, and concern for innocent lives, (as opposed to some airy fairy philsophical stance) still stand, despite your unsupported rhetoric to the contrary, and always will. Might actually start a thread on why philsophers are so offended by any critique of their postion! 😆

My point although only a minor one was on your comment I mean why the fuck would you assume it's not a fair one? Unless of course you live in Iraq, or Iran, or some African nation controlled by some despot.