Peterkin

I didn't present scenarios. I explained about actual police and forensic procedure, about which I used to know something. My practical experience is out of date now, but the jury-trial system hasn't changed and the statistics I cited are recent, both from the US and Australia. Everybody who reads the news. Lots of people predicted something like it. When you set up a world order guaranteed to breed hate and political strife, and especially one where a small, powerless faction has no other recourse against a powerful state machinery, you can expect many examples of terrorist activity. What makes it effective is that revolutionary cells are notoriously difficult to spy on, so the authorities can't prepare for all the forms in which terrorist activity will manifest. There are too many accessible targets. The White House and Pentagon were obvious targets, and there had been a previous attempt on the World Trade Center. The use of domestic flights and residences made it harder to forecast. The rise of Islamic militancy was not exactly news. That's not a game, that's a sigh of resignation. I am well cognizant of my place in the minority. Provided the agent on the scene correctly identifies his situation as that situation.... Which, of course, he always assumes is the case, if he has carte blanche. I don't think it's the same at all. I can think of no examples of mercy-torture, or torture in self-defence. This defence-of-others (howbeit the others in danger are not present) scenario is the only one the analagy covers.

In each case, well before the window of opportunity is expected to close. In the two given scenarios presented here, that would be a few hours. The child will be murdered; the bomb will go off in a few hours. Given that it may, and probably will, take a couple of hours to extract the information under torture - in this instance, inexpert torture (because the alternative is too abhorrent to contemplate in an ethics thought-experiment), you have 1-4 hours to exhaust all other sources of information and avenues of investigation. Al else, in these situations, fails very quickly.

Sure. Lots of things might be. Some of those improbable things might even happen together. If enough of those improbable things improbably converged within your immediate purview, you might can be as certain of a suspect's guilt as if they had been witnessed committing the crime. If all of those improbable things converged in a single moment, in a single case, you might have the makings of a scripted thought-experiment. When that happens, you will make the right decision. Probably. Where's the fun? What's to win? No, I simply disagree with your approach to law-enforcement.

So why does the agent on the scene have access to them, if you can't think of them in a cool, detached assessment? All those may have happened, and may come to light during an investigation. But the rapist of little girl you keep bringing as an example of 100% certainty is still not applicable to all these "may have"'s: you already had the information. In cases where you don't need to decide whether to use torture; i.e. cases that are inapplicable to the scenario presented here. In which a great many injustices happen. (Yes, yes, the criminals do more harm than the police, so it's okay.) Under abnormal circumstances, "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" is a verdict based on the common sense, experience, gut feeling, hunch, or prejudice of a police officer. That does apply to the case in point; the legal definition does not. That's vigilante justice. It has not proven particularly beneficial to societies.

Violating someone's trust is wrong; deceit for the purpose of harming another who poses no threat to yourself, or depriving them of something to which they are entitled is wrong; deception to gain unearned benefit or advantage is wrong. Story-telling is not wrong. Kindness is not wrong. Protecting someone's privacy is not wrong. Helping an ally is not wrong. Telling untruths or withholding true information doesn't all belong in one big bag labelled LIES. It can't be judged with one big moral gavel. Human communication is entirely context-determined.

You claim that, but it continues inapplicable to cases where vital information regarding the crime is urgently needed at the time and in the hours immediately following the apprehension of a suspect. There is no time, in either of the thought-experiment scenarios to do any routine investigation, let alone exhaust ll avenues short of torture, as every one of those avenues is time-consuming. In the red-handed capture example, no information is required from the suspect: everything necessary to know about the crime, the perpetrator, the weapon and the victim is already known. In the verdict of "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" example, there can be no such verdict until after the trail, which comes after the time-consuming forensic collection and testing, witness testimony - routine investigation; all the regular methods. And if evidence extracted by torture is introduced at the trial, it either nullifies or fatally taints that sentence.

That's the only common factor between a scripted scenario and real life. In real life situations, this is the only thing you know for sure at the time the decision must be made. You cannot be 100% sure you have the right captive; you can't be sure of his guilt, of whether he knows what you need to find out, what interrogation method will elicit the information he does have, whether and for how long the information you get will be useful, whether all less bad options have been exhausted, which kind of torture - if any - will produce results most quickly, what repercussions, consequences and long-term effects will result - for the the victim(s), the suspect, yourself, your agency, the justice system and society. You cannot know. You have to rely on your own judgment and instinct. If the rules are strict and your training is sound, more mature judgment than primal instinct. If not, more hunch and gut reaction. In our safe and comfortable chairs, secure in the belief that we will never participate, either as agent or as suspect, it's an easy decision. And that's wrong. It should never be easy.

Nothing to do with me. That can happen to anyone. What debate? Everyone who had something to say has said it several times over.

Okay. Your way prevails. Very likely.

That may be so, but it's not relevant here, in this situation, as regards this question. Timeline: 1. crime is committed 2. suspect is apprehended 3. suspect does not divulge important information, although law enforcement agent 100% convinced of his guilt 4. suspect is tortured by police 5. suspect provides information/ confession 6. events transpire as per result of information given 7. suspect arraigned 8. evidence compiled 9. trial date set 10. trial begins 11. statement of suspect extracted under duress presented in court 12. corrupt/prejudiced/100% convinced judge fails to to throw tainted evidence out of court 13. suspect is found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt Conclusion: #4 causes or materially contributes to #13 and #13 justifies #4. Long-term result: law enforcement agencies become corrupt and the whole system goes to hell. What information was required of him to save which innocent from what danger? If none, it's irrelevant.

Who said anything about discarding the system? I said you can't justify something you did before the trial with a verdict that came after the trial( see the problem of the cart being put in front of the horse?) , especially if what you did before tainted the verdict. The "beyond a reasonable doubt" verdict comes ten to 20 months after the innocents were no longer in danger. If you keep us hopping back and forth in time like this; we'll all suffer cyclic temporal disphoria.

I'm saying you can't know how much and which evidence it takes to convince another person of anything. You can't know how much doubt another person considers reasonable. You can't know what preconceptions and prejudices they brought to the trial. You can't know what gossip, news coverage, social media misinformation contribute to another persons' perception of a crime. And that the jury can't be certain whether they are given all the relevant facts, that the evidence they're shown is genuine, that the attorneys are equally competent, that witnesses are honest and recall the facts correctly, that the forensic tests are accurate and the police have the right person in the first place. The degree of reasonable doubt after the trial has no relevance to allowing exceptional measures before the trial, no. Especially if the methods of extraction before contribute to the conviction. I don't mind netting the odd little herring, but the merits of criminal trials by the adversarial system really don't have a bearing on whether torturing a suspect - who has not been convicted - is ethical. And that's why they get arrested by agents of law enforcement who enforce the moral standards of the society, and should reasonably be expected to adhere to those standards.

Those are crimes. They are against the law. They are forbidden. Even a little bit of those things is forbidden. Any of things things above 0 is absolutely forbidden. There is no minimum allowed and no jurist has pronounced on imagined situations in which the sexual abuse of a child or terrorism may be permissible. Of course not! There is no figure. 51% is the baseline of 'more likely than not', because below that line, no jury [in a democratic, modern westernized society, I hope] returns a guilty verdict. Above 50%, the determination of what's reasonable is locked inside the jurors' heads. They may be instructed to observe a standard that seems reasonable to the judge, but they can't be legally held to it; once the trial commences, it's up to them - and nobody else can know what convinces them. Not that it's relevant to the use of torture in order to obtain information before there is any evidence. The trial doesn't take place until months after the victims have been killed or saved or discovered never to have been in danger at all (the other egg was less bad and left the child in safe, warm place; unbeknownst to the captured conspirator, the bomb was a dud ) - so it simply doesn't enter into the law enforcement agency's available choice of investigative techniques.

Of course he does! It's 0 - no exceptions, no special cases. That's why he's being arrested, questioned, tortured, tried, convicted and sentenced. Beyond a reasonable doubt" can be as low as 51% certainty, and rarely, if ever as high as 100%. In any case, wouldn't that happen after the threat to all those innocents has been neutralized, after he trial, after the evidence is collected, vetted and presented to a jury, not before the interrogation, and not because of confession obtained by torture? Carts and horses, hearses and tumbrils.

If someone in a position to extract information from the suspect had witnessed the crime, they could have stopped the crime - or at the very least be in first-hand possession of the facts, which nullifies the entire if-all-else-fails-resort-to-torture scenario. Even in the terrorist and bomb scenario, there can only be a high degree of certainty - never 100%. It would then be up to the agent to set the bar of acceptable risk. In the imagined situation, all agents have impeccable characters and exceptionally high standards; in real life, if the law says the agent in question tends to set the bar lower than if it's absolutely forbidden.

That's why it's essential to separate the concept of reality - external, objective reality - from belief, judgment and societal norms.

I don't see that. I mean, I see that it can be called that, but I have problems with using the term. This statement is even more contentious. A baby makes judgments and decisions according its own perception - which is mainly internal; very limited as regards the world beyond its own skin. It doesn't have access to shared beliefs. At what age, then, has a human child learned to override its own perception and defer to a version of reality received from others? I don't think psychosis or schizophrenia would be a viable diagnosis at age 3 or 4 or even 5 - but after that, the cut-off line can be set arbitrarily, like the age for driving, drinking, marrying and making war, depending on the society's shared notion of maturing. Since we are incapable of forming a telepathic interweb, we can't ever all share the same reality in all particulars. What percent of one's personal take on reality has to be congruent with the prevailing one in order to be considered sane? What degree of deviation to be considered neurotic? psychotic? It's true that people who fail or refuse to subscribe to the dominant beliefs are often diagnosed as [fill in the name by which a mental deviation from norm goes in a given time and culture] - but they may as easily be called heretics, traitors, nonconformists, geniuses or saints. They also change quite radically over time and distance, and sometimes over quite short periods and distances. Whatever your present culture's world-view is at the moment, I'm willing to bet it differs in significant ways from what it was three, six and ten generations ago. Why? Can't you collect ideas from the literature of another culture? From personal observation and experience? Or build it up through tearing down - in the way that christians convert to Buddhism or monarchists turn republican? Anyway, I question the substance of "scratch". In the earliest part of life, we have only visceral beliefs (the existence and utility of physical objects, trust in one's caregivers, the less confident belief that certain acts and vocalizations will elicit the same response as last time) until we acquire language. But language comes with pre-existing freight: the more language we acquire, the more attitudes and preconceptions it brings. We can't formulate original ideas without it; we can't formulate complex ideas without extensive knowledge of it - but to the extent that we use it, we are incorporating part of our culture's shared reality. It might. But it might equally be that the culture - or one of its agents - has convinced someone of lies and distortions, and a different perspective on some facet of external reality shattered that conviction. If some crucial issue is at the center of such a disruption, the individual's whole belief system might be fatally damaged; they may be left clinging to an unrecognizable piece of wreckage, or they might attempt to barricade the doors of their perception against further assault. The problem here is using 'belief' 'world-view' and 'reality' interchangeably, or as a single, continuous entity. If we divided the terms into strict and well defined categories, discussing the phenomena might be less difficult.

I can't help noticing the equivocal language of this authority He's as careful in the choice of words as I am, but seems less sure of his position. I don't blame him: it's a difficult question. Each of us can only answer with any confidence from our own subjective perspective.

Before they were little innocent babies? ( Depends whom you ask, but the version I prefer is evolution. ) After they were little innocent babies, just as the criminals were little innocent babies, their personalities, just like the personalities of the criminals, were formed by their genetic heritage, nurture or lack of it, their native talents and intelligence, their environment, their culture, their education or lack of it, the entertainments, literature and games they were exposed to, the role models by whom they were influenced, the expectations and responses of authority figures, the good or bad relationships they had with other people, the good or bad health and luck that befell them, their enmities and alliances, their ambitions and yearnings, the opportunities and temptations they encountered and the obstacles intervening between them and their desired objectives. Some of them become violent, antisocial and corrupted - bad, lowlife, crooked eggs or apples. And therefore, it seems to me, if changing the environment to one that corrupts fewer people in the first place (ie. systemic crime prevention through social justice) is completely and hopelessly unworkable, as I have been informed on more than one occasion, then the next best thing to attempt is to put more obstacles between the people and the factors which corrupt them. In the case of law-enforcers, it is done through legislation and reform. In the case of law-breakers, it is done through crime prevention and effective corrections.

Whatever lies within the power of a voting citizen of a modern westernized democratic country. For the sake of ethics, yes, I disregard the status quo. I don't see how that's a controversy. I do not believe that I caused the controversy by holding what you assert is a minority opinion. I think that controversy has been in effect for six thousand years. If you think that's me, you're mistaken. I don't give reps because I don't like the concept. That, too, may be a minority opinion. Pardon? Is that the statistical comparison we're looking for as standard? Whether the police, who are payed, armed, empowered and authorized to protect the population are more or less harmful to the population than the criminals themselves? And then what? If the cause less death, injury, trauma and damage to householders than armed burglars do, they should be given power to do more? Sorry, I cannot accept that as a status quo. I am typing into a little box on my computer screen in the relative comfort of my house on the far side of the globe. As are you. No throats involved; no compulsion to read; no form of coercion available.

He probably knows - or definitely does, if the police have given him access to legal representation - that if he can goad the police into using illegal tactics to elicit information, it will all be inadmissible in court, and he'll walk anyway --- if he still can walk; if not, big cash settlement in exchange for not going to the tabloids. Found a jurist for our side. Granted, he was far ahead of his time. Police are fallible. Prosecutors are fallible. Judges are fallible. They should not be granted divine powers.

I never claimed that my philosophy of life needs to be "workable" in everyone's terms, or, for that matter, anyone's but my own. I never claimed to represent anyone's view by my own.

So, your notion of right and wrong is localized, as well as situational. I'm inclined to consider my personal ethics as they relate to the entire world. I was forced to repeat that a bum-numbing number of times. It was true then; it's true now; I see no controversy. I would consider taking an action I know is wrong if I truly believed I could thereby prevent something even worse. I don't know whether I would have the fortitude to carry it out, but i would consider it. And it would still be wrong. That's not tracks; that's never been concealed; that's never changed. What I don't understand is why you are so reluctant to accept that simple answer. Yes. Raging against the machinery of evil is part of doing something practical about it. Demanding and supporting legislation that curbs the power of bullies in law enforcement and civil service is doing something practical about it. Bringing abusers to book is doing something practical about it. Attempting to convince those who have not yet entrenched on the side of evil is doing something practical about it. Okay. I didn't realize my 'rant' ("Lucky man!") rose to the insult level you've been dishing, but if I've underestimated your sensitivity, I'm sorry. It won't happen again. ) Why are abusive cops 'bad eggs', while abusive civilians are 'scum'? What, precisely, is the difference between how they should be treated? How should the law treat a 'bad egg' who has exempted himself from moral obligation; who has been been using the uniform, the weapons and the authority vested in him by the people he swore to serve and protect - using it, instead, to terrify, humiliate and physically maltreat citizens, guilty or innocent, in order to obtain false or true confessions, in order to subject those citizens to further just or unjust punishment - and who intends to continue in this mode of operation for decades more, abusing who knows how many more of the trusting citizenry? Does he deserve better or worse treatment than the suspected criminal? Because I do not want that home invasion and violent assault to be committed by the agents whose salary I pay. https://www.vox.com/2014/10/29/7083371/swat-no-knock-raids-police-killed-civilians-dangerous-work-drugs

The likelyhood varies with where you live and what colour or class you are. No, it's never varied. I didn't agree with you the first time, the second time, the third time, the twenty-seventh time.... and still don't. I have not commented on your personality, tried to second-guess your motivations or reasoning or derided you philosophy. I simply disagree with your position on this subject. I have attempted to explain why. You think so? Lucky man! True, and unfortunate. I would prefer them to be a necessary good. To some degree, limiting their power mitigates the evil and holding them to an ethical standard enhances the good.

Yes, he was. Not a word about torture, innocents, guilt or reasonable doubt; only about need. I put no such question. I offered you the opinion of a disinterested third party. Both of them irrelevant to the scenario as presented. And Spock was talking about none of those. Probably. So long as that majority feels itself safe from arrest. Yes. Also simple, clearly stated and entirely straightforward. Yes. That is the real world. Chicago PD!