Is Torture Ever Right ?

[mistermack]

I think like many other ethical questions, this question is not as simple as it sounds. 

Firistly, to declare my position, I don't believe anything is objectively right or wrong. The ethics, to me, come from our situation in society, and our evolution as social mammals. 

But in light of the human condition, is torture ever right? (and religion doesn't really have an answer, George Bush and the Spanish Inquisition come to mind)

 

Imagine an innocent toddler has been abducted by a couple of pedophiles, and you have one in captivity, and he knows where the other is keeping the child, but he won't tell. Forgetting the legal and practical issues, if you had a free hand, (if you were dictator say) would you use torture to get the location of the child? I would.

(you have to assume that there was no doubt at all that the pedophile you held was truly guilty)

I would ignore the slippery slope argument, and go ahead. But I wouldn't be happy or sure about it. It's a difficult one.

[iNow]

How does one objectively define torture? Understanding what’s being described is prerequisite to subjectively determining whether it’s right or wrong. 

[mistermack]

1 hour ago, iNow said:

How does one objectively define torture? Understanding what’s being described is prerequisite to subjectively determining whether it’s right or wrong.

That's a difficult one. George Bush doesn't think waterboarding is torture. Even though it's designed to cause the most awful physical stress, and induce a conviction that you are dying. ( which is quite often accurate ). I'm sure that there are definitions out there, lots of them. But generally I would include pain, physical damage and fear, along with humiliation and mental stress. 

Looking at waterboarding, I would have to say that that is definitely torture, and George Bush should be made to try it for an hour or two. But if it was the pedophile/child example as in the OP, I would certainly approve it, or volunteer to carry it out. (not with any pleasure) I think there are certain circumstances where the end would justify the means.

But then, I guess some of the Gestapo thought that too.

[iNow]

Fair. Next we must define what we mean by right and wrong 

[Peterkin]

No.

3 hours ago, mistermack said:

The ethics, to me, come from our situation in society,

They should come from a veil of ignorance.

3 hours ago, mistermack said:

Imagine an innocent toddler has been abducted by a couple of pedophiles, and you have one in captivity, and he knows where the other is keeping the child, but he won't tell. Forgetting the legal and practical issues, if you had a free hand, (if you were dictator say) would you use torture to get the location of the child? I would.

I doubt it, but don't rule it out - I'm sure I would try diplomatic tactics first.  It would be an emotional decision, not an ethical one.

If I stepped back one pace and asked "How sure are we that this is one of the perpetrators and knows the answer?" 99%? 85%? 60%? What's the cutoff line of probability that makes torture okay or not okay?

If I took two steps back and asked: "Who is making the determination of guilt? On what grounds? What's their record of accuracy?" I might begin to doubt more. 

If I stepped back a little farther and asked, "What if that suspected child-abductor were my son?" I may be convinced of his innocence; the police may be convinced of his guilt; neither I nor nor the police know what lies or truths he might divulge under torture (People notoriously say whatever the torturer wants them to.) and neither of us knows, if they eventually discover his innocence, what lasting effect this experience will have on him (and meanwhile, the child has been killed - no gains, net loss).

I might then regret having authorized such methods from the safety of a voting booth.

1 hour ago, iNow said:

How does one objectively define torture?

Nobody ever does. Legal codes have to define it, but no definition is ever objective. A system of cultural perceptions and assumptions underlie one's idea of what constitutes torture, just as in what constitutes 'cruel and unusual punishment' or coercion, or extortion, harassment, etc. Just as there is a cultural bias in deciding the limits of enforcement authority. 

 

37 minutes ago, mistermack said:

George Bush doesn't think waterboarding is torture.

As you say; he ought to try it. Hematology technicians and nurses have to practice injections on one another. Maybe legislators and police should be required to practice the methods of interrogation they put into law. 

37 minutes ago, mistermack said:

I think there are certain circumstances where the end would justify the means.

No. The means determine the ends. Ends are imaginary. The outcome you envisage is far from certain.  You expect one path to lead to a particular desired destination, and you may be wrong and get lost. Where you actually end up may be quite a different place - and it may have changed by the time you arrive because of your decisions along the way. 

If you resort to unethical practice, acknowledge it as an emotional decision, rather than painting an ethical face on it.

27 minutes ago, iNow said:

Next we must define what we mean by right and wrong 

Everyone does, but no two people agree completely on all aspects of any single issue, let alone all issues. The best we can hope for as a society is general consensus on the tenets (hence national and professional constitutions) legislation to draw the broad outlines, and protracted legal wrangling over the details. 

Edited February 6, 2022 by Peterkin
missing words

[TheVat]

2 hours ago, mistermack said:

I think like many other ethical questions, this question is not as simple as it sounds. 

Firistly, to declare my position, I don't believe anything is objectively right or wrong. The ethics, to me, come from our situation in society, and our evolution as social mammals. 

But in light of the human condition, is torture ever right? (and religion doesn't really have an answer, George Bush and the Spanish Inquisition come to mind)

 

Imagine an innocent toddler has been abducted by a couple of pedophiles, and you have one in captivity, and he knows where the other is keeping the child, but he won't tell. Forgetting the legal and practical issues, if you had a free hand, (if you were dictator say) would you use torture to get the location of the child? I would.

(you have to assume that there was no doubt at all that the pedophile you held was truly guilty)

I would ignore the slippery slope argument, and go ahead. But I wouldn't be happy or sure about it. It's a difficult one.

A couple thoughts.  One, the meaning of torture is usually pretty clear to a person on the receiving end.  I invite anyone troubled by definitional issues to undergo waterboarding or electrical shocks and report back to us.  Torturers use methods that leave little ambiguity as to what they are doing to another person.

Second, I think the negative effect of torture is not only on the recipient and on their consequent willingness to say anything to please the torturer, but also its effect on the personality and mental health of the torturer and those in the group and larger society who are supporting the torturer's actions.  Ask yourself, who are you and who do you become when you torture, and who are we as a social community when we approve the torture?

The pedo example is problematic, given that there may be more effective options than relying upon intel given under extreme duress.  It's a tough call, but I think torture degrades mankind far more than it helps children trapped with pedos.   

[zapatos]

3 hours ago, mistermack said:

But in light of the human condition, is torture ever right?

Yes, I believe it is. That part of the issue is easy for me. I think most people could come up with a situation where the benefits outweigh the downside of torture.

Deciding who, why and how someone gets tortured to me is a gray area that will never be close to getting universal support.

[exchemist]

3 hours ago, mistermack said:

I think like many other ethical questions, this question is not as simple as it sounds. 

Firistly, to declare my position, I don't believe anything is objectively right or wrong. The ethics, to me, come from our situation in society, and our evolution as social mammals. 

But in light of the human condition, is torture ever right? (and religion doesn't really have an answer, George Bush and the Spanish Inquisition come to mind)

 

Imagine an innocent toddler has been abducted by a couple of pedophiles, and you have one in captivity, and he knows where the other is keeping the child, but he won't tell. Forgetting the legal and practical issues, if you had a free hand, (if you were dictator say) would you use torture to get the location of the child? I would.

(you have to assume that there was no doubt at all that the pedophile you held was truly guilty)

I would ignore the slippery slope argument, and go ahead. But I wouldn't be happy or sure about it. It's a difficult one.

No it's never justified. It degrades law enforcement and is likely to result in bad information anyway.

Normally this is posed as a hidden nuclear bomb, but I guess paedos are all the rage at the moment. 

[Bufofrog]

6 minutes ago, exchemist said:

No it's never justified. It degrades law enforcement and is likely to result in bad information anyway.

I agree, the answer is very simple, it is never justified. 

Yes, yes I know, but it is never justified, even if...

[Prometheus]

3 hours ago, mistermack said:

Imagine an innocent toddler has been abducted by a couple of pedophiles, and you have one in captivity, and he knows where the other is keeping the child, but he won't tell. Forgetting the legal and practical issues, if you had a free hand, (if you were dictator say) would you use torture to get the location of the child? I would.

14 minutes ago, zapatos said:

Yes, I believe it is. That part of the issue is easy for me. I think most people could come up with a situation where the benefits outweigh the downside of torture.

This assumes torture actually works as a method for getting the truth. It's not an easily researchable topic, but what literature i could find suggests that it is ineffective.

There is also the possibility that some of the people you torture will be innocent. You could put people through a full court trial to mitigate against this, but that would negate any usefulness if time is a factor and there would still be the occasional innocent person tortured for nothing.

[Peterkin]

9 minutes ago, Bufofrog said:

Yes, yes I know, but it is never justified, even if...

Who ever does it, in the heat of passion or religious zeal or patriotic fervor attempts to justify it with some excuse loftier than their actual motive. It's wrong, and sometimes we do what's wrong, because we feel impelled to do so. 

[zapatos]

24 minutes ago, exchemist said:

No it's never justified.

So you cannot think of one single extreme situation that would warrant torture?

[beecee]

3 hours ago, iNow said:

How does one objectively define torture? Understanding what’s being described is prerequisite to subjectively determining whether it’s right or wrong. 

Bingo! I see an example of two pedophiles and one is captured, if he won't reveal the where-abouts of the other what is the solution, if all other chanells have been used? How about some mad bomber has a bomb hidden in some crowded place and won't talk?

And the question, what is torture? How about simply locking someone up until they talk? Is that torture? How about the parents of the little child kidnapped by the two pedos? Is it torture for those parents sitting, waiting for the captured one to reveal the where-abouts of the other? 

I don't actually know.

Additional question: Would it be torture if we locked the Father of the kidnapped toddler up with the captured kidnapper to have his way?

Edited February 6, 2022 by beecee

[swansont]

“you have to assume that there was no doubt at all that the pedophile you held was truly guilty” (emphasis added) is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

[exchemist]

1 hour ago, zapatos said:

So you cannot think of one single extreme situation that would warrant torture?

Correct.

[zapatos]

2 minutes ago, exchemist said:

Correct.

I used to be more surprised when I'd find people who had ideas in complete opposition to my own but the last five years have opened my eyes a bit. I guess that is why people fight so hard for their beliefs; they just can't fathom that their own logic, which makes so much sense to them, is not obvious to all.

[exchemist]

6 minutes ago, zapatos said:

I used to be more surprised when I'd find people who had ideas in complete opposition to my own but the last five years have opened my eyes a bit. I guess that is why people fight so hard for their beliefs; they just can't fathom that their own logic, which makes so much sense to them, is not obvious to all.

I'm hardly alone in my view. It's fairly mainstream. In civilised societies. https://justice.org.uk/article-3-prohibition-torture/

Edited February 6, 2022 by exchemist

[zapatos]

13 minutes ago, exchemist said:

I'm hardly alone in my view. It's fairly mainstream. In civilised societies. https://justice.org.uk/article-3-prohibition-torture/

Sorry, wasn't suggesting you were. It's more like a reminder to myself to not take my own views too seriously. I often think "well of COURSE others will feel this way" about some particular topic when in fact they don't.

[exchemist]

26 minutes ago, zapatos said:

Sorry, wasn't suggesting you were. It's more like a reminder to myself to not take my own views too seriously. I often think "well of COURSE others will feel this way" about some particular topic when in fact they don't.

Fair enough.

[mistermack]

2 hours ago, Prometheus said:

This assumes torture actually works as a method for getting the truth. It's not an easily researchable topic, but what literature i could find suggests that it is ineffective.

The researchers must be very brave people. And only know brave people. I can absolutely guarantee that if I was that pedo, and was threatened with torture, I would tell everything quicker than you could find a pen to write the address down. 

I suppose it might be different if I was in the French resistance, and the gestapo wanted the names of my comrades. But I'm pretty sure I wouldn't hold out long.

2 hours ago, Prometheus said:

There is also the possibility that some of the people you torture will be innocent.

That's why I said that you have to assume that you knew without any doubt that they were guilty. So that people can decide on the principle, rather than quibble about the ifs. I know in real life there are always ifs, but using them in this sort of hypothetical is dodging the right/wrong issue. 

Just as an add-on, if there was a referendum on the torture issue, I would vote against it. What I would do myself, and what I would vote for as a law, are two different things. I wouldn't trust other people to make a decision, but under the right circumstances, I would do it myself. 

[Prometheus]

7 minutes ago, mistermack said:

The researchers must be very brave people. And only know brave people. I can absolutely guarantee that if I was that pedo, and was threatened with torture, I would tell everything quicker than you could find a pen to write the address down. 

The researchers didn't test that by undergoing torture themselves (although one paper did use cold emersion to simulate torture)- it's based primarily on observational data from different agencies that have found information obtained under torture is unreliable. There was a theoretical paper in there too. It's a sparse literature, but what evidence we have seems to suggest torture is an ineffective means of obtaining accurate information.

[mistermack]

29 minutes ago, Prometheus said:

The researchers didn't test that by undergoing torture themselves (although one paper did use cold emersion to simulate torture)- it's based primarily on observational data from different agencies that have found information obtained under torture is unreliable. There was a theoretical paper in there too. It's a sparse literature, but what evidence we have seems to suggest torture is an ineffective means of obtaining accurate information.

That might just reflect the fact that generally, people who get tortured are a fanatical lot. In other words, it's a highly selected sample. And of course, if you are torturing innocent people, then you won't get anything useful out of them. 

[Peterkin]

2 hours ago, mistermack said:

In other words, it's a highly selected sample.

Would you expect a wide, general sample?

[mistermack]

6 hours ago, Peterkin said:

Would you expect a wide, general sample?

No. That's the point. Torture may be ineffective on the type of people who usually get tortured, while being highly effective on run of the mill cowardly people like me. So the study doesn't necessarily reflect it's effectiveness on a wide, general sample.

In other words, you need a high degree of motivation to resist torture. 

[iNow]

5 minutes ago, mistermack said:

In other words, you need a high degree of motivation to resist torture. 

Or a congenital insensitivity to pain… or just practice desensitizing to it. Or years of mental and mindfulness training and an ability to keep a quiet mind even in the presence of intense stimuli. Or be in a state of physical and mental shock. Or any of the countless many other things which would help one resist torture that have literally nothing whatsoever to do with motivation.