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Would You Utilize Torture to Save a Life?

Would You Utilize Torture to Save a Family Member?


  • Total voters
    60
Shades of gray are the reality of the world. Black or white thinking is absolutist, narrow-minded, shows no ability to think in an expansive way, and rarely if ever applies.

One can assert there is absolute good, and anything not absolute good is some gradation of "not good." That is absolutist, but not narrow-minded. To assume that absolutist positions MUST be narrow-minded is narrow-minded and commits the error that you're condemning.
 
You do realize that is an "absolute" statement.:mrgreen:

:rofl

I was going to point out that the statement "There are no absolutes" is paradox because it is, itself, an absolute.

The thing is, most of the time there are shades of gray, but sometimes there are absolutes.

For example, the answer to the question underneath my name is an absolute. "No, farts absolutely do not have chunks."

True complexity of thought realizes that not everything is an absolute, but not everything has shades of gray either. The trick is accurately determining which issues fit which category.

Most people, including myself, fail at this trick.
 
Which shows that "right" is relative, not absolute. Not black or white, a shade of gray. Proves you wrong.
Have you ever heard of the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law"]Natural Law[/ame]? The basic premise that right and wrong become somewhat obvious by experience and by consensus of many people over broad regions. For instance the Natural Law can explain the universal belief that murder is wrong. Some may even say it is obvious. That is why most grown humans have a basic knowledge of right and wrong. We're not speaking of what they do, but what they know. When a man robs a liquor store, he's know it's wrong. When a man says something mean to a friend, he knows it's wrong. If I call you an asshole, you don't feel cheered up, because your natural feelings tell you something is wrong. The Natural Law thus explains why a man has a right to live and to be free, because people know instinctively that murder is wrong and so is captivity or servitude. Even the Founders understand, though they did it, that slavery was wrong.

Murder is defined as the illegal killing of a human being.
 
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Have you ever heard of the Natural Law? The basic premise that right and wrong become somewhat obvious by experience and by consensus of many people over broad regions. For instance the Natural Law can explain the universal belief that murder is wrong. Some may even say it is obvious. That is why most grown humans have a basic knowledge of right and wrong. We're not speaking of what they do, but what they know. When a man robs a liquor store, he's know it's wrong. When a man says something mean to a friend, he knows it's wrong. If I call you an asshole, you don't feel cheered up, because your natural feelings tell you something is wrong. The Natural Law thus explains why a man has a right to live and to be free, because people know instinctively that murder is wrong and so is captivity or servitude. Even the Founders understand, though they did it, that slavery was wrong.

Murder is defined as the illegal killing of a human being.

The fact that murder is only the illegal killing of human being is proof that there exists a gray area on this matter. Laws are malleable and dependent on culture. If laws were universal, then an argument could be made, but they are different everywhere.

Right now, killing someone in an organized Duel is "murder", but it wasn't 200 years ago. So is it always wrong to murder someone in a duel, or is it dependent on the laws?

Seeking out and murdering the man who raped and murdered your child but got off on a technicality is something I find to be morally OK. But it gets classified as murder, because it is illegal, but I don't think that the person who does this is morally wrong. Do you? It's "murder" by the above definition, and that's always wrong, right?.

Whereas when the same guy doesn't get off on a technicality and the state kills him, it's legal. Therefore people feel it is morally correct for this guy to be killed. It's the exact same thing except in this case, the state has been given power to kill the man that the ordinary citizen and victim do not have, therefore I think it is morally INcorrect. The state should not have more power than the people have.


Arguing that the morality of killing a human is dependent on legality is just silly. It is a way to justify killings that you agree with so that it doesn't get classified as "murder" so that one can continue to feel that "murder" is always wrong. To me, murder is the willful killing of a human being. It is not always wrong.

These justifications of "legal" vs, "Illegal" are irrelevant in the actual moral discussion because legal killing can be more "wrong" than an illegal killing.

For example, the illegal killing of a guilty man is not as morally incorrect as the legal killing of an innocent man. And these aren't just hypothetical. Innocent people have been killed legally, and guilty people have been killed illegally over and over again throughout history.

How does that reality fit in with the black and white vew that legality is nthe only barometer of morality?
 
Which shows that "right" is relative, not absolute. Not black or white, a shade of gray. Proves you wrong.

Hardly. You are conflating "absolute" with "fixed".

Within any one perspective, right and wrong are most assuredly absolute. Even when we acknowledge that a deed has both good and bad attributes, we still apply the absolutes of "good" and "bad", merely at a more granular scale; we say that merit "A" is "good" and demerit "B" is "bad", but we do not say either is simultaneously "good" and "bad". Good/bad, right/wrong, these value determinations are invariably absolute in their application, regardless of the granularity of the application.

Disagreement arises because what you deem "bad" others may deem "good" and vice versa. Another person's application of the absolutes is oriented differently from your own. That shift in perspective, however, is not a dilution of the absolutes, merely a rearranging of them.

Your black and my white do not unite to make gray. Your black remains black, my white remains white--each absolute to our own relative perspectives.
 
Hardly. You are conflating "absolute" with "fixed".

Within any one perspective, right and wrong are most assuredly absolute. Even when we acknowledge that a deed has both good and bad attributes, we still apply the absolutes of "good" and "bad", merely at a more granular scale; we say that merit "A" is "good" and demerit "B" is "bad", but we do not say either is simultaneously "good" and "bad". Good/bad, right/wrong, these value determinations are invariably absolute in their application, regardless of the granularity of the application.

Disagreement arises because what you deem "bad" others may deem "good" and vice versa. Another person's application of the absolutes is oriented differently from your own. That shift in perspective, however, is not a dilution of the absolutes, merely a rearranging of them.

Your black and my white do not unite to make gray. Your black remains black, my white remains white--each absolute to our own relative perspectives.

I see your point.

The thing is, anything, when taken as a whole, including all perspectives, will be gray.

Is torture right or wrong? Well, as a whole, it may be gray, but each individual case will either be black or white.


For example, my views:

Is it wrong to torture a person for no reason? Yes. That's always wrong.

Is it wrong to torture a person if you know that torturing them may save a life? Depends on all the circumstances, but this can go either way. Each individual case of torture will either be white or black. It'll probably lean toward not wrong more often than not for me individually.

Is it wrong to torture someone who raped and murdered your child? No, not in my worldview. To me, that torture is always "white".

To the topic of "torture" is overall gray, but individual cases are going to be black or white every time.
 
Perhaps, perhaps not. The point is this: When the mind was previously "whole" it was completely unwilling to forfeit any information, otherwise "torture" would've been unnecessary; so, as previously stated, such a dichotomy is contextually irrelevant.

Why is torture the only way to getting the information? :confused:
Are we still talking about the OP? Because I stopped addressing the OP a while ago, since the thread has evolved into something else.

Are you suggesting they will somehow forget or neglect crucial pieces of information because they are under duress? I don't see this as being likely and even though it is a possibility - not a guarantee - it's a price our intelligence operatives were willing to pay, therefore I am inclined to trust their expertise on the matter over uninformed speculation.

Not just forget or neglect, but also create things that were never true (unintentionally). This is characteristic of those who have certain mental instability.

Now concerning whether I would trust these experts, depends on the level of corruption that is present. As history has shown us, it's not all that trustworthy.
 
Hardly. You are conflating "absolute" with "fixed".

Within any one perspective, right and wrong are most assuredly absolute. Even when we acknowledge that a deed has both good and bad attributes, we still apply the absolutes of "good" and "bad", merely at a more granular scale; we say that merit "A" is "good" and demerit "B" is "bad", but we do not say either is simultaneously "good" and "bad". Good/bad, right/wrong, these value determinations are invariably absolute in their application, regardless of the granularity of the application.

Disagreement arises because what you deem "bad" others may deem "good" and vice versa. Another person's application of the absolutes is oriented differently from your own. That shift in perspective, however, is not a dilution of the absolutes, merely a rearranging of them.

Your black and my white do not unite to make gray. Your black remains black, my white remains white--each absolute to our own relative perspectives.

And as soon as you use the word "relative" you denote shades of gray. I am looking at this globally, not individually. I may have a belief of what is right. That does not make it right, globally. That's where the shade of gray steps in. If you believe that your right it right for you, I have no argument with you. If you believe your right is a universal right, your thinking is very narrow and can be proven wrong quite easily. Perhaps we are discussing different things. I am talking about universal truths of morality, which I view as mostly non-existent. You seem to be identifying, now, individual truths, which, though I still believe are relative, situationally, more easily make sense.
 
One can assert there is absolute good, and anything not absolute good is some gradation of "not good." That is absolutist, but not narrow-minded. To assume that absolutist positions MUST be narrow-minded is narrow-minded and commits the error that you're condemning.

I do not subscribe to there being any absolute good or absolute not good. Absolutes, on a universal scale, eliminate possibilities and prevent the potential for considering options. They are most certainly narrow minded.
 
:rofl

I was going to point out that the statement "There are no absolutes" is paradox because it is, itself, an absolute.

The thing is, most of the time there are shades of gray, but sometimes there are absolutes.

For example, the answer to the question underneath my name is an absolute. "No, farts absolutely do not have chunks."

True complexity of thought realizes that not everything is an absolute, but not everything has shades of gray either. The trick is accurately determining which issues fit which category.

Most people, including myself, fail at this trick.

When I am discussing absolutes, I am discussing morals, positions, and perceptions. Certain facts of matter and science are not included. I suppose farts would fall in this latter category. ;)
 
Have you ever heard of the Natural Law? The basic premise that right and wrong become somewhat obvious by experience and by consensus of many people over broad regions. For instance the Natural Law can explain the universal belief that murder is wrong. Some may even say it is obvious. That is why most grown humans have a basic knowledge of right and wrong. We're not speaking of what they do, but what they know. When a man robs a liquor store, he's know it's wrong. When a man says something mean to a friend, he knows it's wrong. If I call you an asshole, you don't feel cheered up, because your natural feelings tell you something is wrong. The Natural Law thus explains why a man has a right to live and to be free, because people know instinctively that murder is wrong and so is captivity or servitude. Even the Founders understand, though they did it, that slavery was wrong.

Murder is defined as the illegal killing of a human being.

Of course I've heard of Natural Law. I reject it as being absolute. Let's use one of your examples. "When a man says something mean to a friend, he knows it's wrong." Not necessarily. The comment, though mean, may be necessary in order to help the friend. Therefore, though mean, the comment is not wrong.
 
Of course I've heard of Natural Law. I reject it as being absolute. Let's use one of your examples. "When a man says something mean to a friend, he knows it's wrong." Not necessarily. The comment, though mean, may be necessary in order to help the friend. Therefore, though mean, the comment is not wrong.

The intention is seperate from the action in and of itself. A comment that might be viewed as "mean" in and of itself, may have a purely loving intent in and of itself. Therefore, the comment sans circumstance lacks a moral weight. The circumstance and intention of the speaker are what influence the morality. If the intention is benevolence and the circumstance appropriate to that intention, the comment is not "mean."


Good/benevolence/altruism is the absolute in and of itself.
 
I do not subscribe to there being any absolute good or absolute not good. Absolutes, on a universal scale, eliminate possibilities and prevent the potential for considering options. They are most certainly narrow minded.

And again, your very statement contradicts your very statement.
 
The topic title question presupposes that you would be guaranteed that you would be torturing the right person & that you would be guaranteed that you would get the answers you need to save a life....If the suppositions were both true, I don't think anyone would be against using torture personally to save a life.
Problem is, in the real world, such guarantees don't exist & there is a better chance that the person you torture may not have the info in the first place; that he won't tell you the truth anyway, or that you may have been able to get the same info by outsmarting him, without resorting to torture.

Another factor is I may personally be willing to do things (to save a loved one, etc) that I DON'T want my country doing as a matter of state policy.
Example: If I think my wife is cheating on me, I may listen in on her phone calls. I sure as hell don't want our government doing that, without a court order though! (like the did under Bush's USA Patriot Act anyway)
 
Another factor is I may personally be willing to do things (to save a loved one, etc) that I DON'T want my country doing as a matter of state policy.

This is a very good point. My personal choice and freedom is not totally equated to my government's choices and freedoms. Just because we can make those choices, doesn't mean the government can make those choices.
 
Every time I see this thread, I hear the "What would you do for a Klondike Bar" song in my head.

Yeah, I'd torture someone for a Klondike bar.
 
I do not subscribe to there being any absolute good or absolute not good. Absolutes, on a universal scale, eliminate possibilities and prevent the potential for considering options. They are most certainly narrow minded.

Aren't you Jewish(as in religiously.)?:confused:

Absolutes or universals narrow the possibilities but far from completely. If one takes the view that such things are refracted through the human mind and society through a complex web of material circumstances where one must still make decisions, influenced but not decided by his reliance on these concepts, then there is still a large scope for moral searchings. The scope has it limits but it is far from black and white.
 
Answer: No

Explanation: Because unlike most people (including christians, jews and muslims), I actually have faith in existance beyond death.
 
This hypothetical scenario is an attempt to gauge one's moral position on torture. It is not meant to elicit idiotic references to the television show 24. That a hypothetical is unlikely to occur is irrelevant - they are intended to subject our moral suppositions to scrutiny by forcing us to make a choice. Having said that, please answer the question with a YES or NO answer followed by an explanation.

If you had to brutally torture a person in order to save the lives of your family, would you do it?

The hypothetical assumes said person is a murderous thug who is directly responsible for endangering your family.


Answer: Yes.

Explanation: Because I hold the lives of my family in a higher regard than murderous thugs.

Is this question the spawn of those revenge movies "Taken" and "The Last House On The Left"?

Did they make you feel tough because you agreed with them?

Do you fantisize about killing people?

Do you often feel powerless?

What kind of video games do you play?
 
Moderator's Warning:
There is no need to insinuate that another poster has murderous intentions based on the nature of his inquiry. Please refrain from this path of questioning in the future.
 
Way out of line. I think this might be the first thing I've ever reported that wasn't spam or my own post.

Really?!

Lame.

Ethereal is a big boy who can make his own decisions. I don't think you need to protect him.
 
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Moderator's Warning:
There is no need to insinuate that another poster has murderous intentions based on the nature of his inquiry. Please refrain from this path of questioning in the future.

Calling out the cavalry. Just itching to trip on power eh?
 
Moderator's Warning:
If you have issues with moderation you can direct it through PM or post in the basement. I'd advise you to not make further comments about it within the upstairs thread. Only warning
 
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