• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Merged Senate Report on CIA Torture Program

From a friend of mine responding to the ticking time bomb hypothetical.

Suppose you could make everything in the world wonderful, end all wars, cure all diseases, and also make it rain beer and candy, by raping a little girl?

Well, I guess you should. But the thought experiment is so counterfactual as not to enlighten us as to any real question as to the morality of pedophile rapists. So why in the world would anyone ask it? So why do people ask analogous questions about torture?

As to seeing the world in black and white, does merely asking the question about the imaginary counterfactual world make the rape less black and more gray?

To take another example, we can imagine a world in which setting fire to you would give you a pleasant tingling sensation. Does our mere ability to imagine such an alternative universe make the act of setting fire to you less black and more gray? Does it make it a question of fine moral distinctions?

How can a thought experiment on the lines of "what if our actions didn't have the consequences that they actually do" enlighten us as to moral questions in the world we happen to live in?
Click to expand...
 
Olowkow said:
I have followed your posts pretty closely since joining JREF, and as you know I am a sincere admirer of your philosophy in general, but I don't recall this era in your progression towards, shall we say, sanity.:) Nor was I aware of your Limbaugh or Mormon years. That must all have been before my time here. It might be relevant and instructive for you to link a few posts where you defended torture. I know I would like to read them.
Click to expand...
Funny you should ask. I've been looking for some. I think the thread I started was deleted or I just can find it. I'll keep looking. In the interim here is a post where I defended the Iraqi invasion.
 
Here's a blast from the past.

Clancie said:
The whole detainee policy is a disgrace anyway. No charges? No right to counsel? In 21st century America, its shocking.

This Bush/Ashcroft policy will undoubtedly go down in the history books right alongside Manzanar and the Communist witch hunts as an example of the impact of political hysteria on civil liberties.

RandFan said:
Considering that the prisoners are treated better than the guards and that the prisoners themselves have said that they have been treated in a human way and when you contrast that with the treatment of prisoners in nearly all other Muslim countries (*dismemberment, torture, disfigurement, murder, etc.) then I seriously doubt that.

* See Iran/Iraq war, USSR/Afghanistan war, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
To take another example, we can imagine a world in which setting fire to you would give you a pleasant tingling sensation. Does our mere ability to imagine such an alternative universe make the act of setting fire to you less black and more gray?
Click to expand...
I guess it depends if you're setting fires on a continuum, or your a Democrat, or something.
 
Last edited:
RandFan said:
Funny you should ask. I've been looking for some. I think the thread I started was deleted or I just can find it. I'll keep looking. In the interim here is a post where I defended the Iraqi invasion.
Click to expand...

Not that important. Your defense of the Iraqi invasion and the indignant NYT reference capture your position pretty well. :rolleyes: Pure Fox News.
 
sunmaster14 said:
Well, perhaps you can check for me, but my understanding was that the United Nations Convention against Torture had to do with, you know, torture and not mild or moderate levels of pain infliction.
Click to expand...

There are many ways to torture a person besides inflicting pain on them.
 
ApolloGnomon said:
How many pre-1945 examples of US behaving badly would you like? Illegal unprovoked wars such as the invasion of Northern Mexico (1848) or Cuba (1898)? Signing and then ignoring the terms of nearly every treaty between the US and the various "Indian" nations in a bloody war of conquest? Bayoneting and hacking with sabers women and children, setting fire to innocent villages and committing biological warfare against those same Nations?

I could go on, but I think you miss something important: nations do Bad Things, always have, but since 1945 We The People have known about them through the agency of, among other things, an independent news media.

I dispute specifically your assertion that the behavior of the US is qualitatively or quantitatively "worse" since 1945 than previously.
Click to expand...

Good points.

The US has done so many terrible things both before and after 1945 that it seems pointless to compare the two on some sort of morality scale. Though one significant difference is that US power has grown since 1945, so its capabilities to do harm are greater and its importance to the world is greater.

I very much agree that "nations do bad things". People often need a reminder that their own country is not an exception, but it can be hard to sink in when one's mainstream media tends to implicitly assume otherwise. Regarding the media, perhaps this issue will prove an exception--I have yet to look at much of the coverage.
 
cornsail said:
Good points.

The US has done so many terrible things both before and after 1945 that it seems pointless to compare the two on some sort of morality scale. Though one significant difference is that US power has grown since 1945, so its capabilities to do harm are greater and its importance to the world is greater.

I very much agree that "nations do bad things". People often need a reminder that their own country is not an exception, but it can be hard to sink in when one's mainstream media tends to implicitly assume otherwise. Regarding the media, perhaps this issue will prove an exception--I have yet to look at much of the coverage.
Click to expand...
South America. United Fruit/Guatemala and Contras/Nicaragua.
 
It's also worth noting that the "ticking time bomb" half of the scenario is just as much a fantasy as the "getting info from torture" half.
 
I Am The Scum said:
To those who are at least unsure as to whether or not these practices can be called "torture," a question:

Are you okay with government agents performing these procedures on people who have not been convicted of a crime?
Click to expand...

Of course not, but then I'm also opposed to government officials killing people who haven't been accused of a crime...except during a time of war.


How many drone strikes has Obama authorized? Should he not have authorized any drone strikes?
 
3point14 said:
You'll be needing this:

Torture:

Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

— Convention Against Torture, Article 1.1
Click to expand...

Does a twenty year prison sentence cause severe mental suffering?
 
OK I admit I'm lost now. Could someone explain to me how torturing people who have not been accused of a crime is analogous to collateral damage and civilian casualties in times of war? Am I supposed to say that both are morally acceptable because they're "just going to happen anyway"?
 
Fudbucker said:
Does a twenty year prison sentence cause severe mental suffering?
Click to expand...

False analogy.

A prison sentence is a punishment for an established guilt of a crime committed. It is supposed to impose a degree of suffering. Interrogation is a means for extracting information that may be used to establish guilt in a criminal trial but which is being carried out against someone who is still innocent, and indeed might be used to establish innocence.
 
sunmaster14 said:
I have to say I've seen an awful lot of poor logic in this thread. I am not saying that it's ok because something else was ok. I'm saying that the people who believe that a far greater crime was ok, but the far lesser crime was a moral outrage, are inconsistent and illogical, to say the least.
Click to expand...

What kind of straw did you use to build this?
 
anglolawyer said:
If you are replying to me, no, not that. I was arguing with sun master that we were the good guys in WW2 notwithstanding there were some not so good things, among which I mentioned carpet bombing and the poster above corrected me and said that was in fact a good thing too so I thanked him for strengthening my argument.
Click to expand...


I was picking on the use of the phrase "carpet bombing" which, aside from its emotionally evocative nature, does not accurately represent the complexity which was the Allied WWII strategic bombing effort.


In any case, to return to the subject at hand, I'm still waiting for those in favour of torture to come in and say the U.S. should have tortured all those Nazi and SS prisoners it took during WWII. Surely those guys were at least as bad as the Al-Qaida bunch. In which case the torture supporters must rue how the U.S. didn't use torture to stop all the 'ticking time bomb' scenarios which must have come during WWII.

Also, I'd ask them this question: if a captured American was subject to these exact same interrogation "techniques", would they be okay with that? They would have no objection, right?
 
thaiboxerken said:
I wonder, was Bin Laden killed with information garnered using torture?
Click to expand...

No, I think it was bullets to the head.

More seriously, the CIA claims information gained from torture (although they don't call it that) was critical in tracking down Bin Laden. Senate Democrats dispute that. Both sides appear to be less than credible.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom