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Merged Senate Report on CIA Torture Program

sunmaster14 said:
Do you object to medical testing of animals? Do you object to the industrial slaughter of animals for food? If not, do you think it's because you consider animals to be on a lower moral plane than humans, and does that not mean that it is moral to treat them differently than you would treat humans?
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Are animals humans? No
Are criminals humans? Yes

Do a criminal's actions make them not human? No
Would torturing a human cause me to be a criminal? Yes.
 
wareyin said:
Are animals humans? No
Are criminals humans? Yes

Do a criminal's actions make them not human? No
Would torturing a human cause me to be a criminal? Yes.
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Well, I think when somebody commits a crime, it puts them on a lower moral plane than innocent humans. That of course is why it is not immoral to punish humans who commit crimes. If you don't agree, then you should certainly be against the death penalty, and perhaps you are. I am not against the death penalty, at least in principle. In practice, I'm not too crazy about it.
 
sunmaster14 said:
Well, I think when somebody commits a crime, it puts them on a lower moral plane than innocent humans. That of course is why it is not immoral to punish humans who commit crimes. If you don't agree, then you should certainly be against the death penalty, and perhaps you are. I am not against the death penalty, at least in principle. In practice, I'm not too crazy about it.
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That must mean that those who order/conduct torture are on a lower moral plane given that torture is a crime.

Thanks for the clearing that up!
 
Tony Stark said:
That must mean that those who order/conduct torture are on a lower moral plane given that torture is a crime.

Thanks for the clearing that up!
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But it is more than compensated for by the selfless nature of their act. They do not torture for pleasure or for revenge, but to elicit information to save the lives of others.
 
sunmaster14 said:
But it is more than compensated for by the selfless nature of their act. They do not torture for pleasure or for revenge, but to elicit information to save the lives of others.
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And when a terrorist uses faulty, self-serving justifications to claim their own criminal acts were selfless, does this raise them back to a human moral plane?
 
wareyin said:
And when a terrorist uses faulty, self-serving justifications to claim their own criminal acts were selfless, does this raise them back to a human moral plane?
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Not according to my moral framework. Admittedly, theirs might be different from mine. I would like to eradicate their moral framework from the world, and no doubt they would like to do the same to mine. There's really no need to get into a deep philosophical discussion. I would rather live in a world that allows freedom of speech and of thought and where people resolve conflicts nonviolently. But I am willing to use a certain amount of violence to achieve that. Whether or not they might be seeing the world in a similar way is not particularly relevant to me.
 
sunmaster14 said:
I understand your point, but I really do mean to use the word "justified." It is not just a question of desiring revenge. It's a question of believing the people responsible for such a crime are on a lower moral plane than normal human beings. It's also a question of fear of another attack and the belief that drastic measures are required to prevent one. Both of these factors fade with time (assuming the time is free of further attacks).
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So would torturing air crews involved in bombing campaigns be justified as well or not? They certainly kill a lot of civilians.
 
sunmaster14 said:
But it is more than compensated for by the selfless nature of their act. They do not torture for pleasure or for revenge, but to elicit information to save the lives of others.
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Citation please.

Torture can get good information - the Gunpowder Plot conspirators were caught by that*. It can also get bad information - many people confessed to witchcraft.

The Gestapo weren't able to break some people.

I can't think of a real situation where it is justified.


*The ElizabethanStuart authorities probably also didn't care too much if innocent people were caught, as long as the guilty were caught, and history wouldn't be able to say if some of those implicated were actually innocent.

Defending freedom by destroying the freedoms people fought for seems somewhat counterproductive. There is a reason for the Fourth, Fifth and Eighth Amendments
 
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jimbob said:
Citation please.

Torture can get good information - the Gunpowder Plot conspirators were caught by that*. It can also get bad information - many people confessed to witchcraft.
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Also lead to the cache of royal mummies in egypt. Ramses the great would not have been found if they hadn't tortured the looters who had found him first to give up the location.
 
sunmaster14 said:
Well, I think when somebody commits a crime, it puts them on a lower moral plane than innocent humans. That of course is why it is not immoral to punish humans who commit crimes. If you don't agree, then you should certainly be against the death penalty, and perhaps you are. I am not against the death penalty, at least in principle. In practice, I'm not too crazy about it.
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We have a process in place to punish persons CONVICTED of crimes. The people you are advocating torturing are not convicted criminals, they are suspects who may or may not be the people being looked for. In which case congradulations - you've tortured an innocent.
 
sunmaster14 said:
I thought I would bump this thread because I think people's attitudes toward torture depend upon their proximity to a disgusting terrorist attack. The Paris attack is still raw, and I wonder if any of our moral absolutists have any creeping doubts about their moral absolutism.
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Nope. Torture's still immoral, and still a crime. Sorry.

Side note: Every time a conservative declares their support for torture, my belly laugh gets a big louder when they talk about "small government."
 
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Border Reiver said:
We have a process in place to punish persons CONVICTED of crimes. The people you are advocating torturing are not convicted criminals, they are suspects who may or may not be the people being looked for. In which case congradulations - you've tortured an innocent.
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The illegal CIA torture program that sunmaster apologizes for is known to have tortured innocent people.
 
jimbob said:
Citation please.

Torture can get good information - the Gunpowder Plot conspirators were caught by that*. It can also get bad information - many people confessed to witchcraft.
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I know I have answered this point of yours before, and the fact that you continue to raise it means that you are particularly resistant to changing your mind, but I'll try one more time. It is pointless and therefore immoral to use torture to elicit confessions because if the confession cannot be verified, then the confession remains dubious, and if the confession can be verified, then it was unnecessary to obtain it. The fact that torture victims will "say anything" to stop the torture does not mean that what they say is worthless, as long as there is a mechanism by which to verify the information. Yes, people will utter falsehoods to stop the torture, but they will also say utter truths.

The Gestapo weren't able to break some people.
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Yes, some people cannot be broken. They are pretty rare though. And some people simply don't have any useful information. It's all a question of probabilities.

I can't think of a real situation where it is justified.
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Well, I have given many examples in this thread and others. But of course when I give an example, it is always claimed to be unrealistic. Sort of like the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.

Defending freedom by destroying the freedoms people fought for seems somewhat counterproductive. There is a reason for the Fourth, Fifth and Eighth Amendments
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Yes there is. It is to constrain government and to minimize the threats to our freedoms. I actually still advocate that torture be illegal. I'm just saying, as with civil disobedience in some cases, there are times when it is moral to break the law.
 
sunmaster14 said:
:rolleyes: I addressed it in the very post you're responding to. How long does it take to check whether a password is correct? Or a safety deposit box in a bank has the contents claimed? Or that somebody else you're looking for is holed up in a particular apartment in Brussels?
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All this and more on the next exciting season of 24!
 
sunmaster14 said:
I know I have answered this point of yours before, and the fact that you continue to raise it means that you are particularly resistant to changing your mind, but I'll try one more time.
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Have you considered the possibility that your "answers" aren't as convincing to others as they are to yourself?
 
sunmaster14 said:
I thought I would bump this thread because I think people's attitudes toward torture depend upon their proximity to a disgusting terrorist attack. The Paris attack is still raw, and I wonder if any of our moral absolutists have any creeping doubts about their moral absolutism.

If, for example, the alleged mastermind of the Paris attacks is captured, would enhanced interrogation techniques be justified? What do you think the French will do? Personally, I suspect the French will torture the **** out of him, but they'll do a much better job of denying it.
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Wait, why are they torturing him? The satisfaction of revenge? To extract a confession (true or not) in order to legitimize criminal proceedings against him? In an attempt to extract actionable intelligence leading to the capture of other terrorists or the prevention of other attacks?

ETA: A description of the "torture" techniques that were actually approved for use by the CIA. In case anybody in the thread needs a reference point for discussing the issue:

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Investigation/story?id=1322866
 
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Cleon said:
Nope. Torture's still immoral, and still a crime. Sorry.

Side note: Every time a conservative declares their support for torture, my belly laugh gets a big louder when they talk about "small government."
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Bonus points if they support the Second Amendment and double if they handwave away police attempting to violate the First (insulting a cop, for example).
 
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