Why not torture?

[Dragoonster]

Kevin, what was the point in Godwinning this thread?

You had an interesting line going in re treaties, and why people/governments actually sign them, and they you pissed it away.

Pity.

Maybe you should respond more to the substance of his argument than to some random decade-old internet meme?

That is, like it or not Nazi Germany is a pretty substantial part of recent history, and it did some pretty extreme things for extreme justifications. If it's apt and compelling for an on-point referral/analogy for a present topic, it should be cited.

Or should modern humans simply erase all reference to and studies of Nazi Germany altogether? Why?

(I might be getting a bit too anal/reactionary here, if so sorry!)

 

[Darth Rotor]

(I might be getting a bit too anal/reactionary here, if so sorry!)

Yes.

No worries, we are all imperfect. (Self included)

I was disappointed to see an intriguing line of thought tossed away and the standard throwaway resorted to.

So it goes.

 

[nimzov]

What the barbarians in our midst usually fail to grasp is that the sole point of the treaties against torture and cruel and degrading treatment, biological and chemical weapons, illegal wars, human rights abuses and so forth is that you agree not to engage in the forbidden actions even if it would be really useful to you to do so.

There's no point at all in a treaty that forbids something you would never want to do anyway, like a treaty against giving all your soldiers pop guns and painting big flourescent targets on their uniforms.

When barbarians controlled Japan and Germany it took a world war to destroy them, and fortunately for a few decades people remembered why we should never go down those paths. However the torturers are crawling back out from under their rocks and I think it's the job of our generation to remind them why we made those treaties in the first place.

Very good point. Treaties incites countries to higher moral standards at some expense of practicality.

 

[I Am The Scum]

But, as A source of info, which is balanced against other sources, it may now and again have value. IMO, rare is the case, and now that we are to that point, read TM's post yet again.

I suppose that torture could, on occasion, garner some true information.

I suppose even further that stirring a pot of alphabet soup and reading the sentences it produces could also garner some true information.

Can you show me evidence that either source is more accurate than the other?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Kevin, what was the point in Godwinning this thread?

You had an interesting line going in re treaties, and why people/governments actually sign them, and they you pissed it away.

Pity.

I don't think you can get out of the discussion by Internet bush-lawyering.

However if that's the game you want to play, Godwin's law and its corollaries have always contained explicit provisos that they don't apply to discussions where Nazism is actually germane. A very large part of the reason why we have binding international law and the concept of "crimes against humanity" with a universal jurisdiction was the post-WW2 sentiment that many of the actions of the Axis powers were so morally revolting that they should never be tolerated again, ever, anywhere on Earth regardless of what local laws might say.

That's why the Nuremberg Code is still one of the major elements of scientific ethics in the world today, for example. It's why the International Criminal Court exists. The idea that there are moral rules which should transcend national law is a direct result of the crimes of the Axis powers pre-1945.

There are reasons these treaties exist and have the force of law. You forget those reasons at the peril of civilization. If we forget the lessons of Nuremberg then sooner or later we're going to need another Nuremberg.

 

[tsig]

No, but you are free to believe otherwise. There actually is good and evil in the world - and the evil forces bad things to happen - but the best of the good work to eliminate it - by any means necessary that causes the least possible harm to the non-evil. And that easily can involve torture.

How do we differentiate between these "the best of the good" torturers and the "evil forces" torturers.

 

[tsig]

And my happiness to take care of: if you are fine with people who rape/murder and torture women, children and others getting at most the rest of their lives in a prison, that's fine. I'm not. I want them to receive terminal education of the finest sort. They get to learn their actions really were disapproved of in a way that concentrates their attention very thoroughly and, at the end of the program, nothing will allow them to do what they did to any other person. I find that a laudable goal, ymmv.

Unless they get the job of state torturer.

 

[theprestige]

How do we differentiate between these "the best of the good" torturers and the "evil forces" torturers.

How do we differentiate between these "the best of the good" soldiers and the "evil forces" soldiers?

After all, these soldiers are running around putting bullets in people, when they're not throwing grenades at them or dropping large amounts of high explosives on them.

Last time I checked, shooting people or blowing them up was way more horrible than waterboarding them, just as a simple matter of life expectancy and/or future quality of life for the victim.

Please don't tell me you've got soldiering all figured out, but not interrogation.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

No, but you are free to believe otherwise. There actually is good and evil in the world - and the evil forces bad things to happen - but the best of the good work to eliminate it - by any means necessary that causes the least possible harm to the non-evil. And that easily can involve torture.

The best of the good. NSFW. Not safe for work, civil liberties, peace in the Middle East or anything else really.

 

[fishbob]

If someone gives no information because he knows he won't be tortured, how does that help in getting good information?

You have to get information the old fashioned way - investigate and collect evidence.

 

[fishbob]

Certainly you can't torture someone and expect to reliably learn whether they are guilty of a crime worthy of torture.

But the question was about torturing in an attempt to get life-saving information, when we already know the torturee has that information. The classic example is finding a kidnapped child. It doesn't seem likely to me that the torture would desire to hear a false location over the true one.

How many times in the history of the world, except on TV, has that scenario ever happened?

 

[fishbob]

No, but you are free to believe otherwise. There actually is good and evil in the world - and the evil forces bad things to happen - but the best of the good work to eliminate it - by any means necessary that causes the least possible harm to the non-evil. And that easily can involve torture.

No.
Your pursuit of imaginary evil spirits does not trump the rule of law that protects all of us from easily involved torture.

 

[Halfcentaur]

Evil forces cause bad things to happen,... somebody tell me what year this is.
In regard to the OP, as I just stated in the other torture thread, nothing is stopping the person being tortured to lie. It's a stupid and desperate decision to torture. It's results are unreliable. I think it's only even an issue we're discussing because of what people feel the person being tortured deserves. There's no such thing as "deserving" outside of human ideals. There's no such thing as "evil" either.

 

[fishbob]

The popular anti-torture argument that the victim say anything at all to please the torturer, is, as far as I can tell, the most perfect pro-torture argument possible.

I will explain, but first let me make an important distinction: For this very reason, I think torture should never be used to obtain a confession. Regimes that practice this kind of torture are despicable in the extreme, and deserve nothing but the enmity of the civilized world.

Further, information obtained by torture should never be admissible in court, for the same obvious reason.

However, torture to obtain information is different, and if it is true that the victim will say anything at all to please the torturer, then it is obvious that torture can be an effective and reliable tool for obtaining true information.

To begin with, if the torturer begins by asking for information that he already knows to be true from other sources, it quickly becomes evident that only the truth will make the torturer happy. Desperately inventing falsehoods will not serve. Only by desperately "inventing" the truth does the victim earn respite.

So far, so horrible. But a baseline has been established: We know that torture can be used to reliably obtain true information.

If the torturer then continues by asking for testable propositions, again the situation quickly becomes clear: Only by desperately inventing testable propositions can the victim earn respite.

A further--and necessary refinement--is to demand testable propositions that, when tested evaluate as true.

And there you have it: If the victim will say anything at all to please the torturer, then all the torturer has to do is make it clear that only testable propositions that evaluate to true will satisfy, for their torture to obtain truthful information. Q.E.D.

The rest is simply a matter of good judgement, restraint, and oversight in the application of torture. These are certainly problematic points, but no more so than the problems of government exercising good judgement, restraint and oversight in all the other matters of life and death for which we happily grant them authority over us.

If you're going to abolish torture over concerns about government restraint and judgement and oversight, you should probably abolish most other government functions as well.

Oh, goody - a new career option, just what we need in this time of economic troubles. Next year, your local community college will start offering classes.
And soon several accredited universities will offer advanced degrees.

/sarcasm off

 

[Mirrorglass]

How many times in the history of the world, except on TV, has that scenario ever happened?

That really is a pretty high standard of evidence to require. Especially as it's pretty unlikely that such cases would be widely publicly documented.

But it's a known fact that prisoners of war are have been tortured for a long time. And while I don't have individual cases to point at, I'm quite certain it has often worked.

I mean, why wouldn't it? The only argument I've ever heard for why torture wouldn't work is that the torturee will want to "win", despite the pain. But do you really believe many humans have strength like that, let alone the motivation, in such a situation?

 

[I Am The Scum]

And while I don't have individual cases to point at, I'm quite certain it has often worked.

Wait, what are we talking about here? Homeopathy? Prayer? Dowsing?

Oh yeah, torture. Well in that case then you have an excellent point.

 

[The Don]

I mean, why wouldn't it? The only argument I've ever heard for why torture wouldn't work is that the torturee will want to "win", despite the pain. But do you really believe many humans have strength like that, let alone the motivation, in such a situation?

One way it wouldn't work. I have no knowledge of the matter at hand but in order to stop the pain I make something up. You end up with completely incorrect information

Second way it wouldn't work. I have knowledge of the matter at hand but because I'm in so much pain I get confused and give you incorrect or only partially correct information

Third way it wouldn't work. I have knowledge of the matter at hand and have been prepared sufficiently well by my terrorist trainers to be able to pass misleading information but give the impression that the information was extracted under duress

 

[Mirrorglass]

One way it wouldn't work. I have no knowledge of the matter at hand but in order to stop the pain I make something up. You end up with completely incorrect information

Second way it wouldn't work. I have knowledge of the matter at hand but because I'm in so much pain I get confused and give you incorrect or only partially correct information

Third way it wouldn't work. I have knowledge of the matter at hand and have been prepared sufficiently well by my terrorist trainers to be able to pass misleading information but give the impression that the information was extracted under duress

Numbers 1 and 3 rely on the same assumption: that the torturer will never learn whether the information was right. And that's, frankly, just silly. The torturer will eventually find out if the information was right or not, and if it's made clear that if it is found to be false, the torture will continue, they are much less effective. Your first example also assumes we are torturing someone who we do not know for certain to have the needed information, and as this case has been repeatedly ruled out of the discussion, it borders on being a strawman.

As for number 2 - well, it's possible, certainly. I'm perfectly willing to accept that torture will not always yield reliable information. However, that isn't sufficient reason to make the leap to thinking torture will never yield reliable information.

 

[The Don]

Numbers 1 and 3 rely on the same assumption: that the torturer will never learn whether the information was right. And that's, frankly, just silly. The torturer will eventually find out if the information was right or not, and if it's made clear that if it is found to be false, the torture will continue, they are much less effective. Your first example also assumes we are torturing someone who we do not know for certain to have the needed information, and as this case has been repeatedly ruled out of the discussion, it borders on being a strawman.

How will the torturer find out ? How long will it take ? Will it take too long for the information to be useful ?

Example 1, Person 1 is being tortured to find out who else is involved in a plot. Person 1 finally names Person 2. Person 2 is grabbed and denies their involvement. Person 2 is tortured to find out the "truth" and eventually says that they were. You still have no idea whether it's the truth, only two admissions extracted under torture

Example 2, You torture someone to find out where the enemy troop concentrations are. They give you the wrong information and your troops walk into an ambush. Sure you find out that the information was wrong but the thing you were trying to prevent actually happens anyway

As for number 2 - well, it's possible, certainly. I'm perfectly willing to accept that torture will not always yield reliable information. However, that isn't sufficient reason to make the leap to thinking torture will never yield reliable information.

I never claimed that torture NEVER provides reliable information but as the proportion of reliable evidence falls, the signal to noise ratio also falls. How unreliable should intelligence be before you decide not to act based upon it. After all, faulty intelligence led to the invasion of Iraq.

 

[Giz]

How will the torturer find out ? How long will it take ? Will it take too long for the information to be useful ?

In WW2 the French resistance assumed that anyone captured by the Germans could not be expected to conceal the truth for more than 24 hours.

(though some would obviously hold out longer than that)

http://books.google.com/books?id=21...resnum=10&ved=0CCkQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

I would say that it is obvious that the optimum interrogation method (from a practical amoral standpoint) is going to vary by individual. Some will be vulnerable to befriending, some to good cop/bad cop, and some to physical pain.

What I view as a good argument is: We shouldn't condone torture because it is ethically repugnant. We should accept that there may, in some cases, be a practical cost to making this choice but that it is worth paying a - hopefully small - practical cost in order to stay true to our values.

What I view as wishful thinking is the "Torture never ever works therefore we can be good and not pay any cost for doing so". That sounds a little unrealistic.