Dirty Harry, part V, I think. It caused a public uproar in Germany when it was released in the mid-80s. It's not a bomb but a girl kidnapped and burried in a sealed box, running out of air.

What weighs heavier: the rights of the criminal, or the interests of his victim and it's right to live and be healthy? Not torturing a terrorist, or preventing the killing of hundreds? Having both is not possible, that is why I excluded multiple choices. What makes an ethic value saying that torturing is wrong, and that there are too many risks for innocents become victims, so superior to an ethics that says: torturing terror suspects and even accept the risk to torture an innocent or two by misake is morally superior if it saves the lives of hundreds who else would get killed.

If you would have had a word in it, and decided against torturing, and then learn that the investigations failed to find the needed info and now 400 (or 40, or 4000) are dead, what would you say, how would you feel, what would to tell their next of kin?

With this in mind, if you would have decided to allow torture, and then learn that your people caught an innocent one: what would you say, how would you feel?

Indeed.
Even if you are right not to torture, you could be accused of "moral indulgence"; you
have been moral and kept your own hands clean, but at the expense of others.
To switch from utilitarianism to Kantian/rule ethics: is it worse to do a small bad than
it is to do nothing about a greater bad.

However, things get more complicated when we consider that should not really be
discussing whether the decision to torture is right or wrong.
Instead we should be discussing whether it is right to trust other people or the
government to make that decision.

If we decide we should let them make that decision, then we can not complain if
we think they have got it wrong.

True. That scenario would be covered by option 5, i think.

Generalised rules and blueprints obviously do not solve the dilemma. I wonder if the single case examination could be a "moral" solution, done by a gremium that is not an internal government's or service'S affair, and that is accepted in public and countercontrolled by the public. Which would need that the currently apparently robust majority of people being against torture in general and for most principal reasons, would need to rethink the issue. Law-free spaces wothout any countercontrol like guantanamo of course cannot be the solution, or extraordinary prisoner deliveries into countries where torture is not forbidden.

Although I have seen what terrible conseqeunces torture (for just breaking people) can cause, i rate the interests of victims as higher than those of the criminal perpetrators, and that on a very principal level. So eventually I can imagine to accept the use of torture, but not on the basis of general rules, but only after close analysis of the single case in question by a gremium that is not under exclusive control of the government and it's services, by that avoiding any risks of automatic processes getting started once somebody finds himself trapped in the system. The risk of trapping an innocent still remains, that'S why I cannot imagine to accept torture as a standard procedure, and it should be reserved only for most extreme example and single, rare excepötions from the rule, and when there is reasonable assumption that torture indeed could be of help. ragaridng the subject's personality and character and biography.

And even then it does not feel well to accept it.

And hopefull it never will.

as long as it is not like this, I will stick to option 4, and run the risk of causing the suffering of many more innocents becoming victims by that. A real dilemma.

What I do not like is the hypocrisy. In europe, intel data from American sources of which it was known that it was won by "harsh interrogations", nevertheless was used in terror prevention. At the same time one was pointing finger at the US and complained that they were using these procedures. You either will the outcome, than you will the means as well, or you refuse both.

No, I only have a problem with people being too liberal with the term "Torture". I had to stand for an hour "TORTURE!", Someone ate something religiously offensive for lunch in my field of view "TORTURE!" I ran out of TP and did not get anymore for an hour "TORTURE!". You get the idea, but thanks to our, listen to the label not look at the content, society these days it's happening.

About those studies, it isn't like I disbelieve their existence, but frankly I'm interested in reading one if it is available on the web. Are there any?

For the answer, I nevertheless started from the assumption that torture is effective if applied correctly. As a utilitarian, I don't think I can answer 6, so I answered 4.

To add more nuance, I might allow torture under an unrealistic ruleset that went roughly as follows. A government interrogator (for example), if convinced of torture's efficacy in his instance, may apply for a special waiver. If approved (based on the potential value of torture in this case), then the interrogator may use torture, but if the process fails to deliver information that is verified to be true - thus the torture is clearly useless, both the interrogator and the waiver issuer is automatically proportinately punished without trial and the case is publicized so the public may judge constantly how torture serves the society. The important part is that the interrogator does not have a prayer of getting away scot-free for using torture unless it brings result - which presumably will make all interrogators and others think very hard before using it.

Since such unrealistic schemes will never be approved, I'll just have to go with 4.

No 6...... Treat others the way you would like to be treated.

Frankly, thats daft. I would like everyone to give me cakes. That doesn't mean that
I should give cakes to killers.

"Behave in the way you think everyone should behave" is somewhat better, but it does not
make questions any less complex.

Well, yes, it does. Even though it's not what we would like to do. And certainly not what society has *conditioned* us to do.

Society has it's laws, and God has His. The unfortunate aspect of this is that it can place an individuals moral behavior at odds with what society expects. Fortunately, there are still those who respond to the higher law and give us all pause for thought:

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...801100414/1005
http://m.greenvilleonline.com/news.jsp?key=62190
http://www.asianimage.co.uk/mostpopu...ves_killer.php

Let's not end up in that senseless position of 'two wrongs make a right'. If you lower your standards and subsequent actions to those of your opponent you quickly end up in the pointless position we witness now in areas such as Iraq.

Torture is at best barbaric and inhumane, and the sooner everybody realises it and convinces their opponents it is not to be condoned ot practiced....all the better for everyone.

Whats in question here is the definition of torture. Some would argue that simply being locked up is torture. Others would think the definition wouldn't apply unless someone fingers are getting twisted off. So this argument here is, well, not an argument at all without a proper definition, and that defintion changes from person to person, to country to country.

-S

Skybird's quick instant definition of "torture":

An intentional measurement of threatening and/or carrying out measures that inflict massive physical and/or psychic pain and/or agony and/or fear for ones' own life or that of third persons, with the intention to win information, to break the individual for this purpose itself, or to gain satisfaction for the torturer in terms of a satisfying stimulus (sadism, psychic pervertion, revenge, etc.)

I am not saying we shoul not act compassionatly to all.
However, neither should we reward evil acts with cake.

Compasion, yes.
Cake, no.

Not even "devils food" cake"? ;) Or, how about Twinkies? Personally, I can't think of any confection more evil than Hostess Twinkies... And I'd consider being forced to eat Twinkies to be a form of torture...:dead:

I never ordered it, our colonel did, and at the risk of being shot for treason I carried them out. Part of the reason why I shot them was not only because they killed civilians, but also because they were in such bad shape I took pity on them (and also I wouldn't want the government to get their hands on them; that would be a thousand times worse).

I wonder who voted three?

Mine vote± 6