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Originally Posted by Skybird
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Letum
For the purpose of discussion, I will assume torture is effective. This is debatable, but
not something I am qualified to speculate about.
Further more, I will assume that torture is in it's self a bad thing. I make this assumption
based on the common consensus and my own humble compassion for all of humanity
to some extent.
This in mind, it seams to me that the question can be boiled down to:
hundreds killed by terror is better than to do torture ourselves.
Making decisions with this maxim is problematic. It could potentially used to justify
anything, there are problems with predicting outcomes, it sets a dangerous president
for evil acts, and the morality of your ends are most likely highly subjective.
The term "torture" and it's ends are too broad for me to universaly condem it, but
I struggle to find a situation in wich the problems with it would not be significant.
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That is the major moral dilemma here, isn't it. You ask:
Is it right to do any evil if you think that more good will come out of it?
Poll option 6 reads:
Hundreds killed by terror is better than to do torture ourselves. |
Yup, to invoke the "ticking bomb" example, one of note in moral philosophy:
Lets say there is a criminal who knows the location of a massive bomb. He won't
tell the police where the bomb is, however he is known to be a coward and will likely
tell the police about them bomb if they kicked him a bit i.e. a very mild torture.
It looks open and shut at first glance, but I don't think it is.