mistermack

2 hours ago, Peterkin said:

If I did carry out a wrong and bad act, I hope it would be for a reason I could justify.

That IS just playing with words, trying to have it both ways. It's just morally cowardly. (in the context of debate)

Well, it seems to me like you're confused about right and wrong. If you can say you would do it, even though it's wrong, you are just dodging the question, and having it both ways. 

To me, torturing the prisoner for no reason is very wrong. Torturing the prisoner to save five million people is right. The situation changes it from wrong to right. 

If that was the innocent child, from the other example, who knew where the bomb was, and wouldn't tell, and all other methods were not working, then I'd torture the child. Five million lives outweighs my normal principles in nearly every case. And I believe it would be right to do it.

Very wrong normally. Very right in that case.

1 hour ago, Peterkin said:

10 hours ago, Intoscience said:

The question is, is it ever right to employ torture?

No.

To be honest, I find that quite disgusting. Treating the hypothetical nuke in London as really happening, and you are in charge of finding it, you would rather let five million people vaporise, than try torture on the perpetrator. I think that's not principled or high minded, it's mental cowardice, or a lack of caring for others, or both.

37 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

Does it? In war, every leadership makes an effort to dehumanize the enemy -for the same reason: it's easier to kill a ______ (insert national slur of choice) than a farm-boy just like yourself.

In slave states, after slavery was ostensibly abolished,  why was it necessary for officials to raise artificial barriers between children of different races? Why was it necessary to enact miscegenation laws? Why was it necessary to segregate people on public transport, in recreation areas, in neighbourhoods, even in the army....? If people instinctively don't want to mix, why go to all that trouble to keep them apart? And how come they went and mixed anyway?

You seem to imagine that everyone's the same. Or that people are consistent in their behaviour. Many slave owners, who treated their slaves as commodities, still had sex with them. But they wouldn't dream of treating them as equals. 

Others were more enlightened. But those were pretty thinly spread. 

The Romans made slaves of most of the known world. For them it wasn't skin colour so much as just being foreign that made you slave material. They always ran down non-romans as ignorant brutish people who lived in squalor. So did the early americans with the natives. They tried making them slaves, but when that didn't work out, they tried to wipe them out. They didn't need the commodity motive for that. Basically, people who look or talk different, or dress different, historically got singled out for dehumanising treatment. Even the same race, so long as you could be identified as an 'inferior' people. Like the untouchables in India. 

1 hour ago, swansont said:

It only took them 25 years to double the power, and no mention about how far from the end line they are. Though they did admit to being >25 years away from that.

It's the same machine, so it's not surprising. Considering the total energy budget of the planet, the investment in fusion has been pretty derisory. I think it's beginning to accelerate now though. The warming scare is giving it a boost. 

58 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

It's the intent to commodify that makes the dehumanizing necessary:

I think that's just somebody's pet theory, but I really don't think it's true. The instinct to dehumanise other tribes and races flourishes whether there is slavery or not. That's why it's necessary to remind american cops that black live matter. 

54 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

I'll repeat it again, it's easier to commoditize slaves in our minds than it is to think about keeping enslaved humans, because you're removing their humanity. I feel similarly about torture. 

I don't think that makes sense at all. Slavery has been the norm for thousands of years. The common factor has always been that the slaves are of another race or tribe. They regarded any foreigner or people of a different sex or colour as inferior, not much different to horses. Even recently, in South Africa or the USA. That's why they had to use different bathrooms and bars. And intermarriage was either taboo or illegal.  That's how their humanity was removed. They were regarded and spoken of as inferior humans. Not because of the commodity aspect. That was a consequence, not a cause. 

The JET (joint european taurus) at Culham Oxford announced today that they made what they call a "breakthrough" with the latest run doubling the results of their previous world record plasma. It's good to hear, but it's laying it on a bit strong. 

I would have called it significant progress rather than a breakthrough. What they achieved was a five second plasma, I'm not sure what was doubled. But it is real progress. They set the JET up to run with a  beryllium/tungsten wall which is ten times less absorbent of tritium than the carbon that was used previously. There was uncertainty about the effect of that change so it is big progress. (in a fusion power station, tritium will need to be saved as future fuel ) 

So the doubling of their previous record is significant with that in mind. 

Five seconds doesn't sound much, but it's the current limit at JET because their copper electromagnets can't run any longer without overheating. But ITER will use superconducting magnets, that won't suffer that problem. 

"It's a landmark because they demonstrated stability of the plasma over five seconds. That doesn't sound very long, but on a nuclear timescale, it's a very, very long time indeed. And it's very easy then to go from five seconds to five minutes, or five hours, or even longer."

BBC Link :  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60312633   

1 hour ago, Phi for All said:

I mentioned how we still justify the past kidnapping and enslaving real people by thinking of them as "slaves",

I have to admit you've completely mystified me. Especially when you say "we". I'm pretty sure I don't do that, and I don't know anybody else who justifies that. I'm sure you're making a point, but I just can't work out what it is. 

1 hour ago, Phi for All said:

A slave just isn't the same thing as an enslaved human.

I'm just not with you. I'm not arguing, I'd just like to know what you're getting at. I would have said that a slave IS an enslaved human, so I can't follow where you're going.

3 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

I hope it's been shown that you can devise a scenario in which people are painted into a corner that makes torture seem like a valid solution to the problem. Considering how many hoops you need to jump through to make it seem justified, perhaps this is a signal that torture doesn't align itself well with modern humanity. After all, we're slowly realizing that slaves were actually people who were kidnapped and enslaved, so maybe there's something undeniably wrong about torturing another person that we're not realizing... yet.

Of course, it's a matter of opinion both ways. But I don't think that it's anywhere near as contrived or rare a situation as you and others have portrayed. The Yorkshire ripper, for example, left plenty of dna around his victims. His MO was well established. And he was caught with his trademark hammer, and a knife having just picked up another prostitute. In countless cases, dna gives odds of billions to one against the prisoner being innocent. And quite a lot of them are happy to confess, but still refuse to divulge the location of the body. (for example) The hoops that you talk about are hypothetical in many cases. 

As for slavery, there was opposition hundreds of years ago. I don't know where you got the notion that we're slowly realising anything. People knew all that years ago. They just didn't care, back in the bad old days. 

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

How can the torturer tell the difference?

We're straying into the obvious here. You immediately send a team to the address where the child is supposed to be. Or where the bomb is supposed to be. And make sure that the torture subject knows that that will happen. Your are at least doing your best. If it doesn't work out, at least you tried. 

I have relatives in London. No way would I just let a nuke go off, without trying torture as a last resort, just to preserve the human rights of some obnoxious scumbag. 

But of course, I wouldn't make it legal. 

I find it hard to reconcile the multiple posts of "torture doesn't work" with my own situation. I know for a fact that I would give up the location of the bomb or the child very rapidly, just with a realistic threat of torture. It would have to be very extreme circumstances for me to actually let it get to the actual torture stage.

And I really believe that, I'm not just saying it. Am I unusually cowardly? If most people are like me, I would have thought that torture was highly effective in a high percentage of cases.

On the question of "how can we be sure of guilt?" you have the same problem with the death penalty. And that's why I'm against the death penalty as a law. But in certain cases, where certain criminals were executed, I can't help but think that the right thing happened, even though I don't agree with the law. 

The main problem with the death penalty is the legal system. You have some idiot judges, stupid juries, clever prosecutors, and some absolutely useless defence lawyers. Not to mention some crooked cops, capable of fabricating evidence. So I reluctantly say, don't execute anyone, in case one or two are innocent.

But the difference with this torture scenario is the consequences. In the case of the death penalty, we just have to pay to keep them in jail for years instead. In the case of the child or the bomb, we have to live with the fact of a tortured and murdered child, or millions of people blown to bits. And the fact is, if you are innocent, you can actually survive torture, and have a life. You can't survive execution.

2 hours ago, zapatos said:

Putting someone in prison is not equivalent to torture. Let's not confuse different forms of punishment.

There's no confusion. I replied to the previous poster who said " law, and civilized life, would be in peril if we formally define classes of people who don't deserve the human rights that the rest do."   So my post was about the fact that we already formally classify people who don't deserve the human rights that we do. 

And we do so in their millions. You damage other people, you don't get your human rights. That's the principle, and we are forced to do it by the actions of some people. THEY are to blame for it, not the people who are  forced to react.  

5 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Though I earlier carved out extreme exceptions to laws against torture, it seems to me the law, and civilized life, would be in peril if we formally define classes of people who don't deserve the human rights that the rest do.

But we already do that. We lock people up in steel and concrete, tell them when to sleep and when to rise, when to wash, and when to eat and what to eat and control who they meet and who they can talk to. Because of what they did. 

3 hours ago, Phi for All said:

if I could justify the evil things I did to a human bound to a chair? 

Do you really believe in evil then? I don't, but if I did, then that pedophile that was bound to a chair, refusing to say where the child was held, is surely evil. You say "a human" but it's really "an evil human".

I say, if the human bound to the chair is that evil, then the things you are doing to him to save an innocent are not evil. Some humans don't deserve the rights that most others do.

According to Bereshit, there was a word right at the start. Nobody knows what word, but it was a Hebrew word. Then came light, and then water. So it would appear that water came first. But on closer inspection, the Earth was already there, under the water, and the water was then gathered together, leaving dry land and seas. 

So the Earth was there all the time, under the ocean, so which came first isn't clear. 

7 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

Does anyone really know the full answer to that? Nature, nurture, culture; parents, school, church, personal experiences and encounters, laws of the land, readings, arguments in smoky rooms late into the night, soul-searching well into the morning.... One builds one's moral system over a lifetime.

Generally, hominids have an instinctive notion of right and wrong as infants, and build on it, in the way you mentioned. It generally centres around putting yourself in somebody elses shoes, and "how would I like it?" at it's most basic. 

Mine would centre around "what's best for everyone, but especially me" After myself, I would then go downwards in importance, through the other people affected. 

That's why, in the theoretical case of the pedophile, I would value the child higher than the pedophile, so I wouldn't hesitate, so long as it was clear-cut. Also, in the bomb situation, it would be a no-brainer for me, the only question being, is there a more effective method. In a question of multiple lives at stake, for me that would heavily outweigh the rights that I would normally assign to the bomber. 

At the end of the day, in such an emergency, that's my right and wrong. What's best for good innocent people. And what's best for the others lags a long way behind. 

1 minute ago, Phi for All said:

I don't think it would EVER be right for the authorities to put a father alone in a jail cell with the kidnapper of his child.

Me neither. 

4 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

That, too has been amply answered. No, it is NEVER right, under any circumstances. Even if it's less wrong than some alternative, it's still wrong. This isn't complicated.

Well, now it's getting interesting. Where do you get your ideas of right and wrong from? I explained mine in the op.

Well, I KNOW that torture is a terrible thing, and should be prohibited. That's hardly worth a thread, it's almost universally agreed. It's debating the obvious.

That's why this thread is asking, do you think it would EVER be right, under extreme circumstances. If you don't specify that, then it's not really worth a debate at all.

23 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

No, even in the very remote possibility of torture being the only available path to a positive outcome, it is never right. 

And just to be doubly clear, are you saying that you would not do it, and you would ban it, if it was your decision to make?

Agreed. I worded the OP quite carefully, but people are dodging the question, carefully avoiding answering like a barefoot scotsman doing the sword dance.

All of these "what if he's innocent" and "heavy lifting" comments are question-dodging and derailing the thread. The title is clear and the OP is clearly worded too. 

If you want to anwer a different question, by all means start another thread. But if your answer to this one is "no", then I'd be interested in why you think that. 

Which would you rather, be tortured and survive, or be blown to bits along with your family by a cruise missile? 

It's a strange world, when people were outraged by torture by guards in a prison, but were quite happy to see missiles raining down on Bhagdad. The basic principle is, if I don't see the pictures, it's ok.

3 hours ago, Mark78L said:

Clearly it has not yet been proven safe long term - it is therefore not ethical or scientifically justifiable to mandate such a vaccine.

This is absolute rubbish. Aspirin isn't safe long term, nor is paracetamol. Nor is staying at home, and being fed through a tube. Nothing is safe in this world. 

Being vaccinated is not safe. Not being vaccinated is definitely not safe. That's your choice, two unsafe options. But being vaccinated is definitely much SAFER than not being vaccinated, and so it is definitely ethically and scientifically justifiable to mandate such a vaccine. You only have to apply the tiniest bit of logic to reach that conclusion. 

Having said that, in the UK they can't afford to make it mandatory, they haven't got enough staff, so they have had to backtrack. But the principle of mandatory vaccination is ethically and scientifically sound.

2 hours ago, exchemist said:

Not a silly question. If you make a factual claim, it is not unreasonable to ask for evidence in support. There could be case histories reported, e.g. upheld claims for unfair dismissal, newspaper reports, causes célèbres in the right wing blogosphere etc. Or you might have personal knowledge of people to whom this has happened.

It's a very silly question, if you think I'm going to mine the internet for such examples. My post was clearly worded as giving my opinion. You're free to disagree, and you can certainly do hours of internet searching to rebut it if you like. But for future reference, my post are my opinions, and if there is supporting documentation, I will list it with the post. 

I feel like that's stating the obvious, but never mind. 

1 hour ago, zapatos said:

Let's assume I break into your house and ask where you keep your cash

Good post. I had forgotten that the same thing happened to a friend of mine. He was a well-off trader, a bit shady himself. He was attacked in a house invasion by three heavily armed men. They threw a heavy stone garden ornament through his front door, and forced their way in shouting "armed police".

They then terrorised my friend, and dealt him some pretty nasty wounds, and got him to open his safe, and got away with about £13,000 plus various property items. So the torture certainly got them what they wanted. These are not isolated cases, it's clearly torture, even if those using it are on the nasty side of morality. It would take a special kind of courage to play games with someone who has your life in their hands, and doesn't care at all about your welfare.

Men regularly use torture to intimidate women during rape. Very few cases lead to a conviction. A lot don't even lead to a complaint. 

As far as torture of evil people by law enforcement goes, by it's very nature, you would be unlikely to hear about it if it happened.