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Originally Posted by fatboy
This is an interesting line of thought. So, you're saying that if you were 99.9% sure of a person's guilt, torture is okay.
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First of all, there would have to be great benefits to be gained by the torture (e.g. saving the lives of your family members), so it's not ok just for fun. The situation would have to be extremely serious and the physical health of people would have to be in jeopardy. And the person to be possibly tortured would be a "bad" person, i.e. a terrorist, a kidnapper etc. So we're (or at least I'm) not talking about torturing innocents.
Second, 99,99% is almost the same as 100%.
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What about the possibility that he/she may die? Would that be okay too?
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We were not talking about killing the person. Of course it is a possibility but since we are talking theoretically I assumed the person tortured wouldn't die. If the person died it wouldn't only be not okay, but also careless and stupid from the torturer's perspective since with the person would die also all the possible information.
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How certain would you need to be? Would it matter if only a few others believed as you did? Would you go ahead with the torture if there were some dissention
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You would have to be sure. I can't give any accurate percentage, but you would have to be certain. If only a few persons believe there is something to be gained by torture and there are lots of dissent, then I'd say there is not a very solid base for torturing the person.
Of course everything discussed here depends hugely on the situation and therefore it is really hard to argue anything with 100% certainty. All I'm saying is that I, and I believe everyone else here, would use torture (e.g. beating) as a last resort if the situation required it.
Let me ask another related question:
Would you be prepared to hurt someone who's breaking into your home to protect yourself and your family? You can't be sure he's going to hurt you or your family, so would it be okay to hurt him? You could just ask him to leave the premises...