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Originally Posted by fatboy
@Phunkie - what if, and this is purely hypothetical, you had good reason to believe that a terrorist had a biological weapon and if he uses this weapon millions will die. You believe it and just about every other world leader believes it. You are 90% sure. Is torture valid then? Is there anything you wouldn't do to capture this person?
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Like I said, depends on the situation and many, many factors. But hypothetically speaking: If everyone were so sure that he has the weapon that would kill millions then yes, I suppose the terrorist could be tortured to reveal the location of the weapon.
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But your own answers are very subjective, indicating to me that this is a very grey area. Can laws be constructed to operate in such a grey area? Should we allow laws like that?
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I know, they are subjective on purpose. I made my examples deliberately very personal or exaggerated to emphasize the difficulty of the issue. This indeed is a very gray area and what may be right in one situation is not in another.
I was talking about hypothetical situations and what I would do in them. Laws are a completely different thing. I don't know if we should allow such laws or not. Probably not, since it could (and probably would) lead to serious abuse of the law.
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Absolutely, I would shoot first and ask questions later. This is my private property and the only reason someone would be breaking into my home would be to do me, my family, and/or my property harm. In fact, if they're breaking in, they've already done my property harm.
How is this related?
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If we think of two situations:
1. The breaking and entering mentioned above. You said you wouldn't think twice about attacking the criminal.
2. A situation in which someone has kidnapped your family and will kill them in 24 hours. You have caught one of the kidnappers. Would you hurt (torture) him to gain information and save your family?
To me the point of both cases is protecting the lives of yourself and your loved ones. That's how I find the situations related. You are willing to kill a man that potentially threatens you and your family, but you wouldn't beat a man to save your family? I find that extremely hard to believe.
It is easy to say that torture should never be allowed. It is also easy to say that you should never kill another person, or that we should all be friends. But in the case of a true emergency people rely more on their instincts than their moral guidelines.