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Originally Posted by Phunkie
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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Doesn't that put the US invasion of Iraq into a different light?
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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.
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.
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Then I should've been more clear: I took the question to mean "state sanctioned" torture. I disagree with state sanctioned abuse. No nation should allow torture and should have laws that specifically prohibit it. As you agree, we simply cannot make a law that says: "If A and B, then C only if D happens before E, pursuant to F, G, H, and I."
If I caught one of the kidnappers you can bet that I would torture him until I got the information I was looking for. That's me personally and I would fully expect to go to jail if I were caught.