You didn't answer. Would you?

And 99,99% is good enough for me, of course you have to be sure about the person's guilt. 75% probability is not enough anymore for me to kill someone. But we are talking about beating someone, not killing.

We can all talk, but if you would get in a situation where you could save your family by beating someone up, I seriously think that everyone of us here would do it.

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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. What about the possibility that he/she may die? Would that be okay too? 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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In this country, we don't need reasons to make things legal; we need reasons to make things illegal. - Startup

Unfortunately the American way is "Do as I say not as I do!". It is ok for human rights violations to happen in American prisons, but the US is fast to condemn the practices used in China. Well...
Let me think. Last I knew it was against Human rights to execute mentally ill patients. In Texas we dope these guys up so they are competent to be executed... Is that not a violation of human rights?

Torchure is never acceptable. Neither by friend or foe. The fact is that it has been around since mankind started to walk does not justify its use today! Neither does "saving 100 lives" for that matter, because then you would have to decide when a torchure is justified... when 90 people are in jeopardy? when 10 are in jeopardy? when 1 is in jeopardy? If it is a prominent person does that mean that torchure is allowed although it is just one person and the threashold was set to 50?

Never should torchure be used. EVER!

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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%.


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.


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...

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Would you torture a lawyer into breaking the client priveliege confidentiality?
He is an innocent man. Would you?
If a regular law abbiding citizen happens to know something, but he´s not willing to talk, would you torture him?
If your father, or brother or any other family member happened to know something but would not talk, would you have him tortured?
You guys are willing to use torture to save your loved ones, but you forget that the tortured man also has family, and that someday it might be you in his shoes. How quick would you be to agree to torture being used, if the man ending up with a mental breakdown or even death, were your father?

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"Quincitilius Varus, give me back my legions!"
Emperor Augustus of Rome.

I'm not talking about "something", but crucial information with which lives could be saved. And like I said in my earlier post, there are many factors to be considered and it all depends on the situation.

If my father or my brother were holding back information that could save the lives of many and they wouldn't tell it just because they didn't want to, then they would be "bad" and they would take the chance of possibly being tortured.

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I don't think using torture is ever considered desireable, by anybody, but it is considered to be necessary on occasion. That's just a fact. And it's a fact in every country on the planet - somewhere, somehow that contingency has been considered and provided for.

The catch is that some individual has to have the power to make that decision, and be accountable for it. And it's always the accountability issue that seems to come up lacking in the end, unfortunately.

I'm surprised nobody commented on the "justifiability" of the most prevalent method for extracting information from high-value targets these days (as I mentioned it in my previous post on this same thread): Drugs.

Is using drugs to safely and reliably extract information from a person considered "torture" too?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...26/torture.htm

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@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?
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?
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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In this country, we don't need reasons to make things legal; we need reasons to make things illegal. - Startup

Just make sure it is not the publisher's clearing house people coming to give you a big check. I don't think you get the check if you put a bullet in Ed Macman's head.

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The best daily political cartoons can be found here:

http://www.csmonitor.com/commentary/index.html

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.


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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