• Howard
    4
    Post 3 Ethics of torture

    In this post, I am going to talk briefly about the ethics of torture. Different to the scenario Fritz Alhoff proposed in “ Terrorism, Ticking Bombs, and Torture.”, I propose a new version of it. Imagine the terrorist has launched several ticking bombs around the stadiums and there would be no time for you to evacuating the crowds. You, as an FBI, already caught the terrorist. However, you realized that he will not expose anything about the details of where he launched the bomb unless you torture his baby. The ticking bomb will cause a huge damage for sure, and many people will die for it. What would you do?

    I want to discuss and explore the function of responsibility and ethics of torture in this case. What role does your job ( responsibility to keep the crowd safe) and your personal morality play in this case? How should we decide?

    You can also perceive this dilemma as a new version of the Trolley problem, but you are actually the one who is in charge of the rails.

    My argument is as follows:

    When we have to behave immorally, if we can choose to behave less immoral, we must.
    Giving up responsibility is immoral.
    Letting people die when you can take action to save them is immoral.
    Torture a baby is very immoral.
    In the scenario above, torturing a baby can prevent you from 2, 3.
    In the scenario above, we should torture.

    People might have objections that we cannot measure immorality by simply counting the number of things people behave immorally. Maybe some people believe that torturing an innocent baby is more immoral than letting people die as well as giving his responsibility. I think this is a very subjective opinion on how each person values these things.
  • Book273
    768


    Torturing the baby is more immoral than allowing the people to die, therefore should not be done and the bombs should be allowed to go off. I arrive at this conclusion based on the following facts:

    A) The baby has no power in this scenario and can be in no way considered to have engaged in any activity which contributed to the predicament it is now in. It is, truly, an innocent bystander.

    B) The people in the stadiums have contributed to their situation by going to the stadiums initially. Yes, they may not have expected to be blown up, however there are a multitude of minor accidents which can occur when going to a stadium and an element of danger exists in all of these. An additional consideration is that any place of large public crowds will also potentially draw the attention of nefarious types who seek to exploit those crowds for their own ends. Bombs, bio-weapons, Etc. This is not a new concept in any way.

    C) Letting people die when I can take action to save them is not immoral. This is a false foundation usually put forward by people who have not actually committed any sort of violence. It is closely associated with the equally false statement "letting someone die is the same as killing them." Ask anyone that has killed anything if this statement rings true; it does not.

    D) There is no time to evacuate. However there is time to torture a baby until the father breaks and tells us where the bombs are and we have time to defuse the bombs? So this is either the slowest evacuation ever or the weakest terrorist ever and we have the fastest bomb squad ever. Regardless, if we have time to torture and do all that follows that scenario, we also have time to mitigate damage from any explosions: like moving everyone onto the stadium fields. Explosion dynamics would support this as the best way to mitigate damage to the crowd from any explosion in the stadium. This could also be done must faster than the torture option.

    E) I am an FBI agent and the best plan I came up with is torturing a baby? That answers why someone wants to bomb my people: we have it coming. Actually, if that answer is acceptable to my population then we deserve the bombings.

    Seriously, torturing a baby is never the moral choice.
  • unenlightened
    9.2k
    Why do you want to contrive a scenario that might justify torturing a baby, or any one?

    If the bad man is doing bad things, the good man will try to stop him. If the good man can only stop him by becoming a bad man, then he cannot stop him at all. This is perfectly universal, that bad men are hard to stop because they will do things that good men will not. The scum always floats to the top, and the gold always sinks to the bottom. God made it this way so that bad men will not be bribed or frightened into being good. The FBI man wants to succeed at any cost, therefore he is bad, not good.
  • Tzeentch
    3.9k
    Torture is never justified, under any circumstance.

    If one puts themselves in a situation where it is expected of them to maintain security by potentially having to torture others, therein already lies the flawed moral choice.

    When the timebomb is ticking it is already too late and one will be caught in a moral dilemma of one's own creation.

    A better alternative would be to distance oneself from societies that torture as far as humanly possible; not to embed oneself further in it by becoming a potential torturer oneself, which must have preceeded the situation.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    There is always a choice, yes?

    The Difficult is that which can be done immediately; the Impossible that which takes a little longer. — George Santayana

    Pushes power button on my PC. Enters password. Sees message: Please wait...

    Whistles...any moment now...

    Mulgere hircum! Non sono mica Mandrake!
  • I like sushi
    4.9k
    Torture is never justified, under any circumstance.Tzeentch

    You lack imagination :D
  • I like sushi
    4.9k
    Why do you want to contrive a scenario that might justify torturing a baby, or any one?unenlightened

    Because they are sensible and care I expect. Those not willing to do so are usually the ones more likely to actually carry out such acts because in their minds they would never do such a thing!
  • unenlightened
    9.2k
    Those not willing to do so are usually the ones more likely to actually carry out such actsI like sushi

    Yeah, that makes complete sense, probably.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Tickle Torture

    :rofl:

    Reserved for terrorists who refuse to divulge the secret locations of their bombs!
  • EugeneW
    1.7k
    "Forced tickle torture can cause real physical and mental distress in a victim, which is why it has been used as an interrogation method or to simply show dominance over another person. Usually tickling is done on feet and armpits after tying the person's ankles and wrists. The recipient is also often stripped to their underwear."
  • EugeneW
    1.7k
    Letting people die when you can take action to save them is immoral.Howard

    According to whose moral? Is there a universal standard?
  • Shwah
    259

    I think that's the issue with defining things by their negation - you get contradictions and really no answer.
    Instead, morality is defined by what is most prudent actions to take (which means nothing on its own). When we predicate biology and get bioethics then we get a propositional statement depending on how you define biology.
    We can assume biology in general is life founded upon, perhaps, amount of proteins and amino acids so where all of biology is to promote, and is dictated by, the amount of proteins/amino acids. So from that type of bioethics, torture would be fine assuming no proteins or amino acids are lost torturing the baby and that the torture leads to the safety of the other amino acid/protein creatures living.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    "Forced tickle torture can cause real physical and mental distress in a victim, which is why it has been used as an interrogation method or to simply show dominance over another person. Usually tickling is done on feet and armpits after tying the person's ankles and wrists. The recipient is also often stripped to their underwear."EugeneW

    :up: I just feel it's the least worst option. Could be way off the mark though.
  • EugeneW
    1.7k
    I just feel it's the least worst option. Could be way off the mark though.Agent Smith

    Can it really cause pain? Can those eternally dripping water drops cause pain? I know itch without scratch can be terrible, though it not really hurts.
  • EugeneW
    1.7k


    _/""\《■》/""\_???
bold
italic
underline
strike
code
quote
ulist
image
url
mention
reveal
youtube
tweet
Add a Comment

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.