The Ethics of Torture

@hue-man,

hue-man;66723 wrote:

I personally believe that torture is unethical and that it should never be legalized. However, some utilitarians argue that if torturing one person saves five, then it is morally permissible. I disagree because sometimes the person being tortured has no information, and then no one is saved and one innocent person was tortured for nothing. Torture is excessively coercive, impractical, and cruel & unusual. I believe that the right against torture should be absolute.

My question is this - is there anyway to condemn the act of torture under utilitarianism?

Hi, Hue-man

Some considerations:

1) You never know that you will actually save the five.

2) Among the five there may be one or more who are highly immoral, and who possibly, in their own way, could be secretly as bad as the one you are planning to torture ...assuming you are right that he/she is as bad as you presume he/she is.

3) By torturing you reduce yourself morally to the level of the one you are going to torture -- although as you said , in calling that person 'innocent' he may have been just a chauffeur (for the bad ones) - or a kid who was just standing around when the perpetrators fled - who was unlucky enough to get caught.

4) Torture violates the essence of social (and individual) ethics: people are not to be used as things. People are precious; people can be rehabilitated if they have done immoral acts. [How does anyone know for sure they can't be?!]

5) You, who are judging others: Were their acts any worse than yours in the past? Did you ever violate the dignity of another person?

6) Life will be better if we do not (morally) judge another -- in the negative sense. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
"Judge not, that ye be not judged !"

7) More generally, the employment of questionable means will not get us to the noble ends we desire - for, in a real sense, ends are means, and the converse also: means used ARE the ends we get. Treat peace and stability and harmonious-relations not so much as a goal in view, as they are the path leading to the goal. This is truly the wise procedure.
If you think torture is (the least bit) morally-questionable -- DON'T USE IT.

Torture is self-defeating and counterproductive.

And it doesn't work !! according to all the FBI and CIA experts on interrogation. What does work is gaining the confidence of the one you are questioning, by casual small talk, little favors to him, and eventually making friends with the one you hope to be an informant for you.

I trust I have offered enough points to argue persuasively that torture is a big mistake, both ethically and practically.

@hue-man,

no - shows the shortcomings of utilitarianism.

@hue-man,

in my thoughts to be able to condone an immoral act for the good of the many it would have to be for prevention only. i mean directly-not in the hopes of getting information to be able to prevent something from happening that you are not even sure is going to happen. so i would reason that if you saw someone about to fire an ak 47 (which you knew was loaded) into a crowd and you killed him, that could be justified.

but how could there ever be a circumstance where torture would stop something from happening for sure in front of your eyes as you did it?

i havent been able to think of a way torture can be justified ... and if it can be justified in any philosophy, then i will know it wont work for me.

@salima,

I would have no compunctions about torturing someone if i knew they had placed a bomb, that i knew would kill hundreds of innocent civilians, none at all.I might not like the act but the results would for me warrant the deed.
What if the torture was purely mental with no physical injury?I think its very easy to have comfy morals knowing the demands will never be placed on you.

@xris,

xris;70110 wrote:

I would have no compunctions about torturing someone if i knew they had placed a bomb, that i knew would kill hundreds of innocent civilians, none at all.I might not like the act but the results would for me warrant the deed.
What if the torture was purely mental with no physical injury?I think its very easy to have comfy morals knowing the demands will never be placed on you.

I'd say if you want to indulge in that, it is only fair that you would have your life taken if you ever made any mistake. I believe we would have a better justice system if police or judge or lawyer or witness were sentenced to the max for the charge concerned, if they falsified any bit, knowingly omitted any evidence that would potentially help clear the defendant, etc.

@hue-man,

i think if hundreds of innocent civilians were going to die (assuming for the sake of argument of a hypothetical case that i could in fact be sure of those facts) and what it took to stop that was for me to torture someone, i still wouldnt do it. by not torturing him i am still not the one who planted the bomb-you can say i am an accomplice if you like, but i see having my hands on torturing someone as a bigger breach of ethics.

@memester,

memester;70111 wrote:

I'd say if you want to indulge in that, it is only fair that you would have your life taken if you ever made any mistake. I believe we would have a better justice system if police or judge or lawyer or witness were sentenced to the max for the charge concerned, if they falsified any bit, knowingly omitted any evidence that would potentially help clear the defendant, etc.

We are not defining the situation when it could or could not be appropriate,its the principle.You are defining it differently to me and i see you ignore my scenario and the method.I know for certain i could get you to admit to anything and an hour later you would be ashamed you gave in so easily, with no injury or long lasting damage to your person or mind but it would still be torture.
I dont believe in torture for legal ends but for security in certain narrow avenues of necessities it cant be ruled out.

---------- Post added at 11:34 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:31 AM ----------

salima;70112 wrote:

i think if hundreds of innocent civilians were going to die (assuming for the sake of argument of a hypothetical case that i could in fact be sure of those facts) and what it took to stop that was for me to torture someone, i still wouldnt do it. by not torturing him i am still not the one who planted the bomb-you can say i am an accomplice if you like, but i see having my hands on torturing someone as a bigger breach of ethics.

If your view is that you would rather maintain your clean hands and let hundreds die unnecessarily, its your view not mine.

@xris,

xris;70114 wrote:

We are not defining the situation when it could or could not be appropriate,its the principle.You are defining it differently to me and i see you ignore my scenario and the method.I know for certain i could get you to admit to anything and an hour later you would be ashamed you gave in so easily, with no injury or long lasting damage to your person or mind but it would still be torture.
I dont believe in torture for legal ends but for security in certain narrow avenues of necessities it cant be ruled out.

---------- Post added at 11:34 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:31 AM ----------

If your view is that you would rather maintain your clean hands and let hundreds die unnecessarily, its your view not mine.

I don't see where I made any comment whatsoever as to the situation. and I don't see where I defined it at all.

edit:Note that you did indeed define the situation, yet offer a claim to the contrary: " bomb","I knew for sure", "hundreds of innocents die" "

What could you use to get me to talk to you unless you physically tortured me or threatened my family ? Jacob's Ladder stuff ? Or just threat alone..which wouldn't keep working for you. I am assuming that we are talking about a technique that needs to keep working, not lose it's potency once it's discovered to be mere threat. A ruse only has a lifespan that lasts until it's discovered.

whereas, give me some duct tape and a Bic lighter...

@xris,

hue-man;66723 wrote:

My question is this - is there anyway to condemn the act of torture under utilitarianism?

Of course!

JS Mill's utilitarian principle: "Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness."

Justifying torture because torture might produce information that might save five lives is suspect, even under utilitarianism. Remember, utilitarians are concerned with happiness - and every human (perhaps even animal) is to be considered in the utilitarian calculus.

Torture might save five lives, but torture might also set off public opinion in such a way as to risk far more lives. The utilitarian has a great deal to consider in his moral calculus - and the difficulty of making such a calculation is a greater problem to utilitarianism than some supposed justification of morally dubious acts.

@memester,

memester;70117 wrote:

I don't see where I made any comment whatsoever as to the situation. and I don't see where I defined it at all.

edit:Note that you did indeed define the situation, yet offer a claim to the contrary: " bomb","I knew for sure", "hundreds of innocents die" "

What could you use to get me to talk to you unless you physically tortured me or threatened my family ? Jacob's Ladder stuff ? Or just threat alone..which wouldn't keep working for you. I am assuming that we are talking about a technique that needs to keep working, not lose it's potency once it's discovered to be mere threat. A ruse only has a lifespan that lasts until it's discovered.

whereas, give me some duct tape and a Bic lighter...

You defined the situation as legal tool not as a means to save lives.I mentioned one reason there could be others not defined.
Yes there are at least two methods that have been secret for over sixty years that have been successful and i would not dream of divulging their secrets.No one get hurts and no damage of any kind can be detected.

---------- Post added at 01:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:15 PM ----------

Didymos Thomas;70120 wrote:

Of course!

JS Mill's utilitarian principle: "Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness."

Justifying torture because torture might produce information that might save five lives is suspect, even under utilitarianism. Remember, utilitarians are concerned with happiness - and every human (perhaps even animal) is to be considered in the utilitarian calculus.

Torture might save five lives, but torture might also set off public opinion in such a way as to risk far more lives. The utilitarian has a great deal to consider in his moral calculus - and the difficulty of making such a calculation is a greater problem to utilitarianism than some supposed justification of morally dubious acts.

When faced with certainty of imminent death for hundreds maybe thousands or even the safety of millions if the bomb was atomic, could you in reality refuse to save them because of your moral stand point?If the enemy are prepared to kill thousands of innocent civilians, im not going to worry about the significance of the bad press by those who already have made it clear they have no morals or mercy.I wish life was that simple, that so well defined.

@xris,

xris;70131 wrote:

You defined the situation as legal tool not as a means to save lives.I mentioned one reason there could be others not defined.
Yes there are at least two methods that have been secret for over sixty years that have been successful and i would not dream of divulging their secrets.No one get hurts and no damage of any kind can be detected.

I did not. That mention of the legal system was an addition to the subject at hand - added because the issue of false information being used against people, relates, in a way.

However, you did define the situation regarding torture, you see.

What I added afterward had nothing to do with torture or saving lives...it's about making people who act, bear responsibility for their actions...get it ?

The secret stuff sounds terribly interesting....but not of any use for discussion here, as it's so secret that you can't talk about it, and nobody else in the world has ever talked about it in public and survived, either. And if they did talk about it, their words were expunged from history as well. Is that it ? :sarcastic:

BTW..whose "secrets" are they , these "their" that you talk about ?

Not the US military...why waterboard when you can do "The Secret" to them ?

Is it having Oprah sit on them ? Watch episodes ?

@memester,

xris;70131 wrote:

When faced with certainty of imminent death for hundreds maybe thousands or even the safety of millions if the bomb was atomic, could you in reality refuse to save them because of your moral stand point?If the enemy are prepared to kill thousands of innocent civilians, im not going to worry about the significance of the bad press by those who already have made it clear they have no morals or mercy.I wish life was that simple, that so well defined.

What are you talking about? I addressed the question asked by the thread starter: can a utilitarian condemn torture?

I never offered my moral opinion or any other sort of explanation as to how we should act in the situation you describe.

@xris,

xris;70110 wrote:

I would have no compunctions about torturing someone if i knew they had placed a bomb, that i knew would kill hundreds of innocent civilians, none at all.I might not like the act but the results would for me warrant the deed.
What if the torture was purely mental with no physical injury?I think its very easy to have comfy morals knowing the demands will never be placed on you.

(emphasis added).

xris

Please present for us your proof that mental injury is any less immoral than physical injury.

Also, present some factual evidence that torture was effective in disarming a bomb before it went off -- since it seems so obvious that the one who is tortured can easily spin out a story which sends the torturers off on a wild goose-chase, while in the meantime the bomb has time to go off. Do you deny that someone who is being tortured will say anything (s/he thinks the torturers would like to hear) in order to stop the torture even for a moment? Has a bomb-planter ever lied?

As I explained near the end of the second post above, torture DOES NOT WORK according to all the evidence given by experienced interrogators.
Perhaps you did not read that post.....

Furthermore, it is unethical. What makes you think that behaving unethically will get you the kind of life you really want? I once used some judo on a boy who wanted to spar. I was just a 15-year-old myself. He went back on the pavement - for this was in the middle of the street, and I soon ran for cover when all his 9 friends who were sitting around got up to see what happened. For all I know he got a concussion of the head. I never saw any of them again. All my life my conscience has bothered me over that. Did that cause permanent damage?? I ask myself. At that point I decided not to commit acts of violence again. When will you, my friend, decide the same thing? I wonder. Do you have the moral sensitivity not to rationalize that you are "saving lives" by hurting this one guy? You KNOW you are hurting him; you really don't know that the bomb won't turn out to be a dud, or that anyone will be in the way of it. You are calculating, in the above quote from you, with human lives, as if they were only numbers. But what if they are incalculable treasures? What if one individual is worth as much as a host of individuals from an Ethical perspective? Then we would require a different sort of calculus, wouldn't we?

If you use (or abuse) a person as if he were a thing, or a number, you become highly immoral yourself, and are part of the problem in this world, rather than part of the solution. In the eyes of many you have become "the terrorist" or the criminal.

@deepthot,

As an addition to the already mentioned and so well spoken considerations the Pragmatist might weigh, I think that this is important;

Mother Church gave us a most valuable lesson in Epidemiology; if one sees an antagonist in action, follow him to the nexus - do not destroy the only known lead to an unknown node.

@xris,

xris;70131 wrote:

When faced with certainty of imminent death for hundreds maybe thousands or even the safety of millions if the bomb was atomic, could you in reality refuse to save them because of your moral stand point?

Whence comes this assumption that torture is going to yield more or better information? There have been plenty of intelligence officials who say that people under torture give notably unreliable intelligence. One could just as easily cast aside torture because:

1) a subject under torture is more likely to feel that his life is forfeit, and therefore will out of spite mislead his torturers

or 2) say anything he thinks they want to hear, accurate or not, as long as it gets the torture to stop

Now, this is an interesting thought experiment if we all assume for the sake of argument that torture works. But the problem is that it doesn't work well enough that one can offer a utilitarian justification.

Next, another utilitarian argument is that we would be utterly outraged if our own nationals were tortured on foreign soil. Let's say that Egypt is torturing a group of American nationals -- how do we justify demanding that they stop if we have tortured their nationals?

@hue-man,

hue-man;66723 wrote:

I personally believe that torture is unethical and that it should never be legalized.......
My question is this - is there anyway to condemn the act of torture under utilitarianism?

A friend of mine who lives on the island of Mindanao recently said this in an email to me:

Utilitarianism seems to be very interesting especially when you read the whole thing. It's way more broad than I expected. Especially the part where Mill states the importance of taking to consideration the needs of others in your group to the point that they take precedence over your own immediate wants since we are social by nature and need to live within a group context, and also how doing this favors our long term happiness.

I have emphasized the relevant part, the concepts germane to the discussion. Today our group is the human species; some day it may be mammalia - when we have morally evolved. Those wo over-simplify a deep philosophical school are perhaps misinterpreting what the originators intended.

So, yes - as Didymos Thomas and Aedes have already pointed out - there is more than one way to condemn torture under Utilitarianism.

@hue-man,

hue-man;66723 wrote:

I personally believe that torture is unethical and that it should never be legalized. However, some utilitarians argue that if torturing one person saves five, then it is morally permissible. I disagree because sometimes the person being tortured has no information, and then no one is saved and one innocent person was tortured for nothing. Torture is excessively coercive, impractical, and cruel & unusual. I believe that the right against torture should be absolute.

My question is this - is there anyway to condemn the act of torture under utilitarianism?

However, some utilitarians argue that if torturing one person saves five, then it is morally permissible. I disagree because sometimes the person being tortured has no information, and then no one is saved and one innocent person was tortured for nothing.

But that is no reply to the utilitarian point. The utilitarians are saying that if torture saves people it should be used. Your reply, that sometimes torture does not work is irrelevant. The question is whether if it works should it be used? That it may not work has nothing to do with that question. Suppose you ask me, "If I go to medical school, do you think I am smart enough to graduate", and I reply, "You won't go to medical school". Is that a relevant reply? Of course not.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;70262 wrote:

However, some utilitarians argue that if torturing one person saves five, then it is morally permissible. I disagree because sometimes the person being tortured has no information, and then no one is saved and one innocent person was tortured for nothing.

But that is no reply to the utilitarian point. The utilitarians are saying that if torture saves people it should be used. Your reply, that sometimes torture does not work is irrelevant. The question is whether if it works should it be used? That it may not work has nothing to do with that question. Suppose you ask me, "If I go to medical school, do you think I am smart enough to graduate", and I reply, "You won't go to medical school". Is that a relevant reply? Of course not.

i think then from the standpoint of what is best for the group as a whole, torture should be condemned because it is unethical, barbaric, and most importantly, if the group accepts that they are embracing and propagating unethical standards. how can that be good even if it saves lives? what is the point of saving lives then?

Originally Posted by xris
If your view is that you would rather maintain your clean hands and let hundreds die unnecessarily, its your view not mine.
yes, generally i worry about washing my own hands, not anyone else's.

@salima,

salima;70269 wrote:

generally i worry about washing my own hands, not anyone else's.

that's memorable !

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