Would you torture?

[Common Man]

I want to keep this thread hypothetical. It is not about any particular group of people. It is not about Iraq or GWB of SH or anything in the news.

I am asking how far you would go to ge tinformation out of someone whom you thought had knowledge that you needed to prevent harm to someone important to you. This would be your girlfriend (or bf) or your family or maybe your country. How far would you go? Ask them? Hold them by the neck? Punch them? Worse?

[dmz]

red wine with fish

[johnq]

Absolutely whatever it takes.

But then, I'm a single human being, prone to succumbing to pressure and giving in to raw emotions. As we all are.

A country as a whole, however, is supposed to behave better than any given individual might in crisis.

The U.S. specifically was designed to be safe from the volatile rage of the mobs in the streets. It is supposed to have a balance of power and safeguards to assure that reason and fairness and responsible use of power are the motivations for it's behavior. Not greed, fear, vengeance and imperialism.

Our present government is a failure, since it is just a walking case of rage and retribution and intimidation. We are exactly as bad as our enemies and even worse because we are hypocrites.

So yes, I would torture. Unfortunately, so will my country.

When occasions present themselves, in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests, to withstand the temporary delusion, in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection. Instances might be cited in which a conduct of this kind has saved the people from very fatal consequences of their own mistakes, and has procured lasting monuments of their gratitude to the men who had courage and magnanimity enough to serve them at the peril of their displeasure. - The Federalist Papers : No. 71

[Common Man]

johnq I had hoped to not have yet another thread about the US gov

[Anders]

I have never been in such a situation so I don´t know. We all have free will to do whatever we want and every action we take will be evaluated by our own moral codex. There can be reasons for people to torture others, none of which legitimate and everybody conducting it must face the consequences of his or hers actions. There is, however, no reason for planning or ordering torture.

[hardeeharhar]

I would do nothing that would result in physical harm to another individual. Psychological torture is a part of every day life.

[johnq]

Originally posted by Common Man
johnq I had hoped to not have yet another thread about the US gov

I didn't mention specifics. And my point is, yes, any individual might torture, but their government ought not. Be it China, Thailand, UK, US...

I mention the US merely because 1. it has a history of being designed to safeguard personal liberties (if only in theory) and 2. that I am American. Were I Chinese I'd have easily ended my post with "So yes, I would torture. Unfortunately, so will my country." all the same...it is only poignant that one doesn't (until lately) expect torture from the US and does from China.

[midwinter]

http://homepage.mac.com/scottrogers_/tt12.jpg

The comfy chair!

[midwinter]

Originally posted by hardeeharhar
Psychological torture is a part of every day life.

Who are you, Nietzche?

[BRussell]

Most psychologists believe that most ordinary people would torture others under the right circumstances. For what it's worth, here's a review (http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:kd6-29CjgQAJ:psychoanalystsopposewar.org/resources_files/Why_Ordinarty_People_Torture_Enemy_Prisoners_Fiske .pdf) (html conversion of a pdf file).

[segovius]

There are no circumstances where it could ever be necessary - drugs, hypnosis, deprivation of food, prolonged exposure to Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Requiem" - and many other methods of gleaning information would be ok imo (and more effective) but physical torture, no.

Actual physical violence in an information gathering context is always fuelled by a degree of underlying hate/sadism imo.

There are many more effective psychological approaches, the use of torture is always a failure of imagination and an indicator of intellectual incapacity - perhaps even an admission of defeat, certainly inhumanity.

[midwinter]

Originally posted by BRussell
...

Don't forget the famous Milgram prison experiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment)

[johnq]

Originally posted by segovius
There are no circumstances where it could ever be necessary

You're being too sensible. We're talking about humans under intense pressure (if only self-induced or myopic) who's emotions are all consuming.

Sure, me and you right now would never torture. I don't even kill bugs unless they really piss me off. ;)

[BRussell]

Originally posted by midwinter
Don't forget the famous Milgram prison experiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment) Yeah that's really the foundation of that belief. I know for sure that at least 400 people see film clips of it every fall in my Intro Psyc class. :)

[johnq]

Originally posted by hardeeharhar
Psychological torture is a part of every day life.

Philip Glass, for example.

[Gon]

The baseline is, of course, that I ask the person and/or offer them something for the information. That is what I will do in any case.

Then the question becomes much more difficult. Does the person sitting in front of me just happen to know something important, or is he a part of the threat against me or my loved ones?

I agree with johnq that it is not the business of a state to do torture no matter what.

[dmz]

Originally posted by johnq
Philip Glass, for example.

My thougths exactly. Repeated viewings of Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110857/) may also prove invaluable.

[Gon]

Originally posted by segovius
There are no circumstances where it could ever be necessary - drugs, hypnosis, deprivation of food, prolonged exposure to Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Requiem" - and many other methods of gleaning information would be ok imo (and more effective) but physical torture, no.

Actual physical violence in an information gathering context is always fuelled by a degree of underlying hate/sadism imo.

There are many more effective psychological approaches, the use of torture is always a failure of imagination and an indicator of intellectual incapacity - perhaps even an admission of defeat, certainly inhumanity. The techniques you describe are mostly complicated, requiring interrogation know-how, physical resources and time to work. I don't know first thing about interrogation, but physical torture would at least give me a chance of immediate results, which are not available by any of the methods you specifically mention.

It's still a form of interrogation, so it's not enough to physically have a hold of the person, you must also have the capability to assess and verify the answers given to establish a sufficient level of confidence in the results, otherwise everything you do is useless.

In tight time and resource constraints torture can well be the most effective method of interrogation. You have to use arguments other than effectiveness to rule it out.

[Gon]

Originally posted by johnq
You're being too sensible. We're talking about humans under intense pressure (if only self-induced or myopic) who's emotions are all consuming.In fact torture as well as other kinds of interrogation are less effective if the interrogator is under intense emotion. More than anything else he needs clear judgment to determine from the answers which ones are true, what else he needs to ask to uncover all significant detail, and what will best move the subject to tell the truth. The farther removed you are from that judgment the less business you have conducting an interrogation.

[groverat]

This is an absolutely impossible question to answer.

[dmz]

.....perhaps serving Guinness in a frosted mug?

[BRussell]

Originally posted by Gon
In tight time and resource constraints torture can well be the most effective method of interrogation. You have to use arguments other than effectiveness to rule it out. Do you have any evidence for that assertion? Everything I've read suggests that people will say whatever it takes to avoid pain, and so no information elicited under torture can be trusted. I mean, police frequently get false confessions just from hard stares - I don't see how you could trust interrogation under torture. You have to give an innocent or unknowledgeable person a chance to honestly say "I don't know."

[Aries 1B]

I would get the information.

Aries 1B

[New]

Originally posted by Anders
I have never been in such a situation so I don´t know. We all have free will to do whatever we want and every action we take will be evaluated by our own moral codex. There can be reasons for people to torture others, none of which legitimate and everybody conducting it must face the consequences of his or hers actions. There is, however, no reason for planning or ordering torture.

I think you're nailing the point here Anders.

One thing is what circumstances could make you do, quite another is to make it part of your philosophy...

[groverat]

Originally posted by BRussell
Do you have any evidence for that assertion?

Action movies.

[Harald]

Originally posted by Gon
In tight time and resource constraints torture can well be the most effective method of interrogation. You have to use arguments other than effectiveness to rule it out.

No. Torture does not work.

In addition, in your next post you point out that torture is ... uh ... best used if the torturer is not clouded by emotion. That's certainly right. The torturer has to dehumanise both himself and the victim in order to do something that healthy human beings find impossible.

You ignore any of the moral implications of this. You find it rational to slip into a mode of thinking used by the worst people the planet has seen. Just thought I'd point that out.

If you use torture, you've lost. You're the bad guys. You deserve to lose. God is not on your side. You're the apartheid regime, the Stalinists.

Oh, and torture doesn't work.

[Gon]

Originally posted by BRussell
Do you have any evidence for that assertion? Everything I've read suggests that people will say whatever it takes to avoid pain, and so no information elicited under torture can be trusted. I mean, police frequently get false confessions just from hard stares - I don't see how you could trust interrogation under torture.Alright, check out what I wrote in the earlier post:
"It's still a form of interrogation, so it's not enough to physically have a hold of the person, you must also have the capability to assess and verify the answers given to establish a sufficient level of confidence in the results, otherwise everything you do is useless."

So the point is you don't trust anything. You check. Obviously it's a good idea to only ask questions whose answers you can verify, e.g. "Where is the bomb?". An useless question would be, for example, "Did you plant a bomb?"You have to give an innocent or unknowledgeable person a chance to honestly say "I don't know."Objectively speaking, no, you don't have to. It's a decision. I am only talking about the objective effectiveness of this particular interrogation technique, not morals, not rights, not "what should be done".

[Gon]

Originally posted by Harald
In addition, in your next post you point out that torture is ... uh ... best used if the torturer is not clouded by emotion. That's certainly right. The torturer has to dehumanise both himself and the victim in order to do something that healthy human beings find impossible.Yes.You ignore any of the moral implications of this.Yes, you hit the nail on the head here. I am not talking about the moral implications at all.You find it rational to slip into a mode of thinking used by the worst people the planet has seen. Just thought I'd point that out.But here you contradict yourself, and are wrong. You draw deductions of my morals and philosophy from where you just said I didn't show any.Oh, and torture doesn't work.You don't make any argument to further this point of view, whereas I have explained why the contrary is true.

[dmz]

jello shots?

[THT]

In the right situation I would, though I hope I would not. Right meaning circumstance, not moral correctness. However, why torture when you can use a drug regimen?

Heck, in the right situation, I could murder, be a cannibal (no verb for this?), and commit any other ultra-taboo out there. In the right situation.

[BRussell]

Originally posted by Gon
Objectively speaking, no, you don't have to. It's a decision. I am only talking about the objective effectiveness of this particular interrogation technique, not morals, not rights, not "what should be done". I actually was talking there about effectiveness rather than morality. I'm saying that in order to be effective at eliciting useful information, you'd have to give a person a chance to honestly say "I don't know." Otherwise no information you'd get could be useful. Torture seems to preclude that.

[Powerdoc]

I don't have the answer to this question, and I don't wish to anybody here that they will face this situation.

You should ask also, if will kill somebody coldly (not an innocent) to save the live of a beloved one. This is also a question that I can't answer.

There is certain aspects of my personnality that I don't want to test. And this question are belonging to this group.

[Harald]

Originally posted by Gon
You don't make any argument to further this point of view, [inefficacity of torture] whereas I have explained why the contrary is true.

Gon, your government's official line on torture is that it does not work. You are aware of that, aren't you?

[Gon]

Originally posted by Harald
Gon, your government's official line on torture is that it does not work. You are aware of that, aren't you? Yes, and I don't know of a single instance where my government would have ever used torture. What about it? Like Common Man, I'd like to keep this thread idea centric and not state centric.

[Harald]

Originally posted by Gon
I don't know of a single instance where my government would have ever used torture.

Riiiiiiiight.

You know what? Forget it.

[Gon]

Originally posted by BRussell
I actually was talking there about effectiveness rather than morality. I'm saying that in order to be effective at eliciting useful information, you'd have to give a person a chance to honestly say "I don't know." Otherwise no information you'd get could be useful. Torture seems to preclude that. It's obvious if you are interrogating a wrong person, you won't get anything out of him, except a good probability that he was not the one you were looking for.

But if you have, say, five people, and you know that one of them has the information, it is possible to interrogate them all. One will eventually tell you what you want to know. What the others say won't check out because they don't know anything. It takes more effort, but the fact is you get the information just as surely this way.

[Gon]

Originally posted by Harald
Riiiiiiiight.I see you made an assumption about where I live and got it wrong, tried to go beside the point of the thread, then went sarcastic when I answered (I think) rather matter-of-factly and politely. Real commendable way to discuss things on the forums.

[dmz]

No Cufflinks (http://www.cufflinks.com/) for a month --drives 'em crazy.

[atomic_angel]

One intriguing thing about the "individuals might" but "governments shouldn't" line of thinking is...what do you think that governments are made up of? Let's be clear about something governments never do anything. People do. Period. (BTW, this same reasoning applies to "corporations".)

Governments are not animate beings like people. They have no real will (and certainly no conscience). They really have no ability to "do" anything. In a sense it is only an organized (somewhat), efficient (well...maybe), mob. The only way a government (or corporation) can "do" anything is by the willing compliance of its people.

[thuh Freak]

Originally posted by atomic_angel
One intriguing thing about the "individuals might" but "governments shouldn't" line of thinking is...what do you think that governments are made up of? Let's be clear about something governments never do anything. People do. Period. (BTW, this same reasoning applies to "corporations".)

Governments are not animate beings like people. They have no real will (and certainly no conscience). They really have no ability to "do" anything. In a sense it is only an organized (somewhat), efficient (well...maybe), mob. The only way a government (or corporation) can "do" anything is by the willing compliance of its people.

not entirely true. i believe my very own government recently committed acts of torture, without my assent.

i believe that torture is completely ineffective as a means of getting information out of a person. if i were really pissed off, i would hurt a person; i wouldn't delude myself into thinking that would increase the veracity of their information though. it would be an act of malice.

[atomic_angel]

Originally posted by thuh Freak
not entirely true. i believe my very own government recently committed acts of torture, without my assent.

Actually, that can't really be true. Some people either within your government or in some way representing your government committed acts of torture. It was the people that committed the acts. This is (perhaps) a subtle (I don't think it is actually that subtle) but very important distinction. And, no, this isn't and argument of semantics.

[BRussell]

Originally posted by atomic_angel
Actually, that can't really be true. Some people either within your government or in some way representing your government committed acts of torture. It was the people that committed the acts. This is (perhaps) a subtle (I don't think it is actually that subtle) but very important distinction. And, no, this isn't and argument of semantics. By this logic, government never does anything. Or maybe I'm reading you wrong. At one point does the government do something, and at what point is it individual people doing things? Members of our government explicitly and through written memos condoned torture. One of them was just promoted to Attorney General. How can that not be government? Sure, it's not the government doing it per se if people go against the rules of the government. But what if members of the government write the rules, those rules are officially accepted, and then those rules are carried out?

[midwinter]

I think he's (?) paraphrasing Thoreau from "Civil Disobedience."

[atomic_angel]

Originally posted by midwinter
I think he's (?) paraphrasing Thoreau from "Civil Disobedience."

I wish I could admit to being so well read. I cannot.

[midwinter]

Originally posted by atomic_angel
I wish I could admit to being so well read. I cannot.

Originally written by Hank Thoreau
This American government--what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves. But it is not the less necessary for this; for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have. Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed upon, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage. It is excellent, we must all allow. Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way. For government is an expedient, by which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone; and, as has been said, when it is most expedient, the governed are most let alone by it. Trade and commerce, if they were not made of india-rubber, would never manage to bounce over obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way; and if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievious persons who put obstructions on the railroads.

Same idea, I think.

[atomic_angel]

Originally posted by BRussell
By this logic, government never does anything. Or maybe I'm reading you wrong.

Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying. You're not reading me wrong.

Originally posted by BRussell
At one point does the government do something, and at what point is it individual people doing things?

It is always individuals doing things. That's my point.

Originally posted by BRussell
Members of our government explicitly and through written memos condoned torture.

Yes, sadly they do.

Originally posted by BRussell
How can that not be government?

Because "government" is really just a concept. A name we give to the structure and processes that people use to execute a society.

Originally posted by BRussell
But what if members of the government write the rules, those rules are officially accepted, and then those rules are carried out?

The whole point is that it is individual people all along the way.

The reason this is important (and not merely and academic point) is that it should affect our view of the situations we are confronted with. These are moral choices that individual people are making along the way. At any point in the process, one individual can choose to not commit acts of torture (or even, going further, expose those that do). This gets to the moral choices of individuals, and we must never allow the excuses of "groupthink" or "mob mentality" or "the government made me do it" to excuse individual immoral behavior.

By saying it is "the government" we are somehow de-personalizing the actions and even excusing individual behavior. We are letting the individuals off the hook (in a way). Every person has the opportunity to make their own choices about the actions they will take (I am excluding those not of sound mind for this discussion). They can, for example, choose whether or not to follow the "recommendations" (or orders) given by other persons to perpetrate acts of torture.

[johnq]

Originally posted by atomic_angel
By saying it is "the government" we are somehow de-personalizing the actions and even excusing individual behavior. We are letting the individuals off the hook (in a way). Every person has the opportunity to make their own choices about the actions they will take (I am excluding those not of sound mind for this discussion). They can, for example, choose whether or not to follow the "recommendations" (or orders) given by other persons to perpetrate acts of torture.

:no: That would be true if we are talking about a random selection of individuals, but the government agencies specifically weed out those that would not follow orders blindly and they train out and stamp out any remnants of individuality that might cause interference.

On top of that, at national security levels, in the field, you do as told or die or at least get taken away for a long time where no one knows where you are.

[atomic_angel]

Originally posted by johnq
:no: That would be true if we are talking about a random selection of individuals, but the government agencies specifically weed out those that would not follow orders blindly and they train out and stamp out any remnants of individuality that might cause interference.

One could make the argument here that these people are no longer of "sound mind".

Originally posted by johnq
On top of that, at national security levels, in the field, you do as told or die or at least get taken away for a long time where no one knows where you are.

But there is still a choice now isn't there. I never said that the choices are without consequences...even bad ones. So, yes, people are sometimes (often?) faced with making the correct moral choice and suffering a bad consequence (at the hands of others that are making wrong moral choices).

[the cool gut]

Originally posted by Harald

Oh, and torture doesn't work.

Not if it's done correctly. Torturing is an art form. You don't just walk into a room and start disassembling someones body until they talk. You have to take into consideration their religion, age, sex, personality, and lifestyle.

[johnq]

Originally posted by the cool gut
Not if it's done correctly. Torturing is an art form. You don't just walk into a room and start disassembling someones body until they talk. You have to take into consideration their religion, age, sex, personality, and lifestyle.

You have to take into consideration their religion, age, sex, personality, and lifestyle...then start disassembling their body until they talk.