Torture

[Lil Red]

is torture morally justified in matters of national security? is it morally justified to torture someone for information they might have? why or why not?

[franciscanheart]

I do not believe it moral in any circumstance to tortue an individual. Cruel and unusual punishment is awful.

[Sojourner]

[quote name='hugheyforlife' date='Jan 5 2006, 03:13 PM']I do not believe it moral in any circumstance to tortue an individual. Cruel and unusual punishment is awful.
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Yep

[Matty_boy]

define torture. Some of the things that were defined as "torture" by many lib senators included sleep deprivation, making prisoners stand for 8-10 hours, things like that. Donald Rumsfeld replied with something to the nature of how he stands 10-12 hours at his desk everyday.

[Lil Red]

from answers.com:

tor·ture (tôr'ch?r)
n.
Infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion.
An instrument or a method for inflicting such pain.
Excruciating physical or mental pain; agony: the torture of waiting in suspense.
Something causing severe pain or anguish.

[Era Might]

The Church condemns torture absolutely. There are no exceptions, because torture is a heinous offense against human dignity.

[quote]Furthermore, whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or wilful self-destruction, [b]whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself[/b]; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; [b]all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed. They poison human society, but they do more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are supreme dishonor to the Creator[/b].

--Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution "Gaudium et Spes", #27[/quote]

Edited January 5, 2006 by Era Might

[scardella]

What's the difference between interrogation and torture?

[philothea]

Am I having a flashback of a topic a few months ago?

[Sojourner]

[quote name='philothea' date='Jan 5 2006, 06:26 PM']Am I having a flashback of a topic a few months ago? 
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Yes.

For those interested in more detail about the debate from an evangelical perspective, [url="http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/torture/"]Evangelical Outpost[/url] has an online symposium in which several folks weighed in with papers. Interesting reading.

[philothea]

[quote name='Sojourner' date='Jan 5 2006, 05:16 PM']Yes.
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Seriously, I started scrolling ahead to find my own post.

[Sojourner]

[quote name='philothea' date='Jan 5 2006, 07:38 PM']Seriously, I started scrolling ahead to find my own post.
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I believe it!

I think I started the topic back then.

[Niccolò]

[quote name='Era Might' date='Jan 5 2006, 02:38 PM']The Church condemns torture absolutely. There are no exceptions, because torture is a heinous offense against human dignity.
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[quote][b]torments inflicted on body or mind[/b][/quote]

Would any form of corporal punishment thus be a "heinous offense against human dignity"? I'm just asking, because this section of GS seems to cover a wide range of actions.

[Era Might]

[quote name='Niccolò' date='Jan 6 2006, 01:29 PM']Would any form of corporal punishment thus be a "heinous offense against human dignity"?  I'm just asking, because this section of GS seems to cover a wide range of actions.
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Torture generally is not a punishment (corporal or otherwise). It is an attempt to "coerce the will" and thereby extract information.

John Paul II expanded on the condemnation in Gaudium et Spes:

[quote]The Church and believers cannot remain insensitive and passive, therefore, before the multiplication of denunciations of torture and ill-treatment practiced in various countries on persons arrested interrogated or else put in a state of supervision or confinement. While Constitutions and legislation make room for the principle of the right to defense at all stages of justice, while proposals are put forward to humanize places of detention, it is obvious, nevertheless, that techniques of torture are being perfected to weaken the resistance of prisoners, and that people sometimes do not hesitate to inflict on them irreversible injuries, humiliating for the body and for the spirit. How can one fail to be troubled when one knows that many tormented families send supplications in vain in favour of their dear ones, and that even requests for information pile up without receiving an answer? In the same way we cannot pass over in silence the practice, denounced on so many sides, which consists in putting on the same footing those guilty, or presumed such, of political opposition and persons who need psychiatric treatment, thus adding to their pain another motive, perhaps even harder to bear bitterness.

--Address made to the Diplomatic Corps in 1978[/quote]

[Jaime]

[quote name='philothea' date='Jan 5 2006, 05:26 PM']Am I having a flashback of a topic a few months ago? 
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Didn't you just say that??

[lifescanticle]

[quote name='Lil Red' date='Jan 5 2006, 02:11 PM']is torture morally justified in matters of national security? is it morally justified to torture someone for information they might have? why or why not?
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I do not believe that torture is justified in matters of national security. Yet the tempation would be great if I were certain that the information that I were to obtain would prevent an incident such as the world trade center.
Isn't concipiscence an interesting part of life. :

[Earthsea Annie]

I recently watched "Munich" and was struck by the following line: "Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values."

While I don't doubt this is true, and that such compromises are, at times, necessasry, I do find it odd that some find the need to make the exceptions into the rule. I have far less trouble with the state using torture in exigent circumstances when it feels that it's the best of all possible options (not sure what those circumstances would be, but still) than I do making those circumstances a part of the normal part of "national security."