Is This Torture

[jeffpugh]

Cathoholic, you've been saying a lot of good stuff throughout this thread. I commend you on this last post because it is the culmination of everything you've said. I think it's very clear that torture can't be used. Logically and morally it's out of the question.

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]I don't think that torture can fall under the just war theory at all, as the conditions of open warfare are very different from the conditions of a prison where torture takes place.[/quote]

i don't think you've explained this enough.

but, i think the proper response to this, and the debate about torture has been debated sufficiently in my poll thread.

it's not unreasonable to hold either view. it's not illogical for either side of the debate. it's an inherent value judgment. it's not a value judgment that can be fixed by logic, as many judgments can be. eg the sun is blue can be defeated. that is not this situation at all.

[kenrockthefirst]

Look, here's the deal. It's like going into a restaurant, looking at the menu and asking, "Can I afford this?" If you have to ask the question, you can't afford it.

It's the same with torture. If you have to ask, "Is this torture," and, "Can I justify it," it's torture and you can't justify it.

[Pleural]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1411474' date='Oct 30 2007, 09:14 AM']there is one person who apparently is against it.

but, i bet most would said this stuff is torture are only defining it as torture techincally, not as per what's allowable etc. and tehy probably are for more intense sorts of torture.

i think it's crazy to not intensely torture them. frankly, i'd use hard core torture too. these are terrorists, [b]presumably[/b]. some misktakes will be made yes.
we're not against killing them. why not torture? i know it's worse to some people, and probaly most depending on the situatino. but, if it gets info, doing something worse than killing is warranted.

i find it immoral to not torture them.[/quote]

[dstrycula]

A.M.D.G.
[quote]It's not about preserving a terrorist's comfort - it's about preserving his dignity and the integrity of the captor. Even terrorists deserve dignity, because they are humans first and terrorists second. Saying this is not being 'nice'. It couldn't be further from 'nice'. It's extremely difficult to accept that a hate-filled murderer is sacred by virtue of his being alive. But God calls us to accept this, and so I don't see how anybody could degrade or violate another person through torture and call it just. For the captors to become desensitized to such actions they would have to learn to distance themselves from their prisoners, probably through coming to regard them as subhuman. It goes against human nature to ask people to hurt other people in that way. Spiritually and psychologically, the captors could suffer more than the victims in later years. That has got to be considered.

Anything that induces fear can cause permanent psychological damage, which is why abuse victims often suffer from flashbacks or nightmares that interfere with their lives even after the abuse is over. Waterboarding could easily come under that category. The physical dangers of being prevented from using the toilet are probably greater than the psychological ones (ruptured bladder, urine poisoning, etc.) As for the other things - rubbing bacon over the person's body, etc. - they aren't torture, but bullying, and petty and pointless bullying at that.

I don't think that torture can fall under the just war theory at all, as the conditions of open warfare are very different from the conditions of a prison where torture takes place. Supposing that we try to apply the theory to torture anyway, two criteria prevent its inclusion: probability of success and proportionality. Torture is not a failsafe method of extracting information, especially where terrorism is concerned. For one thing, it's not easy to identify terrorists - they wear no uniform and are organised into small cells that operate fairly independently. It's not easy to determine the amount of knowledge that an individual terrorist might have, precisely because of the loose organisational structure of terrorist groups. Torture in these cirumstances is always going to be indiscriminate, a shot in the dark, and when you consider that most people will try to placate the torturer by giving them the information that they want to hear (regardless of its truth) it's not very effective either.

Secondly, the damage to be inflicted must be proportionate to the good expected by fighting. This presents the greatest ethical dilemma. Even the body of a terrorist is God's temple. Can anything good come out of desecrating it? In the current 'war on terror' we are fighting against people who have no concept of the sanctity of life. Committing acts of torture requires indifference or hatred, so by getting our soldiers or security personnel to carry out torture we are asking them to become just like the people they're supposed to be fighting. On a practical level it's ineffective. On a moral level it's brutal.[/quote]
I'm 100% with you. Torture is impractical and immoral.

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='kenrockthefirst' post='1415400' date='Nov 6 2007, 01:10 PM']Look, here's the deal. It's like going into a restaurant, looking at the menu and asking, "Can I afford this?" If you have to ask the question, you can't afford it.

It's the same with torture. If you have to ask, "Is this torture," and, "Can I justify it," it's torture and you can't justify it.[/quote]
Nails on a chalkboard drive me crazy< does that qualify as torture?

[kenrockthefirst]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' post='1419715' date='Nov 15 2007, 08:48 AM']Nails on a chalkboard drive me crazy< does that qualify as torture?[/quote]
Torture = degrading, cruel, and inhuman treatment.

Bottom line: if you wouldn't want it done to you, if you don't want it done to our service personnel, don't do it yourself.

[dairygirl4u2c]

we don't want people dying on our side either. does that mean we shouldn't shoot them during a just war? no, it does not.

i'm just pointing out that's a weak argument. you have better arguments than that i am aware.

[jeffpugh]

Dairy, it's irrelevant. War =/ torture. both sides consent to fight. The prisoner in the torture room is not able to retaliate, but sit and take degrading actions toward him/her.

[kenrockthefirst]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1419770' date='Nov 15 2007, 12:30 PM']we don't want people dying on our side either. does that mean we shouldn't shoot them during a just war? no, it does not.

i'm just pointing out that's a weak argument. you have better arguments than that i am aware.[/quote]
We've been over this. Subjecting an individual [i]over whom you have total control[/i] to degrading, cruel, or inhuman treatment is not in any way, shape or form comparable to one soldier shooting another soldier in pitched battle.

Obviously, you are entitled to your opinion. From a Catholic perspective, as has been pointed out by other posters on this topic with reference to the Catechism, torture is never justifiable, period, end of story.

[dairygirl4u2c]

both sides don't consent to fight. the islamo fascists foist it upon us. it's a twisted form of consent at best.

they are not the same. but they're more the same than they are different, killing v torture. IMHO

[jeffpugh]

What is torture is the fact that this thread is still around.

[MIKolbe]

[img]http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n129/corsetti3/tom.jpg[/img]

[dairygirl4u2c]

what about execution? are there people out there who are for execution but not for torture? (excluding when execution is next to necessary to prevent added chaos, i'm referring only to execution for its own sake because they were bad guys)

execution has the quality of killing someone who is no longer an active aggressor. in that sense, they are bound and in the same situation, essentially, as a terrorist.

i would like people to say what their views are on this post.

[Aloysius]

As I said on your post in Open Mic:

execution, in traditional Catholic teaching, is considered a just punishment that completes the action of one who has committed grave crimes, satisfying temporal justice and sending him to final justice.

torture is using a human person as a means to an end, which is always considered immoral according to Catholic teaching. people are ends in themselves, not means, anything which uses a person as a means to an end is immoral. This is why the pro-death-penalty arguments that center around using the death penalty as a deterant should be avoided like the plague by a Catholic; if you're going to support the death penalty as a Catholic, you should do so because the individual deserves death and it is the completed act of justice, not because that person's death will further some other agenda you have for society; that may be a secondary reason, but only if you have established that that person forfeited their right to life and that they deserve death and ought to be given a chance to make peace with God before their act of forfeiture is brought to completion by the state.

torture can never be offered as a punishment; execution is a punishment which sends one to ultimate justice, torture is a temporal act which completes nothing, has no justification in terms of punishment, and if used as a means to some end is certainly not justice.

[dairygirl4u2c]

also dont' forget. the argument is torture only when there's reaonable certitude of impending danger. and as the degree of known harm and intensity goes up, so does the type of torture.

you can't ethically say some random dude is gonna blow up NYC unless you suspect it with evidence etc, just so you can torture him. that would be illegal too in any sensible situation.

mistakes will be made. just as mistakes are made with killing people when there's a war, as occurs in the middle east. that's life. the bottomline with that killing and torture, i guess, is whether the ends justifies the means. (i'm just conceding this much. i can see an argument that the killing isn't justifying htem enas, but i think effectively it is.) i think ends justtifies means.

with that said, i don't see any difference with execution and torture.

Edited November 20, 2007 by dairygirl4u2c

[kenrockthefirst]

[img]http://picayune.uclick.com/comics/trall/2007/trall071112.gif[/img]

[dairygirl4u2c]

you guys can make fun of the situation all you want. and point out that mistakes, and even abuse, would occur.
but don't tell that to the Creator when he asks you, hypothetically speaking, why you just sat back and didn't torutre Osama's top aid when Osama was about to attack. millions dead and suffering v. spineless and mindless principles. yeah that will sit well with God. be realistic. (in my arguably unrealistic hypothetical, but i digress. the point is made)

i'm also still waiting for an explanatino between execution (when it's not an exigent circumstance where they need put down to prevent more probs) and torture. (for those who are all an about execution many time but not torture)
or actually, the deterrent effect of of execution is said to be used to prevent others from doing it, seems to to be justifying the means. the person isn't an active aggressor and is not capable.

the only consistent way to execute would be for those criminals who have decent liklihood to escape. and you know that hardly ever happens.

Edited November 22, 2007 by dairygirl4u2c

[Aloysius]

If the Creator asked me that question (and wow, I must grow up to be Jack Bauer then), I will say "because your Son taught us "what good is it for a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul", because your Son's Church taught us that the ends do not justify the means, even if the ends be saving millions, billions, trillions, or quadrillions of lives (hey, terrorists could attack aliens, right?)

are you not reading my posts? I offered an explanation about execution: execution is an end in itself, it can only be done if it is considered that justice merits execution, not as a means to some end, but because that one individual human person merits it for his punishment. the deterrent effect must be secondary, it can never justify an execution.

torture can never be an end-in-itself punishment, it simply is not justified as a response to any crime. as a means, it's certainly immoral (no matter what the ends); as an end, well, it'd just be sadistic, there'd be no real justice. execution sends one guilty of a grave crime to their final judgment, that is justice if that person had ended a life themself; but even if one's crime was torturing someone, the torture of that person would not complete justice, only his imprisonment (or, theoretically if the crime was grave enough, his execution)

but put simply: execution is a punishment, torture is a means to an end. they are apples and oranges.

[dairygirl4u2c]

sorry al. i missed your last post as you posted it at the same time as one of mine. then i only raed the newest posts.

you made a good point, cause executing someone offers punishment whereas torture often is just a means to get the info. i suppose to an extent it's consistent.

i also can see that perhaps, torture could be seen as an punishment, but if you're also doing it as a means to an end then it's bad. tht is also fairly consistent, if you're only executing with incidental good effects being that it deters others and not purposefully deterring othesr. (cause deterring others would be justifing an end)

you present a sound case. i suppose it comes down to ends justifying the means, whether that's true or not. i think it's BS often times but that's just me.

on an incidental note. if you can execute someone as punishment for punishment's sake, why can't you torture someone as punishment for punishment's sake? at least that way they are still living.

Edited November 24, 2007 by dairygirl4u2c