[debate] is torture good or bad?

[Imri Goldberg]

[snip]

> We live in an increasingly interdependent web of alliances, and our
> potential partners do not trust people who use torture routinely, if at
> all.  Those who have a strong anti-torture ethic will eventually succeed in
> such an environment.
>
> So, how exactly do we divide the ethical question from the practical one?
>
> Should we?
>
>

As I understand it, you claim that societies which denied various unethical
activities (for any reason), are better off practically. "Societies where
murder is common are poorer than those where it is not, and everyone is
worse off.".
That might well be true, but it misses something.
It seems obvious that it would be hard for a society to thrive when all its
members are thieves/murderers/etc. However, I can imagine a single thief
living quite well in a city of non-thieves. This is a bit similar to the
doves/hawks example from game theory, where not everyone can be vultures.
(See the (very long) funsec discussion about guns
http://www.mail-archive.com/funsec@linuxbox.org/msg03934.html for example,
there are other possible sources)

Apart from that, from ecology we learn that a given population of herbivores
can only support a given number of hunters. This may be applied here as
well. (As a reference, I give the tongue-in-cheek example of vampires, see
http://www.hphomeview.com/Tips/Vampire%20Ecology%20in%20the%20Jossverse.pdf.
I apologize, but this was the clearest example I could think of
quickly.
).

your point (which was different than what you claimed :) was that unethical
behaviors are a negative survivability trait.
My point:
I disagree. You've just shown that a society of only thieves (or high
percentage) isn't well off. That doesn't mean there isn't a place for a few.

Two final supporting examples:
1. A single crime organization, keeping crime under limits might "grow with
the community", and both may prosper. It might not be fun, but it will work.
2. A community of only/mostly full-time firemen will probably won't survive
as well. Does this show that being a full time firemen is not practical, and
a negative survivability trait? Probably not. It only shows that you passed
the good ratio of firemen/everyone else.


> Measuring by the gut rejection of torture which most healthy people have,
> we should be very wary of using torture.
>

"Measuring by the gut rejection of %s which most health people have, we
should be very wary of using SCIENCE".
Was that a valid point some years ago? Is it today?
Not to say that torture is good, but it seems to me that gut feeling of many
do not remove the need for an independent, valid, argument. :)



>
>
> "Hypothetically, I can condone torture under extreme conditions if it
> actually works, and then when other techniques won't bring results in time.
> But what conditions are extreme and how do we define the relevant
> variables?"
>
>
> I don't know, and I don't think anyone knows.  This is why I would not
> change the laws to allow torture in some cases, but would allow a defendant
> charged with torture to introduce mitigating circumstances.
>
>

I don't think this is a good idea. You set your people (e.g. police,
internal security, etc...) up to fail. You put them in situations where the
expected behavior might be torture, and then have them stand for trial.


> 2.  Torture hurts interrogations in almost all cases, because it produces
> an adversarial relationship with the suspect.  Without such an adversarial
> relationship, some prisoners will brag about their crimes, others are liable
> to want to explain them because very few people want to be considered evil
> by those around them.  Persons who have committed crimes for ideological
> reasons (or frequently, just defended themselves against the unlawful
> impositions of a State) are liable to want to get their message out.  In all
> these cases relationship-building will be far more useful than an
> adversarial relationship.
>

1. OTTOMH, does good cop-bad cop work?
2. Even an ideological bomber who wanted to get his message out would not
necessarily tell you where the bomb is.

Cheers,
Imri

-- 
Imri Goldberg
--------------------------------------
www.algorithm.co.il/blogs/
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