[debate] is torture good or bad?

[Gadi Evron]

Alan Light wrote:
> Gadi wrote:
> 
> "Torture is a very loaded subject this day and age. "Good" and "bad" are 
> subjective terms. Are we speaking morally? Are we speaking results-wise?"
>  
> We often attempt to separate what is "ethical" from "practical results", 
> yet I am unsure that this is wise.

What are practical results? Something we can live with?

If we can show what we believe to be moral is also practical to DO, all 
the better. However, that is not necessarily the case. Which holds more 
sway is a different matter.

> I am not sure why we make this division.  Perhaps because short term 
> results are often contrary to what we consider ethical, we think that we 
> should separate what is good from what is practical.  It might feel very 
> good if we torture a subject and get an answer we like.  However, if we 
> take the long view, what is good is almost always practical.  We might 
> not feel so good about that answer we got, when we learn that by giving 
> us a half-truth the subject has caused us harm, and that by torturing 
> our victim we have created a thousand new enemies.  We have evolved 
> these good traits precisely because they *are* practical, and have been 
> proven practical for thousands or even millions of years.

While I agree with some statement above, the sum of them do not add up 
to the picture you are showing us.

Short-term results are not equivalent as a concept to practical.

I can agree that depending on situation, matters of principle can be 
more important than matters of pragmatism in decision making.

Unrelated, are you suggesting all traits humans evolved are good because 
they evolved? While they were probably good for something at the time, 
It seems to me that you're on crack.

Aren't there ones which are BAD?
What are they good for today specifically?
Are they good for everybody?
Can't they be bad under certain circumstances?

<snip>

> For the majority, however, theft is not only ethically wrong, it is not 
> practical.  Societies where thievery is common are poorer than those 
> where it is rare.

Fraud in western countries disagreed with your broad assessment.

> Likewise, murder is both unethical and unpractical.  Societies where 
> murder is common are poorer than those where it is not, and everyone is 
> worse off.  There was, apparently, one tribe in Papua New Guinea where 
> betrayal and murder were considered the height of virtue, but it was a 
> very small tribe and the inhabitants lived in constant terror of being 
> betrayed and murdered by the people they thought were their friends.  
> There was very little cooperation between individuals.  That ethic did 
> not carry them far.

How is something being common connected to it being useful?
It might be, but murder as a one-off may serve some nefarious purpose. 
If murder is the rule of a country, naturally this extreme case would be 
a bad example.

> So when we look at the issue of torture and consider separately whether 
> it is ethical and whether it is practical, we are setting up a false 
> dilemma.  The majority of people in thriving societies consider torture 
> unethical in most, if not all, circumstances.  These are the people who 
> are descended from the evolutionary winners of the past, who passed on 
> the trait of being opposed to most, if not all, torture.  Our ethical 
> principles, whether hardwired into our brains or social artifacts, are a 
> practical result of many debates, including the debate over torture.

Actually, these liberal sensitivities are extremely new in humanity, 
they are so new they are actually a part of history.

It is not a false dilemma to consider whether torture is practical, as 
it is a question being asked. Morally we can build a decent argument. 
Scientifically we can't, we are just guessing.

Therefore, we can not claim much practical about torture.

<snip>

> Psychological torture does not provoke the same gut revulsion in most 
> people that physical torture does, but it still produces poor results 
> including lots of false positives and harm - sometimes great harm - to 
> its victims.

You make a lot of claims you can not support here. Non of them, actually 
except that torture could harm people, which brings us back to morality.

>> "    1. Is torture effective? How so?

> 1.  I believe torture is effective in the way that most habitual 
> torturers want it to be, in that they feel better by causing others 
> pain.  In terms of getting good information, many professional 
> interrogators have a total disdain for information obtained via 
> torture.  But then, some professionals swear by it.

Which means we don't know. Next.

>>     2. Does torture hurt interrogations? How so?

> 2.  Torture hurts interrogations in almost all cases, because it 

Unsupported claim.

 >>     3. What interrogation techniques work, and why?

> 3.  Many professionals recommend the relationship-building described above.

Alright. Many apparently also recommend torture as you mentioned. 
Self-fulfilling biases was what you mentioned?

 >>     4. Are non-coercive interrogation techniques less, more or as
 >>       efficient as torture?"

> 4.  Many professionals claim that non-coercive, or mildly coercive, 
> interrogation techniques are most effective - and frankly, given the 
> statements of professionals on both sides of the issue, these guys sound 
> smarter.
>  
>  
> 
> "It makes a case that torture is probably unnecessary and suspected to 
> be counter-productive for interrogation purposes. But this is not shown 
> to be researched."
>  
>  
> And of course, it has not been researched for very good reason:  no one 
> would allow such research to be done because it would violate and harm 
> the research subjects.  That in itself should suggest that such 

Excuse me, research into interrogation techniques is not research into 
torture.

> Judging from the reaction around the world, others were also not 
> convinced.  Remember what I said earlier about an interdependent network 
> of alliances based on trust?  The United States has pretty much ruined 
> their reputation abroad - and Obama looks like he will continue this trend.

Alright, I'll be annoying.

Most of the world once believes it was flat.

I don't support torture, but your assertions show exactly we need to 
separate discussing the moral from the technical. We make guesses about 
the technical based on gut feeling and social proof. That's b/s.


-- 
Gadi Evron,
ge at linuxbox.org.

Blog: http://gevron.livejournal.com/
Security blog: http://gadievron.blogspot.com/