Sorry to disagree, but your position , Mad, appears to be a rejection of consequentionalist ethics. IMO outcomes matter. They are not the only things that matter, but sometimes they matter a lot. I am not aware of anyone who has ever tried to justify torture as good in and of itself. It's always justified as a necessary evil. Any argument that torture is effective would make its use more ethical, and any argument that undermines its effectiveness also undermines it ethically.
Is that cake frosting?
It'd probably destroy me as a person to have done it, but it would an acceptable sacrifice.
And yeah, that would destroy me as a person; but I simply cannot be allowed to do evil in the pursuit of good. Not ever.
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
Lost in Space
"If I have to save a truckload of women from sex slavery by torturing a mafioso, I'd do it in a heartbeat."
This type of question also sets up the choice as an all-or-nothing proposition: torture the guy or the women are permanently and forever lost to society. 99.999 percent of the time, the situation is not that black and white.
Much of this glorification of torture as a means of getting "emergency OMG last second information" is, I think, pushed on us by Hollywood. Jack Bauer, John Clark, and similar fictional heroes can get away with it because the writers have declared that they will. Real life is not like that. There is almost always a third option.
edited 15th Oct '12 9:47:35 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
And yeah, that would destroy me as a person; but I simply cannot be allowed to do evil in the pursuit of good. Not ever.
That's ignoring the fact that doing nothing to stop an evil when you have the power to is still an evil.
So either way, you're committing evil in pursuit of good. The question is which is the greater or most immediate good.
That's fine. But that also means 00.001% of the time it is black and white.
And I agree with that. But it's, again, logically unsound to say that it could never happen just because hollywood isn't realistic.
"Almost." A third option is limited by three things: time, ability, and knowledge. A third option that you do not have time to find, do not have the ability to use, or are even aware exists is not an actual option.
edited 15th Oct '12 10:03:03 AM by KingZeal
Is that cake frosting?
And conversely, just because something stops an evil it does not mean that it is good: just to make a ridiculous example, going Omnicidal Maniac and succeeding would certainly rid all universe of all suffering forever, but not many people would say that that is a good action 
edited 15th Oct '12 10:13:07 AM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
Okay, why? Let's beg the question and assume that torturing this guy for information will allow you to save 23 women from being shipped off to become sex slaves.
Why is not torturing this one guy worth the freedom of those women?
Again, that's a net-positive vs. net-negative viewpoint. No one would call the End of the World inherently good just like pain is not inherently good. Pain can have good effects (self-preservation, masochism) but that doesn't make it inherently good.
Zzzzzzzzzz
By the way, Zeal, " I didn't say that" is precisely what "unstated" means.
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
How is bringing the weight of "evil" vs. "evil" not arguing ethics?
"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur
Mad: Still extremely loaded language, because not only did I not say it, but I didn't imply it as you suggest I did.
Is that cake frosting?
But my duty is not to make some sort of balance of the "global evil" of the universe and work to reduce it as much as possible; my duty is, more simply, to commit good and not to commit evil. If I could save these women through non-evil means, I would do that; but if I cannot, I must leave these women to their fates (and hope that someone else can succeed through more ethical means).
It seems to me —correct me if I am wrong — that you are arguing from essentially an utilitarian standpoint: from your point of view, not torturing that guy and leaving the women to their doom is the same as giving people to sex slavers in order to save that guy. It balances the same, and the latter is obviously unacceptable, on this we both agree; so the former must also be unacceptable, and I have a moral duty to torture the guy.
From my point of view, on the other hand, the two situations are different. I would not give people to sex slavers in order to save a guy from torture: that would be doing an evil in order to pursue a good, and it is unacceptable. But I would not torture a guy in order to save people from sex slaves: that would also be doing an evil in order to do a good, and it would also be unacceptable.
edited 15th Oct '12 10:37:15 AM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
No, I'm not arguing about any sort of moral duty. You're the one doing that, honestly.
Your argument is that you're not "allowed" to commit an evil to stop an evil, but under these circumstances, you're still doing that. This scenario is a lose-lose situation which, in my opinion, would come down to an individual's personal judgment call. Just to be clear, I don't think making a hospital Powered by a Forsaken Child is inherently more ethical than letting every patient in the hospital die.
But I am very much against the idea that letting a number of people suffer when it could have been prevented by torturing someone who was complicit in the act to be some sort of moral high ground. In my opinion, being "good" and doing the right thing means being willing to put your own morals under a microscope and maybe do something that makes you feel uncomfortable every now and again.
If I did have to torture someone to get information, as I said, it'd probably rip me apart. I would do everything in my power to avoid that situation in the future. However, putting my own moral compulsions above a number of innocents who will likely suffer for the rest of their lives? No. I cannot do that.
My problem with this is that it justifies evil acts so long as your hands did not get dirty. So long as you (just to be clear: I mean the "theoretical 'you'") did not do an evil action, and were at best neutral, then it's not your fault.
As stated before, this ignores that there are two types of moral evils: inherent evils (things which are wrong no matter what) and relative evils (things which are wrong by virtue of real consequences). Which one is "better" than another is up to individuals or circumstances, but it can't be ignored that either exists.
edited 15th Oct '12 11:23:34 AM by KingZeal
Is that cake frosting?
I cannot "get my hands dirty", as you say; and this no matter the consequences. If I can make a neutral action and help others, I must do so; but if the only way in which I can help others is by committing an "inherent evil", to use your terminology, I cannot.
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
This is not a "greater good". It's a tangible result. One person (responsible for the situation) suffering briefly vs several people suffering for the rest of their lives. The situation I described is not the same as someone deciding genocide will somehow improve the world. The only thing worse to me is abusing ambiguous "greater good" to commit evil is ignoring a concrete good by virtue of a slippery slope.
But this isn't an inherent evil, because it will result in an unambiguously positive result (saving 23 lives).
edited 15th Oct '12 11:51:08 AM by KingZeal
This topic is NOT about replacing ordinary interrogation techniques with torture. It's about if torture, on TOP of those options (such as a last resort) is more ethical if reliable information can be extracted from it.
I thought I answered that.
It already does provide reliable information, sometimes. As a last resort, you would use it even if there's a chance it doesn't work, because you hope that it does. Your scenario would make torture more effective, but I'm skeptical about it being more ethical.
IMO, I think this topic mostly reduces to simply "Can torture be ethically justified?" It's understandable if you feel that that's the case.
There's a legal difference between "justified", "exculpated" and "excused". It's designed to distinguish between actions which are undesirable but understandable in context, actions for which the person is in no way responsible, and actions which aperson is given a free pass to do when it's morally unacceptable. Even in the scenario I proposed (sex slavery v. torture), I don't think torture is desirable even if it is understandable in context.
Again, my entire point to this topic is to play a Devil's Advocate to prevent this topic descending into a "torture is bad" echo chamber. That does not mean I'm not going to point out what I see as sound logical arguments when they arise. And there have been a few.
There just isn't much more of a direction this thread can go in.
"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur
Well, let's go back to your example:
"Let's beg the question and assume that torturing this guy for information will allow you to save 23 women from being shipped off to become sex slaves.
Why is not torturing this one guy worth the freedom of those women?"
If you do think it's worth it, why does it have to rely on the premise that "this torture is 100% effective"? Why not 50% chance? I'd say 50% chance is a fair estimate for realistic torture.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I really have no argument to that.
Is that cake frosting?
If something is evil — and torturing a person is definitely so — I cannot do it. It's that simple. My actions can only choose whether a person will or will not be tortured; they cannot choose whether some other people will or will not suffer as a consequence of that person not confessing. No matter my motivation, I have no right to torture that person, just as that person — no matter their motivation — has no right to exploit other people in that way.
I may be wrong; but I think that the world would be a nicer place if people remembered that.
edited 15th Oct '12 12:42:32 PM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
Exactly. Comparing wrongs, and being willing to commit "lesser" wrongs to fix "greater" wrongs, doesn't stop them both being wrong.
And, when it's something like torture that has alternatives that aren't ethically bankrupt, why go for broke, anyway?
This discussion is losing its topic. King Zeal's topic here is asking if "If torture is 100% reliable, then it would not be wrong" is a correct reasoning. That's actually the same as asking, "The argument that torture is wrong because it's not a reliable source of information" is a correct reasoning. This is the anti-torture argument the OP mentioned.
Most posts here are simply debating about torture and not quite hitting this premise. The common response is that despite the possible gains, torture is inhumane and shouldn't be done. But this seems to show that "torture is wrong because it's ineffective" is just a side argument after all, and not the primary reason for being against torture.
Furthermore, the title is "Would Reliable Truth Detection Make Torture More Ethical", while the OP asks "Does this mean that torture is [more practical]?". That branches the topic in two paths.
@King Zeal
To be fair, if one is using a utilitarian argument, one could adjust it by weighing the probabilities of outcomes, and using the "average value" (formally, the expected value). So a 50/50 chance of "saving 23 women by torturing one guy" vs "putting 24 people in misery" (the one guy included) would amount to a net value that weighs less than a 100% "saving 23 women by torturing one guy". But I don't know, that might be a rather convoluted approach to ethical theory.
edited 15th Oct '12 12:54:18 PM by Trivialis
But my point has always been that inflicting acute and/or sustained physical or psychological harm on another in cold blood to gain information is ethically unsound, however you slice it.
The accuracy of the information gained is immaterial.
I've also been trying to highlight the fact that it really isn't as pragmatic a tool as some think, even with accuracy taken off the table, as it has repercussions beyond the immediate.
edited 15th Oct '12 1:02:02 PM by Euodiachloris
Which means "torture is wrong because it's not a reliable source of information" is not a correct reasoning either.
<blinks> And? <shakes head, trying to clear it> The past few posts haven't been focused on accuracy... so I'm not following you... <confused>
No it isn't. I never said any such thing or implied any such thing.
In fact, I flat out said in a later post that torture used as fear, intimidation, or other factors would not be affected by this at all.
Never said that either.
Yes, unless the questions were inept. Though I should have also added "or malicious".
I also said "next to" impossible, and in the very next post, I said that it would also make it nigh-impossible to refute a false claim for the exact same reasons.
Yes it does. You can argue that torture is wrong for a large number of reasons up to and including that it's inherently malicious. However, if it's NOT inherently malicious and used to serve a purpose, that changes the ethics considerably.
There are two types of ethical wrongs: relative wrongs (the worse course of action) and inherent wrongs (courses of action which have no positive outcome no matter what).
For the last goddamn time, no I'm not.
I've been pointing out several posts in which people have given very good reasons why it would still be "wrong" even if it provided reliable information. However, I am also coming down on any arguments which are simply logical fallacies. Because this is such an evil subject, it's important that arguments against it are based on empirical evidence and logical arguments.
What if the enemy got a hold of this technology and used it against our people?
THIS. This is exactly why I brought this topic up. As our reliance upon technology increases exponentially, so too comes questions about humanity and ethics. These are questions I'm asking NOW, before they arise.
edited 15th Oct '12 9:12:32 AM by KingZeal