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Comment by chippy | Hacker News Reader

The writer Ian Banks was very much opposed to torture and wrote that even if in some cases it could stop deaths (e.g. torture of terrorist to find the bomb that will save lives), it should still always be illegal. In other words - the torturers will be breaking the law, and should be fully prosecuted, even if they saved lives in the process of the torture.

This is a different way of looking at it than the usual ways of "it's all bad, illegal and should never to be used, ever" or "some forms are less bad and should be legal sometimes" and "only when there are lives saves should it be legal"

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A bunch of people I've met seem to love it for utilitarian reasons. But even if, for the sake of conversation, I grant that it has utility- I still say we shouldn't ever do it.

I'd rather have an america where some people die of terrorism, than one that I feel ashamed of.

To hell with the argument that we need to become evil in order to avert evil.

But you shouldn't grant that it has any utility, as soon as you start torturing a suspect any information they give is uncertain. You'll never know without further research if it's made up to stop the torture or if it's real information. There is already enough uncertainty in the intelligence game without generating even more.

Some information is verifiable. It's useless in a war setting as bad information can be extremely costly, but questions like "Where did you hide the money?" are different as digging is generally a low risk activity.

So, from a utility standpoint, it's far more likely to be useful for the Mob than any government.

I won't grant that it has utility, but that's from my ignorance. It might have utility; I don't know and am not qualified to say.

The argument used matters to me, because if tomorrow it's proven that torture works, I still believe that civilized nations should be against it. If we hinge the argument on its utility, then when we lose that premise we lose the argument.

Is choosing not to save the lives of innocent people because you have religious concerns about the method used to save them not evil?

Parent didn't say anything about religion. Religion does not have a monopoly on basic human decency.

I consider any moral axiom system a religion. If that bothers you, pretend I said "strongly held personal belief" instead.

It might be evil (or better, ethically unjustifiable) in some in ethical frameworks, but it's certainly not in mine. There is not a universally correct ethical framework.

Even within the utilitarian framework (where "the ends might justify the means"), which you seem to be representing, you have to consider all of the "ends". Protecting innocent lives is only one of the considerations.

Most people, if asked in a vacuum, would put protecting innocent life at or near the top of their priority list. I certainly do. But if you think feeling good about yourself is more important, then that is your prerogative. As you say, there is not a universally correct ethical framework.

You're being needlessly combative. This isn't about feeling good about myself.

Of course I put protecting innocent life near the top of the priority list. But that doesn't mean I think it's right (or ever justifiable) to kill the families of suspected terrorists. That doesn't mean I think that Americans should give up the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, and 15th amendments of their Constitution (all of which could be claimed as barriers to "protecting innocent life.").

Nobody's talking about giving up protections unilaterally. We're talking about when they come into conflict with other, also important, values. And you say I'm the one being needlessly combative?

If you don't think "feeling better about yourself" is an accurate summary of the principle that you are placing above protection of innocent life in this hypothetical torture scenario, please word it in a way that you find preferable. Or was that what you were doing when you listed a number of American constitutional amendments?

All you're doing is highlighting the fact that "evil" is a subjective word and everybody applies it slightly differently. And I think that when we have a conversation like this thread has become, all we're really doing is taking a straw poll of other peoples' definitions to see the lay of the land.

So- you get that my definition of evil places actions on the same level as results- and I get that yours doesn't. I'm not sure that we can do anything but agree to disagree.

Well, yes. The point is to convince others that it is possible to agree to disagree on this issue. That's not always a given when one side sees the issue as a moral crusade.

Article 1 of the German constitution is "Human dignity is inviolate". Ie, a human life has inherent value, and threats against it must not be used for any purpose, however "good" those purposes might be on the surface. I think there is a wealth of good that emerges from this one single principle.

IIRC, a German police chief tried to torture a kidnapper to reveal the whereabouts of a child whose life was under threat. The police chief was charged even though the child's life was saved (I may have got the details skewed but I believe the key points are true).

You're referring to this case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_David_Lukas_Olsen (see biography, the german article is much more extensive on the case). You have your details wrong: The vice police chief threatened a suspect kidnapper with torture, but the child was already dead by that time. The police chief was later convicted (though more a slap on the wrist than a real punishment)

Thanks. It was the threat of torture from the police that I remembered.

am I missing something? the article is mostly speaking of CIA not doing it because evidence shows it doesn't work, not because moral, legal or ethical issues.

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