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Comment by ImSkeptical | Hacker News Reader

I think that's a bit extreme and a black and white way of thinking.

For example, suppose you're heading an FBI group, and you've got a suicidal terrorist in custody who is part of a plot to detonate a nuclear bomb in LA. You have excellent evidence this guy is involved, and that the terrorists probably have a nuclear bomb in the country, and, if they realize their coconspirator has been captured, they are likely to detonate immediately.

The terrorist demands to see his lawyer. Your specialists say you should deny that request, because his lawyer may signal, intentionally or otherwise, the other terrorists. Should you allow the terrorist to meet with his lawyer?

Our society's laws say he should be able to see his lawyer. We value that kind of thing. And yet, if you would risk millions of lives to protect this right... Well, that seems perverse to me.

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Real life is not an action movie. Your scenario is totally made up and has probably almost never happened.

I hope my scenario has never happened, but nothing about it is implausible. The point though is to illustrate that there are moments where pragmatism must trump laws and values. If you look, there are many times throughout history where such tradeoffs have been made.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/torture/

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy lists a real life example along the lines of my hypothetical one. In this example, a child is stuck in a hot car that is parked in a spot known only to the in custody car thief who is refusing to talk. The police proceed to beat the thief until he talks and save the child's life. This is straightforward example of when pragmatism must overrule idealism.

Then they should be honest, explain the situation and torture people at home with their own specialists immediately and not fly to them to some country with questionable torturing skills.

I think you're confusing my position, and the contents of my comments, with something else.

I think I understand your position. In the scenario you describe any kind of violence/torture needs to be done quickly to avert the situation. Otherwise it's too late. If the CIA renditions were based on something similar they shouldn't fly people to questionable countries but instead interrogate themselves quickly because times is of essence. Everything else would be irresponsible.

The scenario I'm describing doesn't involve any sort of violence or torture, which again, makes me think you're missing my point or conflating my position with something else.

You mentioned a scenario where police beats a thief. How is that not violence? What's your position? I am really curious.

If you are curious, I suggest you read my comments in this chain.

I did and I think you are advocating violence or torture in certain cases.

In my original example the dilemma was between denying a suspected terrorist the right to consult with a lawyer and risking a nuclear terrorist attack. I gave this as an example of when idealism and pragmatism are in conflict. When you objected that this was unrealistic, I responded by giving a real life example where idealism and pragmatism were in conflict.

The purpose of my example was to create a situation where it should be obvious the right move is to go against idealism. The reason is, if your starting point is something like "We must never deny people their rights" I'd like to show you an extreme example where, actually, we must. If you can agree on the extreme example, then the discussion becomes a matter of degree - i.e. when is it okay to deny people their rights versus when it is not. This is actually the more nuanced and realistic discussion that has applicability to the real world.

Where do you draw the line? If torture is acceptable in some circumstances, why isn't it in others? If torturing a car thief is ok, why not in a random stop-and-frisk?

Lines have to be drawn frequently. It's okay to use a tazer or even a gun in some circumstances, others, not. With the torture case, we'd have to see that the benefit vastly exceeds the harm, and that reasonable measures were exhausted first. Beating a car thief to save the life of a child strikes me as a case where reasonable measures were exhausted and where the benefit vastly exceeds the harm.

That's a great link - thanks. Interesting that two of the examples are from Australia.

(edit: now I notice it was written by an Australian)

Suppose you have one person in custody that hates another and is totaly up for pointing finger at the other person even though they are innocent. Oh yeah, that guy is planning an attack. Of course, we could both stop making things up...

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