Quote:

---

If Torture was 100% effective and swift in producing results, would it be justified to torture in order to obtain information that might save the lives of your countrymen?

---

Quote:

---

I wonder if the defining substance of human beings is not tool-using or language, but rather the ability to choose life and death on the basis of nothing more than an idea?

That someone could override the need to live to serve an idea of liberty, or humane rights? Is that what it means to be human?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by RIPWash:
Are we talkin' medieval torture (pain and pain and more pain) or discomfort (sleep deprivation, waterboarding, hot box, etc)?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello Rip,

That's exactly the dilemna. Thousands of lives on the line. One man's humane rights.

Are we really willing to sacrifice thousands for the dignity of one?

I don't think you're a monster if you think the answer might be 'Yes.'

It's a hard question. I like to think that people like Frem, who answer reflexively, do so because they have spent long hours thinking about it in the past.

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

---

Quote:

---

In my eyes, we'd only be torturing someone guilty of horrific crimes against humanity in the past. This person has, in effect, waived his own humanity in that regard. Again, in my own humble opinion. He doesn't give a good gorram about human life. It is believed he has information about a horrific attack that will take place within a week's time.

---

Quote:

---

Another thing I struggle with is the whole thing about the Geneva Convention. To my understanding, that was set up as a treaty between nations. People wearing the uniform of an army from any nation would be afforded the basic rights of any human being. Food, comfort (to a degree), etc. (that's what I recall, if I'm wrong please enlighten me). The problem today is that the terrorists (insurgents, whatever you want to call them) have no particular national allegiance and wear no particular uniform (more civilian clothes, actually). They do not hold themselves to the Geneva Convention and do unthinkable things to the people they capture.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AnthonyT:

If Torture was 100% effective and swift in producing results, would it be justified to torture in order to obtain information that might save the lives of your countrymen?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by pizmobeach:
Your question would make a good Firefly ep - what if Niska had Kaylee somewhere with a time bomb on her ankle...tic toc... and Mal had Niska, all alone in a room. What would Mal do?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AgentRouka:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by pizmobeach:
Your question would make a good Firefly ep - what if Niska had Kaylee somewhere with a time bomb on her ankle...tic toc... and Mal had Niska, all alone in a room. What would Mal do?

---

Mal kicks handcuffed people into engines.

Of course, he'd torture Niska if he thought it would help.

As far as suspense goes, this wouldn't really make for a surprising decision.

---

Quote:

---

"Is it right to violate the humane rights of the individual to save the life and limb of masses?"

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by kpo:

For me, the weight of human suffering and the extinguishing of happy, innocent life that would come from say, a terror-planted, nuclear ticking time-bomb going off, easily tips the scales.

It seems obvious to me; if we absolutely have to, we torture, and we live with it.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by pizmobeach:

I don't see Mal as a torturer - I think there's a difference between torture and murder - he'd probably give the job to Jayne.

---

Quote:

---

How about reversing it - Mal is trapped and Kaylee has Niska? Would she have the will to torture if that was the only way to save Mal?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Geezer:
Another question to compare and contrast.

An airplane is flying towards the United States, say New York City. It has on board a pilot, a co-pilot, and a nuclear device.

---

Quote:

---

The pilots do not answer radio transmissions. They may be planning to detonate the device, or they may be planning to deliver it to the U.S. government for a reward.

---

Quote:

---

Their radio may not work. Their intentions are unknown.

Do you shoot the plane down?

---

Quote:

---

If so, why do you consider killing two people to stop a possible nuclear attack on New York an acceptable moral exchange?

---

Quote:

---

Is there any substantial difference between this and AnthonyT's torture dilemma, aside from the fact that torture may not prove fatal?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
You know, this all presumes that torturing the perp would actually WORK, as in yield functional, actionable information, and truthfully that is rarely the case.

Tell you what.

Give him to me, for 10 hours.

And he WILL talk, he'll spill his guts and sing the fuckin national anthem, if you like.

And I would never have to lay a hand on him to do so.

And if you didn't necessarily care if the perp was psychologically destroyed in the process, it'd be even quicker.

And yes, before anyone else need point it out, I am fully and well aware that this is WORSE damage than a few broken fingers and far more permanent.

My major objection to physical torture was never on moral grounds anyway, as I have stated time and time again, but simply on the bald fact that it DOES NOT WORK.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

No.

The ends never justify the means, cause eventually the means BECOME the end itself.

Witness how many rules and laws originally made and intended to protect people and their stuff eventually become somehow more important than those very things they were meant to protect, and wind up enforced to their detriment.

So no.

Not now, not EVER.

Period.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Tell you what.

Give him to me, for 10 hours.

And he WILL talk, he'll spill his guts and sing the fuckin national anthem, if you like.

And I would never have to lay a hand on him to do so.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AgentRouka:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Geezer:
Another question to compare and contrast.

An airplane is flying towards the United States, say New York City. It has on board a pilot, a co-pilot, and a nuclear device.

---

If they aren't communicating, how do you know there is a nuclear device?

And will shooting the plane down detonate the bomb?

Quote:

---

The pilots do not answer radio transmissions. They may be planning to detonate the device, or they may be planning to deliver it to the U.S. government for a reward.

---

For a reward? How about calling ahead?? No one with friendly intentions and access to a nuclear device just so puts it on a plane and heads to NYC.

Quote:

---

Their radio may not work. Their intentions are unknown.

Do you shoot the plane down?

---

I think I would try to send up other air crafts to try and communicate that they should turn the hell away. Anything they can see or be made aware of without a working radio.

If they react and go away or change course, no need to shoot them down.

If they do not react, they either have malicious intent or are sadly a victim of someone else's malicious intent.

In that case, yes, I would advocate shooting the plane down, unless it would detonate the bomb.

Quote:

---

If so, why do you consider killing two people to stop a possible nuclear attack on New York an acceptable moral exchange?

---

This would fall more into the realm of self-defense, because they - by choice or not - are a direct part of an immediate threat that can actually be stopped. Since their intention, or that of their kidnappers' - after attempts to steer them away - is in all probability malicious, their lives are likely going to be lost, either way.

They don't just know about the threat, they are it.

It's an impossible situation for the poor pilots if they were kidnapped, but it's just as if they were put into a canon and fired. It's not the wall they are smashed against that kills them, it was the person who put them in the canon and fired it.

Quote:

---

Is there any substantial difference between this and AnthonyT's torture dilemma, aside from the fact that torture may not prove fatal?

---

Yes.

Because torture is not self-defense. It's like beating burglar by swinging your toddler at his head. Ineffective, above all, and it undermines what you're trying to defend.

With torture, you have an unharmed person at your mercy and you are going to harm them for the sake of unreliable information that is useless without outside verification, it's time consuming, it's possibly not going to help at all. It's not self-defense.

With the pilots, if they are innocent, they are already harmed by having been made into a weapon that you have to immediately defend yourself against because it is hurtling toward you Right Then.

That's the difference to me.

---

Quote:

---

Bring in Cal Lightman or Patrick Jane ("Lie to Me" and "The Mentalist" respectively)? [again, said snarkilly]

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AgentRouka:
If they aren't communicating, how do you know there is a nuclear device?

And will shooting the plane down detonate the bomb?

---

Quote:

---

This would fall more into the realm of self-defense, because they - by choice or not - are a direct part of an immediate threat that can actually be stopped. Since their intention, or that of their kidnappers' - after attempts to steer them away - is in all probability malicious, their lives are likely going to be lost, either way.

They don't just know about the threat, they are it.

---

Quote:

---

Hello Frem,

There is a schism between your statements. Earlier you said an unequivocal NO to torture even if success was guaranteed.

Now you say your only concern is success, not methodology or morality.

I find it difficult to follow your logic.

---

Quote:

---

Talking? What kind of conversation and how would it be so psychologically damaging? Wouldn't THAT also be inhumane treatment and therefore forbidden as well?

---

Quote:

---

Truth serum? Does that stuff really exist and is it effective?

---

Quote:

---

Is there any substantial difference between this and AnthonyT's torture dilemma, aside from the fact that torture may not prove fatal?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Geezer:

An airplane is flying towards the United States, say New York City. It has on board a pilot, a co-pilot, and a nuclear device. The pilots do not answer radio transmissions. They may be planning to detonate the device, or they may be planning to deliver it to the U.S. government for a reward. Their radio may not work. Their intentions are unknown.

Do you shoot the plane down?

---

Quote:

---

Talking? What kind of conversation and how would it be so psychologically damaging? Wouldn't THAT also be inhumane treatment and therefore forbidden as well?

---

Quote:

---

...an individual making a decision like that in a "situation" and willing to suffer the consequences is one thing - it's far and away another to make something like that official policy.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by pizmobeach:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AgentRouka:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by pizmobeach:
Your question would make a good Firefly ep - what if Niska had Kaylee somewhere with a time bomb on her ankle...tic toc... and Mal had Niska, all alone in a room. What would Mal do?

---

Mal kicks handcuffed people into engines.

Of course, he'd torture Niska if he thought it would help.

As far as suspense goes, this wouldn't really make for a surprising decision.

---

I don't see Mal as a torturer - I think there's a difference between torture and murder - he'd probably give the job to Jayne.

How about reversing it - Mal is trapped and Kaylee has Niska? Would she have the will to torture if that was the only way to save Mal?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:

---