7/2     On the torture debate (or maybe just flame fest), the claim that
        torture doesn't work is true most of the time but untrue some of the
        time.  Most of the reasoning for pro-torture positions doesn't make
        sense to me, I feel like its not logical to give support to something
        that doesn't produce results while the same time being oppressive.
        The one thing I think I can see is that I make a decision that I
        would rather have a little less security to have more human rights/
        civil liberties.  When Patrick Henry said "Give me liberty of give me
        death" he didn't mean unless he might get hurt.  I can understand
        that if you won't tolerate any threat to your personal security (at
        least any threat outside of our government) it would be in your best
        interest to want them to torture anyone they thought might be involved
        in terrorism.  But to me that seems like a cowardly approach, a
        minimal risk to yourself is worth the gain in liberty for all.  Its
        easy to see that deaths from terrorism << torture/government repress-
        ion. -mrauser
        \- the ticking time bomb scenario has long been "the standard"
           classroom hypo after THE TROLLY PROBLEM for the tension between
           UTILITARIAN theories [cost-benefit analysis] and DEONTOLOGICAL
           theories [torture is wrong. the exact reason it is wrong depends
           on the flavor of deontology, but probably "the standard" again
           is the kantian one but maybe simpler to understand is the RDWORKIN
           "RIGHTS AS TRUMPS" view ... mostly this is beyond the scope of a
           motd discussion]. but the "i only care about me" sort of begs
           the question ... since a core question of moral philosophy is
           "what do we own other" and you're pretty much saying "nothing"
           "what do we owe others" and you're pretty much saying "nothing"
           in that "degenerate" case. EGOISM may be an apt description of a
           lot of people, but it's not really a philosophy [although i
           suppose maybe FWNIETZSCHE might have spun it into one, but i am
           not really an expert on FWN ... and that is also beyond the
           scope of the motd]. here is a problem with the "results
           oriented" view: do you think it would be categorically wrong
           to say torture a family member of the terrorist ... say KSM's
           wife and kids ... if that would be a highly effective way of
           producing results. if you want "the standard" critiques of
           utilitarianism, see BERNARD WILLIAMS [formerly UCB Dept Philosophy,
           now dead] and AMARTYA SEN ... at the core, utilitariamsism
           "does take persons/rights seriously. Williams also has a very
           influential critique of deontology, but that may be a little
           hard to follow.
           \_ I've heard of the ticking time bomb, and its pretty easy to feel
              saying you would torture the guy, because in this magical fantasy
              he is directly responsible for the bomb being there and you know
              that there must be a bomb so there is a perverse justice in
              torturing him to make him tell you.  But as a real world example,
              it holds no water, because how often do you KNOW that there is
              a threat and the person in front of you has specific knowledge
              of it.  You torture without this information, in the hopes of
              getting it.  Another scenario, say a terrorist kidnaps someone's
              family and then tells that person where they put a bomb in a
              building, but they tell that person if they tell the authorities
              they will kill thier family.  So do you torture a complete
              innocent who has a self interest in not telling you the info?
              Here is a scenario which is nearly as plausible as the ticking
              time bomb, but I don't think anyone could feel good about either
              option.  The problem to me is that torture is used in ambigious
              situations with a presumed guilt or presumed having of the info.
              I think that because torture can really never be used with
              certainty, it should never be used at all.  Plus, there is a
              strong argument that it leads to false confessions and false in-
              formation just as long as it leads to good ones. -mrauser
              \_ look up "a fortiori"
           \_ Your writing is only partially intelligible. What was your
              "i only care about me" and "what do we own other" sentence
              referring to?