Mageth

The boys have been held by the Pakistani authorities, but this weekend they were flown to America, where they will be questioned about their father.

This is absolutely disgusting. How is this not kidnapping, and across international borders to boot?

"His sons are important to him. The promise of their release and their return to Pakistan may be the psychological lever we need to break him."

Implied in this is the threat of what will be done to the sons if he does not talk, even if it's just continued (and immoral) detention.

Shit like this makes me feel like joining Toni Smith in turning my back on the flag in protest.

What is it Pogo said, "We have found the enemy, and they are us"?

dk

I'm not sure I follow, I understand morality to govern conduct with reason in order to help people lead meaningful happy lives. In a plane hijacked by terrorists the moral order has completely broken down, and everyone on the plane is ruled by terror. I might claim to be a moral person, therefore obliged to rat out the Israeli Jew on my left, but that would be a rationalization. Whether I lie to protect the Jew and his or snitch to protect myself and mine tests my character not morality. In fact I’d say reason can’t order terror, but terror orders reason.

exile

Mageth

You missed my point - I said IF by torturing him you would save lives. Your assumption is that it would NOT (or not necessarily) save lives; this is a different situation. Obviously if you think he's going to give you a false code then there is no point in torturing him other than as a futile gesture to try to save your political a** in which case it's obviously wrong on all counts.

In a hypothetical you have to accept the assumptions - eg IF I find a $20 note on the ground and can pick it up with no-one else seeing, should I keep it? - you can't argue that, say, I would never find such a note, or that someone else may be watching me pick the note up on a CCTV screen!

Dk

It when we are threatened that our moral codes are tested. It's easy to be moral in a normal, cosy existence, or when arguing hypotheticals as on this forum.

By the way in the "Israeli on the plane" situation I wasn't suggesting that any harm would come to you by lying. The terrorist is going to shoot any Israelis he finds: he has no way of finding out that you're lying if you say there are none on the plane. An absolute rule of "don't tell lies" would force you to tell the truth: think of an android programmed to tell the truth (ie Data in Star Trek!). I would suggest that this is the essence of free will - the ability to break or bend supposedly absolute rules; and as a Christian I would have thought this is one of the main planks of your belief in a God who allows us to make choices which may result in evil results (apologies for making assumptions about your beliefs!).

World leaders are constantly presented with choices between two evils - who would have liked to have been in Truman's shoes when having to decide whether to nuke Hiroshima?

As private individuals we have smaller but still difficult dilemmas to solve

- do I give money to the homeless guy at the train station or will it just feed his drug habit?
- do I go on an anti-war march or will this just be helping Saddam Hussein?
- do I oppose foxhunting (on animal rights grounds) or support it (on the basis of individual freedom)?

The fact that people that I respect, religious or atheistic, have differing views on these issues suggests that my contention that morality is not absolute is true.

Mageth

macaskil

You missed my point - I said IF by torturing him you would save lives. Your assumption is that it would NOT (or not necessarily) save lives; this is a different situation. Obviously if you think he's going to give you a false code then there is no point in torturing him other than as a futile gesture to try to save your political a** in which case it's obviously wrong on all counts.

In a hypothetical you have to accept the assumptions - eg IF I find a $20 note on the ground and can pick it up with no-one else seeing, should I keep it? - you can't argue that, say, I would never find such a note, or that someone else may be watching me pick the note up on a CCTV screen!

In a hypothetical I don't have to accept the assumptions if the assumptions have no basis in reality or are absurd. Obviously you might really find a $20 bill when no one else is watching. However, as I said, torture does not produce correct, reliable results. So your hypothetical assumption that you could produce the correct results is invalid; it has no basis in reality.

You might as well have said "IF by offering him $20 you would save lives."

dk

Hi macaskil,
I agree with the issues you’ve brought up. Torture only serves to establish a dialogue controlled by the interrogator, therefore likely to produce what the interrogator wants to hear in lieu of the truth, unless the interrogator can independently verify the elicited responses. In the plane scenario, a terrorist can check a passport to verify ethnicity and nationality, so my cooperation/lies don’t necessarily help/damage anyone, in fact I might be an Israeli Jew that snitches to divert attention from myself. Clearly honesty isn’t the priori issue in this circumstance, and I think Kant’s Categorical Imperative holds about as much weight as a wet paper bag, but that’s another topic.
o
I submit “absolute rules” are immoral because moral law is hierarchical and layered, not egalitarian and uniform. If I borrowed my neighbors shot gun to go target shooting, then upon my return found my neighbor in a fit of uncontrollable rage threatening to kill his wife, then it would be wrong to return the gun until the storm passed. I still have an obligation to return the gun, but my neighbor’s hot or cold blooded rage becomes the moral priori. Morality enables people to participate in their destiny, and immorality deprives a person of participation. As a Christian I have a moral obligation to distinguish between virtues, vices and morality. I haven’t the power to command virtue or vice because they are attributes consonant with character and volitional in substance. I do have a Christian obligation to uphold the moral law, but recognize only a wannabe tyrant seeks power to command forth virtue or vice. If I can save someone from some particular vice or suffering, I will, but ultimately nobody can save anyone from wanton viciousness. If someone insists upon idlely watching a rock fight, then sooner or later they will get hit with a rock.
o
macaskil:
World leaders are constantly presented with choices between two evils - who would have liked to have been in Truman's shoes when having to decide whether to nuke Hiroshima?
As private individuals we have smaller but still difficult dilemmas to solve
dk: To suggest only world leaders have the power to choose evil denies individual free will to purport tyranny, which is immoral.
macaskil:

• - do I give money to the homeless guy at the train station or will it just feed his drug habit?
• - do I go on an anti-war march or will this just be helping Saddam Hussein?
• - do I oppose foxhunting (on animal rights grounds) or support it (on the basis of individual freedom)?

dk: For starters good people need to uphold the moral law so that drugs, war, and individual freedom can be understood in terms of good and evil, life and knowledge, friendship and gratification.
o
macaskil:
The fact that people that I respect, religious or atheistic, have differing views on these issues suggests that my contention that morality is not absolute is true.
dk: Because something isn’t absolutely two-tailed, doesn’t make it false but complex. For example I’d say good can come from the evil we do, but the ends still do not justify the means. I suppose the question ultimately rests on whether torture can become a charity to save a terrorist from committing mass murder. If I were a terrorist then I’d want someone to save me, even with torture, from committing mass murder.

The Other Michael

I'd think that if you had an aversion to committing mass murder you'd probably avoid becoming a terrorist in the first place.

cheers,
Michael