tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post271989744806212228..comments2023-11-03T06:36:27.305-04:00Comments on Phronesisaical: Torture Hearinghelmuthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09069600766378586919noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-73514394901410845132008-06-25T02:17:00.000-04:002008-06-25T02:17:00.000-04:00The Myanmar database scenario may be real but like...The Myanmar database scenario may be real but like the ticking time bomb it is extreme and misleading. You talk about a database in which all the information is obtained by torture and suggest that it is within this we must find a pattern establishing moral significance, which makes the prospect of finding this ex post facto moral justification look extremely dubious. But information by which to assess the veracity and to discover moral significance of torture testimony need not itself be such testimony. It could be printed on the front page of yesterday's paper. It could be the voluntary testimony of a vendor who sold Osama a hot dog on a particular day. It could be from undercover informants or surveillance. It could be the testimony of a relatively uncommitted and/or tangentially involved conspirator. It may be from an interrogation in which the subject was simply tricked or duped--approaches that a prudent torturing institution is bound to try always before torture, given the unreliability of the information torture will be known to have elicited in the past. I think you are supposing an internecine conflict like a civil war or with deep cold war style co-infiltration of the adversarial societies and in a context of such widespread intimidation nobody would dare incriminate anybody else except under torture. It's such conditions that have provided us perhaps all our examples we know of institutionalized torture, I suppose, and it even may be that torture fosters such conditions. But it's not obvious to me that they are any more germane to the moral question at hand than the ticking time bomb. <BR/><BR/>Not to mention, I bet you lost all the Republicans when you invoked at the end the "liberal political tradition."<BR/><BR/>Good that you said all that though!MThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02341704109256270557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-2693866069228444812008-02-18T00:07:00.000-05:002008-02-18T00:07:00.000-05:00Thank you for your excellent post. I have been sh...Thank you for your excellent post. I have been shocked at the trend of utilitarian justification for not only war and violence, but even for the use of torture. I teach a college ethics class, and have seen my students steadily succumb to this line of thinking. Your blog will become a required read for my students as I add torture to my list of moral dilemmas. Who would of thought that torture would now have to be amongst the other topics discussed? I hope your presentation to our government officials caused them to think of the consequences of state sponsored torture.darkwaterhermithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07473824476601496475noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-31406793294905884372007-12-12T15:34:00.000-05:002007-12-12T15:34:00.000-05:00That we are even having the debate again speaks vo...That we are even having the debate again speaks volumes. Executed? They?troutskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16020298501632120830noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14072474.post-4131299890483427172007-12-11T15:43:00.000-05:002007-12-11T15:43:00.000-05:00Torture is worse than pointless. They should be su...Torture is worse than pointless. They should be summarily executed if discovered under arms.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com