North Korea

[LimpyLoo]

 

So Chen, yes or no:

 

are we morally responsible for the actions of white supremacists that angry about desegregation?

 

Say yes if you want, but just please be consistent

 

we're morally responsible for whatever it takes to wipe them out, cos that's what the endgame is

in the case of NK, publishing exploitative crap is irresponsible unless the endgame is 3 centuries of "lol north korea is so fuuuuukkt uuuuuup looool i arxed some difficult questions loooooool"

 

 

do people not know what an ultimatum is?

people didn't seem to understand the concept of ultimatums in the 'draw muhammed' debate either...

 

So white supremacists want segregation. Among some of them there is the tacit ultimatum: "segregate the races, or I'll go around killing people in protest."

 

Accord to Chen's "we are morally obliged to appease tacit ultimatums," the implication is that we are morally responsible for white supremacists shooting up black churches, and therefor that we are morally obliged to segregate the races to avoid any deaths.

 

This has nothing to do with stopping white supremacists. We're talking about tacit ultimatums.

[LimpyLoo]

Ugh limpy. Give me something besides a false equivalency to argue against.

But I'm going to play ultimate and then spend time with family. So don't expect a response any time soon.

 

Chen, how is that a false equivalency? lol

 

walk me through why that dude is responsible for the fate of the tour guides, but we (de-segregationists) are not responsible for the fate of dead church members?

[LimpyLoo]

 

 

 

and i also feel like you guys have never read a lick of moral philosophy

 

[LimpyLoo]

okay, i'll spell this out as plain as I can:

 

if we can foresee that someone (e.g. a white supremacist) will harm/kill other people for bad reasons (e.g. desegregation in America), should we appease their tacit ultimatum ("segregate America or else...") to avoid people being killed?

 

(This is literally just the NK tour-guide example, but with different variables plugged in)

[poblequadrat]

the thing is first the situation is not an ultimatum, and second if any of these two situations were ultimatums, they aren't equivalent

 

if white supremacists do anything you can throw them in jail and you really do have the means to crack down on them

whereas with north korea it makes sense to try and help making relations with other countries easier

 

i have actually read a bit of moral philosophy and i thought most of it was bollocks, because i absolutely hated kant and found aristotle's ethica nichomachea pretty uninspiring although it wasn't as bad as kant, and because i think you need some sort of goal to decide what you're going to do, and you also need to take into account that there's far more to making a choice than your individuality (incidentally i really disagree with kant's concept of subjectivity/what it means to be human). "living a virtuous life" or "the kingdom of ends which by the way is just a regulative ideal" is completely abstract and unmediated and undialectical and meaningless

 

in fact at first i liked the notion of a trascendental subject but then was completely disappointed because kant basically uses it to say "fuck politics and fuck what is actually happening and the process of things, this is all about what being human means, which by the way is some sort of ultracalvinistic tale of imperfection, striving for things you know are impossible and the individual being the basis of everything". i disagree on every account.

 

hegel has a very good bit where he says kant's notion of "civil society" is bullshit because it's nothing but a name for class society, so nothing ethical can happen there and the real question is what to do with that society

Edited July 16, 2015 by poblequadrat

[LimpyLoo]

the thing is first the situation is not an ultimatum, and second if any of these two situations were ultimatums, they aren't equivalent

 

if white supremacists do anything you can throw them in jail and you really do have the means to crack down on them

whereas with north korea it makes sense to try and help making relations with other countries easier

 

 

That is a practical/consequentialist concern. It has nothing to do with our moral responsibility for the actions of others. If you are saying that the two are not equivalent because we can't retaliate against NK without causing diplomatic harm, then again that has nothing to do with moral responsibility.

 

And being able to throw a white supremacist in jail has no impact on our moral culpability regarding his actions in the first place.

 

 

 

i have actually read a bit of moral philosophy and i thought most of it was bollocks, because i absolutely hated kant and found aristotle's ethica nichomachea pretty uninspiring although it wasn't as bad as kant, and because i think you need some sort of goal to decide what you're going to do, and you also need to take into account that there's far more to making a choice than your individuality (incidentally i really disagree with kant's concept of subjectivity/what it means to be human). "living a virtuous life" or "the kingdom of ends which by the way is just a regulative ideal" is completely abstract and unmediated and undialectical and meaningless

 

in fact at first i liked the notion of a trascendental subject but then was completely disappointed because kant basically uses it to say "fuck politics and fuck what is actually happening and the process of things, this is all about what being human means, which by the way is some sort of ultracalvinistic tale of imperfection, striving for things you know are impossible and the individual being the basis of everything". i disagree on every account.

 

hegel has a very good bit where he says kant's notion of "civil society" is bullshit because it's nothing but a name for class society, so nothing ethical can happen there and the real question is what to do with that society

 

I recommend you read some moral philosophy from the last couple hundred years or so. Peter Singer, Derek Parfit...

 

Plato and Kant were smart dudes but they both had some idiotic ideas. Within moral philosophy they are regarded much the way Freud is within Psychology: important but (mostly) outmoded.

 

The best way to start finding out what you actually believe (instead of what you merely think you believe) is to consider some of the classic moral thought experiments (e.g. The Trolly Problem, Ticking Time Bomb Scenario, etc). For instance, anyone who considers the Ticking Time Bomb Scenario who DOESN'T think that torture in emergency scenarios is not only morally permissible but morally obligatory is either stupid or unreasonable imo.

Edited July 16, 2015 by LimpyLoo

[poblequadrat]

what i mean is moral philosophy was all aristotelians (macintyre and the like) or kantians (applied ethics, communicative ethics, ethics of dissidence, etc etc etc) and i was bored/furious/reaching for my copy of Being and Event. got a passable grade in ethics 101 and then i developed a crush on a coworker, was dumped by my girlfriend, lost my job, decided i'd rather learn japanese, draw comics, make music and become a translator and dropped out (again!!!!!!!! i've got 7 lives i'm bulletproof and walletproof and bankproof and everything)

 

so really it's a bit traumatic for me, i think it'd be a pretty cool discussion but i'm not really going to talk about philosophy ever again, sorry i run my mouth a bit too much sometimes

 

i'm sorry if this isn't too graceful, i think i could've learnt something from talking to you here, because ethics wasn't my forte really :/

[LimpyLoo]

what i mean is moral philosophy was all aristotelians (macintyre and the like) or kantians (applied ethics, communicative ethics, ethics of dissidence, etc etc etc) and i was bored/furious/reaching for my copy of Being and Event. got a passable grade in ethics 101 and then i developed a crush on a coworker, was dumped by my girlfriend, lost my job, decided i'd rather learn japanese, draw comics, make music and become a translator and dropped out (again!!!!!!!! i've got 7 lives i'm bulletproof and walletproof and bankproof and everything)

 

so really it's a bit traumatic for me, i think it'd be a pretty cool discussion but i'm not really going to talk about philosophy ever again, sorry i run my mouth a bit too much sometimes

 

i'm sorry if this isn't too graceful, i think i could've learnt something from talking to you here, because ethics wasn't my forte really :/

 

no worries mate

 

i used to think that moral philosophy was one of things that was irredeemably academic and had nothing to say about real life in the real world

i now think that moral philosophy is literally the most important thing about real life in the real world

especially heading into the age of fully-automated robots

and radical life extension

the world resembles a long-ago thought experiment more and more each day

 

for example

simply thinking about radical life extension

made me realize that i'm a hardcore socialist

every person alive (or who will ever live) should have access to it

and thus the cost of its R & D should be socialized (perhaps worldwide)

and everyone should share in the fruits

(there is an actual cure for Hepatitus C now

but it costs $100,000

because it was developed by a private company

population ethics-wise, that isn't the world I want to live in)

Edited July 16, 2015 by LimpyLoo

[chenGOD]

 

Ugh limpy. Give me something besides a false equivalency to argue against.

But I'm going to play ultimate and then spend time with family. So don't expect a response any time soon.

Chen, how is that a false equivalency? lol

 

walk me through why that dude is responsible for the fate of the tour guides, but we (de-segregationists) are not responsible for the fate of dead church members?

 

It's a false equivalency in consequential terms. Since you don't believe in that matters, and I don't believe your moral philosophy matters in the real world, this conversation will go nowhere in a hurry.

 

But, in your specific example, white supremacists like that are going to kill black people regardless of de-segregation (plenty of historical examples). The North Korean government is not going to kill those tour guides or their families had Sweeney not deceived them.

Further, actors promoting de-segregation are creating on balance, a greater moral "good". Sweeney, by doing some hackneyed journalism that furthers the idea of normal North Koreans as "others", provides no moral good, and in fact causes greater moral harm, even if no one gets killed as a result of his actions.

 

Also the ticking time bomb has to be one of the stupidest thought experiments ever.

[LimpyLoo]

 

 

Ugh limpy. Give me something besides a false equivalency to argue against.

But I'm going to play ultimate and then spend time with family. So don't expect a response any time soon.

Chen, how is that a false equivalency? lol

 

walk me through why that dude is responsible for the fate of the tour guides, but we (de-segregationists) are not responsible for the fate of dead church members?

 

It's a false equivalency in consequential terms. Since you don't believe in that matters, and I don't believe your moral philosophy matters in the real world, this conversation will go nowhere in a hurry.

 

But, in your specific example, white supremacists like that are going to kill black people regardless of de-segregation (plenty of historical examples). The North Korean government is not going to kill those tour guides or their families had Sweeney not deceived them.

Further, actors promoting de-segregation are creating on balance, a greater moral "good". Sweeney, by doing some hackneyed journalism that furthers the idea of normal North Koreans as "others", provides no moral good, and in fact causes greater moral harm, even if no one gets killed as a result of his actions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, like...are we morally culpable for the consequences of ignoring tacit ultimatums or not? Where's the line?

 

 

Also the ticking time bomb has to be one of the stupidest thought experiments ever.

 

 

lol

Alright then, let's talk about a real-world example: Peter Scully (child-snuff producer, google at your own risk and read on here at your own risk).

 

 

A handful of Peter Scully's 'co-producers' are still freely walking the earth. We're not talking about guys that helped him set up Tor or something, we're talking about guys that starred in a video where 5 actual 2-yo babies were raped, tortured, and murdered. (And by "tortured" I mean they had holes drilled in their head, or they were smashed together 'pillow-fight' style.)

 

So, Peter Scully is in police custody in the Philippines. The evidence against him is as air-tight as evidence can get. We will never know who his collaborators are unless he freely tells us, which hasn't happened yet.

 

So, is it morally wrong to torture Peter Scully to (potentially) find out who his collaborators are?

(Personally, I think Peter Scully lost his right to comfort and freedom, and the public need to find these monsters outweighs his right not to be coerced into telling us. If the evidence weren't so strong against him, then doubt as to his guilt would probably make me feel differently...)

Edited July 16, 2015 by LimpyLoo

[chenGOD]

The line is what outcome will provide a greater moral good. The world, and morality, does not fit into either/or boxes.

 

Your real world example is a good one, certainly better than the idiotic one about terrorists. The problem is, torture as a means of garnering information has limited reliability. I'm on the ol' mobile browser now, but will upload a couple of things for you to read regarding the issues of using torture as a means of garnering confessions.

 

Beyond the limits of torture as a means of gathering information, by torturing, we become morally no better than the people we are claiming are morally worse than us.

[LimpyLoo]

The line is what outcome will provide a greater moral good. The world, and morality, does not fit into either/or boxes.

 

Your real world example is a good one, certainly better than the idiotic one about terrorists. The problem is, torture as a means of garnering information has limited reliability. I'm on the ol' mobile browser now, but will upload a couple of things for you to read regarding the issues of using torture as a means of garnering confessions.

 

Beyond the limits of torture as a means of gathering information, by torturing, we become morally no better than the people we are claiming are morally worse than us.

1) 'm not a strict Kantian/deontologist, and so I agree that the harms might outweigh the benefits in the NK tour guide example, and therefor might not be worth doing. But that is a different matter altogether. But, if "the line" is simply a consequentialist cost/benefit analysis, then you'd have to concede that if the benefits outweighed the harms, then the journalist can/should publish his stuff. Again, that is a different question altogether than whether the journalist is morally culpable for what happens to the tour guides.

 

2) You are right, torture is not a perfectly reliable means of gaining information. However, if you hang your hat on the fact that it's simply not effective, then if it turned out that torture was effective, you'd have to grant that torture in this case would be morally permissible.

 

(Similarly, I'm not a fan of capital punishment. But some people who claim to be "morally opposed" to capital punishment hang their hat on the fact that it's not an effective deterrent. However, if we looked back over the stats and realized that capital punishment was an effective deterrent, those people would either a) have to change their position on capital punishment, or b) admit that they were being disingenuous about their reasons for being anti-capital punishment.)

 

3) I disagree that, in this particular case, torturing Peter Scully in order to find 3 or 4 child-snuff producers would make us as bad as him.

 

I find torture disgusting, reprehensible, and generally contrary to my lofty humanist ideals. I think that people tend to be so resistant to the Ticking Time Bomb Scenario is because virtually all decent people are disgusted by torture, and in that scenario, torture is clearly the better option. If you think the Ticking Time Bomb Scenario is stupid because the premise is so highly improbable, then again, that's beside the point. Once you entertain the premise (as unrealistic as it is), then the only real conclusion is that torture is not only the superior option, it's the morally superior option.

 

In moral dilemmas (e.g. Ticking Time Bomb), people seem to have a sort-of status quo bias, whereas they will favor the default choice of inaction (e.g. not to torture). However, if you give someone a choice between two buttons (button A will torture one person; button B will kill 100,000 people), their intuition will shift in favor of torture.

 

Again, it doesn't matter how repulsive you find torture: moral dilemmas are by definition situations where there are no good answers. And calling a thought experiment "unrealistic" is merely dodging difficult questions.

Edited July 16, 2015 by LimpyLoo

[chenGOD]

 

The line is what outcome will provide a greater moral good. The world, and morality, does not fit into either/or boxes.

 

Your real world example is a good one, certainly better than the idiotic one about terrorists. The problem is, torture as a means of garnering information has limited reliability. I'm on the ol' mobile browser now, but will upload a couple of things for you to read regarding the issues of using torture as a means of garnering confessions.

 

Beyond the limits of torture as a means of gathering information, by torturing, we become morally no better than the people we are claiming are morally worse than us.

1) 'm not a strict Kantian/deontologist, and so I agree that the harms might outweigh the benefits in the NK tour guide example, and therefor might not be worth doing. But that is a different matter altogether. But, if "the line" is simply a consequentialist cost/benefit analysis, then you'd have to concede that if the benefits outweighed the harms, then the journalist can/should publish his stuff. Again, that is a different question altogether than whether the journalist is morally culpable for what happens to the tour guides.

 

2) You are right, torture is not a perfectly reliable means of gaining information. However, if you hang your hat on the fact that it's simply not effective, then if it turned out that torture was effective, you'd have to grant that torture in this case would be morally permissible.

 

(Similarly, I'm not a fan of capital punishment. But some people who claim to be "morally opposed" to capital punishment hang their hat on the fact that it's not an effective deterrent. However, if we looked back over the stats and realized that capital punishment was an effective deterrent, those people would either a) have to change their position on capital punishment, or b) admit that they were being disingenuous about their reasons for being anti-capital punishment.)

 

3) I disagree that, in this particular case, torturing Peter Scully in order to find 3 or 4 child-snuff producers would make us as bad as him.

 

I find torture disgusting, reprehensible, and generally contrary to my lofty humanist ideals. I think that people tend to be so resistant to the Ticking Time Bomb Scenario is because virtually all decent people are disgusted by torture, and in that scenario, torture is clearly the better option. If you think the Ticking Time Bomb Scenario is stupid because the premise is so highly improbable, then again, that's beside the point. Once you entertain the premise (as unrealistic as it is), then the only real conclusion is that torture is not only the superior option, it's the morally superior option.

 

In moral dilemmas (e.g. Ticking Time Bomb), people seem to have a sort-of status quo bias, whereas they will favor the default choice of inaction (e.g. not to torture). However, if you give someone a choice between two buttons (button A will torture one person; button B will kill 100,000 people), their intuition will shift in favor of torture.

 

Again, it doesn't matter how repulsive you find torture: moral dilemmas are by definition situations where there are no good answers. And calling a thought experiment "unrealistic" is merely dodging difficult questions.

 

 

1) And that's precisely why this moral philosophy of either/or is not relevant to the real world.

 

2) But I'm not hanging my hat solely on that fact. There are other methods of intelligence gathering that are not morally wrong that garner better results, so that's a key factor. But the most important thing, and it's virtually the only time I've agreed with John McCain on anything, is that torture is not about gathering information, but what it says about us. And if we permit torture, we are no better than those we are professing to save ourselves from. See the essay I'm attaching.

 

3) What if, as a result of torturing Peter Scully, he gives out two names. Both of those names are of people he has some grievance against. When we investigate them, we cannot find any evidence of their participation, but these child-porn producers are clever, they are good at hiding their involvement. Well, we could find out more - by torturing them. And say by torturing one of them, he dies of severe stress related factors. He was the sole bread-winner for his family, and now his wife and two children have their quality of life significantly reduced, and the now widowed mother of this innocent man is so overcome with shame at the accusation of her husband being involved with producing child-porn that she commits suicide. So now the two children are without both their parents. They get placed into a foster home, and are adopted by a family who abuses them. So by torturing the "monster", we have become the very thing we sought to protect ourselves from.

 

Since you refuse to accept consequences of action (torture can create more people who wish to do harm to us) as part of your moral stance, see point 1.

 

Please read this essay on torture and its implications. Ignore the highlighted bits, I couldn't remove them from the word file for some reason, and they were related to something else, not this conversation.

Gilmore's essay (original).pdf

[LimpyLoo]

 

 

The line is what outcome will provide a greater moral good. The world, and morality, does not fit into either/or boxes.

 

Your real world example is a good one, certainly better than the idiotic one about terrorists. The problem is, torture as a means of garnering information has limited reliability. I'm on the ol' mobile browser now, but will upload a couple of things for you to read regarding the issues of using torture as a means of garnering confessions.

 

Beyond the limits of torture as a means of gathering information, by torturing, we become morally no better than the people we are claiming are morally worse than us.

1) 'm not a strict Kantian/deontologist, and so I agree that the harms might outweigh the benefits in the NK tour guide example, and therefor might not be worth doing. But that is a different matter altogether. But, if "the line" is simply a consequentialist cost/benefit analysis, then you'd have to concede that if the benefits outweighed the harms, then the journalist can/should publish his stuff. Again, that is a different question altogether than whether the journalist is morally culpable for what happens to the tour guides.

 

2) You are right, torture is not a perfectly reliable means of gaining information. However, if you hang your hat on the fact that it's simply not effective, then if it turned out that torture was effective, you'd have to grant that torture in this case would be morally permissible.

 

(Similarly, I'm not a fan of capital punishment. But some people who claim to be "morally opposed" to capital punishment hang their hat on the fact that it's not an effective deterrent. However, if we looked back over the stats and realized that capital punishment was an effective deterrent, those people would either a) have to change their position on capital punishment, or b) admit that they were being disingenuous about their reasons for being anti-capital punishment.)

 

3) I disagree that, in this particular case, torturing Peter Scully in order to find 3 or 4 child-snuff producers would make us as bad as him.

 

I find torture disgusting, reprehensible, and generally contrary to my lofty humanist ideals. I think that people tend to be so resistant to the Ticking Time Bomb Scenario is because virtually all decent people are disgusted by torture, and in that scenario, torture is clearly the better option. If you think the Ticking Time Bomb Scenario is stupid because the premise is so highly improbable, then again, that's beside the point. Once you entertain the premise (as unrealistic as it is), then the only real conclusion is that torture is not only the superior option, it's the morally superior option.

 

In moral dilemmas (e.g. Ticking Time Bomb), people seem to have a sort-of status quo bias, whereas they will favor the default choice of inaction (e.g. not to torture). However, if you give someone a choice between two buttons (button A will torture one person; button B will kill 100,000 people), their intuition will shift in favor of torture.

 

Again, it doesn't matter how repulsive you find torture: moral dilemmas are by definition situations where there are no good answers. And calling a thought experiment "unrealistic" is merely dodging difficult questions.

 

 

1) And that's precisely why this moral philosophy of either/or is not relevant to the real world.

 

2) But I'm not hanging my hat solely on that fact. There are other methods of intelligence gathering that are not morally wrong that garner better results, so that's a key factor. But the most important thing, and it's virtually the only time I've agreed with John McCain on anything, is that torture is not about gathering information, but what it says about us. And if we permit torture, we are no better than those we are professing to save ourselves from. See the essay I'm attaching.

 

3) What if, as a result of torturing Peter Scully, he gives out two names. Both of those names are of people he has some grievance against. When we investigate them, we cannot find any evidence of their participation, but these child-porn producers are clever, they are good at hiding their involvement. Well, we could find out more - by torturing them. And say by torturing one of them, he dies of severe stress related factors. He was the sole bread-winner for his family, and now his wife and two children have their quality of life significantly reduced, and the now widowed mother of this innocent man is so overcome with shame at the accusation of her husband being involved with producing child-porn that she commits suicide. So now the two children are without both their parents. They get placed into a foster home, and are adopted by a family who abuses them. So by torturing the "monster", we have become the very thing we sought to protect ourselves from.

 

Since you refuse to accept consequences of action (torture can create more people who wish to do harm to us) as part of your moral stance, see point 1.

 

Please read this essay on torture and its implications. Ignore the highlighted bits, I couldn't remove them from the word file for some reason, and they were related to something else, not this conversation.

 

 

Of course torture has terrible consequences. You don't need to convince me of that. Torture really is every bit as heinous as its harshest critics say it is. But the whole point of a 'moral dilemma' is that there are no perfectly-satisfactory solutions.

 

Allowing a handful of child-snuff producers to freely walk the earth has terrible consequences. Allowing a dirty bomb to detonate in New York City has terrible consequences. I don't think I need to post links about pedophilia or radiation poisoning to convince you of this.

 

The whole point of 'thought experiments' and 'intuition pumps' is to challenge one's intuitions. If an alen ship lands and says "torture a 4-year old child for 24 hours or we'll destroy earth," then simply saying "no, because torture is wrong" is not really a reasonable position. And those in favor of torture in that situation aren't being flippant about torture: rather, it's just simply the better option.

Edited July 16, 2015 by LimpyLoo

[awepittance]

trying to rationalize jingoism with philosophy is an interesting premise

Allowing a dirty bomb to detonate in New York City has terrible consequences.

fyi, the concept of a 'dirty bomb' as being something actually dangerous or realistic was debunked years ago,


http://www.forbes.com/sites/stratfor/2014/09/11/the-biggest-threat-dirty-bombs-pose-is-panic/

 

 

By their very nature, RDDs are prone to be ineffective. To maximize the harmful effects of radiation, victims must be exposed to the highest possible concentration of a radioisotope. But by definition and design, RDDs dilute the radiation source, spreading smaller amounts of the substance over a larger area. Additionally, the use of an explosion to spread the radioisotope alerts the intended victims, who can then evacuate the affected area and be decontaminated. These factors make it very difficult for an attacker to administer a deadly dose of radiation through a dirty bomb.

Edited July 16, 2015 by John Ehrlichman

[LimpyLoo]

trying to rationalize jingoism with philosophy is an interesting premise

 

 

Allowing a dirty bomb to detonate in New York City has terrible consequences.

fyi, the concept of a 'dirty bomb' as being something actually dangerous or realistic was debunked years ago,

 

in before JE shows up to call me a "neocon" or a "jingoist"

 

edit: oops too late

 

wow, so your response to a thought experiment is also "that's not realistic"?

that's some great intellectual honesty there

Edited July 16, 2015 by LimpyLoo

[logakght]

i don't have nothing of interest to say only that i hate north korea

[Rubin Farr]

Didn't the guy who designed their brand new shiny airport get executed right after it opened?

[doublename]

Every time I go to Asia people rub my exotic skin flesh to see if the color will come off or something. I feel like that would even worse in NK.

 

edit: except in Japan, they don't touch.

Edited July 17, 2015 by doublename

[chenGOD]

 

 

 

The line is what outcome will provide a greater moral good. The world, and morality, does not fit into either/or boxes.

 

Your real world example is a good one, certainly better than the idiotic one about terrorists. The problem is, torture as a means of garnering information has limited reliability. I'm on the ol' mobile browser now, but will upload a couple of things for you to read regarding the issues of using torture as a means of garnering confessions.

 

Beyond the limits of torture as a means of gathering information, by torturing, we become morally no better than the people we are claiming are morally worse than us.

1) 'm not a strict Kantian/deontologist, and so I agree that the harms might outweigh the benefits in the NK tour guide example, and therefor might not be worth doing. But that is a different matter altogether. But, if "the line" is simply a consequentialist cost/benefit analysis, then you'd have to concede that if the benefits outweighed the harms, then the journalist can/should publish his stuff. Again, that is a different question altogether than whether the journalist is morally culpable for what happens to the tour guides.

 

2) You are right, torture is not a perfectly reliable means of gaining information. However, if you hang your hat on the fact that it's simply not effective, then if it turned out that torture was effective, you'd have to grant that torture in this case would be morally permissible.

 

(Similarly, I'm not a fan of capital punishment. But some people who claim to be "morally opposed" to capital punishment hang their hat on the fact that it's not an effective deterrent. However, if we looked back over the stats and realized that capital punishment was an effective deterrent, those people would either a) have to change their position on capital punishment, or b) admit that they were being disingenuous about their reasons for being anti-capital punishment.)

 

3) I disagree that, in this particular case, torturing Peter Scully in order to find 3 or 4 child-snuff producers would make us as bad as him.

 

I find torture disgusting, reprehensible, and generally contrary to my lofty humanist ideals. I think that people tend to be so resistant to the Ticking Time Bomb Scenario is because virtually all decent people are disgusted by torture, and in that scenario, torture is clearly the better option. If you think the Ticking Time Bomb Scenario is stupid because the premise is so highly improbable, then again, that's beside the point. Once you entertain the premise (as unrealistic as it is), then the only real conclusion is that torture is not only the superior option, it's the morally superior option.

 

In moral dilemmas (e.g. Ticking Time Bomb), people seem to have a sort-of status quo bias, whereas they will favor the default choice of inaction (e.g. not to torture). However, if you give someone a choice between two buttons (button A will torture one person; button B will kill 100,000 people), their intuition will shift in favor of torture.

 

Again, it doesn't matter how repulsive you find torture: moral dilemmas are by definition situations where there are no good answers. And calling a thought experiment "unrealistic" is merely dodging difficult questions.

1) And that's precisely why this moral philosophy of either/or is not relevant to the real world.

 

2) But I'm not hanging my hat solely on that fact. There are other methods of intelligence gathering that are not morally wrong that garner better results, so that's a key factor. But the most important thing, and it's virtually the only time I've agreed with John McCain on anything, is that torture is not about gathering information, but what it says about us. And if we permit torture, we are no better than those we are professing to save ourselves from. See the essay I'm attaching.

 

3) What if, as a result of torturing Peter Scully, he gives out two names. Both of those names are of people he has some grievance against. When we investigate them, we cannot find any evidence of their participation, but these child-porn producers are clever, they are good at hiding their involvement. Well, we could find out more - by torturing them. And say by torturing one of them, he dies of severe stress related factors. He was the sole bread-winner for his family, and now his wife and two children have their quality of life significantly reduced, and the now widowed mother of this innocent man is so overcome with shame at the accusation of her husband being involved with producing child-porn that she commits suicide. So now the two children are without both their parents. They get placed into a foster home, and are adopted by a family who abuses them. So by torturing the "monster", we have become the very thing we sought to protect ourselves from.

 

Since you refuse to accept consequences of action (torture can create more people who wish to do harm to us) as part of your moral stance, see point 1.

 

Please read this essay on torture and its implications. Ignore the highlighted bits, I couldn't remove them from the word file for some reason, and they were related to something else, not this conversation.

Of course torture has terrible consequences. You don't need to convince me of that. Torture really is every bit as heinous as its harshest critics say it is. But the whole point of a 'moral dilemma' is that there are no perfectly-satisfactory solutions.

 

Allowing a handful of child-snuff producers to freely walk the earth has terrible consequences. Allowing a dirty bomb to detonate in New York City has terrible consequences. I don't think I need to post links about pedophilia or radiation poisoning to convince you of this.

 

The whole point of 'thought experiments' and 'intuition pumps' is to challenge one's intuitions. If an alen ship lands and says "torture a 4-year old child for 24 hours or we'll destroy earth," then simply saying "no, because torture is wrong" is not really a reasonable position. And those in favor of torture in that situation aren't being flippant about torture: rather, it's just simply the better option.

Except we're not letting those people walk free, we're just not torturing them as an interrogative method. It's not "torture or do nothing".

And yes by torturing them we do become them. Thus losing any moral authority.

[chenGOD]

Back to North Korea. As an FYI Laibach is not the first foreign band to play there.

Notable others include: the New York philharmonic (ok, a loose definition of a band), Roger Clinton (brother of Bill, and he performed while Clinton was in office), and Baby VOX (a South Korean girl group).

[Guest Atom Dowry Firth]

The whole point of 'thought experiments' and 'intuition pumps' is to challenge one's intuitions. If an alen ship lands and says "torture a 4-year old child for 24 hours or we'll destroy earth," then simply saying "no, because torture is wrong" is not really a reasonable position. And those in favor of torture in that situation aren't being flippant about torture: rather, it's just simply the better option.

 

Aliens: "torture a 4-year old child for 24 hours or we'll destroy earth"

 

Timothy Forward: "IDK guys, I don't really agree with violence and to be honest just the mere thought of torturing a 4 year old child for 24 hours makes me feel physically ill. Even if I were to begin I doubt I'd be able to continue for anywhere near the entire allocated time before literally being sick and passing out. The fact that you've traversed the vast distances of interstellar space, come to my home planet and decided to deliver this gratuitous ultimatum clearly shows you have nothing but contempt for human beings as a species. If I were to comply with your demands I may save the planet but I would be proving to you that we are nothing more than a despicable, barbaric race and are worthless to the wider intergalactic community that you yourselves are a part of. I cannot accept, as in doing so I would have to live the rest of my life dealing with the fact that I have done this terrible deed and inflicted heinous suffering upon an innocent person. If you decide to destroy the planet then that's on you and you were probably going to do it anyway just for the lels."

 

Aliens: "Congratulations! You have passed the test! You have shown that your species is in fact capable of not being 100% cunty all the time. You have a long way to go before your species is truly enlightened but there is hope and we will help you achieve it. In the meantime here is a massive bag of the dankiest interstellar dankey dank that ever danked for being such an awesome dude and a majestic, visionary leader of your species."

[DerWaschbar]

p realistic tim

[LimpyLoo]

 

The whole point of 'thought experiments' and 'intuition pumps' is to challenge one's intuitions. If an alen ship lands and says "torture a 4-year old child for 24 hours or we'll destroy earth," then simply saying "no, because torture is wrong" is not really a reasonable position. And those in favor of torture in that situation aren't being flippant about torture: rather, it's just simply the better option.

 

Aliens: "torture a 4-year old child for 24 hours or we'll destroy earth"

 

Timothy Forward: "IDK guys, I don't really agree with violence and to be honest just the mere thought of torturing a 4 year old child for 24 hours makes me feel physically ill. Even if I were to begin I doubt I'd be able to continue for anywhere near the entire allocated time before literally being sick and passing out. The fact that you've traversed the vast distances of interstellar space, come to my home planet and decided to deliver this gratuitous ultimatum clearly shows you have nothing but contempt for human beings as a species. If I were to comply with your demands I may save the planet but I would be proving to you that we are nothing more than a despicable, barbaric race and are worthless to the wider intergalactic community that you yourselves are a part of. I cannot accept, as in doing so I would have to live the rest of my life dealing with the fact that I have done this terrible deed and inflicted heinous suffering upon an innocent person. If you decide to destroy the planet then that's on you and you were probably going to do it anyway just for the lels."

 

Aliens: "Congratulations! You have passed the test! You have shown that your species is in fact capable of not being 100% cunty all the time. You have a long way to go before your species is truly enlightened but there is hope and we will help you achieve it. In the meantime here is a massive bag of the dankiest interstellar dankey dank that ever danked for being such an awesome dude and a majestic, visionary leader of your species."

 

 

1) I'm not in favor of violence either, Tim...implying that I'm in favor of torture is like me implying you're in favor of destroying the earth

 

2) no-one seems to want to actually propose a solution to the actual thought experiment being discussed...

they either

a) call it unrealistic,

b) alter the premise (as you've done above) or,

c) they call me a cunt for proposing that torturing one person is better than letting 7 billion die.

[chenGOD]

take the moral philosophy to the game theory thread pls.