Is This Torture

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='kenrockthefirst' post='1415400' date='Nov 6 2007, 01:10 PM']Look, here's the deal. It's like going into a restaurant, looking at the menu and asking, "Can I afford this?" If you have to ask the question, you can't afford it.

It's the same with torture. If you have to ask, "Is this torture," and, "Can I justify it," it's torture and you can't justify it.[/quote]
Nails on a chalkboard drive me crazy< does that qualify as torture?

[kenrockthefirst]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' post='1419715' date='Nov 15 2007, 08:48 AM']Nails on a chalkboard drive me crazy< does that qualify as torture?[/quote]
Torture = degrading, cruel, and inhuman treatment.

Bottom line: if you wouldn't want it done to you, if you don't want it done to our service personnel, don't do it yourself.

[dairygirl4u2c]

we don't want people dying on our side either. does that mean we shouldn't shoot them during a just war? no, it does not.

i'm just pointing out that's a weak argument. you have better arguments than that i am aware.

[jeffpugh]

Dairy, it's irrelevant. War =/ torture. both sides consent to fight. The prisoner in the torture room is not able to retaliate, but sit and take degrading actions toward him/her.

[kenrockthefirst]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1419770' date='Nov 15 2007, 12:30 PM']we don't want people dying on our side either. does that mean we shouldn't shoot them during a just war? no, it does not.

i'm just pointing out that's a weak argument. you have better arguments than that i am aware.[/quote]
We've been over this. Subjecting an individual [i]over whom you have total control[/i] to degrading, cruel, or inhuman treatment is not in any way, shape or form comparable to one soldier shooting another soldier in pitched battle.

Obviously, you are entitled to your opinion. From a Catholic perspective, as has been pointed out by other posters on this topic with reference to the Catechism, torture is never justifiable, period, end of story.

[dairygirl4u2c]

both sides don't consent to fight. the islamo fascists foist it upon us. it's a twisted form of consent at best.

they are not the same. but they're more the same than they are different, killing v torture. IMHO

[jeffpugh]

What is torture is the fact that this thread is still around.

[MIKolbe]

[img]http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n129/corsetti3/tom.jpg[/img]

[dairygirl4u2c]

what about execution? are there people out there who are for execution but not for torture? (excluding when execution is next to necessary to prevent added chaos, i'm referring only to execution for its own sake because they were bad guys)

execution has the quality of killing someone who is no longer an active aggressor. in that sense, they are bound and in the same situation, essentially, as a terrorist.

i would like people to say what their views are on this post.

[Aloysius]

As I said on your post in Open Mic:

execution, in traditional Catholic teaching, is considered a just punishment that completes the action of one who has committed grave crimes, satisfying temporal justice and sending him to final justice.

torture is using a human person as a means to an end, which is always considered immoral according to Catholic teaching. people are ends in themselves, not means, anything which uses a person as a means to an end is immoral. This is why the pro-death-penalty arguments that center around using the death penalty as a deterant should be avoided like the plague by a Catholic; if you're going to support the death penalty as a Catholic, you should do so because the individual deserves death and it is the completed act of justice, not because that person's death will further some other agenda you have for society; that may be a secondary reason, but only if you have established that that person forfeited their right to life and that they deserve death and ought to be given a chance to make peace with God before their act of forfeiture is brought to completion by the state.

torture can never be offered as a punishment; execution is a punishment which sends one to ultimate justice, torture is a temporal act which completes nothing, has no justification in terms of punishment, and if used as a means to some end is certainly not justice.

[dairygirl4u2c]

also dont' forget. the argument is torture only when there's reaonable certitude of impending danger. and as the degree of known harm and intensity goes up, so does the type of torture.

you can't ethically say some random dude is gonna blow up NYC unless you suspect it with evidence etc, just so you can torture him. that would be illegal too in any sensible situation.

mistakes will be made. just as mistakes are made with killing people when there's a war, as occurs in the middle east. that's life. the bottomline with that killing and torture, i guess, is whether the ends justifies the means. (i'm just conceding this much. i can see an argument that the killing isn't justifying htem enas, but i think effectively it is.) i think ends justtifies means.

with that said, i don't see any difference with execution and torture.

Edited November 20, 2007 by dairygirl4u2c

[kenrockthefirst]

[img]http://picayune.uclick.com/comics/trall/2007/trall071112.gif[/img]

[dairygirl4u2c]

you guys can make fun of the situation all you want. and point out that mistakes, and even abuse, would occur.
but don't tell that to the Creator when he asks you, hypothetically speaking, why you just sat back and didn't torutre Osama's top aid when Osama was about to attack. millions dead and suffering v. spineless and mindless principles. yeah that will sit well with God. be realistic. (in my arguably unrealistic hypothetical, but i digress. the point is made)

i'm also still waiting for an explanatino between execution (when it's not an exigent circumstance where they need put down to prevent more probs) and torture. (for those who are all an about execution many time but not torture)
or actually, the deterrent effect of of execution is said to be used to prevent others from doing it, seems to to be justifying the means. the person isn't an active aggressor and is not capable.

the only consistent way to execute would be for those criminals who have decent liklihood to escape. and you know that hardly ever happens.

Edited November 22, 2007 by dairygirl4u2c

[Aloysius]

If the Creator asked me that question (and wow, I must grow up to be Jack Bauer then), I will say "because your Son taught us "what good is it for a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul", because your Son's Church taught us that the ends do not justify the means, even if the ends be saving millions, billions, trillions, or quadrillions of lives (hey, terrorists could attack aliens, right?)

are you not reading my posts? I offered an explanation about execution: execution is an end in itself, it can only be done if it is considered that justice merits execution, not as a means to some end, but because that one individual human person merits it for his punishment. the deterrent effect must be secondary, it can never justify an execution.

torture can never be an end-in-itself punishment, it simply is not justified as a response to any crime. as a means, it's certainly immoral (no matter what the ends); as an end, well, it'd just be sadistic, there'd be no real justice. execution sends one guilty of a grave crime to their final judgment, that is justice if that person had ended a life themself; but even if one's crime was torturing someone, the torture of that person would not complete justice, only his imprisonment (or, theoretically if the crime was grave enough, his execution)

but put simply: execution is a punishment, torture is a means to an end. they are apples and oranges.

[dairygirl4u2c]

sorry al. i missed your last post as you posted it at the same time as one of mine. then i only raed the newest posts.

you made a good point, cause executing someone offers punishment whereas torture often is just a means to get the info. i suppose to an extent it's consistent.

i also can see that perhaps, torture could be seen as an punishment, but if you're also doing it as a means to an end then it's bad. tht is also fairly consistent, if you're only executing with incidental good effects being that it deters others and not purposefully deterring othesr. (cause deterring others would be justifing an end)

you present a sound case. i suppose it comes down to ends justifying the means, whether that's true or not. i think it's BS often times but that's just me.

on an incidental note. if you can execute someone as punishment for punishment's sake, why can't you torture someone as punishment for punishment's sake? at least that way they are still living.

Edited November 24, 2007 by dairygirl4u2c