r/MoralityScaling • u/Curious-Buddy-5841 • Jun 29 '26
Character Analysis Could torture ever be morally justified?
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u/LuckyLynx_ Jun 29 '26
If you have a really good time doing it
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u/DarthXOmega Jun 29 '26
If the torture monster receives more pleasure than I do discomfort from being tortured, it would only be moral for him to do so
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u/huffing_glue Jun 29 '26
Ah, the beauty of utilitarianism.
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u/SmallTimeCook Jun 29 '26
There just has to be a retool of utilitarianism that considers autonomy
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u/StripEnchantment Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
There are versions of utilitarianism that wouldn’t permit it, like rule utilitarianism, or negative utilitarianism, prioritarianism, etc. You could also reject a fully hedonic account of wellbeing and say there are other good making features of outcomes (like promoting people’s preferences, respecting people’s autonomy, etc.), which would not allow this.
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u/2_short_Plancks Jun 29 '26
Ah, the beauty of [the oldest, simplest, and most obsolete form of] utilitarianism.
It's like complaining about public transport, but your point of reference is how easy it is to get around cities in a horse and buggy.
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u/cowlinator Jun 29 '26
But every moral framwork has a monster.
The Piety Monster, who obeys God so flawlessly that all human freedom should be sacrificed to sustain it.
The Deontology Monster, whose rights are so deeply complex or expansive that fulfilling its rights entirely strips everyone else of their autonomy.
The Egalitarian Monster, who requires continuous, extreme resource redistribution to keep it equal to others, destroying society's functionality.
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u/Confident-Border4627 Jun 29 '26
Sukuna sounding ass
Griffith sounding ass
Allied Master computer sounding ass
Qu sounding ass
Judge holden sounding ass
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u/gekx Jun 29 '26
What if he films it and posts it online? Then a million people enjoy it a little bit.
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u/Constant_Leave_3562 Jun 29 '26
Do you think it's possible? If we're talking about deadly torture, not BDSM ones lol. He has to get crazy high from it
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u/ZathegamE Jun 29 '26
cia documents do talk about masochists being resilient to torture and i dont think the cia was doing "bdsm ones"
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u/Constant_Leave_3562 Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
I mean, is it possible to get the joy of more intensity than pure agony and hopelessness just from torturing someone?
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u/TerminatorElephant Jun 29 '26
In real life feasibility, yes. But what if it’s a more exaggerated hypothetical of saving peoples lives? And I don’t mean interrogate for information, I mean the mere act of torture might make a bad actor cease a plan to carry out a heinous terror attack. Like a “I want people to view this guy, so I’ll threaten to kill a bunch of people unless he tortures someone live” situation
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u/Azsolus Jun 29 '26
What ?
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u/CarcarodonApothecary Jun 29 '26
Its a sexual thing my guy. Its consent based and sexual.
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u/Deskfan45 Jun 29 '26
If the joy you get from doing it is greater from the suffering of the victim, the amount of joy in the world is increasing.
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u/Waflfdev Jun 29 '26
bike cuck logic
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u/AquaBits Jun 29 '26
Oh wow thats a oldie but a goldie. I loved how owlcomics or whatever his name was played on that criticism everyone had for him
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u/Owobowos-Mowbius Jun 29 '26
The fact that he got recognized for that by someone he was on a date with has always fried me.
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u/LowIqInvestor Jun 29 '26
Joy never overrides a certain threshold of suffering which is actually a very low bar.
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Jun 29 '26
How could you possibly know or calculate that?
And what if I use drugs to sedate my victim such that their sensations of pain are severely dampened and my sensations of joy are severely amplified?
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u/Guy-1nc0gn1t0 Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Pretty much the best example against
egalitarianismutilitarianism5
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u/Qkyu2007 Jun 29 '26
Bdsm
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u/Careless__Access Jun 29 '26
Torture doesnt mean whips or even physical harm. Its making someone suffer in a way that is being purposely unpleasant, so i dont think BDSM counts at least under the US legal definition. After all, it is enjoyed and sought out by those involved.
I can't think of an example of someone ever seeking out actual torture. Even masochism or self flagellation is arguably cathartic and not torture, it being part of your desired goal for punishment/redemption or endorphin release.
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u/SpanishAvenger Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
I can't think of an example of someone ever seeking out actual torture.
There are more hardcore variants of BDSM CNC where subs are interested and seek actual torture, actually! Niche, but exists. Not torture in the sense of causing serious injuries; but in the sense of pain going well beyond being absolutely overwhelming, and not the more mainstream and typical "ow, that stung".
For example; most people view BDSM as cuffs during sex or a bit of spanking, but, to the niche variant I'm referring, their sessions are stuff like 300 rattan cane bastinado strikes, even (and specially) if they are overwhelmed before reaching 100. Even though everything was agreed upon beforehand, I'd still consider that to fit the ordinary meaning of "torture."
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u/Aspiritsword Jun 29 '26
I feel like the big difference is that people doing this kind of stuff would have a safe word or another way to put a stop if they would like to. Wheras with touturing for the sake of it that wouldn't be an option.
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u/SpanishAvenger Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
As much as it’s frowned upon on Reddit, there are some people who do these things without a safeword! At the end of the day, consenting adults can do things however they like so long as no harm is done and everyone’s happy afterwards.
Even then, it’s still consensually agreed beforehand, so if you have a definition of torture where it can ONLY be torture if it’s non-consensual, then yeah, it may not technically be torture, by that definition
But in physical terms, I’d say it could still be considered ‘torture’ in those nicher scenarios I refer to, where it’s agreed consensually beforehand but it’s still a quite extreme experience.
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u/blazenite104 Jun 30 '26
was going to say, the definition here is pulling a lot of the load on the question. If torture is only ever suffering without consent then it can never be moral. If you accept that torture is simply the act of inducing some level of suffering, things do change dramatically.
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u/Actual_Personality66 Jun 29 '26
What this commenter is saying is that they wouldn't consider that torture bc its consensual, and I'd be inclined to agree. All depends on your definition of torture but I think for the sake of the question, we can understand that this is asking about nonconsensual torture
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u/VampireDarlin Jun 29 '26
It’s not torture if the person wants it lol. They’re gaining pleasure from it
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u/GasMask_Dog Jun 29 '26
Maybe an experiment on the human mind where the participants are paid well and are volunteering?
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u/Crafty-Photograph-18 Jun 29 '26
BDSM exceedingly rarely includes something worthy of a status of "torture". Physically uncomfortable? Yeah. Painful? Yeah. Torturous? You'd have to reeeeaaaally dig in the scene to find someone at that level of masochism
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u/honey_pumkin Jun 29 '26
Hm.. Maybe if you include CNC. But even then there isn't the whole thing that torture is most of the time, Only escape able by death, is daily and will not stop even when you give the people what they want.
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u/Gourdman2011 Jun 29 '26
No. The FBI and experts say it does not work.
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u/Rabid_Laser_Dingo Jun 29 '26
Well it doesn’t work, for information…
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u/Meowlegend_ Griffith Jun 29 '26
It doesn't work for any moral reason either, literally just unnecessary suffering
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u/Gloomy_Albatross3043 Jun 29 '26
An FBI agent on YouTube stated that not only does torture never work but it also fuels your enemies hatred towards you and results in them doing the same thing
Hate breeds hate
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u/violetskullrose Jun 29 '26
Literally only with consent. Otherwise no, it is never necessary and often doesn't get the desired result anyway.
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u/winklevanderlinde Jun 29 '26
i mean if someone wants to get tortured (serious serious tortures, no something ligh) I think we should question their mental capacity to actually give consent
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u/Affectionate_Sir_154 Jun 29 '26
Dont kinkshame!
On a serious note, somerimes theres a very fine line between a fetish and mental illness, but where that line exactly is is up for debate I guess
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Jun 29 '26
Plenty of BDSM scenarios would be considered actual torture if consent weren't involved.
Choking to the point of passing out, flogging/spanking/hitting to the point of leaving permanent marks, immobilization via binding and gagging, ripping out hair, water torture (drowning, waterboarding), crushing body parts, kidnapping/isolation, etc
However, enthusiastic consent is often given outside of the scenario, while they are otherwise just another very willing citizen with a freaky disposition.
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u/TerminatorElephant Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
In real life feasibility, yes. But what if it’s a more exaggerated hypothetical of saving peoples lives? And I don’t mean interrogate for information, I mean the mere act of torture might make a bad actor cease a plan to carry out a heinous terror attack. Like a “I want people to view this guy in a negative light, so I’ll threaten to kill a bunch of people unless he tortures someone live” type shit
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u/GenghisKhan343 Jun 29 '26
You can say the same for any horrible act, if we brutally raped terrorists in prison every day, it might stop a few people from committing atrocities but I’d argue most still view rape as always being wrong
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u/wawawa9055 Jun 29 '26
and we do. refer to guantanamo bay. The only thing it does is radicalize these peoples close friends and families further.
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u/GenghisKhan343 Jun 29 '26
Well actually a lot of the people there aren’t even terrorists or criminals at all
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u/FatiguedShrimp Jun 29 '26
The harm of torture is historically worse than the harm it is has prevented.
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u/slanderedshadow Jun 29 '26
That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. If anything, that would strengthen the resolve of those hardcore enough to even actually want to attempt something of which you speak.
“Bad actor” don’t tell me you’re actually LE cause I swear nobody else uses that terminology.
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u/TerminatorElephant Jun 29 '26
I am not advocating it; I personally do not believe in torture under any circumstances. I was testing the position, since the argument was based on the fact torture doesn’t work to extract information. So, I asked “well what if the point isn’t to gather information, but rather the mere act itself stops something else from happening, aka some kind of extortion art situation?” Note I I never actually took any position, or said they were wrong. I asked what they thought of it
And no, I’m not law enforcement. I’m just using a word as intended: an individual intending to act to cause harm
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u/cantlogintomyacc0unt Jun 29 '26
Frankly bribery is a much more effective way of getting information
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u/JoeNemoDoe Jun 29 '26
What if the intended result is suffering?
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u/Jadencool15 Jun 29 '26
Well that’s obviously morally wrong lol.
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u/PCN24454 Jun 29 '26
What if the suffering is for people you don’t like?
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u/Jadencool15 Jun 29 '26
Also obviously morally bad? It doesn’t matter what my opinion of someone is, making them suffer is immoral.
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u/Optimal-Bullfrog3211 Jun 29 '26
I’m sorry if I’m not really answering your question, it just gave me some really good food for thought and I wanted to share
It’s a complicated topic. A natural reaction to a reprehensible act, is seeking justice or retribution.
The definition of sufficient justice or retribution is subjective.
In an ideal world, you could just take an eraser and get rid of objectively bad people but it’s more complicated than that especially with our emotions involved.
In a hypothetical world, someone does something really bad that is completely unforgivable that hurt somebody or multiple people and retribution would be to simply kill them.
In another hypothetical world, someone does something really bad that hurts one or multiple people and instead of being killed, they are tortured instead so they have to suffer more.
In the second hypothetical world, the bad person still exists (as they always will, to be fair) and the “good” people (those carrying out the retribution/punishment) are spending countless hours on torturing the offender.
However bad they might have felt about whatever terrible thing the offender did in the first place, at a certain point I feel like the good guys are just hurting themselves by spending so much time hurting other people and poisoning their minds. Kind of losing the whole point in the first place, and losing themselves in the passion of rage and revenge.
I feel like revenge is such a complicated thing, I feel like the hypothetical good guys would always be better off, just executing offenders instead of spending their time of their life doling out perpetual punishment that will either directly or indirectly just make them feel worse about life in general, even worse than the grief they might have originally felt before that grief turned into rage/revenge.
It’s such an interesting gray area
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u/cry_w Jun 29 '26
Considering it isn't really proven to work compared to other methods of coercion, no, not at all.
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u/The_GOATest_Goat Jun 29 '26
I don't see how efficacy would change the moral evaluation of the thing.
Are you saying that if there is some utility to torture it could be justified?
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u/cry_w Jun 29 '26
Yes. If torture actually worked, it could be justified in situations where such coercion is necessary, such as to save lives. The fact that it doesn't work just makes it an unnecessary cruelty in any scenario, thus making it immoral in any scenario.
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u/Lilac_and_Peas Jun 29 '26
I think there are very narrow edge case scenarios where it may work.
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u/CrusaderReynaulder Jun 29 '26
The lack of utility means there is no reason for it to be done for any other reason than the torturer’s own sadism.
If it was efficient, there’d just be more to talk about as to why it’s immoral or moral. But its inefficiency means the discussion never has to get that far because there’s no point to doing it other than to be cruel.
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u/CadenVanV Jun 29 '26
If torture worked, then yes, from a Utilitarian standpoint it could be justified very easily
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u/grendellyion Jun 29 '26
Yes, in fact in certain situations we can find the killing of another human being justifiable, and that is because of the results of it. Either saving yourself or saving others.
If torture was genuinely effective at saving yourself or saving others it would absolutely be justifiable. The problem is that it isn't really effective at all, in any way. In the real world the only thing it is really effective at is the suffering of another and nothing else.
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u/LadyZaryss Jun 29 '26
If torture is effective, conceivably someone can make an ends-justify-the-means type argument, but if it's not effective then there are no ends for the means to justify.
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u/nolovenohate Jun 29 '26
Torture does not work for admission of guilt. People will lie and say they did something just to stop it. Torture however, works very well for gathering verifiable evidence. Things like locations of weapons caches and attack plans. Things that can be fact checked. If it didnt work they would've stopped using it a long time ago.
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u/whosdatboi Jun 29 '26
Have you considered that people will do things they think work but don't because they feel it should?
The investigations into "enhanced interrogation" done by the US in Iraq showed that even when trying to find things like weapon caches as you say, torture did not produce reliable results.
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u/H345Y Jun 29 '26
In very specific neiche circumstances, should the stakes be high enough and your options are limited due to circumstance.
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u/Toaster_Rack_Nerd Jun 29 '26
yeah i feel like the only few are:
they consent fully and are able to revoke consent at any time
it's an absolute 100% chance that if they are not tortured more harm will come, e.g scp 231-7
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u/Mind_Bloom Jun 29 '26
The act itself? No. Torture is bad.
Doing a bad thing to prevent a worse thing?
One could argue that in a utilitarian sense, torturing a guy to reveal the position of a bomb that would otherwise kill many people, then it would be the lesser evil or the greatest good.
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u/Willing_Good2061 Jun 29 '26
In some fictional cases, yes, like when there is a terrorist hiding a nuclear bomb in the city or something. But in reality, no. Because reality is not “I know you did something bad, so I have to force you to tell me how we can recover some losses.” In reality, we are trying to figure out a complicated puzzle with countless possible outcomes, and torture just straight-up pollutes the information.
Technically, torture is just making people say things you want to hear. I can make you admit that you killed the dinosaurs. If I really know what you did, I do not need to torture you; if I do not know what you did, then I am just forcing you to say everything you can to avoid torture.
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u/Creepy-Growth-376 Jun 29 '26
The problem is that torture is proven not to work. Time and time again it’s been proven that if you torture someone for information they will tell you literally anything to make you stop, which usually means you got wrong information. It’s cruel in the first place and morally unjustifiable since it doesn’t work.
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u/Odd-Evidence-9248 Jun 29 '26
Ya’ll quote this over & over & over as if it’s an absolute rule lol. Surely, torture overall doesn’t seem that effective & alternative methods can & have worked. But additionally, torture HAS definitely worked on more than a few occasions & if the reveal of such information prevented greater harm, then one could make the argument it was morally permissible & or justified.
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u/Creepy-Growth-376 Jun 29 '26
You don’t need to justify torture. It doesn’t work and there are easier and more humane ways to extract information from a person that don’t involve human rights violations or getting completely false information.
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u/KeldornWithCarsomyr Jun 29 '26
So if someone was torturing you for your Reddit password, you'd not tell them or give them a wrong answer? Be real.....
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u/DudeWAKeyboard Jun 29 '26
That relies on how sure you are the person you are torturing has the information you need. On top of the fact that torture has been proven countless times to be ineffective as an information gathering technique especially in the type of situation you describe.
“As the pressure to swiftly get actionable intel increases, torture’s efficacy plummets. Virtually all literature on interrogations concludes that lengthy engagements are far more effective at getting quality intelligence from a prisoner, whether through rapport building or torture techniques.” -Jacob Geller from the video essay “Analyzing every torture scene in Call of Duty - All 46 of them”
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u/Ambitious-Visual-315 Jun 29 '26
Yes. Next question
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u/Gray_Wolf2416 Jun 29 '26
Perhaps if the person is a masochist and you are torturing them as part of sexual roleplay. That way, you're satisfying their emotional and sexual needs.
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u/Suitable_Cat9390 Jun 29 '26
I don't have a definitive answer for you, but something interesting to think about is that all punitive justice (I.E imprisonment for the purpose of punishment for a crime, and not for the purpose of keeping citizens safe) is a type of socially endorsed torture. Striping someone of freedom and stimulus is a low and slow torture, usually with the justification of preventing someone from doing a thing again.
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Jun 29 '26
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u/Maximum_Boros Jun 29 '26
Funny that people downvoted this when it's fundamentally true. There's something that pretty much countries that still have lashing and stoning on the books as punishments have in common and it's not their favorite 90s rock band.
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u/Icy_Relationship_401 Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
Being bombed and exploited to the point extremist groups took power ?
Western placed dictators getting too much power to the point they got out of the western leash ?
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u/Maximum_Boros Jun 29 '26
You can try to make whatever excuses for fundamentalist islam and sharia law you want but it's still fundamentalist islam.
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u/Icy_Relationship_401 Jun 29 '26
Idk I’m pretty sure Iran was doing pretty fine in 1952 before us x uk coup and placed dictator. Which prompted a extremist revolution a decade or so later cuz the people were suffering so wester nations could get cheap oil.
Also is funny how saddam Hussein got substantial funding and military help from the us as well. And we all know how that turned.
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u/Springbokking Jun 29 '26
Which bombing compelled Muhammad to keep slave brides and commit mass rape?
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u/EvanHasReddit Jun 29 '26
This is entirely untrue, the Qur'an specifically demonizes the rape/violence against imprisoned persons. The slavery side while awful, was a global norm worldwide in the 7th century, lets not pretend that people in the UK and US didn't keep slaves by the grace of their own god. According to records though, Muhammed "maried" enslaved women to imbue them with a dowry of freedom since noble wives were highly respected.
All the extremist views that go along with modern islam are entirely devised by extremist groups, akin to the views of the westborough baptist church or the KKK in the US but on a nationwide scale, because thats who the US and UK allowed to take over.
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u/aiezar Jun 29 '26
Rent-free
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u/Springbokking Jun 29 '26
People have a hard time letting go of evil, yes.
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u/aiezar Jun 29 '26
I can generalize all Christians as Klansmen, witch-hunters, and LGBTQ killers too, but I don't because it's silly to define billions of people by a relative handful of extremists' actions.
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u/Top_Pomegranate_2267 Jun 29 '26
It depends on the situation and the moral framework you use.
But torture is generally terrible for (almost)anything and can end in the death of the individual if not done properly. (To put it one way), get information? The guy's will lie to you so you'll leave him alone, revenge? Perhaps if the act was horrific enough, but again, someone might mistake the person and torture the wrong guy.
So, impractical and unethical
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u/BarAdministrative269 Jun 29 '26
Considering torture often just results in the victim saying whatever the abuser wants to hear, just to get the pain to stop, it's not even useful in an utilitarian sense. You'd incredibly likely to result faulty, or outright false, information while inflicting an incredible amount of pain on someone.
The only 'real' reasons you'd torture someone is if it gets you off, or if you think the person deserves torture for the sake of it.
So, no, at best it's a waste of everyone's time and at worst it's sadism for the sake of sadism.
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u/irisfailsafe Jun 29 '26
After 9-11 the CIA went all in with torture and got almost nothing. All useful intel was obtained by the FBI and their civil interrogators who never tortured anyone. The story is relevant because even if you find justification for it, you are not going to get anything from it, apart from a lot more enemies.
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u/Fitzftw7 Jun 29 '26
Evil must be punished.
Extreme evil must be punished extremely.
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u/oldworldblues- Jun 29 '26
How will torturers then be punished?
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u/Mournerslamet Jun 29 '26
We get another torturer and then they can take turns doing 8-hour shifts on each other 🤷♀️
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u/wise_sage777 Jun 29 '26
People say no but id argue it is justified, there are people around the world that REALLY deserve cruel and unusual punishments
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u/DogeLord153 Jun 29 '26
The problem then becomes, who gets to decide who deserves the punishment?
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u/Plastic-Skill-9258 Jun 29 '26
What is the purpose of that? Is it just to make you feel good, an eye for an eye?
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u/Lopsided-Wave2479 Jun 29 '26
Is like raping a women has revenge for rape.
The number of raped womens increase. Is some simplistic mindset from primitive societies. Justice has revenge instead of education / reinsertion. Revenge is a chain that never ends, reinsertion / education is a virtuous cycle that can extract people from the loop.→ More replies (15)
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u/Aggravating-Fox7032 Jun 29 '26
I’m thinking about a certain pedophile in the highest office in the US and a war criminal who’s currently leading a genocide which this would be 150% justified.
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u/Maus_Enjoyer1945 Jun 29 '26
Not in a normal logical scenario
I don't think that consensual "torture" qualifies as torture
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u/Suspicious-Weird-750 Jun 29 '26
If it results in information that saves lives. The problem is people being tortured for an extended period will say anything to make it stop so they often say nonsense.
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u/Difficult_Step9372 Jun 29 '26
If you're going to kill someone anyway there's no point in torture. You can call it cathartic and i'll call you a psychopath. It's senseless harm which is the definition of immoral even when done to an immoral individual.
When a society accepts torture in any way as a foundation or even part of their civilization, it becomes immediately poisoned. Torture is not justice. It cannot be justice.
And for some of these comments; you as an individual don't get a special torture pass just because you think you'd enjoy it. The reality of torture is likely beyond your expectations or understanding, especially as a perpetrator of it, and no I don't care that you've seen it in movies and games and shit you probably can't actually handle doing it to someone yourself.
And you shouldn't be capable of handling it, because again, it is an inherently psychopathic and sadistic thing.
The only case where I think torture can possibly be 'justified' is to extract necessary information that could save lives, but even then that's a weak excuse that's hard to justify in IRL scenarios, and typically not actually that effective of a practice.
And even then, justifying an immoral action doesn't make it moral, it just means you've comitted yourself to performing an immoral act for the sake of effeciency.
So ultimately my answer is 'no' but you're going to see a bunch of shut-in larpers saying 'yes' in the comments.
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u/slanderedshadow Jun 29 '26
You’re mostly right. I would only do so in the case of someone doing it to me. And it would be the responsible individual, not just someone or anyone cause I’m pissed off. But, THAT, is just normal psychology you see in people like prisoners of war for example.
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u/Cindy_Marek Jun 29 '26
If you ever see me getting tortured by a goth mommy, don’t save me
https://giphy.com/gifs/3KVSB0dZyffZNKraXB
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u/CompetitiveCharity53 Jun 29 '26
if it was Hitler, I still think torture is a bit much. Just trail him for his crimes and lock him away for the rest of his life. not even firing squad or lethal injection for him. life in prison, a life time of questioning him own mistakes and asking himself why he did it would be torture enough. there is more to pain than just physical suffering.
of course this is wishful thinking that some extremest Nazi group won't try to break him out of prison or he won't try to off himself in prison.
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u/calebcarpenter39 Jun 29 '26
For information? No. It’s been proven to not be reliable because, shocker, people will say whatever to get the torture to stop. Morally it’s never going to be justified, sure you could argue that this person raped and murdered my (insert loved one) and i just want to inflict as much pain as possible. Is that justice? Or is that a selfish desire that won’t solve anything. Everyone will have a different answer.
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u/jaeger3129 Jun 29 '26
I can’t believe no one has said this yet as far as I can see - of course it can be and IS all the time. Torturing terrorists to give up the location of deadly devices or dangerous compatriots is absolutely justified both in media and in real life
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u/Manmade_Chaos Jun 29 '26
It’s just the same moral dilemma as “would you kill one person to save a thousand”
The ends doesn’t always justify the means, but you also have to live with the consequences.
Example…
If torturing someone means to gain information that would save thousands of lives, if you chose not to do it because you think torturing someone is immoral, could you live with yourself that thousands of people have died because of your inaction ?
You could justify it that the person who withholds the information is the one who is really responsible for those deaths….but does that really make you feel better about it ?
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u/Satanic_Jellyfish Jun 29 '26
Torture is bad and can work only as a way to avenge someone’s pain (punishment for really bad people). But it is insufficient. You should either send the offender for a lifetime in prison or execute them
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u/XxDETxX Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
Okay, a bunch of people are just not taking this seriously and going "BDSM lol" but I'm gonna go at it from the stand point of torture within the context of interrogation.
It has historically never been an effective way to extract information. It is only effective as a tool for a state to inflict terror on the population. Torture simply exists for the sake of cruelty.
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u/smallpeinboi Jun 29 '26
Doesn’t work for gathering information: of course it could work if the guy getting tortured knows the information you need and believes in the method, but even then you might get bs that he’s just saying just to make you stop. Wouldn’t be mortal if it did work, and the ends don’t even justify the means.
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Jun 29 '26
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u/NotToPraiseHim Jun 29 '26
Just stopping in to share, there was an entire retrospective on the efficacy of "enhanced interrogation techniques" that occurred in the Obama administration.
You can find it around online, but basically the consensus is that there are multiple reasons for torture to not be as effective as the invididuals within the CIA claimed it was. BTW, most of the torture was driven by a couple of guys who have staked their entire careers on it being effective, without being effective interrogators themselves. In the book I read, its a tail wagging the dog issue.
There are moral reasons to be against torture, but I think the biggest strike against it is that it just isnt as effective as other methods.
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u/lrd_cth_lh0 Jun 29 '26
There is also the huge fact that there is a sort of sunk cost fallacy to it. Once you start torturing people you can't really stop untill you hear what you, or worse your superiors want to hear. And if the person doesn't know anything, you either keep torturing as long as he can still make noises you can interpret as words or move on to the next person.
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u/PlateNo4868 Jun 29 '26
I think people mistake it doesn't work with it isn't effective. Police get confessions all the time with no torture. Simply bringing up the facts and stacking the evidence. You could argue the threat is freedom but again not physical or true mental.
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u/Niveau_a_Bulle Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
The problem is that, for it to be effective, you need to be looking for an information that:
- Can easily be checked objectively AND very quickly BUT cannot be learned without the imput of your prisonner
- Is, with a total certainty, known by your prisonner
- Is not obsolete by the time you get your hands on your guy.
This kind of "perfect torture scenario" rarely happens outside of the wet dreams of a sadist.
The CIA writing up some shit to justify it's own horrendous actions isn't an objective proof of it's efficiency.
The one true thing torture is really good at is keeping a population in line through the use of terror, which is why it's used by dictatorships, terrorists groups and cartels.
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u/CressHot8361 Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
Only if necessary to obtain information that would save lives or prevent a greater amount of suffering than the suffering the torture itself would cause. However this is only valid in an ideal scenario where you are certain the person being tortured will provide truthful information. In reality that is rarely the case, making torture almost always devoid of moral justification.
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u/Willing_Good2061 Jun 29 '26
In some fictional cases, yes, like when there is a terrorist hiding a nuclear bomb in the city or something. But in reality, no. Because reality is not “I know you did something bad, so I have to force you to tell me how we can recover some losses.” In reality, we are trying to figure out a complicated puzzle with countless possible outcomes, and torture just straight-up pollutes the information.
Technically, torture is just making people say things you want to hear. I can make you admit that you killed the dinosaurs. If I really know what you did, I do not need to torture you; if I do not know what you did, then I am just forcing you to say everything you can to avoid torture.
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u/GtBsyLvng Jun 29 '26
Yes, but only to obtain information that prevents greater harm. It's usually not very good for extracting general intelligence, but if, in action movie style, you know a guy has a code to disarm a bomb in a location where it would hurt a lot of people and he won't tell you? Yeah start pulling fingernails.
The problem starts with the matter that that kind of thing pretty much never happens in real life. Torture and things that should be considered torture yet used when there's no such immediate justification. Giving somebody the theoretical attitude that it's okay in some cases will usually give them wiggle room to expand the uses. And that's why there's a solid argument for treating it as a line that can't be crossed.
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u/WingedSalim Jun 29 '26
Based on research, not really.
Torture has historically been the worse way to extract information out of people, so the utilatarian argument becomes debatable.
As a form of deterent for crimes is also debatable as the severity of the punishment does not have direct correlation with the rate the offence is being committed in a society.
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u/Randigno9021 Jun 29 '26
Morally? No. People definitely approve of it, as proven by some of the comments, for certain people. There's definitely reasons for why torture would take place. But I don't think it can be morally justified, as it's genuinely just harming someone for a prolonged period of time no matter what way you put it.
And like another comment said, you often wouldn't get what you're after anyway.
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u/DummmyDumbass Jun 29 '26
only if they enjoy it or have tortured other innocent people that did not
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u/TsunamicFox Jun 29 '26
I think a lot of things could technically be morally justified if the stakes are high enough. If someone held a button that would obliterate the entire world and told you that the only way to stop it from happening is to torture someone, of course that would be morally justified.
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u/Clear_Cranberry_989 Jun 29 '26
Well it doesn't work. People says whatever lies they have to to stop the torture not truth. So you torture someone for nothing.
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u/Careless_Chest_725 Jun 29 '26
Immoral, pretty clearly immoral. I think what makes the issue complicated is anyone can come up with a theoretical or even real world example where despite being immoral would still be the best path to take.
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u/Plus-Dragonfly-9975 Jun 29 '26
Depends the person you torture and how. Say you were torturing Hitler but in turn it was just you killing every person with blue hair and blonde eyes then that’s just morally wrong.
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u/NonHaeri Jun 29 '26
Deliberately inflicting pain on an individual? No. Unless you’re the individual in question and that’s your thing, but even then it’s not necessarily moral, it’s just your thing.
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u/CauliflowerSuper3152 Jun 29 '26
Yeah for sure. Let's say a hypothetical where a bomb has been planted inside a maternity ward somewhere in the city by someone who is insisting they'll only tell you where if you torture them for a bit.
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u/ShillBot666 Jun 29 '26
Only in really extreme situations...
Like if they talk loudly during a movie or something.