CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Abortion, euthanasia, genetic engineering, Just War theory and other such hot topics.

Moderators: AMod, iMod

Locked
User avatar
fiveredapples
Posts: 156
Joined: Sun Oct 31, 2010 10:47 am

Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by fiveredapples »

Greta wrote:An argument is made that reveals the weakness of your ungrounded claim that waterboarding is not torture.
No such argument was given. You're just stating that it was. I've written quite a lot to argue my position. It's really insulting to have some idiot come along and make pronouncements as if she's even qualified to judge my argument, let alone determine when some other argument defeats it. Run along, now.
User avatar
Greta
Posts: 4389
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2015 8:10 am

Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by Greta »

Inflicting ever more physical discomfort to another person until they bend to your will is torture, no matter how you rationalise.
This is the statement that you still cannot, and will not, handle.

Applying non standard definitions to words is fine if the semantics are inappropriate, but waterboarding is actual torture; it involves sustained political physical coercion and, despite your denials, the potential for permanent harm is obvious. Not that I'm convinced by your claim that the three Muslim prisoners were suffering no effects of PTSD. That may happen in Hollywood, but in real life human beings suffer trauma from ... "sustained agonising activities designed to force people to spill the beans".

Maybe we don't care about inflicting harm or consider it justified? That's another issue. Again - since you didn't pay attention before - my complaint was always in your denial that waterboarding is torture.
Last edited by Greta on Mon Jan 30, 2017 10:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Hobbes' Choice
Posts: 8364
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:45 am

Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

fiveredapples wrote:
Greta wrote:An argument is made that reveals the weakness of your ungrounded claim that waterboarding is not torture.
No such argument was given. You're just stating that it was. I've written quite a lot to argue my position. It's really insulting to have some idiot come along and make pronouncements as if she's even qualified to judge my argument, let alone determine when some other argument defeats it. Run along, now.
This moron can't even remember what he has typed.
The only argument 5FA presented was he weird claim that WB was not torture, and anyone is perfectly capable of look back at the OP.
He's just a wind up.
User avatar
Greta
Posts: 4389
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2015 8:10 am

Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by Greta »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
fiveredapples wrote:
Greta wrote:An argument is made that reveals the weakness of your ungrounded claim that waterboarding is not torture.
No such argument was given. You're just stating that it was. I've written quite a lot to argue my position. It's really insulting to have some idiot come along and make pronouncements as if she's even qualified to judge my argument, let alone determine when some other argument defeats it. Run along, now.
This moron can't even remember what he has typed.
The only argument 5FA presented was he weird claim that WB was not torture, and anyone is perfectly capable of look back at the OP.
He's just a wind up.
Exactly. He is clearly seeking emotional (sexual?) gratification. The moment he's shown to be wrong he switched, denying that he had been making the two claims regarding both definition and the ethics. Both abusive and dishonest.
Last edited by Greta on Mon Jan 30, 2017 10:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Hobbes' Choice
Posts: 8364
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:45 am

Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Greta wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
fiveredapples wrote: No such argument was given. You're just stating that it was. I've written quite a lot to argue my position. It's really insulting to have some idiot come along and make pronouncements as if she's even qualified to judge my argument, let alone determine when some other argument defeats it. Run along, now.
This moron can't even remember what he has typed.
The only argument 5FA presented was he weird claim that WB was not torture, and anyone is perfectly capable of look back at the OP.
He's just a wind up.
Exactly. He is clearly seeking emotional (sexual?) gratification.
LOL
I think you might be right.
His memory seems rather weak.
...think one way to approach the debate is to first eliminate the most popular and most erroneous argument against CIA Water Boarding, and that is that CIA water boarding is torture. I know, I know, it's something you take for granted and something you think goes without argument, but nothing goes without argument when you're a rigorous thinker (like I am). So, I state: CIA water boarding (hence, just 'water boarding') is not torture.
That was just 3 days ago.
User avatar
Greta
Posts: 4389
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2015 8:10 am

Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by Greta »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Greta wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
This moron can't even remember what he has typed.
The only argument 5FA presented was he weird claim that WB was not torture, and anyone is perfectly capable of look back at the OP.
He's just a wind up.
Exactly. He is clearly seeking emotional (sexual?) gratification.
LOL
I think you might be right.
His memory seems rather weak.
...think one way to approach the debate is to first eliminate the most popular and most erroneous argument against CIA Water Boarding, and that is that CIA water boarding is torture. I know, I know, it's something you take for granted and something you think goes without argument, but nothing goes without argument when you're a rigorous thinker (like I am). So, I state: CIA water boarding (hence, just 'water boarding') is not torture.
That was just 3 days ago.
Well, it does seem like there's more to all this with The Troll than the actual issue. I was vomited on by this character on another forum - he went ballistic because some people thought it better not to eat animals. Each time he comes to forums trying to prove that examples of people's compassion are mistaken. He then viciously attacks any dissenters while positing himself as an intellectual colossus stomping on rat-like mental Lilliputians. Meanwhile, he ignores arguments that demolish his own, which happens plenty.

So what we have here appears to be a sadist - he gets off on pain, and thus argues against any attempts to alleviate what he personally believes is beautiful - others' pain. I suspect that his keyboard gets a tad sticky during these exchanges. I noticed on each occasion that he gets especially excited insulting women.

Thus goes the "rigorous thinker" with selective memory.
User avatar
Hobbes' Choice
Posts: 8364
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:45 am

Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Greta wrote: So what we have here appears to be a sadist - he gets off on pain, and thus argues against any attempts to alleviate what he personally believes is beautiful - others' pain. I suspect that his keyboard gets a tad sticky during these exchanges. I noticed on each occasion that he gets especially excited insulting women.

Thus goes the "rigorous thinker" with selective memory.
The Internet is a great place, but can lead to one coming in to contact with (hopefully) rare examples of psychopathy. Without the platform of a forum such as this, people like 5RA and BobE would never be able to vent their poison as in real life they are ignored even shunned so much that they would be unlikely to hone their obsessive anti-social and socio-psycho-pathetic ideas.
The thing to take away from this is to not be too pessimistic about the future of humanity there being more such people than I could ever have imagined. I even wonder if I would have ever known such vile and disgusting ideas could exist in the modern world.
I can only hope that the existence of Fora such as these provides a vent that might other wise be directed at violence to others. Maybe 5RA would be a serial killer, rapist, or general thug?
User avatar
Greta
Posts: 4389
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2015 8:10 am

Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by Greta »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:The Internet is a great place, but can lead to one coming in to contact with (hopefully) rare examples of psychopathy.
The net has certainly been an eye opener! No matter which way you look at it.
Belinda
Posts: 8035
Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2016 10:13 am

Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by Belinda »

FiveRedApples wrote:
It's really easy for people sitting in their living rooms to have certain reactions to the hazing, pain, and perhaps torture, inflicted on these detainees. But when your brothers and sisters, your fellow soldiers, are being decapitated when captured -- not just hazed or embarrassed or put through severe pain -- it's not so easy to be sympathetic to people who don't even fall under the Geneva Convention. So, while American soldiers are expected to abide by the Geneva Convention, their enemies do not -- that can be demoralizing, and when you're out there serving away from your family, away from the comfort of your own home and country, in places where you can expect your fellow soldier to be beheaded, then I'm not going to throw stones at any soldier who gets out of line. I am willing to draw the line at sadistic torture, but hazing or other forms of punishment I can maybe not condone but not condemn either. And certainly I wouldn't spend more time and energy denouncing American soldiers than I would Islamic terrorists, as many here in fact do.
People sitting in their living rooms should be united in will and ethos with the soldiers they employ to do the dangerous and responsible jobs which they do. I don't blame individual soldiers who are illegally cruel I blame the training they have had, and the chain of command that failed to notice that soldiers were sometimes too stressed and exhausted, temperamentally unsuited to particular responsibilities like Chelsea Manning, or simply poorly instructed and badly trained like Lynndie England.

True, people in their sitting rooms have to delegate to army experts , generals, and generals should be answerable for their ethics to the representatives of the people. In this increasingly small world where America and Europe are, ethics of war are enshrined in treaties and conventions. Cruel and unusual punishments are not allowed. Places like Guantanamo Bay Camp were not the heat of battle. The soldiers there were brutalised by their superiors right up the chain of command. I wonder how it was that the Americans sitting in their living rooms permitted it to happen. Were they kept in the dark? Told lies?

Almost certainly British people were kept in the dark about mysterious American aeroplanes refuelling in Prestwick with cargoes for special rendition to torturers in places where the ethics were not those of Americans or British.
Londoner
Posts: 783
Joined: Sun Sep 11, 2016 8:47 am

Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by Londoner »

fiveredapples wrote: From where I stand, which is on the side of Reason, my opponents are doing a terrible job of arguing that CIA water boarding is torture. Frankly, I don't see how they could ever win that debate, but they aren't even trying -- they just vehemently state that it's so, huddle together chanting that it's so, and then expect me to capitulate to their emoticons and trolling. Eh...not impressive.

The other rude awakening waiting for them, if they ever manage to defend at least adequately their opinion that CIA water boarding is torture, is that they will have to defend their opinion that torture is morally impermissible. Ha ha ha...I only laugh thinking about how they will receive this news. When you live a life surrounded by like-minded idiots, rarely will your assumptions be challenged, so of course they're stumbling for words to defend their assumptions now. And I'm trained in philosophy, I've put thought into this debate, and I will eviscerate any lemming who spouts philosophical nonsense at me. So, my opponents have two huge hurdles before them, neither of which they will clear.

I didn't say I do not regard it as wrong to make people suffer. That's a dishonest characterization of what I said. I said that in some circumstances (e.g. in certain self-defense cases), it's not morally wrong to make someone suffer.
I gathered you were not a pacifist!

Whatever we call it, it must involve inflicting such pressure that the people being interrogated cannot stand it. That they will talk, rather than endure it, on that we can surely agree.
Quite the contrary. The fact that there is one instance of morally permissible inflicting of pain means that the tenet "It's morally impermissible to inflict pain" is false.
What I meant was whether there was a single general moral argument that covered all cases in which one might inflict pain, whether that meant a slap on the wrist or wartime bombing. If one was a pacifist, the answer would be 'Never' but I think for most people it would be that it had to be proportional to the harm it is intended to prevent.
You have a Kantian ethical view, which is not even the popular view of ethics, so you should be arguing for your ethical view, not assuming it as the default view. The "Nazi at your door" is a famous counter-example to your kind of ethics. In this scenario, if a Nazi knocks on your door asking if you've seen any Jews lately, and you have seen some lately (psst, you're hiding them in your attic), then it would be morally permissible to lie to the Nazis. This is something most people agree with, which gives the lie to your view that moral acts carry with them some absolute moral value, right or wrong, in all cases. So, again, unless you have an argument for your fringe ethical view, I don't see why I have to entertain the silly inferences you draw from it.
First, a word about Kant. I know the 'Nazi at the door' example is always given and would say that it isn't an accurate account of Kant. The point about the categorical imperative is that it should be universal, but that doesn't mean it has to be simplistic, i.e. it can be more than 'do not tell lies'. I could also have as a universal principle 'try to protect the lives of others', which would allow me to lie to the Nazis. Kant did not tell us; 'Do x and that is ethical'. On the contrary, Kant argued that the morality pertains in the will of the agent, not in the action. It would be quite possible for two people to make different choices but both to be acting morally, i.e. with moral intent.

I certainly did not mean to imply that I thought moral acts had some absolute value in themselves. But I do think we ought to be able to explain how we decide how we should act in particular cases. What general principle we are following (like 'self defence', or 'pacifism' or whatever). And this must make us open to being challenged - whether we really followed our principles. And also to hard cases; where following a principle seems to legitimise acts we are instinctively uncomfortable with. I think this is unavoidable - for both sides. After all, those who rule out torture in all circumstances often get challenged with the 'ticking bomb' scenario.
So you want to know how I would defend my view that torture is sometimes morally permissible. Let's make absolutely clear that I have not conceded that CIA water boarding is torture. Because these morons will jump on this particular response, thinking they can now move on from defending their (wrong) opinion that CIA water boarding is torture. They cannot. But, having said that, I will answer your question.

As I see it, the notion of 'murder' and 'torture' differ in an important respect, at least in how most people employ them. Murder is by definition an immoral and usually an illegal act. If you wish to have my house and wife, and the way you do that is by killing me (and it's for no other reason), then you have murdered me. Your act is an immoral act (and illegal), and we give such immoral acts the name 'murder.' Something must first be immoral to be named murder. It's not the other way round. It's not that an act becomes immoral because we name it murder. So if you tell me some act, Act X, is murder, then you have better show me how it was immoral, which should be easy enough to show.
Well murder may not be quite the best example, since it is a crime and one could say that it is a technical matter. We do not think all murders are equally immoral. In the UK, although the sentence is always 'life', in practice people are released if the circumstances are considered such that they are unlikely to do it again.

In the Biblical sense, I agree 'murder' means 'immoral killing'. But in that Biblical sense, we might not necessarily agree that any particular killing was murder, i.e. that it was immoral.
Torture, on the other hand, is employed by most quite illogically. Torture, somehow, magically perhaps, makes an act immoral by virtue of being called "torture." That's pathetic, but it's how people here treat this notion. If CIA water boarding was immoral, then you should be able to show me why it's immoral, without needing to say it's torture. Dubbing Act X 'torture' -- supposing torture is immoral -- only makes sense after you've shown that it was immoral. You can't dub Act X 'torture' in order to show it's immoral -- that's question begging and silly. So, the notion of torture should do no philosophical work -- cannot do any philosophical work for you -- until you've first shown that CIA water boarding is immoral sans the aid of the magical power of the word "torture."
As I say, I am not bothered about the word. Like 'murder' it has some sort of legal definition, but that is irrelevant to the moral issue. I certainly do not argue that if I am right is saying that waterboarding falls under a particular definition of 'torture' that 'wins' the moral argument.

Regarding who has the onus to prove 'that thing the CIA did' was immoral, or otherwise, I assumed that since you had raised the subject you had a position. Please do not assume I imagine it is simple. Your earlier point that it is odd to say we must not waterboard people, but it is OK to kill them in war (along with innocent bystanders) using bombs and missiles, needs answering.

But as I wrote earlier, it goes the other way too. Even if we argued that 'that thing' is sometimes acceptable, we still have the problem of where we draw the line, and why. As I asked; can we do it to US citizens? Or where we are not certain whether they have any information to give? I think that if someone argues that 'that thing' is sometimes acceptable, then I think there is also an obligation on them to set the limits.
User avatar
Greta
Posts: 4389
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2015 8:10 am

Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by Greta »

Londoner wrote:Whatever we call it, it must involve inflicting such pressure that the people being interrogated cannot stand it. That they will talk, rather than endure it, on that we can surely agree.
Yes, as stated earlier - this can only be called "torture". What one does with that definition is another matter. I lean to favouring waterboarding but I don't like trying to whitewash the fact that torture is being perpetrated. Better to face our actions squarely.

Taking the moral high ground has been the preferred option in the past because it does not inflame further issues. It's true that ISIS appears to be impervious to reason so any decision to take moral high ground now would seem to be for our own sake, not for strategy or out of kindness for enemy combatants. It's the same rationale as one used against the death penalty - the brutalising effect of inflicting it.
User avatar
fiveredapples
Posts: 156
Joined: Sun Oct 31, 2010 10:47 am

Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by fiveredapples »

You poor saps. You're getting pummeled so badly in this debate that you're now grasping at anything to cheer. A few days ago someone wrote this...
Inflicting ever more physical discomfort to another person until they bend to your will is torture, no matter how you rationalise.
Then, when I rightly ignore this silly comment, Greta wrote this...
An argument is made that reveals the weakness of your ungrounded claim that waterboarding is not torture.
To which I responded...
No such argument was given.
And then the morons went crazy, jumping up and down, hootin and hollerin "OMG, the moron can't remember something that was said three days ago! We won the debate. Ergo ipso habeas corpus water boarding is torture!" LMAO. Thank god for simpletons. You are truly the warmth I need sometimes after a long day at work. I'm enjoying reading and re-reading your celebrations. Ha ha ha....

By the way, when I denied that any such argument was given, I meant it and still do: no such argument was given. Ha ha ha...Bwahahaha!
User avatar
Greta
Posts: 4389
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2015 8:10 am

Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by Greta »

The actual quote was provided - and plenty more can if one could be bothered copying & pasting - but one cannot expect reason or integrity from a troll like FiveRedApples.
User avatar
fiveredapples
Posts: 156
Joined: Sun Oct 31, 2010 10:47 am

Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by fiveredapples »

Whatever we call it, it must involve inflicting such pressure that the people being interrogated cannot stand it. That they will talk, rather than endure it, on that we can surely agree.
On that we do agree. It must be effective, and what effectiveness means in this case is that the known terrorists will talk, talk relatively soon, and give up useful information. This is important. If CIA water boarding proved, or proves, mostly ineffective, then I think it would cease to be morally permissible, because then we'd be putting people through pain and suffering for, essentially, no justifiable reason, as the moral justification comes in that it's a preventative measure -- and if they don't give us useful information, it's not going to help us prevent.

Now, I think I know where you're going. You want to say that each water dousing becomes more and more painful such that eventually we get to a severely painful water dousing, and it's roughly at this point, or not much further beyond, that these known terrorists decided to talk. And, of course, this paints of a picture of us inflicting severe pain on the known terrorists. This story is coherent enough, but it's not reality.

The water dousings never build up enough to where any one dousing is severely painful. CIA water boarding works because one dousing is very discomforting on its own (hence, Christopher Hitchens) and knowing you will continue to go through this over and over and over again until you talk -- and eventually they all talked -- makes some talk sooner than others, not because they can't physically endure as much as the next guy but because psychologically they are not as tough as the next guy. KSM was described as almost superhuman for holding out as long as he did. But no man holds out past the point where permanent psychological damage is done, which is why none of the three suffer from permanent psychological damage.

Christopher Hitchens, bless his soul, called Uncle after ONE DOUSING. Some men are cut from a different cloth. I watched grown men cry in Marine Corps bootcamp because they wanted to go home. Does that mean that Marine Corps bootcamp causes severe suffering? No. It means that some men will quit when confronted with a future of the same pain and suffering over and over again. Marine Corps bootcamp is three months. Rather than endure 89 days of suffering, they wanted out in the first two weeks. The further along in bootcamp you progressed, the fewer were those who wanted out -- because they were of a different mettle and because there was less to endure (as graduation was closer).

CIA water boarding is more like Marine Corps bootcamp than it is getting punched lightly in the arm in the same spot over and over again, until one punch becomes excruciatingly painful because of your tenderness and bruising. So, CIA water boarding never reaches the point of severe pain or severe suffering, but is still effective because the realization that you have an indefinite number of water dousings ahead of you will make you talk eventually, and some quicker than others.
Last edited by fiveredapples on Tue Jan 31, 2017 7:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
fiveredapples
Posts: 156
Joined: Sun Oct 31, 2010 10:47 am

Re: CIA Water Boarding is Morally Permissible

Post by fiveredapples »

The actual quote was provided - and plenty more can if one could be bothered copying & pasting - but one cannot expect reason or integrity from a troll like FiveRedApples.
I know the actual quote was provided. You can't seem to grasp my simple meaning -- that no argument was given THAT REVEALS THE WEAKNESS of anything I've said, basically.

Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?
Locked